ONLY AN ENSIGN

  A Tale of the Retreat from Cabul.


  BY JAMES GRANT,

  AUTHOR OF "THE ROMANCE OF WAR," "FIRST LOVE AND LAST LOVE,"
  "LADY WEDDERBURN'S WISH," ETC.



  IN THREE VOLUMES.

  VOL. II.



  "Come what come may,
  Time and the Hour runs through the roughest day."--_Macbeth._


  LONDON:
  TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE ST., STRAND.
  1871.
  [_All Rights Reserved._]




  LONDON:
  BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.




  CONTENTS.

  CHAP.

  I.--BEYOND THE LAND OF THE SUN
  II.--IN THE AFGHAN FORT
  III.--THE WARNING
  IV.--WHAT TOOK US THERE
  V.--TIFFIN WITH THE TRECARRELS
  VI.--THE APPOINTMENT
  VII.--"THE BAND PLAYS AT TWO"
  VIII.--THE DRIVE
  IX.--ADVENTURE IN CABUL
  X.--THE MOSQUE OF BABER
  XI.--"_Only an Ensign_"
  XII.--ASSASSINATION
  XIII.--HOME IN THE SPIRIT
  XIV.--IN THE FORTIFIED CAMP
  XV.--CHRISTMAS AT CABUL
  XVI.--THE MORNING OF THE RETREAT
  XVII.--THE HALT BY THE LOGHUR RIVER
  XVIII.--SPIRITED AWAY!
  XIX.--THE SKIRMISH
  XX.--IN THE KHYBER PASS
  XXI.--WALLER'S ADVENTURES
  XXII.--CHANCE BETTER THAN DESIGN
  XXIII.--DENZIL A NAWAB
  XXIV.--A MEETING
  XXV.--MARRIED OR NOT?
  XXVI--THE WANDERER
  XXVII.--THE LOST STEAMER




ONLY AN ENSIGN.



CHAPTER I.

BEYOND THE LAND OF THE SUN.

Far, far away from rough and rocky Cornwall--from steep Tintagel with
all its memories of King Arthur's knights, his "Table Round" and
flirting queen; from the traditionary haunts of its giant Tregeagle,
and from its wondrous mines deep, deep down below even the blue waves
of the Atlantic; far away beyond the Indus and the frontiers of
British India, fifteen hundred miles from Calcutta, and seven hundred
from the shores of the Arabian Gulf, we have to change the scene to
where a British army, under General Elphinstone, was cantoned before
the city of Cabul, ere we can look after the fortunes of Denzil
Devereaux, of whom we have barely thought, while progressing through
an entire volume of our story.

A detachment of his regiment, under a captain named Waller, was
attached to General's Trecarrel's Native Infantry Brigade; and an
afternoon in November of the second year after the military
occupation of the province by her Majesty's troops, found him
quartered, with his brother officers, the aforesaid
captain--popularly known as Bob Waller--a lieutenant named Jack
Polwhele, also of the "Cornish Light Bobs," in one of the little
native forts, of which a dozen or more lay scattered over the plain
between the British cantonments and the bleak range of hills named
Siah Sung, or "the Black Rocks."

The apartment in which the three were seated, each in a bamboo easy
chair and wearing fur-trimmed poshteens (or native pelisses) above
their blue undress surtouts, while they idled over brandy-pawnee and
a box of cigars, was neither luxurious nor splendid, being simply a
portion of a half shattered tower of native construction, before the
windows of which the Bengal Sappers had erected a species of
verandah, as a promenade and shade from the sun in summer; but now
the season was winter; and though the evening was temperate, a fire
blazed merrily in the open grate-less fireplace, and shed a cheerful
glow on the whitewashed walls, the only adornments of which were
certain caricatures (executed by Waller with burnt cork) of the
regimental adjutant, of the brigade major, of "old Elphinstone," or
other personages, to him more or less obnoxious.  A charpoy or native
bedstead, a few bullock-trunks, an overland ditto, an iron
washing-stand, several pairs of boots, a few swords, whips, guns and
hogspears, with any number of bottles, full or empty, littering the
corners, made up the splendours of Bob Waller's quarters in the fort,
from which, some two years before, Sir Robert Sale's brigade had
summarily expelled sundry unwilling Kussilbashes at the point of the
bayonet.

The rooms of Denzil and Jack Polwhele in other parts of the same rude
edifice were precisely similar; but their soldiers were hutted in the
cantonments close by.

One window of Waller's room faced the hills to the westward and the
Arab-looking village of Behmaru, which means "the place of the
husbandless," from a legend of the time of old--remote, perhaps, as
the wars of Mohammed Ghori.  An Afghan maid of high rank had been
betrothed to a chief whom she tenderly loved; for the Afghans, though
strict Mussulmen, neither seclude their wives, as others usually do,
nor wed without duly winning them.  But tidings came that he had
fallen in battle against the Hindoos, on which she pined away and
died.  The news, however, was premature, for the chief recovered from
his wounds, and returned to find only her grave on the hillside now
called Behmaru; so he brought from Bourkhor one of those strange and
spectral-like white stones, which, when placed upright, so closely
resemble an eastern woman in her drapery, and set it above her tomb.
In his old age he, too, was laid beneath it, and in time to come a
village sprung up there.

Another window faced the south, affording the more ample view of the
huts and compounds (_i.e._, hedges and palisades) of the British
Cantonments, and about two miles beyond them the great city of Cabul,
surrounded of course by a fortified wall, as what city in that part
of the world is not.  Here and there rose above the flat roofs of its
narrow streets the tower or castle of a chief; the dome or minar of a
mosque; and the huge mass of its vast bazaar, built in the time of
Aurengzebe, when it became the trade emporium of Central Asia; and
high over all, the Bala Hissar, or palace (wherein resided the Shah
Sujah, whose power our troops had come most unwisely to uphold) and
which was also the citadel or fortress--a place of vast strength; and
far away in the distance, rising like the waves of a frozen sea
against a deep blue sky, were the mighty peaks of Kohistan and Hindoo
Koosh, in height fourteen thousand feet above the plain, and crowned
by eternal snows, unchanged in aspect and character, as the dwellers
there have been since Alexander marched past them with his Greeks to
the conquest of the Eastern world, and since Malimoud of Ghuznee
poured his hordes across the Indus in the eleventh century.

The boy ensign--he over whose couch a pale, sad mother hung, watching
as he lay asleep and unconscious on the eventful morning of his
departure--watching him tearfully and tenderly while he was _yet her
own_--was now a well knit, well set up and weather-beaten looking
young fellow.  A few months of campaigning had changed the erratic
Sandhurst cadet, whose best exploits had been breaking lamps and
dismounting the college guns to spite the governor, into a practical
soldier; and all that remained in him of the mere lad had nearly
given place to the quietly confident air of a man--one who could take
his part in society as the leader of others; one who had faced perils
and surmounted them by his own unaided energy; for already had Denzil
been twice under fire, and had, with a small party, defeated more
than one plundering band of the fierce Beloochees.

Ignorant of the calamitous state of matters at home, and of the
sorrows of his sister, Denzil, with the natural elasticity of youth,
aided by the excitement consequent to military life in the
cantonments of Cabul, had recovered the first shock occasioned by his
father's loss at sea, and hence on the evening we have met him again,
he was in excellent spirits.  General Trecarrel had arrived shortly
before this, and was now in command of a brigade.  His daughters were
with him, and proved leading attractions in that little circle of
British residents, the European society, military and diplomatic, in
and about Cabul, of which Lady Sale and Lady Macnaghten were the
recognised heads; and Denzil had been duly introduced to Mabel and
Rose by his friend Waller (who had known them in Calcutta), of the
result of which introduction we shall have more to say in time to
come.

Audley Trevelyan had not yet come up country, as he had been landed
on the sick list at Bombay.

The young ladies knew well the story of Constance's alleged marriage,
and Denzil's consequent claim to rank; but the tale seemed strange
and mysterious, and good taste caused them to be silent, and to keep
in the Cantonments and Residency at least what they deemed to be the
secret of Denzil, who was an especial favourite with them both; but
he never took them into his confidence, though he had taken his
friend Waller, one day when they were on guard together at the
arsenal and commissariat fort.  On that occasion but little passed,
and it proved a guide for the future conduct of Denzil.

"You remember our quarrel, Bob?" he asked.

"And the interrupted duel--what griffs we were!  Yes--well; what of
it?"

"I want your advice, old fellow;" and then he read to Waller certain
portions of a letter from Sybil, impressing upon him the necessity
for silence on their now unsupported claims.

"Your sister is right, Denzil, and advises you like a sensible girl,"
said Waller, after a pause, during which he had been thoughtfully
filling his pipe with cavendish; "neither here nor at home--here most
especially--can you prove anything.  The important papers seem to be
lost irretrievably; that lawyer fellow, with the name so consonant to
his trade, Sharkley, has failed in the matter; so be, as your sister
advises, a Devereaux till you can, if ever, announce yourself with
strength, a Trevelyan; and have no quarrels--she seems very sensitive
about that--with your kinsman on Trecarrell's staff; for meanwhile we
may have the Afghans, the Ghilzies, the Kussilbashes, and the devil
knows how many more darkies to fight."

Both Waller and Polwhele were unusually good-looking fellows of that
peculiar style to be found in the British service, and in no other in
Europe.  In years they were not more than six or seven-and-twenty;
and the former had attained his company after eight years' service in
India.

His stature verged on six feet; his features were perfectly regular
and aquiline; he had fair hair, which he parted in the middle with an
amount of care only equalled by that adopted in curling his long,
fair whiskers.  He had very white teeth, and merry, roguish blue
eyes.  He possessed a singular aptitude for making himself
essentially useful and agreeable to the married ladies, who consulted
him on all manner of things, for Waller excelled in everything, from
driving a four-in-hand drag to making a pig out of an orange at
supper.  He shone in amateur theatricals; wrote verses (not always
his own composition) in albums; took charge of the band; got up all
the parties and picnics about the station, and even the balls at the
Residency, if such they could be called, in a European circle so
excessively limited, as that of our garrison at Cabul.

Jack Polwhele was perhaps the more soldier-like of the two; he was
fully an inch less in stature than Waller, taper-waisted and
broad-chested; to his weather-beaten face, dark complexion, and
sparkling eyes of the clearest hazel, a pair of black eyebrows, and a
heavy mustache of the same tint, imparted a great deal of character;
and being closely shaven, the contour of a chin indicative of
decision--a virtue essentially military--was fully displayed.  He had
a smarter, perhaps more dashing, air than Waller; but like him
exhibited a set of teeth, unique for whiteness and regularity, when
he laughed, which he always did heartily, for like most young
officers, he was a happy and heedless fellow.

He and Waller were rather considered to be two "pattern officers" of
the Cornish Light Infantry, a corps which carries on its colours all
the honours of the old war that began on the plains of Corunna and
ended on those of Waterloo; and to these are added the glories of
India down to the battle of Goojerat and the terrible siege of
Lucknow.

Raised in 1702, in the days of the Good Queen Anne, it has served in
every war that added honour or territory to the British Empire, and
numbers among its Colonels sturdy old Brigadier Jacob Borr, who,
before the capture of Barcelona in 1705, during the strife of the
Spanish Succession, in a dispute about precedence, fought a duel in
front of the British lines, sword in hand, in his Ramillies wig and
lace ruffles, with Colonel Rodney of the Marines, whom he ran fairly
through the body; Brigadier Thomas Paget of the House of Uxbridge;
the ferocious old John Huske, who did such butcherly things at
Culloden; Lieutenant-General Leighton of Watlesborough; William
Amherst, who was Governor of Newfoundland during the American War of
Independence; Ralph Earl of Rosse, and others, down to General
Trecarrel, to whom Sir John Keane presented the watch already
referred to, subsequent to the storming of Ghuznee, where "Old Tre,"
as the soldiers named him, was the second man through the Cabul gate,
after Colonel Peat had blown it up, by three hundred pounds of
gunpowder.

The conversation of those with whom Denzil now found himself, will
best explain the state of affairs in Cabul, and the new phase of
society in which Destiny had cast him.




CHAPTER II.

IN THE AFGHAN FORT.

"So, Polwhele, I find by the Order Book, that you are detailed for
the party against the plundering Ghazeeas?" said Waller.

"Yes; I shall have the pleasure of scouring all the Siah Sung after
these wretched fanatics to-morrow."

"What force goes with you?"

"Thirty rank and file of ours, with Sergeant Treherne."

"Son of old Mike, the miner, at Porthellick?"

"Yes; and forty of the thirty-seventh Native Infantry under Burgoyne."

"But I believe you are to tiff, with us at the Trecarrels in the
afternoon," observed Denzil.  "The General's Chuprassey, a half-naked
fellow with a brass badge, brought Waller and me pink notes of
invitation, and I saw there was one for you."

"I shall be duly there if a ball from a juzail, or a slash from an
Afghan knife don't put me on the sick list, or give you a chance of a
lieutenancy," replied Polwhele, twirling his thick black moustache.

"It is wretched work we are condemned to, at times, here."

"Yes," rejoined Polwhele, "and I fear that my little affair with the
Ghazeeas is but the forerunner of some greater disturbance."

"However, to-morrow or the day after, the Envoy is to have a solemn
conference with the ferocious Ackbar Khan."

"I don't think much will come of that," continued Polwhele.  "It is
to the memories of Plassey, Assaye, and a hundred glorious battles,
rather than to our present numerical force, that we Britons owe our
_prestige_ in the East; but here in Cabul, beyond the Indus, it has
not yet been felt, thanks to parsimony and utter mismanagement, civil
and military."

"Don't take to grumbling, Jack, but pass the brandy bottle, old
fellow.  I hope we shall keep Shah Sujah on his throne despite Ackbar
Khan and all the rebellious rabble in Afghanistan.  What was up in
your quarter yesterday?  You were on guard near the old tomb and
temple westward of the Cantonments."

"Up--how?"

"I heard a sound of musketry near it."

"One discharge?"

"Yes."

"Oh--you remember that odd-looking fellow who appeared at the
band-stand and cut such strange capers when the musicians of the 37th
were playing an air from Rossini.  Well, he proved to be a Thug, and
all the implements of Thugee--the holy pick-axe, the handkerchief and
cord for strangulation, were found upon him."

"Not in his clothes," said Denzil, "for he had none, so the orderlies
switched him away from the vicinity of the Trecarrels' carriage."

"I saw those wags of girls in fits of laughter at him.  No, the
implements were not found in his clothes, certainly, but in his hair,
which hung below his waist, plaited like ropes.  Many murders--he had
strangled Christians and Hindoos with perfect impartiality--were
fully proved against him by the Provost-Marshal, so he was shot,
off-hand, to save all further trouble."

"So those Thugs are a sect?" said Denzil.

"Yes; and a vast community of secret assassins, too.  As for sects,
you will find as many here as in England, but calling themselves by
different names, Mahommedans, Soonies, Ismaelites, Parsees, Hindoos,
Bheels, Khonds, and worshippers of Mumbo Jumbo, et cetera, all hating
each other most cordially; and by Jove, amid them, we may say as the
knight of La Mancha said to his squire, 'Here, brother Sancho, we can
put our hands up to the elbows in what are called adventures.'"

"Who are to be at the Trecarrels' to-morrow?" asked Waller,
manipulating a fresh cigar.

"Ask Devereaux," replied Polwhele, sending some spiral circles
towards him, and laughing the while.

"Why me?" asked Denzil, with a little annoyance of tone.

"How amusingly pink you become, my boy, whenever their names are
mentioned," said Polwhele; "doubtless you will be 'doing' our old
Cornwall all over again with Rose, though it is evident your heart is
not _there_."

"Where, then?"

"In Cabul, and nearer Kohistan than the Well of St. Keyne," replied
Polwhele, who, as his name imports, was a Cornishman; and he added,
laughingly.  "What says Southey?--

  But if the wife should drink of it first,
    God help the husband then!
        * * * * * *
  I hastened as soon as the wedding was done,
    And left my wife in the porch;
  But i'faith she had been wiser than me,
    For she took a bottle to church.

Ah, well do I remember that old spring so famed for its virtues,
arched over by old masonry, above which grow five ancient trees, the
Cornish oak, the elm, and three ashes, their roots entwined like a
network in the turf and moss!  But to return to the Trecarrels and
their tiffin to-morrow, if I escape the Ghazeeas, who are we likely
to meet?"

"Well, I have heard that Lady Sale--"

"The wife of 'Fighting Bob' of the 13th Light Infantry!"

"--Is to be there; the General Commanding too, if his health will
permit it, and most likely her Majesty's Envoy to the Shah,"
continued Denzil, still colouring plainly and deeply.

"I knew that you could tell us all about it; for, of course, the fair
Rose employed you to write all the little pink notes on the perfumed
paper.  You seem very soft in that quarter, Denzil; but one might as
well attempt to catch a meteor, my friend, as that girl's heart."

"Don't say so, Jack," urged Denzil, so earnestly that both Waller and
Polwhele laughed immoderately.

"You will be like the little boy who wept for the moon," said the
former, curling and caressing his long fair whiskers complacently.

"And be assured, she has a soul far above Ensigns," added his other
tormentor, for unluckily for his own peace of mind, Denzil had fallen
a tender victim to the flirting Rose; "yet, I must admit, that the
girl--the second Trecarrel I mean--is charming; almost handsome."

"Nay, more than handsome!" added Waller emphatically, "and I must
sympathize with Denzil, as I rather affect _la belle_ Mab myself."

"But the old General has little more than his pay, or he would never
have brought the girls so far up country else; at least, the
good-natured Cantonment folks who indulge in _gup_ say so," remarked
Polwhele, using the native word for "gossip."  "And now I must go,
for Burgoyne and I mean to study the geography of yonder confounded
hills which we have to scour to-morrow; and we move off from the
Cantonments in the dark--an hour before daybreak."

"One glass more ere you go, Jack."

"Thanks," replied Polwhele, and then he added with mock gravity; "two
of the golden rules of my simple domestic economy are, a cheroot and
glass of stiff brandy-pawnee before switching the mosquito curtains
and turning in; and a cup of cold tea, with a wet towel about my
temples before morning parade; or at least, such used to be my
custom, before we came to this Arctic and Afghan, rather than Orient
region."

"And considering late hours immoral, you always come into quarters
_early_ in the morning."

"A third golden rule--precisely so, old fellow," replied the other as
he assumed his sword and forage-cap.  He was about to go, when
Waller's servant, a soldier in livery, appeared to announce that a
native wished "to speak with the Sahibs Waller and Polwhele on
particular business."

"Now, what can the nigger want?" asked Polwhele; "a Parsee
money-lender perhaps--have you been flying kites, Bob?"

"Show him in, Brooklands," said Waller; "he is no less a personage
than Taj Mohammed Khan.  He expressed a wish to see us yesterday,
when I met him near the gate of the Shah Bagh;* so remain for a few
minutes, Jack."


* Royal Garden.


"Khan--is he a chief?" asked Denzil.

"Not at all," replied Waller; "it is used as Esquire with us--a title
given in England to every fellow who wears a black coat; so everybody
is a Khan (_i.e._ noble) in Cabul.  The world of snobbery reproduces
itself everywhere; and here he comes stroking his long beard with an
air of solemn satisfaction," he added, as an Afghan gentleman of tall
and imposing appearance, was ushered into the apartment, making low
salams as he advanced.




CHAPTER III.

THE WARNING.

The Afghan who entered was tall and muscular, but spare in person and
was a very good representation of his active, bold and warlike race.
His features were keen and sharp; his nose thin and aquiline; his
eyes, black, glittering and piercing; but his complexion was scarcely
darker than that of an ordinary Spaniard or French Catalan.  The
scalp of his head was shaved; but this peculiarity of the Soonies--an
orthodox Mohammedan sect in opposition to the Persians who are
followers of Ali--was concealed by his head-dress, a _loonghee_, or
cloth worn turbanwise, of a bright blue check with a red border and
drooping gold fringe.

His costume was extremely simple and consisted of a camise or blouse
of scarlet stuff, with loose sleeves, wide baggy trowsers of dark
cotton reaching to half-boots that were closely buttoned to the limb.
Over his shoulder--as the season was winter--hung a large mantle of
finely-dressed sheepskin well tanned, with the soft fleecy wool
inwards, and round his waist a Cashmere shawl worn as a girdle, and
therein he carried a pair of brass-butted flint-lock pistols, an
Afghan knife and dagger.  His sabre with cross-hilt and crooked blade
dangled nearly in front of him, and on his left wrist, secured by a
silver chain, sat a hooded hawk; for now in the nineteenth century,
as in Europe ages ago, falconry is a favourite sport of the hardy
Afghans.

Such was the remarkable figure which the three young officers rose to
greet.  Unlike the cringing servility of the slimy Hindoo, the
bearing of the Afghan mountaineer is proud, but grave and full of
natural dignity; and few were nobler in Cabul than their visitor Taj
Mohammed Khan, son of the Hereditary Wuzeer Golam Mohammed, a
strenuous adherent of the reigning Shah Sujah and friend of the
British Government, which upheld that feeble monarch on his shaky
throne.

Taj Mohammed was a very devout Mussulman, and most strictly obeyed
the Koran in all its precepts (save one), repeating his prayers five
times daily; namely in the morning, when noon is past, in the evening
before sunset, and after dark, ere the first watch of the night be
passed; but he could not resist an occasional glass of wine.

His family had ever possessed vast influence in that remote region;
he was lord of fertile lands and vineyards in the Pughman Valley, and
already two of his brothers had fallen in battle, and one been burned
alive, for adherence to the Shah, whose story we shall relate in a
subsequent chapter.

After being seated and assisted by Denzil to wine, which like many
other Mohammedans he drank in secret, or when among unbelieving
Feringhees, he proceeded at once to state the object of his visit,
which he did in tolerable English, having been long an exile in one
of the cities of British India, though the language of his native
land is a dialect of the Scriptural Chaldaic.

"You know, Waller Sahib, that the Envoy of the Queen of England and
of the great Lord Sahib Bahadur Auckland, is to have a meeting with
Ackbar Khan at an early period to consult as to the unsettled state
of affairs--the discontents, in fact, among us--in Cabul?"

"Yes, Khan--we have all heard so; and what then?"

"Are you to be present?"

"I expect to have the pleasure," replied Waller.

"Then do not go, and bid the Envoy also not to go."

"Why?"

"Because the conference is a snare--a lure to his destruction and the
destruction of all that may accompany him.  He will perish, even as
Burnes Sahib perished!"

"We are but of subaltern rank, and may not presume to advise the
Envoy," said Waller.

"Khan, in front of yonder Cantonments and under the very guns of the
forts, I should scarcely say that even Ackbar Khan, desperate though
his character is, would attempt such a thing," observed Polwhele.

"You doubt me, then?" said the Afghan, proudly.

"Nay; I only hope that you are labouring under a mistake."

"We shall see; even Ezra had his doubts, so why not may you?  Ezra
doubted the means by which Jerusalem and its inhabitants would be
again restored; but he was cured of those doubts--do you know how?"

"'Pon my soul, I don't," said Polwhele, repressing a yawn.

"By seeing the bones of a dead ass suddenly clothed with flesh and
resuscitated with life and breath and action, for so the blessed
Koran tells us," replied the Khan; for among the Afghans so much of
their common life and daily conversation are tinged with their
religion, its legends and precepts, that from the Shah to the veriest
slave, one might imagine the whole people to be engaged alone in holy
reflections, for seldom is a sentence uttered without some allusion
to the Deity; yet, as a nation, they are lively and merry.

"I wish to do you both a service, Sahibs, as gratitude has placed me
in your debt.  You saved my wife in the Great Bazaar from the insults
of a Sepoy soldier, who when drunk with bhang, attempted to overturn
her palanquin.  I wish to do the Envoy a service and his Queen too,
by saving the lives of her servants; thus I repeat and implore you to
give ear.  Warn Macnaghten Sahib, against the conference to which he
is invited, for Ackbar Khan has sworn that he will, if possible, kill
every man among you save _one_, and get all your wives and female
children into his possession."

"As for my wife," laughed Polwhele, "he is welcome to her."

The Afghan stared at him and frowned.

"By Jove!" exclaimed Waller, incredulously playing with both his fair
whiskers this time; "and what is to be done with the lucky fellow he
so generously means to spare?"

"He shall have his hands and feet cut off, and be placed at the
entrance of the Khyber Pass with a written notice to deter all
Feringhees from entering our country again."

"And has the scoundrel sworn this?"

"By every word in the Holy Kulma, the creed of our Prophet, he has.
Ackbar the Sirdar is the very incarnation of Eblis--the evil spirit
who betrayed Adam to transgression, and yet seeks to do injury to all
his race," continued Taj Mohammed with gleaming eyes and a glow in
his dusky cheek, for he and Ackbar Khan were politically rivals and
mortal enemies.

"I have heard that this fellow Ackbar is somewhat slippery if not
more; but if he has ventured to conceive such projects, we should
have him tied to the mouth of a nine-pounder," exclaimed Polwhele,
adding sundry adjectives and expletives, in which young Englishmen
are apt to indulge in moments of excitement, and again the reproving
eye of the Wuzeer fell on him.

"Do not talk thus, Sahib," said he sententiously; "know you not, that
the tongue is a precious jewel, and hence it is a thousand pities we
should pollute it?"

"But would he dare to assassinate the Envoy?" asked Polwhele, angrily.

"Tell me, Sahib, what Ackbar Khan would not dare?" responded the
other, quietly.

"Egad that is true, but I hope that our troops will ere long show all
those fellows who plot mischief that we have not come 'thus far into
the bowels of the land' for nothing," replied Polwhele, laughing;
"and to-morrow I, for one, shall begin with the Ghazeeas among yonder
hills, Khan."

"The Siah Sung is full of deep and dark caverns, Sahib," said the
friendly Afghan; "the Ghazeeas are cunning; so beware alike of
surprise and ambush."

"Oh that will be my look-out and Burgoyne's," replied Polwhele,
confidently.

"Besides, yonder hills are the chosen haunt of the Ghoul Biaban,"
said Taj Mohammed, and though a brave man, he lowered his voice as he
spoke, for the Afghans believe devoutly in the existence of "the
Spirit of the Waste," a lonely demon inhabiting the mountain
solitudes; frightful he is, and gigantic in form, devouring any
passenger who comes in his way; forming by spells the mirage of the
desert to snare the traveller, and disinterring the dead that he may
devour them like the wife of the young king of the Black Isles.

"I must take my chance of the Ghoul and the Ghazeeas too; though it
will be deuced hard lines to be killed by the latter and eaten,
without salt, by the former," said Polwhele, laughing again.

"The shadow of the Prophet be over you and your soldiers, Sahib,"
said the Afghan, not without a knitted brow; for though he knew
perhaps, but the half of what Polwhele said, he saw in his bearing
much of that disposition to ridicule, which is so thoroughly
intolerable to all foreigners, and does us much mischief everywhere;
and to this, and some other mistakes of manner, we owed many of the
mischiefs that ensued subsequently in Cabul.

"Historical truth compels us to acknowledge," says the Chaplain to
the Forces, "that less regard was paid to the inhabitants than could
have been wished.  Though they do not, like other Mohammedans,
universally shut up their women, the Afghans are as open to jealousy
as Orientals in general, and treating their wives often rudely, the
latter could not but be pleased with the attentions the young
Feringhees showed them.  It is much to be feared that our countrymen
did not always bear in mind that the domestic habits of any people
ought to be sacred in the eyes of strangers.  And hence arose by
degrees, distrust, alienation, and hostility, for which it were
unfair to deny there might be some cause.  Whatever errors they
committed, the great mass of the garrison of Cabul atoned for them
terribly."

We greatly fear that we must also admit to Messieurs Bob Waller, Jack
Polwhele, and Harry Burgoyne being among the Feringhee delinquents
referred to; and that some of their peccadilloes were alleged to have
gone beyond mere oglings, hand-squeezings, and exchange of flowers
with the fair Afghani at the Cantonment, the Band-stand, in the
Bazaar and the narrow streets of Cabul, which are barely a yard wide.

But to resume:--

"I go to the Bala Hissar to seek the secret ear of the Shah," said
Taj Mohammed, as coldly and as drily as if some of the preceding
thoughts had been flitting through his mind; "I have but done my
grateful duty in coming to warn you of the future storm, for the
Envoy of your Queen has more than once turned a deaf ear to my
advice; and now----salaam."

And with a low bow he retired ere Waller could start to his feet and
usher him out.  For sooth to say, Bob had been lounging in his bamboo
chair with a leg over each arm thereof and a cheeroot between his
teeth; a very undignified mode of sitting in presence of the
Hereditary Wuzeer of Cabul.

"A horrid bore!" commented Polwhele; "glad he has gone--took his
tipple like a Christian, though; and despite him of Mecca, has
polished off the best part of a bottle of mess sherry."

"What the deuce are we to think of all this?" asked Denzil, who had
hitherto sat completely silent, and who already in imagination saw
the bright and beautiful Rose Trecarrel in the hands of innumerable
Afghan Bluebeards with brandished cimitars, and Mabel waving her
handkerchief like "Sister Anne" from the tower-head.

"An unpleasant rumour, any way, and we shall not go without our
pistols," said Waller.  "However, I hope his anxiety for his own post
at Court, if Ackbar triumphs, exaggerates the situation."

"They are a strange people, these Afghans," resumed Polwhele
musingly, as he filled his tumbler again, adding, "Father Adam's pale
ale--water--is always mightily improved by a dash of brandy, thus."

"But I have seen stranger," replied Waller; "when I was in China with
the 26th, for there the men wear petticoats and the ladies don't; old
fellows fly kites and spin tops, while the young ones study; when
puzzled they scratch their feet and not their polls like Europeans;
when angry they don't punch the head, but viciously pull each other's
tails; and they can write books without an alphabet in that
delightful language which we see on the tea-chests.  Oh, the Afghans
are reasonable fellows, when contrasted with the countrymen of him of
the Wonderful Lamp."

"Yes; but the former are a ferocious set, and deem a little homicide,
more or less, nothing.  Like the Scots Highlanders of old--'

"Take care; it is well Her Majesty's Envoy does not hear you!"

"Every man is born a soldier, I was about to add, and even every
boy--a pestilent set of wasps they are--has his knife, and knows how
to use it; and they are all taught, that if these black rock and
yonder snow-capped hills have little attraction for them here below,
the Moollahs add that heaven teems with Houris, and that their reward
is there.  Talking of Houris, we shall all meet at the Trecarrels
to-morrow, I hope; but I shan't see you till I come off Ghazeea
hunting; and, by Jove!  I would rather go pig-sticking in the jungle,
or tiger-potting on a Shikaree elephant, than have a day's shooting
against those mad fanatics.  However, you'll see the Envoy about what
we have heard."

"Of course, Jack."

And whistling a popular waltz, with his sword under his arm, and his
forage cap very much over the right ear, Jack Polwhele strode away to
Burgoyne's bungalow in the Cantonments, just as the boom of a gun
from the nearest fort, and the clang of the guard-house ghurries
announced the setting of the sun.

Waller and Denzil sought the Envoy at the Residency; but,
unfortunately, he was on a visit to the Shah at the Bala Hissar; thus
a most precious opportunity was too probably lost.

We shall neither follow Polwhele to his consultation with Burgoyne
about their future movements, nor to their adventures among the
cavernous range of the Siah Sung Hills; but in the subsequent chapter
shall endeavour to relate on what errand our troops, some four
thousand three hundred in number, had come into that remote,
ferocious, and most warlike region of all North-western India,
seeking to control the views and the passions of five million one
hundred and twenty thousand hostile people.




CHAPTER IV.

WHAT TOOK US THERE.

The kings of Cabul in relation to their people somewhat resembled
those of the House of Stuart when on the Scottish throne; being only
the khans of a warlike tribe, among many other khans and tribes;
hence the old Celtic term for the king of Scotland is simply the
"chief of chiefs."  The resemblance to Scotland in the days of old,
is still further carried out in the fact that Cabul was a mere
amalgamation of petty republics, or clans, having at their head a
king, whose influence was felt in the capital, but whose authority
failed to reach the fierce dwellers in the glens and on the mountains.

After witnessing many civil wars, crimes and outrages, Shah Mahmud
died, and was succeeded on the throne of Herat and Afghanistan, by
his son Kamran.

Meanwhile Dost Mohammed Khan, another prince of the family, seized on
the beautiful vale of the Cabul river; and the Lion of Lahore,
Runjeet Sing (with whose name the newspapers long made us familiar)
over-ran all Cashmere.  Dost Mohammed was desirous of securing the
friendship of the British Government, who sent Captain (afterwards
Sir Alexander) Burnes to him; but the honourable reception he
accorded to a Russian officer at Cabul about the first year of Her
present Majesty's reign caused him to be secretly distrusted by the
Governor-General of India.

The latter, with a view to secure our north-western frontier against
Russian influence, and an intended invasion of the peninsula, became
a party to a treaty between Shah Sujah, third son of the deceased
Mahmud of Herat and Afghanistan, to re-establish him on the throne of
his ancestors; and hence war was declared against the Dost, whose
ally, Runjeet Sing, refused permission for our troops to march
through the Punjaub--"The land of the five rivers."  But, heedless of
this, two Corps d'Armée, advancing simultaneously from Bombay and
Bengal, under Sir Willoughby Cotton, ten thousand strong, soon found
themselves under the walls of Candahar; and next Ghuznee, the most
formidable fortress in Asia, was stormed at the point of the bayonet,
after its gates had been blown in by a petard, and there enormous
booty was found.

The seventh of the subsequent August saw the union-jack hoisted on
the Bala Hissar of Cabul, and Shah Sujah, an aged, effete, and most
unpopular prince, brought from exile in Loodianah and replaced upon
his ancient and hereditary throne, while an army of eight thousand
Beloochees and other wild warriors, sons of the Gedrosian desert, was
assigned him, under the command of the Shahzadeh Timour and Colonel
Simpson of the 19th Native Infantry; for such were the arrangements
of that Honourable Company of Merchants whose office was in
Leadenhall Street, in the City.

The restored Shah, a cruel and ruthless prince, who blinded his
kinsman Futteh Khan, by thrusting a dagger into his eyes, and
afterwards having him hacked into "kabobs," soon excited great
discontent among the fiery tribes under his rule, and particularly by
retaining a regiment of Sikhs as his body-guard; and so resolute and
manifest became the hostility of the natives, that the situation of
the small British force--now reduced to little more than four
thousand men--cantoned without the walls of Cabul, grew daily more
perilous and critical, while General Elphinstone, who now commanded,
by age and health was quite unequal to the task assigned him.

After a long and arduous contest, Dost Mohammed became at last the
peaceful prisoner of the British Government; for it chanced that one
evening, after his last battle and defeat, our envoy, Sir William
Macnaghten, when riding near Cabul, was overtaken by a horseman,
whose steed, like himself, was covered with dust and blood and flakes
of foam.

Announcing that he was Dost Mohammed, the stranger proffered his
sword in token of surrender; for it would seem that the hapless
prince had that day ridden sixty miles from the Nijrow Valley,
quitting his routed host; and he was immediately transmitted to
Calcutta; but rejecting with hatred and scorn all offers of pension
or place from the British Government, Ackbar Khan, the most brave and
reckless of his sons, preferred a life of rude independence in
Loodianah, and never lost the hope of levying a holy war for the
extermination of the meddling and Kaffir Feringhees--the infidel
English; for so he stigmatised us.

Prior to this point of time our little army under General Elphinstone
had remained peacefully in Cabul, far distant from the British
settlements in Hindostan.  Many of the officers had built pleasant
and even pretty houses in the neighbourhood of the fortified
cantonments which lay between the hills of Behmaru and those of Siah
Sung, two miles distant from the city; and there they dwelt
comfortably and unsuspectingly with their wives and families.

Communication with the outer world beyond the passes was however both
difficult and dubious; for the territories of wild and untrustworthy
allies lay between our troops and the Indies on one hand; and between
them and the Arabian Sea on the other.

It was August, as before stated, when we entered Cabul.  The violets,
the tulips and the wall-flower, which grow wild during spring, had
passed away; but the air was yet perfumed by the Persian iris; the
orchards and lovely gardens around the city were teeming with
luscious fruit; and the Cabul river flowed between its banks, where
the purple grape, the ruddy apple, and golden orange, bending the
laden branches, dipped in the stream or kissed its shining ripples.

Englishmen take old England with them everywhere; and thus the honest
and confident freedom with which our officers went to and fro between
the camp and city, and the free way in which they spent their money,
won them, for a time, the favour of the Afghans; and the winter of
the first year saw the introduction of horse races, at which a
splendid sword, given by the Shah, was won by Major Daly of the 4th
Light Dragoons; cricket matches, when Bob Waller held his wicket
against the field; and cock-fighting, a favourite sport with the
natives.

The chiefs invited them to their houses in the city and to their
castles in the country, where their double-barrelled rifles brought
down the snipes and quails, the elk, the deer, the hare and flying
fox, with a precision that elicited many a shout of "Allah" and
"Bismillah" from the entertainers.

The winter of that year also saw our officers skating on the lake of
Istaliff, six miles from Cabul--the skates being the work of a
Scottish armourer sergeant.  Amateur theatricals,* for which Polwhele
painted the scenery, were not wanting to add to the wonder of those
sequestered Orientals, to whom the doors of the houses were thrown
freely open; but with the coming spring, when the field-pea, the
yellow briar-rose, the variously tinted asphodels, and the orchards
in rich blossom, made all the valley beautiful, came the crowning
marvel, when Lieutenant Sinclair of Her Majesty's 13th Light
Infantry, an officer who possessed great mechanical skill,
constructed and launched on the lake of Istaliff, that which had
never before been seen in Afghanistan, a large boat, with masts,
sails, and oars.


* The favourite play was "The Irish Ambassador," and others of the
same kind.  "On such occasions they changed the titles of the
_dramatis personæ_, so as to bring them and the offices of the
parties bearing them, down to the level of Afghan comprehension;
while Burnes and others skilled in the dialect of the country,
translated the speeches as they were uttered."--Sales' Brigade in
Afghanistan.


The plaudits of the assembled thousands made the welkin ring.

"Now," they exclaimed, "we see that you are not like the infidel
Hindoos that follow you!  You are men born and bred like ourselves in
a land where God varies the seasons, thus giving vigour to mind and
body.  Oh, that you had come among us as friends, rather than
enemies, for you are fine fellows, one by one, though as a body we
hate you!"

And so dark days were coming, for the misrule of the Shah Sujah, the
intrigues of the restless Ackbar Khan, and the national distrust of
the mountaineers of all foreign, especially Kaffir, intervention,
were soon to put an end to this pleasant state of matters.

On the Chief of the Ghiljees spreading a rumour by letter, that it
was the intention of Sir William Macnaghten to seize all the khans of
tribes and send them to the Feringhee Queen in London, a dreadful
tumult ensued in the city, and ere the cannon could clear the
streets, several officers, among whom was Sir Alexander Burnes, were
killed in the confusion.  Fast spread the spirit of revolt!  The
feeble Shah shut himself up in the Bala Hissar on its towering rock;
and it was deemed advisable to make terms with the leaders, the chief
of whom was Ackbar Khan, whose conduct during the whole of those
affairs curiously combined the romantic, aristocratic, and courteous
tones of a half-civilised prince, with the ferocity of an utter
barbarian.

A part of the garrison having been detached under Sir Robert Sale to
Jellalabad, his brigade had barely entered the terrible and tortuous
ravines which lead thereto, ere it was attacked by the mountain
hordes, and had to fight its way inch by inch for miles, and by the
middle of November, about the time this portion of our story opens,
the sixty thousand citizens of Cabul and the tribes of the
surrounding country were ripe for insurrection, the fiery elements of
discord being fanned by Ackbar Khan in person.

