Page:The Earl of Auckland.djvu/169

Rh On reaching a long chasm between two walls of rock, they found the way blocked by a strong barricade of tree-trunks and branches of the prickly holly-oak.

In the midst of their efforts to break through this obstacle, a sudden shower of bullets rained down upon the struggling mass, while bodies of Afgháns rushed in with swords and knives to complete the work of carnage and rapine. A few score officers and men cut their way into the open country beyond. These struggled forward in detached parties to Gandamak, where three or four were taken prisoners, while nearly all their comrades died fighting to the last. Only six officers rode on to Fathábád. Two of these were cut down as they were eating some food which the villagers had brought them. Three more were overtaken and slain a few miles from Jalálábád. One only, Dr. Brydon, fainting from wounds, hunger, and exhaustion, was borne on by his jaded pony to the walls of Jalálábád; which Sale's officers, in calm defiance of Elphinstone's orders and Akbar's threats, were resolved at all costs to hold throughout the winter. Out of an army well-equipped and strong enough, as Durand maintained, 'in the hands of a Nott or a Napier, to have swept its discomfited foes in haughty triumph before the colours of England,' one man alone, after a week of intense suffering, lived to reach the goal of their common desire, and to tell his rescuers of the doom which had overtaken nearly all the rest.