Page:The Earl of Auckland.djvu/128

122 Sir Jasper Nicolls, who felt certain that the whole thing would break down. 'Unless a large accession of Punjab territory comes in to connect us safely with Kábul, and to aid our very heavy expenses, we must withdraw.' 

Macnaghten scouted the very notion of withdrawal as 'an unparalleled political atrocity.' It would be 'a cheat of the first magnitude,' as well as a positive breach of treaty, to leave Shujá at such a time to his own devices, in the midst of a novel experiment at governing the Afgháns according to European ideas. Such experiments, as we know from recent instances, never do come to the end desired. Diplomacy is fertile in excuses for not withdrawing the hand from the plough. The Envoy insisted that the Sháh's own force, aided by one English regiment at Kábul and another at Kandahár, would amply suffice to keep the whole country in order. Lord Auckland shrank from a full and timely confession of his utter failure at a moment when everything, from the collapse of the Russian march against Khíva to the surrender of Dost Muhammad, seemed to justify the recall of our troops from Afghánistán. The last of the Sibylline books had been offered and rejected.

Meanwhile Todd's mission to Herát was drawing to an abrupt close. The honest officer of Bengal Artillery found himself duped at every turn by Yár Muhammad and his fellow-swindlers, who played against him with loaded dice. They renewed their intrigues with the