Barehanded now, the Afghan struggled like a tiger with his powerful adversary, whom he strove to unhorse. Waller endeavoured again and again to run him through the body; but the Sheffield blade bent, and failed to pierce the fine rings of the Oriental shirt of mail, so to end the affair, he smote the Khan repeatedly on the face with the hilt of his sword, but the helmet bar protected him; then, by making his horse rear, he endeavoured to cast him off, or kick him under foot. Stunned and confused, the savage Afghan at last sank downward, and by some mischance got his head into the stirrup-leather of Waller, whose left foot was unavoidably pressed upon his throat; and as the horse, terrified by this unusual appendage, plunged wildly, and swerved round and round, the wretched Khan was speedily strangled, and sank into a state of insensibility, from which he never recovered, as a couple of the 13th passed their fixed bayonets through his body, and one tore off his beautiful steel cap, from which Waller afterwards obtained the jewel--a sapphire of great value. The cap itself, which was studded with those turquoises that are found in the mountains of Nishapour, in Khorassan, he tossed to the two soldiers, who proceeded at once to poke them out with their bayonets. "If I ever meet my Mabel again, this sapphire shall be a gift for her!" thought Waller, with a sigh of weariness, for his victory brought neither triumph nor regret to his heart. It was afterwards remembered, as a curious instance of retributive justice, that Amen Oollah Khan should die in the battle of Tizeen, almost by the same death as that to which he put his luckless elder brother, that he might succeed to his inheritance--strangulation. The whole affair occupied only a few minutes; but, long ere it was over, the cavalry had swept far in pursuit, and Waller found himself almost alone. On one side was savage terror; on the other, civilized men thirsty for justice and vengeance; and so on all sides the turbaned hordes were stricken down by those who felt that to them was left the task of atoning for the betrayal and death of friends, comrades, and relatives; and there, on the heights of Tizeen, the standard of Ackbar Khan was trod in the dust, never to rise again! Once more the sun went down in blood upon the passes of the Khyberees; but once again they were open, and the way to Cabul was clear. Resistance had ceased; scarcely a single juzail shot was fired next day, when, after halting for the night, our infantry began their march beyond Tizeen, traversing, as the despatch has it, "those frightful ravines, now doubly frightful because of the heaps of dead bodies with which the narrow way was choked."