I think I must try it." There was a pause, during which he seemed settling the destiny of the two who were to be shelved in favour of a monogamic experiment.
Presently he asked if I had brought any horses, and hearing I had not, offered me a mount, and proposed we should ride round Jako, and perhaps, if there were time, take a look at Annandale in the valley, where there was polo, and a racing-ground.

I gladly accepted, and Isaacs despatched one of my servants, the faithful Kiramat Ali, to order the horses.
Meantime the conversation turned on the expedition to Kabul to avenge the death of Cavagnari.

I found Isaacs held the same view that I did in regard to the whole business.

He thought the sending of four Englishmen, with a handful of native soldiers of the guide regiment to protect them, a piece of unparalleled folly, on a par with the whole English policy in regard to Afghanistan.
"You English--pardon me, I forgot you did not belong to them--the English, then, have performed most of their great acts of valour as a direct consequence of having wantonly exposed themselves in situations where no sane man would have placed himself.

Look at Balaclava; think of the things they did in the mutiny, and in the first Afghan war; look at the mutiny itself, the result of a hair-brained idea that a country like India could be held for ever with no better defences than the trustworthiness of native officers, and the gratitude of the people for the 'kindly British rule.' Poor Cavagnari! when he was here last summer, before leaving on his mission, he said several times he should never came back.