He was not, unfortunately, simultaneously at the end of his investigations.

He did not yet know the position or the contents of the arsenal, the defensibility of the walls, the water supply, or the number of men under arms in that silent, impassive red city on the hill.

The reports of the peasantry had been contradictory, and this ordinary means of ascertaining these things had failed him, while he very particularly required to know them, his force being small.

The Government had assured Colonel Starr that the Maharajah of Chita would be easy to arrange; that he was a tractable person, and that half the usual number of troops would be ample, which made His Highness's conduct, if anything, more annoying.

And Colonel Starr's commissariat, even in respect to 'tinned rock,' had not been supplied with the expectation of besieging Lalpore.