Meanwhile the unequal contest had continued. At a distance of some three hundred yards from the barracks there was a castle, the towers of which so effectually commanded them, that it was necessary to occupy the post with a garrison of fifty men. But it was not very easy to retain it. The enemy increased greatly in numbers on the 6th; and, in spite of the successful sorties of the Goorkhas, drove back their outposts, and confined them within the narrow limits of their barracks. On the following day, the castle garrison, betrayed by the regimental Moonshee, were induced to surrender. The enemy took possession of the place, and from its commanding towers poured in a galling fire on the Goorkhas in the barracks. The position of the little garrison was now becoming more and more critical. Cut off by the enemy, water had become lamentably scarce. They had lost half their officers and a large number of their comrades. The enemy had increased in number and in fury, and completely commanded their position. To shut themselves up in their barracks was to die of thirst; to attempt to fight their way out was to be cut to pieces. On the 8th, the enemy offered them terms. The condition was, that they should become Mahomedans. “We came to this country,” said Pottinger, in reply, “to aid a Mahomedan sovereign in the recovery of his rights. We are therefore within the pale of Islam, and exempt from coercion on the score of religion.” To this they replied, that the King himself had ordered the attack; and asked if Pottinger would surrender on receiving his Majesty’s orders. “I can do nothing,” said Pottinger, “without a written order from the King.” And with this the negotiations ended. But there was an enemy more terrible than these infuriated crowds of Kohistanees and Nijrowees. The garrison was suffering agonies of thirst.[156] On the 10th, the last pool of water was drawn; and half a wine-glass of the precious fluid was served out to each fighting man. On the 11th there was not sufficient to serve out to the whole party. At night they stole out with their _lotahs_ concealed under their clothes, lest the shining metal should betray them, to snatch a few drops of water from a neighbouring spring. But the enemy discovered the practice, and shot down the wretched men. Parties were then sent out to cover the water-carriers; but the soldiers, mad with the tortures of thirst, quitted their ranks, and could not be restrained from rushing forward in search of the liquid life for which they had so long been languishing. Every new effort to obtain water, however well devised, failed from the same cause. The parties, which moved out as disciplined soldiers, soon, in the madness of their sufferings, became a disorderly rabble—soon were at the mercy of the enemy, who shot them down, in their helplessness, like sheep.