Burnes did still have one trump card: Dost Mohammad had made it very clear that he would have preferred an alliance with Britain to one with Russia, and had gone out of his way to demonstrate this. Vitkevitch was being kept virtually under house arrest in the haveli of Dost Mohammad’s Minister, Mirza Sami Khan, a much less grand lodging than that given to Burnes, and had still not yet been received by Dost Mohammad;
