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 staving off the day of reckoning as long as possible, the welcome news reached the Herati troops that they were to receive their pay in full next morning, September 3rd, at the treasury in the Bala Hissar.

Assembling there early, they soon learnt to their disgust and indignation that they were only to receive one month’s pay, a miserable pittance to men long in want.  On the smouldering embers of mutiny someone wilfully, or from mere expediency, threw the spark:  “Go to the British Embassy and demand pay; there is lots of money there.”  The idea caught like wildfire, and the whole mass of soldiery dashed off to the Embassy, situated only a few hundred yards away.