The Hindustani before he departed came to take leave of me--his enemy! the coachman is not an enemy to the horses. I gave him some tea and sent him away, but I noticed he did not limp; he must have given in soon at the post. Then the other one, the dresser, linked the drunkard with him, and they aimed, not at me, but at the Armenian. They would cut him off. Now this fellow had been honest according to his lights. Every piece of advice he gave me I found to be sound: he instructed me in the customs of the country, described what should be done at festivals, what at visits of condolence; told me who were the dangerous men and who the true servants of His Highness; prevented my servants robbing me, and though he was rough and unpolished he had showed to me in a hundred minor ways a careful thought almost amounting to affection. Added to this, his dry humour and his yarns in broken English had whiled away many a dull hour when, as a newcomer, the sense of utter loneliness had oppressed me. He seemed my one friend. Was I to go back on him? The Hindustanis wrote to His Highness accusing the Armenian, among other things, of translating the Amîr’s words to me falsely--a most serious matter. But how could they know the Armenian translated falsely if they did not understand English? The drunkard understood, though he spoke “book English,” and haltingly; hence the necessity of him in the plot. I saw the Armenian one day looking very dejected, and I asked him what was the matter. He told me of the accusation that had just been made against him. “Perhaps Amîr Sahib kill me,” he said. Wishing to cause him as much distress as possible, the Hindustanis had shown their hand. It was a weak thing to do. The original conception was crafty, for I saw at once how difficult a thing it was to rebut; and then, too, it was just the idea to “catch on” in the mind of an Oriental monarch. How could I say the Armenian translated correctly when I understood little or no Persian? If anything was to be done it must be done promptly. I determined, therefore, to carry the war into the enemy’s camp, and I sat down at once and wrote to His Highness in English.