Page:The Earl of Auckland.djvu/206

200 decline was accepted, not without demur, by Sir Robert Sale.

Sale's column had made but one march from Kábul when, on the 20th, its leader came upon the erewhile prisoners riding quietly along, escorted by Shakespear's troopers and a body of Afghán horse, whose commander, Sálah Muhammad, had lately agreed for a handsome bribe to lead back in freedom from Bámián the hostages and prisoners entrusted to his charge. The same man who, in 1840, had deserted the Sháh for Dost Muhammad, was now engaged in rescuing Pottinger's party from the fate to which Akbar would have consigned them. The prisoners signed an agreement to pay him 20,000 rupees down and a pension of £1,200 a year, besides a handsome gratuity for his troops. On the 12th of September Sálah Muhammad hoisted the British colours over his fort. The news of Akbar's flight from Tazín emboldened the whole party to set out on the 16th for Kábul. Next day Shakespear's horsemen rode into view, and the combined force pushed on until all fear of further danger was dispelled on the 20th by Sale's advance from Argandi. In another moment Sale was embracing the manly hearted wife and widowed daughter from whom he had been parted for ten months; while Henry Lawrence, whose detachment of Sikhs had been doing good service with Pollock's force, now clasped hands with the brother for whose freedom two months earlier he would gladly have surrendered his own. On the evening of the 21st Pottinger's party were enthusias-