itical that they could
not avenge the murder of their countrymen. Negotiations were actually
renewed with Akbar Khan upon his statement that he had not meant to murder
the British envoy, but had been goaded into the act by the taunts of
MacNaghten. Promises of safe conduct were obtained. In January the British
forces began their retreat from Kabul. Then followed a series of
treacheries and mutual breaches of faith. Akbar Khan and his hordes of
Afghans dogged the retreating column exacting further concessions. The
English women and children were demanded as hostages. From the heights of
the Khaibar Pass, the Ghilzai mountaineers poured a destructive fire into
the Englishmen. Akbar Khan's followers made common cause with them.
Thousands of Englishmen were slain, or perished in the deep snows of the
Khaibar Pass. The wounded and those who fell behind were butchered by the
Afghans. A fortnight sufficed to cut the whole column to pieces. Of the
entire force of 4,000 soldiers and 12,000 followers, one single survivor
succeeded in reaching Jellalabad. He was a British surgeon named Brydon,
who dragged himself on all fours out of reach of the Afghans; but he lived
to tell the tale for more than thirty years afterward.

Colonel Stoddart and Captain Connelly had been sent as British emissaries
to Bokhara. When the news of the British massacre at Kabul reached Bokhara,
both men were promptly thrown into prison. Later, when the news of the
British disaster in the Khaibar Pass reached Bokhara, the Ameer had the two
envoys taken from their dungeons. They were publicly beheaded in the
market-place of Bokhara.

[Sidenote: Lord Ellenborough in India]

[Sidenote: Jellalabad relieved]

[Sidenote: Recapture of Kabul]

[Sidenote: British vandalism]

Such was the state of affairs in India when Lord Ellenborough landed at
Calcutta in February, to succeed Lord Auckland as Governor-General. The
first trying need was to rescue the remaining British garrisons at
Jellalabad and Kandahar. General Pollock, with a strong force of Sepoys,
was sent through the Punjab and Peshawar. In April, he pushed his way
through the Khaibar Pass, in the face of fierce resistance from the
mountaineers. The relieving force reached Jellalabad none too soon. General
Sale and his garrison were fighting for time. In a last sortie they had
just inflicted a telling defeat on Akbar Khan and his besieging army. From
Kabul the boy sovereign of the Afghans fled out of Ak