And such was the state of affairs in and around Cabul on that day,
when Waller and Denzil, both well-armed--as they could not forget the
friendly warnings of Taj Mohammed--quitted their quarters in the old
fort, to have "tiffin" (_i.e._ luncheon) with the Trecarrels in the
house of the General, who had now been some two months with
Elphinstone's army, but without yet obtaining that which he had been
promised, command of a brigade, unless one to be chiefly formed of
Beloochees from the Shah's little army, under Timour the Shahzadeh,
could be considered as such a force, that speedily melted away.




CHAPTER V.

TIFFIN WITH THE TRECARRELS.

Situated between the Residency of the Queen's Envoy and the square
fort of Kojah Meer, near the high road leading to the city past the
base of the Hills of Behmaru, the house of General Trecarrel partook
somewhat of the character of a European villa, and had been built
about a year before for a wealthy staif officer, who had been
transferred to Ceylon almost before it was finished; for so do men
change about in an army which is scattered over all the habitable
globe.

It was two-storeyed, with a spacious dining-room and another
apartment, which Mabel and Rose had made a decided attempt to affect
as a drawing-room, with rich draperies and many pretty ornaments and
suitable decorations brought up country, or purchased in the great
bazaar of Cabul.  Punkahs were not required in that temperate
climate; but a broad verandah, covered with luxuriant creepers,
afforded a sufficient shade for the windows, or to promenade under on
wet days, or in the sunny summer season.

As in India, the arrivals were announced by a stroke on a gong.  A
few guests were already assembled in the drawing-room, where the
General, more erect in bearing, and a little more emphatic in tone,
than when last we saw him, and his daughters looking as bright, as
showy and as handsome as ever, received Denzil and Waller with a
cordiality that made the heart of the former to beat lightly and
happily; for he had already begun to find more than pleasure--a joy,
in the society of the charming Rose.

He knew not how far this emotion was reciprocated; but he longed with
all the desire of impassioned youth for some conviction, that, at
least, he was not without interest in her eyes; and Rose was
precisely the kind of girl to keep him long in the dark on that
point, and to give him serious doubts, unless it suited her
capricious fancy to act otherwise.

He hoped that on this afternoon he might have an opportunity of
testing the matter--for learning somewhat of his fate; and felt that
a glance he could read, a whispered word, a touch of her hand, would
make him happy--oh, so happy!

Polwhele was already there, and looking somewhat weary and excited
after his early morning tour among the hills after the Ghazees, whom
he had completely routed from their haunts, after killing or wounding
a dozen or so; Burgoyne of the 37th Native Infantry was there too,
and both were talking over their skirmish with the General.

Two or three ladies from the cantonments, Elphinstone, the general
commanding (an old and worn-out man), with some half dozen other
officers, all in blue surtouts or scarlet _raggies_, _i.e._,
shell-jackets and white vests, with their regimental button, were
present; and cloudy though the political horizon around them, and
with the recent insurrection and assassinations in the city fresh in
their minds, they were all conversing as merrily and as heedlessly,
as if quartered at Canterbury in lieu of Cabul.  The younger men
crowded about the chairs of Mabel and Rose; thus Denzil, so far from
having an opportunity of doing more than once touch the hand of the
latter, found himself obliged to listen to her father, who being a
major-general without a brigade now, was resorting to the old
soldier's privilege of grumbling.

"Yes, sir!" said he, grimly, to Denzil, assenting to some thought of
his own, rather than any remark of the latter; "I served throughout
the whole of that victorious campaign, which saw my old friend and
comrade, Keane--he who presented me with this splendid watch--created
Baron Keane of Ghuzni and Cappoquin; while all that _I_ have gained
has been a gold medal from the Shah Sujah, and the Cross of the Bath
from Her Majesty."

"Keane's peerage was the just reward of merit, papa," urged Rose.

"Merit, in the service, is nothing."

"How so, General?" asked an officer.

"Merit is just _one_ man's opinion of another," said Trecarrel, with
a cynical laugh, "as some one writes, somewhere."

"Is the Envoy to be here, General?" asked Waller, in a low tone.

"No; he is still at the Bala Hissar with the Shah."

"Most unlucky," whispered Waller to Denzil; "I should like that
message of the Wuzeer's off my conscience at least."

"Nor are we to have the pleasure of Lady Sale's presence," continued
Trecarrel; "unpleasant rumours have been brought in by an Arab hadji,
of an attack on Sale's brigade in the Passes; but luckily they are as
yet unconfirmed."

"I do not believe in them," said General Elphinstone, who was seated
in an easy-chair, being almost too feeble to stand; "for after we
restored Shah Sujah to his throne, we made, as you all know, a solemn
agreement with the Ghilzie Chiefs, that, for a yearly sum, they
should keep the Khoord Cabul, and other mountain passes, open between
this and Jellalabad, and offer no molestation to our troops on the
march; consequently, I repeat that I do not believe in the story of
the hadji."

"That old fellow never believes anything; nor will he give credence
to the discontents around us, till the Afghan knives are at his
throat," whispered Waller to Polwhele; "poor Elphinstone! he is
failing fast, Jack."

"Yes; but he was busy all summer planting peas and cabbages, like
Cincinnatus, when he should have been getting the Shah's Gholandazees
trained to their guns."

"And will you believe it," added Burgoyne, a smart and sunburnt young
officer, "Lady Sale told me that he actually ordered Sir Robert's
regiment to march from this with flint-locks,* instead of eight
hundred percussion muskets which he requested from the store; an
error which may be most fatal by this time, if the Passes are beset."


* Fact.


Waller gazed with something of pity at the old man, who was long past
the years for command; he was orthodoxly attired in his blue undress
surtout, with a gold sash over his shoulder, and a ribbon at his
breast, with the Order of the Dooranee Empire, but death seemed
already imprinted in his anxious eyes and haggard face, which was all
wrinkles, lines, and hollows.  His voice was feeble, and he had a
husky cough; yet his face seemed to brighten when he mumbled
hopefully of "getting home at last to die in old Scotland," though
fated never to issue from the Khyber Pass, save as a corpse.  And it
was to him that the perilous task of keeping our little force at
distant Cabul was assigned by the Government of India!

Waller mentioned to him the story of Taj Mohammed's visit; but it was
treated as an illusion; for was not the atmosphere of Cabul full of
such rumours, and was not the hereditary enmity between Taj Mohammed
and the Sirdar (or general), as Ackbar Khan was named, proverbial?
Each would ever do his utmost to injure the other, even unto death.
Then the roar of the gong announced that "tiffin was served," ending
the matter; the probable fate of Her Majesty's Envoy was thought of
no more for the time; for Mabel Trecarrel, with a bright smile on her
upturned face, slipped her white arm through that of the aged
General, and all moved towards the dining-room, between close ranks
of native servants, whose white turbans, jackets, and dhotties,
contrasted strongly with their dark visages and gleaming eyes.

Rose fell to the care of Burgoyne, there were no ladies for either
Waller or Denzil (and some other subalterns), who brought up the
rear; and the latter, to his infinite annoyance, found himself seated
at a distance from her, and barely able at times to catch a glance
beyond a gigantic plated epergne, filled with fruit and false
flowers.  From his junior rank and years, he could scarcely have
expected anything else, for ladies were still scarce up country, and
scarcer still beyond the Khyber Pass; but Denzil felt that somehow
his day had begun inauspiciously.

The khansamah (or butler), and a dozen of other Hindoo servants, were
in attendance; and the business of luncheon proceeded rapidly.
Polwhele and Burgoyne were still talking of their morning march into
the hills of Siah Sung, and made light of killing so many of the
natives, having only two rank and file killed, and one wounded
severely, partaking the while of what was set before them with as
much unconcern and heartiness, as if they had been snipe-shooting, or
pig-sticking, in the jungle, for in that part of the world danger
became a pastime.

"So one of Burgoyne's sepoys was wounded?" asked Elphinstone.

"Yes, General; his legs are scarcely quite to the regimental pattern
now."

"How so, Polwhele?"

"A ball from a juzail smashed the knee; so the limb was amputated."

This elicited a little chorus of commiseration from the ladies, but
as the sufferer was a native, it soon subsided.

"Any word, General, of your aide-de-camp Trevelyan of ours?" asked
Waller.

"None--save that he was off the sick list, and soon to leave Bombay
and join us here," replied Trecarrel; "but if this news about the
passes be true, I hope he will be in no hurry to come this way; he is
a fine fellow, Trevelyan."

(The name found an echo in Denzil's heart, which sank for a moment.)

"I knew him when in the 14th Hussars, at Agra," said Burgoyne to
Rose; "he was not then the heir to a title."

She coloured perceptibly.  Denzil did not see this, but Mabel did,
and she laughed.

"If the passes are actually closed, it is deuced lucky we got up
those nine-pounder guns in time," said Trecarrel to Elphinstone.

"I wrote--ugh--ugh--for--ugh--_three_ eighteen pounders," replied the
other, coughing feebly.

"And the mistake was that of the military Board?"

"Exactly," said Jack Polwhele; "they made it a case of arithmetic;
and in lieu of three eighteen pound guns, sent you six long nines,
which are useless for the battery-work that Ackbar Khan may ere long
cut out for us."

"Oh that hideous Ackhar Khan!" exclaimed Rose, with young ladylike
horror; "I have seen him once, and his mouth, when he laughed,
reminded me of nothing so much as two rows of piano keys."

"Hideous!" said Burgoyne; "pardon me, is he not thought very
handsome?"

"But think of his beard; it flows to his girdle, and birds might
build their nests in it, as they did in the beard of Tregeagle; you
remember our Cornish giant, Mr. Devereaux?" added Rose, with a glance
at Denzil, whose colour rose, like that of a girl, with pleasure.

Denzil was undoubtedly a very handsome lad, verging on manhood now;
he had his mother's perfect regularity of features, with eyes of a
blue so dark that at times they seemed black; yet they were
wonderfully soft, especially when they turned to those of Rose
Trecarrel; and his hair was very fair and curly, having almost a
golden tint when the sunshine fell on it.  The Indian summer, and the
keen breeze from the hills of Kohistan, had already browned his
boyish cheek; but some of England's bloom was lingering in it still;
and to Rose, a regular "man-slayer," a naturally born flirt, the
temptation to entangle him, when she felt intuitively how
imperceptibly to himself he was allured by glances into loving her,
was too great to resist, for Rose Trecarrel had all the art to win a
heart, and yet retain her own entire and untouched.

She and Denzil had many Cornish reminiscences, topics, and sympathies
in common; and these afforded a grand basis of operations for Rose,
though perilous enough for one so inexperienced as he in _affaires du
coeur_, especially with one so beautiful, so gay, and, we grieve to
say it, so artful; but "when gallantry becomes mingled with
conversation, affection and passion come gradually to mix with
gallantry, and queens, like village maidens, will listen longer than
they should," so we shall see how it fared with Rose in the sequel.

The intense, but too often silent devotion of a lad so handsome,
flattered her; it was so different from the half-laughing love-making
of such men of the world as Waller and Polwhele; yet she had as much
idea of going further--in fact, of wedding an ensign--as of espousing
a dancing dervish, or an Arab faquir.  Of course, she thought in her
heart that the Devereaux and Lamorna affair was very strange; but
what did it matter there--beyond the Indus?

His mother's unhappy story, his father's untimely fate, and, for some
time past, the absence of all tidings from his sister Sybil, rendered
Denzil at times intensely thoughtful, or, as Rose Trecarrel was
inclined to deem it, interesting; and thus, in his craving for gentle
sympathy from some one, (and from whom could it be more welcome than
a bright-eyed young flirt?) made him an easy and a willing victim.

Denzil had a nervous jealousy of all who approached her; and he
envied the free and easy--to some it might seem
half-impudent--bearing of Waller, Burgoyne, and others, when hovering
about the sisters at the band-stand, in the bazaar at Cabul, when
riding or driving near the cantonments, and elsewhere.  He was not
old enough, or experienced enough, to know that there could be no
love in the hearts of those heedless fellows, if they were so self
possessed and free in the presence of the object of that love; and as
little did he know the jealous fear that Rose had cost his sister at
home!




CHAPTER VI.

THE APPOINTMENT.

Tiffin over--the General's khansamah had excelled himself, for there
were curried hares and quails (the spoil of Waller's rifle), roasted
kid, the fat being spread on buttered toast, and well peppered;
curried chickens, partridge pie, snipe and ortolans, sweet bread and
stilton, champagne, claret, and Bass, with a dessert of Cabul grapes,
oranges, and various other fruits _à discretion_--tiffin over, we
say, like other civilized people in the land they had come from, as
it had not been dinner, but simply luncheon, all filed back to the
drawing-room together; and, in obedience to a glance from Rose, from
whom his eyes seldom wandered, Denzil achieved a place by her side on
a sofa.

So the day to which he had looked forward so anxiously, was not,
perhaps, to pass away so inauspiciously after all, for, to Denzil,
time seemed to be divided into two portions--that which was spent in
the society of Rose, and that which seemed blankness, spent in
absence from her.

Waller was hanging over Mabel, talking in a very confidential tone,
so closely that his long fair whiskers brushed at times her rich
brown hair.  Mabel had that kind of pure profile one sometimes sees
cut on a cameo, her head was gracefully set on her shoulders, and
there were times when its bearing was queenly.  Her complexion was
brilliantly fair by day as well as by night, and her dark grey eyes
had in them now a smile so winning, that Bob Waller could not help
thinking that she was really a fine girl, and looking uncommonly well.

The ladies from the adjacent cantonment were now deep in "baby talk;"
the officers were clustered about the two generals, engaged in
discussing "shop," and the probability of Sir Robert Sale cutting his
way to Jellalabad, even though he were beset by the Ghilzies; for a
little space Denzil thought he would have Rose all to himself.

Long ere this he had learned that she and Mabel were somewhat
discontented.  This kind of station, in a species of enemy's country,
and so remote from all the world, where steamers, telegraphs, and
railways were all unknown, was not the India to which they had looked
forward, and to which they had been previously accustomed.  They
should have preferred Calcutta, with its streets of snow-white
palaces, its stately villas at Gardenreach, the spacious course for
driving, riding, promenading, and most decidedly for flirting.  At
Cabul all was semi-barbarism, as compared with Chowringhee, the Park
Lane, the Belgravia of the Indian capital.

Rose knew thoroughly the science of dress.  She never, even when in
England, chose colours merely for their beauty, but such as she knew
by tone and contrast, enhanced the power of her own.  She now wore a
costume of light blue Cabul silk, trimmed with the most delicate
white lace, and she knew that she looked to the utmost advantage.  As
she lay back on the sofa, playing with a feather-fan, vivacity and
langour were alternately the expression of her sunny hazel eyes, for
she was pre-eminently a coquette, and had resolved to amuse herself
for a time with her new, and as yet, silently professed admirer.

"So you are not yet tired of Cabul?" she began, after a pause.

"Oh no, far from it," replied Denzil, with a glance which he thought,
or wished to be thought, full of tender meaning.

"How odd!  I used to think India a fine place, but this Cabul, oh, it
is simply horrid!  There is neither a piano or harp in the whole
city.  To be sure there are no Europeans here, save the Queen's
troops."

"The climate is temperate in summer," urged Denzil for want of
something better to say.

"But nevertheless, the place is unendurable, and I hope papa will
soon get a command elsewhere, that we, at least, may leave."

"I trust not."

"Why?"

"Can you really ask me--why?" said Denzil, lowering his voice, while
gazing into her laughing eyes, with undisguised tenderness; then he
added, "we do not wish to lose you."

"Poor Mr. Devereaux!  I think you are very fond of papa; for his
Cornish name, perhaps," and as no one was looking, she patted his
cheek with her fan.

"I love something more than the mere Cornish name of Trecarrel," said
Denzil, tremulously; but Rose only bit the feathers of her fan, and
eyed him laughingly over it.

"But I repeat that this place is tiresome," she resumed, as a pause
had ensued, and pauses are always awkward; "think of the Residency
parties, with their young ladies' quadrilles and married ladies'
ditto!  A man may dance in both sets, and yet have only one hand to
dispose of.  There is an absurdity, too, in having present those
native chiefs like Taj Mohammed and Timour the Shahzadeh, who think
the whole affair--the round dancing especially--a naughty and
improper Nautch; so they curl their enormous mustaches, and turn up
their cruel glittering eyes, and wonder that we laboriously do that
which they pay others to do for their amusement.  Sunday comes, and
then we have to endure what Mab calls 'a regimental sermon,' wherein
the chaplain sets forth little more than the heinousness of the
slightest neglect of the Queen's regulations!  Heavens!  I would
rather endure a trot on a newly-caught elephant, or a picnic in a wet
jungle!  Oh, may I trouble you, dear Mr. Devereaux?" she whispered
suddenly, and so close that her auburn hair brushed his cheek; "my
bracelet has fallen."

The ornament, an elaborate Delhi bangle--a golden miracle of
carving--was, not very speedily, clasped by Denzil on the white,
veined wrist; and while doing so she permitted her hand for an
instant to touch, to linger in his.  Was he awkward? was the clasp
stiff, that a thrill went to his heart?  But her eyes were sparkling
with coquetry, as she expressed her thanks for the little service she
had ensured by specially and purposely letting her bracelet fall.

"How that young fellow is 'going the pace,'" whispered Polwhele to
Burgoyne, with a covert laugh.

"Of course you can never feel dull when in your quarters, Mr.
Devereaux?" said Rose; "young officers are said to have so many
resources."

"Far from it; and, to tell the truth, I am always dull, weary and
even sad, when not--here.  You can never know," he added, colouring
at the pointedness of his own remark, "how stupidly we fellows pass
the time in cantonments; it is getting through the day
anyhow--sipping everything, from iced champagne to cold tea and pale
ale; smoking everything, from Latakia to Chinsurrah cheroots, and
making bets on everything, from drawing the longest straw out of the
bungalow roof to naming the winner of the Derby or St. Leger, the bet
to be determined six months after, perhaps, when the mail reaches us."

"A profitable way of spending one's day.  Do none of you, as a
pastime, ever attempt to fall in love?"

The question was one of positive cruelty; but the beautiful eyes only
beamed brighter with fun as she put this perilous query, which she
would never have uttered to men like Waller or Polwhele.

She fanned herself, and waited for a reply.

"For others I cannot say," said Denzil, in low voice; "for myself,
never till I came to Cabul--never till I met, I dare not here say
_who_."

"For a griff, Devereaux, you give a capital answer," said Burgoyne,
who had been gradually drawing near them; "we both fall in love and
out of it too," he added, with a laugh that was almost saucy, for he
had already suffered something at Rose's hands.  "Love, like a
month's pay, does not last for ever."

"Even in marriage, do you mean?" asked a lady, looking up from a book
of prints.

"Less then, perhaps, according to Mr. Polewhele," said Rose; "orange
blossoms fade and die as well as summer leaves."

"What a lovely little cynic it is!" said Waller in Mabel's ear; "but
she never means all she says."

The conversation now became general; and save for a speaking glance
from time to time, and--once at least--when their hands touched
(involuntarily, of course) Denzil felt that his chances with Rose
were over for the day.

"Our band plays to-morrow at the grand-stand," said an officer of the
54th Native Infantry.

As he spoke, Denzil's eyes met those of Rose, and swift as lightning
each knew where to look for the other on the morrow.

"Save with the regimental bands," said Mabel, "Rossini, Bellini and
Chimarosa are all lost to us here.  Papa strove hard to bring our
piano up country; but it was lost in the Khyber Pass by the native
artillery (who had tied it on a field piece) when some wild Khyberees
appeared; and they, finding that the box emitted sounds, fired a
score of juzail* balls through it on speculation."


* The Afghan rifle; hence _juzailchees_, or riflemen.


"When I was in the Ceylon Rifles," said a Queen's officer, "I have
actually seen a piano placed in four bowls of water."

"For what purpose?" asked Mabel.

"To prevent the white ants from eating it up; and I was once at a
dancing party in Trincomalee when, from the extreme humidity of
climate, the piano--one of Broadwood's best--went all to pieces, like
a house of cards; so up here, at Cabul, we can't say what might
happen."

"Have you seen the account in an English paper of the late skirmish
with Nott's people at Candahar, and the queer story about the wounded
being carried off?" asked General Trecarrel.

"No," replied Burgoyne; "what was it?  Something extremely 'verdant,'
of course, if it referred to India."

"Exactly.  General Nott reported that he had thirty rank and file
killed, but thrice that number wounded, were all carried off by
dhooleys to the hills; on which event the editor expresses his horror
in having to record that the savage tribe, known as the _Dhooleys_,
swooped down from their native mountains and bore away the helpless
wounded in their remorseless clutches!"

Dhooleys, being simply palanquins or litters, the Indian reader may
imagine--as a little fun goes a long way when "up country"--how the
mistake was laughed at, and how it made old Elphinstone laugh so
severely, that all became seriously alarmed lest a catastrophe might
occur; but ere long his dhooley was announced, and the party began to
disperse; and Denzil, the last to leave, lingered a moment behind his
two friends.

"The band--you have heard--plays at two to-morrow," said Rose, in low
voice.

There was a fleet glance exchanged, a swift, soft pressure of the
slender fingers, and in these words an appointment--an
assignation--was made, causing Denzil's heart to beat wildly with joy
as he hurried after Waller and Polwhele, full of dread lest they
should have discovered his secret understanding with Rose and proceed
to rally him thereon.  As it was, he did not escape; for as they
walked leisurely towards their quarters in the fort, Waller began
thus.

"I have been dying for a quiet cigar!  By the way, what does some
poetical fellow (Byron, is it?) say--that love is of man's life a
thing apart--but woman's whole existence?  I don't know the truth of
the statement; but anyhow, flirtation or man-slaying is a part of the
'existence' of Rose Trecarrel; so, look alive, Denzil, my boy, or
you'll have but a poor chance, if the order to move down on
Jellalabad don't come soon.  It is all very well for subs to be
spooney; but rather absurd for one to be entertaining 'views,' you
know."

"You seemed soft enough on her sister, at all events," retorted
Denzil, angrily.

"It is a maxim of mine," replied Waller, caressing his fly-away
whiskers alternately, "that 'a little bit of tenderness is never
misplaced, so long as the object is young, pretty, and, still more
than all, disposed for it.'  But, Denzil Devereaux, that girl amuses
herself with you, and orders you about, as if you were a Maltese
terrier, a poodle, or a sepoy."

"By Jove! the Trecarrels are handsome, though," said Polwhele; "and
if I had not acquired the habit of making love to a pretty face,
merely as a pastime, I fear I should soon be doing it in downright
earnest to Rose."

Now as Polwhele was a dangerously good-looking fellow, Denzil felt
nettled by his complacent remark.

"But," added the former, "I have met scores of such girls wherever I
have been quartered--at home, I mean--especially in London; just the
kind of girls to do a bit of Park with; to open a pedal communication
with, in mamma's carriage, or meet in a crush where Gunter's fellows
have brought the ices; where Weippart's band invites to the light
fantastic; and where there are covert squeezes of the hand in the
Lancers, on the stairs, or under the supper tablecloth, flirtations
in the conservatory, and soft things said between the figures of a
quadrille, or in the breathing times of a round dance, when weary of
chasing 'the glowing hours with flying feet.'"

"By Jove!  Jack, how your tongue runs on!"

"Well, there is no general order against its doing so; and old
Trecarrel's champagne was excellent.  Oh, Lord!  I have done all that
sort of thing scores of times, and now find there was nothing in it;
but Rose Trecarrel has the prettiest ankle I ever saw.

"Ah! you're a man of close observation."

"Well, I've seen a few in my time, on windy days, at Margate and
Brighton especially."

"I am not a marrying man, and had I not been hopelessly insolvent
since I came into the world, egad!  I would pop to Mabel," said
Waller, with a sudden earnestness to which the General's champagne
perhaps contributed.

"Oh! you have got the length of calling her by her Christian name!'

"As you do Rose--well, but is it _not_ her name?"

"Of course; but----"

"But what?" asked Bob Waller, testily; "is a fellow to be
everlastingly quizzed in that mess-room style, just
because--because"--he stuttered and paused.

"What?" said Polwhele, laughing and pointing his black mustaches,
which the Line wore in India long before the Crimean war.

"Because he has an honest fancy for a girl; and do you know, Jack, I
think I _could_ love that girl--seriously now."

"Very probably; but do you think she could love you?"

"True, I am only a captain, with a small share in an old Cornish
mine, and no end of expectations."

"It is only being up-country and idleness."

"I'd call you out, Jack, only it is not the fashion to treat one's
friends so now," retorted Waller, as they reached their quarters in
the old fort.  "There bangs the evening gun from the Bala Hissa; and
now to dress for mess."

Some of Polwhele's thoughtless speeches rankled more in the mind of
Denzil than he quite cared to show; for he knew that if the idea
struck the mind of that confident personage he would propose to Rose
Trecarrel in a moment; and Polwhele, he was aware, had a handsome
estate partly in Cornwall and partly in Devonshire, and was a most
eligible _parti_.

_He_, himself, was but a junior subaltern, and he speculated on the
years that must inevitably pass ere he could be a captain.  Oh, Rose
would never wait all that time, and be true.

Poor lad--would he?  At least he thought so.

Long, long did Denzil lie awake that night, after leaving the
mess-bungalow, anticipating the meeting of the morrow, and recalling
the expression of Rose's clear brown eyes--the touch of her soft hand
and her whispered words, while the hungry jackals howled like devils
in the compound without; and while, on the metal ghurries of the
adjacent cantonment, the sentinels struck the passing hours.

He might, had he known the true state of matters, had a sympathetic
adviser in Bob Waller, who at that precise time was seated
thoughtfully in his quarters--the white-washed room already
described--with a leg over each arm of his bamboo chair and his eyes
fixed pensively on the ceiling, for he was thinking over Mabel's rare
beauty through the medium of a soothing pipe of Cavendish; and once
or twice he muttered:

"I am quite bewildered--_gobrowed_, as the Niggers here have it--and
know not what to think--matrimony or not."  And, as the night stole
on, foreseeing little or nothing of the dangers and horrors to
come--of the cloud of battle that was gathering in the Khyber Pass,

  "He smoked his pipe and often broke
  A sigh in suffocating smoke."




CHAPTER VII.

"THE BAND PLAYS AT TWO."

Young though he was, Denzil made a careful toilet next day; mufti was
not much worn at Cabul; but he was unusually particular about the
fitting of his blue surtout with its gold shoulder-scales, the
adjustment of his crimson sash and sword-belt, forgetting that these
were no novelties to the eyes of Rose, and that the black livery of
the Civil Service finds more favour with ladies than military uniform
in India, where the Redcoats are frequently at a discount, with
mammas especially; and he was on the large circular parade ground,
where the bands usually played, in the centre of the cantonments
(which were an oblong enclosure measuring a thousand yards by six
hundred, with a circular bastion at each corner) long before the
general promenaders began to assemble, or the European musicians of
the 54th Native Infantry had assorted their music, and performed
those preliminary grunts on the trombone and ophicleide, which
excited the astonishment of the natives, who were present in
considerable numbers, by their aspect and costume, enhancing in
piquancy a very remarkable scene.

For the first time since they had met, Rose Trecarrel had made a
regular appointment with him.  It was in a very public place,
however, and though it seemed simple enough to her, to Denzil the
idea that he had established a secret understanding with her, was in
itself happiness; and for the first time he wished to avoid his
friend Waller, and was pleased to find that he was detailed for guard
that day at an old tomb and temple where we had a post, at the foot
of the Behmaru Hills.

The day was one of great beauty, and the air was delightfully cool.
Overhead spread the blue and unclouded vault of Heaven, and in the
rarified atmosphere, even the remote details of the vast landscape
and of the city were rendered visible.  Viewed from the cantonments,
the plains of Lombardy do not exceed in beauty and brilliance of
colour those of Cabul, which moreover, in lieu of the Apennines (amid
which Denzil and his parents had often resided) are overshadowed by
the stupendous mountains of Kohistan.

Crowning two lofty ridges in the foreground rose Cabul within its
walls of stone, and towering high above them, rose the Chola or
citadel of the Bala Hissar.  The city is picturesque, each house
having, as in Spain, an open court-yard, though the streets of
unburnt-brick are so narrow as to be frequently blocked up by one
laden camel, or to prevent two horsemen riding abreast.  Thus the
great chiefs and nobles have always footmen running in front to
prepare or clear the way for them.  There all the different races
live apart, and the Persians or fierce Kussilbashes have their own
quarter fortified against all the rest.

The groups that gathered round the band were a sample of all the
various tribes that resided in and about Cabul, for though many
murderous outrages had been perpetrated on our people they were still
anxious, if possible, to conciliate the natives.

Each type of humanity varied from the other in visage and in costume;
the fair-faced and ruddy-looking Englishman; the lean, dark Hindoo
sepoy, seeming intensely uncomfortable in his tight red coat and
stiff shako; the sturdier Afghan; the wild Beloochee, the Dooranee,
the Kussilbash and Arab, all of whom were admitted in limited number
by the quarter-guard; some cruel and sly in expression; some lofty,
proud and refined, with patriarchal beards that floated to their
waists, and a solemnity of bearing that made one think of the days of
Abraham; and many of them armed with ancient weapons made long
anterior to the adoption of our villanous saltpetre; in their dresses
and manners looking like the figures at a fancy-ball, so quiet and so
brilliant in colour and variety, were their flowing Oriental robes.

Numbers of officers and ladies from the different compounds and
villas in the vicinity were present; and the "chimney-pot hat of
civilization," might be seen amid the white turbans of the Mussulmen,
the yellow of the Khyberrees and abhorred Jews, and the scarlet
_loonghee_ of the Kussilbash, for Khan Shireen Khan, chief of that
warlike tribe, appeared mounted on a slow-paced, lank, patient and
submissive-looking camel.  Perched high up, he sat on a lofty saddle,
with a tall tasselled lance slung behind him, and in front a small
armoury of knives and pistols stuck in his girdle, which was a
magnificent Cashmere shawl, that many a belle might have envied.  Nor
were veiled Afghan ladies wanting, and these surveyed with wonder
their European sisters, as they openly laughed, chatted
and--Bismillah!--shook hands with the Feringhee officers.

Shahzadeh Timour, who commanded the King's forces, was there, mounted
on a beautiful horse, wearing a polished shirt of mail and a plumed
steel cap, looking not unlike a Circassian chief; and Taj Mahommed
Khan, still intent on warning the Europeans of coming evil, rode by
his side.

There, too, was Osman Abdallah, an Arab faquir or dervish, who had
accompanied the troops from Bengal, a clamorous half-naked fellow,
with hair unshorn and shaggy, his lean attenuated limbs smeared with
ashes and ghee, thus compelling all to keep to windward of him, as
his person was odorous neither of Inde nor Araby the Blest, while he
begged for alms to send him on his pilgrimage to the three pools of
Sacred Fish, kept by a holy Suyd (or Santon) among the mountains of
Sirichussa; and to him, as a riddance, Denzil threw a handful of
silver shahi's (petty coins indeed) but of great value in
Afghanistan, where cowrie shells pass current at about the tenth of a
penny.

Amid all this motley and increasing crowd, he looked anxiously for
Rose Trecarrel; already the brass band of the Native Infantry burst
upon the air with a crash of music as they began a melody from an
opera; and something of disappointment and pique at her protracted
absence began to steal into Denzil's heart, for her eagerness seemed
by no means equal to his own.

Near him were a group of young officers like himself, but belonging
principally to the 5th Cavalry and Horse Artillery.  Unlike him, they
were neither silent nor thoughtful, but were staring--some through
their eye-glasses--at the Afghan women, and amusing themselves with
sarcastic criticisms on the quaint figures about them, especially the
Khan of the Kussilbashes on his camel and "Timour the Tartar," as
they called the Shahzadeh, in his steel cap and steel shirt of the
middle ages.

"There goes Rose Trecarrel!" cried one.

"Do you know her?" asked another.

"Know her--who doesn't?  Why, man alive, she's as well known as
Mechi's razor strop, or Warren's blacking, or anything you may see
staring you in the face in the Strand or Regent Street," was the
heedless and not very ceremonious response; and if a glance could
have slain the speaker, Denzil would certainly have left a vacant
cornetcy in the 5th Cavalry.

He turned away in anger, which, however, was somewhat soothed when he
heard Shireen Khan, who was gazing after her, say to Shahzadeh
Timour, that she was "beautiful as a Peri," which in his language is
expressive of a race constituting a link between women and angels.

In a moment Denzil was by her side.  She was in a little phaeton
drawn by two pretty Cabul ponies and was alone.  To avoid being
joined by anyone, before she caught the eye of Denzil, she had driven
them round the crowd about the band, managing her whip and ribbons
very prettily, her hands being cased in dainty buff gauntlet gloves.
She was tastefully dressed and wore a bonnet of that shade of blue
which she knew was most suitable to her pure complexion and rich
bright auburn hair; for Rose was one of those who thought it "was
woman's business to be beautiful."

Dropping her whip into the socket, she pulled up and presented her
hand to Denzil, who, we fear, held it in his somewhat long, and it
did not seem that Miss Rose Trecarrel was _very_ much inconvenienced
by the proceeding; but he forgot who might be looking on--he thought
only of the brilliant hazel eyes--the ever smiling mouth.

"And you are here alone?" said he.

"As you see.  Papa is busy with the General--a move of all the troops
down-country is spoken of as imminent soon; and Mabel is with Lady
Macnaghten at the Residency, where I am to pick her up at the gate.
Will you accompany us for a drive outside the cantonments?"

"With pleasure," said Denzil, though this party of _three_ was not
exactly what he had schemed out in his own mind--for he had
contemplated nothing less than a solitary ramble with Rose amid the
lovely and secluded alleys of the Shah Bagh, or Royal Garden, close
by; but it was necessary to quit the crowd unnoticed, a movement not
very easily achieved by a girl so showy and so well known as Rose
Trecarrel; so they were compelled to linger a little, as if listening
to the band.

In the small circle of European society at Cabul, great
circumspection was necessary--greater still before the natives, who,
under the ideas inculcated by their race and religion, were apt to
suspect the most innocent action permitted by the usages of society
at home, and to misconstrue that which they could not understand--the
perfect freedom and equality, the high position, honour and
character, accorded to the English lady or the Christian woman,
whether as maid, wife, or mother.

Denzil was too inexperienced and too much in love to be otherwise
than shy and nervous.  He hesitated in speech, and actually blushed
or grew pale like a girl who heard, rather than a youth who had a
tale of love to tell.  His voice became low, earnest, and tremulous.
He could scarcely tell why the momentary touch of that graceful
little hand, ungloved--for it _was_ ungloved now--made his heart
thrill, for the presence, the sense, the language, and the glances of
passion, were all new and confusing to him; while the brilliant
girl--the lovely spider in whose net he found himself so hopelessly
meshed--knew how to wear her armour of proof and shoot her
love-shafts to perfection.

The band now struck up a lively air, and dancing to its measure,
through the crowd, which parted and made way for them, there came a
group of some twenty Nautch girls, in their graceful Indian dress
(all so unlike the swathed-up women of the Mussulmen), a single robe
folded artistically about them, leaving one bosom and their supple,
tapered limbs quite free.  The leading Bayadere, though dark as
copper, was indeed a lovely girl; but her jetty hair was all
glittering with missee and silver dust.

The jewels which loaded their necks, wrists, and ankles, proclaimed
them attendants on the court of the Shah,* and were flashing like
their own bright eyes in the sunshine, while the coils of their hair
of purple blackness, were interwoven with the white flowers of the
wild jasmine.  Some had vinas, or rude guitars fashioned of
half-gourds; and others had tom-toms or little Indian drums, to the
sound of which they sung.


*Now, as in the time of the "Arabian Nights," Nautch girls are
attached to all Eastern Courts.


As all Nautch dancing borders a little on the indelicate, Rose had
now a fair excuse for leaving the vicinity of the band.  Denzil
sprang into the little seat behind her, as she still insisted on
driving, and they quitted the cantonments by the west-gate, opposite
the musjeed, where Bob Waller was listening to the distant strains of
the music and killing the hours of his duty as best he could; and
thus they escaped Polwhele and a few others who had been waiting to
pounce upon her or Mabel, for they were especial favourites with the
officers, nathless the ungallant banter to which their names were
subjected at times.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE DRIVE.

Mabel was not at the Residency, as the sentinels of the Queen's 44th,
at the gate, informed them, she having driven away with the Lady of
the Envoy to visit Lady Sale, about half an hour before.  Denzil
perhaps might have foreseen that the sisters would miss each other,
had he known more of the inner nature of Rose Trecarrel, or more of
the science of flirtation.

"How excessively provoking!" she exclaimed; "shall we return to the
band, or--drive without her?  Besides we might perhaps meet or
overtake them."

The idea of a solitary drive was somewhat perilous at that juncture
of our affairs, as the district was much disturbed, and patrols of
the 5th Cavalry and 1st Local Horse of the Shah, were on all the
roads leading to Cabul.  All the people were in arms, and since the
murder of Sir Alexander Burnes, more than one officer had been
waylaid and seriously wounded.  But the temptation was too great, and
Denzil "supposed that they might take a little drive together;" so
turning the phaeton from the Residency gate, Rose drove along the
Kohistan road, in a direction from Cabul.

A wretched Hindoo Kulassy, or tent-pitcher--just such a creature as
one may see shivering in the Strand, singing in a nasal monotone to
the beating of his dusky fingers on a tom-tom--cried something in
mockery after them--a sign of the times--but they heard him not.  The
Shah Bagh, amid the luxuriant shrubberies of which the voices of the
dove and nightingale were heard at certain seasons; the quaint, old
musjeed, where Waller was on guard; the village of Behmaru; a pile of
stones marking where an English lady had been thrown out of her
palanquin and murdered by some wild Belooches, who fled, leaving her
unplundered, as they deem the blood of a woman bodes disaster to
those who shed it, were each and all soon left behind, and they drew
near the long and narrow lake of Istaliff, which is about four miles
in length, and where Sinclair's boat lay now neglected among the
weeds and sedges.

The vicinity of this lake, the only one in Afghanistan, was lonely,
and the hills of Behmaru bordered it on the east.  There the shaggy
goat, bearded like his Afghan master, and the graceful little
antelope leaped from rock to rock; there the long-haired cat and the
jabbering ape sprang from branch to branch of the plane and poplar
trees, and the beautiful little bird known as the Greek partridge,
the hill-chuckore of the natives, whirred up from among the long
grass; but save these, and once when a solitary Afghan shepherd
peeped forth from his tent of coarse black camlet, pitched on the
green mountain slope, there seemed no living thing on their now
sequestered path.

Waller, Burgoyne, and others, were older and more showy officers than
Denzil, as yet; but it pleased the caprice of Rose Trecarrel to
attach him for a time, if not hopelessly, to the train of her
admirers; though there was a double risk in the little expedition of
that day--the exciting comment among her friends, and the more
perilous and equally probable advent of some plundering natives or
armed fanatics; yet, heedless of all, the rash girl drove on, looking
laughingly back from time to time, with her bright smiling face and
alluring eyes, at the lover who sat behind her, striving to speak on
passing objects or common-place events, while his soul was full of
her, and her only.

Fortunately, no deadly or perilous adventure marked that day's
expedition; yet Denzil was fated never to forget it.

Rose certainly was fond of Denzil; but her love affair had, to her,
much of the phase of amusement in it.  In him, it was mingled with
intense and delicate respect; and every fibre seemed to thrill, when
she turned half round and showed her face so beautiful in its
animation, while, blown back by the soft breeze and their progress
against it, her veil, and sometimes one loose tress of her silky,
auburn hair, were swept across his mouth and eyes.

Denzil's hand rested on the back of her seat, and as she reclined
against it, he knew that there was little more than a silk dress
between it and a neck of snowy whiteness; and as the sunlight fell on
her brilliant hair, it shone like floss silk, or satin, rather, while
her eyes were ever beaming with pleasure, fun, excitement, and
something of fondness, too; for he who sat near her was handsome,
winning, dazzled by her, and, as she well knew, loved her dearly.

