He ordered Colville to give up his arms, and, sending him under a strong escort of his own people out of the city, once more addressed himself to the congenial task of pressing the attack upon the Residency--a task which he continued to the bitter end. Meanwhile Colville was conveyed, a prisoner, to one of the many forts which stud the plain of Cabul and the heights of Beymaroo that overhang it. Mahmoud had suddenly become his protector in fulfilment of the old precept of being true to his salt; and Colville, who in his heart was intensely thankful to Heaven for the succour afforded to him, while so many poor fellows were perishing without mercy, felt confident that while with Mahmoud, or under his care, he was tolerably safe; for it is well known that after eating the bread and salt of another, or even salt alone, one, according to Oriental ideas, comes under peculiar obligations of protection and friendship. As an illustration of this, Lane tells us, in one of his valuable notes to the 'Arabian Tales,' of a daring robber, who, one night, excavated a passage into the palace of the Governor of Sijistan, where he made up a great bale of gold and jewels; he was in the act of carrying it off, when, in the dark, his foot happened to strike against something hard on the floor. Believing it to be a jewel of some kind--perhaps a great diamond--he picked it up, and on applying his tongue to it, found that it was nothing else but a lump of rock salt. Bitter was his disappointment, 'for having once tasted the salt of the ocean, his aversion gave way to his respect for the laws of hospitality; and throwing down his precious booty, he left it behind him, and withdrew empty-handed to his habitation.' But Colville remembered, as old Colonel Spatterdash had told him scores of times, how Asiatics can quibble in this very matter; and that in the great Mutiny how often the Sepoys swore 'to be true to their salt,' and not to murder their officers, but stood placidly and approvingly by while the Pandies of other regiments slaughtered them. In this fashion Mahmoud Shah might be true to _his_ salt. Who can say or fathom the cruel duplicity of the Oriental mind and nature? And, with these painful surmises and doubts in his mind, Colville heard the roar of the conflict in and around the doomed Residency dying away in the distance as the gates of the fort by the Cabul river were closed behind him. As he entered, he looked back to the fatal Bala Hissar. The smoke of the conflict, mingled with that of the conflagration, was eddying about its picturesque towers and embattled masses on the mountain slope, all bathed in ruddy splendour by the setting sun. What was being enacted there now? he thought. Was all over now? Had the last of the brave fallen? After sunset Mahmoud Shah arrived at the fort, which was his own patrimonial stronghold, and assured Colville that all was ended--the last man was slain, and the valour of the Cabulees had been successful.