About the middle of the month of February the captive party was increased by the arrival of Major Griffiths and Captain Souter; and a few days afterwards, the same terrific earthquake which had shaken down the ramparts of Jellalabad made the walls of their prison-house reel and totter, and levelled a portion of the fort with the dust. For many days lesser shocks of earthquake kept the people in a continued state of alarm. The prisoners slept in the open court-yard, which was filled with their beds; and all kinds of rude awnings were thrown up to secure a little privacy. The cold was intense, and the heavy dews saturated the bedding like rain. No lives were sacrificed within the fort by this great convulsion of nature; but narrow was the escape of Lady Sale, Brigadier Shelton, Captain Mackenzie, Mr. Eyre, and General Elphinstone. The first four were on the house-top when the shock commenced; and had scarcely time to secure a footing on a safer spot when the roof fell in with a crash. The poor old General was bed-ridden. His sufferings had been every day increasing. He had been wounded on the retreat. His constitutional infirmities had been aggravated both by the external hardships to which he had been subjected, and the corroding anxieties which had preyed upon his mind. It was plain to all that his end was approaching. But he bore his accumulated sufferings with heroic fortitude; and the warmest sympathies of his fellow-captives were with him. Unable to bestir himself, when the walls of the fort were shaken by the earthquake, he was for a little time in imminent peril; but a soldier of the 44th, named Moore, who had acted as the General’s personal attendant, rushed into the room and carried off the attenuated old man in his arms. “The poor General,” says Eyre, who records this incident, “was greatly beloved by the soldiery, of whom there were few who would not have acted in a similar manner to save his life.”