After poor Baird I think the subject on which the officers of the garrison spoke most feelingly was the devotion and noble spirit of discipline and determination shown by the Sikhs. There were but a hundred of them in a garrison of nearly four hundred, but the officers said that without them they could never have held out, and that but for these Sikhs not one of them would have been there now. They only grew more enthusiastic as the siege became closer and times seemed harder. With calm self-reliance they stood proudly at bay like a rock with the waves beating against it. And so great was the sense of discipline which their stern old native officer Gurmukh Singh instilled into them, that when during an attack the sick struggled out of hospital to join in the fight he would not excuse even their impulsive bravery, but told them that a soldier's first duty was to obey, that they had been ordered to hospital and there they must stay. It was the discipline ingrained into these men that saved the garrison. As long as a Sikh was on sentry, and while Sikhs were holding a threatened point, Captain Townshend had nothing to fear. The enemy would never catch a Sikh off his guard and could never force their way through a post of Sikhs while one remained alive. They saved the garrison, and the officers gratefully acknowledged their service. [Illustration: COMPANY OF THE 14TH SIKHS WHICH FORMED PART OF THE GARRISON OF CHITRAL DURING THE SIEGE.] The skill of the enemy was, too, a subject on which the officers specially dwelt. The Chitralis had not previously been considered of much account as a fighting race; but even they, once their blood was up, fought hard and well, and their Pathan allies were as skilful and brave as troops of a regularly-trained army. Umra Khan's men were born warriors; unlike the Chitralis, who by nature prefer polo and sport and dancing to fighting, the Pathans from their childhood upwards think of little else than warfare. They are for ever raiding upon one another, attacking each other's villages, and besieging and defending the forts scattered over their country nearly as thickly as public-houses in England. They therefore showed every ingenuity in the siege of Chitral. To make the most of their ammunition they never fired a shot without clearly making out an object to aim at, and usually with the rifle resting on a stone so as to enable them to aim correctly. The skill which they displayed in the construction of trenches and breastworks to approach the walls; the sagacity they evidenced in repeatedly attacking the water-way and in setting fire to the towers and walls of the fort; and the courage and determination they showed in their attempts to carry out these objects, excited the highest admiration of the besieged.