That many excesses were then committed is not to be denied. The principal gates of the city were guarded; but there were many other points of ingress, and our people streamed into the streets of Caubul, applied the firebrand to the houses, and pillaged the shops. Guilty and innocent alike fell under the heavy hand of the lawless retribution which was now to descend upon the inhabitants of Caubul. Many unoffending Hindoos, who, lulled into a sense of delusive security by the outward re-establishment of a government, had returned to the city and re-opened their shops, were now disastrously ruined.[324] In the mad excitement of the hour, friend and foe were stricken down by the same unsparing hand. Even the _Chundarwal_—where dwelt the friendly Kuzzilbashes—narrowly escaped destruction. Such excesses as were committed during the three last days of our occupation of Caubul must ever be deplored, as all human weakness and wickedness are to be deplored. But when we consider the amount of temptation and provocation—when we remember that the comrades of our soldiers and the brethren of our camp-followers had been foully butchered by thousands in the passes of Afghanistan; that everywhere tokens of our humiliation, and of the treachery and cruelty of the enemy, rose up before our people, stinging them past all endurance, and exasperating them beyond all control, we wonder less, that when the guilty city lay at their feet, they should not wholly have reined in their passions, than that, in such an hour, they should have given them so little head. It was now time that the British army should depart. Nothing remained to be done. Any longer continuance at Caubul would only have aggravated the sufferings of the people and increased our own difficulties. So, on the 11th of October, orders were issued for the commencement of the march on the following day. The unhappy Prince, Futteh Jung, had claimed and sought permission to accompany Pollock’s camp to India, and to seek an asylum in the Company’s dominions. The old blind King, Zemaun Shah, after all the vicissitudes of his eventful life, was now about again to become an exile, and to end his days in the same hospitable country. For the family of Shah Soojah protection also had been sought, and not refused; and now all these fragments of the great wreck of royalty—these miserable records of a most disastrous enterprise—were committed to the charge of one who had largely participated in its sufferings, but had happily escaped the ruin which had overwhelmed his comrades and his chief.[325] On the evening of the 11th of October they came out of the town, and found safety in Pollock’s hospitable camp.[326] The British colours, which had floated over the Balla Hissar, were now lowered; the regiment which had been posted there was withdrawn; and every preparation was made for the departure of the British army.