The opportunity for vengeance came sooner than he could have expected. In the spring of the next year, when a civil servant named Vans Agnew and Lieutenant Anderson of the Bombay army were escorting a new diwan or governor to the city of Multan, they were treacherously attacked, and their murder was the signal for a general uprising of the Sikh soldiery. News of the rebellion was carried through the country with wonderful speed; it came to the ears of Rahmut and Minghal, and, fretting as they were under the restraints imposed upon them by the proximity of the British, they resolved at once to make common cause with the revolted Sikhs. It happened that Mr. Barclay had lately "gone into camp" at a spot very near the place where he had given his decision against Minghal. The Pathan chiefs set off with their armed followers, rushed Mr. Barclay's almost unprotected camp, for he had as yet heard nothing of the revolt at Multan, and the deputy-commissioner, without a moment's warning, was shot through the heart. His little son would have suffered the same fate, so bitter was the tribesmen's enmity against all the Feringhis, but for Rahmut, who remembered how much he had been attracted by the boy, and saw an opportunity for which he had yearned--of providing himself with an heir. One of his wives, now dead, had borne him two sons, but both had died fighting against Ranjit Singh, and his two living wives had given him only daughters. In such cases it was common for a chief to adopt a son and make him his heir. Rahmut, now getting on in years, had envied the English sahib who was blessed with a boy so sturdy and frank and fearless. While Minghal, therefore, was wreaking his vengeance on the father, Rahmut caught up the son, set him on his saddlebow, and forbade any of his men to lay hands on him. He had resolved to take the boy back with him by and by to Shagpur, to bring him up as a Pathan, and if he proved worthy, to proclaim him his heir.
Minghal was very indignant when the old chief announced his intention. The boy, he protested, was an infidel dog: it was shame to a Pathan and a follower of the Prophet to show kindness to any of the hated race who had laid their hands on this land, claiming tribute from the free-men of the hills, deposing and setting up governors at their will. But Rahmut would not be denied. Minghal dared not cross the old warrior; for the moment he appeared to acquiesce, but in his heart he hated his neighbour chief, and resolved from that time to set himself in rivalry against him. If he could not remove the boy, he could at least bide his time, and when Rahmut's time came to die, it should be seen whether he could not rely on racial and religious prejudice to prevent the scandal of a tribe being ruled by an infidel Feringhi.