The siege operations were continued; but with little access of vigour. The Persians were conducting no less than five several attacks on different points of the fortifications. The work was not carried forward in a manner that would have gladdened the heart of the commanding officer of a corps of English sappers; but the real nature of the enemy’s movements was so little understood, that the garrison often exaggerated the danger, and gave the Persians credit for stratagems that had never entered their minds. One example of this will suffice. From beneath the rampart opposite the attack, conducted by General Samson and the Russian regiment, a mysterious noise, as of mining, was heard to proceed. It was audible to very few, and then only from a particular point; but abundant confirmation of the worst apprehensions of the garrison was derived from the fact that there was a working party in constant activity, throwing out black mud from the trench in the neighbourhood of the spot whence the mysterious sounds were heard to issue. The greatest alarm was occasioned by this intelligence; and the Heratees began at once to take counsel as to the best means of counteracting the stratagems of the besiegers. In this crisis, the advice of Eldred Pottinger was sought by the garrison. His activity was unfailing; he was always on the ramparts; always ready to assist with his counsel—the counsel of an educated English officer—the ruder science of the responsible conductors of the defence, and to inspire with his animating presence new heart into the Afghan soldiery. They asked him now if it were possible to mine below the ditch. His answer was in the affirmative; but he represented at the same time how much more feasible it was to fill up the ditch and sap across it. “The fear of stratagem, however,” he says, “was predominant; and they took stronger measures to counteract the supposed danger, and went to greater trouble about it than they did with actions of vital importance to their preservation. I recommended that a gallery of envelope under the lower _fausse-braie_ should be completed, and in it a few shafts sunk a little below the floor of the gallery. This did not satisfy them; so they sunk shafts on both sides of the wall and connected them by galleries; and dug a ditch inside the city, at the foot of the mound, till the water stood several feet deep in it.” The sequel of all this is sufficiently diverting. It was not until some months afterwards, when these extensive and laborious works were nearly completed, that it was discovered that the mysterious noise, which had struck so great a terror into the hearts of the garrison, arose from nothing more formidable than “a poor woman, who was in the habit of using a hand-mill to grind her wheat, in an excavation at the back of the mound.”[161]