Page:The Earl of Auckland.djvu/179

Rh The letter, as amended in one or two details, was signed by Macgregor and sent on to Kábul. The Sháh's answer, 'If you are sincere in your offers, let all the chief gentlemen put their seals,' opened a backdoor of escape from a transaction of which most of the consenting parties had meanwhile grown ashamed. Broadfoot's demand that the whole question should be reconsidered led to another warm debate, in which Sale and Macgregor stood their ground until it became clear that they stood alone. Sale accepted the ruling of the majority in favour of Broadfoot's manlier and wiser views. Next day those views were further justified by the receipt of cheering messages from Pesháwar. By that time the ditch round the walls — the work of Broadfoot's sappers — was nearly completed, and the garrison, no longer doubtful of their officers' designs, were in higher health and spirits than ever before.

The great earthquake of the 19th of February wrought fearful havoc with the defences of Jalálábád. The shocks did much damage at Pesháwar also, where a falling beam crushed the table round which Pollock and some of his officers had been sitting a moment before. Sale himself, with his secretary Havelock, had a narrow escape. But Broadfoot's sappers, aided by relays from all the other troops, worked with such a will that before night much of the damage was substantially repaired; and before three weeks the works