Before any reply could be expected, an urgent demand was received from the General Officer commanding First Division, Peshawar Valley Field Force, for the immediate return of his troops, in view of an expected attack upon Jalalabad and Dakka by Mohmands and Bajauris; but the awkwardness of such a request in the middle of operations was smoothed by the Afridis of the Bazar Valley now evincing a disposition to open negotiations, while a deputation from all divisions of the Bara Valley Zakha Khels actually arrived in camp. On the 2nd February the Political Officer reported that he had made satisfactory terms with the jirgah; and although the same evening General Maude was informed that the words of the circular above referred to did not preclude his carrying out an expedition into the Bara Valley should he consider such to be necessary, he decided that the whole force under his command should commence its withdrawal on the 3rd; and on that date accordingly the different columns left the Bazar Valley, the Dakka force by the Sisobi Pass and the troops of the Second Division via Chora for Jamrud and Ali Musjid. There was no molestation by the Afridis during the retirement of any of the columns, which, during the operations described, had sustained a loss of five killed and thirteen wounded. The effect of this expedition did not last more than a few weeks, for by the end of March the Zakha Khels had again begun to give trouble, continuing to do so until the termination in May of the first phase of the second Afghan war. On the withdrawal from Afghanistan in June, the Khyber Afridis made only one insignificant attempt to molest our troops; and, fortunately for us, the trials of what has been called “the Death March”[116] were not aggravated by the attacks of fanatical tribesmen, during the retirement India-wards through the Khyber of the Peshawar Valley Field Force. After the close of the first phase of the campaign in Afghanistan, arrangements, which worked generally satisfactorily, were made with the Afridis for the safety of the Khyber; while the agreement come to in 1881, and honourably kept on both sides for sixteen years, will be found in Chapter XI. It has been said that the Afridis of the Khyber kept faithfully to their treaty engagements during the sixteen years which followed the events which have been just described, but in 1892 there was one comparatively minor case of misconduct, when a Kuki Khel malik, smarting under a grievance connected with the deprivation for misbehaviour of a portion of his allowances, collected a body of 500 or 600 men and attacked three of the Khyber posts. The Tirah mullahs made an unsuccessful attempt to persuade other Afridi clans to join, and the prompt despatch of troops to Jamrud was sufficient to cause the dispersal of the lashkar. [Sidenote: The Outbreak of 1897]