For some time, Futteh Jung had been a wretched puppet at the Caubul Court. He had been but a King of straw. The merest shadow of royalty had been suffered to cling to him. Akbar Khan, for his own uses, held the imbecile Prince firmly in his hands; and every day tightened his grasp. He stripped him of all his power; he stripped him of all his wealth. He threatened—he overawed him. He compelled him to attach his seal, or his signature,[264] to papers resigning all authority into the hands of the Wuzeer, and signifying his assent to everything that might be originated or sanctioned by him.[265] Deeming that the unscrupulous tyranny of Akbar Khan would soon manifest itself in the murder of the whole royal family, the Prince directed his thoughts towards the expediency of flight, and determined to claim the hospitality of the British General. But Akbar Khan suspected his intentions, and flung him into close confinement in the Balla Hissar. A Kuzzilbash gentleman, named Aga Mahomed, aided him to escape from his perilous captivity. A hole was cut through the roof of his prison, and he emerged into the outer air. But, overcome by terror and by opium, his limbs refused to perform their office, and on his perilous way to the Kuzzilbash quarters, he more than once implored his deliverer to carry him back to his place of captivity. The resolution, however, of Aga Mahomed prevailed, and, having lodged the wretched Prince for a while in the house of a Kuzzilbash lady—the Aga’s aunt—he raised a few thousand rupees by pledging his own and his mother’s property, and then started him on his perilous journey to the camping-ground of the British. With some difficulty, often fired upon as he went, Futteh Jung made his way through the passes; and at last, on the 1st of September, struggled into Pollock’s camp.[266] On the morning of the 7th of September, General Pollock, with the first division of his army, accompanied by General Sir Robert Sale, moved from Gundamuck,[267] in progress to the capital. The second division, under General M’Caskill, marched on the following day. A party of the Sikh contingent, under Captain Lawrence, accompanied this division. These regiments had been sent up to Jellalabad in June, and had been encamped on the opposite side of the river. They were the old Mussulman corps who had behaved so infamously on the other side of the Khybur, but who now had been talked over by Gholab Singh into something like propriety of demeanour.[268] They behaved at least as well as the British General expected, and when Lawrence sought permission for a party of 500 men, horse and foot, to accompany, under his directions, Pollock’s army to Caubul, the General was but little inclined to refuse the request. So a party of 300 horse and 200 foot marched, under Lawrence, with M’Caskill’s division; and the remainder occupied positions at Neemlah and Gundamuck.