The victims said to have been first marked for the assassin’s knife were Abdoollah Khan and Meer Musjedee. They were known to have been the movers of the attack on Burnes’s house; and were regarded, therefore, as the murderers of the officers who were massacred there on the morning of the outbreak. They were known, too, as the boldest and most unscrupulous of the insurgent chiefs. It seemed, therefore, an act alike of retribution and expediency to strike them down in the full flush of success—in the hey-day of their sanguinary career. There is no need in this chapter to endeavour to penetrate the mist of painful obscurity that envelopes the disappearance of the two chiefs. It will be time to discuss the subject when I come to record their deaths. CHAPTER IV. [November-1841.] Action on the Beh-meru Hills—Looked-for Advent of Sale’s Brigade—Arrival of Pottinger—The Siege of Charekur—Destruction of the Goorkha Regiment—Withdrawal of Sale to Jellalabad—Question of Concentration in the Balla Hissar.—Bearing of the King—The Action on the 23rd of November—Negotiations. On the 13th of November the enemy occupied, in great strength, the Beh-meru hills. They had planted two guns in a commanding position, and were cannonading the British cantonment. It was at once apparent to the Envoy that to leave them unmolested to fire into our works would be miserably to confess our own weakness, and to encourage the enemy in the continuance of a course of aggression which might end in the loss of our post. But it was difficult to persuade the military authorities to send out a force to dislodge them. Captain Lawrence was despatched, in the first instance, to the General; but the message he bore was coldly received, and he returned discouraged to the Envoy, with a recommendation that he should prefer his request in person. Macnaghten went. But the military chiefs were in no mood to listen to his counsel. The pliant General would soon have yielded; but the more dogmatic and self-confident Brigadier was ready with a host of objections, and a great array of difficulties, to overwhelm the arguments of the Envoy. Macnaghten, however, was peremptory. The guns, he said, must be taken at all risks, and at once, or the loss of cantonments to-morrow might be the result of our supineness to-day. There was again a talk of responsibility. The Envoy took the responsibility on himself, and a strong detachment, with two guns, under Brigadier Shelton,[146] was ordered out for service.