Cannons after Prayer

Pretty, resourceful Mme Andree Viollis was last week the first journalist to enter Afghanistan's freshly captured capital Kabul (TIME, Oct. 21). Her paper Le Petit Parisien had staked her to an airplane. With quick, appraising, bright French eyes she took the measure of the Conqueror, potent Nadir Khan, told how he rode through the streets on a prancing charger preceded by musicians, how his swart warriors danced and sang, how the people hailed him with shouts of "Liberator! Liberator!" Nadir had liberated Kabul from "The Usurper," rapacious Bandit-King Habibullah. But as the professed champion of rightful King Amanullah (now in exile at Rome) the Conqueror and Liberator found himself last week in a slight quandary. Ambition and perhaps destiny called him to the Throne. Duty bade him proclaim the restoration of King Amanullah. Came a great warrior shout of "Nadir is our King!"--a pointed suggestion which, according to Mme Viollis, "the Conqueror heroically resisted." "If Nadir doesn't become King, we shall all go away!" chorused the tribesmen, or words to that effect. Still the Conqueror held temptation at bay, but after some further shouting he was seen to bow his head. After profound meditation he spoke huskily: "Allah is my witness, I did not want to become King! But I am the servitor of the tribes of my country. Since the People designate me King, I accept! Let us pray." After the fervent prayer cannon boomed a 21 gun salute. First and only country to recognize Conqueror Nadir last week was his northern neighbor, Russia. Hardly had the smoke from Kabul's ancient brass saluting cannon died away than Afghans were telling each other hot news. Servants searching the hastily deserted palace of "Usurper" Habibullah had come upon a locked closet. Inside the closet were six smouldering corpses. Three were recognizable: Abdul Majif and Hayatullah, brother and half-brother of exiled Amanullah, and Mohammed Osman, one-time governor of Kandahar, whose great Afghan influence once won him the title of "King-maker." All three, held as hostages, had been murdered as the armies of Nadir approached Kabul.