text:  Yes reader but by what manner of deception? He was distant from the Bala Hissar by less than two miles; he was then in almost daily communication with it; and yet upon a matter confessedly one of life and death for 17 000 souls he took no steps for ascertaining the truth! But these things we pass in order to reach a point most superficially treated by Lieutenant Eyre which was in truth the original fountain of the whole calamity