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Yakoub Khan had gained little personal popularity during his brief and troubled reign, but he was an Afghan and a Mahomedan; and his deportation to India, followed shortly afterwards by that of his three Ministers, intensified the rancour of his countrymen and co-religionists against the handful of presumptuous foreigners who arrogantly claimed to sway the destinies of Afghanistan.
Instructions had been given by the Viceroy that Yakoub Khan should be received in the British camp with all honour and distinction. When his approach was announced on May 8th, Cavagnari and a number of British officers rode out to meet him; when he reached the camp, a royal salute greeted him, a guard of honour presented arms, and Sir Sam Browne and his staff gave him a ceremonious welcome.
Yes, that pestilent zabardasti little General, who would not follow the example of good old Pollock Sahib, and who held Yakoub Khan and sundry of his Sirdars in close imprisonment in his camp, had now the insolence to proclaim himself virtually the Ameer of Afghanistan!
The other three and many of those who were subsequently executed, suffered for the crime of 'treason' against Yakoub Khan.
It was not so long ago since emirs reigned over Kachgaria, since the monarchy of Mohammed Yakoub extended over the whole of Turkestan, since the Chinese who wished to live here had to adjure the religion of Buddha and Confucius and become converts to Mahometanism, that is, if they wished to be respectable. What would you have?
Looking at his chief councillor, Azim Reverdi, he demanded whether some of the wanderers of their order, whom he named, could not be sent through the mountains to discover where any such prisoners might be; but after going into the court in quest of these persons, Azim returned with tidings that a Turkish soldier had returned on the previous day to the town, and had mentioned that on Mount Couco, Sheyk Abderrahman was almost at war with his subordinates, Eyoub and Ben Yakoub, about some shipwrecked Frank captives, if they had not already settled the matter by murdering them all, and, as was well known, nothing would persuade this ignorant, lawless tribe that nothing was more abhorrent to the Prophet than human sacrifices.
The man was plainly alarmed, more especially as the Sunakite broke out into one of his wild wails of denunciation, waving his hands like a prophet of wrath, and predicting famine, disease, pestilence, to these slack observers of the law of Mohammed. This completed the alarm. The bodyguard fled away pell-mell, Yakoub after them.
Yakoub, then full of vigour and enterprise, defeated him at Bamian and restored his father Shere Ali to the throne in the winter of 1868. Abdurrahman then once more found himself an exile. In 1870, after much wandering, he reached Tashkend, where General Kaufmann gave him permission to reside, and obtained for him from the Czar a pension of 25,000 roubles per annum.
The sabres were sheathed, and there was a shuffling away at the advance of the Marabouts, Sheyk Yakoub making some apology about having delayed to admit such guests, but excusing himself on the score of supposing they were emissaries sent by those whose authority he so defied that he had sworn to slaughter his prisoners rather than surrender them.
No subsequent movements of importance were undertaken in Southern Afghanistan during the winter, and the province enjoyed almost unbroken quietude. In Herat, however, disturbance was rife. Ayoub Khan, the brother of Yakoub Khan, had returned from exile and made good his footing in Herat, of which formerly he had been conjoint governor with Yakoub.
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