inspire confidence and attract affection; whilst undoubted courage, enterprise, activity, somewhat of the recklessness and unscrupulousness of his race, combined with a more than common measure of intelligence and sagacity, gave him a command over his fellows and a mastery over circumstances, which raised him at length to the chief seat in the empire. His youth was stained with many crimes, which he lived to deplore. It is the glory of Dost Mahomed that in the vigour of his years he looked back with contrition upon the excesses of his early life, and lived down many of the besetting infirmities which had overshadowed the dawn of his career. The waste of a deserted childhood and the deficiencies of a neglected education he struggled manfully to remedy and repair. At the zenith of his reputation there was not, perhaps, in all Central Asia a chief so remarkable for the exercise of self-discipline and self-control; but he emerged out of a cloudy morn of vice, and sunk into a gloomy night of folly.
As the lieutenant of his able and powerful brother, the young Dost Mahomed Khan displayed in all the contests which rent the Douranee Empire a daring and heroic spirit, and considerable military address. Early acquiring the power of handling large bodies of troops, he was regarded, whilst yet scarcely a man, as a dashing, fearless soldier, and a leader of good repute. But, in those early days, his scruples were few; his excesses were many. It was one of those excesses, it is supposed, which cost the life of Futteh Khan, and built up his own reputation on the ruin of his distinguished brother.
It was shortly after the retirement of Shah Soojah to the British possessions that Futteh Khan set out, at the head of an army, to the western boundary of Afghanistan. Persia had long been encroaching upon the limits of the Douranee Empire, and it was now to stem the tide of Kujjar invasion that the Afghan Wuzeer set out for Khorassan. At this time he was the virtual ruler of the country. Weak, indolent, and debauched, Shah Mahmoud, retaining the name and the pomp of royalty, had yielded the actual government of the country into the hands of Futteh Khan and his brothers. The Princes of the blood royal quailed before the Barukzye Sirdars. Ferooz-ood-Deen, brother of the reigning monarch, was at that time governor of Herat. Whether actuated by motives of personal resentment or ambition, or instigated by Shah Mahmoud himself, Futteh Khan determined to turn the Persian expedition to other account, and to throw Herat into the hands of the Barukzyes. The execution of this design was entrusted to Dost Mahomed. He entered Herat with his Kohistanee followers as a friend; and when the chiefs of the city were beyond its gates, in attendance upon the Wuzeer, with characteristic Afghan treachery and violence he massacred the palace guards, seized the person of the Prince, spoiled the treasury, and violated the harem. Setting the crown upon this last act of violence, he tore the jewelled waistband from the person of the royal wife of one of the royal Princes.[68] The outraged lady is said to have sent her profaned garment to Prince Kamran, and to have drawn from him an oath that he would avenge the injury. He was true to his vow. The blow was struck; but it fell not on the perpetrator of the outrage: it fell upon Futteh Khan.
Dost Mahomed had fled for safety to Cashmere. The Wuzeer, returning from the Persian expedition, fell into the hands of Prince Kamran, who punctured his eyes with the point of a dagger.[69] What followed is well known. Enraged by so gross an outrage on a member of the Suddozye family, alarmed at the growing power of the Barukzyes, and further irritated by the resolute refusal of Futteh Khan to betray his brothers, who had effected their escape from Herat, Kamran and his father, Shah Mahmoud, agreed to put their noble prisoner to death. They were then on their way from Candahar to Caubul. The ex-minister was brought into their presence, and again called upon to write to his brothers, ordering them to surrender themselves to the Shah. Again he refused, alleging that he was but a poor blind captive; that his career was run; that he had no longer any influence; and that he could not consent to betray his brethren. Exasperated by the resolute bearing of his prisoner, Mahmoud Shah ordered the unfortunate minister—the king-maker to whom he owed his crown—to be put to death before him; and there, in the presence of the feeble father and the cruel son, Futteh Khan was by the attendant courtiers literally hacked to pieces. His nose, ears, and lips were cut off; his fingers severed from his hands, his hands from his arms, his arms from his body. Limb followed limb, and long was the horrid butchery continued before the life of the victim was extinct. Futteh Khan raised no cry, offered no prayer for mercy. His fortitude was unshaken to the last. He died as he had lived, the bravest and most resolute of men—like his noble father, a victim to the perfidy and ingratitude of princes. The murder of Poyndah Khan shook the Suddozye dynasty to its base. The assassination of Futteh Khan soon made it a heap of ruins.[70]
From this time, the rise of Dost Mahomed was rapid. He had the blood of kindred to avenge. The cruelty and ingratitude of Mahmoud and his son were now to be signally punished by the brother of the illustrious sufferer. Azim Khan, who ruled in Cashmere, counselled a course of forbearance; but Dost Mahomed indignantly rejected the proposal; and declaring that it would be an eternal disgrace to the Barukzyes not to chastise the murderers of their chief, swore that he would march upon Caubul, at the head of an army of retribution. Inclined neither to enter personally upon so perilous an undertaking, nor to appear, in such a juncture, wholly supine, Azim Khan presented his brother with three or four lakhs of rupees to defray the charges of the expedition—a sum which was exhausted long before the Sirdar neared Caubul. But in spite of every obstacle, Dost Mahomed reached Koord-Caubul, two marches from the capital, and there encamped his army.
