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In that charge he will fall; then go and make your own terms with Shah Soojah. The high-souled appeal inspired no worthy response; but one is loth to credit the testimony of the soldier-of-fortune Harlan that his guards forsook the Dost, and that the rabble of troops plundered his pavilion, snatched from under him the pillows of his divan, seized his prayer carpet, and finally hacked into pieces the tent and its appurtenances.
Shah Soojah remained in Cabul. The resolution became him better than anything else we know of the unfortunate man. It may be he reasoned that he had a chance for life by remaining in the Balla Hissar, and that from what he knew, there was no chance of life for anyone participating in the fateful march.
Sir John Kaye, in his picturesque if diffuse history of the first Afghan war, lays it down that, in seating Shah Soojah on the Cabul throne, 'the British Government had done all that it had undertaken to do, and Durand argues that, having accomplished this, 'the British army could have then been withdrawn with the honour and fame of entire success. The facts apparently do not justify the reasoning of either writer.
Two of his brothers competed for the vacant throne; and notwithstanding the efforts of a famous king-making vizier, Futteh Khan, the prize fell for a time to the lot of him who is so well known to English readers by the name and style of Shah Soojah. But his incapacity was soon manifest.
Fast on the heels of the gloomy tidings from the Khyber mouth there came to them from Shah Soojah, who was still the nominal sovereign at Cabul, a curt peremptory letter obviously written under compulsion, of which the following were the terms: 'Your people have concluded a treaty with us; you are still in Jellalabad; what are your intentions? Tell us quickly.
He expressed his suspicion that Shah Soojah had countenanced Uktar Khan's rising, and spoke of intrigues of dark and dangerous character.
Candahar was in extremity when Dost Mahomed, hurrying from Cabul, relieved it, and joining forces with its defenders, he defeated and routed Shah Soojah, who fled precipitately, leaving behind him his artillery and camp equipage, During the Dost's absence in the south, Runjeet Singh's troops crossed the Attock, occupied the Afghan province of Peshawur, and drove the Afghans into the Khyber Pass.
The Indian Government had now determined, for reasons into which it is not our province to inquire, to make war upon Dost Mahomed and to replace Shah Soojah upon the throne.
In the Balla Hissar Shah Soojah had a considerable, if rather mixed, body of military and several guns. The rising of the 2d November may not have been the result of a fully organised plan.
The officers sent for their wives and families, and for a time English society and English amusements may be said to have been established in Cabul. Still Shah Soojah was not accepted by the people, his rule was exacting and cruel, and disaffection was rife in the country, which was rapidly preparing to rise. In the meantime, Dost Mahomed was still to be reckoned with.
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