It might be thought that a day so full of great deeds, of patient courage, and unshaken loyalty could, as the sun sank slowly down, produce no further spark from those exhausted, starving few.  But it remained for the evening hour to produce, perhaps, the brightest flash of all.

It was apparent to all the besiegers, fighters or spectators, that one by one all the sahibs had been killed or sore wounded, and that now none remained to lead their men.  At intervals during the day loud voices, as of those in command, had shouted to the garrison of Guides:  “We have no quarrel with you.  Deliver over the sahibs, and you shall all go free, with what loot you can take.  Be not foolish thus to fight for the cursed Feringhis against your own kith and kin.”  But for answer all they got was fierce showers of bullets, and fiercer still the staunch defenders cried:  “Dogs and sons of dogs, is this the way you treat your nation’s guests?  To hell with you! we parley not with base-born churls!”

And now, again, when all the Englishmen were dead, the voices cried:  “Why fight any longer?  Your sahibs are killed.  Save yourselves, and surrender, before you are all killed.  We will give you quarter.”  Left in command was Jemadar Jewand Singh, a splendid Sikh officer of the Guides’ cavalry, and not one whit behind his British officers in brave resolve.  He deigned no word of answer to the howling crowd without, but to the few brave survivors within, perhaps a dozen or so, he said:  “The Sahibs gave us this duty to perform, to defend this Residency to the last.  Shall we then disgrace the cloth we wear by disobeying their orders now they are dead?  Shall we hand over the property of the Sirkar, and the dead bodies of our officers, to these sons of perdition?  I for one prefer to die fighting for duty and the fame of the Guides, and they that will do likewise follow me.”  Then, as the evening closed, went forth unhurried the last slender forlorn hope.  The light of the setting sun fell kindly on those grim and rugged faces, out of which all anger and excitement and passion had passed away:  they were marching out to die, and they knew it.  One last glimpse we have of their gallant end.  From a window hard by an old soldier pensioner, himself a prisoner, saw, and bore witness, that the leader of those pathetic few, fighting with stern and steadfast courage, killed eight assailants before he himself, the last to fall, was overborne.

And so staunchly fighting they died to a man, that gallant group,—­died to live for ever.  But round them lay heaped six hundred dead, as silent witnesses of twelve hours’ heroic fight.  The night fell, and darkness and the silence of death succeeded the strife of a livelong summer’s day.

With that wise statesmanship for which the British Government may claim its share, a national memorial was raised at Mardan to these deathless heroes, and on it is written:  The annals of no army and no regiment can show a brighter record of devoted bravery than has been achieved by this small band of Guides.