Lord Roberts of Kandahar relates the following of himself: “My intention, when I left Kabul, was to ride as far as the Khyber Pass; but suddenly a presentiment, which I have never been able to explain to myself, made me retrace my steps and hurry back toward Kabul--a presentiment of coming trouble which I can only characterize as instinctive. “The feeling was justified when, about halfway between Butkhak and Kabul, I was met by Sir Donald Stewart and my chief of the staff, who brought me the astounding news of the total defeat by Ayab Khan of Brigadier-general Burrows’s brigade at Malwand, and of Lieutenant-general Primrose, with the remainder of his force, being besieged at Kandahar.”[23] Most people are familiar with the story told by President Lincoln to a friend,--told too, in his own half-playful, half-pathetic way, as if to minimize the effect upon that friend’s mind. It is given in the words of that friend:-- “It was just after my election in 1860, when the news had been coming in thick and fast all day and there had been a great ‘hurrah, boys,’ so that I was well tired out and went home to rest, throwing myself down on a lounge in my chamber. Opposite where I lay was a bureau with a swinging glass upon it (and here he got up and placed furniture to illustrate the position), and looking in that glass I saw myself reflected nearly at full length; but my face, I noticed, had _two_ separate and distinct images, the tip of the nose of one being about three inches from the tip of the other. I was a little bothered, perhaps startled, and got up and looked in the glass, but the illusion vanished. On lying down again, I saw it a second time, plainer if possible, than before; and then I noticed that one of the faces was a little paler--say, five shades--than the other, I got up, and the thing melted away; and I went off, and in the excitement of the hour forgot all about it--nearly, but not quite, for the thing would once in a while come up and give me a little pang, as if something uncomfortable had happened. When I went home again that night, I told my wife about it, and a few days afterward I made the experiment again, when (with a laugh), sure enough! the thing came again; but I never succeeded in bringing the ghost back after that, though I once tried very industriously to show it to my wife, who was somewhat worried about it. She thought it was a ‘sign’ that I was to be elected to a second term of office, and that the paleness of one of the faces was an omen that I should not see life through the last term.”