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At midnight we shall arrive at Mooltan, and at noon to-morrow in Attock. To-morrow night we can be in Peshawar. There we must get our permits to cross the Khyber Pass. The sooner we get through the Pass the better, for later we might have difficulties in obtaining permission." "I hope you are carrying nothing suspicious about you charts, drawings, or things of that sort."
The fall of Mooltan and the capture of its Dewan Moolraj did not, as had been anticipated by many, put an end to the campaign.
He had found out that the railway between Lahore and Mooltan from Montgomery Station was still available for travelling. The English, with their peculiar tenacity, still continued the regular service in the parts of India that were not affected by the war. The enormous extent of the country confined the struggle between the two armies in some degree to a strictly limited area.
Alone, save for the presence of one other Englishman, the young British subaltern, with the sage intrepidity of ripest experience, hastily summoned the chiefs of the Derajat and Bannu districts to his aid, and assembled their motley followings under his banner. He sent messengers to the friendly chief of Bhawulpore, and called on him to join in the crusade against Mooltan.
These prompt measures, however, served only a local and temporary purpose, effective but little beyond striking distance of the troops stationed at Lahore. The flame of unrest damped down here had burst forth under a different banner at Mooltan, where the Diwan Mulraj farmed the province under treaty with the Sikhs.
Let him therefore accompany his flock, and we will build over his body a dome of the blue tiles of Mooltan, and burn lamps at his feet every Friday night. He shall be a saint: we shall have a shrine; and there our women shall pray for fresh seed to fill the gaps in our fighting-tale. How think you?
One day in June as he sat in court settling disputes, there came to him a runner, covered with dust and sweat, who brought to him a last message from Agnew, as he lay wounded on his bed in Mooltan. The message asked urgently for help, and appealed, as the writer knew, to one who would spare no risk or pains to furnish it.
A council of war was on this immediately held, when it was decided that the siege of Mooltan should be raised, and that the British army should retire to a short distance, and there, holding a dignified attitude, wait for reinforcements. Rajah Sher Singh was, however, received with suspicion by Moolraj, and so, in a short time, he marched off to join his father and other insurgent chiefs.
The scheme of operations was as follows: three columns of invasion were to move simultaneously, one through the Khyber Pass to Dakka, another through the Kuram valley, south of the Khyber, with the Peiwar Pass as its objective, and a third from Quetta into the Pisheen valley, to march forward to Candahar after reinforcement by a division from Mooltan.
This heavy cannonade put the British camp on the qui vive, and the General ordered all the tents to be struck, and the troops to get under arms, in case it should be necessary to march to Mooltan, and assist in the supposed engagement with the enemy.
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