AMANULLAH

further attacks on property by giving them the neces-
sities of life.

And while they rested throughout that morning ;
while Bacha Sachao, the Robin Hood of the hills, drew
ever closer to the capital, issuing threats as he came ;
while Sir Francis Humphrys assured the British Foreign
Office that all was well ; there came over the hills from
the north a big monoplane with the identification marks
of Russia on its wing.

Amanullah the Brave was off.

Some time during the night he had suffered the last
indignity that can be heaped upon a ruler. He had seen
his dreams crumbling with his Palace, He had tasted
the bitterness of utter and final defeat. He had had to
recall with cynicism those fine words of hope for the
future which I had heard him mutter only a few months
past.

Sadly he announced his decision to his forlorn rela-
tives. Sadly he bid them gather up their belongings, as
many as could fit into the cockpit of an aeroplane.
Where could he go for safety ?

And with a gesture that might have been one of
defiance, but proved to be one of pathos, he chose
Kandahar. There might still remain some of the faithful
who had followed the most eagerly his plans for the
future. Stubbornly he refused to believe that this was
more than a raid engineered by brigands of the hills for
his undoing. Never for a moment did he see the down-
fall of a Kingdom. But the Royal Seal was used again.
With a pathetic trust in the unchangeability of king-
ship, he issued a new decree reversing his orders for the
modernisation of the East. He issued the greatest
retrograde order ever made under the Royal Seal of any
country.

" Back to the primitive ! " was the keynote.

226