Page:The Earl of Auckland.djvu/121

Rh his exhortations, they prepared to repel their pursuers. At that moment Fraser, who commanded the two squadrons, received an order for their recall. But instead of retiring before so weak a foe, Fraser gave the word to charge. His officers dashed forward, expecting their men to follow. But the troopers, perplexed and panic-stricken, wavered, turned, and fled like scared sheep. Three of their officers, including Dr. Lord, were slain, while Fraser and Ponsonby got off with severe wounds. Fraser himself, covered with blood, his sword-arm disabled, rode up to Sale, and calmly reported the failure of his attack. For a time the Afgháns defiantly held their ground, until the advance of Sale's guns and infantry warned them to withdraw.

With characteristic rashness, Burnes immediately wrote off to Macnaghten, urging him to recall Sale's column, and to mass all his troops for the defence of Kábul. The Envoy himself had begun to talk of 'submitting to the disgrace of being shut up for a time' in that city. Guns were mounted on the Bálá Hissár, and the guards everywhere increased. For a warm-blooded man of wide aims and soaring ambition, who wrote of Lord Auckland's recent inaction as 'drivelling beneath contempt,' and sighed for 'a Wellesley or a Hastings' to deal with a crisis which neither of those statesmen would have provoked, the whole state of things was surely exasperating. Macnaghten's wrath against the fancied author of all these troubles lowered him almost to Sháh Shujá's own level.