"Do you believe in animal magnetism?" she asked abruptly.

"I don't know--never thought about it, though I have heard old
What's-his-name lecture on it at Sandhurst; but what do you mean?"

"The strange sympathy and attraction that are created between two
persons who meet each other for the first time--love at first sight,
in fact."

Denzil's heart beat very fast, and he was about to make a suitable
response, when Rose resumed.

"I am so glad to have the pleasure of driving you, Mr. Devereaux,"
said she; "but see how those reins have reddened my poor fingers!"
she added, holding up a plump, little white hand, ungloved, most
temptingly before him.  The ponies were proceeding at a walk now, and
for Denzil to resist taking that hand in his, caressingly, was
impossible; the next moment he had bent his lips to it, and still
retained it, for Rose made no effort to withdraw it; and this seemed
rather encouraging.

"And you never were in love till you came to Cabul?" she asked,
deliberately.

"Never, till I saw you, Rose--dear, dear Rose--ah, permit me to call
you so?" replied Denzil, with his eyes so full of tender emotion that
her dark lashes drooped for a moment.

"You must not talk in this way, Mr. Devereaux; but how is one to know
true love--for there is only one love, though a hundred imitations of
it?" she asked, laughing--she was always laughing.

"Some one says so, or writes so, I think."

"De La Rochefoucauld."

"And De La Rochefoucauld is right," replied Denzil, covering with
kisses her velvety and unresisting hand.

"I never thought you cared so much for me, Mr. Devereaux," said she
after a pause.

"Cared--Oh, Rose, can you use a phrase so tame as that?"

"Well, I mean--good Heavens, I don't know what I mean!  I never
thought you loved me.  I had some idea that you preferred Mabel--she
is so statuesque."

Rose had never thought this; but it suited her to say so, and gain a
little time.  She half closed her clear brown eyes, and smiling most
archly and seductively under their long lashes at him, said in a low
voice,--

"And you love me--actually love me?"

"I have dared to say so--Rose."

"But you are so young, Denzil--dare I say Denzil?"

"Only a year perhaps younger than you."

"But then you are only an Ensign--and people would so laugh!"

"Let them do so--he who laughs wins; one day I shall be something
more," said he earnestly.

"Sit beside me, please, and not behind; I shall have quite a crick in
my poor little neck by the way I have to turn--and I shall give you
the reins too."

In a moment Denzil was seated by her side.

"And now," said she, "let us talk of something else than love; we
have had quite enough of it for one day, my poor Denzil."

How his heart thrilled again, at the sound of his own name on her
lips.

"Of what shall we speak--of what else can one think or speak when
with you?"

"Oh, anything; how do you like this dress, for instance--my ayah
trimmed it?" and while speaking she opened her soft cashmere shawl
and showed her waist and the breast of her dress trimmed with--Denzil
knew not what--for to resist putting an arm round that adorable waist
(a movement which we dare not quite say Miss Rose Trecarrel perhaps
expected) was impossible.

"Denzil--Mr. Devereaux!" she exclaimed--"oh good Heavens! if you--if
we are seen by any one."

"Pardon me--but permit me," he sighed.

"Listen for a moment and do be reasonable.  I can scarcely admit or
realise the idea that you are _the_ one who is to give a tone, a
colour, to all my future life.  No, Denzil; you have paid me the
greatest compliment a man can pay a woman; but it may not be.  Let us
be friends--oh yes! dear, dear friends, who shall never forget each
other; but not lovers" (here she held up her ruddy lips to the
bewildered Denzil) "not lovers--oh,no--not lovers!"

Kisses stifled all that might have followed.

What art or madness was this?

Denzil felt as if the landscape swam around him, and he was rather
fond and fatuous in his proceedings, we must admit; but his
earnestness impressed at last the coquette by his side.  She began to
think she had gone rather too far, so she became grave, and a sadness
almost stole over her face.

She began to consider that this love-making was all very well and
pleasant so long as it lasted, but where was it to end?  As others
have ended, thought Rose.  There were moments when she could not help
yielding to the calm delight with which the pure passion of Denzil
was apt to inspire her, for there was a genuine freshness in it.
Many had flattered her; many had pressed and kissed her hands, toyed
with her beautiful hair, aye, and not a few had kissed her cheek too;
but beyond all those, he seemed so happy, so intensely enchanted with
her--seeming to drink in her accents--to live upon her smiles!

In short, he thoroughly _believed_ in her, and she tried for the time
to believe in herself; and yet--and yet--with the impassioned kisses
of her young lover on her lips, she felt that it was all folly--folly
in him, folly in her--a folly that must soon have a painful, perhaps
a mortifying end.

Did it never occur to her, that young though he was, those caresses
and kisses--those words half sighed, and thoughts half-uttered, might
never be forgotten by him; but be recalled in time to come with
sadness as "the delight of remembered days."

"Now do let us be rational, dearest Denzil," said she smoothing her
hair and quickly adjusting her shawl, collar, and gloves, as a turn
of the road brought them in sight of the cantonments and a patrol of
the 5th Cavalry under a Duifodar riding slowly along; and on their
drawing a little nearer her father's house prudence on Rose's part
led her to suggest that Denzil should leave her.

"Good-bye till to-morrow--you will call and see us, of course," said
she, as he alighted from the phaeton; "dear Denzil," she added, her
eyes beaming with their usual witchery and waggery the while, "have
we not enjoyed the band to-day?"

He knew not what he replied as she drove off and once or twice turned
to kiss her hand to him, while lingeringly and with his heart
swelling with all that had passed, he turned from the Kohistan road
towards his somewhat squalid quarters in the old Afghan fort.

The secret understanding between them seemed to be growing deeper!
What was to be the sequel, and what would the General say?  But, as
yet, prudence had suggested neither one idea nor the other to Denzil.

It was well for him, as after mess, he lay on his charpoy, or
camp-bed, indulging in a quiet cigar and plunged in happy reverie,
dreaming over all the events of that delightful drive by the Lake of
Istaliff, that he did not overhear a few words of a conversation
regarding him, and taking place at that precise time in a corner of
General Trecarrel's drawing-room.

"Take care, Rose," Mabel was saying; "I have heard of your solitary
drive to-day from Polwhele, though papa has not--a drive in defiance
of the dreadfully disturbed state of the people hereabout--nearly all
in insurrection, in fact.  Mr. Devereaux is only a very junior
subaltern, and the Civil Service are scarce enough up here certainly;
but remember that cloudy story about his family which we heard at
Porthellick."

"I care not," replied Rose, looking up from a fauteuil on which she
was languidly reclining, her whole occupation being the opening and
shutting of a beautiful fan given to her by some forgotten sub of
Sale's Light Infantry; "the poor fellow loves me----"

"He has told you so?"

"Yes--so I shan't betray his home secret, if there is one."

"Yet you would betray himself?"

"Don't say so, Mab?"

"Why?"

"It sounds so horrid."

"But when Audley Trevelyan--the heir to a peerage comes----"

"Audley seems to find attraction enough in Bombay," said Rose, with
an air of pique; "so please attend to Waller and his long fair
whiskers, my dear sister, I am quite able to take care of myself.
Besides, Mab, this lad Devereaux is only one among many."

"But to him you may be one--_the one_--one only Rose."

"I know it," was the pitiless reply.




CHAPTER IX.

ADVENTURE IN CABUL.

To his intense mortification, regimental duty detained Denzil in the
cantonments all the following day, thus precluding his visiting the
General's house at the time he intended; but as a natural sequence to
their pleasant little airing by the shores of the Lake of Istaliff,
it occurred to him that at their next interview he must beg Rose
Trecarrel's acceptance of some suitable love-token; and for this
purpose he resolved to visit the great bazaar while it was yet safe
for a European to traverse the streets of the Shah's capital, as the
dreaded Ackbar Khan was not as yet known to be within its walls at
that precise juncture; and evening parade being over, he hastened
along the road to the Kohistan gate, and turning to the left after
entering it, proceeded at once towards the Char Chouk, the aforesaid
great bazaar, with his mind intent on his proposed purchase, and so
full of the tender memories of yesterday, that he was quite oblivious
of the manner in which the armed Afghans, the red-capped
Kussilbashes, and others who were thronging the narrow thoroughfares
in unwonted numbers, regarded him; how they scowled ominously,
handled their weapons, and muttered curses under their thick flowing
mustaches.

He was thinking only of Rose, when there were those hovering about
him who required but the precept, or example, of one bolder or more
cruel than the rest, to cut him to pieces and elevate his head on
some conspicuous pole in the market-place; for the Afghans almost
invariably slice off the heads of those they slay.

It never occurred to him, that in her own laughing way, her manner
yesterday had been somewhat forward, over-confident, or "flirtatious"
as Polwhele would have phrased it.  He had but one idea and
conviction; "How _fond_ she is of me?" and thus a few gold pieces
which he had once intended to invest in a present for his
mother--alas! he knew not all that had happened at home--or for
Sybil, his gentle sister, were now to be spent in a suitable
love-gift for Rose Trecarrel.

"She loves me--and she is so beautiful!" he whispered to himself
again and again; for there is much truth in the old Roman maxim, that
"what we wish should be, we readily believe;" and what reason had he
to doubt her?  Doubtless, she had flirted with many--but she loved
_him_.

Followed and alternately mocked, reviled or importuned insolently for
alms, by Osman Abdallah, the Arab Dervish, to be rid of whose
inodorous presence, he thrice gave him a rupee, Denzil reached the
great bazaar, the largest in all the East (and once famed as the
emporium of Asia), which was built in the days of Aurungzebe; but
which exists no longer, as it was subsequently destroyed by our
troops.

Like other Oriental bazaars, it was formed of stone, like a long
double gallery, arched in with wood elaborately painted, gilded, and
carved, and having to the right and left bezetzeins or shops opening
off it; and in these, merchants displayed their various goods for
sale.  The true Afghans never engage in trade; but despise it.  All
their shopkeepers, merchants and artizans are generally men of other
nations--Tadjiks, Hindoos, or Persians; and through a scowling and
well armed crowd of idle men and veiled women, Denzil wandered amid a
maze of shops, some of their windows being ablaze with jewels, gold
and silver work, rich draperies, divans, Persian carpets, Cashmere
shawls; shops where iced sherbet and luscious fruits were vended in
summer; shops where chupatties and sweet confectionery were sold;
others where silver-mounted saddles, gold-handled sabres, silks,
muslins and riches of all kinds were displayed, a more picturesque
aspect being imparted to the whole scene by the variously-coloured
lamps of perfumed oil which hung from the ceilings, and which, as the
dusk of evening was now stealing into the bazaar, were being lighted
here and there.

At last he stood before the booth of a jeweller, who was seated
cross-legged behind the trays whereon female ornaments of every
conceivable kind for the neck, ankles and wrists, for the hair and
the girdle, rings for the ears, the fingers and nose were displayed,
all fashioned of that bright-coloured gold and delicate workmanship
for which the East, but more especially the city of Delhi is so
famed.  The prices of these were marked on labels in Afghan money,
from the rupee and gold mohur upwards.

While Denzil was looking over these gems of art for a ring of some
value as a suitable present for Rose Trecarrel, he did not perceive
that the cross-legged and remarkably cross-visaged proprietor--a huge
Asiatic, who wore a green turban, declaring thereby his descent from
the prophet, and who sat smoking on a piece of carpet within his
shopboard, his beard of intense blackness, flowing almost to his
knees--was eyeing him with a deepening scowl, and seeming to shoot
towards him with fierce and insulting energy the pale blue smoke
wreaths that issued from his lips and the nostrils of his hooked
nose--a veritable eagle's beak.

At last Denzil selected a ring, the price of which was marked as
eight gold mohurs, and was about to proffer the money therefor, when
the merchant snatched the jewel from his hand, and saying, with
savage energy, the single epithet, "_Kaffir!_" spat full in his face.
At the same moment Osman Abdallah, the filthy, greasy and unshorn
Arab Hadi, who had been watching closely, uttered a shrill and
hostile yell.

Startled and justly enraged by an insult so sudden and so foul,
Denzil drew back with his hand on his sword.  As his assailant was
quite unarmed, he had no intention of drawing it unless farther
molested.  He looked round in vain for a choukeydar (or policeman)
and saw only a gathering crowd with black-gleaming eyes and swarthy
malevolent visages closing round him.  How the affair might have
ended there is little difficulty in foreseeing.  He must have been
slaughtered on the spot, but for the intervention of a splendidly
equipped horseman, who at that critical moment rode up, and seizing
him by the arm waved the people back by his sabre, and assisted by
his followers, six juzailchees, half led half dragged Denzil from the
bazaar into the open street.

"Are you mad or weary of your life, Sahib, that you venture into
Cabul in the present state of the city, and, more than all, to-day?"
asked his protector, sternly.

"Why particularly to-day, Mohammed Khan?" said Denzil, greatly
ruffled, and now recognising the tall, thin and yellow visaged Wuzeer
of the Shah.

"Alas! ye are but as swine!" was the complimentary reply.  "Know you
not that it is Friday--a day set apart by the devout for solemn fast
and prayer, in commemoration of the holy prophet's arrival at Medina;
and because on that day God finished the great work of creation?"

"I never thought of all this, Khan," replied Denzil, whose heart was
yet furious against the fanatical jeweller; and he might with truth
have added, that so far from thinking of the prophet he thought only
of Rose Trecarrel.

The narrow streets were nearly involved in darkness now.  They were
destitute of all lamps; and thus, provided the Wuzeer could elude the
crowd that followed clamorously from the bazaar, he would not have
much difficulty in effecting the escape of Denzil, whose blood they
fiercely and furiously demanded, crying aloud that one of the
faithful had been assaulted, robbed and half murdered by a Kaffir, a
Feringhee, and so forth.

The six juzailchees who formed the escort of Taj Mohammed Khan, and
who were soldiers of the Shah's 6th regiment (a portion of the same
force that General Trecarrel had come up country to command) now
fixed their long bayonets and kept back the pressure of the crowd,
many of whom had now drawn their swords.  The high, narrow
thoroughfare re-echoed with barbarous yells, and Denzil felt that he
was in a very awkward scrape.

Dismounting, the Wuzeer quitted his horse, and seizing the somewhat
bewildered Denzil by the hand conducted him down a narrow, dark and
steep alley, under the very ramparts of the towering Bala Hissar; and
thence, by a steeper open slope to the lower wall of the city,
through a _kirkee_, or wicket, in a gate of which they issued, and
the fugitive found himself free.  Before him stretched, far away in
the starlight, the extensive and beautifully cultivated valley, amid
which the Cabul flows till it passes through the city, the ramparts,
royal citadel, domes and castles of which rose in sombre masses
skyward behind him.

Mohammed drew a long breath, as if of relief.  So did Denzil.  He had
been thinking of the emotions of Rose on the morrow, if she heard
that he had been massacred in the streets of Cabul, helplessly,
pitilessly, barbarously, and of those who were so dear at home, and
were so far, far away.

"As yet you are safe," said his guide.

"I thank you gratefully; but how far am I from the cantonments?"

"About two kroes."

This was fully four miles English from that angle of the city, and
Denzil heard him with anxiety.

"Know you the way, Sahib?"

"I do not.  Moreover, it may be beset."

"Then I must conduct you; but see! yonder are horsemen coming
straight from the Candahar road.  I know not who they may be.  Some
Belooches are expected with Ackbar Khan on the morrow; so, quick, let
us conceal ourselves here."

And hurrying--running, indeed--with all the speed they could exert,
they sought the shelter of a grove, wherein, as Denzil knew, stood
the mosque and tomb of the once mighty Emperor Baber, in quieter
times the object of many a ride and visit, and the scene of many a
pleasant pic-nic for the ladies and officers of the garrison.  All
was still here--still as death--save the plashing of a sacred
fountain and the cooing of the wild pigeons, disturbed by their
approach.  The grove and cornices of the mosque were full of those
birds, which are deemed holy by the Mohammedans, because as the
Wuzzer, who, like a true Afghan, never omitted to interlard his
discourse with religious topics and allusions, a pigeon had built its
nest in front of a cavern in which the prophet lay concealed, and
thus favoured an escape from his enemies.

"These horsemen draw near us," said Denzil, as hoofs now rang on the
pathway to the shrine.

"_Az burai Kodar_--silence!" (for the love of God) whispered Taj
Mohammed, as he placed a hand on the mouth of the speaker and drew
him under the shadow of the trees, only in time to escape the eye of
a tall and well-armed man, who suddenly appeared at the door of the
mosque, in which one or two more lamps were now being lighted.

The horsemen, twelve in number, were all Afghans, and armed to the
teeth.  They carried juzails slung over their poshteens.  Each had a
double brace of pistols in his girdle as well as a pair at his saddle
bow; and all, save one, who appeared to be a chief, had a lance in
his right hand, and an elaborately-gilded shield of rhinoceros hide
strapped to his back.  They were all stately, strong and
resolute-looking fellows.  Linking their horses together, they
dismounted with one accord, and their figures seemed remarkably
picturesque in the strong light which now streamed through the
door--a horse-shoe arch--of the illuminated mosque, as they entered
it in succession, each making a low salaam to the armed man, who was
evidently standing there to receive and welcome them.

Denzil turned to Taj Mohammed and was about to make some inquiry,
when that personage, whose eyes were sparkling like those of a hyæna
in the clear starlight, and whose teeth were set with rage, said in a
low and hissing voice,

"Silence, Sahib, silence, for your life!  These are Ghilzies and
Kussilbashes; and he who received them is the Sirdir, Ackbar Khan!
Now, by the soul of the prophet, the dark spirit of the devil is in
Baber's tomb to-night!"

A political or military conference--perhaps a conspiracy--was
evidently on the tapis; and great though the risk of discovery--a
cruel and immediate death--Taj Mohammed, in his dread and hatred of a
powerful and hereditary foe and would-be supplanter, crept forward
that he might overhear; and following his example, Denzil was rash
enough to climb, by the rich carvings of the mosque, to one of the
openings, which, for religious purposes, were left in its eastern
wall; and peeping in, he saw a somewhat remarkable scene--one which,
so far as regarded character, costume and spirit, resembled one in
the middle ages, rather than in her present Majesty's reign.




CHAPTER X.

THE MOSQUE OF BABER.

Under the dome or centre of this edifice was formed a lofty hall of
circular shape, rising from horse-shoe arches that sprang from
slender pillars of white marble.  In the centre of each arch hung a
silver lamp, but only two were lighted.  On one side stood a pulpit
of the purest white marble, and on the other, a gilded gallery for
the Shah, when it pleased him to come hither and pray at the tomb of
his remote predecessor.  Opposite this stood an altar, where the name
of the Deity was painted in brilliant arabesques, and two enormous
candles, each a foot in diameter, stood at each end of it on gilded
pedestals.

In the middle of this place, and amid a group of armed Afghan chiefs,
stood one whom Taj Mohammed indicated by a sign, to be the Prince,
Ackbar Khan, our most bitter enemy in that half-barbarous land; and
it was not without some emotions of interest and excitement that
Denzil looked upon this son of Dost Mohammed--one whose character for
cruelty and recklessness of human suffering and human life was so
notorious.

Fairer than Afghans usually are, he was a man of distinguished
hearing, with a magnificent black beard: but, for the purpose of
disguise, was clad as yet in the humble attire of a shepherd; thus it
contrasted strongly with the brilliant colours worn by Shireen Khan
of the Kussilbashes, Ameen Oollah Khan, the Ghazee chiefs, and
others, to whom he was now speaking with animation, ever and anon,
while he did so, grinding those teeth of which Rose Trecarrel had
spoken so disparagingly.

This Ackbar Khan was simply a monster in cruelty; he had been known
to have a man flayed alive in his presence, "commencing at the feet
and continuing upwards, till the sufferer was relieved by death."  A
favourite and brave follower of his own, named Pesh Khedmut--one who
had been with him in all his defeats, flights, and varieties of
fortune, was once assisting him to mount his horse, when some portion
of his loose flowing dress caught the lock of a pistol.  It exploded,
and the terrible Ackbar was slightly wounded.  In vain did the
luckless Khedmut swear upon the Koran that it was the result of an
accident over which he had no control; in vain, we say; for the
pitiless Sirdir had him burned alive; and he is alleged to have
tortured to death more than one British officer, whom the fortune of
war had left in his hands.

Ackbar, however, excelled in all the higher branches of Afghan
education; thus he rode well, shot with precision, and handled his
sabre with an expertness few could equal.

"Some conspiracy is afoot," thought Denzil; "and there is Shireen
Khan, the old Kussilbash brute whom I saw airing himself on a camel
at the band-stand; and now, here comes my friend, the Arab Hadji, who
loves his Prophet so much, but loathes soap and water more," he
added, mentally, as his late tormentor now stole in, and creeping,
almost crawling, on his hands and knees, up to Ackbar, delivered a
letter, which he drew from his tattered cummerbund, the cloth which
girt his loins.

Ackbar read it, and his eyes flashed fire as he turned to grim old
Shireen Khan, and said,--

"Sale, the Kaffir Sirdir (_i.e._ infidel general) has actually cut
his way through the Ghilzie tribes, and is now safe in Jellalabad!
Well; the unbelievers who remain in Cabul shall be destroyed, root
and branch, ere he can return to succour them; that I have sworn on
the Kulma, unless the Envoy of their Queen ransoms their accursed
heads to-morrow."

"And their women shall be our slaves," said one.

"Or exchanged for horses with the chiefs of Toorkistan," added
another.

Then, said Shireen Khan, his eyes, too, blazing like carbuncles, as
the hatred of race and religion boiled up within him,

"The Feringhees, those dogs of covetousness, are among us, and for
what?  What seek they here?  To put over us a king whom we loathe--a
king who will be subservient to the Lord Bahadur at Calcutta;
dethroning Dost Mohammed!"

"Solomon, as we may read, knew three thousand proverbs, and the songs
that he sang were a hundred and five; yet what was Solomon when
compared with Shah Sujah?" sneered Ackbar, as his white teeth
glistened under his coal-black mustache.

"You will ask this Envoy on the morrow, if it was really his
intention to send me, Ameen Oollah Khan, Shireen Khan, and others,
bound as slaves, to the feet of his Queen, in her Island of the Sea?"
said one with sombre fury.

"I shall, without fail."

"And the white-faced dog will deny it!"

"Perhaps; but it shall be the last lie of the unbeliever's tongue,"
replied Ackbar, with a grim smile as he touched the hilt of his
Afghan dagger.

"Slay him, even as I slew Burnes Sahib!" added that pleasant
personage who rejoiced in the name of Ameen Oolah Khan.  "Ha! what
said the Khan of Khelat-i-Ghilzie to him, when he heard of the
Feringhees first coming hither by the Khyber and the Khoord Cabul
passes?  'Ye have brought an army into the land of the Pushtaneh; but
how do you propose to take it back again?'"*


* These were almost the words of the Duke of Wellington (by a
singular coincidence) when intimation was first made in Parliament of
our advance into Afghanistan.--Macfarlane's _Hist. of British India_,
p. 537.


"Had we killed Burnes Sahib when first he came among us alone, he had
not returned with all those Kaffirs who are now cantoned between
yonder hills of Siah Sung and Behmaru," said another chief, who wore
the sword of Sir Alexander Burnes in his girdle; "so now, that we
have the opportunity, let us slay the dogs ere they can escape us."

"Nay, let us get the ransom _first_," suggested Shireen Khan.

"Yes; and then let them march and be in the Passes, we know by which
they must depart; and remember," added Ackbar, with a tone and face
of indescribable ferocity, "the old Arab proverb--_Al harbu
Khudatun_!"--(All war is fraud).

"Moreover," said Ameen Oollah, "the Prophet tells us, that promise as
we may, no faith is to be kept with heretics."

"I came to retake my father's rights; the rights he sold to the
Feringhees.  It was written that I should do so; for who that could
sit on a lofty throne in yonder Bala Hissar, would content him with a
carpet in a tent?  Those Feringhees--those Anglo-Indians are the most
presumptuous dogs in the world," continued Ackbar, "they are
accustomed to see their servile sipahees, their effeminate Hindoos,
and others cower before them; but did they expect the same homage
from us--the free men of Afghanistan?"

A fierce laugh answered the question, and those who had lances, made
their iron-shod butts to crash on the marble floor.

Much more to the same purpose passed.  Many of the arguments used and
impulses given, were nearly the same as those which excited the
terrible mutiny of a subsequent year; but what plan those
conspirators meant to adopt--whether to take a bribe, and let our
troops retreat in peace; or take the bribe, and lure them to
destruction in those terrible passes by which alone they could return
to India; in either case, to make slaves of the white women, neither
Mohammed, who translated much of what we have written, nor the other
listener, could determine; but the farewell words of Ackbar, ere they
departed, were ominous of much evil to come.

"To your castles and tents," said he; "let every Khan and tribe be
prepared, for to-morrow may determine all.  You, Shireen Khan, shall
dispatch tchoppers* to the chiefs of the Ghilzies, and those of the
Khyberrees, to guard the passes to the death, promise what we
may--for remember _all war is fraud_!"


* Mounted couriers.


With a low salaam to Ackbar, after all turning their faces in the
direction of Mecca, they now separated, and in a few minutes, the
sound of their horses' hoofs died away, some in the direction of the
city, and others on the Candahar road.

"Sahib," said Mohammed Khan, greatly disturbed, "you have heard?"

"More than I quite understand," replied Denzil; "however, I shall
report the affair to the General in the morning; those fellows are
evidently up to something more than either he or the Envoy quite
calculate upon.  I only wish that I were nearer my quarters."

"I have promised to guide you."

"Thanks, Khan; you are most kind."

All around the tomb and mosque of Baber was still and silent again;
the cooing of the pigeons and the gurgle of the sacred fountain alone
were heard.  The quiet stars, and their queen, the vast round silver
moon, were shining now in peace and calmness over Cabul; over city,
plain, and flowing river; and in floods of liquid light, the
picturesque towers and masses of the Bala Hissar stood forth pale and
grey, while the curtain walls between, were sunk in shadow or
obscurity.

Glad to befriend in any way an English officer, the Wuzeer guided
Denzil between the Armenian and the Mussulman burying-grounds, where
the shadows of the tall and ghost-like cypresses fell on the white
headstones and the little square chambers or cupolas that covered the
graves of those of rank.

"Listen," said Denzil, pausing, as he suspected the Arab Hadji might
still be following; "surely I hear a sound."

"You hear only the night wind sighing through yonder cypresses,"
replied Taj Mohammed, solemnly; "sadly it goes past us bearing some
weary soul, perhaps, to the bridge of Al-sirat--some soul whose
earthly tabernacle may yet lie there, where five of my children are
laid, each with its fair face turned towards Mecca."

Paler and sad grew the face of the Wuzeer as he spoke, for the
Afghans greatly reverence all burial-places, which, in their own
language, they term "the cities of the silent;" and in fancy they
love to people with the ghosts of the departed, sitting each unseen
at the head of his or her own grave, enjoying the fragrance of the
wreaths and garlands hung there by sorrowing relatives.

Almost in the centre of the plain, midway between where the
burial-grounds lie and where the cantonments were, flowed the Cabul
river; and a mile or two brought Denzil and his guide within hail of
an advanced picquet of the 54th Native Infantry, now posted at the
bridge.  There the former was safe, and with many expressions of
thanks and gratitude, he parted from the Wuzeer.

He was informed by the officer in command of the post, that spies had
told the General of Ackbar Khan being in the vicinity of the city;
and that in consequence, all European residents had been ordered to
repair for safety, within the shelter of the cantonments.

White in the moonbeams he could see the walls of General Trecarrel's
villa, which, being under the guns of our fortified Camp was, as yet
pretty safe; and he looked towards it with such emotion as a lover
who is young and ardent, alone can feel; for Rose he knew was there;
and after all he had heard at the Mosque of Baber, his heart swelled
with anxiety, and a longing desire that she and Mabel, and all their
friends, were elsewhere, in some place of greater peace and security.

"To-morrow I shall tell her of my narrow escape," thought he; "my
darling--my darling--how I love you! and how nearly you were losing
me!"




CHAPTER XI.

"ONLY AN ENSIGN."

Providentially for us, none in this world know what a day, or even an
hour may bring forth; so Denzil, when next morning he dressed and
accoutred himself, could little foresee the many stirring events that
were to crowd the next twelve hours, and in which he was to bear a
part; as little could he foresee the sorrows that were in store for
him, ere for the last time, as the event proved, he laid his head on
the pillow in the Afghan fort; for next day was to see the whole
forces concentrated in the cantonments.  Polwhele was absent on
patrol duty, and Bob Waller had gone abroad unusually early.

Denzil's intense longing to see Rose Trecarrel and to revive the
memories of yesterday was mingled with a conviction of the necessity
to see her father, that he might take him to General Elphinstone or
the envoy, to whom he was most anxious to report all that he had
heard and seen overnight in the Mosque of Baber; but Trecarrel was
absent (as a sepoy on duty at the gate of the villa informed him),
having gone to the Bala Hissar with a strong cavalry escort, as the
turbulence of the people rendered all the roads and streets unsafe--a
state of affairs sufficiently proved to Denzil already.

He recalled the threat, or proposal he had overheard, to sell the
European ladies as slaves in Toorkistan, or to exchange them for
horses;--Rose Trecarrel sent to Toorkistan!  He felt that he could
cheerfully shed his heart's blood in defence of her--of Mabel and the
old General too; that he could die for them--for her more than all;
and all that a young, loving and enthusiastic spirit could suggest
were in his head and heart, with a hope that his narrow escape
overnight would invest him with additional interest in her estimation.

He entered the house with somewhat of the confidence felt only by a
privileged dangler, and by chance on this occasion his arrival was
not proclaimed by a stroke on the gong.  He gave his name to a native
servant of the Trecarrels, who ushered him into the drawing-room,
announcing his presence as "Deveroo Sahib," but in a tone so low that
it seemed to be unheard by those who were there, and for a full
minute Denzil stood irresolute and did not advance.

The apartment was spacious, and at a remote end of it, almost out on
the verandah, in fact, were Bob Waller and Mabel Trecarrel, very much
occupied with each other.  She was seated in an easy chair looking up
at him, with an arch yet confident expression.  They were conversing
in whispers, while Waller leaned over her, stooping his tall and
handsome figure so much that his face was close to hers--so close
indeed that his long curly whisker, the left one, was caught by her
right-ear earing, from which it was with difficulty extricated.

"Do you know what I've been thinking, Mabel?" asked Waller, at that
juncture.

"How should I guess?"

"Try."

"What is it?"

"How have I ever been able to get on for those seven-and-twenty
years--I am just twenty-seven--without you!"

Denzil might have laughed at all this but for the other two who made
up a quartette.

Nearer him in the foreground sat Rose, the glory of the morning sun
streaming full upon her, and imparting fresh radiance to her beauty.
Her rich auburn hair glittered in the sheen, half like gold and half
like dusky bronze, while her smiling eyes were full of liquid light
as she looked upward from a book of coloured prints which lay open on
her knee, to the face of a staff officer who hung somewhat familiarly
over her.  His face was fine, well browned by the sun, and closely
shaven, all save a smart black mustache; his eyes were soft in
expression, and his whole air was decidedly distinguished.

"Now, who the deuce is this fellow? who seems such an _ami de la
maison_--in staff uniform, too--never saw his face before," were the
surmises that flashed on Denzil's mind.

"And what is all this Miss Trecarrel has told me?" asked the
stranger, in a low voice.

"A foolish flirtation with a boy," replied Rose, laughing.  "It was
all a joke.  Be assured that he never asked me to favour him with my
agreeable society for the term of his natural life."

"By Jove!  I should think not," was the rather dubious response of
the visitor.

"And some bread-and-butter Miss now a-bed, perhaps, in England will
console him in the future, if the memory of me survive so long."

"Mabel says you are over head and ears in love with him."

"Psha! how can _you_ talk so?  I am out of my teens, and the time has
gone by for me falling over head and ears for anybody.  Come, don't
be foolish, friend Audley," she continued, gazing into the same eyes
which looked so softly into those of Sybil by the lonely moorland
tarn.  "Do you think," she added, laughing, "I have been writing
'Mrs. _and_ Ensign Devereaux' in my blotting-pad, just to see how the
conjunction looked; for Denzil, you know, poor fellow, is very young
and only an ensign."

Denzil felt as if petrified; and but last night he had risked his
life to procure a bauble for her!

"But you certainly have been letting him make love to you," resumed
the stranger, in a tone of combined reproval and banter.

"Well, it is rather pleasant to have a nice foolish boy to make love
to one, to tease and to laugh at."

"Oh, indeed!"  His tone was almost contemptuous; but in her vanity
Rose failed to perceive this.

It was not eavesdropping, hearing all this, which passed rapidly, for
the Hindoo had formally announced Denzil; but so absorbed were the
quartette in themselves that they neither saw nor heard him.  Then as
he paused irresolutely with cap and pipe-clayed gloves in hand, he
heard more than certainly even Rose, in her most rantipole mood, ever
meant he should hear.  To say truth, she had been grievously piqued
that Audley had come out overland, instead of with her and Mabel in
the Indiaman; and hence she was disposed to exert the full power of
her charms, and use all her arts to lure him into flirting with--if
not of absolutely loving--her; and for the time poor Denzil seemed to
be already forgotten or only remembered as a subject for merriment.

But as yet, at least, Audley Trevelyan was proof against all her
wiles and smiles.  He thought only of the little girl at home
now--she whose brother he was certain might abhor and shun him for
his somewhat selfish treatment of her; for he knew not that Denzil
had heard nothing of the little love scenes that had passed at
Porthellick.

Suddenly Denzil caught the eye of Rose as he drew nearer, and
starting and growing rather pale in the fear of what he might have
heard, she exclaimed, nervously,

"Oh!  Mr. Devereaux, welcome!  Allow me to introduce you--Mr.
Devereaux, Cornish Light Infantry,--Mr. Trevelyan, one of yours, just
arrived--papa's new aide-de-camp, you know."

Denzil bowed with anything but a satisfied air to "papa's new
aide-de-camp," who presented his hand with more than polite
cordiality, and muttered something about "the sincere pleasure" it
gave him, et cetera.

"Hallo, Denzil, my boy! what was that shindy we hear you got into in
Cabul last night?" asked Waller, looking up.  "Hope you were not
poking your nose under the veil of some bride of the Faithful, eh?
Here is Trevelyan of ours, has had a narrow escape, too.  He and his
escort were pursued by the Ghilzies as he came up country; but he
sabred one, shot five or six and got clear off.  Then I suppose you
know all about this devilish business of Sale and the 13th Light
Infantry in the pass?"

Waller running on this, caused a diversion, and saved both Rose and
Denzil some pain by giving them breathing time.

So this was Audley Trevelyan, his cousin, the Audley to whom Sybil
owed her life in the Pixies' Hole, was the first thought of Denzil,
and his heart seemed to harden.  He had come thinking to create an
interest in a very tender bosom by an account of "the shindy," as
Waller styled it, in the great bazaar; and here was a fellow bronzed
and mustachioed already in possession of the situation--master of the
position--an intensely good-looking beast, who had actually crossed
swords and exchanged shots with the wild and untamable Ghilzies!

To Denzil it was bitter mortification, all--yet he was compelled to
dissemble.  Could it be possible that he found himself _de trop_?
That words of mockery had fallen on his ear?  That Mabel and this
man, too, knew alike of that delightful drive by the lake?

There was a nervous flutter and laughing air of confusion about Rose
that were neither flattering nor assuring; but the confirmed tidings
of the attack, by the insurrectionary tribes upon Sir Robert Sale's
regiment in its downward march to Jellalabad, luckily afforded a
ready topic--a neutral ground--on which all could talk with ease; for
now they were aware that Sir Robert Sale's little brigade, including
the Queen's 13th Light Infantry and 35th Native Infantry, armed with
flint muskets, though the stores were full of percussion fire-arms,
had been attacked by the mountain tribes, and that after clearing the
stupendous Khoord Cabul Pass and enduring eighteen days of incessant
fighting as far as a place called Gundamuck, had succeeded in
reaching Jellalabad on the 12th of November; and that now on Sir
Robert's retention of that city depended all the hope of General
Elphinstone's slender army having a place of refuge--a point on which
to fall back--if compelled to retire from Cabul (leaving the
unpopular Shah to the mercy of his own subjects), even with the
knowledge that a great amount of fighting awaited them in the savage
mountain passes (through which their homeward route must lie,) amid
the land of the Ghilzies, a race of hereditary robbers.

Many officers and men had been killed and wounded; among the latter
were Sir Robert Sale, who received a ball in his left leg, and
Lieutenant O'Brien, of the 13th, whose skull was fractured by a shot
as he attempted to storm the rocks at the head of his company.  Such
was the story of that protracted fight as it reached Cabul, and
reference to it now shed somewhat of gravity over even the lively
Rose Trecarrel; for among the officers of the two regiments
attacked--especially of the dashing 13th, Prince Albert's Own Light
Infantry--many were known to her, and had deemed her the chief
attraction of the band-stand and the daily promenade.

But regrets were short, for something of the off-hand recklessness to
danger and even death, incident to military society in such a place
as Cabul, pervaded even the tenor of female life there; and the
subject was soon dismissed.

"A mounted _tchopper_ accompanied Mr. Audley," said Mabel to Denzil,
whose saddened face interested her; "and so we have had quite a bale
of newspapers from England."

"A bale?" repeated Denzil, mechanically, his eyes seeking those of
Rose.

"Yes, positively.  Three months' newspapers at least, though not one
letter; and thus the obituaries and marriages in the _Times_ become
so perplexing to us here."

"I brought some letters for the army up with me from Bombay," said
Audley Trevelyan, "and among them, Devereaux, I observed one for
you--the name had, somehow, an attraction for me."

"From home!" exclaimed Denzil, starting, for only those who are so
far from Europe as he was then can know how much is concentrated in
that single word, "home."

"I trust so."

"Then I must go to my quarters at once."

"Nay, Devereaux," said Waller, "moderate your impatience, if the
letter is from some fair one----"

"I have no correspondent but my--my sister Sybil," said Denzil, with
a flash in his eyes and a quiver of the lip.

"But you must wait, my good fellow," said Waller, patting him kindly
on the shoulder; "you remember that we promised to ride on the Staff
of the Envoy, to make up a gallant show, and to impress, if possible,
the Sirdir."

"My horse is not here."

"But mine is, and is quite at your service," said Audley, bowing to
Denzil, who was in an agony of impatience to peruse his
long-wished-for letter.

"All right," added Waller, looking at his watch; "and now we must be
off--must tear ourselves away."

He glanced smilingly to Mabel as he spoke.

A strange footing the two kinsmen were on.  Something in their hearts
kept each from talking of their being such to each other.  It was
indignant disdain on the part of Denzil, with somewhat of jealousy,
too.  In Audley it was a well-bred nervous doubt of how much or how
little Denzil knew of the love affair--the broken engagement, in
fact, with his sister; or the misconstruction of the last visit at
night--the visit which ended, as neither yet knew, by an effect so
fatal.  Denzil thanked him briefly and emphatically for saving his
sister's life (the Trecarrels had fully detailed all that), and then
all reference to Porthellick, and even to Cornwall, was dropped; but
they had soon other things to think of.

The father of Audley had left nothing unsaid or undone to impress
upon him that the mysterious story of Constance's marriage was a
fabrication--one calculated to injure the prospects, and imperil the
honour, and so forth of the Trevelyan family; but when Audley
remembered Sybil, and sought to trace a likeness to her in Denzil's
face, he could not help feeling kindly and well-disposed to his
younger brother officer.

Denzil having no such tender reminiscences to soften him, was
disposed to be politely cool or grim as Ajax.

"We must get our bonnets and shawls if we are to see this
Conference," said Rose; "and we must look sharp--_temps-militaire_,
you know."

"Don't be slangy," said Mabel.

