' Ayoub's great marquee had been precipitately abandoned,
and the fine carpets covering its floor were left. But in the hurry of
their flight the Afghans had found time to illustrate their barbarity by
murdering their prisoner Lieutenant Maclaine, whose body was found near
Ayoub's tent with the throat cut. To this deed Ayoub does not seem to
have been privy. The sepoys who were prisoners with Maclaine testified
that Ayoub fled about eleven o'clock, leaving the prisoners in charge of
the guard with no instructions beyond a verbal order that they were not
to be killed. It was more than an hour later when the guard ordered the
unfortunate officer out of his tent and took his life.
The victory was complete and Ayoub's army was in full rout. Unfortunately
no cavalry were in hand for a pursuit from the Mazra camp. The scheme for
intercepting the fugitive Afghans by sending the cavalry brigade on a
wide movement across the Urgundab, and striking the line of their
probable retreat toward the Khakrez valley, may have been ingenious in
conception, but in practice did not have the desired effect. But Ayoub
had been decisively beaten. He had lost the whole of his artillery
numbering thirty-two pieces, his camp, an immense quantity of ammunition,
about 1000 men killed; his army was dispersed, and he himself was a
fugitive with a mere handful along with him of the army of 12,000 men
whom he had commanded in the morning.
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