were making their way towards the regal tent, the marksmen fired upon
them. The volley took murderous effect. Several of the bearers and of
the escort were struck down, and the king himself killed on the spot.
A ball had entered his brain. Soojah-ool-dowlah then rode up; and as
he contemplated his bloody work, the body of the unhappy king, vain
and pompous as he was to the very last, was stripped of all the jewels
about it--the jewelled dagger, the jewelled girdle, the jewelled
head-dress--and it was then cast into a ditch.'

It was of course impossible for the Company to suffer the blot upon
their arms to remain: indeed, their safety in India required that no
tarnish of defeat should rest permanently upon their name. The British
troops at Candahar and Jelalabad were ordered to march upon Cabool,
where, as an enduring mark of the retributary visit, in addition to
pillaging the shops, setting fire to the houses, and murdering the
unresisting inhabitants, they destroyed--not the fortress--but the
_bazaar_, the great commercial depôt of Central Asia!

_The objects of the war were now accomplished._ But Shah Soojah was
dead. The king we had driven from the throne, however, was still
alive: Dost Mahomed, therefore, was restored; and nothing remained to
be done, since the grand drama had been brought to a conclusion, but
to celebrate the happy _dénouement_ by a fête. This, accordingly, came
off at Ferozepore. 'Then there was feasting and festivity in the
gigantic tents, hung with silken flags, on which, in polyglot
emblazonments, were the names of the actions that had been fought;
many complimentary effusions, in the shape of after-dinner harangues;
and in the mornings grand field-days, more or less, according to the
"skyey influences." The year--a most eventful one--was closed with a
grand military display. The plain was covered with British and Sikh