It remained to be seen whether Abdur Rahman could win Candahar and Herat, and, having won them, keep them.  At first Fortune smiled on his rival, Ayub.  That pretender sent a force from Herat southwards against the Ameer’s troops, defeated them, and took Candahar (July 1881).  But Abdur Rahman had learnt to scorn the shifts of the fickle goddess.  With a large force he marched to that city, bought over a part of Ayub’s following, and then utterly defeated the remainder.  This defeat was the end of Ayub’s career.  Flying back to Herat, he found it in the hands of the Ameer’s supporters, and was fain to seek refuge in Persia.  Both of these successes seem to have been due to the subsidies which the new Ameer drew from India[330].

[Footnote 330:  Abdur Rahman’s own account (op. cit. ch. ix.) ascribes his triumph to his own skill and to Ayub’s cowardice.]

We may here refer to the last scene in which Ayub played a part before Englishmen.  Foiled of his hopes in Persia, he finally retired to India.  At a later day he appeared as a pensioner on the bounty of that Government at a review held at Rawal Pindi in the Punjab in honour of the visit of H.R.H.  Prince Victor.  The Prince, on being informed of his presence, rode up to his carriage and saluted the fallen Sirdar.  The incident profoundly touched the Afghans who were present.  One of them said:  “It was a noble act.  It shows that you English are worthy to be the rulers of this land[331].”

[Footnote 331:  Eighteen Years in the Khyber Pass (1879-1898), by Colonel Sir R. Warburton, p. 213.  The author’s father had married a niece of the Ameer Dost Mohammed.]

The Afghans were accustomed to see the conquered crushed and scorned by the conqueror.  Hence they did not resent the truculent methods resorted to by Abdur Rahman in the consolidation of his power.  In his relentless grip the Afghan tribes soon acquired something of stability.  Certainly Lord Lytton never made a wiser choice than that of Abdur Rahman for the Ameership; and, strange to say, that choice obviated the evils which the Viceroy predicted as certain to accrue from the British withdrawal from Candahar[332].  Contrasting the action of Great Britain towards himself with that of Russia towards Shere Ali in his closing days, the new Ameer could scarcely waver in his choice of an alliance.  And while he held the Indian Government away at arm’s length, he never wavered at heart.

[Footnote 332:  Lord Lytton’s speech in the House of Lords, Jan. 1881.]

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