GAWLLGHUR AND MOOHKTAGHENI. 
91 
fort by a party of the enemy’s cavalry, he was 
actually overtaken by the foremost horseman at the 
very gate ; and, exhausted with fatigue, he would 
doubtless have fallen, an easy captive, into the hands 
of his pursuers, had it not been but for the assist- 
ance of a woman who, having anxiously watched his 
flight from the battlement, became interested in his 
fate, although a stranger to her, and effected his 
rescue by casting down, upon the head of the trooper, 
a heavy stone, which killed him upon the spot. 
The impregnable nature of the fortress rendered 
Toofal Kahn a temporary security against the arms 
of his foes ; and when his little garrison was reduced 
to a feeble band of only a dozen men, he still 
managed, for a time, to keep his assailants at bay. 
After great labour and perseverance, however, the 
besiegers succeeded in dragging a gun up the moun- 
tain’s side to a spot whence they could batter one 
of the bastions ; and having, by degrees, effected a 
practicable breach, an officer, with twenty-eight men 
and a trumpeter, secretly, under cover of the night, 
surmounted the wall. Having gained the ramparts, 
the gallant leader ordered the trumpeter to blow a 
loud blast, and the affrighted garrison, believing that 
a large force had surprised them, abandoned the 
fort, without striking a blow, and fled to the neigh- 
bouring mountains. Toofal Kahn was shortly 
afterwards captured, with his family and a small 
band of his followers — amounting in all to about 
