This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
192
LORD AUCKLAND

part 'to induce you to leave the country.' Grandmotherly advice of this sort, flavoured by covert sneers, was all that Lord Ellenborough could offer to the man who wanted only permission to march straight upon Kábul.

Meanwhile Pollock had been trying to obtain from Muhammad Akbar the peaceful surrender of his captives on terms befitting the national honour. But the negotiations fell through in May. By that time the prisoners, who were not unkindly treated, had been removed from Badiábád in the Laghmán district to Kábul, where Sháh Shujá had been treacherously murdered on the 5th of April by the son of the Bárakzái Nawáb, Zamán Khán. On the 24th Elphinstone died at Tazín, worn out with prolonged suffering of mind and body. By Akbar's orders his body was conveyed for burial in charge of his English man-servant to Jalálábád. The death of our Saduzai puppet, who had long since lost the goodwill of his late allies, became the signal for fresh intrigues and fighting among rival chiefs in Kábul, which issued, two months later, in the enthronement of the Saduzai prince, Fathi Jang, with Muhammad Akbar for his self-appointed Wazír.

From April to the middle of June Henry Lawrence at Pesháwar, zealously aided by Mr. Robertson at Agra, was engaged in collecting baggage-animals for Pollock's use, and in forwarding convoys of supplies, treasure, and ordnance-stores through the Kháibar, for the free use of which we had to depend on subsi-