The youthful son of Kamran, Prince Jehangire, was then the nominal ruler of Caubul. But the actual administration of affairs was in the hands of Atta Mahomed. A Sirdar of the Bamezye tribe, a man of considerable ability, but no match for Dost Mahomed, he was now guilty of the grand error of underrating such an adversary. He had acted a conspicuous part in the recent intestine struggles between the Suddozye brothers; but he had no love for the royal family—none for the Barukzyes. He it was who had instigated Kamran to the cruel murder of Futteh Khan, and had with his own hands commenced the inhuman butchery. Now to advance ambitious projects of his own, he was ready to betray his masters. Simulating a friendship which he did not feel, he leagued himself with their enemies, and covenanted to betray the capital into the hands of the Barukzye Sirdars. But Dost Mahomed and his brethren had not forgotten the terrible tragedy which had cut short the great career of the chief of their tribe. In a garden-house which had once belonged to the murdered minister, they met Atta Mahomed, there to complete the covenant for the surrender of the city. A signal was given, when one—the youngest—of the brothers rushed upon the Bamezye chief, threw him to the ground, and subjected him to the cruel process which had preceded the murder of Futteh Khan. They spared his life; but sent him blind and helpless into the world, with the mark of Barukzye vengeance upon zhim—an object less of compassion than of scorn.
The seizure of the Balla Hissar was now speedily effected. The Shah-zadah was surrounded by treachery. Young and beautiful, he was the delight of the women of Caubul; but he had few friends among the chivalry of the empire. Too weak to distinguish the true from the false, he was easily betrayed. Persuaded to withdraw himself into the upper citadel, he left the lower fortress at the mercy of Dost Mahomed. The Sirdar made the most of the opportunity; ran a mine under the upper works, and blew up a portion of them. Death stared the Shah-zadah in the face. The women of Caubul offered up prayers for the safety of the beautiful Prince. The night was dark; the rain descended in torrents. To remain in the citadel was to court destruction. Under cover of the pitchy darkness, it was possible that he might effect his escape. Attended by a few followers, he made the effort, and succeeded. He fled to Ghuzni, and was saved.
Dost Mahomed was now in possession of Caubul. But threatened from two different quarters, his tenure was most insecure. Shah Mahmoud and Prince Kamran were marching down from Herat, and Azim Khan was coming from Cashmere to assert his claims, as the representative of the Barukzye family. But the spirit of legitimacy was not wholly extinct in Afghanistan. The Barukzyes did not profess to conquer for themselves. It was necessary to put forward some scion of the royal family, and to fight and conquer in his name. Dost Mahomed proclaimed Sultan Ali, whilst Azim Khan invited Shah Soojah to emerge from the obscurity of Loodhianah and re-assert his claims to the throne.[71]
Weary of retirement and inactivity, the Shah consented, and an expedition was planned. But the covenant was but of short duration. The contracting parties fell out upon the road, and, instead of fighting a common enemy, got up a battle among themselves. The Shah, who never lived to grow wiser, gave himself such airs, and