Page:The Earl of Auckland.djvu/133

Rh classes of the people. 'Hatred of foreign dominion, fanaticism, the licentiousness of the troops, and especially the impunity with which women could be seduced and carried off in a country celebrated for the strictness of the late ruler on this point,' stirred the popular sympathy with the chiefs who kicked against a rule which curtailed their cherished freedom and gave them nothing tangible in return.

In September, 1841, Nott himself was marching through the country north-west of Kandahár, with a force strong enough to overawe resistance and to compel the submission of many hostile chiefs. One bold Durání, Akram Khán, still refused to come in. Guided by an Afghán traitor, Captain John Conolly, one of the Sháh's officers, surprised the Khán in his own quarters, and carried him off to Kandahár. The news of his capture aroused in the Envoy those savage instincts which still lurk beneath the coat of modern civilization. The Sháh, he said, had always been too lenient; a terrible example must now be made; and so this naughty boy, whose real crime was his inconvenient patriotism, was blown away by Prince Timúr's orders from a gun. The Nemesis of wrong and violence was already dogging the steps of our countrymen in Afghánistán. For

'Revenge and wrong bring forth their kind;'

and the Afgháns were soon to repay with heavy interest all that they had suffered at our hands.

For the moment, however, nothing disturbed Mac-