tedness--Start for Kabul--Letter to the Amir
--Proclamation to the people of Kabul--Yakub Khan's agents
--Reasons for remaining at Alikhel

My wife and I thought and talked much over our new life on the
frontier, to which we both looked forward with great interest and
pleasure, but, before entering upon it, we settled to go home for
a time to place our boy at school and see our friends, and we were
arranging our plans accordingly, when suddenly our 'castles in the
air' were dashed to the ground by a ruthless blow from the hand of
Fate, and the whole of India, the whole of the civilized world, was
struck with grief, horror, and indignation at the awful news of the
massacre at Kabul of Cavagnari and his gallant companions.

Throughout the month of August telegrams and letters constantly came
from Cavagnari (now a Lieutenant-Colonel and a K.C.B.) to the Viceroy,
the Foreign Secretary, and myself, in which he always expressed
himself in such a manner as to lead to the belief that he was
perfectly content with his position, and felt himself quite secure;
and in his very last letter, dated the 30th August, received after his
death, he wrote: 'I personally believe that Yakub Khan will turn out
to be a very good ally, and that we shall be able to keep him to
his engagements.' His last telegram to the Viceroy, dated the 2nd
September, concluded with the words, 'All well.' Cavagnari mentioned
in one of his letters that the Afghan soldiers were inclined to be
mutinous, and in another that a dispute had arisen in the bazaar
between them and the men of the British escort, but at the same time
he expressed his confidence in the Amir's ability and determination
to maintain order; I could not, however, help being anxious about
Cavagnari, or divest myself of the feeling that he might be
over-estimating Yakub Khan's power, even if His Highness had the will,
to protect the Mission.

Between one and two o'clock on the morning of the 5th September, I was
awakened by my wife telling me that a telegraph man had been wandering
round the house and calling for some time, but that no one had
answered him.[1] I got up, went downstairs, and, taking the telegram
from the man, brought it up to my dressing-room, and opened it; it
proved to be from Captain Conolly, Political Officer at Alikhel, dated
the 4th September. The contents told me that my worst fears--fears I
had hardly acknowledged to myself--had been only too fully realized.
The te