"
"The devil, you say!" I ejaculated, surprised out of grammar and decorum
by the startling news. Persons who were in India in 1879 will not have
forgotten the endless speculation caused by the disappearance of the
Emir of Afghanistan, Shere Ali, in the spring of that year. Defeated by
the English at Ali Musjid and Peiwar, and believing his cause lost, he
fled, no one knew whither; though there is reason to think that he might
have returned to power and popularity among the Afghan tribes if he had
presented himself after the murder of Cavagnari.
"Yes," continued Isaacs, "he has been a prisoner in the palace of
Baithopoor for six weeks, and not a soul save the maharajah and you and
I know it. He came to Baithopoor, humbly disguised as a Yogi from the
hills, though he is a Mussulman, and having obtained a private hearing,
disclosed his real name, proposing to the sovereign a joint movement on
Kabul, then just pacified by the British, and promising all manner of
things for the assistance. Old Baitho, who is no fool, clapped him into
prison under a guard of Punjabi soldiers who could not speak a word of
Afghan, and after due consideration packed up his traps and betook
himself to Simla by short stages, for the journey is not an easy one for
a man of his years. He arrived the day before yesterday, and has
ostensibly come to congratulate the Viceroy on the success of the
British arms.
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