Whilst, in the Persian camp, Mahomed Shah was promising the English diplomatists to withdraw his army from Herat, an officer of the Russian Mission—M. Goutte, who had approved himself an adept in intrigue—was busying himself in Herat to bring about an arrangement that would give a colour of victory to the achievements of the investing force. If Kamran could have been persuaded to come out and wait upon Mahomed Shah in token of submission, the army might have been withdrawn with some show of credit, and the Russian Mission might have claimed a diplomatic victory. The Afghans were not, in their present reduced state, disinclined to acknowledge the supremacy of Mahomed Shah, and to consent that Kamran should visit the Persian monarch at Ghorian: but the Russian envoy demanded that he should come out of Herat, and make his obeisance to the King of Kings, as a preliminary to the withdrawal of the Persian army.[198]
This was on the 17th of August. On the morning of the 18th, Yar Mahomed sent a messenger to Pottinger, requesting his attendance at the Wuzeer’s quarters. The English officer was received with coldness almost amounting to discourtesy. Scarcely a word was spoken to him whilst the levee lasted; but when the assembly broke up, Pottinger, in a tone of voice that showed he was not to be trifled with, asked him why he had sent for him if he had nothing to communicate and nothing to ask. The Wuzeer took him by the hand and was about to leave the room; when Pottinger, arresting his progress, demanded a private interview. The room was cleared. The young English officer and the Afghan Sirdar sate down together, and were soon in friendly discourse. Yar Mahomed, the most plausible and persuasive of men,[199] soon stilled the tempest that was rising in Pottinger’s breast. All patience and gentleness now, he was ready to submit to any rebuke, and to utter any apology. They were soon in earnest conversation, as friends and brothers, regarding the general condition of the garrison and its available resources. The Wuzeer declared that “he regretted much the step he was obliged to take, but that indeed no alternative was left him—that every resource which even tyranny commanded was exhausted—that he dared not lay hands on the property of the combatants, though many of them had large funds.” The chiefs, he declared, were misers. The eunuch, Hadjee Ferooz, he said, could easily contribute two lakhs of rupees towards the expenses of the war, and the Shah might contribute ten; but neither would advance a farthing. “They are all,” he said, “equally niggardly. They have money, but they will not advance it. When their wives are being ravished before their faces, they will repent of their avarice; but now it is impossible to convince them of the folly and the danger of the course they are pursuing. With such people to deal with, and the soldiery crying out for pay and subsistence, how can I hold out longer by force?” He consented, however, to protract the negotiations to the utmost—to amuse the Persians—and to gain time. And in the mean while, he extracted from the weak and unresisting all that he could wring from them by torture. On the night after this conference with Pottinger, the Moonshee-Bashee died under the hands of the torturers.