others fling themselves upon the aggressor, and lash him with cords (not without exerting their whole strength) to the nearest pillar.

"The fellow's mad," says M-, as coolly as if nothing had happened; "he got a wound in the head a while ago, and he's been that way ever since. In general, he's a quiet fellow enough, only he will walk about and sing in that queer way; but every now and then he gets troublesome, and they have to tie him.”

The sun is setting as we leave the palace, and its last rays light up a monument on the highest part of the ridge, with a brief, simple epitaph in memory of those who fell here in 1868. Beside it are a gun taken at Kitab, and a grave inscribed with the name of Colonel S- one of the officers killed there-fit memorials for a place like this, consecrated by the memory of a deed as heroic as any that has been done since the last of the Three Hundred fell at Thermopylae. But the story of that famous martyrdom must have a chapter to itself.

CHAPTER XXXI.

TO THE DEATH.

IT is the 1st (13th) June 1868; and the Russian garrison of Samarcand is in its glory. The battle of TchepanAta has been fought and won; the Holy City is taken, and the power of Bokhara broken once and for ever. General Kaufmann and the bulk of the army marched, away this morning, leaving everything, in his own words, "perfectly secure ;" and of the six hundred and eighty men left here in garrison, there is not one in twenty who does not agree with him. The unbelievers have got what they deserve; and the valley of the ZerAffshan is henceforth Russian territory—another milestone on the road to Herat or Kashgar. Over their evening vodka, the soldiers cut rough-hewn camp jokes upon the Bokhariote's unmatched power of running away; while the young subalterns, in the smoke of the few cigarettes still left them, see visions of a Russian flag unfurled beyond the Hindoo Koosh, and a Russian army pouring through the Khyber Pass into Northern India.

It is true that this feeling of satisfaction is not universal. Certain grizzled veterans, who remember the first assault of Ak-Metchet shake their heads

ominously, and mutter strange things to each other. The walls of the citadel are two miles in circuit, and gapped with half a dozen wide breaches. The supply of water is scanty and bad. There are houses running almost up to the base of the wall, affording excellent cover for the advance of an enemy. Out of six hundred and eighty men, nearly one-sixth are in hospital. The main army is already distant, and getting farther and farther out of reach with every hour. It is, no doubt, very unlikely that the heathens will have heart enough to attack us, especially after the thrashing which we have just given them; but still, if such an unheard-of thing were to happen, should we not be in rather a bad way?

But such warnings (like the better judgment of the world in every age), pass wholly unheeded. The majority laugh at any thought of danger. What unbelieving dog would dare to face a Russian ? and even if he did, are not six hundred orthodox bayonets a match for anything that wears a turban from the SyrDaria to the Oxus? And they betake themselves to rest in perfect security.

The sun rises on the morning of the 2nd as brilliantly as ever; but to the few who are astir within the citadel, he shows a very unlooked-for spectacle. On every side, the hills which encompass the town have broken into sudden life. Every hill-top is one creeping swarm of white turbans, and embroidered dresses, and fluttering pennons, and gleaming steel. It is a living sea of war