1 SIEGE OF LAHORE. 53
2 egress and ingress through them, when they sallied forth upon
3 the besiegers or made their arragements to repulse sudden as-
4 saults.
5 But though the Seik artillery told ruinously on the walls
6 and ramparts, it was not nearly so annoying to the garri-
7 son as the fire of five or six matchlock-men posted on each
8 minar of the Badshahi Musjid, and who were thus able
9 to command every corner of the place with their destructive
10 weapons. These men were Mochees by caste and hunters by
11 profession and remarkable for the certainty of their dead-
12 ly aim. They were in all about forty in number, and were
13 employed by Shere Sing on this occasion, receiving a pay of
14 from ten to twenty rupees a day each man. The light artillery
15 of the fort was unable to make any sensible impression on the
16 towers upon which these death-dealing marksmen were perched,
17 and could do nothing more than now and than dislodge a few
18 stones from the top. One of the guns of the place however
19 on one occasion tumbled three of these men from their exalted
20 and seemingly secure position, just as they had exposed them-
21 selves to full view while in the act of placing a block of stone
22 to serve as a defence from the fire of the Dogra musketeers,
23 who were almost as expert in the use of their arms as those
24 wild huntsmen themselves, and who engaged heartily in a
25 hot rivalry with them at that murderous game. In proof of
26 the skill of the hill-men, it may be mentioned, that they killed
27 five and wounded eleven of the Mochees thus favourably posted,
28 by sending balls through their shoulders and arms, while they
29 were in the act of using their ramrods, when alone those parts
30 of their bodies and only those were visible to their keen-eyed
31 enemies below.
32 On the evening of the third day the garrison received infor-
33 mation that the large drains and water-courses leading from
34 the fort into the ditch had been charged with powder and were
35 to be exploded as mines at night- fall. They thereupon opened