and confidence in their own prowess which
abysmal ignorance could alone account for. As they marched through the
streets of Kabul they set up, at the instigation of their officers it is
said, loud cries of insult and abuse of Cavignari by name, of the
British Embassy, and of the whole detested race of Feringhis. When this
was told to Cavignari he merely laughed and replied: "Curs only bark,
they do not bite." In a broad sense he was right, for if British
officers had always lain down wherever stray curs were moved to yelp,
the British Empire's outer frontier of to-day would be the cliffs of
Dover. But a much more weighty warning came from an undoubted
well-wisher, an old retired native officer of our Indian army, and a
firm friend of the envoy. His warning said that a plot was afoot; that
the cupidity of some had been appealed to by stories of large treasure
in the Residency, while the fanatical hatred of others had been secretly
fanned; that it was well therefore to be on guard. A warning coming from
such a friendly quarter was doubtless duly weighed and duly allowed for;
but after all, what could a peaceful Embassy do but trust to the honour
and integrity of the friendly Power whose guest it was? To show the
smallest sign of distrust by attempting, for instance, to place a merely
residential set of buildings, completely commanded all round, into a
state of defence, was only to court disaster. What could the British
Ambassador in Paris do against a brigade of troops unrestrained by the
French Government? What could an escort of seventy-five men, however
brave, do against thousands, and tens of thousands, of armed men?
Cavignari therefore took the bold course, which British officers, before
and since, have taken. He sat quietly, and with good and brave heart
faced the coming storm, if come it must; but greatly confident that it
might split and roll by on either side.

In the end, by sad mischance, a small matter, and one quite unconnected,
directly or indirectly, with the attitude of the British Embassy, caused
the storm to burst with sudden and uncontrollable fierceness. The
already half-mutinous Herati regiments were, as was not unusual in those
days, very much in arrears as regards their pay. For months they had
received none, and were, perhaps naturally, in an angry and sullen mood.
The finances of the State were in a chaotic condition, the treasury at
low ebb, and credit had receded to a vanishing point. After stavi