"Do you call French so, Mab?" Rose asked, as they hastened in high
spirits to attire themselves for walking, and little anticipating the
scene that was before them.

"What are you thinking of Waller?" asked Audley, smiling.

"That a thousand girls may be beautiful; but only one among them have
an air of refinement."

"Like Miss Trecarrel?"

"Exactly."

All Europeans had now been ordered to keep within the shelter of the
cantonments, and as it was feared that the General's house might not
be sufficiently protected by the guns on the bastions overlooking the
Residency, he had arranged for the removal of his whole family and
effects into the regimental bungalows; and already a fatigue party
under Sergeant Treherne was at work on the premises, pulling down and
packing up, as only soldiers can pack and prepare in haste.

With something of a stunned emotion Denzil rode by the side of Waller
on the horse of Audley, as the latter preferred to accompany the
ladies who were to witness the Conference through their lorgnettes
from the cantonment walls.

"Oh! he preferred remaining behind," thought Denzil viciously;
"preferred remaining with her, of course; what cares he about the
Envoy, the Sirdir, or the Conference, d--n him!'

"Full uniform is the order, you see," said Waller, as three other
officers joined them; "we are to meet Ackbar in our war-paint--in all
the pomp and glorious circumstance----"

"Oh!  Waller," urged Denzil; "how can you chaff so?"

"Why not; it is a poor heart that never rejoices.  You are down in
your luck with Rose, but you will laugh at that by-and-by."

Denzil coloured, but made no reply.  Oh, had his ears deceived him?
Had he heard aright?  Had he been bantered by the tongue that spoke
so alluringly yesterday, mocked by the lips that had been pressed to
his so passionately?  Were the clear, bright hazel eyes that but
lately looked so earnest, now smiling, as they alone could smile,
into those of another?

Might he not have been mistaken? he tormentingly asked himself again
and again, and she be true after all--yes, after the sweet
impassioned hours of joy by the Lake of Istaliff it must be so!  He
actually began to flatter himself that this was the case; that all
was as he wished it to be; so true it is "that a man freshly in love
is more blind than the bats at noonday."

So far as change of scene, of circumstance, of society, and some
kinds of experience went, Denzil was beginning to learn the truth of
Southey's maxim, "Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are
the longest of your life."




CHAPTER XII.

ASSASSINATION.

No special correspondent had ever, or has ever, penetrated beyond the
Indus and into the wilds of Kohistan, to saturate the English papers
with narratives of the terrible scenes which we are about to describe
in some of these pages.

Leaving the cantonments by the centre gate which faced the hills of
Siah Sung, Denzil, Waller, and the officers who had joined them,
Captains Mackenzie, Lawrence, and Trevor, now rode to where a group
of others surrounded one on horseback, who proved to be the Envoy,
who had with him a Hindoo syce, or groom, leading a marvellously
beautiful Arab horse, which he meant to present in our Queen's name
to the Sirdir.  With all his avowed confidence in the latter, he had
requested that, in case of any unforeseen emergency arising, the 51th
Native Infantry, the Shah's 6th regiment and two field pieces should
be in readiness for instant service; but so greatly was General
Elphinstone debilitated, alike in mind and body, that no order to
this effect was issued; so the men remained idle in their bungalows,
though it was known that the cowardly Shah Sujah, who had eight
hundred ladies, the flower of all his country, shut up with him in
the Bala Hissar, was so apprehensive of the result of the meeting,
that he coolly sent orders through his Kadun Kahia (or Mother of the
Maids) placed in authority over them, that they should, if the rebels
under Ackbar got into the city, be each and all prepared to take a
deadly poison within an hour.

"Look alive, Denzil--waken up; here is the representative of Her
Britannic Majesty in this pleasant part of the world," said Waller to
his abstracted friend, while laughing and saluting, he approached Sir
William Macnaghten, Baronet, who, for his great political services,
had just been appointed Governor of Bombay, and who was in full
diplomatic uniform, elaborately laced with silver embroidery, and had
several jewelled orders glittering on his breast.

Like many men whom a perilous adventure or a sudden fate menaces, he
was in excellent spirits this morning, and was by no means disposed
to listen to the warnings of the solemn-visaged Wuzeer, who was
relating all that he and Denzil had overheard in the Mosque of Baber.
Captain Mackenzie also stated that there was certainly a plot laid by
Ackbar for his destruction; but Macnaghten would listen to neither
advice nor remonstrance.

"I must meet him," said he, "and already he and the chiefs are on the
ground to consult about whether we shall remain here in peace or
retire beyond the Indus; and you will see how I shall snub even such
a fellow as Ackbar Khan," he added, lifting his cocked hat and bowing
gracefully to the ladies who were gathering in numbers above the
rampart of the Siah Sung gate, and all were busy with their
opera-glasses, looking towards the east bank of the Cabul river,
where, about a quarter of a mile distant, were clustered a group of
Afghan horsemen, their brightly coloured flowing dresses and
burnished weapons making a brilliant show in the sunshine.

In common with Captain Lawrence and Captain Trevor of the 3rd Light
Cavalry, Waller begged the Envoy to consider well these repeated
warnings, but the latter only laughed and said,

"Bold as he is--and even in this wild country there is none perhaps
bolder--Ackbar dare not molest me."

"Be not over confident, Sir William: remember his remorseless
character, and the homicides he has committed."

"I have my pistols."

"So have we all; but consider your wife--consider Lady Macnaghten, if
you perish as Sir Alexander Burnes perished!"

Macnaghten's lip quivered slightly, and he glanced to where the row
of fair English faces, the flutter of ribbons, veils, and gay
bonnets, were all visible above the dark slope of the cantonment
wall; but he concealed his rising emotion or anxiety by an angry
outburst.

"I do not ask _you_, Captain Waller, to accompany me; Mackenzie,
Lawrence, and Trevor are enough to be in front of the lines, if you
think the risk so great."

Waller's open and ruddy countenance lowered and grew pale.

"Risk, Sir William!" said he, greatly ruffled, "of course there is
risk, otherwise I should not be here as a volunteer."

"Nor I," added Denzil, glancing towards a certain blue crape bonnet,
and detecting Audley's cocked hat very close thereby.

"Nor I," exclaimed the black-whiskered Polwhele, who had hitherto
been intent on the points of the Arab courser.

"Come on then, gentlemen--the more the merrier, and a little time
must solve all."

The Wuzeer sadly shook his head, and saying,

"As Darrah said of the hypocrite Aurungzebe, 'Of all my brothers most
do I fear the teller of beads,' so say I of Ackbar;" and almost
rending his beard as he went, this loyal minister of a most unpopular
king retired into one of the forts to wait the event, while the Envoy
laughingly spurred his horse and with his companions rode towards the
group of Afghan Chiefs, around and in the rear of whom their armed
followers were every moment increasing in number and excitement, as
fresh horsemen accoutred with spear and shield, matchlock and sabre,
came galloping from the gates of the city, uttering menacing and
tumultuous cries, which could not fail to make the hearts of the
ladies in the fortified camp to throb with apprehension.

The Envoy, with his little Staff, after crossing the canal by the
bridge near an old and abandoned fort, advanced more leisurely
towards where Mohammed Ackbar Khan, and many other great Chiefs,
among whom were Shireen Khan of the Kussilbashes, on his towering
camel, and Ameen Oollah Khan, were posted a little way in front of an
armed, dark-visaged, and stormy-looking throng.

The last-named individual, Chief of Loghur, perhaps equalled Ackbar
in cruelty; and it may be sufficient to illustrate his character to
state, that in order to get rid of an elder brother who stood between
him and the inheritance, he caused him to be seized and buried up to
the chin in densely packed earth.  Around his neck was then looped a
rope, the end of which was haltered to a wild horse, which was driven
round him in a circle, until the unhappy victim's head was torn from
his shoulders, as a testimony of how Ameen Oollah Khan protested
against the law of primogeniture.*


* Lieutenant Eyre's Narrative.


Conspicuous among all by his stature and deportment, the Prince
Ackbar was magnificently attired in a camise of shawl pattern, all
scarlet and gold; his plumed cap was of blue and gold brocade, with a
fall and fringe that drooped on his right shoulder.  He was armed
only with his sabre, a poniard, and a pair of magnificent pistols,
which Sir William Macnaghten had presented to him on a former
occasion; but Ameen Oollah Khan, Shireen, the Kussilbash, the other
chiefs, and all their followers, especially the Ghilzies, were
accoutred to the teeth, with the arms usually borne by Afghan
horsemen--a heavy matchlock with a long bayonet, a sabre, a
blunderbuss, three long pistols, a dagger, four or five knives, a
shield on the back, and a comical complication of bullet-bags,
powder-flasks, priming-horns, and other things dangling at their
girdles; and warlike, ferocious, and formidable-looking fellows they
were, save their firearms, unchanged in aspect and in nature as their
forefathers who dwelt on the mountains of Ghore, in the days when the
Scots and English were breaking each other's heads on the field of
Northallerton.

It was a strange scene, and picturesque in all its details.

On one side a few fair-faced English officers in full uniform, with
glass in eye and cigarette in mouth, cool, quiet, and secretly rather
disposed to "chaff the niggers"--men of that type of whom Bob Waller
might be taken as the representative, frank, fearless, and
light-hearted, with his honest blue eyes and those long, fair
whiskers which Mabel Trecarrel thought so adorable--quite as much so
as he deemed her tresses of ruddy, golden auburn; on the other, a
horde of those hardy warriors from the hills of Kohistan--men whose
ideas were beyond the middle ages of the world's history, with their
hearts full of proud disdain, rancorous hate, and all the malignant
treachery that adversity of race, religious fanaticism, and profound
ignorance can inspire, and yet suavely dissembling for the time.

"Permit me, Khan, to present you with this horse, in the name of Her
Majesty the Queen of England, with her wishes that you may long be
spared to ride him," said Sir William Macnaghten, with a profound
salaam, after he and his companions drew close to the carpet on which
Ackbar awaited them.  He then alighted from his horse and seated
himself, together with Captains Trevor, Lawrence, and Mackenzie, upon
a piece of carpet, among the chiefs and sirdars; but, luckily for
themselves, Waller, Denzil, and the rest remained in their saddles,
at a little distance.  The Sirdir coldly and haughtily thanked the
Envoy for his new gift, the points of which he praised with all a
horseman's perception.  It cost Sir William 3000 rupees, and had
belonged to Captain Grant, the Assistant Adjutant-General.  Then with
an eye to any confusion that might ensue during the Conference, he
ordered the Hindoo syce to lead it off at once towards the city, and
a sly, cruel gleam came into his black eyes, as this was done.  After
a few solemn salutations in oriental fashion and phraseology, Ackbar
Khan said--

"Bismillah! let us talk."

All the chapters in the Koran, except nine, commence with this word,
which signifies, "In the name of the merciful God;" thus it is
incessantly used in conversation by the Arabs, and still more by the
somewhat canting Afghans.

He then proceeded to business at once, by asking the Envoy if he was
prepared to effect a proposition that had before been made, to the
effect that we should deliver up the Shah Sujah, with all his
household and family, male and female, to his--the Sirdir's--mercy;
that we should lay down our arms and colours, yielding also cannon
and horses, together with those two obnoxious sahibs, Sir Robert Sale
and Brigadier Shelton, as hostages--in fact, an unconditional
surrender--in virtue of which he should graciously pardon our
appearance in Afghanistan, our interference with its affairs, and
permit our whole force to retire with their lives, on the further
condition of swearing to return no more!

"Such proposals," said Sir William, endeavouring to preserve his
temper, "are too dishonourable for British troops to entertain.  You
know not, Sirdir, the men you speak to, and if you persist----"

"Ah, if we persist, what then?"

"We shall simply appeal to arms."

"You Feringhees are proud," said Ackbar, scoffingly; "but Allah
punishes the proud and humbles them."

He breathed hard as he spoke, and the splendid jewels on his breast
heaved with each excited respiration as he strove to restrain his
fiery temper; but his dark eyes sparkled, and his teeth glistened
like those of a wild animal.

"I have to lament, Khan," resumed Sir William, "that relations of
friendship which have hitherto existed between your people and us
have been clouded; and I am ignorant wherefore it should be so.
Good-will towards the people of Afghanistan caused my mistress, the
Queen of England, to lend her aid----"

"In dethroning my father, Dost Mohammed Khan," interrupted Ackbar,
with sombre fury.

"In restoring Shah Sujah to the throne of his ancestors," continued
Macnaghten, heedless of the pointed interruption; "and now, Khan, I
beseech you to remember that I received your royal father's sword at
yonder gate of Cabul, when he rode in, a hunted fugitive, after his
escape from the Emir of Bokhara, and I saved his life, sending him
with all honour to Calcutta, when I might have slain him."

"I have not forgotten it, Kaffir, and would rather you had cut him to
pieces, than made him a dependent on your bounty."

Sir William took no heed either of the injurious epithet or the
prince's somewhat unfilial wish.

"The paths of the just are rugged like yonder hills of Kohistan; yet
the snowy peaks are nearer Allah than the plain around us," said
Ackbar, in true Afghan phraseology.

"I know that, Khan; but----"

"Peace!  You Kaffirs pretend to know all things, whereas ye know
nothing.  How can it be else, when ye know not the blessed Koran?
You can be grasping and cruel, however, and well know how to be so.
Was it not your secret intention to send Ameen Oollah Khan, Skireen
Khan, and even me, chained, as slaves to your Queen, a Kaffir woman,
in her little island, which, Abdallah the Hadji tells us, is a mere
spot of mud amid a misty sea?"

"It was a lie of the Ghilzie chiefs," replied Sir William, becoming
uneasy at the decidedly offensive tone so rapidly assumed by the Khan.

"There is but one God, and before Him none other did exist," resumed
the royal hypocrite; "He formed seven heavens, seven worlds, and
eighteen creations, and He sent his friend Mohammed as the Prophet to
mankind; and by every hair in that Prophet's beard I swear to see you
brought low--very low, and to exult over you."

"Perhaps so, Khan--you are younger than I," replied the other,
affecting to misunderstand the ominous threat.

"You will not accept our terms?"

"It is impossible; as I have said, they are too dishonourable."

"Then, while the Khyberees guard the passes, we shall starve you in
yonder cantonments, till the horses gnaw each other's tails, and the
tent-pegs too, for very hunger; till the babe shall suck in vain for
milk at its dying mother's breast, and the jackals and pariah dogs
shall gorge themselves with the flesh of camels, of horses, and those
who are lower yet than even the beasts of the field--the accursed of
the Prophet!"

Ere Macnaghten could reply to this remarkable outburst, an officer
(Captain Lawrence) drew near, and called his attention to the great
number of armed men who had been gradually stealing in between them
and the gate of the cantonments, and suggested that they "should be
ordered to withdraw."

"No," exclaimed Ackbar, starting to his feet; "they are all in the
secret; _begeer! begeer!_" (seize--seize).

At these words, as if they had been a given signal, the Envoy,
Captains Trevor, Lawrence, and Mackenzie were seized by a crowd of
Afghans, and were so completely taken by surprise, that their swords,
pistols, and epaulets were torn from them before they could strike a
blow in their own defence.

With an expression of indescribable ferocity in his dark face, Ackbar
grasped Sir William with his own hand, and proceeded to drag him
violently and by main strength down a bank towards the Cabul river.

"Ah!  Kaffir," said he, tauntingly, "you think to take my country, do
you?"

"For God's sake, beware!" exclaimed the unfortunate man, making all
the resistance that rage, just indignation, and fear of a sudden
death, such as that endured by his friend Burnes, would inspire; so
finding it impossible to carry him off, Ackbar shot him dead with one
of the beautiful pistols, a present from his victim; and ere the
corpse touched the ground it was impaled by a hundred swords and
bayonets.  The head was then hewn off and upheld by the hair.

Captain Trevor, of the 3rd Bengal Cavalry, also fell, the victim of
innumerable wounds.  Mackenzie and Lawrence were borne off towards
the city by one horde of fanatics, while another, led by Ameen Oollah
Khan, with juzails cocked and swords drawn, and with flashing eyes
and infuriated faces and gestures, uttering screams of
"Kaffirs--Feringhees--Sugs!" (infidels--Europeans--dogs), rushed upon
Waller, Denzil, Polwhele, and two other officers, who could hear the
shrill cries of dismay uttered by the ladies on the wall of the
cantonments, where now, when it was too late, old Elphinstone had
ordered the drums to beat to arms, and General Trecarrel brought the
cavalry, half-saddled, from their stables.

"Stick close to me, Devereaux," cried Waller, shortening his reins
and raising himself in his stirrups.  He escaped two juzail balls,
and parried a most vicious poke of a lance made at him by Shireen
Khan; and then by one tremendous blow, which, however, fell
harmlessly on the thick folds of the loonghee or scarlet cap of that
personage, he tumbled him from his perch on the camel's hump.  The
next blow he gave rid Denzil of Abdallah, the Arab Hadji, who,
shouting "Mohammed resoul Allah!" had actually sprung, with all the
fierce activity of a tree-tiger, upon his horse's crupper, and was
about to plunge an Afghan dagger--a formidable weapon, as it is
twenty-four inches in length, broader than a sword-blade, and sharp
as a razor--into his back or throat; it only grazed his neck,
however, when Waller's sword, with all the impetus that strength of
arm and speed of horse could give it, was through and through the
body of the savage fanatic.

"There is another nigger sent to the other end of nowhere," cried
Waller.  "Dash right through them, gentlemen; we must cut for our
lives!"

Riding close together and abreast, the five officers, making a charge
right through the mob (who were chiefly Ghilzees, and who, in their
blind fury, wrath, and confusion, wounded and shot each other),
succeeded by hard riding in reaching the cantonments, the gates of
which were instantly closed and barricaded.

Polwhele left his sword in one man's body, so firmly was it wedged in
the spinal column.  Waller's sword was only one of the rubbishy
regulation blades of Sheffield, a poor weapon when opposed to the
keenly tempered sabres of those Afghan warriors, yet towering over
them all, his bulk, strength, and stature had availed him greatly; he
had shot two, and cut down three.  Denzil, though half stunned by
confusion at the suddenness of the whole affair, and by the explosion
of a matchlock close to his face, struck about manfully, and must
have sent at least one Mussulman on his way to the dark-eyed girls of
paradise; for when he dismounted, breathless and excited, within the
gates, he found his sword and right hand both covered with blood.

In the exasperation of his mind at Rose Trecarrel, the tumult of the
time was a relief to Denzil's mind; and he was not sorry that she,
through her lorgnette, had seen him, sword in hand, among the Afghans.

On this conflict the poor ladies had gazed, with faces paled by
terror, and lips that were mute, save when a shriek escaped them
involuntarily as blood spirted upward in the air, as a man or horse
went down, yet they gazed with the strange fascination that the
ferocity of a conflict between men--more than all armed men--will
sometimes have for the gentlest woman, for it seemed a species of
wild phantasmagoria.  But they wrung their hands and wept piteously;
for they saw the terrible butchery of Sir William Macnaughten and of
Captain Trevor, and could only tremble for the too-probable fate of
Captain Lawrence and Captain Mackenzie, who, in sight of the entire
troops in the cantonment, and in sight of all their friends, were
borne off captives amid a yelling horde, whose weapons, spear-heads,
crooked sabres, and polished horseshoes, flashed out brightly from
amid a cloud of dust that rolled away towards the Lahore Gate of the
now-hostile city of Cabul.

"Well, this is a shindy that will suffice to scare our blue devils
for awhile," said Polwhele, with a grim smile on his dark face.

"Denzil, my boy," said Waller, "you had a narrow squeak for your
life; that Arab wasp's dagger was pretty close."

"I have no words to thank you," replied Denzil, breathlessly, and
turning away somewhat bluntly from Audley Trevelyan, who frankly came
to shake his hand in token of congratulation; for their escape was
almost miraculous--without wounds, too.

Lady Sale was thanking Heaven that her husband was safe in
Jellalabad, and Mabel Trecarrel made a pretty plain _exposé_ of what
her emotions were on beholding Waller safe.

"Mr. Devereaux," said a voice that made his heart thrill--"Denzil,
thank God you have escaped!  But, Heavens! your hands are all over
blood; it is horrible!"

There was infinite tenderness in the tone of Rose.  It is the slavery
of great love to be ever very humble.  The lad blessed her in his
heart; yet her honeyed accents, though they recalled the joy of
yesterday, could not remove the sting of that morning's mockery which
still was sore and rankling.

"Poor Trevor, and all the rest, God help them!" exclaimed General
Trecarrel, and many others, who had no hope now save in vengeance;
but, ere nightfall, Taj Mohammed stole into the cantonments with some
final tidings.

The body of Sir William, who was a brave, good, and highly
accomplished gentleman, had been ignominiously stripped and hung,
with all its gaping wounds, in the Char Chouk, or Great Bazaar, where
Denzil had so nearly lost his life; and the head was taken by a khan,
named Nawab Zuman, and, together with one of the hands, exhibited
with ferocious triumph to Captain Conolly, an officer who had
unfortunately fallen into their power, and whose brother, with Major
Stoddart, afterwards perished miserably under torture in the dungeons
of the Emir of Bokhara.

The other two officers were detained as prisoners by Ackbar Khan.
General Trecarrel, who had just come in from the Bala Hissar with an
escort of the 5th Cavalry, was furious, and wished the cantonment to
open with round shot, grape, and canister, on everything and
everybody within their range; but grave consideration was necessary
now--our little force was so isolated in that hostile land.  At the
time these events were occurring, the remains of Sir Alexander
Barnes's body, cut in pieces, were still hanging on the trees of his
garden as food for the vultures, and Ackbar Khan was driving in the
Char Chouk, in the carriage of Sir William Macnaughten, whose head he
hung there in a _bhoosa_ bag (or forage-net) till it could be
transmitted by a _tchopper_, or mounted messenger, to the Emir of
Bokhara; and the poor ladies in the cantonments looked at each other
with blanched faces, as they heard of those terrible things.

So closed the night of the 23rd December over our troops in far-away
Cabul.




CHAPTER XIII.

HOME IN THE SPIRIT.

"And now for my letter!" exclaimed Denzil, as he hurried eagerly from
the excited throng about the cantonment gate to his new quarters, a
bungalow of somewhat humble construction, as its low roof was
thatched, and its walls built of the unburnt brick peculiar to Cabul.
Save his bed and table, a chair, some bullock trunks, and
accoutrements, furniture or ornament it had none.

The letter lay on the table, and, as he entered, its black-edged
envelope gave him a shock.  Audley had not mentioned this
circumstance, for he humanely knew that until the fatal conference
was over, and Denzil could get it perused, his anxiety would be
torture, as "the dim shadow of an unknown evil is worse than the
presence of a calamity whose worst is told."

It proved to be from Sybil, and, curiously enough, had been brought
from Bombay by Audley Trevelyan!  In India, people when "up country"
are thankful to get their home letters, even though six months old,
and, in the joy of receiving one, the longing to learn all it
contained--tidings of those he loved, and who were so far
away--Denzil forgot the terrible double catastrophe he had so
recently witnessed--the cruel butchery of two gallant gentlemen; he
forgot even about Rose Trecarrel, and cast himself into his chair, to
enjoy the full luxury of perusing it; but for a time an envious film
spread over his eyes when he attempted to read--a film that was soon
to turn to tears.

"Ah!  England and Sybil," he murmured, "how far, far, I am away from
you!"

The letter was dated some months back; and the first few words gave
the young military exile a dreadful shock, for they told him of his
mother's death:--

"Oh, Denzil, my brother, how my heart yearns for you now more than
ever!  You know how much she loved us, Denzil, and how much our lives
were bound up in each other; thus I cannot convince myself that I am
quite alone, that she has gone from this world for ever, and that we
shall never see her more--never see that sweet smile which her
beautiful dark eyes always wore for us.  Our darling mamma!  I send
you a lock of her hair (you will see that grey had begun to mingle
with it); and I send you also a wild violet that grew near the grave
where I buried her."

Sybil's writing here became tremulous, almost illegible, and falling
tears had evidently blotted the ink.  The poor young subaltern seemed
to forget his present surroundings; he felt himself a boy again, and,
covering his bowed-down face with his hands, wept bitterly.

"Time will soften what we suffer, Denzil; but shall I ever be the
same again?  I never had any plan or future unconnected with poor
mamma, after you left us, and our papa was lost.  I fear she wore her
life out with thinking of what would become of us--of me, perhaps,
more especially--when she was, as she now is, dead and gone.  There
cannot be two beings more isolated than you and I are now, dear
Denzil, and your letters are my only comfort.  I am so thankful to
find from them that you are a favourite with so many, that General
Trecarrel is so kind; and that honest fellow, Bob Waller, too, I feel
that I quite love him.  How do you like the Misses Trecarrel?  Rather
giddy, are they not?  Has Mr. Audley Trevelyan joined yet?"

Then, as if with the mention of Audley's name other thoughts that
were unknown to Denzil occurred to her, Sybil added--

"My music and my sketching days are ended now, Denzil; as some one
has it, 'I may put away all the bright colours out of my paint-box,
for they have gone out of my life.'  Vainly has our rubicund Rector,
fresh from his pretty parsonage, his happy family circle, as yet
unbroken and unclouded by sorrow, fresh, perhaps, from his sumptuous
luncheon and glass of full-bodied old port, besought me to take
comfort--that grieving for the dead was useless--and told me that
there is One above 'who turneth the shadow of death into mourning,'
for I can only weep as one who would not be comforted.  The old man
is very kind to me, however--bless him!  though we have suffered much
through that horrid Lamorna peerage story--much at the hands and
tongues even of those to whom mamma was ever open-hearted, and all
charity and benevolence; but you will remember what Lady Fanshawe
says of our common Cornish folks in her time, that 'they are of a
crafty and censorious nature, _as most are so far from London_.'

"My next letter will tell you more certainly of my future intentions,
and all that immediately concerns myself.  Our faithful nurse, Winny
Braddon, whose brother perished with papa, has gone to spend--to end,
I should say--her days with old Mike Treherne and his wife, who, as
you know, is her sister; and the Rector, who takes care of me--for I
am all but penniless now--is to give me an introduction to a lady of
high rank, who is about to go abroad; to where I know not--to India
itself perhaps.  Would to Heaven it were! for then we might meet
again."

"My sister a companion--compelled, for bread, to submit to whim,
caprice, neglect, and mortification!  Oh, my father, has it come to
this!" groaned Denzil in agony of spirit.

"The sunlight is setting redly on the rough summits of the Row Tor
and Bron Welli.  All is quiet--quiet as death around me; I can hear
but the beating of my own heart, the most earnest prayers and
blessings of which go with these lines across the seas to you, dear
Denzil."

So ended this letter, which he read many, many times, heedless of the
unwonted bustle which reigned in the cantonments, where the gunners
were getting additional cannon mounted, the miners forming barricades
and traverses, and other vigorous preparations being made for defence
in case of a too-probable attack.

Denzil had learned that within every shadow, however deep, there may
be a darker shade; and now that shade within the shadow that had
fallen on him was the death of his mother.

His mother dead!  Another beloved face gone as his father's had
gone--a sweet and winning face he saw in fancy still, yet never
should look on again.  How much there were of past care and years of
love and tenderness to remember now!  Then there were his only
sister's utter loneliness and helplessness to appal him.  How trivial
a calamity seemed the coquetry of Rose Trecarrel when compared to
sorrows such as these!  And she had died the tenant of a humble
cottage on the moors--the property of Mike Treherne, the miner, whose
son was now a sergeant in his company!

And could it be that for months past, while he had been happy,
thoughtless, heedless, and full of merriment among his comrades, that
she who loved him beyond her own life, purely and unselfishly as only
a mother can love an only son, had been in her dark cold grave, and
he knew it not?  No thought by day, no vision by night, no intuition
or thrill of magnetic affinity (such as that of which we read in the
Corsican twins and their mother), had told him of this; and yet it
was so.

Far away from where the embattled Bala Hissar looked down on the
flowing Cabul, on the Mosque of Baber and the Obelisk of Alexander
the Macedonian, from the English cantonments and all their
associations, even from thoughts of Rose Trecarrel's auburn hair and
tender brown eyes, Denzil's mind, swifter than the electric
telegraph, flashed home to the land from whence that letter came--to
Cornwall with its mines below the rolling sea; to its granite
quarries where the thunder-blast, loud as a salvo from the Bala
Hissar, told of the riven rock; to its stone avenues solemn and
hoary, and the great rock-pillars of the Fire Worshippers of old; to
the dark brown moors of Bodmin, where in summer the drowsy bee hummed
over the heath-bells and wild honeysuckle; to the towering bluffs on
which the empurpled waves were rolling in the light of the sun as he
set beyond Scilly, "the isles of the god of day;" to tarns where the
water-lily floated, and to pools where the speckled trout was darting
to and fro; to his rugged home, we say, went all his thoughts--to the
Land's End with all its masses of splintered rocks, worn and bleached
by the seas of ages, split and rent like columns of basalt amid the
brine--rocks where the fresh-smelling seaweed and the scarlet
sea-anemone clung, and on whose summit the weary miner sometimes sat
and rested after his toil to watch the passing ships, or to ponder
when next his pickaxe would discover "a lode of tin or a goodly bunch
of copper ore" in those burrows beneath the sea over which the keels
were gliding, their crews little wotting that human beings were in
those lighted mines fathoms deep below;--over all these familiar
scenes the mind of Denzil wandered, to settle again in fancy on his
dead mother's face; to think of his sister's loneliness--of the vast
distance by sea and land that separated them,--of his own now-narrow
means; and his heart seemed to wither up within him.

So the long night wore away, and the day began to break.  Its advent
was heralded by the boom of a 24-pounder from the Bala Hissar, by the
merry drums and fifes giving the _reveillez_, and by strokes on the
flat metal ghurries that hung in front of the guard-houses; but
Denzil sat heedless, very pale, and absorbed in thought.

* * * * * *

"Come, my dear fellow, don't mope, and don't give way thus--it is no
earthly use doing so," said the cheerful voice of Bob Waller on the
evening of the second day that Denzil had been permitted to absent
himself from parade.  "I know what I felt when my own mother
died--God rest her!  We were on the march to Ferozepore, under
General Duncan, when the letter reached me--thought I should die
too--wanted sick leave to go home, and all that sort of thing.  Come
to my bungalow and have a weed, with some brandy-pawnee; or shall I
stay with you?  By the way, here is Trevelyan's card of condolence.
Good style of fellow, Trevelyan: he and the Trecarrels give you their
kindest wishes."  (This conjunction made Denzil wince.)  "Will you
come with me to Mabel--Miss Trecarrel, I mean?" added the
good-hearted, well-meaning Waller.  "She is so sensible, sympathetic,
and kind."

"I should prefer being alone," replied Denzil moodily.

"But you can't be alone."

"Why?"

"The whole 37th have come in, and the Shah's 6th Foot from the Bala
Hissar.  These Afghan beggars have some movement in contemplation to
cut us off, and the cantonments are quite crowded."

But for a time Denzil would seek no relief, save in military duty.




CHAPTER XIV.

IN THE FORTIFIED CAMP.

The place of Sir William Macnaghten as Envoy of the Queen was
supplied by Major Pottinger, C.B., who, together with Brigadier
Shelton, renewed negotiations with Ackbar Khan, and strove to effect
a peaceful retreat of our troops from Cabul.  After the recent
assassinations and many other outrages,--after the reoccupation by
the natives of the eleven square Afghan forts that stood around the
cantonments, thus almost entirely enclosing and secluding our slender
European force,--after all hope of Sir Robert Sale's gallant brigade
returning from Jellalabad to their aid, and other hope of succour
from our troops in Candahar passed away, matters began to look gloomy
indeed; but none could foresee, though many feared, the end.

No attempt was made by General Elphinstone, who, though once a
gallant officer, was aged and ailing now, to avenge the deaths of
Macnaghten, Trevor, Burnes, and others; to uphold the Shah, then all
but besieged in his citadel by rebels under Ackbar; or to assert the
dignity of Britain in that remote quarter of the world.  Many
officers murmured and remonstrated on the necessity for immediate
action; but such is the force of discipline and of military
etiquette, that not one had the moral courage to assume the serious
responsibility of appealing to the troops and usurping the command.
Councils of war were held; but it is well known that such councils
seldom urge fighting; and all these ended in mere vacillation,
indecision, and inanity.

The greatest force of the insurgent Afghans was in Mahommed Khan's
fort, which stood nine hundred yards distant from the cantonment
guns; but these, being only nine-pounders, were useless for breaching
purposes; and as this fort commands the road that leads to the city
and the Bala Hissar, supplies from that quarter were completely cut
off; and so were they from every other point save the village of
Beymaru, where they were procured at vast cost; and when that source
failed--our troops, who with their camp-followers, the necessity and
the curse of every Indo-British army, made up six and twenty thousand
souls penned within the cantonments--the threat of Ackbar, that our
horses would yet gnaw each other's tails and the tent-pegs, would
become terribly true, unless a successful retreat through the passes
were achieved; but for that movement, who now could trust to the
promises, the honour, or the humanity of the hostile and exulting
Afghans?

Though formed into innumerable petty septs, like the clans of the
Scottish Highlands, these people are attached more to the community
than the chief of it; and though divided by many bitter quarrels
among themselves, they were united enough in their hatred of all
Kaffirs and Feringhees, and in the hope of getting all their women
and property as spoil.  Like a Scottish clan of old, an Afghan tribe
never refuses the rights of hospitality to a native suppliant.  The
fugitive who flies from his clan, even though stained with blood, is
protected by the tribe upon whose mercy he casts himself, and war to
the death would ensue rather than surrender him.  All these little
republics were now amalgamated for two purposes--the destruction of
Shah Sujah and his family, and the expulsion or destruction of our
little army that had enthroned him.

No one ever ventured beyond the secure walls of the cantonment now,
and every other day shots were exchanged between the sentinels and
scouting-parties of Afghan horsemen who rode between the forts,
brandishing their sabres or matchlocks in angry bravado; and now and
then the artillery tried a little practice with their nine-pounders
on Mahommed Khan's fort.  Nor were the Shah's Gholandazees, under his
Topshee Bashee, or General of the Ordnance, in the Bala Hissar quite
idle; thus almost nightly there floated above the city a red light,
that brought forth tower and dome in dark relief, as the gleam of
musketry and cannon fell on the atmosphere; the smoke of gunpowder at
night is always somewhat of a red tint.

The ladies had got over much of their squeamishness about the
discharge of firearms.  Poor things, they were learning fast to look,
almost without shrinking, on the fall of friend and foe, nor to wink
at the flash of a musket, even those who had once shared the old
dame's idea with regard to such implements, that, "whether loaded or
unloaded, they were apt to go off."

The music of the bands was heard no more, promenades, rides, and
drives were at an end now, and General Trecarrel's handsome
London-made carriage, with its crimson-lined tiger-skin, the spoil of
a splendid animal potted by Waller in the Siah Sung, had become, by
the simple law of appropriation, the property of Ameen Oollah Khan
for the use of his four wives.

Denzil and Audley Trevelyan did not meet much on duty, as the latter
was on the Staff, had little to do with parades, and nothing whatever
with guards, pickets, or working parties.  Puzzled by the Lamorna
peerage story (as Sybil called it), a story so strange and
unsupported by proper evidence, Denzil deemed that as yet perfect
silence in the matter was his proper plan; thus he was coolly
courteous to Audley, whose advances, made in consequence of the
secret interest felt in Sybil, he rather repelled.

Audley was sometimes in the mess-bungalow of the battalion to which
the company of Denzil was attached; but his staff duties kept him
much about the quarters of General Trecarrel, and consequently more
in the society of Rose than Denzil quite relished.  Since the day of
the conference he had never once visited her, and thus he felt with
intense bitterness that he had been quietly supplanted there by the
son of one who had supplanted him at home in rank and title, and
hence more than ever did he loathe the obligation--the debt of
gratitude he owed to Audley for the service he had done to Sybil; and
under all the circumstances in which he was placed, he felt the sense
of it most oppressive.

"And where is Sybil now?" thought Denzil, despondingly; "in what
country, and with whom?"

Who was the lady of rank she had referred to?  No more letters could
reach Cabul now, and months must elapse ere he heard from her again
or learned her fate.

No confidences passed between him and Audley; yet the latter, had he
known of it, would have risked much to have perused her last epistle,
with the single mention of his own name therein, and the current of
thoughts it seemed to open up--thoughts to which he alone had the key.

Denzil had a longing desire to do something brilliant, that he might
shine in the estimation of Rose Trecarrel.  With the combined vanity
and diffidence natural to a young man, he sometimes flattered himself
that his handsome uniform might regain him favour in her eyes, if no
other merit, mental or physical, did so; but in that he reckoned
without his host, for Rose was too much accustomed to see regimentals
about her--the scarlet of the Queen's troops, the silver grey of the
Indian cavalry, the blue and gold of the artillery, and the quaint,
half-oriental splendour of the irregular horse.  As a flirt she
preferred the scarlet, and, perhaps, as one with an eye to a good
marriage, the sombre black swallow-tail of the C.S.

With all her constitutional coquetry, she was not without a certain
emotion, of compunction at times for the part she had played with
Denzil.  Of all the admirers she possessed, he had seemed the most
earnest, the most bewildered by her beauty, and the most true; but
then, as she said to Mabel, "he was so young, and, poor fellow, only
a subaltern, so what did it matter in the long run, a little trifling
with him, when it amused her, and Cabul had been so dull."

"Going to India to be married," said Mabel, "of course means going
there to be married well.  Trevelyan is only a subaltern, too."

"But the son and heir of Lord Lamorna; so one may cast one's hawks at
him."

"And Polwhele is only a subaltern."

"But with a place that spreads from Cornwall into Devonshire.  I
shall not make a fool of myself, Mab--yet I shall marry for love, and
love only, if I marry at all," said Rose, as her white fingers
wreathed up the shining ripples of her hair before retiring for the
night.

"Going out" was then one of the matrimonial institutions of
Anglo-Indian society; but the P. and O. liners, with the Overland
Route, have knocked that institution on the head, or nearly so.

"I told you how it would be, old fellow," said Polwhele to Denzil,
who was sad and sombre; "she affects Trevelyan now, and we are all at
a discount now, even the cavalry men."

"But Trevelyan has come back to India a lord's son, and is on papa's
staff.  A deuced fine thing it must be to wake up some morning and
find oneself famous in that fashion," said Burgoyne of the 37th,
ignorant of how galling his remarks were to Denzil.

And so several days of constant excitement were passed in the
cantonments, yet no definite plan as to the future was formed,
whether to risk a retreat through Khyber Pass, or throw the whole
force into the Bala Hissar, and defend it to the last gasp, as more
than once General Trecarrel had urged at the council of war, but
urged in vain.




CHAPTER XV.

CHRISTMAS AT CABUL.

The state of suspense endured by our whole force in Cabul, especially
those men who had wives and families, was fully shared by Waller,
whose chief anxiety was Mabel Trecarrel; yet it could not repress his
great flow of animal spirits, and thus his bungalow was always the
resort of a few happy heedless fellows, who had no particular care
but to kill time when not killing the Afghans, a resource that was
yet to come.

Somehow the world reproduces itself everywhere, and though provisions
were scant and short, and shot and shell were in plenty and to spare,
in the crowded cantonments of Cabul, there were yet space and leisure
for fun and flirtation--even scandal and gossip.

It was Christmas-time there too, but, save the blasts of snow that
came from the hills of Kohistan, how unlike our Christmas-time at
home!

