in the fast-falling snow.

Lady Sale and her daughter were in great distress at the death of
Lieutenant Sturt, and took little interest in the proposal that all the
women should be placed under the protection of Mahommed Akbar Khan, who
had suggested this step. However, with the other women, they accepted
the proffered protection, and were taken to a fort in the Khurd Kabul,
and eventually they heard that the force with which they had quitted
Kabul had been annihilated.

On January 17, Lady Sale and her companions, among whom were now
several British officers whom Mahommed Akbar Khan had captured, arrived
at Badiabad, where, in a small mud fort the party, consisting of 9
women, 20 men and 14 children, were kept prisoners. However, they were
not molested, and as food of a kind was supplied to them, they did not
complain. Their uncomfortable surroundings were, however, made more
unpleasant by a series of earthquakes.

On February 19, Lady Sale was spreading some clothes out to dry on the
flat roof of the fort, when a terrible shock occurred, causing the
place to collapse. Lady Sale fell with the building, but rose from the
ruins unhurt. Even the wounds received by her on the day Lieutenant
Sturt was killed were not aggravated by the accident. Before dark that
day there were twenty-five distinct shocks, and about fifteen more
during the night. For some weeks after this they were constantly
occurring. At one spot, not far away, 120 Afghans and 20 Hindus were
buried in the ruins of buildings shaken to the ground.

During her captivity Lady Sale had been able to write letters to her
husband, who was shut up with his garrison in Jelalabad, and her great
desire was that he should be able to hold the place until relief
arrived. On March 15 a rumour reached her that it had been captured by
the Afghans, but to her great delight she heard later that the rumour
was false. She was exceedingly proud of her husband, and gloried in
his successes. A successful defence of the city would, she knew, add
considerably to his reputation. During the following five months Lady
Sale and her daughter were continually being moved from one place to
another, and before long it became clear to them that the Afghan
rebellion was being rapidly quelled. Rumours of British victories
reached them, and the man who was in charge of them, while moving from
place to place, made it understood that for Rs. 20,000 and Rs. 1000 a
month for life h