“How generous!” ran the message, after much more in the same style. “You look round to see who your neighbours are. I am your weakest one. You, therefore, assemble all your force to rob me of my last of eighty cities. You answer my supplication for aid by the roar of your cannon and bombs. Raise the siege; retire and give me the troops and guns I want to recover my kingdom; and I will give you Herat on my return. Send the Afghan traitors out of your camp. If you persist in your present purpose, future ages will call you a robber, who preyed upon the aged and helpless. If you do not act generously, God is great; and on him we rely. We have still got our swords.” Such was the pith of the message which Pottinger was commissioned to deliver to the Shah of Persia. It came out by snatches, in an excited spasmodic manner; but was understood by the British officer. Having heard all that was to be said, he took his departure, and joined the Wuzeer upon the works. But, for some time, the projected negotiations never advanced beyond the threshold. It occurred to Shah Kamran that it would be well to strike a blow, and to achieve some demonstrable success, before despatching an emissary to the Persian camp, lest the overtures should be attributed to conscious weakness, and rather increase than lower the pretensions of the Shah. An attempt was soon made to strike an important blow, but it was singularly unsuccessful. On the 21st of January, the Afghans determined to make a night attack, in considerable force, upon the camp of Sirdar Mahomed Khan at Karta. Nearly the whole garrison turned out, and was reviewed by the Wuzeer. The King himself, looking out from a tower of the citadel, surveyed in secret the gathering below, as Yar Mahomed, on the _terre-pleine_ of the rampart, surrounded by all the principal chiefs not absolutely on duty elsewhere, mustered the fighting men on the lower part of the works. Twelve hundred men were selected for the sortie, and told off in detachments, under the command of different chiefs. Divesting themselves of whatever could, in any way, encumber their movements—of everything, indeed, but their shirts, drawers, skull-caps, and swords—they filed out of the Kootoobchak gate, the chief of each party naming his men, one by one, as they crossed the drawbridge. Futteh Mahomed Khan, to whom the command of the entire party had been entrusted, followed last, upon foot. But of all these great preparations nothing came at last. “The business failed; no attack was made; and every one was blamed by his neighbour.”[163]