CHAPTER XX.

IN THE KHYBER PASS.

We almost shrink from the task of telling the story of that awful retreat, in which the Rider on the Pale Horse followed the steps of our troops, so closely, so terribly, and in such ghastly triumph!

All the plans of Ackbar Khan had been long prearranged, and among those, as an intercepted despatch from him to a Ghilzie chief announced, was nothing less than a Holy War, for he adjured all, in the name of the Prophet, "to rise against the infidels, whose chief," he adds, "I have slain with my own hand at Cabul, even, as I trust, in like manner to slay the chief of the Feringhees, Sale, in Jellalabad."

The six hundred Horse that had been seen advancing, were met by two of our officers, Captain Skinner, of the 61st Native Infantry, and Lieutenant Burgoyne, who bore a flag of truce. They demanded what their intentions were; and the fierce Ackbar who rode at their head, muffled in a robe of the costliest furs, played with the lock of a pistol, and seemed with difficulty to restrain himself from using it. However, he replied,

"I have come on the part of the great chiefs of Afghanistan, to escort you as far as Jellalabad; but we demand hostages that you shall march no further on the way than Tezeen, ere Sale Sahib evacuates the city, wherein he has no right to be."

"Wherefore hostages, Khan?" asked Captain Skinner.

"Lest when you effect a junction, you may all come back to Cabul. The lives of the hostages should answer for this, and I take _yours_ in the meantime, as an earnest thereof!"

And as he spoke, he drew his pistol, and deliberately shot poor Skinner through the head; so Burgoyne, full of rage and pity, returned with the message alone.

Notwithstanding this new crime, other interviews took place, and ultimately Major Pottinger and two other officers were given up as hostages; but all this pretended diplomacy was merely a trick on the part of Ackbar to cause delay, until he got the lower portion of the Khyber Pass manned completely by the armed tribes, and even barricaded by felled trees against our retreat, for the force was too slender now to admit of having skirmishes or scouting parties moving along the summits of the cliffs, collaterally with the retiring column.

"Yield who may," was the cry of Waller and many others, "we at least, as Englishmen, as British soldiers, shall fight our way through the passes with courage, discipline, and the fury of despair. All cannot perish; come on, lads--forward!"

"Forward--steady, Jack Sepoy!" the Queen's troops would call to those of the East India Company.

But it was now urged by the Sirdir, that the wild hordes in possession of the passes, and over whom he pretended to have no control, would destroy all the women and children; and, fearing that such a calamity could only be escaped by some diplomacy and an affectation of trust in Ackbar, General Elphinstone, then at the point of death, and therefore heedless what fate was in store for him, gave himself up as a hostage, together with most of the principal officers, the _whole_ of the ladies, children, and wounded, who were immediately conveyed back to Cabul; and the doomed army once more resumed its march, while famine and disease added to the horror of the occasion; "but when men destroy each other without pity, why should not Death come and lend them a hand?"

The reader may imagine the emotions of Waller, of the officers, and other Europeans, when they saw their wives and daughters, or those they loved as well, separated from them, to become the hostages for a certain military movement, the guests, the captives--it might too probably be the victims--of a barbarian prince. Many may yet remember the fear, shame, and compassion this event, the sequel to a series of blunders, excited at home, when tidings came of their abandonment, and the fate of our troops, whose terrible career we have scarcely the heart to follow.

The parting of Mabel and Waller was bitter, though in her soul the bitterness of death itself seemed past, and her tears were such as seem to come from the heart; but others as well as she were parting from their dearest, and there is a strange communion in grief.

Ackbar conveyed his prizes back to the city, treating them with apparent kindness, for he considered white women nearly as valuable as the horses of the Usbec Tartars; but by that time nearly all the babes at the breast and the little toddling things that made many a father proud and mother happy, had perished, even as the strong man perished, for in some places the snow was so deep, that soldiers disappeared bodily into it, and were never, never seen again.

Ackbar probably meant to keep them all till richly ransomed, for he was overheard to say to Amen Oollah Khan, in his hypocritical way,--

"What saith the Koran? 'Unto such of your slaves as desire a written instrument, allowing them to redeem themselves, on paying a certain sum, write one, if ye know good in them, and give them of the riches of God, which he hath given you.'"

"But, by the soul of him who wrote these words," replied Amen Oollah, "I would not give up that damsel with the red, golden hair for less than a crore of rupees."

As a crore is ten lacs of rupees, a high value seemed to be set on poor Mabel Trecarrel, who was here indicated.

