only two men could walk abreast on the verge of the precipice; we had also undermined the road in several places, so that an invading party could be so isolated that they could neither go back nor forward. In addition, we were well armed, and ready, by day or night, when the signal gun was fired, to rush to the top of the pass, and die there sooner than the enemy should force it, or that a single one of those one hundred and thirteen ladies and children should fall into the hands of those vile wretches. We felt assured, as we looked at our work, that a handful could hold the place against multitudes if their ammunition only held out and their provisions lasted; but that was the question just then.
Our congregation was a sad one. With the exception of my wife and another person, every lady of the party wore some badge of mourning, showing that either relatives or near friends had been killed. Of course house and property were utterly destroyed in every case, while the enemies of our Lord and Saviour were raging and blaspheming below, thirsting for our blood, and vowing, by all their gods, that they would soon have it, and thus finish up their fiendish work. In such circumstances what a significance many parts of the word of God had for us! “The denunciatory Psalms,” which in a calm and quiet civilization seem sometimes to read harshly, were in our case so apposite and so consistent that we felt their adaptation and propriety against these enemies of God as though they had been actually composed for our special case. How we used to read them with the new light of our position, and how they drew out our confidence in God for the final issue!
Khan Bahadur, the new Nawab of Rohilcund, strengthened his force to hem us in, and issued his list of prices for our heads, beginning with Mr. Alexander, the Commissioner. Five hundred rupees was, if I recollect rightly, the price he put upon my poor head. Every expedient was used to urge his men to storm our position; but their spies (for they had such) considerably cooled their ardor by the representation of our resolution and preparations; so they came to the conclusion that if they could not get up to kill us, they would do the next best thing for them, by starving
