The suspicions of Pottinger were aroused. The “friends” around him were assembling in such numbers as to form an army of their own; and Pottinger, determined as he was to betray neither suspicion nor alarm, could not help feeling that a sudden attack was by no means an improbable event to proceed out of all these armed gatherings. On the morning of the 3rd, the numbers of armed men around the Residency had increased. The reconnoitring parties had not returned. The chiefs were asking for presents, but refusing to do the service required of them. Everything seemed enveloped in an atmosphere of doubt and suspicion; and Pottinger, as he received the chiefs, who came pressing in with offers of friendship, could not help feeling that a struggle was at hand. Before noon, he received several of the more powerful chiefs at the Residency, and at noon went out to meet the petty Sirdars, who were clustering in the garden around his house. With characteristic Afghan cupidity, they assailed him with questions respecting the amount of the rewards that would be paid for their services. Pottinger entered into some explanations which the foremost of the party seemed disposed to consider satisfactory; but, expressing some doubts as to whether their clansmen would be satisfied, they requested that the nature of the overtures might be made known to those who were removed from the circle around the British Agent. Lieutenant Rattray, the Political Assistant, had just joined Pottinger in the garden. He was now requested to explain the matter to the rest, who were standing a little way apart. Accompanied by the principal chiefs, Rattray proceeded to the place where they were assembled, and, after some conversation, they quitted the garden, and repaired to “an adjoining stubble-field, where several parties of aimed men were standing.” It was not long before Rattray became aware that treachery was brewing. He turned to leave the field, and was immediately shot down. Pottinger was still sitting in conversation with some of the chiefs, when a man attached to the Hazerbash regiment ran up, and by hints, rather than by intelligible words, apprised him of the danger that surrounded him. The sound of firing confirmed the ominous intelligence. The chiefs rose and fled. Pottinger escaped into the castle, and from the _terre-pleine_ of the rampart looked down, and saw Rattray lying badly wounded on the ground, and “the recent tenderers of service making off in all directions with the plunder of the Hazerbash camp.”[152]