The parties met at some hillocks six hundred yards from the cantonments, where some horse-cloths had been spread upon the snow by Akbar Khan's servants. Macnaghten presented to Akbar a splendid horse he had admired. They dismounted, and Macnaghten took his place on the blankets. Trevor, Mackenzie, and Lawrence sat behind him. Suddenly the envoy and his companions were violently seized from behind. The three officers were dragged away, and each compelled to mount horses ridden by Afghan chiefs, who rode off through the crowd. Trevor unfortunately slipped from his insecure seat, and was instantly cut to pieces, while the other two reached Mahomed Khan's fort alive. In the meantime the envoy himself was struggling desperately on the ground with Akbar Khan. Exasperated by the resistance of his victim, whom he had only intended to seize, the Afghan's passion blazed out, and drawing from his girdle a pistol, which Macnaghten had given him the day before, he shot him through the body. Instantly his followers closed round and hacked him to pieces.
Thus died a gentleman who, in other circumstances, might have made a great reputation for himself. Possessed of unusual talent, his course was marred by his propensity to believe all that he wished, to disbelieve all that ran counter to his own sanguine projects. During the last month of his life he did all that man could do to avert a catastrophe, but he had been unable to instil his spirit into any of the military commanders, or to induce them to take the only course to redeem the position, by giving battle to the foe that surrounded them. He was the author of the ill-fated expedition to Afghanistan, he was its noblest victim. His peculiar temperament was fatal to him. Even when there was no longer any ground for hope he still continued to be sanguine. He had all along believed in himself, and scoffed at the warnings of men who knew the country and people—of Burnes, Rawlinson, Pottinger, and others.
He was thoroughly sincere; he was always able to convince himself that what he believed must be true, and he acted accordingly. He was not a strong man; had he been so the course of events might have been altered. He deferred in every way to Shah Soojah's wishes, however much these might be opposed to his own judgment. He allowed him to misgovern the country, to drive the natives to desperation by the exactions of his tax-gatherers, and to excite the bitterest animosity of the chiefs by the arrogance with which he treated them. A strong man would have put a stop to all this—would have intimated to the Ameer that he held the throne solely by the assistance of British bayonets, and that unless he followed British counsels he would at once yield to the oft-repeated wishes of the Indian government and order the retirement of the troops.
A DOOMED ARMY
Even the murder of the British envoy within sight of the camp failed to arouse the military authorities from their deadly lethargy. Sullenly the troops remained in their cantonments. Not a man was put in motion to avenge the deed or to redeem the honour of the army. The only idea was to renew the negotiations that had been broken short by the murder of their political chief. The commissariat had nothing to do. Beleaguered as they were, it was impossible to collect provisions unless a strong force was sent out, and the military authorities refused to allow a man to be put in motion. They had no confidence in their soldiers, and the soldiers had none in them. It was their leaders who had made them what they were. Macnaghten in his wrath had spoken of them as miserable cowards, but they were not cowards. They had at first full confidence in themselves, and if ordered would gladly have attacked the Afghan forces in the open and have carried Cabul by storm. But kept in enforced inactivity, while fort after fort was wrested from them without an effort being made to relieve the garrisons, while the whole of their provisions for the winter were carried off before their eyes by an enemy they despised, and feeling that on the few occasions on which they were led from their entrenchments there was neither plan nor order—no opportunity for showing their valour, none for engaging in battle, they lost heart. Day by day they were exposed to continual insults from their exultant foes, day by day exposed to a heavy cannon and musketry fire, while the food served out was insufficient to maintain their strength—almost insufficient to keep them alive. It is not wonderful that their fighting powers were lost, and that they had become little more than a rabble in uniform.
Angus had now no official duties to perform, and he spent much of his time with his old friend Eldred Pottinger, now a major, who, after Macnaghten's murder, took his place, by right of seniority as well as of energy and talent, as chief political officer. He had been employed in the west, but had been sent to Cabul, and very shortly afterwards had proceeded to Kohistan, returning almost the sole survivor of the little force that was stationed there. His counsel since then had always been for energetic measures, but his voice, like that of Macnaghten, availed nothing. He had, however, taken no prominent part in affairs, having been confined to his bed by the wound he had received. He was now recovering from it, and took up the work with the same energy as he had displayed at Herat. As he said to Angus, "It seems to be my fate to have to do with incapable men. At Herat it was Yar Mahomed and Kamran, here it is Shelton and Elphinstone. Elphinstone and Kamran have both in their younger days been fighting men. Both are utterly worn out bodily and mentally by disease and age.
"Shelton is a brave man, a hard fighter, but his temper overmasters him. When in the field he shows personal gallantry, but no military capacity whatever. At first he was always in opposition to the general; he has given that up as useless, and beyond always endeavouring to thwart his chief when the latter was roused to momentary flashes of energy by Macnaghten, he has sunk into a deep gloom, as if he regarded it as absolutely hopeless to struggle further. I would that any other than myself had been placed in the position I now hold. The terms proposed to Macnaghten were hard enough, they will be still harder, still more disgraceful, now. But however disgraceful they may be, they will be accepted by the military leaders, and my name will be associated with the most humiliating treaty a British officer has ever been called upon to sign."
His previsions were correct. Negotiations were renewed without the slightest allusion being made to the murder of Macnaghten, and as if such an event had never happened. While these were going on, little food was allowed to enter camp—enough to sustain life, but no more. At last the terms were settled. The Afghan chiefs agreed to supply provisions, and to send in baggage animals, upon payment being made for them. Six officers were to be handed over as hostages, all muskets and ordnance stores in the magazines, all money in the treasury, and all goods and property belonging to Dost Mahomed, were to be surrendered, and Dost himself and his family to be returned. No provision whatever was made for the safety of the man we had placed upon the throne. Pottinger endeavoured in vain to obtain better conditions. He received no support from the military chiefs; and even when at last he agreed to the terms, he did so with little hope that they would be observed.