There was no Christmas cheer, to begin with: plum-pudding and roast
goose were thought of and remembered, certainly; but no such things
were to be found in that fortified camp between the Black Rocks and
the Hills of Beymaru; neither were there dark green holly with
scarlet berries and mistletoe to dance under, nor Christmas bells to
usher in the morn, for even our humble mission-house had been fired
by the Afghans; no Christmas gifts, or boxes, or trees full of
shining toys to make happy the hearts of those little ones whose
parents looked forward with intense dread to the future, and thought
regretfully of Christmas in happy England--the merry meetings of
parents and home-returning boys.  Christmas, we say, was remembered
with all its happy and hearty associations of yule, festivity, and
wassail, the pledge old as the days when Hengist's Saxon daughter
drank _Waes Hael_ to Vortigern; but now, on the anniversary of that
day when the star shone over Bethlehem, and a Babe was born to die
for all mankind, our half-starved troops were giving shot and shell,
grape and canister, with right good will, and the sombre night closed
down upon red flames in the towering city, and its silence was
broken, not by music, or carols, or chimes, but the voice of many a
jackal and hyæna as they preyed on the corpses that lay unburied by
the Cabul river.

Waller's bungalow had several visitors on the following evening;
among others, Jack Polwhele and Denzil, who had returned from the
village of Beymaru, where they had partly purchased and partly
looted, and most successfully brought into camp at the point of the
bayonet, a vast quantity of ground wheat and dhal or split peas, from
the stores of a bunneah or corn-contractor.  With these they also
brought in several head of cattle for the use of the troops.

"Supplies but for which," as Waller said, "the morrow might have
found us starving, or having only the resort of the Polar bears, who,
in time of scarcity, find a pleasure in licking their paws.  You'll
come to my bungalow," he added, as the foraging party came in double
quick through the Kohistan gate.  "Trevelyan's coming--he and
Polwhele; Trevelyan is one of ours now, so we four Cornishmen shall
make a night of it.  I have a round of beef that is getting small by
degrees and beautifully less, a gallant jar of Cabul wine that I
looted in the house of a kussilbash, and no end of cheroots.  Deuce!
I'll take no excuse," said Waller, on seeing how flushed and sombre
Denzil became on hearing Audley's name.

"I shall take care to bring him, Waller," said Polwhele, as he went
off to his quarters, full of excitement with his recent success, and
singing the refrain of the old song,--

  "And will Trelawney die?
    And will Trelawney die?
  Then thirty thousand Cornishmen
    Shall know the reason why?"


"I wish we had but the third of those thirty thousand here to help us
out of this beastly place where it has pleased her Majesty we should
set up our tent-poles," said Waller.  "I expect Burgoyne also
to-night, and he will be sure to bring us the last news from the
city, as he has accompanied Brigadier Shelton to another conference
with those children of the prophet."

"Another conference?" said Denzil.

"Yes, by Jove! risky and plucky, is it not?"

"Awfully so, after what has happened to poor Burnes, Macnaghten, and
the rest."

"But needs must, for we cannot choose now."

For on this evening fresh and, as the event proved, nearly final
negotiations had been opened between the General and Ackbar Khan, to
whom he had sent Brigadier Shelton, Major Pottinger, and Burgoyne.
Thus the ladies in camp and all the white women, whose persons had
been demanded as _hostages_, were in no ordinary state of anxiety to
learn the result.

Polwhele and Denzil were betimes in Waller's quarters, where two
officers of the 37th and two of the 54th had dropped in.  Trevelyan
had not arrived, and Denzil in fancy saw him hanging over the chair
of Rose, as he had seen him last.  He was nervously jealous, somewhat
afraid of his own temper, and hoped the night should pass without an
unseemly quarrel.  He was in wretched spirits, for Sybil's letter and
her future weighed upon his mind.  This air of gloom was unheeded by
his companions.  What was the demise, so far away, too, of one whose
face they never saw, to them, who were daily and hourly front to
front with death himself?  Yet he strove to join in their
conversation, while cigars were lit and Waller's jar of wine passed
briskly to and fro, and the cold round, with flour chupatties, was in
great request.

"As things go now," said the host, who lounged on a couple of
bullock-trunks, "we are thankful to get even the leg of a wild
sheep--a regular Persian doomba, with a tail a foot broad, and can
only think regretfully of choice entrées, of pâtés de foie gras from
beautiful Strasburg, of boned larks and truffled turkeys of
Paris--croquettes, côtelettes, and kidneys stewed in Madeira, caviare
from the Don, and ortolans from Lombardy, and a thousand other nice
little things we shall never see, till the cold white cliffs of the
South Foreland are rising on our lee bow.  Oh! soul of Lucullus and
of the noble science of gastronomy!"

"Waller, you are irrepressible," said Polwhele.  "Devereaux, how is
the General? have you heard?"

"Trecarrel?" asked Denzil, colouring.

"No.  You think, perhaps, there is no other General in the world.  I
mean poor Elphinstone."

"The old man is going fast."

"And the evening of his life is full of dark clouds, without a single
star," added Waller.

"You grow quite poetic, Bob."

"Then it is amid the veriest prose of life."

"I had a narrow escape from a juzail ball," said Denzil, rather
pensively.  "It passed through my forage-cap, and I have no wish to
be killed as a subaltern."

"A bullet won't feel a bit the more pleasant if it hits you as a
captain," said a 37th man, laughing.

Would Rose regret him? had been Denzil's secret thought; and now amid
the gay clatter of tongues around him, the speculations as to the
treaty on the tapis, the chances of a peaceful retreat, the pros and
cons of why Sale did not cut his way back from Jellalabad, and some
of that banter about women which seems inseparable from the
conversation of young men--more than all, of military men--he was
startled by some of the things that were said of Rose Trecarrel, and
which, though bitter to hear, served to divert his grief.  His
self-esteem--his _amour propre_ had been severely wounded, and he had
to conceal these emotions from Waller and Polwhele; yet they
suspected that "something was up," by his ceasing to go near the
Trecarrels, at whose villa near the Residency he had been almost a
daily visitor.

Could the young man have foreseen it, in his bitterness he might have
rejoiced that the Afghan sabre was ere long to cut the Gordian knot
of all his difficulties.

Jack Polwhele, who had been eyeing him silently with a comical
twinkle in his black eyes, said, in a low voice--

"So, Devereaux, the mistress of your destiny has proved slippery
after all!  Laugh at the whole affair, and you'll soon forget all
about it.  Were I in your place, she might--as the song has it--go to
Hong Kong for me."

Denzil knit his brow and reddened with irritation; but, tipping the
ashes of his cigar and watching the smoke thereof as it ascended to
the straw-roof of the bungalow, Jack resumed, in a voice so low as to
be unheard by Waller--

"With a vast amount of _espièglerie_, Rose, I must admit, has many
physical attractions; and, Denzil, you were her pet flirtation for
the nonce--every fellow saw that--nothing more.  It is a fine thing
to talk to a handsome girl about 'elective affinities and the union
of souls,' that 'marriages are made in heaven, and not in the
money-market' or the shop of some sharping lawyer; but it often grows
perilous work for a griff, with a girl like Rose, who cannot care
very much for any one."

Denzil still sat smoking in silence, and felt somewhat perplexed by
the extreme candour of his brother-officer.  In short, he knew not
quite how to take it.

"Could she only have been flirting with me?" thought he, and we fear
Rose would have answered in the affirmative.  "No two persons, I have
heard, have exactly the same or correct idea of what flirting is (he
had not): talking a deal to a pretty girl, or laughing much with her,
are called so; but surely there may be deeper flirting, at times, in
silence.  Oh! we were not flirting: I loved her--I love her yet--and
thought she loved me, when glance met glance, and eye answered to eye
the unasked question!"

"I know her style perfectly," resumed Polwhele, oddly enough
proceeding to crush the unuttered thought; "so does Burgoyne; so do
Grahame and Ravelstoke, of the 37th, and ever so many more.  She
asked you tenderly about animal magnetism--showed you the whiteness
of her ungloved hand, and asked you, no doubt, about the trimming of
her dress; but you were to be friends--the dearest friends only, and
all that sort of thing."

Poor Denzil was petrified; but these words were partly effecting a
cure, and he strove to laugh.

"Don't quiz me, Jack," said he; "but, upon my soul, I could be guilty
of any folly for that girl--yet it would be madness, you know.  What
would the General say, and the mess think and say, too?"

"I don't precisely catch your meaning,--folly and madness are pretty
synonymous in a matrimonial sense; but what did you think of
committing yourself to? a proposal--eh?"

Denzil did not reply; he could only sigh and smoke viciously.

"Take your wine, old fellow, and don't bother about it," said Waller,
who had just begun to listen.  "I nearly went mad for love myself in
my first red coat; but the Colonel saved me by detachment duty; and
when last I saw my inamorata, after seven years of matrimony, her
figure quite spoiled for waltzing, and a squad of little squalling
infantry about her, I laughed at my escape."

Denzil remembered the bantering remarks of the cavalry officer at the
band-stand; and their estimate of Rose seemed to tally unpleasantly
with that of Polwhele.

"Fool that I have been!--yet could I help it?" he thought.  "Could I
help doing so again--though she is one that makes of love a jest and
a scoff?"

He felt that she had lured him into a passionate declaration merely
to cast him off wantonly and laugh at him, perhaps, with Audley
Trevelyan.  She might not care for him, and yet dislike to see him,
care for _another_.  Hence rage prompted him one moment to try and
fall in love with some other girl (there was not much choice in the
cantonment, certainly), and the next he felt cynically disposed to
hate her and all womankind.  Anon that emotion would pass away, and
he felt himself still her very slave, who would plead for a word, a
glance, or smile.

To abstain from visiting as before would soon excite remark; and yet
to resume his visits would be to see, with bitterness and
humiliation, another too palpably preferred, where he had deemed
himself the chosen favourite.

"And is it actually true that Waller is booked at last?" said
Polwhele.

"Deuce! how can I tell?" replied Denzil, curtly, blowing away a ring
of smoke.

"It may be all gossip--for he is one whom hitherto the female world
have found impossible to entrap; but here comes Trevelyan," he added,
as the Hindoo servant placed lighted wax candles on the table, and
Audley entered, looking, as Denzil thought, provokingly handsome,
cool, self-possessed, and fashionable in bearing.

The first questions asked were, whether any tidings had come from the
city, for after late events, the risk of death and decapitation run
by those who ventured to confer with Ackbar and the insurgent Khans
was indeed a painful and terrible one.  Neither Brigadier Shelton,
Major Pottinger, nor Burgoyne had returned as yet; so the
conversation speedily fell back into its channel of light-heartedness.

"So, Trevelyan," said Waller, quite forgetting the presence of
Denzil, and blundering on a most unlucky topic, "I heard that you
have been flirting furiously all day with Rose Trecarrel; but then,
as the aide-de-camp, you are quite a friend of the family."

"Oh! ours is an old affair," replied Audley, laughing heartily, as he
selected a cheroot; "like the 'Belle of the Ball,'" he added,
profoundly ignorant of Denzil's regard for her, "Miss Rose

  'Has smiled on many, just for fun--
    I knew that there was nothing in it;
  I was the FIRST, the ONLY one,
    Her heart had thought of for a minute;
  I knew it, for she told me so,
    In phrase that was divinely moulded;
  She wrote a charming hand, and oh!
    How sweetly all her notes were folded!'

We were old friends at home in Cornwall; besides, she is so lady-like
and pretty--almost beautiful."

"That I grant you," said Polwhele, who saw--that which Denzil did
not--that Audley's tone and manner had nothing of the lover in them;
"but Rose has always more strings than one to her bow."

"Or, more beaux than one to her string," said Waller, laughing.

"Never puts all her money on one horse anyway.  Bagging a sub. is to
her like snipe-shooting in an Irish bog; poor sport after all; but a
power sight better than none," said Ravelstoke, of the 37th Native
Infantry, at whose freedom of speech Waller frowned.

And this was the consolation to which Denzil was treated.

How little he knew that at that very time, Audley Trevelyan, in his
heart, was contrasting Sybil's pure and loving prattle, her genuine
enthusiasm in poetry, art, and all that was beautiful in nature, with
the occasional rantipole of this garrison belle.

"What is that?" said Waller, suddenly, as a drum was beaten hurriedly
outside.

"The guard of ours, at the Kohistan gate, getting under arms,"
replied Ravelstoke; "Brigadier Shelton has come with tidings, and his
head on his shoulders--we shall soon know our fate now!"

The sound of hoofs trotting fast through the Cantonments was heard,
as the gate was closed and secured; and in a minute or less,
Burgoyne, of the 37th, came in with his sword under his arm, and a
brace of loaded pistols in his waistbelt.

He looked pale, excited, and weary indeed!

"Now, Burgoyne, for your news?" said Waller; "but take a pull at that
wine-jar first."

Burgoyne did so, with an air of thirst and lassitude, though the
atmosphere was intensely cold.

"Is the Brigadier safe?" said Polwhele.

"Yes."

"And Pottinger, too?"

"Yes; we have come back unharmed."

"And no attempt was made to assassinate or detain you?"

"None; but what think you is the proposal now--nearly the same as
before--for we are checkmated here, and these insurgent scoundrels
know it.  Lawrence, Mackenzie, Conolly, and some other Europeans are
still alive in their hands, and kept as hostages.  These they offer
to exchange, if the General will leave in their place all our married
officers and their families; the entire treasure in the military
chest; all our cannon, except six; and that we depart at once; our
rear to be covered by four hundred armed Kohistanees, who, if
handsomely paid, will march with us so far as Jellalabad, where,
according to the news brought by a cossid, Sir Robert Sale is so
closely besieged that those among us who survive to reach the plains,
will have to cut their way in with the cold steel."

Mingled expressions of rage and indignation were uttered by all save
Waller, who looked singularly pale and calm.

"And what was the reply to these degrading proposals?" he asked,
while quietly selecting and lighting a cigar.

"It was answered that a British General might, if he chose, leave or
give certain officers as hostages, but that he had no power over
their wives and families.  That without the full consent of husbands
and parents, the ladies and children would not be left behind."

"I should think not--left, d--n it, to certain destruction!"
exclaimed Polwhele, his dark eyes flashing fire.  Burgoyne resumed:

"It was then that Ackbar said to us, mockingly, 'If you save your
lives, what do the lives or honour, as you call it, of your wives or
sisters matter?  They are only women, and, as women, are spoil, like
your horses and camels, yaboos, shawls, pipes, and gunpowder.  Allah!
you Kaffirs are strange dogs.'  And there, for to-night, the matter
rests.  News came, however, that the Queen's 16th Lancers, the 9th,
and 31st Regiments have come up country, as far as Peshawur; but that
is fully two hundred miles distant; the defiles are full of snow, and
they cannot be here in time either to assist or save us."

These details, which are matters of history, now filled all in that
isolated camp with extreme dismay.  Every hour provisions were
growing more scarce; every hour the snow was falling more heavily,
and thus the tremendous mountain gorges through which the route lies
to Jellalabad or Peshawur, were hourly becoming more and more
impassable.

To move or quit the fortified Cantonments without the solemn promise
of safe conduct from the vast hordes in arms, was perilous in the
extreme.  To remain was but to die by slow starvation or the sword.
So the question asked by the Khan of Khelat, was likely to have a
terrible answer.

"Major Thain," writes Lady Sale, "was now sent round to ask all the
married officers if they would consent to their wives staying,
offering those who did so a salary of 2000 rupees a month!
Lieutenant Eyre said, that if it was to be productive of good, he
would stay with his wife and child.  The others all refused to risk
the safety of their families.  Captain Anderson said that he would
rather put a pistol to his wife's head and shoot her; and Sturt
declared that his wife and mother should only be taken from him at
the point of the bayonet; for himself, he was ready to perform any
duty imposed upon him."*


* "Journal of the Disasters in Afghanistan."  Major Thain belonged to
H.M. 21st Foot, but was then on the Staff.


Sturdy old General Trecarrel swore that he would take his Company of
the Cornish Light Infantry, put Mabel and Rose in the centre, and
force a way through the Passes at all hazards, rather than leave them
to a fate which none could foresee.  At the worst, they could all die
there together, and there could be little doubt of the event if we
marched without terms, for tidings came from Taj Mahommed, the
Wuzeer, that Aziz Khan, with 10,000 Kohistanees, had beset the road
at Tezeen; and that the warriors of the Ghilzie tribe (which numbers
600,000 souls) were in possession of all the heights overlooking it.

Tears and distress were visible on all hands now; sickness and
suffering increased rapidly, while every night the bugles sounded to
arms, and cannon and musketry were discharged at the armed bands of
horse and foot which menaced the front and rear gates, or sought
plunder in the now abandoned Residency, and the villas previously
occupied by General Trecarrel, Captain Trevor, and others.

Pale women clasped their children to their breasts, and men their
wives, as if the parting hour of all was already come.  The eyes of
the soldiers filled and flashed with honest pity and manly
indignation at the idea of yielding up civilized women, tender
English ladies and helpless little children, to such barbarians as
these; while the sick and wounded in hospital were full of horror and
dismay at their own helplessness.




CHAPTER XVI.

THE MORNING OF THE RETREAT.

War, dread war, is one of the greatest games in life!  "It is a
passion even in the lower ranks of the soldiery; while for those in
command it is the most intoxicating, the most imperious of passions.
Where shall we find a wider field for energy of character, for the
calculations of intellect and the flashes of genius?  In him who is
inflamed by glory, hunger, thirst, wounds, incessantly impending
death itself, produce a sort of intoxication; the sudden combination
of intermediate causes with foreseen chances, throw into this exalted
game a never ceasing interest, equal to the emotion excited at long
intervals by the most terrible situations of life!"

In the movement we are about to narrate, there was no room for the
display of generalship, though more than enough for endurance and the
most heroic courage; but some such enthusiastic reflections as these
were floating in the mind of Denzil, when, by the prolonged notes of
the trumpet, and the long roll on the drum, the entire troops in the
Cantonments, horse, foot, and artillery, began to get under arms on
the morning of the 6th of January, to commence that which eventually
proved to be one of the most disastrous retreats on record.

How often had the unfortunate Trevor, Waller, Burgoyne, and others,
exclaimed, in their weariness of heart--

"Let us fight our way down, destroying everything ere we leave the
Cantonments, and at least one-third of us shall reach Jellalabad!"
And now the time had come.

It had been finally arranged by the Staff at Headquarters, to pay
more than fourteen lacs* of rupees to Ackbar Khan, Ameen Oolah Khan,
Shireen Khan of the Kussilbashes, the Ghilzie Chiefs, and other
treacherous villains, that our troops might march unmolested; Osman
Khan undertaking, with his tribe, to escort them so far as Peshawur,
the gate of British India, towards Central India.  The money was
negotiated on the spot by a Cashmere merchant and some Hindoo
schroffs or bankers in Cabul.  In vain did Major Pottinger and many
other officers raise their voices indignantly against this measure of
the feeble and aged Elphinstone.


* A lac is one hundred thousand.


"Never before," they exclaimed, "were British soldiers compelled to
_buy_ a way out of an enemy's country; to repay with gold the debt
contracted by steel!"

But the bargain was struck; Ackbar Khan and his allies were
avariciously resolute that it should be adhered to by us, at least.

Silently and quickly the troops, 4,500 strong, were formed by
Regiments and Brigades; but the confusion around them, in the streets
of bungalows or huts, was great, from the number and terror of the
camp-followers, now diminished by death, sickness, or desertion, to
somewhere about 12,000.  Hammocks had been prepared wherein to carry
the sick and wounded through the passes; but as the snowfall was
deep, this was thought to be impracticable; so in virtue of the
species of armistice, nearly the whole of these unfortunate
creatures, officers, soldiers, and camp followers had been conveyed
into the city, where they were to be left to the care--to the mercy,
of the Afghans, certain medical officers casting lots for the
perilous duty of remaining behind to attend them, and these devoted
Samaritans proved to be Drs. Berwick and Campbell of the 54th
Infantry.

As a foretaste of what was soon to happen, the bearers, returning
from the city with the litters, were fired upon, and all shot down by
the Afghans; and on this very morning, as the grey dawn began to
steal down the mountains from their reddened summits to the plain,
the dark corpses of the Hindoo dhooley-wallahs could be seen dotting
all the expanse of snow between the Cantonments and Cabul; while, to
still the growing clamour, three pieces of cannon, and the greater
portion of our treasure, were made over to the rabble.

In rear of his company, awaiting the order to march, Denzil stood
leaning on his sword and muffled in a furred poshteen which he wore
above his uniform, as the thermometer was below zero and all the
troops were in those blue great-coats usually worn by our soldiers in
India.  The Europeans looked pale, thin, and haggard, and the dark
Bengal sepoys seemed of a livid or pea-green tint, as the cold
daylight stole in.

How often Denzil had watched the great sun of the Eastern world rise
red and fiery above those eternally snow clad peaks of Kohistan; and
now he was, he hoped, looking on its rising for the last time there.

Alas! many more were looking on it, that were never to see it set.

Notwithstanding the desperation of their affairs, many were in
excellent spirits at the prospect of a change of quarters; and he
heard the voice of Rose Trecarrel, talking gaily to one or two
officers, as she, Mabel and some other ladies came forth mounted, to
ride for surer protection among the cavalry.  With them were Lady
Sale and the widowed Lady Macnaghten, who had vainly offered princely
bribes for her husband's mutilated body, and had now to depart with
the harrowing knowledge that it was still exposed in the public
marketplace.  Some of the ladies were on camels, others in dhooleys
with their children nestling beside them for warmth; but the
Trecarrels were mounted on fine Arab horses, and wore sheep-skin
spencers called _neemches_ over their riding habits, for comfort and
also for disguise, which they had further to aid by having turbans
twisted round their heads, so Rose could not help laughing heartily
at the oddity of her attire.

"Good-morning," said she, in her sweetest tone, to Denzil, who had
been watching her wistfully.

He was as a very slave in her presence, he loved her so, and now when
she held out her hand, chill though the air, ungloved (for a moment
of course) the presence of others alone prevented him from, perhaps,
kissing it.

"You have a cold journey before you," said he.

"And you a most toilsome march afoot.  Heaven tempers the wind to the
shorn lamb, we are told; I wish it would temper the wind to me," said
Rose, with her teeth, short, beautiful and white, chattering as she
spoke.

"What have you been doing for all these days past?  In what part of
the Cantonments have you hidden yourself?" she asked in a low and
soft voice.

"Oh--you speak to me kindly--almost tenderly, do you?" said Denzil,
with bitterness in his tone; "have you obtained leave from your
friend on the Staff to address me!"

He looked at her with eyes in whose expression anger and sorrow
mingled, while she looked at him smiling and deprecatory, more than
half flattered by his jealous outburst amid the terrors that menaced
them all.

"You are surely in a frightful humour this morning," said she; "I
shall certainly pity the Afghans if you fall foul of any of them."

"Cold-hearted Rose," replied Denzil, who was in no humour for
jesting; "I would not have your ungenerous nature, to hold that title
of which, as yet, fate deprives me, though that might make you love
me again--even if you ever loved me at all."

"Is this a comedy, Denzil?" said she, smiling more than ever.

"I would to God we had never met," said Denzil in a low voice, while
his lip quivered, for he conceived that the secret story of his
family had affected her towards him; "you have been but amusing
yourself with me; passing the hours that would have been dull here,
in playing with my heart--my feelings."

"Why, Denzil Devereaux--you talk like a girl; who ever heard of a
man's heart or feelings being trifled with?" said she, with a little
silvery laugh as she moved her horse, to speak with some one else.

"Dear Mabel," said Waller in a tender and earnest voice, as his
_fiancée_ checked her Arab for a moment by his side, and gave him her
hand with a bright confiding smile; "to-day begins, I hope, the first
stage of our long homeward journey."

"'England, with all thy faults, I love thee still,'" said she,
laughing as she rejoined her sister, and her lover, who was somewhat
of a critic, thought she was the handsomest girl he had ever seen on
horseback.

Bob and Mabel had already begun to fashion mental pictures of a
home-life in England, a happy home, a dream life; a pretty house in
some sequestered spot, where the old Cornish elm trees might echo to
merry children's voices, while the days went by in peace and
happiness; but here the troops were called to "attention," and
General Trecarrel, who was "mounted," led his daughters to where the
advanced guard was posted, and where all the ladies were placed among
the cavalry, to the great delight of a couple of cornets who
complacently stroked the fair fluff that would in time become
moustaches, and begged them not to be in the least alarmed, as they
had a most efficient escort.

"Rose," urged Mabel, who had more power of character than her sister
and less of folly in her disposition, "it is cruel of you to make
such a victim of that poor lad, Devereaux--he is so handsome too."

"That is the reason; but do I ask him to love me?"

"No; you only lure him into doing so; you are incorrigible, and laugh
at being so."

"There is no need to think of marrying--the idea is absurd; though
one may get up a liking."

"Oh fie!" said Mabel, smiling in spite of herself.

"How sensible and solid we have become since Waller came to the
point, and made it all square with papa."

"He has certainly asked me to become his," replied Mabel, with a
bright, soft smile.

"I would rather be my _own_," said the laughing coquette.

This whispered conversation was now interrupted by a terrific yell
outside the Cantonment walls; it rent the air, and the ladies grew
pale as they looked inquiringly in each other's faces.  General
Trecarrel grew very white, and instinctively drew his sword.  On that
morning, when he knelt in prayer beside his daughters, ere they left
their abode to mount, he had been thinking that in such a place and
under such circumstances as theirs, how happy was the man who was
alone in the world; how to be envied the soldier, who had only his
firelock and knapsack to care for; who had only himself to think of,
and had no dread for the sighs, the tears, and the danger of those he
loved best on earth!

Thousands of Afghans and fanatical Ghazees were now crowding close to
the walls, impatient for plunder and rapine, hissing like serpents,
spitting like tiger-cats, and brandishing their bare weapons with an
air of ferocity and grimace peculiar to Orientals only; but as yet
contenting themselves with throwing stones, which the Afghans do with
a strength and precision exclusively their own.  By one of these
Sergeant Treherne was struck nearly senseless to the earth, when in
the act of receiving some order from Waller, who became, for him,
unusually excited.

"D--n it!" he exclaimed, "why don't we slew round a bastion gun, and
by one dose of grape send a few of these turbaned warriors by the
short cut to Paradise, or elsewhere!"

"I should like to see a few of them tied to the lips of
six-pounders--for matters are looking decidedly serious," added
Polwhele, as the red glare of flames, with columns of lurid and murky
smoke, now shot high into the snowy air from the houses of the Envoy,
Captain Trevor, General Trecarrel, and others, which had been fired
by the predatory horsemen who covered all the plain.

An order was now given to fix bayonets and load with
ball-cartridge--the artillery with round shot and grape!

"The troops are to move off from the right of regiments, in open
column of sections," cried Audley Trevelyan, repeating the feeble
voice of the old General, as he rode from one slender column to
another.

"The front to be diminished, if necessary, when we enter the pass,"
added Major Thain; "Her Majesty's 44th Foot, one squadron of
Irregular Horse and three mountain-guns, under Brigadier Anquetil, to
form the advance guard.  The 54th, the Shah's 6th, the 5th Light
Cavalry, and four Horse Artillery guns, will cover the rear."

These corps, already reduced to skeletons, were speedily formed in
front and rear of the main column, with which went the baggage, the
remaining treasure, the rest of the artillery, and some sick and
wounded in litters, and on yaboos or Cabul ponies.

At eight o'clock precisely, the order was given to march, and fresh
yells, as if all the fiends of Pandemonium had broken loose,
resounded from the plain, as the rear-gates of the Cantonment were
thrown open; the bands struck up the "British Grenadiers," and the
advanced guard began to defile out upon the road that was to lead
them, as they hoped, to Peshawur.

A half-stifled shriek burst from all the ladies, and they implored
the troopers of the Irregular Horse to close about them for
protection, for the scene around was one replete with terror, a
confused and mighty mass of dark, ferocious visages, black, gleaming
eyes, white, grinning teeth, and flashing weapons; so that even the
usually irrepressible Rose Trecarrel was completely silent, subdued,
and so awed, that she could scarcely breathe.

From the hills of Beymaru the odious Ackbar Khan and others, his
adherents, were looking down on our toil worn soldiers as they issued
forth with all the honours of war, the colours flying on the wind,
with all their brilliant silk and gold embroidery; the bright
bayonets pouring onwards like a stream of rippling steel above the
dark columns, for, as already stated, the troops were in their
greatcoats; the neighing of the horses, the dull rumble of the
artillery wheels, the clatter of sponge and rammer, and of round-shot
in the caissons; and over all, the varied music of the bands, the
shrill yet sweet notes of the fifes and the regularly measured
resonance of the drums, came upward to his listening ear, with the
yells of the Afghans, and the report of the occasional firearms which
they began to discharge among the helpless camp followers in the very
wantonness of mischief, or Asiatic lust of cruelty.

"Let them go," hissed Ackbar, through his clenched teeth; "the hungry
vultures and the wild Khyberees are alike in waiting; the dark wings
and the avenging sword of Azrael will soon be above them in the air,
and the jackals and the Ghoule Babian will batten on their bones!"

And some there were with him, whose eyes seemed chiefly attracted by
the group of white ladies who rode on horses or camels, amid the
brilliant ranks of the Irregular Cavalry.

"_Dare_ they meddle with us, who are British troops, and all in order
for battle?" was the confident thought of many a brave officer, yet
of all those 16,500 human beings who issued on that eventful morning
from the fortified camp at Cabul, only TWO were fated to reach
Jellalabad alive, and that city is only ninety miles distant.*


* There quitted the cantonments, Europeans, 690; cavalry, 970; native
infantry, 2840; camp-followers, 12,000.  The Queen's 44th mustered
600 of all ranks.




CHAPTER XVII.

THE HALT BY THE LOGHUR RIVER.

Quickly marched our retreating forces, so menacing was the aspect and
daring the conduct of the Afghans, that all felt as if something was
to be got over, and that the sooner it was faced boldly and gone
over, the better.

Prior to leaving the Cantonments, Rose had thought of dropping her
whip _en route_, so that one of the handsome young cornets might have
to dismount and pick it up; and thus, that by the consequent delay,
they should be enabled to ride a little apart from the ladies and the
escort; now--all such coquettish schemes and follies were forgotten.

Her Arab had been sidling along, coquetting with its own shadow, and
rendering an officer's hand on the reins requisite now and then.
Even of that attention Rose was oblivious now; laughter and fun had
passed away, and a cold shiver passed down the poor girl's spine as
she looked around her.

Hemmed in and crowded on by the invading rabble, the march of the
columns became speedily disordered, and the music of the bands
ceased.  The moment our troops were clear of the Cantonments, a vast
tide of Afghans, some eight thousand at least, rushed in to pillage
the bungalows and other buildings, and then gave all to the flames;
thus an indescribable tumult took place.  Elsewhere, parties of armed
horsemen made cruel and reckless dashes--literal charges--through the
long and straggling procession of helpless camp-followers, and even
through the column which had the baggage, cutting men down on all
sides, and carrying off whatever they could lay hands on, in some
instances tearing white children from the arms of their shrieking
ayahs and bearing them off at the saddle-bow, to future slavery or
death.  Corpses soon encumbered all the route, and the snow became
reddened with blood.

The air seemed to become laden with a Babel of tumultuous sounds; the
fierce yells of the Afghans encouraging each other to rapine and
slaughter; the more maniac-like cries of the fanatical Ghazees; the
wild wailing of the Hindostani servants, as they, their wives or
children perished, under the sabre or the occasional pistol-shot; the
roaring of the frightened camels; the bellowing of the artillery
bullocks; the voices of the European officers, seeking for a time to
control the fury of their men, but succeeding for a time only, for
the last file of the rear guard was barely out of the Cantonments,
when from the whole line of the western wall, volleys of red flashing
musketry were opened upon us by the Afghans, with their juzails,
matchlocks, and even those percussion muskets which Sir Robert Sale
was not permitted to take to Jellalabad.  Lieutenant Hardyman, of the
5th Cavalry, fell from his horse, shot through the heart, and fifty
more were killed or wounded at the same time; but though the 54th, to
which corps Waller's company was attached, commenced an independent
file-firing, facing about from time to time as they retreated, the
Afghans still pressed upon the columns, discharging their long rifles
with sure and deadly aim; thus, ere long the retreat became a flight,
leaving on all sides Hindoos, men, women, and children, expiring of
cold, starvation, exhaustion, or wounds.

Imitating the example of Polwhele, Denzil sheathed his sword, and
arming himself with a dead man's musket, fired till his hands and
elbows ached with the exertion of loading.

Tents and baggage of every kind, even a piece of cannon, were
speedily abandoned to the Afghans, for the native servants and
drivers fled on all sides, thinking to save their lives, but only to
be eventually slaughtered in detail; while slowly and laboriously
through the snow the troops moved towards a gorge in the hills of
Siah Sung, in hope to get through the Khoord Cabul Pass before
nightfall.

The forms of our half-starved soldiers who had been long on scanty
rations of dhal, wild radishes, rice and ghee, were wasted and thin;
their faces were hollow and wan; their whiskers were matted by mud
and blood, the powder of bitten cartridges, and, in many instances,
icicles hung from them as the breath froze on their moustaches.

With the baggage, all the remaining treasure became the spoil of the
enemy; many a handsome Hindoo girl was borne off by the horsemen,
who, though they galloped in bold defiance along the flanks of the
retreating force, did not, as yet, attempt to molest the solid array
of the Queen's 44th Foot.  It was as in the song of _Pindara_:--

  "Deeply with saree, doputta, and shawl,
    Jewels and gold the lootera is laden;
  Silks and brocades, and what's better than all,
    We have the choice of the matron and maiden!
                Zenana and harem
                Ring forth the alarm--
  Vainly their riches and beauties are hoarded!
                Hoora! hoora!
                Quick with the damsels,
  For hills must be clambered and rivers be forded!"


From the rocks of Siah Sung, as the gorge was entered, more than one
juzail ball found its way into the ranks of the advanced guard.  The
two fair-haired Cornets of the Irregular Cavalry, mere boys, in most
brilliantly elaborate uniforms, fell; both were shot down to perish
miserably amid the snow and mud.  They sank in succession under the
hoofs of the horses ridden by Mabel and Rose, and were left to the
Afghans, whose knives would soon end their miseries.

"Oh what a sight for English ladies to look upon!" exclaimed Audley
Trevelyan, feeling acutely the horror of all they were subjected to,
while the tears they were forced to shed became frozen on their pale
cheeks by the icy mountain wind.

Mabel had her riding switch shot away by a casual bullet; Lady Sale
had one of her arms wounded by another, and several balls passed
through the skirt of her riding habit.

Down below the hills into which they were advancing, and far away in
the rear, a sheet of fire still enveloped the whole oblong area of
the Cantonments, and the plain through which the Cabul flows was
enveloped in rolling smoke, amid which the square masses of the
Afghan forts loomed darkly forth; but few cared to give a backward
glance as the troops toiled doggedly into the mountain gorges, where
darkness, the winter-storm, and the treacherous foe went with them.

Snow, snow everywhere; the chill atmosphere was full of it; aslant
the white flakes were falling to join others on the leafless planes
and poplars, on the upturned faces and stiffening bodies of the dead.
There was no horizon; all trace of it had disappeared; the Afghan
horsemen hovering on the flanks were like shadows or spectres in the
gloom--but shadows from whence a red flash came forth at times, and
then a bullet whistled past on its errand of death.  After a time
these wild cavaliers rode into the ravines, and nothing was seen in
the grey obscurity but the white flakes falling silently athwart it;
and there were thawing and freezing--freezing and thawing at one and
the same time.

It was misery, intense misery, all, and Denzil had but one thought,
that on the ruddy, shiny, auburn billows of Rose's hair, and of her
sister's too, these flakes were falling now.

With nightfall the firing had ceased; the soldiers marched sternly
and silently on in the dark, and even the least callous among them
had ceased to shudder now when treading softly on the limbs or
breasts of the dead who encumbered the way.  And to those in the
rear, it seemed as if all in front were perishing.

"Meanwhile, amid all this horror, where is she?" thought Denzil;
"with my precious cousin no doubt--yet, I pray God, that he may be
able to protect her."

More than once on that disastrous march, however, had Audley ridden
back to the rear guard to see if Denzil was safe, and to kindly
proffer the use of his brandy flask.  And now, by a miserable
destiny, instead of advancing that night straight through the Khoord
Cabul Pass, the inane old General allowed the Afghans to take
possession of it, while he, most fatally, ordered his forces to
encamp on the right of the Loghur river, if encamping it could be
called, when the tents and baggage had alike been lost, the troops
were without fuel and had only the snow to lie upon, and the falling
snow to cover them.

"The bugles of the advanced guard are sounding a halt," said Waller;
"it may be unwise, but I thank Heaven, as I am ready to drop, and
shall have to snooze like the rest amid the snow and our glory.
Glory--pah! I would rather have a glass of brandy-pawnee hot, than
all the glory to be got in British India.  Polwhele, make the company
pile arms when we come to the halting-place--and now to look after
the Trecarrels--God help them!"

As corps after corps came up and halted, friends and comrades could
enquire as to who had been killed or lost on the march; wounded there
could be none, as all who sank behind were certain to perish by cold
or the long trenchant knives of the Afghans, who had a particular
fancy for decapitating all the victims that fell into their hands.

Officers and soldiers were alike maddened with fury against the
infamous treachery of those who had been paid in such terms to let
them and their families depart in peace; and on all sides were heard
the bitterest execrations of Ackbar Khan and his adherents.  These
became mingled with loud lamentations and cries of despair, when
husbands found that their wives, wives that their husbands, or
parents that their children, had been lost--hopelessly lost--on that
long and terrible path of death and suffering, which led down the
mountains to the rear, a path where none might dare to return or
search for those they loved.

In cold and starvation those who had succeeded in bringing their
little ones thus far on the way, could only pray, and weep the dire
necessities of war, and marvel in their hearts if the time would ever
come when swords should be beaten into ploughshares and spears into
pruning-hooks, and "when nation shall not lift up the sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war any more."  As yet, that piping
time of peace seemed a long way off.

A few sentinels were posted in the direction of the enemy, and their
posts some of them never quitted alive, being found frozen and dead
when the relief went round an hour after.  A little fire was made for
the ladies by burning Audley's pistol-case and an ammunition keg; and
full of pity, compassion, and horror, that women delicately and
tenderly nurtured as they had been, should be subjected to miseries
such as these, Waller, Denzil, Ravelstoke, and a few others procured
by great exertion a sepoy pall, or tent, from the back of a baggage
pony that lay shot in the pass; and then, scraping away the snow,
pitched it for their use.

Therein, Mabel, Rose, and seven other ladies passed the night,
nestling close together on a _xummul_, or coarse native blanket, with
the skirts of their riding habits wrapped about their feet for warmth.

Audley Trevelyan, General Trecarrel, and other mounted officers kept
beside their horses for the same purpose; and muffled in their
poshteens and blankets, Waller and Denzil lay to leeward of the
ladies' tent as a shelter from the biting wind.

So passed the remainder of the morning.

When day began to dawn and the cold light stole down the mountains
upon that melancholy bivouac, it was found that the Shah's 6th
Regiment, six hundred strong, had gone off in the dark, deserting to
the enemy with all their arms; but there was another circumstance
which created greater alarm still among the Europeans.

_Rose Trecarrel was missing_, and no trace of her could be found.




CHAPTER XVIII.

SPIRITED AWAY!

All unaware of the evil tidings that were awaiting him, Denzil, stiff
and well-nigh frozen, aching in every limb, staggered like a tipsy
man to his feet, so sore and cramped were every joint and limb.  As
the dawn came slowly in, he gazed around him.  Waller was already
awake, and had been to look after his men.  He proffered his
cigar-case, saying:

"Have a weed, Devereaux--it's all the breakfast you are likely to
get.  We are as ill off here as Mother Hubbard's ill-used cur."

"Are the ladies stirring yet?" asked Denzil with chattering teeth.

"No--and Lady Sale has not had the bullet extracted from her arm yet."

