We have been comforted by intelligence that the Ameer has released Allahdad Khan and all my people from the gaol in which he so unjustly and cruelly confined them.... The Ameer has lately been talking, we hear, of sending us away, and though we do not set much store by his words, we think it possible he may give us to the Russian Mission, who are about to depart.... I wrote you a longish letter on the 11th of this month, when I was in a high state of excitement, from fever and several nights of sleepless anxiety. The burden of it was an entreaty to the last effect regarding my poor people, and a hope that the British Government would seize the opportunity which the Ameer’s faithlessness had given them to come forward with Persia to put him down, and give his country to Kharasm and Kokund, on condition of the entire suppression of the Persian and Afghan slave trade in Toorkistan. If that paper (which I shall endeavour to recover) should reach you, compress its words into this purport and destroy it, reserving my last good wishes for the friends to whom I addressed them, thinking that I might not live much longer. I am now, thank God, almost well in health again, and the news regarding our people has set my mind at rest. Stoddart, also, who was suffering awhile from severe cold, is, I rejoice to say, convalescent. We are both in a very uncomfortable state, as you may imagine, having been ninety-nine days and nights without a change of clothes; but we are together. Stoddart is such a friend as a man would desire to have in adversity, and our searchers having missed the little Prayer-book which George Macgregor gave us (tell him), we are able to read and pray, as well as to converse together. God bless you, my dear John. Send my love to everybody, and believe me,
Yours, ever most affectionately,
Arthur Conolly.[210]
To J. B. Conolly, Esq., Caubul.
The passages omitted from this letter relate almost entirely to the services and the pay of Conolly’s attendants. There is nothing more remarkable in his letters and journals, written at this time, than his tender regard for others, and his forgetfulness of self. Not only did he grieve for the sufferings of his friend, and endeavour, by putting him forward as the real representative of the British Government, to obtain Stoddart’s release, or at least a mitigation of the severity of his confinement, but he exhibited, also, the tenderest solicitude for the welfare of all the servants who had accompanied him to Bokhara, and, in the midst of his own affliction, even on the bed of sickness and in the near prospect of death, thought of nothing more earnestly than the future welfare of his poor dependents.[211] On the 5th of April he wrote in his journal:
April 5.—When I came here, Stoddart did his utmost to put me forward; but now, as long as the Ameer detains him, I shall refer to him as the accredited British agent, every communication on business that the Ameer may make to me, whether we should be together or separated. He well knows all the people here, and the dignity of our government is safe in his hands.
We have heard that the Russians are about to depart, and that they are to take their enslaved people with them; but we cannot get at the truth of the statement. Report also says that the Ameer will march with his army seven or eight days hence. There is no doubt that he is preparing for an early move; but though Takkind and Kokund are named as his points of attack, it is not certain that he will go eastward. This is the 107th day of our confinement, without change of clothes; but the weather having become warmer, we can do without the garments that most harboured the vermin that we found so distressing, and we are both now, thank God! quite well. We trust that our friends will be informed of our well-being. We have desired all our servants, except Ibraheem (who remains behind to keep up correspondence), to return to their homes as soon as their strength enables them to travel, begging them to make their way anyhow, and to rest assured that everything due will be made up to them on their reaching Caubul.... Allahdad Khan behaved very firmly in refusing to allow that he was the servant of a Feringhee servant, as the Ameer wished him to do, and did justice both to the dignity of his royal master and to the policy of the British Government in Afghanistan. I beg that his conduct may be mentioned to Shah Soojah, and I trust that all his losses will be made up to him; but if the preparation of the account is left to him, he will make it a very large one, and part of the settlement may perhaps be deferred till it is decided whether or not the Ameer is to be called upon for repayment.
When our last packet was despatched we deemed it not impossible, from the Ameer’s expressions, which had been reported to us, that his Majesty designed to send us away with the Russian Mission. Our keepers rather inclined to the idea that Huzrut would dismiss us about the same time by the route of Persia; and the Topshee-Bashee’s old brother talked seriously about performing a pilgrimage to the holy city of Meshid in our company.
These hopes were most delusive. As time advanced, the prospects of restoration to liberty became more and more remote. About the middle of the month of April, the Russian Mission took its departure; and the Ameer set out from Bokhara at the head of a grand military expedition against the state of Kokund. On the 13th of April, Conolly wrote in his journal: