Here they lived if not in contentment at least in considerable
comfort and amenity. They had the privacy of a delightful garden, and
enjoyed the freedom of bathing in the adjacent river. After the strife
between Akbar Khan and Futteh Jung ceased they were even permitted to
exchange visits with their countrymen, the hostages quartered on the
Balla Hissar. They were able to obtain money from the Cabul usurers, and
thus to supply themselves with suitable clothing and additions to their
rations, and their mails from India and Jellalabad were forwarded to them
without hindrance. The summer months were passed in captivity, but it was
no longer for them a captivity of squalor and wretchedness. Life was a
good deal better worth living in the pleasant garden house on the bank of
the Logur than it had been in the noisome squalor of Budiabad and the
vermin-infested huddlement of Zandeh. But they still-lived under the long
strain of anxiety and apprehension, for none of them knew what the morrow
might bring forth. While residing in the pleasant quarters in the Logur
valley the captives of the passes were joined by nine officers, who were
the captives of Ghuznee. After the capitulation the latter had been
treated with cruel harshness, shut up in one small room, and debarred
from fresh air and exercise. Colonel Palmer, indeed, had undergone the
barbarity of torture in the endeavour to force him to disclose the
whereabouts of treasure which he was suspected of having buried.
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