down by showers of grape from our guns, their horsemen hurled back again and again from the bayonets of Spence's infantry, the assailants sullenly withdrew, leaving two hundred dead upon the field. Nott's energy in other directions gave point to the moral of this defeat, and impelled the Ghilzai leaders to close with Macnaghten's offer of Rs. 30,000 a year, payable so long as they kept the roads open for our troops and convoys[1].
By this time events were happening on the northern and southern frontiers of the new kingdom, which boded ill for the success of Macnaghten's 'beautiful game.' The Marris, Khákars, and other Biluchi tribes were rising all along the road from Quetta to the borders of Upper Sind. They captured hundreds of convoy camels, and cut to pieces several detachments of our Sepoys. The Khákar insurgents in June attacked Bean's small garrison at Quetta, but were beaten off with some loss. They renewed the attack with larger numbers in July, but the reinforced garrison easily repulsed them. A body of Biluchis, headed by the youthful son of Mehráb Khán, next marched against Khelát. Treachery within the fort ensured its surrender on terms which acknowledged Nasír Khán as the rightful sovereign in the room of Lord Auckland's nominee. Loveday, who commanded the garrison, was carried off a prisoner by the man in whose good faith he had too readily trusted, and afterwards paid with his life for the error which
- ↑ Kaye; Durand; Stocqueler's Life of Sir William Nott.