In the deep shadowy gorges of those winding passes, through which the route of the troops lay for miles, the impending cliffs were covered by clouds of yellow-turbaned Khyberees and Ghilzies, who poured down upon them a remorseless and incessant fire of musketry, and in some places from caverns which were full of juzailchees. In others they daringly rushed in bands into the ranks of the weary and half-famished soldiers, whose ammunition was nearly expended, and made there a terrible use of their swords and long daggers; and thus, at a place called the Jungle Tarechee, or Dark Pass, the whole of the 54th Native Infantry were destroyed. There, too, fell Graham and Ravelstoke.

The dead were always stripped, and then mutilated, or terribly gashed with wounds.

"Death to the infidel dogs--death! death!" were the incessant cries by which these fanatics inspired each other.

"What says the Koran?" cried one whose camise was literally steeped in blood; "'it is unlawful to plunder the living,' but there is no prohibition about the dead; so death to them all!"

The fugitives were so wedged _en masse_ in the narrow way, that every shot told fearfully. All along that route, many a wounded soldier, as he fell behind, gave to some favourite comrade the last words that he, poor Bob, or Bill, or Jack, was never fated to carry home; many a dying officer gave his papers, ring, or locket to the friend who, in a few minutes later, was also stretched on the ensanguined snow.

At one brief halt a few ponies were killed and devoured raw!

All hope was dead now in every heart, yet on they struggled--on, and on--till a place called Jugdulluck was reached, and then in all the sullenness of fury and despair, the wretched survivors, Horse, Foot, and Artillerymen, resolved to make a resolute stand. Cheering wildly, as if to welcome death and the foe together, the poor fellows stood shoulder to shoulder, many bleeding with undressed wounds, all breathless and flushed, their eyes gleaming, their once comely English faces distorted by hate and bitterness.

In sheets of lead the heavy juzail balls tore through them on every hand, and they fell faster than ever. Her Majesty's 44th Regiment was now reduced to two hundred men, and every man of the two hundred perished where he stood. But this bravery enabled some of the other corps to proceed farther, and the last final stand was made by those unhappy men on the morning of the 13th January, on the knoll of Gundamuck, when twenty officers, sixty soldiers, and three hundred camp-followers alone survived.

Polwhele was the first who fell here; two balls pierced his chest; and there, too, perished all that remained of Waller's Company. If the fire slackened a moment, the clash of knife and bayonet was heard, with many a yell and groan.

"Dear Bob," cried Polwhele to Waller, as he lay choking in blood, "if you cannot carry me out of the field, take my sword and this ring for my--my poor mother."

But Waller could do neither, for over Polwhele's body there thickly fell a heap of killed and wounded.

After his ammunition was expended, Sergeant Treherne, whom rage and desperation inspired with a fury resembling madness, laid wildly about him, and with the heel of his musket dashed out the brains of more than one tall Afghan. This stalwart son of the Mines had come of a race that in their time had been greater men than miners in Cornwall--_Huelwers_, who were rulers then in the land before, perhaps, a stone of Windsor or Westminster had been laid; and now he stood like a hero on that fatal knoll of Gundamuck, beating down the foe with the butt-end of his clubbed weapon, till he fell, riddled with bullets, upon the corpses of his comrades.

Seeing all lost, Waller, his heart swollen almost to bursting, had now to seek his own safety. Concealed by the smoke and some wild pistachio trees, he found shelter in a cavern, though fearing that traces of his footsteps in the snow might lead to his discovery, and there he lay on the cold rocky floor, more dead than alive with excess of emotion and all he had undergone, panting, feeble, and well nigh breathless.

He had only his sword now, and even if he escaped the Afghans, wolves, bears, or hyænas--the mountains teemed with all of them--might come upon him in the night.

Being well mounted, Audley Trevelyan and two medical officers effected their escape, but were closely pursued by Amen Oollah Khan, and compelled to separate. One was overtaken and slain within four miles of Jellalabad. Audley's horse was shot under him, and he concealed himself till nightfall in a nullah or ravine.*

* At Gundamuck "the enemy rushed in with drawn knives, and with the exception of _two_ officers and _four_ men, the whole of this doomed band fell victims to the sanguinary mob."--_Memorials of Afghanistan_, Calcutta, 1843.

Long prior to this event, Colonel Dennie, of the 13th, made a curiously prophetic speech. "His words were, 'you'll see that not a soul will escape from Cabul except _one_ man, and he will come to tell us that the rest are destroyed."--_Sale's Brigade_.

Ackbar Khan is said to have uttered a similar prediction.

The despatches record that of all the sixteen thousand five hundred who marched from the Cantonments of Cabul, ninety miles distant, Dr. Brydone, a Scottish medical officer of the Shah's service, bleeding, faint, covered with wounds, and carrying a broken sword in his hand, _alone_ reached the city of Sir Robert Sale's garrison; but Trevelyan came in four hours after, to confirm his terrible tidings of the total destruction of our army and all its followers, for all who were not slain were made slaves by the captors.