Once or twice during the dark hours that were passed, a little hand
cased in lavender kid and drawn from a warm fur-lined riding
gauntlet, had come out from under the wall of the tent, and Waller's
lips had touched it, for it was Mabel's, and gloved though it was,
the touch of that little hand, especially under circumstances so
terrible, made big Bob Waller's honest heart to vibrate with emotion.
Once Rose, in her old spirit of waggery, had put out her hand in the
same way and laughed when Waller, who was just dosing off to sleep in
the wretched cold without, kissed it with great _empressement_, for
she too wore pale lavender kids under her riding gloves.

"Look round, Waller," said Denzil, as he lit the cigar; "did you ever
behold such a scene?"

"Never--and hope never to see such again!"

The lofty mountains and impending rocks that overhung the Pass, and
that fatal route back to the hills of Siah Sung, being covered with
snow, looked singularly close and nigh.  The sky was clear now; and
far as the eye could reach the way was studded by the dead bodies of
human beings, camels, horses, baggage yaboos, artillery bullocks,
cannon and waggons, drums, weapons and abandoned dhoolies, the
inmates of which might be either living or dead; the latter most
probably, for everything there lay half buried in the white
winding-sheet of winter, with the black vultures settling in flights
over them.

In the immediate vicinity of where Denzil stood, many men who in the
night had perished of cold and exhaustion lay frozen hard and firmly
to the earth, with their muskets beside them.  The corpses of the
Hindoos and dusky Bengal sepoys seemed like pale Venetian bronze in
the frosty air.  In the eyes of the survivors, by over tension of the
nerves, and the fierce wild excitement they had undergone for some
time past, but more particularly during the preceding day and night,
a keen and unearthly glare or glitter was visible.  Each was aware of
this hunted-expression as he looked in the worn face of his comrade.
General Trecarrel seemed to be sorely changed by the sharp anxiety he
suffered for his daughters' safety.  Thus the usually bluff and
florid looking old soldier had become pale, wan and haggard in face,
and wild and defiant in eye, like the rest.

Sergeant Treherne, a powerful and hardy Cornishman, had tumbled a
dead Hindoo out of a wooden litter, and breaking it to pieces, made
with them a fire near the tent of the ladies, for whom, with all a
campaigner's readiness, he was quickly preparing some hot coffee in a
camp-kettle, while the old General, his countryman, sought to warm
himself by the blaze, when the voice of Mabel startled all who were
near, as she hurried from the tent, exclaiming,

"Papa--papa--where is Rose--is not she with you?"

Denzil started forward, but paused, for at the same instant Audley
Trevelyan, who had been fraternally sharing some _dhal_ (or
split-peas) with his horse, and of whose interference he felt
nervously jealous, sprang towards Mabel enquiringly.  General
Trecarrel stared at her with an air of utter bewilderment, as he had
not seen Rose since the tent was pitched for the use of her and
others on the troops halting, when she came as usual to be kissed by
him before retiring, just as she had been wont to do, ever since
childhood.  Then he said hoarsely:

"Speak at once, Mabel--what has happened--speak?"

But Mabel could only clasp her hands.  She thought Rose had been with
him, and terror now tied her tongue; she dared not speak or question
him, for "any suspense is better than some certainties;" and one fact
was here certain and palpable; that Rose had left the tent unseen,
and none knew why, wherefore or with whom!

When so many were perishing hourly by the most terrible deaths, we
are shocked to admit that, such is the selfishness of human nature,
the fate of one girl, even though a pure European, did not create
much excitement for any length of time, save among those more
immediately interested in it; and as the retreat was to recommence in
an hour, there was not much time for the unrefreshed and starving
troops investigating it.  Moreover, the rear-guard of yesterday was
to be the advanced one of to-day, as the army, if that disorganised
multitude could so be called, was to move off in inverted order--the
left in front.

Generosity, chivalry, and humanity, inspired Audley Trevelyan like
many other officers to be up and doing something; they scarcely knew
what.  Denzil felt heart-wrung and stupefied, while Waller, in
addition to his own emotions, was alarmed for the effect this
calamitous event might have on Mabel; but General Trecarrel, together
with the horror inspired by great anxiety and love, felt an ardour of
intense hatred against the Afghans who had reft from him his youngest
born; she, who from childhood had been his pet, and his stricken
heart seemed full of unuttered prayers for her.

The entire camp was speedily searched; not a trace could be found of
the lost one.  She could neither have gone nor been taken to the
front, as the snow lay there pure as it had fallen, untrodden and
unsullied by footsteps.  To the rear then only could she be looked
for.  Such was the hasty report made to the unhappy father by
brigadier Shelton, Audley, and other officers who crowded about him.

The ladies were full of compassion and a terror that was not quite
unselfish.  What had happened?  If she had vanished thus
mysteriously, whose fate might be next?  They trembled in the frosty
morning wind as they gazed at each other; but Mabel's beautiful face,
by the terrible and haggard misery of its expression, inspired them
all with sympathy, and they grouped about her like a covey of
frightened doves.

Like Denzil, she felt as if half her life--half herself, had suddenly
passed away.  A looker-on might have thought that the death-warrant
of all had been written in an instant, for Denzil, Waller, Audley,
Mabel, and poor General Trecarrel stared at each other in blank
horror and amazement.

Death by the sword, the lance, and bullet; death by cold, starvation,
fire, sack, slaughter, and every horror incident to such a retreat,
had been, and were even now, close around them; but what unthought-of
personal calamity was this?  Breathlessly, and almost void of all
power of volition, father and child gazed at each other.  Their eyes
seemed to say "Where is my daughter?"  "Where is my sister?"  But who
was to explain this terrible mystery?

Nine ladies, we have said, had crowded together in that small tent,
sleeping closely side by side for warmth; and the eight remaining
admitted that they had slept soundly in the heavy slumber that comes
of intense weariness and keen anxiety.  Denzil, in his half-dreamy
doze outside the tent, had been conscious of soldiers hovering near
it, but thought they were simply seeking for food or fuel.

Happy, thoughtless, heedless Rose, with all her flirting and pretty
coquettish ways--where was she now?  Dead, butchered, or dying in
misery amid the snow, or a captive; and, if so, in whose hands?  A
captive kept for worse than death, too probably!  It was an episode
that was maddening to her sister; to her old father, who loved her so
tenderly; to Denzil, who doted on her shadow, and whose heart was
full of the memory of that happy day by the Lake of Istaliff; to
Waller; and all who had known and liked her, or laughed and danced
with her in the happy time that was past.

"Oh, God!" murmured the poor General, half audibly, as he raised his
eyes and tremulous hands upwards; "give my child back to me, or take
me to her!  Lord, Lord, let me not go mad!" he added piteously.  "To
find her lying dead would be better than to be thus ignorant of her
fate--of her sufferings--of her _end_!"

Life seemed to die out of his heart; yet he breathed and lived, and
had speech and hearing left.

"Those scoundrels who levanted in the dark, the Shah's Sixth, have
something to do with this," said Burgoyne; "they furnished the chain
of sentinels towards the rear."

"Right," exclaimed the General hoarsely, "and in the rear must she be
sought."

"The enemy are already in motion and in sight," said Brigadier
Shelton, who was examining the distant portion of the Pass through
his field-glass.

"I care not if all Afghanistan was there," said Trecarrel, mounting;
"come with me, Trevelyan!  Ladies, I entreat you to look to Mabel
while I go in search of my lost one."

"Papa, papa," implored Mabel, "don't leave me."

"You are safe for the time," he replied, checking his horse for an
instant; "but I must go in search of my lost darling--to find her, or
to die."

And now the old man rode wildly to the rear, followed by Audley, who
had to ride with caution among the frozen dead and other _debris_, as
the horses were ill-roughed, the _Nalbunds_, or native farriers,
having all deserted.

"Captain Waller," cried Brigadier Shelton, "this is mere madness;
Trecarrel and Trevelyan are throwing their lives away, for the Afghan
skirmishers will soon be close at hand!  Take your Company to the
rear in extended order, and keep the rascals in check if you can.  A
Ressallah of the 5th Cavalry will support you if necessary."

"Very good, sir," replied Waller, mechanically and coolly, as if on
parade, lowering his drawn sword in salute, and obeying with
alacrity, in the desire and hope to overtake and protect the father
of his Mabel.  "Company, forward, double quick;" and forward his men
went briskly, with their arms at the trail, and in line, till clear
of the bivouac, when he extended them from the centre, and they
loaded while advancing.

In active and dangerous military duty like this, there is always some
relief from mental torture.  A man in grief may sit at his desk, toil
with the spade, the shuttle, or the hammer, enduring a sickness of
the heart that nothing can allay, and time alone may cure; but in the
fierce excitement of mortal strife, the ills of life seem lessened,
and a great sorrow may be half forgotten.  Hence, to grapple with the
enemy, and especially such an enemy as those Afghans, was as a balm
to the excited hearts of Denzil and Waller, and forth they went with
a will over ground that was singularly repulsive and horrible in
aspect.  In his keen sense of the terrible event of last night, the
former forgot even his jealousy of Audley; they could have but one
common cause now--vengeance on the abductors.

Corpses lay thick everywhere, and half covered by the snow.

How terrible seemed the last rest of all those dead people, who,
since only yesterday, had learned the great secret of Time and
Eternity, and more that mere mortal can never know; their jaws
relaxed; their eyes, unclosed by friendly or loving hands, were
staring stonily and sightlessly to Heaven, as they slept the sleep
from which the thunder of all the cannon in the world would never
waken them.  The ashes of the Christian would receive no Christian
burial; and those of the Hindoo would never mingle with the waters of
the Jumna, or his holier river, the Ganges.  For the remains of all
would ere long become the prey of the wolf and hyæna, and already the
vultures were there in sable flights, settling over all the fallen.

In some places under the soldiers' feet, the snow was crimsoned by
large patches of frozen blood.

A long line of abandoned dhooleys, full of women, children, and
wounded men, were passed.  All the occupants of these were dead; and
to their ghastly banquet thereon, the scared vultures returned with
angry croak and flapping wings, when Waller's men went further from
them.

On a little knoll the General and Audley Trevelyan were overtaken.
They had reined up their horses, and were looking about them sadly
and hopelessly, for no trace of the lost one could be discerned; but
the shouts of some exulting Afghans were borne towards them on the
morning wind.

A body of cavalry, divided into two parties, were coming along the
steep rocks of the Pass on both sides, for the mountain horses of
that wild region can climb like cats or goats.  A green silk banner
floated from a glittering lance, announcing that they formed the
Resallah, or troop of Amen Oollah Khan; and each horseman had a
juzailchee, or rifleman, mounted, _en croupe_, behind him, after the
fashion of the French Voltigeurs.

These they dropped fresh, unwearied, and ready for action; and the
firing began at once from behind the rocks or stones, over which they
discharged their long barrelled rifles in perfect security.

The Afghans are excellent skirmishers, and their native juzails carry
much farther than our regulation muskets; thus, before Waller's men
could return their fire, one of his corporals uttered a yell of
agony, bounded a yard from the ground, and then fell flat on his
face, dead.  A bullet had pierced a mortal part.

"Close up--close up, forward," cried Waller, leading them on, sword
in hand; "those devils have got our range exactly now."

While he spoke the bullets were sowing thick the snow about General
Trecarrel and Audley, who, being mounted men, were prominent figures.
Meanwhile the horsemen had disappeared; but the wily Amen Oollah was
merely making a _detour_ to turn the flank of a group of pines that
grew upon the steep slope, intending thereby to get into the rear of
Waller's skirmishers and cut them off.

"Get under cover, lads, as best you may!" cried he, as his bugler
sounded to "commence firing;" and with a dark, stern, and desperate
expression in their hungry faces, his soldiers knelt behind rocks and
stones, dead horses and camels, dhooleys and abandoned baggage-boxes,
and proceeded to return the fire of the Afghans (about a hundred in
number), who were taking quiet pot-shots at any head that appeared
above the snow-clad rocks, behind which they were lurking.

Now and then a fiend-like yell, and pair of brown booted feet, or
swarthy dark hands appearing wildly in the air, announced when an
English bullet found its billet in a Mussulman body; and then the
soldiers smiled grimly to each other, as they thought "there is one
the less in the world, at all events."

This serious musketry practice, and the wailing of women and
children, were the only morning _reveillé_ in that melancholy halting
place on the bank of the Loghur.




CHAPTER XIX.

THE SKIRMISH.

Gratitude to General Trecarrel, who had been kind to his dead mother,
to Sybil, and ever so to himself, with a natural regard for the old
soldier as the father of Rose, made Denzil linger near him, and
beseech him to retire and not to expose his life needlessly.
Absorbed in his great grief the General made no reply; with his face
pale, his eyes bloodshot, and his teeth set, he sat on horseback and
watched the turns of the skirmish.

The juzailchees fired with deadly aim as they levelled their long
weapons over rests, or the rocks behind which they were crouching;
thus some ten or twelve of Waller's skirmishers had fallen; of these
five were dead, and others were creeping wounded to the
halting-place, which some of them were not destined to reach, as they
died of exhaustion, loss of blood, or another bullet by the way.

His company continued to advance steadily by front and rear-rank
files alternately, each man darting forward and getting under the
cover of some rock or _bedana_ (as the wild mulberry bushes are
named), till they were all within half musket shot of the foe.  The
reports of the firing were reverberated among the snow-clad cliffs,
tossed from peak to peak, and so often repeated, that it seemed as if
four times the number of men were engaged; but though each soldier
had forty rounds of ammunition when leaving the Cantonments,
cartridges were failing already, for their stiffened and frost-bitten
fingers dropped more than they discharged, so that the living had
soon to supply themselves from the pouches of the dead.

Suddenly a cry of pain escaped General Trecarrel, and he fell heavily
from his horse, which swerved madly round, and fled into the Pass,
with saddle reversed and bridle trailing.  An exclamation of mingled
rage and commiseration left the lips of Waller, who glanced back
hastily in the humane hope that Mabel did not see this calamity, of
which, however, she was so soon to hear.

A ball had pierced her father's body, going fairly through the chest
and back, and he was dying in mortal agony, with the blood welling
from his mouth and nostrils.

"Rose--Rose and--Mabel!" he muttered, as he slowly lifted his empty
arms upward in the air, and then turning fairly round with his face
to the snow, amid which his white hair mingled, he expired.

The whole catastrophe occurred in less time than is taken to write of
it.

"How shall I break this fresh sorrow to poor Mabel!" said Waller, in
a low voice, through his clenched teeth; but he had little time for
reflection now, as a shout on the right flank announced the
approaching Horse of Amen Oollah Khan, as they swept tumultuously
round the pine wood, and came on at a hand-gallop, down ground that
was frightfully steep.

"Rally--close to the centre--form company square!" cried Waller,
holding his sword aloft.  He looked to the rear; the promised support
from the 5th Cavalry was not to be seen; but he heard a bugle in the
camp sounding the "retire;" thus recalling his skirmishers, a most
necessary measure, as a body of more than six hundred Horse, led, as
it eventually proved, by Ackbar Khan in person, were now advancing
through the Pass.

Waller's company formed a rallying square, and began to retire, still
firing, however, while Denzil, assisted by Sergeant Treherne,
endeavoured to bring off the body of General Trecarrel, by placing it
across the horse of Audley, who had dismounted for that purpose.
This caused a delay which proved fatal, as it separated them from
their party.  Twice the poor corpse slipped from the saddle, and they
were in the act of replacing it for a third, time when, with a yell
of,

"_Shookr-Joor vestie!_" (Praise be to God) four Afghan horsemen,
riding far in advance of their comrades, were down upon them.

One of these, a gigantic fellow, wearing a flaming yellow head-dress,
and a scarlet _chogah_ or cloak, struck off Audley's cocked hat, and
grasping him viciously by the hair, dragged his head close to the
saddle-lap, intending to cut it off by a slash of his long knife.
Audley ran his sword into the bowels of this barbarian's horse.  It
reared furiously, and threw the rider, whose hold never relaxed, for
he and Audley rolled over each other in close and deadly grapple,
till Denzil passed his sword through the quivering body of the
Afghan--a task which he had to repeat twice, as such fellows are hard
to kill, ere he could release and save his kinsman.

Sergeant Treherne shot the second and bayoneted the third, a thrust
from whose lance he narrowly escaped; but the fourth, whom a stray
shot from the still retiring square had dismounted and wounded in the
sword-arm, cried imploringly on his knees,

"_Aman! aman!_" (quarter--quarter), so Denzil arrested the charged
bayonet of Treherne, which in another moment would have pinned him to
the earth.

"Retire--retire, I command you both," cried Waller, whose voice was
distant now.

"Thank heaven, Audley Trevelyan, I have repaid Sybil's debt to
you--we are quits at last," was Denzil's thought, and he was turning
away to hasten after the Company, for not a moment could be lost now,
if he wished to save his own life, when suddenly he received a
dreadful blow on the back part of the head--he heard the explosion of
a pistol--the light went out of his eyes, or a darkness seemed to
descend upon him; he fell forward on the snow with outspread hands,
and remembered no more.

The wretch whose life he had just spared, had felled him to the earth
by a stroke from a ponderous iron-butted pistol, and then discharged
it at Audley, without effect, however, as the ball missed its object.

Treherne, who by this time had reloaded, shot the Afghan through the
head, and then he and Audley Trevelyan had to run for their lives, as
by this time the six Ressallahs of advancing Horse were close at
hand, and cries of "_Ullah ul Alla_" loaded the frosty air.

"Poor Devereaux--gone with the rest!" exclaimed Polwhele.

"Yes," said Waller, "how many a poor fellow, gayer and happier than
he apparently was, goes into action, confidently believing the bullet
is not yet cast that shall floor him, and is shot for all that."

"Well--it may be our turn next, sir," said Sergeant Treherne,
philosophically.

Fain would Waller and the rest have made a rally to bring him off
dead or alive, at the bayonet's point, together with the body of
Trecarrel; but the bugles of the rear-guard--first two, then four at
once--were sounding, as if angrily, the order to _retire_ so, to
"retire" he was compelled, or sacrifice perhaps his whole Company;
and with tears in his eyes, where tears had not been since he was a
child, in a white pinafore, at school, he drew off the survivors of
the futile skirmish, and rejoined his brigade.

"Where is Papa?" asked an agitated voice.  It was Mabel who addressed
him, her face whiter, if possible, than ever.

Waller pointed with his sword towards the Pass and mournfully shook
his head.

"Wounded?"

"Oh, my darling--killed, and poor young Devereaux, too, I greatly
fear."

Mabel heard him as if turned to stone.  Rose gone, and now her father
too!  Poor Denzil she never thought of, for great grief is selfish at
times.

"Dearest Mabel," said Waller, "I do not ask you 'to compose
yourself,' as people always say in such cases; I am a bad comforter
perhaps--can't quote Scripture and all that sort of thing.  The poor
old man had not many years before him any way, and I can only implore
you to submit to the will of God."

But she could only weep upon his breast, heedless of those around
them.

"Where was he struck?" she asked, in a choking voice.

"I don't know," replied Waller, looking down.

"Did he die easily?"

"Yes."

Neither of these answers was true: but he knew that details would
only harrow her feelings the more.

So the old General was left unburied in the Pass, and Mabel was
smoothing caressingly with her fingers and then treasuring in her
bosom, a thin lock of his silver hair, which Audley had cut for her,
and which recalled the dead so powerfully in presence, as it were,
that her heart seemed to brim with tears.  There was no relic left of
him now save this; unless we add a pair of his pipeclayed gloves,
which he had given her to draw over her own for warmth, and somehow,
they too seemed to embody his presence, and to bring before her by
their very shape, the kind old hands that never tired of caressing
her and Rose from infancy--the hands of him who was left without a
grave in yonder fatal place, for the army was again in full retreat,
and leaving, even as it left all yesterday, its dead and dying on
every hand.

Audley thought with intense compassion of Sybil, whose previous
bereavement he had learned from Waller; and all unused to grief, he
rode among the Staff in a state of utter bewilderment, considering
whether he should write her, and if so, in what terms he was to tell
her of her loss.

For a time Mabel clung to Waller's neck, in her great despair of
mind, like one in dreadful bodily agony.  She cared not for
onlookers; for the men of the 44th, or the sepoys, with their black
glossy wondering eyes.

"Oh, Waller; I have no friend in the world now--no friend but you!"
said she, in a strange and weak voice, as she laid her face, thinned
and paled by grief and suffering, on his breast.

Waller's bright blue eyes were dry now; but in their expression
tenderness alternated with something akin to ferocity, for all this
suffering, and all those deaths that were occurring hourly, were the
result of Afghan treachery; and his fair English face seemed to
darken as he looked back to where Denzil, the General, and so many
more were lying, and the interment of whom was impossible.  The enemy
was coming on, the bugles were sounding for the advance--if a
retrograde movement can be called so--and already the whole force was
_en route_ towards Khoord Cabul.

Mabel was soon once more on horseback, and rode with the rest of the
ladies, many of whom were widows now, and could share their grief
with her.

Her heart had

  "Fallen too low for special fear;"

to her acute mental misery a kind of apathetic stupor followed, and
she was in that state as the Retreat again began.




CHAPTER XX.

IN THE KHYBER PASS.

We almost shrink from the task of telling the story of that awful
retreat, in which the Rider on the Pale Horse followed the steps of
our troops, so closely, so terribly, and in such ghastly triumph!

All the plans of Ackbar Khan had been long prearranged, and among
those, as an intercepted despatch from him to a Ghilzie chief
announced, was nothing less than a Holy War, for he adjured all, in
the name of the Prophet, "to rise against the infidels, whose chief,"
he adds, "I have slain with my own hand at Cabul, even, as I trust,
in like manner to slay the chief of the Feringhees, Sale, in
Jellalabad."

The six hundred Horse that had been seen advancing, were met by two
of our officers, Captain Skinner, of the 61st Native Infantry, and
Lieutenant Burgoyne, who bore a flag of truce.  They demanded what
their intentions were; and the fierce Ackbar who rode at their head,
muffled in a robe of the costliest furs, played with the lock of a
pistol, and seemed with difficulty to restrain himself from using it.
However, he replied,

"I have come on the part of the great chiefs of Afghanistan, to
escort you as far as Jellalabad; but we demand hostages that you
shall march no further on the way than Tezeen, ere Sale Sahib
evacuates the city, wherein he has no right to be."

"Wherefore hostages, Khan?" asked Captain Skinner.

"Lest when you effect a junction, you may all come back to Cabul.
The lives of the hostages should answer for this, and I take _yours_
in the meantime, as an earnest thereof!"

And as he spoke, he drew his pistol, and deliberately shot poor
Skinner through the head; so Burgoyne, full of rage and pity,
returned with the message alone.

Notwithstanding this new crime, other interviews took place, and
ultimately Major Pottinger and two other officers were given up as
hostages; but all this pretended diplomacy was merely a trick on the
part of Ackbar to cause delay, until he got the lower portion of the
Khyber Pass manned completely by the armed tribes, and even
barricaded by felled trees against our retreat, for the force was too
slender now to admit of having skirmishes or scouting parties moving
along the summits of the cliffs, collaterally with the retiring
column.

"Yield who may," was the cry of Waller and many others, "we at least,
as Englishmen, as British soldiers, shall fight our way through the
passes with courage, discipline, and the fury of despair.  All cannot
perish; come on, lads--forward!"

"Forward--steady, Jack Sepoy!" the Queen's troops would call to those
of the East India Company.

But it was now urged by the Sirdir, that the wild hordes in
possession of the passes, and over whom he pretended to have no
control, would destroy all the women and children; and, fearing that
such a calamity could only be escaped by some diplomacy and an
affectation of trust in Ackbar, General Elphinstone, then at the
point of death, and therefore heedless what fate was in store for
him, gave himself up as a hostage, together with most of the
principal officers, the _whole_ of the ladies, children, and wounded,
who were immediately conveyed back to Cabul; and the doomed army once
more resumed its march, while famine and disease added to the horror
of the occasion; "but when men destroy each other without pity, why
should not Death come and lend them a hand?"

The reader may imagine the emotions of Waller, of the officers, and
other Europeans, when they saw their wives and daughters, or those
they loved as well, separated from them, to become the hostages for a
certain military movement, the guests, the captives--it might too
probably be the victims--of a barbarian prince.  Many may yet
remember the fear, shame, and compassion this event, the sequel to a
series of blunders, excited at home, when tidings came of their
abandonment, and the fate of our troops, whose terrible career we
have scarcely the heart to follow.

The parting of Mabel and Waller was bitter, though in her soul the
bitterness of death itself seemed past, and her tears were such as
seem to come from the heart; but others as well as she were parting
from their dearest, and there is a strange communion in grief.

Ackbar conveyed his prizes back to the city, treating them with
apparent kindness, for he considered white women nearly as valuable
as the horses of the Usbec Tartars; but by that time nearly all the
babes at the breast and the little toddling things that made many a
father proud and mother happy, had perished, even as the strong man
perished, for in some places the snow was so deep, that soldiers
disappeared bodily into it, and were never, never seen again.

Ackbar probably meant to keep them all till richly ransomed, for he
was overheard to say to Amen Oollah Khan, in his hypocritical way,--

"What saith the Koran?  'Unto such of your slaves as desire a written
instrument, allowing them to redeem themselves, on paying a certain
sum, write one, if ye know good in them, and give them of the riches
of God, which he hath given you.'"

"But, by the soul of him who wrote these words," replied Amen Oollah,
"I would not give up that damsel with the red, golden hair for less
than a crore of rupees."

As a crore is ten lacs of rupees, a high value seemed to be set on
poor Mabel Trecarrel, who was here indicated.

In the deep shadowy gorges of those winding passes, through which the
route of the troops lay for miles, the impending cliffs were covered
by clouds of yellow-turbaned Khyberees and Ghilzies, who poured down
upon them a remorseless and incessant fire of musketry, and in some
places from caverns which were full of juzailchees.  In others they
daringly rushed in bands into the ranks of the weary and
half-famished soldiers, whose ammunition was nearly expended, and
made there a terrible use of their swords and long daggers; and thus,
at a place called the Jungle Tarechee, or Dark Pass, the whole of the
54th Native Infantry were destroyed.  There, too, fell Graham and
Ravelstoke.

The dead were always stripped, and then mutilated, or terribly gashed
with wounds.

"Death to the infidel dogs--death! death!" were the incessant cries
by which these fanatics inspired each other.

"What says the Koran?" cried one whose camise was literally steeped
in blood; "'it is unlawful to plunder the living,' but there is no
prohibition about the dead; so death to them all!"

The fugitives were so wedged _en masse_ in the narrow way, that every
shot told fearfully.  All along that route, many a wounded soldier,
as he fell behind, gave to some favourite comrade the last words that
he, poor Bob, or Bill, or Jack, was never fated to carry home; many a
dying officer gave his papers, ring, or locket to the friend who, in
a few minutes later, was also stretched on the ensanguined snow.

At one brief halt a few ponies were killed and devoured raw!

All hope was dead now in every heart, yet on they struggled--on, and
on--till a place called Jugdulluck was reached, and then in all the
sullenness of fury and despair, the wretched survivors, Horse, Foot,
and Artillerymen, resolved to make a resolute stand.  Cheering
wildly, as if to welcome death and the foe together, the poor fellows
stood shoulder to shoulder, many bleeding with undressed wounds, all
breathless and flushed, their eyes gleaming, their once comely
English faces distorted by hate and bitterness.

In sheets of lead the heavy juzail balls tore through them on every
hand, and they fell faster than ever.  Her Majesty's 44th Regiment
was now reduced to two hundred men, and every man of the two hundred
perished where he stood.  But this bravery enabled some of the other
corps to proceed farther, and the last final stand was made by those
unhappy men on the morning of the 13th January, on the knoll of
Gundamuck, when twenty officers, sixty soldiers, and three hundred
camp-followers alone survived.

Polwhele was the first who fell here; two balls pierced his chest;
and there, too, perished all that remained of Waller's Company.  If
the fire slackened a moment, the clash of knife and bayonet was
heard, with many a yell and groan.

"Dear Bob," cried Polwhele to Waller, as he lay choking in blood, "if
you cannot carry me out of the field, take my sword and this ring for
my--my poor mother."

But Waller could do neither, for over Polwhele's body there thickly
fell a heap of killed and wounded.

After his ammunition was expended, Sergeant Treherne, whom rage and
desperation inspired with a fury resembling madness, laid wildly
about him, and with the heel of his musket dashed out the brains of
more than one tall Afghan.  This stalwart son of the Mines had come
of a race that in their time had been greater men than miners in
Cornwall--_Huelwers_, who were rulers then in the land before,
perhaps, a stone of Windsor or Westminster had been laid; and now he
stood like a hero on that fatal knoll of Gundamuck, beating down the
foe with the butt-end of his clubbed weapon, till he fell, riddled
with bullets, upon the corpses of his comrades.

Seeing all lost, Waller, his heart swollen almost to bursting, had
now to seek his own safety.  Concealed by the smoke and some wild
pistachio trees, he found shelter in a cavern, though fearing that
traces of his footsteps in the snow might lead to his discovery, and
there he lay on the cold rocky floor, more dead than alive with
excess of emotion and all he had undergone, panting, feeble, and well
nigh breathless.

He had only his sword now, and even if he escaped the Afghans,
wolves, bears, or hyænas--the mountains teemed with all of
them--might come upon him in the night.

Being well mounted, Audley Trevelyan and two medical officers
effected their escape, but were closely pursued by Amen Oollah Khan,
and compelled to separate.  One was overtaken and slain within four
miles of Jellalabad.  Audley's horse was shot under him, and he
concealed himself till nightfall in a nullah or ravine.*


* At Gundamuck "the enemy rushed in with drawn knives, and with the
exception of _two_ officers and _four_ men, the whole of this doomed
band fell victims to the sanguinary mob."--_Memorials of
Afghanistan_, Calcutta, 1843.

Long prior to this event, Colonel Dennie, of the 13th, made a
curiously prophetic speech.  "His words were, 'you'll see that not a
soul will escape from Cabul except _one_ man, and he will come to
tell us that the rest are destroyed."--_Sale's Brigade_.

Ackbar Khan is said to have uttered a similar prediction.


The despatches record that of all the sixteen thousand five hundred
who marched from the Cantonments of Cabul, ninety miles distant, Dr.
Brydone, a Scottish medical officer of the Shah's service, bleeding,
faint, covered with wounds, and carrying a broken sword in his hand,
_alone_ reached the city of Sir Robert Sale's garrison; but Trevelyan
came in four hours after, to confirm his terrible tidings of the
total destruction of our army and all its followers, for all who were
not slain were made slaves by the captors.




CHAPTER XXI.

WALLER'S ADVENTURES.

"Run to earth at last!" groaned Bob Waller, whose subsequent perils
were so varied and remarkable that they alone, if fully detailed,
might fill a volume.

In that cavern or fissure, one of the many which abound in the rocks
there, he lay the whole day, untraced and undiscovered, for the
Afghans, after having stripped and mutilated in their usual fashion,
the dead on the snow-covered knoll, had retired.  He knew that he was
only sixteen miles from that bourne they had all hoped to
reach--Sale's little garrison in Jellalabad, and that if he ever
attained it at all, the attempt must be made in the night.  He was
without a guide; he knew not the way, and his dress and complexion
would render him to every shepherd, wayfarer, and marauding horseman,
apparent, as a Feringhee and an enemy.

The whole affair, the retreat, and the result of it, seems to be what
a French writer describes as "one of those especial visitations of
Fate, which draw on the devoted to their ruin, and which it is
impossible for virtue to resist, or human wisdom to foresee."

After seven days and nights of incessant fighting; after the
perpetual ringing of musketry, the yells of the Afghans, the varied
cries of those who perished in agony under their hands; after all the
truly infernal uproar and mad excitement in those dark and narrow
Passes, the unbroken silence around him now, seemed intense and
oppressive.  He could almost imagine that he heard it; stirred though
it was only by the low hum of insect life among the withered leaves
and _coss_, or wild mountain grass, that lay drifted by the wind in
heaps within the cave, and on which he lay so sad and weary.

"Now," thought he, after some hours had passed, "now that this
horrible row is all over, I'll have a quiet weed--smoke a peaceful
calumet of Cavendish;" and he drew the materials therefor from the
pocket of his poshteen.

Waller had always been solicitous about the colouring of that same
calumet, as he styled his meerschaum pipe, which, by the bye, had
been a gift from his friend Polwhele--poor Jack Polwhele--who was
lying under that ghastly pile of dead on the knoll, where his jovial
soul had ebbed through his death-wound, and where in his kind heart,
and on his pallid lips, as he breathed his last, his mother's name
had mingled with that of his God;--and so, as Waller smoked amid the
silence and gloom of the wintry eve, tears rolled over his cheek--the
bitter tears of a brave man's rage and grief.

This was not war but carnage!

To Waller it seemed as if a gory curtain had fallen between him and
all his past life.  Where were now his companions of the parade, the
mess, and the race-course?  Where the brave rank and file, that had
stood by him shoulder to shoulder, and every man of whom deemed
Captain Waller a friend, as much as an officer?  Where were the faces
and voices of all he had known and loved?  As he lay there alone in
cold and darkness, his emotions were somewhat akin to those described
as being felt by the _last man_, when the whitening skeletons of
nations were around him, and when all the human world had--himself
excepted--passed away.

"Mabel and Rose--my own Mabel, where is she?" he muttered again and
again.

Love left his heart with her; she was, like others, a hostage--a
thing unheard of in modern wars;--a prisoner--too probably a victim!
In such terrible hands, what worse fate could she have?  She had been
diplomatically torn from him, by a treaty that proved futile, and
which cast dishonour on our arms.  Duty had compelled him to march
with his men; for the stern duty of the soldier had to rise superior
to the soft affection of the lover, and now he was there alone, with
the memory of her last tearful kiss lingering on his lips.

"My beautiful darling--my loved, my lost Mabel!" murmured the usually
matter-of-fact Waller; "oh, why were you reft from me?  God," he
added, looking up imploringly in the gathering gloom, "shall we ever
meet again?"

He knew that no fear of future vengeance would deter the Afghans from
committing any outrage on their captives.  In their utter ignorance
of the locality, the nature, and vast resources of Britain, they can
form no correct idea of her power by sea or land.  They vaguely know
all Europe by the general term of Feringhistan, or the Country of the
Franks; and that ships from there come to Bombay and Bassora (the
Bassora of Sindbad the Sailor), to Madras, and Calcutta; and that a
Queen rules one portion of it--a dreary island somewhere in the sea;
and their learned _Moollahs_ were wont to assert, that her red
soldiers, by their close resemblance to each other, the extreme
similarity of their uniform and motions, must all be the sons of one
mother.

An intense thirst, which successive handfuls of snow failed to allay,
hunger, and extreme cold from lying so long in that dark den in such
a season, made Waller hail the descending night, and with sombre
satisfaction he quitted his lurking place, to seek on foot the road
to Jellalabad.

"In England," thought he, "the Poor Law guardians have studied at
times to discover upon how little mankind can be kept alive; and
there have been learned philosophers who declared it possible for
people to exist without food at all!  By Jove, I wish they had been
on this retreat from Cabul, and all their problems would soon have
been solved."

He heard now the voices of the jackals revelling over their ghastly
meal on the hill of Gundamuck, and shudderingly he turned away in the
opposite direction.  Snow covered all the country; but the footsteps
and horse tracks of those who had pursued Doctor Brydone were, for a
time, a sufficient indication of the route he was to follow.  He had
lost his shako in the late conflict, but the loonghee of a dead
Afghan supplied its place.

The night was clear; the deep blue sky was full of brilliant stars;
around him the stupendous mountains of the Khyber range towered on
either side of the way in silence and solemnity, that proved
something awful to the then oppressed mind of the poor fugitive, who
wished from his soul that he had been as dark in complexion and as
black of eye as his friend Polwhele; for Waller's face and hair were
of the thorough Saxon type, and hence any attempt to pass himself off
as a fair-visaged Oriental was impossible, for swarthy indeed is the
fairest of them.  He had never possessed such a hand-book as "Afghani
before breakfast," or "without a master," if such a thing ever
existed; but he had contrived to pick up enough of the strange
polyglot medley forming the language of the natives, to have aided
any disguise, could he have found one.

Voices and the clatter of hoofs, the latter partially deadened by the
snow, fell on his ear, before he had proceeded a mile; and, on the
whiteness that stretched in distance far away before him, appeared
the dark figures of a group of mounted men approaching rapidly.

Near the roadside there stood, and doubtless still stands, a little
musjid, or temple, and over its tiny dome one giant poplar towered
skyward, like a dark gothic spire.  The strangers might halt and pray
there, profuse piety being an element in the Afghan character; but it
was equally probable they might not; so, as it was his only hope of
concealment, he hastened to avail himself of it--but too late; he was
already observed, and a series of wild shouts made his heart sicken,
as the horsemen came galloping up, unslinging from their backs their
long juzails as they advanced.

These people proved to be Amen Oollah Khan, a warrior known as Zohrab
Zubberdust (_i.e._, the overbearing), and others, who had that
forenoon pursued Doctor Brydone almost to the gates of Jellalabad,
and, on the way, murdered his hapless companion, Doctor Harper, whose
horse had failed him within four miles of the city.  They were richly
accoutred; each had a gilded shield slung on his back, and wore a
round steel cap, furnished with a flap of chain-mail covering the
neck, and two upright points, like spear heads, that glittered in the
starlight.

"Death to the Kaffir! death to the Feringhee!" they cried with one
accord.

"I am no Kaffir," replied Walter (standing on the steps of the
musjid, and ready to sell his life dearly), "but a Mussulman, like
yourselves."

"Liar, and son of a liar!  I see the dress of a red Feringhee under
your poshsteen," said Amen Oollah, and in succession he, Zohrab, and
two others, snapped their matchlocks at him; but they had become so
foul by recent and incessant use, that the balls had been forced down
with difficulty, the powder and matches were alike damp, and
fortunately not one would explode.

"Hah!" said Waller, with great presence of mind, though fearing he
might be recognised by Amen Oollah, who had frequently seen him in
the streets of Cabul, "you see that the hand of the Prophet
interposes, and does not permit you to kill me."

"We shall soon prove that," replied the Khan, unsheathing his sabre;
but impressed, nevertheless, by what seemed the genuine belief in
fatalism, which is a peculiarity of the Mohammedan faith; so he
deliberately placed the edge on Waller's throat, and said--

"To the proof of what you assert.  If you are a Mussulman, repeat the
_Kulma_; if in one word, however small, you fail, your head and heels
shall lie together on the snow."

Waller had his own sword drawn, and was prepared to run it through
the heart of Amen Oollah if he felt himself failing.  It was a
critical moment; he knew that the edge of an Afghan sabre was sharp
as a razor; he felt that he was never born to be a religious martyr;
so thinking in his heart--as, perhaps, the great Galileo thought,
when in the bonds of the Inquisition--"May God forgive me!" by a
little stretch of memory he repeated the entire Kulma, or creed of
Mohammed, on which Amen Oollah seemed satisfied, and sheathed his
sword.  But now Zohrab Zubberdust, a handsome and dashing Afghan
gentleman, one of those soldiers of fortune who possessed only his
sword and his horse, and thus served Ackbar Khan for three rupees per
diem, said,--

"Khan Sahib, how comes a true believer to have a face and beard so
fair?"

"A Persian taught me to dye my beard yellow; and as for my face, I am
a Turk of Stamboul," replied Waller, boldly.

As not one of them had ever seen a Turk of Feringhistan, these
answers seemed to perplex them.

"Then why here?" asked Zohrab, suspiciously.

"I served Shah Sujah, and have left him, for fate is against him, and
he shall never reign in Afghanistan," said Waller, thinking in his
heart, "How many falsehoods must I tell to deceive these artful
savages?"

"You are right," said Amen Oollah, grimly; "but as we deem that in
serving the Shah you have been guilty of a crime, I give you as a
slave to Nouradeen Lai.  You shall help him to plough the land."

