On the 5th, Clerk, having intimated his desire to wait on the Maharajah, to discuss matters of business, was invited to attend at his own time. He went in the afternoon; and at once solicited the honour of a private audience. Heera Singh was sitting beside him, and other courtiers were in attendance. A motion of the hand dismissed them all; and Clerk was invited to seat himself in Heera Singh’s chair. But the British minister, not wishing that the conversation should be carried on without any witnesses, suggested the recall of Dhyan Singh and the Fakir, who, with Heera Singh and one or two others, were present at the interview. Clerk had a difficult game to play at this time. He had to obtain the most effectual co-operation of the Sikh Government that could be elicited in this hour of trial; and yet he was unwilling to lay bare to the Sikh Durbar the real designs of his own government. He had been directed to disclose those designs to the Sikhs—to intimate that it was the intention of the British government, after rescuing the Jellalabad garrison, to withdraw the army to the British frontier; but inwardly indignant at the feebleness of the policy which was favoured at Calcutta, he shrunk from avowing these intentions of withdrawal, and endeavoured rather to elicit the views of the Lahore Cabinet than to expose the designs of his own. But Shere Singh was not inclined to be less cautious than the British envoy. When Clerk asked what he intended to do to rescue Sale’s garrison from destruction, the Maharajah replied that the Sikhs were very desirous to aid the British Government, but that the matter called for consideration. Bristling up at the coolness of this reply, Clerk said that the whole question of the alliance between the two states might call for future consideration; but that the present moment when the safety of a beleagured garrison was at stake, was no time for consideration. Qualifying then his former remark, the Sikh ruler said that he meant only that the mode of procedure called for consideration, and he began to talk about the advantage of erecting sungahs and crowning the heights of the Khybur Pass[54]—to all of which Clerk readily assented.