But though safety for a time had been gained, the chances of ultimate escape seemed hopeless. The houses were filled to overflowing with sepoy soldiers and camp followers, men, women, and children, and when by and by the large guns of the fortress were trained upon them the slaughter was very great. The British officers, it is stated, expected nothing less than death. They even began to burn the regimental colours to prevent them falling into the enemy's hands. In this extremity the Afghan leaders made fresh proposals of honourable treatment on surrender, and Colonel Palmer at last consented to yield. How Nicholson regarded this move was very clear. In his anger at the base treachery he had witnessed he would have fought to the last gasp ere trusting again to the word of an Afghan. When the command came to surrender he refused to obey, and it is recorded that he "drove the enemy thrice back beyond the walls at the point of the bayonet, before he would listen to the order given him to make his company lay down their arms." Then, with bitter tears, he gave up his sword, and allowed himself to be made prisoner. Of the five months' captivity at Ghuzni, from March to August 1842, we learn most from Lieutenant Crawford's narrative. From the first the prisoners were treated miserably. The British officers--ten in number--were confined in a small room "only 18 feet by 13," and for several weeks deprived of any change of clothing. What possessions they had were taken from them by their guards; watches, money, and jewellery, and even their pocket-knives, thus being lost to them. Only one officer succeeded in retaining a cherished trinket, and this was Nicholson himself. Captain Trotter, who records the incident,[1] quotes from a letter sent by Nicholson to his mother in which the writer says, "I managed to preserve the little locket with your hair in it . . . and I was allowed to keep it, because, when ordered to give it up, I lost my temper and threw it at the soldier's head, which was certainly a thoughtless and head-endangering act. However, he seemed to like it, for he gave strict orders that the locket was not to be taken from me." The severities of the confinement increased when in April news came of the death of Shah Soojah at the hands of an assassin, and the little prison in the citadel became almost a second "Black Hole of Calcutta." The one window was shut and darkened, making the air of the room unbearable. To add to the horror of the situation, Colonel Palmer was now cruelly tortured before his comrades' eyes, one of his feet being twisted by means of a tent peg and rope. This was done in the hope that he or some one of his fellow-captives would reveal the hiding-place of a phantom "four lakhs of rupees," which the Afghans declared the British had buried in the vicinity.