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Rh played upon Burnes's credulity as cunningly as Iago played upon the Moor's.

In the middle of October Keane himself with the residue of his Bengal troops was quietly marching towards Pesháwar. Shortly before his departure from Kábul, the Envoy had taken fright at tidings just received from Pottinger at Herát concerning the intended march of a Russian force against the Khán of Khíva. He imparted to Keane by letter his forebodings of Russian progress to the banks of the Oxus. Keane ridiculed his friend's fears, and declared that 'the only banks he now thought of were the banks of the Thames.' His own fears for the future were not of Russian encroachments, but of Afghán revolts. 'I cannot but congratulate you on quitting the country' — he said to an officer who had been ordered to join his force — 'for mark my words, it will not be long before some signal catastrophe takes place.' He himself pursued his way unmolested through the Kháibar. But hardly had his troops emerged from its gloomy gorges, when the Afrídís of the Pass renewed their attacks upon the little garrison of Alí Masjid, which commands the eastern outlets from the Pass. After some lively skirmishing checked by the advance of troops from Pesháwar and Jalálábád, Macnaghten's agent, Captain Mackeson, induced the sturdy clansmen of the Kháibar to refrain from further molestation in return for a yearly subsidy of £8,000.

This arrangement for keeping the passes open was