as were Yakub Khan’s faithful followers were asked to give their version of events, and their garbled stories were just as disappointing. Towards the close of the inquiry, however, there was more tangible matter to be used as a lever by which to force disclosures; and I believe that such fair evidence as will fully justify Yakub Khan’s deportation to India was obtained. That it will justify more I cannot venture to hope, and I must guard myself against misconception by saying that officially no sign has been given as to the conclusions of the Commission. There are inferences which observant men cannot fail to draw from little episodes in a camp-life so limited as this, and the rigorous attention paid to the safe-keeping of Yakub Khan is but one in a string of collateral circumstances which have been interesting us since the Proclamation in the Bala Hissar and the arrest of the Wazir and his fellow-ministers. We may be all wrong in our surmises as to what will occur: there is only the charmed circle of three, who have had to shape the conclusions now before the Government of India, in which speculation may be safe; but we believe in our prescience, and are proportionately happy. The final decision on so important a step as the punishment of a sovereign supposed to have been guilty of treachery—whether of the blackest kind, or merely of the nature arising from pusillanimity and indecision—must rest with the highest authorities; and if we were tempted to chafe at our helplessness in having the knowledge of all that has transpired withheld from us, we should be consoled at once by the thought that it is the voice of the Government alone which can pronounce the final sentence. That the Commission will have spoken freely, and not have shrunk from any startling conclusions it may have been driven to, I am fully convinced—they are not the men for half measures who have composed it—and in the full expectation that their recommendations will be carried out, even if the end is more than usually bitter, all of us who have sojourned before Cabul since we camped on Siah Sung Ridge, on 8th October, are content to rest until everything is made known. ----- Footnote 26: Contrary to expectation, no such narrative has ever been published. -----