"Salaam and thanks, Khan Sahib--I have need of a sturdy servant, as I
shot one in a fit of passion lately," said a horseman, a powerfully
built and venerable looking Afghan, to whose horse-girth Waller
speedily found himself attached by a rope which was passed round his
waist.  To resist, would be simply to court death; and he was thus
conducted, a prisoner, into a valley of the mountains.  In fact, his
captors were probably too glutted with slaughter to kill him, and so
spared him for the time.  But he felt that his existence would be at
the caprice of his owner, Nouradeen Lai, whose first act of power was
to take away his regimental sword and belt, after another acquisitive
Afghan had possessed himself of his gold repeater, his purse and
rings.

"What fools, and sons of burnt fathers, you Feringhees were to come
among us here in Afghanistan, to put upon our throne a king we
loathed, in lieu of Dost Mohammed," said Nouradeen, as they
proceeded; "you will now know how true it is, that though two
Dervishes may sleep on one carpet, two kings cannot reign in one
kingdom.  But the will of God be cdone!  The whole world depends upon
fate and fortune.  It is one man's destiny to be depressed--the
other's to be exalted."

"Canting old humbug!" thought Waller, who learned ere long that his
agricultural owner was especially a man of proverbs, like Sancho
Panza.

The farmer, and two other horsemen, with much ceremony bade adieu to
Amen Oollah Khan; but the latter only waved his hand and said--

"Adieu till we meet again--most likely before Jellalabad," and, with
his armed followers, galloped into that terrible pass, where an
entire army, with all its debris, strewed the way for miles upon
miles, back even into the gates of the burned cantonments.

"So those rascals think of beating up Sale's garrison," thought
Waller, with reference to the parting words of the Khan.

As Nouradeen entered the hedgerows which bordered the compounds of
his farm-house and yard, he unslung his juzail, which seemed in
somewhat better order than those of his companions, and, wheeling
half round in his saddle, fired a shot rearward, Parthian-wise, and
brought down a large eagle that was soaring high in mid air.

"Steel commands everything, and now in addition to the steel--the
swords and lances of our forefathers--we have bullets, praised be
God!" he exclaimed, flourishing his clumsy old matchlock, exactly
such a weapon as might have figured at Marston Moor, or the field of
Kilsythe.

Perceiving that the shot excited Waller's admiration, he drew a long
brass pistol from his girdle, urged his horse to full speed, and a
picturesque figure he seemed, with his flowing robes and magnificent
beard floating on the wind.  He then threw a lemon over his head,
and, twisting his body completely round to the left, fired at it from
the off flank of his horse, and pierced it as it was in the act of
falling.

"Now," said he, with a grim smile, "should you attempt to escape
without ransom, my ball will follow you thus surely--yea, did go far
as the arrow of Arish, which was shot at sunrise, and did not fall
till sunset.  A soldier, you should remember, that even were you to
conquer all the world, death at last will conquer you."

"It is unlawful to make a slave of a true believer," said Waller.

"One may repeat the Kulma, and not be a very true believer after
all," replied the shrewd old Afghan, with a gleam of intense cunning
in his glittering eyes; "nay, nor even a Turk of Roum," he added,
meaning Constantinople; and hence Waller knew that he was suspected.

The farmer's wife--Nouradeen Lai had but one helpmate--saw how pale
and wan their prisoner looked, and speedily set some food before him;
a pillau of rice, dhye (or sour curds), odious stuff, which he ate
with his fingers in the fashion of the country.  One or two of
"Malcolm's plums" (as the Persians and Afghans call the potato), with
a little ghee or clarified butter, completed his simple repast.  As
he ate, falling to without uttering "Bismillah!" an omission which
his captors did not fail to remark, he thought that cookery must be a
sublime science at home--a veritable branch of the fine arts; but
hunger is ever an excellent seasoning to any meal.

The snow had now begun to melt fast, and for four days Waller was
kept a close prisoner, without a chance of escape, though he brooded
over it incessantly, and writhed in spirit to be thus detained from
his duty in Jellalabad, where doubtless the task of vengeance--it
might be the deliverance of the unhappy hostages--had already begun.
Besides, he was intensely bored by the hypocrisy of having to enact
the part of Mussulman, by the pretended prayers and genuflexions,
upon a piece of coarse felt, for the old man Nouradeen watched him
closely.  In all this Waller salved his conscience by the conviction
that one is scarcely answerable for an act committed under a power
one cannot resist.

On the morning of the fifth day the hills appeared in all their
greenery; the sunshine was bright, and the atmosphere was clear and
calm.

"The snow is gone," said Nouradeen; "when spring comes, the bones of
your people will be whitening like ivory among the long green grass
in the passes of the Khyber and Khoord Cabul."

These words came fearfully and literally true, as the Afghans never
interred one of the slain.

"But sit not there so moodily," he added to Waller; "grieve not over
that which is broken, lost or burnt; after prayer we go to plough;
come with me."

"Willingly," replied Waller, and his breast filled with a hope that
was soon extinguished; for when he found himself between the stilts
of the Afghan plough, which was of the most primitive construction,
and drawn by two oxen--a machine of the mode of working which he was
utterly ignorant--he perceived a little old humpbacked fellow, armed
with a loaded juzail, watching all his movements, and with an
expression of face which showed how much he longed for some sign of
an attempt to escape, and Waller, remembering the skill of the farmer
with _his_ firearms, resolved not to risk it.

He managed to direct the team, and for a few hours it occupied his
mind.  Waller ploughing!--Waller, the crack man, the pattern officer,
the best round-dancer in the Cornish Light Infantry--he felt the
situation to be intensely ludicrous, and he could have laughed but
for the circumstances the situation represented--and the dreadful
doubt that hung over the fate of Mabel, of Rose, and others; and
frequently he paused and looked wistfully towards the hills, as he
thought that, but for yonder old Mohammedan beast, with his cocked
matchlock, he should make a clean pair of heels and be off.  Anyway,
through his ignorance of the task in hand, and the pre-occupation of
his thoughts, Bob's furrows had all the curved line of beauty, and
would have made a Scottish ploughman, so vain of his straight lines,
faint on the spot.

So the fifth day passed and he had but one thought, the yearning to
see Mabel, with the haunting terror of all she might be enduring, and
that he might never see her more!

Learning by chance that he was to be secured to the plough by an iron
chain the next day, he determined that, come what might, he should
escape in the night.  Unarmed, he had but his courage and strategy to
rely upon, in a country where all men's hands were against the
European, where the laws have little force, and where whatever
morality there is among the people, it depends entirely upon their
religious sentiments and their attachment to their khans or chiefs.
Two hundred years ago, an Englishman might have found himself in
pretty much the same predicament in some parts of the Scottish
Highlands.

On examining the chimney of the apartment in which he was confined,
he found that although the barred windows defied egress and ingress
alike, he might achieve a passage to the external air by removing the
bricks of unburnt clay, of which the wall was composed.  He proceeded
to pick out the lime with a nail softly, after darkness had set in,
and after removing one, the cold night breeze from the Khyber hills
blew gratefully upon his flushed face.

Another and another were speedily removed now, and in less than half
an hour--during which he frequently paused with a palpitating heart,
lest he might make some unlucky sound or be discovered by old Lai--he
had achieved an aperture wide enough by which to creep out.  He did
so, and drew a long breath, as if he respired more freely now.  All
was still, and the darkness was profound as the silence, and a prayer
of thankfulness rose to the lips of Waller, as he quitted the
compound around the farmer's establishment and hastened towards the
hills, with the full knowledge that in whatever direction he went,
some hours must elapse before his flight could be discovered, and
there was no snow by which to track his footsteps.




CHAPTER XXII.

CHANCE BETTER THAN DESIGN.

He was unarmed, but he never thought of the wild animals which abound
on the hills and in the forests of Afghanistan.  Lions are rare; but
tigers, hyænas, bears, and wolves are plentiful enough, and the
terrible passes of the Khyber mountains had peculiar attractions for
the latter now.  Yet Waller's sole anxiety was to avoid, not these,
but their rivals in cruelty, the natives.

He had no guide; but he knew, by the way the range of mountains rose
between him and the sky, that the great plain or vale, wherein
Jellalabad is situated, and which has an average breadth of ten
miles, must, when he quitted the farm-gate, lie on his right hand and
not on his left.  Other indication he had none, and he set out in the
hope of being within sight of its walls by daybreak, or at least soon
after.

The improved appearance of the highway as he proceeded, afforded
proof that it led to some large city, and he pressed on with a
confident and hopeful heart, sometimes between orchards containing a
profusion of apple, plum, quince, and pomegranate trees, which the
coming summer should see in full bloom and bearing.  Now and then,
softly, almost breathlessly, he would pass the skirts, but never
through the straggling street, of a village, such being usually
closed at each end by gates; and occasionally he crossed a little
brawling stream, a tributary of the Cabul, spanned by pretty bridges
of stone, ornamented with tiny towers at each end.

Anon some pariah dog, prowling out of doors--for the poor dog is in
great disrepute among Mohammedans--would bay out upon the night
breeze, causing him to pause and shrink for concealment close to the
nearest tree or hedgerow.  And now, with growing hope and heartiness,
he had proceeded from the mountain-farm fully five coss, or ten
English miles, on the Jellalabad road when day began to dawn on the
mighty peaks of the Khyber range, and the ruddy sunlight stole
gradually down their slopes into the gloomy passes and rocky ravines
which intersect and separate them.

When day was fairly in, Waller began to think of seeking a place of
concealment till night again fell, when he felt certain that a few
miles more along that open highway must eventually bring him to some
gate of Jellalabad; but an abrupt turn of the road brought him
suddenly upon a village, the gates of which stood open.  There in the
little street some armed horsemen were grouped around a well, and
many people were astir previous to departing to their work in the
fields; for all the country there is beautifully cultivated, and ever
covered by a profusion of the richest vegetation.

He was seen; there was a shout--spurs were applied to the horses,
flight was impossible, and in half a minute he was again a prisoner,
the lances levelled at his throat menacing him with death.

"A Kaffir--a Feringhee! kill him, kill him!" cried the villagers,
male and female, as they crowded in wild tumult around him; even the
tawny children raised their little hands against the weary wanderer,
for the place was the abode of Ghazees, the wildest of Mohammedan
fanatics.

"Bismillah! there is one yet alive!" exclaimed a horseman.

"But what said Ackbar Khan?--may the sun be his star, the new moon
his stirrup-iron--one was to be left to tell the tale," exclaimed
another, mercifully interposing his lance between Waller and the
others; "and this is he."

"Nay, one Kaffir has already got into Jellalabad--it is enough; let
us have this one's head," was the general cry which rose to a mingled
yell, and dark eyes flashed, and white teeth were ground around him.
So poor Waller began to fear that he was the 'last man' after all,
and worse off than when ploughing for old Nouradeen Lai.  However, he
kept close to the young chief who seemed disposed to protect him, and
who was accoutred with a steel cap and shield.

"The Prophet wrote at birth on each man's brow the day he was to die,
and your time is to-day, O Kaffir!" exclaimed one, making a vicious
thrust with his gaily tasselled lance, which, had it not been struck
up by his protector's hand, had ended Waller's career there and then.

"What business has a dog of a Feringhee with such a beard as that?"
cried a woman; "it is unendurable."

"I didn't make it," said Waller, simply.

"Oho.  This is the Toorkoman of Roum!" said the young horseman with
the steel cap, in whom Waller now recognised Zohrab Zubberdust; "he
has escaped from old Nouradeen Lai; well--he shall not escape from
me.  These Feringhees are excellent grooms, and I want one.
Bismillah! it is written--let us go--I shall protect you."

Like many a Christian, Zubberdust the Mussulman had the spirit of
avarice and treachery in his heart; but as an Afghan mountaineer it
was tempered with something of honour; for, strange to say, honour
may exist among Mohammedans, as well as among Christians, without an
atom of morality.

So Waller found himself marched off in a direction precisely opposite
to that which he had been pursuing; and he had the additional
tantalisation of seeing, about six miles distant, the picturesque
Bala Hissar, or citadel of Jellalabad, which he could recognise from
an engraving he had once seen; and ere midday he was conveyed by
Zubberdust and his people to one of the numerous little castles or
fortlets called _kotes_, that stud all the country in the
neighbourhood of the city, which has always been the winter residence
of the kings of Cabul; and there he was set at once to groom the
horses, with a distinct notice that if he attempted to quit the fort,
which was a square edifice furnished with a round loopholed tower at
each angle, and surrounded by a wet ditch, wherein innumerable pink
and white water lilies floated, he would be shot without mercy.

Before the gate were two brass six-pounder guns, taken from
Elphinstone's unfortunate army.

Waller acquiesced with a groan in his breast.  Well, thought he,
working as a groom and rubbing down Zubberdust's beautiful horse,
which had come from the land of the Usbec Tartars, was more congenial
than ploughing; and hope suggested that the very animal he tended
might gain him liberty; but his new master seemed to be merely a
visitor at the fort, which belonged to an old Hazir Bashi of the
King's Guards, and after remaining there for ten days, he departed to
rejoin Amen Oollali Khan.  Prior to doing so, with great liberality
he presented Waller, as an excellent groom, to a wealthy grazier of
camels, named Jubar Khan, who was passing that way with several of
these solemn-looking quadrupeds and some yaboos or Cabul ponies,
which he meant to dispose of in Bhokara.

Seeing that Waller appeared crushed by the prospect before him,
Zohrab said, ere he went,

"Think yourself happy, for if Ackbar Khan were to get you, he might
do as he has done to others, chain you to a stone in a vault, dark
and cheerless as the tomb of a miser.  Dogs!" he added, true to his
overbearing nature: "you came hither thinking to make us crumb-eaters
of Shah Sujah!  Bah! the cup of the covetous, saith the proverb, is
filled with the dust of the grave.  And where lie the covetous now?
in the passes of Khoord Cabul!"

With something of despair gathering in his heart, Waller set forth in
company with the grazier and others whom the latter employed as
syces, and who were all well armed.

To dissemble he felt was his best plan, and he affected such perfect
cheerfulness, made himself so useful in tending, watering, and
grooming the camels and ponies, that he quickly won the entire
goodwill and confidence of Jubar Khan, so much so that, after
journeying for three days towards the hills of Hindoo Kush, on a
valuable camel falling quite lame, he actually left Waller in care of
it, at a species of camp formed by some Afghan shepherds and their
families, whose tents of coarse black camlet were pitched in a
sheltered spot by the bank of a beautiful stream.

Jubar Khan passed on his way, desiring Waller, in whose skill he
trusted much, to rejoin him with the camel on a certain day at a khan
or caravanserai among the mountains,--one of those one-storied,
quadrangular edifices, full of bare rooms, built by the wayside for
the accommodation of travellers, and the erection of which is
considered one of the most meritorious acts that a Hindoo or
Mussulman can perform.

Waller gladly saw the dark figures of Jubar Khan, his people and
property, vanish into a pass of the mountains, where they seemed to
go right into the setting sun, which shed through it a blaze of
crimson light; and then he set himself zealously to tend the ailing
camel, in the hope that when well he should depart therewith on a
journey of his own.  In three days the camel was quite restored; but
on the morning of the fourth, when Waller went as usual to groom it,
the animal was gone!

It had been stolen in the night, by whom, all pretended ignorance;
and Waller, who immediately affected great anxiety to rejoin his
master the grazier, was told that he must remain where he was, "as a
hostage for the missing camel, and that as so excellent a groom could
not be an indifferent shepherd, he would be useful in tending the
sheep."

A crook was put in his hand, a brass lotah for drinking, a few
chupatties for food were given him, and he was set to watch a flock
of dhoombas, or those Persian sheep that have tails nearly a foot
broad, are almost entirely composed of fat, and form the most
valuable stock of those nomadic dwellers in tents among whom he now
found himself.  By the poor agriculturists he was however treated
with great kindness.

Farther than ever from Jellalabad now, without money, arms, or a
horse, his clothes in rags, his boots almost worn away, Bob Waller
sat like one in a stupor by the side of a rivulet that trickled
through the pasture where the sheep were grazing; and as he looked
from the green mountains to the black tents that dotted their slope,
he asked of himself, whether his present existence or his past was
the dream.

"So here have fate and the fortune of war cast me! a Turk, a
ploughman, a groom, a shepherd," he sighed; "by Jove! what the deuce
shall I be next?  The ancient sceptics doubted the reality of
everything--and I begin to think they were right."

All was still, save when a stork or crow alighted on the granite
rocks that overhung the mountain rivulet, or a fleet antelope shot
like a spirit across the valley; and so would pass the weary day, Bob
Waller not watching the sheep, but the mountain shadows, changing
from the eastward to the westward, while he sighed for a glass of
Madeira and a biscuit, a glass of pale ale and a "quiet weed," and
thought of the old time of tiffin in the jolly mess-bungalow, and the
faces of those he should never see there again.

At night, crouching on a piece of xummal (or coarse blanket) and
covered with sheepskins, Waller would dream at times of Mabel's
bright face and merry laugh; but more often, perhaps, of those
terrible seven days and seven nights of the retreat through the snowy
passes, where the living trod sullenly, doggedly, on over the dead,
till they too fell, to be trod on in turn.  Horrid phantoms haunted
him.  Had he outlived, out-trodden all?  Alas, it almost seemed so.
Shots would seem to ring in his drowsy ear, and he fancied it was the
Afghan juzailchees again; anon he would think himself at home in
pleasant Cornwall; that he was after the brown pheasants within sight
of the sounding sea, or among the quails on wild and rugged Lundy
Isle; and then he would start to wakefulness and lie for hours,
revolving in his mind the means, the chances of reaching Jellalabad;
but, alas! so much time had elapsed, that he might only reach it to
find that the garrison had abandoned it to save the hostages from
death, or that the city was besieged by the victorious Afghans!

But now he was to have a proof of how often chance was better than
the deepest laid design.

Joharah, the wife of the shepherd with whom Jubar Khan had left him,
and whose name when translated signifies "a jewel," was a woman of
singular kindness of heart, sweetness of disposition, and not without
moderate pretensions to beauty.  She was unusually kind to Waller,
and did all in her power to alleviate the wretched condition to which
fate had reduced him.  Her husband was wont to boast that "she knew
the language of the birds," and hence that they would inform _her_ if
Waller attempted to escape, for to understand the language of the
feathered tribe was peculiarly one of the boasted sciences of the
Arabians.  The art is frequently referred to in the "Thousand and One
Nights," and tradition records that Balkis, Queen of Sheba, had a
lapwing which conveyed all her messages verbally to King Solomon.
Waller could have smiled on being told all this; and he wished in his
soul he had no other informants to dread than the birds that
twittered about the valley.

Joharah, the Afghan woman, had remarked the growing depression that
seemed to prey upon the spirit of Waller, and she was not without
some interest in him, for the fairness of the European complexion
contrasted in her eye pleasantly and favourably with the extreme
darkness of the people around her.  She had more than once detected
him with a lock of Mahel Trecarrel's bright brown hair in his
fingers, and with a woman's acuteness she speedily divined that
thereby hung "a tale."  One day she surprised him thus occupied when
he was seated moodily and alone under a pistachio tree that grew near
where their tents were pitched.  Approaching softly, she laid a hand
timidly on his shoulder, and after glancing hastily about to see if
they were observed, she bent her dark bright eyes on his, and said--

"I dreamt of you last night."

"Of me?"

"Yes; even by the side of my husband," she added, with a smile, that
was not without a dash of coquetry in it.

"Indeed!" replied Waller, perplexed, and fearing that if this was the
prelude to a flirtation, his troubles would be thereby seriously
increased.

"I saw you clad in _green_, our holy colour, and accept that as a
sign that I must befriend you, and send you to her you love."

"I thank you; 'to her I love,' repeated Waller tremulously, while a
flush suffused his cheek.

"You are very sad and gentle," said Joharah.

"The thoughts of _her_ make me so," said Waller.

"Ah! the perfume of her presence is about you still," said the Afghan
woman in her figurative language; "she has been unto you what the
rose was to the piece of clay in the little story of Sadee."

"I do not understand you."

"'One day,' says Sadee, 'when I was in the bath, a friend of mine put
into my hand a piece of sweetly scented clay.  I took it between my
fingers, and said,

"'Art thou musk or ambergris, for thy perfume charms me?'

"'I was but a humble piece of clay,' it replied; 'but I was some time
in the society of a rose; the sweet quality of my companion was
communicated to me, otherwise I should be only a bit of clay, as I
appear to be.'  So has it been with you."

"Perhaps so," replied Waller, smiling at this strange anecdote.

"It is Jellalabad you would reach?"

"Yes; how far are we from it?"

"Fifty cosses."

"A hundred of our miles!" thought Waller, and his spirit sank.

"Undisguised, you can never escape my husband's people, or hope to
reach it safely; but I shall provide for all that."

"You will not deceive me?" said Waller anxiously, as he feared some
snared

"No, I swear it; be of good courage and you shall soon be safe."

The following day, when most of the shepherds had gone to prayer at a
musjid among the mountains, leaving the women and female children
behind, as the sexes never pray together in the mosques, she
conducted Waller into the inner portion of their tent--her own
apartment--where discovery would have ensured him instant death.
With scissors she clipped off closely his long fair beard and
mustaches; she stained his face, ears, and neck with walnut juice and
wood ashes; his hair she disguised by smearing it with more ashes and
_ghee_--a process under which Waller, usually so dainty in his
toilet, rather winced.  She took away and buried his poshteen and
tattered uniform, and made him, in its place, put on the red dress of
a Hindoo Fakir.  She slung a brass drinking lotah to his girdle of
cord, gave him some chupatties and other food, and, placing a staff
in his hand, showed him the route to pursue, a narrow path among the
mountains, by which he could avoid a rencontre with the returning
shepherds, and strike on the direct road for Jellalabad.

Waller's heart was filled with genuine gratitude; but he had only his
earnest thanks to bestow on this good woman, who hastened his
departure; and in less than two hours after she had thus transformed
him, he had left the black tents of the shepherds several miles
behind him.

In no other disguise than this could he have been so safe from
discovery.  In the character of a Fakir he might beg with impunity,
revile and anathematise with a vociferation that inspired terror, or
he might remain obstinately silent, according to the pretended humour
or real emergency of the moment.  Thus, as none might dare to
question his motives, his supposed sacred calling rendered him safe
alike from interruption, inquiry, or suspicion, and he went on his
way rejoicing.

He had many strange and quaint adventures, but encountered no more
perils by the way he had to pursue on foot.  His great stature and
sturdy figure won him the special favour of the women, particularly
of those with whom he conversed at the wayside wells; and in many
instances he discovered that pleasant little perquisites must often
fall to the share of Fakirs and Dervishes; for ladies contended for
the honour of feeding him, and pressed upon him tillas, and even
mohurs of gold, to have refused which would have been totally untrue
to his clerical character.  Once he had a narrow escape from
encountering Osman Abdallah the Arab Hadji, the same fanatic whom he
had run through the body on the day the Envoy was assassinated, and
whom he saw asleep, too probably intoxicated with bhang, on a piece
of mat, at the door of a village khan.  On another occasion he had to
endure for several miles the society of a rival Fakir--a Pandarom
enthusiast, who wore an iron garden-gate, of considerable weight and
size, riveted round his neck as a penance, which excited the charity
and fear of all who beheld him; but on the fortieth day after the
retreat from Cabul began, Waller, to his joy, saw once more before
him the vast and fertile plain of Jellalabad, the stately city with
all its white wails and round towers, and its green background of
magnificent mountains, many of them being wooded to the summit; but,
to his eye, the most pleasing features in the scene were the scarlet
coats of the sentinels on the ramparts of the Bala Hissar, on which
the union-jack was waving in the morning wind.

Waller was, perhaps, not much given to prayer, but his emotions of
gratitude to Heaven were great and keen when at last he found himself
passing between the Piper's Hill and the old Mosque that stands south
of the city, round the walls of which he had to proceed between the
Shah's garden and the great citadel to reach the Peshawur Gate, where
a guard of Her Majesty's 13th Light Infantry (Prince Albert's own)
was posted; and the astonishment of the soldiers, when they heard
themselves accosted in pure English by a Hindoo Fakir, was intense;
but the officer in command, Lieutenant Sinclair--the same ingenious
fellow who had built the pleasure boat during the previous and
happier winter at Cabul--now came hastily forward.

"Waller--Bob Waller, by all that's wonderful!" he exclaimed,
recognising an old friend in spite of his filthy disguise; "so you,
too, have escaped, after all?"

"Yes, I--but poor Jack Polwhele, Devereaux, Burgoyne, and all the
rest, have perished--all--all!" replied Waller, with deep emotion, as
the men of the 13th crowded about him.  "The bravest and the best are
always cut off first; but, save me, all who came through the Khyber
passes have gone to God!"

"Trevelyan of yours, and Dr. Brydone, of the Shah's army, are safe
with us; so three have escaped that terrible carnage."

"And what of the hostages?"

The face of Sinclair--a Scot from the banks of the Thurso, and, like
all his surname, tall, grey-eyed, and fair-haired--grew dark as he
replied,

"Elphinstone, the general, is dead--he expired in the hands of the
enemy, who insulted his body, and beat the head with stones.  The
tribes are all in arms now--a regular 'gathering of the clans,' we
should call it in Scotland.  Ackbar Khan has fulfilled his threat, we
are told, by sending the ladies for sale to the chiefs in Toorkistan;
but nothing is certain save that, by a combined movement on Cabul, we
are about to take a terrible vengeance."

Waller groaned, and ground his teeth in silence, for he was too much
of an Englishman to make a scene, or give vent to the emotions that
maddened him as he thought of Mabel, of her helpless companions, and
the awful mystery that overhung the fate of Rose.

The hostages, to the number of eighty-eight officers and soldiers,
with thirty-three females (three being wives of soldiers) and
children, were at the mercy of barbarians, and what might have
happened to them by that period?  How many of them, husband and wife,
parent and child, must have caressed and embraced each other
despairingly from time to time, with only one idea in their
minds,--that the lips they touched, the eyes they looked into with
tenderness and love, the form they held, that was warm and living,
might all belong to a dead and mangled corpse ere the dawn opened or
the night closed!




CHAPTER XXIII.

DENZIL A NAWAB.

When consciousness came back to Denzil he found himself alone--alone
with the dead.  He knew not what time had elapsed since he had been
struck down by the treacherous wretch whose life he had sought to
save; and no vestige of the retreating troops remained, save those
whose bodies dotted all the wintry waste.  Angrily and sadly the
rising wind howled from the mountain pass, blowing before it over the
frozen snow the long leaves of the coss, or dead grass, the fir cones
and pistachio nuts from the thickets close by; and some of these
cones, that fall from the jelgoozeh, or mountain pine, are larger
than artichokes.  The dark and tortuous pass had apparently swallowed
all his comrades; yet through it now his way must lie, and,
staggering up, he strove to follow the blood-stained track; but the
landscape, the mountains, the abandoned cannon, dead horses, camels,
and bodies of soldiers, of the Hindoo dhooley-wallahs, and of many
women, seemed all to whirl round him, and he nearly fell on the snow
once more.  Benumbed as he was, stiff and cold in every limb, with a
dull crushing sense of pain in the back region of his head, from
which the blood, now crusted and frozen, had flowed freely, he felt
that he could only remain there and wait for death or succour, the
former too surely, for already the gloom of evening seemed to be
setting over the mountains, and he looked about him wildly and
despairingly.

He had been in love, and had lost hope; but he was in love yet, and
had lost his mistress, which was sadder still, and was now likely to
lose his life.

The bodies of several men of his company lay near, all mostly in
attitudes expressive of the agony in which they had expired, with
their wan and ghastly faces turned to the winter sky; but the body of
General Trecarrel was gone; at least, he could nowhere see it.  Had
Polwhele and Sergeant Treherne succeeded in removing it?  If so, why
was he left to his wretched fate?  Or had a wolf--but that idea was
too repugnant, and he shrunk from it.

An European woman, young and pretty, in her night-dress (as many
ladies were who left the cantonments in litters), lay half in and
half out of a dhooley, from the bed within which she had apparently
been escaping when overtaken, and the snow was falling alike on her
white bare breast and the pale face of the little babe she had been
in the act of nourishing when the bullet of some relentless Ghilzie
had slain her; so her child must have soon followed.  It was a
piteous sight; and let those who have seen death amid all the hushed
solemnity of a sick chamber in a land of peace imagine such a scene
as this, and death under auspices so horrible and revolting.

Though sick and feeble, Denzil contrived to draw the dhooley a little
way from the body of its late occupant, and crept within it for
warmth.  Prior to doing so, on seeing near him the Queen's colour of
the 44th, or East Essex Regiment, lying in the hands of a dead
ensign, he tore it from the staff and wrapped it over his poshteen,
as an additional garment, and with a soldier's natural desire to save
so important a trophy from the enemy.  To this trifling circumstance,
as it eventually proved, he owed his life; and there he lay in a
species of stupor, neither quite asleep nor quite awake.

Ere long the hungry vultures began to alight upon the bodies in the
snow, and one, after flapping its dusky wings on the roof of the
dhooley, actually perched upon his breast; but on receiving a blow
from his hand, it fled with an angry croak.  Denzil was now
thoroughly aroused, and his action would seem to have been observed,
for twelve Afghan horsemen who had been scouting near, each with a
juzailchee riding _en croupe_ behind him, came cantering up,
accompanied by, or rather escorting, Shireen Khan of the
Kuzzilbashes, who was mounted, as usual, on a great solemn-looking
camel, and armed, among many other weapons, with a formidable lance.

Seeing that Denzil was alive, one of the Kuzzilbashes (a pale-faced
and black-bearded fellow, who wore a prodigious red cap, and had
dangling at his neck the watch presented to General Trecarrel by Sir
John Keane, after Ghuzni) made a thrust with his lance that must have
killed him on the spot had not the Khan interposed, and commanded all
to spare his life.  Instinctively Denzil had drawn his sword, but
Shireen said, with a grim smile,

"Sheath your weapon, Kaffir; I, too, wear a sword, but I am an old
man now, old by more than thrice your years, and I have learned to
know that the sword is but the sickle of death--it destroys much and
reaps little."

Denzil thought this moral reflection came somewhat late, but the Khan
added--

"Your life shall be spared--_pesh_" (_i.e._, forward), and stroked
his beard, which is the silent form of an oath with the Afghans.

The singularity of his costume, the regimental colour of bright
yellow silk with its massive gold embroidery, amid which the sphynx
was conspicuous, with the mottoes "Badajoz, Salamanca, Bladensburg,
Waterloo," and so forth, appeared so remarkable, that the old
Kuzzilbash chief conceived, in his simplicity, that he had captured
at least a great Nawab or Bahadur of Feringhistan, whose ransom or
value as a hostage could not fail to be of importance.  Hence,
resolving to say nothing of his prize to Mohammed Ackbar Khan, of
whose power he had already become jealous, Shireen ordered four
juzailchees to alight, sling their rifles, and carry the dhooley with
its inmate to the rear, naming some place to which the prisoner was
to be conveyed, and they obeyed, but grumbling under their beards
that they were only "carrying that which ought to be killed."
Moreover, they were not without serious fears that, instead of being
a Nawab or lord, Denzil might be a sorcerer, for these sphynxes and
gold letters looked necromantic in their sight, and he might possess
the power by a word to turn his bearers into yaboos or four black
stones.

He remained perfectly passive and, perhaps, indifferent in their
hands.  His wound had bled profusely, and he was now in that state of
extreme prostration which usually succeeds a great loss of blood,
when the senses wander, and wild dreams, tangled and incoherent
visions, disturb the brain of the sufferer.  He felt very heedless of
life; but there are times when death seems to avoid those who are so,
and who fear him not.  In all the misery of his condition he had but
one consolation--that Sybil knew nothing of it.  As his bearers trod
on, he heard them, when occasionally they stumbled against a dead
body, burst out into anathemas against the Feringhees, whom they
stigmatised as "dogs, devils, sons of Shytan, sons of burnt fathers,
and base-born Kaffirs," all of which gave him little hope for his
ultimate safety.

The dusk of the January eve was closing in, when, after passing for
some miles through a sheltered and well-wooded valley, the sides of
which were studded by several castles or bourges, the strongholds of
Nawabs and Khans of military tribes, the dhooley-bearers arrived at
the arched gateway of the great country residence of the chief of the
Kuzzilbashes.

It was, as usual with the Afghans, whose state of society is pretty
much what it was among the Scots in the feudal days, a square fort,
measuring about a hundred yards each way, with solid wa;ls
twenty-five feet in height, and flanked at each corner by a strong
half-circular bastion.  A fausse-bray and deep ditch surrounded it,
the latter being filled by a canal cut from the Cabul river.

The zunah-khaneh, or private dwelling of Shireen and his family,
occupied the centre of the great square, and was surrounded by an
inner wall or barbican, all loopholed for musketry, while traverses
mounted with cannon, guarded the entrances.  The devan-kaneh, or hall
of audience, through which Denzil was borne, was literally crammed
with the plunder gleaned up from the retreating army--bullock trunks
filled with wearing apparel, barrack furniture, tents, arm-chests,
musical instruments, and utensils of all kinds.  It was decorated
with much of barbaric splendour, and had its wall on one side
composed of carved and gilded wood, wherein were six great panels
inscribed with passages from the Koran, amid green and gold
arabesques.  These opened into apartments beyond, and could be slid
up and down at pleasure (like windows in Britain) for the free
circulation of air in summer.

Into one of these apartments Denzil was borne, placed on a couch made
up chiefly from the bedding that was in the dhooley, and then a hakim
came to examine his wound.

Amid all his deep grief, and mortification for past events, he felt
himself thankful for a cup of golden coloured mellow Derehnur wine,
which the hakim gave to restore his wasted strength; "for it is the
law of human nature, that the claims of the living must become a
counterpoise to the memory of the dead."

As loss of blood was the chief ailment of Denzil, on his wound being
dressed he recovered rapidly, and in three days was able to sit on a
kind of divan--for chairs were unknown in that part of the world--at
a window, which overlooked a garden and the long wooded valley, at
the extreme end of which, and in the dim distance, rose a high,
green, conical hill which he recognised, and knew to look down on the
plain and city of Cabul.  His hakim was experienced enough in the art
of dressing bullet holes and sword cuts; but his ideas of physic,
beyond a charm written on paper, and washed into a draught, were
somewhat perplexing and peculiar; thus he prescribed and proffered
various kinds of pills, powders, and potions, from the medicine
chests of Doctor Brydone and other medical officers, in the belief
that if one thing failed to insure perfect recovery, another might do
so.

Denzil knew that he had been spared in the belief that he was a
Nawab, and he feared to undeceive his captors as to that
circumstance, lest they might kill him after all; while he feared
also that if he left them in error, they might detain him for years,
or seek to extort some enormous ransom.  He knew nothing of the total
destruction of the army, or of the existence and retention of other
European hostages for the evacuation of Jellalabad.  Thus he
resolved, as he had no resort but patience, to await the pleasure of
Shireen Khan, who was still absent, and hoped that he might find a
more powerful, and less avaricious protector in the person of the
Shah, of whom our Queen was the friend and ally.  Moreover, through
his wuzeer Taj Mohammed, some light might yet be thrown upon the fate
of the lost Rose Trecarrel.

The Kuzzilbashes, in whose hands he was a prisoner, are a powerful
military tribe, who formed exclusively the Royal Guard of Dost
Mohammed, and can always, with ease, muster five thousand fighting
men.  Distinguished by their scarlet caps, they are of Persian
descent and form a peculiarly Persian party in Afghanistan, where as
being Sheeahs, they remain apart from the other Afghan people (who
are bigoted Soonees), and are so exclusive that they have their own
quarter of Cabul fortified against all the rest.  Hence, though their
chief was outwardly, and when it suited his own interest, actually an
adherent of Ackbar Khan, he had been secretly and deeply implicated
in political intrigues with the late Envoy, whose remains yet hung in
the market place.

From the hakim, Denzil learned that one of our officers, named
Colonel Palmer,* had been cruelly tortured in the city by having a
rope tied round his bare leg, after which it was twisted tight by a
tent-peg (like the old French boot), and this made him more than ever
anxious to reach the presence of the Shah, who still held the Bala
Hissar with a few adherents; the remnant of the Native army we had
organised for him under British officers, all of whom, of course, had
left him now.  From his strange medical attendant he learned also of
the old General's surrender, and subsequent death.


* Of the 27th Bengal Infantry.


"Bosh!" added the hakim; "your General Elphinstone, sahib, blew his
trumpets and beat his drums before Cabul, like a hen that cackles
when she has laid an egg.  It was with him, as it is too often with
the hen--premature exultation; for as little may become of the egg as
has become of his army--for the former, instead of being in time a
crowing cock, may become sauce, pillau, or pudding!"

The snow passed rapidly away; the weather became pleasant and warm,
and though Denzil saw nothing of the Khan, from his window he could
see the ladies of his household in the garden below, where as usual
with the upper class of Afghans, they spent much of their time in
chatting among the bowers, talking scandal and listening to the songs
of an occasional wandering musician, who played the _saringa_, or
native guitar.  It was once, while sitting listlessly looking into
this garden, that Denzil had his hopes of succour from the Shah,
crushed for ever.

No ladies appeared that day, but he perceived Shireen Khan, to whom
another Kuzzilbash was speaking, gesticulating violently, and as they
drew nearer his window, which was on the third, or upper story of the
zuna-khaneb, he could overhear their conversation.

The stranger, Zohrab Zubberdust, now a Hazirbash, in the Body Guard
of Ackbar Khan, was a handsome but fierce looking young man, with a
high aquiline nose, heavy black moustache, and a face of almost
European fairness.  He had a tall plume in his scarlet cap, which was
braided with gold; but, as the hilt of his sword, and the right
sleeve of his yellow camise of quilted silk, were thickly spotted
with blood, it was evident that he had been concerned in some recent
outrage.  There was sternness on his brow, a sneering expression on
his lips, and a wild glitter in his eyes, as he said in a mocking
tone,

"Khan, what mean you by this indignation?  Solomon had seven hundred
wives, and old Shah Sujah, whom the queen of Feringhistan sought to
befriend, had one hundred more, because he deemed himself wiser than
Solomon; but with all his wisdom, where is he now?"

"In Cabul."

"No--on the road near Shah Shakeed--dead."

"Dead, say you?"

"Yes; dead as that Solomon of whom I spoke--dead as a dog!" he added
savagely.

"What new horror is this?" asked Shireen, starting back.

"Bah," replied the other, adding in the true style of Afghan cant,
"there has been nothing new since God put the sun in the firmament,
and touched the stars with his fingers to send them through the sky.
Everything that is now, has been before, and shall be again."

"Did not the Shah, according to agreement, leave the Bala Hissar to
go to Jellalabad?"

"This morning he did so; but it chanced that last night, the son of
Zamon Khan placed in ambush fifty of his juzailchees secretly among
some wild tamarind trees, and when about the hour of morning prayer,
the king's retinue reached the spot, a cry like that of a jackal was
heard.  It might have been a signal.  I do not say it _was_; but
oddly enough, the juzailchees rose as one man, and fired a volley.
One ball, pierced the Shah's brain, and three his breast, while seven
of his soldiers fell dead.  Then we rushed on him, and took from his
litter the crown, the royal girdle, his sword and dagger, his
jewelled robe, and as they could be of no use to him now, we rode
off, and laid them at the feet of Ackbar Khan."

"May he who planned this deed be stung by a scorpion of Cashan!"
exclaimed Shireen, with great emotion, as he wreathed both hands in
his venerable beard; "in all these affairs I ever meant that the life
of the Shah should be sacred!"

"Whatever you meant, Khan," replied the other with a mocking smile,
"the King of kings ordained otherwise, and Azrael, the angel of
death, must be obeyed."

And significantly touching the hilt of his sword, the speaker made a
low salaam, quitted the garden, and Denzil saw him no more.  Shireen
remained for some time sunk in thought.

