before Ghuznee, where a new ruler was brought in under the wing of
Feringee infidels, what meritorious service was open to him? To have
shot the commander-in-chief would have merely promoted some other
infidel. The one sole revolutionary act appropriate to the exigency, was
to shoot the Shah Soojah. There, and in one moment, would have gone to
wreck the whole vast enterprize of the Christian dogs, their eight
hundred lakhs of rupees, and their forty thousand camels. The mighty
balloon would have collapsed; for the children of the Shah, it was
naturally imagined by Affghans, would divide the support of their
father's friends. That alone would have been victory to the Mussulmans;
and, in the case of the British army leaving the land, (which then was
looked for, at any rate, after one campaign,) the three Shahzades would,
by their fraternal feuds, ensure rapid defeat to each other. Under this
state of expectations, there was a bounty on regicide. All Ghazees
carried the word _assassin_ written on their foreheads. To shoot the
Shah in battle was their right; but they had no thought of waiting for
battle: they meant to watch his privacy; and some, even after they were
captured, attempted in good earnest to sting. Such were the men--
murderers by choice and proclamation--and the following were the
circumstances:--On the afternoon immediately preceding the storming of
Ghuznee, from the heights to the southward of that fortress descended a
body of these fanatics, making right for the Shah's camp. They were
anxious to do business. Upon this, a large mass of our cavalry mounted,
went forward to skirmish with them, and drove them back with the loss of
a standard. There the matter would have stopped; but Captain Outram,
casually passing, persuaded some of the cavalry to go round the hills,
to a point where they would have intercepted the retreat of the Ghazees
upon that line. Seeing this, the devotees mounted the heights, whither
the cavalry could not follow; but Captain Outram, vexed at the
disappointment, just then remarked an English officer marching in