The work lasted for a fortnight, at the end of which a position of an almost impregnable nature was formed.

At the foot of the earthworks protecting the guns, both at the face and sides, the ground, composed of great boulders and stones, sloped steeply out, forming a bank fifteen feet deep.

At its foot, again, the solid rock was blasted away, so as to form a deep chasm, thirty feet wide and ten feet high, round the foot of the fort.
For a hundred yards on each side, the earth and stones had been entirely removed down to the solid rock.
Ten guns were placed in the battery, and the fire of these swept the slopes behind the town and castle, rendering it impossible, until the fort was carried, for an enemy to attack the town on that side; or to operate, in any way, against the only point at which an attack could be made upon the castle.
The rajah was delighted at this most formidable accession to the defensive power of his fortress, which was now in a position to defy any attack which could be made against it.

A store of provisions and ammunition was collected there, and the command given to one of Charlie's Sepoy lieutenants, with a hundred trained artillerymen, and two hundred infantry.

Numbers of cattle had been driven into the town and castle, and stores of provisions collected.
It was but two days after the battery was complete that the news arrived that the rajah's brother, with Murari Reo, had entered the rajah's dominions, and was marching up the valley to the assault.