Recently, MacNeill’s spies at the Russian Legation in Teheran had passed on confusing intelligence—“absurd stories about a Muscovite prince” who was said to be expected on the Iranian frontier at the head of a body of 10,000 men who would assist the Persians in their siege of Herat. The details of the intelligence sounded suspect; but they seemed to hint at the existence of some Russian move on Afghanistan via Persia.