"And this has been your morning's work, son of Zamon Khan, when I
thought that you and your fifty juzailchees were on a pilgrimage to
the tomb of Lamech, in the vale of Lughmannee!" he muttered, as he
walked slowly away, referring to a white temple which covers what is
alleged to be the grave of Noah's father, and is a favourite place of
pilgrimage among the Afghans.

Denzil felt alike saddened and depressed on hearing of this
unforeseen event; but to it, in some respects, he owed his future
safety, and the circumstance that Shireen Khan retained him in his
own hands, and did not deliver him to the terrible Ackbar, as from
the day of the unfortunate Shah's assassination, the Afghan chiefs
were split into two factions--the Kuzzilbashes taking part with one,
and the tribes of Cabul and the Kohistanees with another.




CHAPTER XXIV.

A MEETING.

Day after day had gone past in utter monotony till Denzil's heart
began to ache in the great weariness of the life he led; it was so
calm and seemed so still after the fierce and keen excitement he had
undergone.  Had he entered upon a new state of existence? he asked of
himself; if so, it was an intensely stupid one.

One evening when seated as usual on the divan at his window, looking
dreamily out upon the long vista of the green valley, and the conical
hill that terminated it, dim and blue in distance, he was feeling the
balmy breath of the spring breeze with pleasure, and with all an
invalid's relish was watching the young buds expanding, and the first
flowers of the season beginning to peep from the teeming soil, when
the Nazir, or steward of the household, a tall man of venerable
aspect, whose beard flowed to his girdle, and the middle of whose
head was shaved, came with an invitation from the Khan, to join him
and his family at their evening meal.

Denzil bowed his acceptance, and in his sorely worn uniform, made
what toilette he hastily could, for a Khan like the head of the
Kuzzilbashes, who could bring into the field five thousand well-armed
men, chiefly splendidly mounted cavalry, was assuredly a man of
considerable note and power in the land, and his favour or protection
were of some value in that far-away corner of the world.

In an apartment, the walls of which were prettily decorated by
painted and gilded arabesques, with passages from the Koran around
it, in lieu of a cornice, he found the Khan sitting on a musnud, or
species of cushioned seat, that is usually reserved for persons of
distinction.  A lady was seated by his side, and both were so intent
upon a game of chess, that neither looked up when Denzil entered.

Seated on the floor, but on rich carpets, were the wife of the Khan,
a woman of some forty years old, very sallow and _passée_, her long
camise of green.  Cabul silk, ornamented with golden crescents sewn
on; her hair, as yet untinged with grey, arranged in countless
plaits, her hands odiously reddened to the hue of coral, and her two
daughters, passably pretty women, with their hair loose and their
trousers white, in token of being unmarried, and all three wearing
many chains of gold and strings of Venetian sequins.

Denzil bowed low, and paused irresolutely, waiting to be greeted by
the Khan; but that personage was bending over the board deeply intent
on the game, his long white beard floating above the ivory chessmen,
his bushy brows and wrinkled forehead full of thought, his brown and
thick-veined hands contrasting strongly with the slender snow-white
fingers of his opponent, whose hand was indeed a delicate and lovely
one; her face, however, was concealed by her position, and the mode
in which she wore her veil; and Denzil knew the peril of seeming too
curious.

Like those of the other three ladies, her dress was of the finest
Cabul silk, but of a rose colour, and covered her whole figure, as a
night-robe would have done; like the Khan's daughters, her trousers
were also white, her slippers high-heeled and shod with iron.
Crescents of silver were sewn over all her loose hanging sleeves, and
the breast of her dress was literally a mass of them, so that it
shone in the sunlight like a cuirass.

The wife of the Khan clapped her hands, the ordinary mode of
summoning attendants in the East, as she wished the trays with
refreshments introduced.  This caused Shireen and his companion to
look round, and an exclamation of profound astonishment, in which joy
and something of deep anxiety mingled, echoed through the apartment,
when Denzil and Rose--Rose Trecarrel--recognised each other!

On this, one of the Khan's daughters hastily assumed, but for a few
minutes only, her _bourkha_ or veil of white muslin, which had a
space of open network for the eyes; and the other whispered to her
mother some indignant remark concerning "the effrontery of a Kaffir
coming into their presence with his jorabs (_i.e._, shoes) on."

If it be true that "among a crowd of total strangers an acquaintance
ranks as a friend," how great must have been the emotions of the
volatile Rose, on meeting her avowed lover among those odious and
horrible Afghans!

"Rose!"

"Denzil!"

After all they had mutually undergone, the sound of their own names
and their own language, had in them so much of home and the past,
that both were deeply moved; and heedless of those who were present,
forgetting all about them in fact, the impulsive girl flung herself
into his arms, and he pressed her to his breast.  So, to the
undemonstrative Orientals, they formed a very unexpected tableau.
She had undergone so much and her agitations were so complicated,
that for some time she was quite incapable of speech and could only
sob hysterically.  She was very pale and worn, but he was so too.

"So you also are a prisoner--do you forgive me now, Denzil?" she
asked in a low voice.

"Forgive you--oh Rose, I could die for you!" he responded,
passionately.

How often in the visions of the night and in the reveries of the
day--those trances of thought to which all at times abandon
themselves--had Denzil pictured to himself Rose Trecarrel reclining
in his arms, even as on that day by the lake, Rose so bright, so fair
and beautiful, and now he held her in reality!

But though she had deceived him once and might do so again, no such
fear occurred to him then, and forgotten too were all the bantering
remarks of Polwhele and Burgoyne (now, alas, no more) which had
excited so much pique, jealousy, and fury in his heart.  She was, he
knew, so lonely in the world, and she looked so lovely and so
helpless.  After a time, she said, anxiously,

"There has been great slaughter, I have heard; poor Papa, he has
escaped I am sure, and dear Mab and Waller are safe, and all the
rest?"

"_All_ cannot have escaped!" was Denzil's vague response; "yet you
have done so, and that is enough for me, darling."

She now poured upon him questions, some of which he dreaded to
answer.  When and where was he taken prisoner?  Whom of those she
loved had he seen last?  Of her father, of Mabel and Waller Denzil
professed total ignorance.  He only knew that the body of the poor
General had disappeared, and of subsequent events he knew nothing
save that many ladies and officers of rank were retained in Cabul,
held there by Ackbar Khan, as hostages for the future evacuation of
Jellalabad; so hope and lightness of heart began to dawn on Rose, for
neither she nor Denzil were aware of the exact state of matters, or
of all the calamities that had befallen their friends.

"And Mabel--dear, dear, Mabel," she exclaimed in a touching voice,
"how often do I dream of her, and fancy at times that I feel her
cheek, wet with tears, against mine; for though but a little older
than I, she has ever been as a mother to me, and these visions are
passages of intense emotion, Denzil.  Our mamma, who died so long
ago, comes to me in my sleep and poor papa too, looking just as when
I kissed him last, ere we went to rest, in that wretched tent in the
snowy Pass; so my heart is wrung with suffering and I shed tears,
Denzil--hot salt tears in my sleep--I, who used to be so merry and
thoughtless!"

The Khan and his family were, for the time, utterly forgotten; so was
his game of chess, and he gazed alternately from the rooks, pawns,
and castles, to the lovers, in great and grave bewilderment, for in
the _empressement_ of their meeting, there seemed something more than
the mere joy of two friends, or natives of the same country
recognising each other.  Were they brother and sister, or husband and
wife, or what?

"But how came you to be here--what happened?" asked Denzil.

Her story, with all its apparent mystery, was both short and simple.
She had heard shots in the night, and was peeping from the door of
the tent, while her weary companions slept.  A crowd of Afghans were
passing,--the Shah's 6th Regiment were deserting _en masse_.  A
_loonghee_, or turban-cloth, was cast over her face by one of them,
who twisted it across her mouth in such a manner as to stifle her
cries completely; a havildar, mounted on a stolen horse, dragged her
up beside him, and thus she was borne off, unseen in the dark, as
they evidently believed that a white woman would be deemed the most
valuable species of loot by some wealthy Khan or Nawab.  When day
broke they found themselves among the Black Rocks, near Cabul, and
then a vehement dispute ensued between the havildar and her first
captor as to to whom she should belong--whether they should keep,
sell, or cast lots for her.  Knives were promptly drawn; but some
Kuzzilbash Horse came up and solved the difficulty by sabreing them
both.  They then carried her off to the fort of Shireen Khan, who had
treated her with marked kindness and hospitality; and now she and
Denzil turned towards him, and the latter expressed his extreme
gratitude for all he had done for them both, adding, that he hoped
they would be mercifully permitted to rejoin their friends and people.

But Khan Shireen shook his head, and replied, "Sahib, you know not
what you ask, or how your friends are situated.  Your army has been
destroyed on its downward march to Jellalabad, and the hope of Ackbar
is, that if the Sirdir Sale quits that city for Peshawur, the wild
Khyberees and Ghilzies will soon annihilate his army too."

And such was indeed the hope of those in power at Cabul.

"Then our forces suffered severely, Khan?" said Denzil.

"So severely, that but one remained alive to tell the tale."

Denzil smiled at this, believing it to be mere Oriental hyperbole.

The entrance of servants with trays, on which were plums, peaches,
and other fruit preserved in sugar, sweet chupatties, and a flask or
two of yellow Derehnur wine (though forbidden by the Prophet),
enabled Denzil to address some apologies to the ladies of the house,
who invited him to seat himself on the edge of their carpet, an
unwonted honour; and then the simple collation proceeded without the
use of spoons or forks, which are alike unknown in that region.

Fresh southern-wood was thrown on the fire, and its fragrance filled
all the apartment with a powerful perfume.

Rose felt herself constrained, but most unwillingly, to resume her
part of chess-player, which she did in silence, as she scarcely knew
a word of the Khan's language, but he had been delighted with her on
first learning that she could play the knightly game, and play it
well too, as chess is peculiarly an Oriental pastime, and was brought
into Europe originally by the returned Crusaders.

"Shabash!" (Bravo) he exclaimed, and patted her kindly on the
shoulder, as she again took her place near him; but her eyes ever
wandered from the chess-board to the face of Denzil, whom the
Kuzzilbash lady and her daughters overwhelmed with questions, many of
which they had long since asked Rose.  Among these were the three
invariable queries, whether the East India Company was a man or a
woman; if it was true that our ruler in Feringhistan was a Queen, and
if the men in that region wore trousers, while the women did not.
They conversed with him freely, and without constraint, for among the
Afghans, unlike other races which profess the Moslem faith,
intercourse between the sexes is somewhat on an European footing, and
the home of the Afghan husband is one which deserves to be accounted
such, as all his leisure hours are spent with his wife and children;
and he leads his guest without fear or scruple into the family
circle.  Hence, with all their ferocity, the passion of love is
neither unknown nor unhonoured among them.

Two or three days elapsed after their meeting before Denzil and Rose
Trecarrel became aware that so many hostages were retained in the
hands of Ackbar as pledges, to answer with their lives, or at least
with their liberties, for the final withdrawal of all our troops from
Afghanistan, including Sir Robert Sale's Brigade in Jellalabad and
General Nott's division, 9000 strong, in Candahar; and now they found
that, owing to a split in the enemy's camp, and a coolness between
the Sirdir and the Khan Shireen, the latter was detaining them _in
secret_ as hostages on his own account.

"Set me free!" she had frequently implored of him.

"Not if you gave me all the lost riches of Khosroo," he replied,
referring to the supposed buried treasure of Cyrus.

She had next besought aid of his wife, who shook her head, and said
laughingly--

"Ere long, you will too probably be sold to a chief in Toorkistan,
and live in a castle, or perhaps a tent, as his wife; if he chooses
to make you such before the Cadi," added the Kuzzilbash lady, gazing
with her great black eyes into the clear hazel orbs of the shocked
and perplexed English girl, and feeling herself the while as much
embarrassed in their difference of ideas as if her guest had come
from Jupiter, Saturn, or any other of those planets which to her were
but as lamps set in the sky by God or the Prophet, she knew not
which, as the moollahs were somewhat uncertain on the subject.

But now the great event of having the society of Denzil made Rose,
who had previously felt herself so friendless and forlorn, so
desolate and lost, much more hopeful and contented; and something of
her old coquetry came to the surface again, when daily he walked with
her in the garden of the fort, as they were never permitted to go
beyond its walls.  They had both undergone much, and witnessed some
frightful scenes; but it was with them there, as with those who dwell
"in the countries where earthquakes are frequent, and where in almost
every century some terrible convulsion has laid a whole city in
ruins--the inhabitants acquire a strange indifference to peril till
the very instant of its presence, and learn to forget calamities when
once they have passed."




CHAPTER XXV.

MARRIED OR NOT?

Under the magic influence of Rose's presence, Denzil felt almost
content for the time, and his heart swelled with mingled love and
joy; then obstacles would seem to give way, fears to fade, and he
felt his heart endued with a new strength.  The hope of rescue or the
chances of escape together, formed a fertile and endless source of
conversation and surmise for these two isolated beings; but Rose had
to humour the Khan by playing chess with him whenever he requested
her to do so, while his wife and daughters quite as frequently
compelled Denzil, who knew Hindostanee, to read for them an Oriental
poem of which they never seemed to grow weary.  It was a handsome
volume of exquisite Eastern penmanship; all the pages were perfumed,
and no two of them were alike, all the vignettes of birds, of gilded
mosques, of black-bearded emirs and bayaderes, the elaborate borders
and chapter heads being radiant in colours and gold.  It described
the petrifaction of the City of Ishmonie, a place alleged to be in
Upper Egypt, where all that were once animated beings were by an
enchanter changed in an instant to stone, and where they may still be
seen, in all the various positions of sitting, or standing, eating,
sleeping or caressing each other--a legend which obviously arose from
the circumstance of the vast number of statues of men, women, and
children that are, or were, in the place; but this poem so palled
upon Denzil that he shivered with weariness whenever the subject was
named to him.

And now as a certain assurance of safety came into the mind of Rose
Trecarrel, she began to resume some of her old coquettish ways with
him; thus one day as they were promenading in the garden of the
Khan's fort, where the early flowers of Spring were maturing under
the genial shelter of the high embattled walls, when he familiarly
addressed her as "Rose," she said, with an assumed pout on her ruddy
lips,

"I must really forbid you to call me Rose--even here."

"I called you so once, unchecked--by the lake, on that day which you
must remember," he urged gently.

"That day is past."

"But its memory remains.  What then am I to call you?  To say, 'Miss
Rose', or 'Miss Trecarrel,' after the events of that day would seem
both strange and distant.  You are always 'Rose' to me--in my heart,
I mean."

"Fiddlestick! do be sensible.  Call me--well, you need not call me
anything that may compromise either the past, the present, or the
future."

"Oh, how unkind of you," said he, eyeing her with a somewhat dubious
expression.

"Poor Denzil," she replied, looking down; "I would to Heaven you were
not so fond of me."

"Fond, is not the word, Rose--but why?"

"Because I was only flirting with you, as I have done with others,"
replied the laughing girl, with a cruelty that was perhaps
unintentional, as she was indeed older than her years, for there are
some women who in mind and body are more rapidly developed than
others.

Denzil was only somewhat past twenty, and his love for her was fresh
as the flowers that were springing up around them.  It had been
wasted on none yet, and Rose was the first who seemed to fill up all
the soft illusions of the mind, as being the only one he could love,
and the touch of whose hand or arm would send a thrill of ecstasy to
his heart.

Could hers really be so elastic? he now asked of himself; did one
passion really efface another in her breast, even as the waves efface
the footmarks on the sandy shore?  Could she love more than one, and
perhaps more than one at a time?

She sat on a garden seat with her handsome white hands folded before
her.  A jet cross which had escaped the pillagers was on her
snow-white neck, when it rose and fell with the undulations of her
breathing.  Her long lashes and delicate lids were drooped over the
clear brown eyes, that could be so waggish, droll or cold and calm,
as fun, or passion, or prudence, swayed her.  The whole pose, her
aspect, the contour of her head, the exquisite turn of the white and
stately throat, so like that of Mabel, were not lost on Denzil as he
gazed, and in gazing, worshipped her.

"A penny for your thoughts, friend Denzil," said she, looking up with
a laughing face and breaking a silence of some minutes' duration.

"They are priceless, Rose, because they are of you."

"Well, like Paul, you may be most tender and full of truth--the
latter a rare virtue in men; but I can never play the part of
Virginia."

"Why?"

"Because I am too giddy, perhaps," replied Rose; yet with all her
coquetry she was not without an emotion of genuine pride at the
conviction of having inspired so handsome and earnest a young man
with an attachment so devoted and pure.

But what was to be the sequel to all this?

As Artemus Ward says, "one is always inclined to give aid and comfort
to the enemy, if he cums in the shape of a nice young gal;" and
doubtless the old Khan of the Kuzzilbashes seemed to think so too;
for to Rose he was unusually kind, and somewhat unwisely was wont at
times to praise her to his wife.  Once he said,

"The girl is beautiful as a bird of paradise."

"Yes; but quite as dumb and useless--there is nothing in her,"
replied the lady.

"She knows her own language, not ours.  She has splendid eyes, at all
events; they might get me six good horses among the Usbec Tartars."

"Yes, lovely eyes certainly; yet they seem out of place anywhere,
save in a seraglio," was the sharp response of the Khanum, who
evidently disapproved of the praise and the chess-playing; "send her
to Ackbar Khan."

"Nay; that suits not my purpose, either for her or her friend,"
replied the Khan, on whose mind some remarks made from time to time
by his wife were beginning to have an effect.

He had seen the open and free intercourse of the Feringhee sahibs,
male and female, at the bandstand, at the race-course, in the
Cantonments, in the gardens, and other places in and about Cabul,
during the previous winter; he had also seen them together in
Sinclair sahib's wonderful boat; but there was something in the
footing of Rose and Denzil that sorely puzzled him.  They were too
familiar to be mere friends, and she was not tender enough apparently
to be a lover; so, after closely observing them for some days, he
came to the conclusion that they were married, and if not, that they
ought to be.

Thus with the native suspicion of an Oriental, he began to think that
they must be married, and concealed the fact from him for some reason
or purpose of their own.  He even spoke pretty pointedly on the
subject to Denzil, and hinted that if she were his wife, it might
prevent her from being sold to the Toorkomans; but the circumstance
of her being married to an infidel would not have made much
difference to those sons of the desert.

Denzil was alarmed and knew not what to think of this new feature in
their affairs.  Rose would not have much fortune in England; Denzil
had less, and to marry on his subaltern's pay and allowances, even in
India, might prove ruinous to both; but here they were isolated from
all in the outer world--in Afghanistan; in a land where steam and
printing were unheard of; and where forks and spoons, clocks, and
even toothbrushes were as much unknown as they were to Father Adam
and Mother Eve.

Shireen Khan might solve all their difficulties by slicing off
Denzil's head and selling Rose to the highest bidder in Toorkistan,
if the whim to do either occurred.  In his alarm Denzil admitted that
they were affianced to each other, a state of matters beyond the
comprehension of the old Kuzzilbash, as a Mussulman in choosing a
wife usually relies on his mother, or a female friend who does this
office for him.

"Did your mother select her for you?" asked the Khanum, who was
present.

"No," replied Denzil.

"She treats you ill, I fear; a little beating would do her good,"
suggested the lady.

"A beating!" exclaimed Denzil, with astonishment.

"Yes," said Shireen; "among us men are allowed by the Koran to beat
their wives, so long as they do not bruise the skin; for the Prophet
has ordained that women shall not be treated as intellectual beings."

"Why?"

"Lest they aspire to equality with men."

Denzil translated all this to Rose, who had been listening and
turning from one speaker's face to the other; she burst into a saucy
little laugh, and said,

"Tell them that their Prophet was a precious old----"

What she was about to designate him of Mecca, we know not, for Denzil
placed his hand on her lips.  The sharp black eyes of the Khan
detected something in this action.  They sparkled, while his face
grew red as his cap with sudden anger, and with hands clenched and
uplifted, he exclaimed,

"Now by the seven heavens and the veil of unity, through which the
Prophet passed in his vision, but this is too much!  You are either
married or not?  Do you laugh at my beard, Kaffirs?  If she is your
wife, I shall respect her, nor send her, as I intended, to Bhokara or
Toorkistan for sale; if she is not, then so much the worse for her!"

And, as he spoke, the softness of his Persian dialect turned, in his
anger, hoarse and guttural as that of an Afghan.

"Your wife, Denzil," exclaimed Rose, blushing with mingled amazement
and annoyance, when the first part of this speech was told her; "I do
care more for you than for any one else--but--but--"

"What, dearest Rose?"

"This is a little too much."

"Consider--the danger--the alternative."

"Must I pass myself off as such?"

"It would appear so, dear Rose, for your own sake dissemble."

"Assume a virtue if I have it not!" said she, with some asperity.

"It is unavoidable, what are we to do?"

"Why--is this a conspiracy between you, for it looks very like it?"

"On my honour it is not," replied Denzil, earnestly and tenderly;
"but Toorkistan--think of that."

"Yes--Toorkistan!" repeated the Khan, detecting the word, resentment
still gleaming in his eyes that a Kaffir girl should dare to laugh at
or mock him.

And in this pleasant dilemma we must leave them for a time.




CHAPTER XXVI.

THE WANDERER.

We must now ask the reader to traverse with greater speed than even
the electric wire possesses, both sea and land, and, annihilating
time and space, accompany us once more to the opening scenes of our
story--even to the grey, sea-beaten cliffs, and broad brown moors of
Cornwall.

In an early chapter we referred to a certain hostelry named the
Trevanion Tavern, as a place where sundry beverages were procurable,
and to which General Trecarrel (whose poor old bones were whitening
now with others in the Khyber Pass) sent Mike Treherne and his
comrades on that exciting evening when Audley Trevelyan rescued Sybil
Devereaux from the terrors of the gloomy Pixies' Hole.

It was the sweet season of spring, and the flowers of balmy April
were in all their bloom; the young and fragrant buds were bursting in
the woods of Rhoscadzhel, and the willows that gave a name to the
long narrow glen, forming the avenue to Porthellick, were as green,
as leafy, and as graceful in their droop, as when Constance,
dark-eyed and pale-faced, sat at the windows of the pretty white
villa, watching for her husband, Richard, cantering his horse to the
little portico, where Derrick Braddon awaited him; Denzil going forth
to whip the trouting-stream, or Sybil sitting, sketch-book in hand,
under a tree, to shade her from the sunshine.

The Trevanion Arms, over which creaked and swung a signboard
decorated with the arms of that old surname, a fesse between two
chevrons, with three escallops (for old Jack, like every Cornishman,
had a pedigree), is a picturesque little old-fashioned house, partly
built of granite and partly of straw and mud beaten into a
consistency that is pretty enduring.  Four boulders that had lain for
ages on the promontory where it stands, had been improvised as
corner-stones by the first builders of the edifice, and then the
erection proved easy enough.  It is square, with a trellised porch,
which is always a mass of flowers and leaves; two windows are on each
side of this, and five above, while there are other little quaint
dormers that abut from the roof, which is conical, or
pavilion-shaped, to write more correctly: and the edifice was then,
from its foundation to its apex, chimneys included, literally a mass
of clematis, dark green ivy, jasmine and sweet briar, so matted and
interwoven as completely to conceal where the wall ended and the roof
began; and in the pairing season the snug recesses of this leafy
covering were all alive with teeming nests and twittering birds,
whose gaping bills and glittering eyes peeped forth at times when a
frocked waggoner or dusky-visaged miner drew up at the door for a pot
of creamy ale, or a quart of sharp, foaming Devonshire cider.

Though April, the night on which we visit this place is bleak; the
rain is swooping in torrents on the drenched land, and tossing sea;
black clouds envelop all the Bristol Channel, the wild waves of which
were rolling in snowy foam against the bluffs of Tintagel, along
Trebarreth Strand, and all that iron shore from thence, perhaps, to
Cape Cornwall, for it was just such a night of storm as the old
Cornish wreckers would have loved, and hung their lanterns on the
cliffs to mislead doomed ships at sea.

Seated alone, gazing intently into the sea-coal fire that burned low
in the grate of the humble tavern parlour, smoking a short pipe, and
taking occasional sips from a tankard of ale, was a somewhat
tattered, but well-bearded, grizzled, and weather-beaten man, about
sixty years of age.  His features were rather Cornish or Celtic in
type; the nose and cheek bones high, the eyes keen and glittering,
when the firelight shone on them; his sturdy figure and
well-embrowned hands showed that his life had been one of hard work,
and, by the peculiar mode in which he carried his head, it was easy
to see that he had been drilled as a soldier in the ranks.

Intently thinking, he sighed deeply once or twice, and, looking round
the room as a gust of the storm without roused him from reverie, he
said aloud,--

"So here you are at last, after all that has come and gone--here at
last, and for what, Derrick Braddon?"

For Derrick Braddon he was--Derrick, the faithful attendant and
follower of the late Richard Pencarrow Trevelyan--Lord Lamorna!  His
fate and adventures had been strange; for since the steamer
_Admiral_, of Montreal, had perished at sea, Braddon had seen more of
the world than he ever expected to behold again, and been so
circumstanced, that he could never communicate with England, even in
this age of ease and appliances; or his letters had miscarried; and
now when he found himself once more at home--but, as it eventually
proved, a home filled with strangers--his heart grew soft, and his
eyes suffused, albeit that he was somewhat unused to the melting mood.

The purple moorlands, the great grey standing stones, the mines
teeming with men and lights, and strange sounds, their giant works
and grimy gearing; the granite carns and the dark oak woodlands had
all spoken of home and his boyhood to the returned wanderer, the
faithful old soldier, and caused him to be doubly sad; nature was the
same, but many a voice was hushed, and many a familiar face was gone
for ever.

The Trevanion tavern was unchanged even to the leafy tendrils that
clambered over it, shrouding every inch of wall and roof, and hiding
more than the half of each window; but his old comrade, Jack
Trevanion, whilom drum-major of the Cornish Light Infantry, who had
left a leg in the Punjaub, and with whom he had smoked many a pipe,
by that same hearth (where he now sat alone), talking of old times,
and of the old regiment, where even their names were forgotten, was
gone to his last home by Lanteglos church (the burial place of the
Trecarrels, too), and another host occupied Jack's place in the
bar-parlour.

Old Mike Treherne and Winny Braddon had quitted their native place,
and gone to Plymouth, from whence Derrick had travelled thus far on a
pilgrimage to Rhoscadzhel, when his heart began utterly to fail him.

From his sister Winny, the old nurse of Sybil, he had heard, with
honest indignation, the details of that futile and remarkable visit
paid to Rhoscadzhel, and how Downie Trevelyan had treated their now
dead mistress.  He was told, too, of her hapless lawsuit, marred, as
it was believed, by the low practitioner, who, to gain some
notoriety, had thrust himself unasked into the case.  But he could
only further learn "that Master Denzil was somewhere far away in the
Ingies," and that Miss Sybil, the sweet-voiced and gentle-eyed Sybil,
who had slept in her bosom in infancy, and whom she had seen develope
into a lovely young woman, had, after seeking in vain to sell her
drawings, gone penniless to London, after which she could hear of her
no more.

"Gone to London?" repeated Braddon, with a groan; "and penniless,
too!"

He knew that amid the human tide of that mighty Babylon she might be
lost as surely as if she were among the waves of the ocean; and then,
as the old soldier thought of his proud dead master, and how he had
loved that little daughter, he sighed again bitterly.

From the breast-pocket of his well-worn pea-jacket (Derrick was
attired somewhat like a sailor) he drew forth a rusted and battered
tin case.  It was thin and flat in form, and he surveyed it long and
silently.  Then he opened the lid, as if he was often in the habit of
doing so, mechanically and as if to assure himself that the contents
were safe; and he was, perhaps, about to draw them forth for
inspection, when a sound startled him, and he hastily consigned the
case to its keeping-place, just as the landlord ushered in a man, who
was dripping with rain, and whose personal appearance, the soaking of
his somewhat seedy habiliments had by no means improved.

Derrick courteously made way for the stranger, who ordered some "gin
and water hot," and after desiring the landlord to let him know when
the "first return fly," by which he meant a brougham, passed for some
town that he named, he proceeded to drink Braddon's health, and to
dry his shabby black garments by the rotary process of turning, as if
in a roasting-jack before the fire, raising the limp tails of his
coat from time to time over his long and awkward-looking arms and
lean bony hands.

"A wet night, sir," said he.

"Yes; but I have seen a wetter," replied Braddon.

"The dooce you have!"

"Aye, at sea; on a night when I was precious near having a cold water
cure for all my sufferings."

"How?"

"By being drowned."

"Your fate is perhaps a drier one.  You are, I suppose, a seafaring
man?"

"I am an old soldier, and have served in the Cornish Light Infantry,
as boy and man, for one-and-twenty years, and have earned my shilling
a day from the Queen, God bless her! so don't crack your stale joke
on me," said Derrick grimly and emphatically, as he surveyed the
new-comer, whose face, somehow, seemed not unfamiliar to him.

He was attired in clothes a world too wide for him; the collar of his
coat rested on the nape of his neck, and its sleeve cuffs fell well
nigh over his fingers; the legs of his trousers flapped loosely over
his broken boots, and the tall shiny hat which he had deposited on
the deal table, after carefully wiping it with a coloured
handkerchief, had evidently seen better days upon another and perhaps
honester head.  His brow was low and narrow; the frontal bones
projecting over keen eyes of a nondescript colour, and a mean
turned-up nose.  Mistrust, acuteness, suspicion and avarice, were the
leading expressions of his face, which would have horrified a
disciple of Lavater; yet, in the tone of his voice, and in his
manner, there was an affectation of deferential suavity, as if he
sought to win rather than to repel a confidence that few, unless very
simple indeed, would accord to one with lips so thin and cruel, and
whose ears, like those of a cat, were nearly on the line of his
pericranium, which was covered by a few wisps of thin, grey, and
dead-looking hair.  Yet this ugly personage has been described to the
reader before.

Perceiving that his jest had not been appreciated by the veteran, he
resumed the conversation in a different style.

"Know these parts?" said he, drinking his gin-and-water, and fixing
his eyes furtively on Derrick.

"Think I should," was the curt response.

"Ah"--

There was a pause; then the other said,--

"Many hereabout will be surprised to hear of old Derrick Braddon
coming to earth again."

The shabby stranger started, and the iris of his cunning eyes dilated
and shrunk again in a somewhat feline fashion, as he asked eagerly,--

"What! were you the groom to Captain Devereaux who--well,
occasionally--lived at Porthellick?"

"To the Right Honorable Lord Lamorna, if it is all the same to you,"
replied Derrick, stiffly.

"It is quite the same.  What on earth is up!  Is the sky about to
rain larks, eh?"

"It is pouring a torrent anyhow, at this moment," was the dry
response, as a fresh gust without clashed the leaves against the
window-panes, and the cry of the red-legged Cornish chough, driven
from his eyrie in the cliffs, was heard on the passing tempest.

"Where have you been all this time--nearly nine months, now?"

"That is too long a story to tell a stranger."

"And where is your master?"

"In his grave, God rest him!--in his grave, if the great sea can be
called so."

"How long have you been in England?"

"Three weeks."

"And in Cornwall?"

"I have just arrived."

"Then you may not have heard of me, William Schotten Sharkley,
solicitor, who acted as your mistress's agent in her case which
failed for want of legal or documentary proofs.  I did all that I
could to befriend her--"

"And pocketed her last shilling, as I have heard."

"Law is an expensive amusement, and lawyers must be paid.  I did my
best."

"For that I thank you, Lawyer Sharkley," replied Braddon, taking in
his hard honest hand the damp, unwholesome fingers of the solicitor,
adding somewhat awkwardly, "if you have a bad name, perhaps you can't
help it."

Mr. William S. Sharkley's face darkened, and his eyes dilated and
shrunk, but he was too craven in spirit to manifest the least
annoyance.

"And it was through the lack of certain papers," resumed Braddon,
"that my lady's case was lost, and her heart broken?"

"Yes; the doubtful letter she produced referred to a certificate of
marriage and a will in favour of her and her two children; but these
documents, if they ever existed, no doubt perished with the captain,
your master."

"They did not, as they are here--_here_--in the pocket of my old
coat, Master Sharkley; so it is of more value than it looks, for it
contains a peerage and an estate," replied Braddon, with gleaming
eyes, as he slapped his breast emphatically.

For a moment Sharkley sat silent and bewildered, for the energy and
perfect confidence of the speaker could not fail to impress him.
Then he said,--

"You of course mean to turn them to account somehow?"

"When the right time comes."

"And to show them--"

"To the right man when _he_ comes."

"And who, and where is he?"

"Young Denzil Trevelyan--Lord Lamorna--now in India, with the old
Regiment.  Could I but get there--there to the young master--"
continued old Derrick with fervour; "but I might as well wish myself
in the moon; for I am a poor friendless old fellow.  One thing,
Master Sharkley, I sha'n't trust the papers with you."

Sharkley was silent again; Braddon's mistrust of him was open and
unconcealed, and he saw but one way of obtaining a sight of papers so
important, and that was by exciting his indignation by a sneer.

"Ah--the lady at the villa was very much attached to your
master--very handsome, and I doubt not--"

"What more?"

"Very expensive, as these kind of folks usually are."

"What do you mean, sir?" asked Braddon, sternly.

"I mean what my words imply; she could not prove herself a wedded
wife, so her case had not a leg to stand on; yet I was her friend and
adviser."

"You think thus ill of her, and yet thrust yourself into her case."

"My dear sir, I am a lawyer, and lawyers must feed."

"Which is too often feeding what ought to be hung," replied Braddon,
with all a soldier's contempt for the other's cloth.

"I repeat that I was her friend," urged Sharkley.

"God keep us from such friends, if all I have been told is true."

"But giving a mere sight of those papers can do you no harm."

"And you small good; however, see them you shall," replied Braddon,
with something of grim triumph, as he drew them from the
before-mentioned tin case.




CHAPTER XXVII.

THE LOST STEAMER.

The first document which Derrick produced and spread upon the table
was the Père Latour's certificate of the marriage; the second was an
undoubted will, duly stamped and signed, wherein the testator,
Richard Pencarrow Trevelyan, Lord Lamorna, of Rhoscadzhel, in the
Duchy of Cornwall, left all he possessed to Constance Devereaux, his
wife, for the term of her life, and after her death to their two
children absolutely.

The cunning and avaricious eyes of Sharkley seemed to devour the
documents, and his trembling fingers indicated the eagerness of his
heart to possess them, as he saw that beyond all uncertainty they
were genuine, authentic, and of vast legal value to the son and
daughter of his late unhappy client; nor were they of less worth to
their opponent, if their existence could be terminated, _ere it was
known_.  Here was a means of triumph over the Messrs. Gorbelly and
Culverhole--the solicitors of Downie Trevelyan, the present titular
lord--who, as more respectable practitioners than Sharkley, had ever
treated him with undisguised contempt.

Frequently his long lean fingers approached the papers, which were
faded and yellow in aspect, having been stained by saltwater in the
shipwreck; but Derrick Braddon, aware of the man he had to deal with,
had taken from his pocket a large clasp knife, with which he usually
cut his tobacco, and which had been of much and varied service to him
in his recent wanderings; and with the point of this suggestive
instrument he indicated the dates and so forth, while its production
seemed to hint that any attempt to appropriate either the certificate
or the will might be attended by an unpleasant sequel; for old as he
was, Braddon would have given a stronger antagonist than the village
lawyer "a Cornish hug," that might have been little to his taste.

When Sharkley had perused the papers which he was not permitted to
touch, Braddon deliberately replaced them in their case and carefully
stowed the latter in his inner pocket, the cat-like eyes of the
attorney watching all his motions, while a kind of sigh seemed to
escape him.  He drained his gin and water to the last drop and then
said,--

"No doubt, Mr. Braddon, these papers are of great value; but what do
you mean to do with them?"

"Keep them for young Denzil.  Once they are safe in his hands, he'll
march in and take possession with colours flying."

Sharkley smiled at the old soldier's idea of the mode of succeeding
to a title and heritage; but, as the storm had not yet passed away,
and no "return fly" had yet been announced, he resolved to improve
the occasion, by worming himself into Derrick's confidence, and
drawing all the information from him that he could win.

"But if your master was drowned, as you say he was, how came these
important documents into your possession?"

"Drowned as _I say_ he was!  Do you doubt me?"

"Nay, nay; you misunderstand."

"Well, you shall hear all about it.  Have another drain of gin and I
shall have one more pot of ale; I have not tasted such good old
English tipple for many a day."

Then, after a little pause, Derrick began his narrative, which we
shall give in our own words rather than his.  The accounts of the
wreck which Constance had read in the public prints, were scarcely a
correct version of the catastrophe in all its details.

The ocean steamer _Admiral_ had not been more than four days' sail
from the mouth of the River St. Lawrence, when her engines broke
down; thus she was forced to continue the voyage under canvas, and
being but ill calculated for sailing purposes, while endeavouring to
beat against a continual head wind, she was driven so far south out
of her direct course, as to be somewhere within seventy miles of
Corvo, the most northern isle of the Azores, when she should have
been breasting the waves of the British Channel.

When she had been three weeks at sea, the wind one night became a
gale, and from a gale it freshened to a regular tempest; and most of
her crew, not being seamen, but such as are usually bred in coasting
steamers, handled her extremely ill.  Much of her canvas was split,
rent to ribbons, or blown out of the bolt ropes; and thus, by the
time three bells in the middle watch were struck, the wind was
howling through her bare rigging, for there was nothing left upon her
save a staysail and trysail, by the aid of which four men at the
wheel strove to steer her under direction of the quarter-master.

Apprehending no danger, Richard Trevelyan was quietly seated in the
cabin, endeavouring to write up his diary, by the light of a single
lamp, which swung madly to and fro from a beam overhead; his desk was
open, but was secured to the table, for every loose thing in the
cabin was flying from port to starboard and back again, as the vessel
lurched and rolled.  Derrick was standing, rather swaying to and fro
behind his master's chair, as they conferred together concerning the
exact date of some incident which he wished to record, and while
conversing they heard a crash on deck, as the staysail sheet snapped
in the fierce gust; and as the ship broached to, that is, was taken
aback on the weather side, the seas flew in wild foam, and in fierce
succession over her, from stem to stern.  Then was heard the voice of
the mate in charge of the watch, shouting to, "haul down the
staysail, and bend on the sheet anew."

Ere this could be done, a wave some twenty feet in height took the
crippled steamer right on her broadside, and tore away the boats, the
entire bulwark, four signal guns, and half the crew, washing by a
mighty volume of water, and at one fell sweep, all and everything
overboard into the black and seething sea!

With an astounding crash, the funnel and mizenmast went next by the
board; but the lower portion of the mainmast remained, with all its
top-hamper hanging about it.  The last lamp in the cabin went out;
but not before Richard Trevelyan, who never lost his presence of
mind, had secured the two documents in question, placed them in an
inner breast-pocket of his coat, and calling on Derrick to follow
him, went on deck, where a terrible and unexpected scene presented
itself, in the aspect of the ship, changed now to a total wreck.

They had barely staggered along the slippery main-deck, so far as
where the stump of the mainmast yet held on, when another wave, its
mighty head cresting and curling with foam, that seemed all the
whiter amid the blackness of the night, burst over the doomed ship.

"Hold on, my lord," cried Derrick, "for the love of Heaven, hold on!"

"Yes--and for the love of my poor wife," added Richard, as they
simultaneously grasped some of the belaying pins at the base of the
mast, and as soon as the mountain of bitter water passed away to
leeward leaving them drenched and half-blinded, a more fearful sight
was visible by the pale light of the stars.

The entire poop, from which they had just issued, had been torn away
from the ship; the wheel, with its four men, the skylights, the upper
deck, and all that was in the cabin below, were gone, and all was
ruin, and all was silence there save the seething of the angry sea.
Some twenty of the passengers and crew were still clustered on the
forecastle, seeking shelter between the bunks and windlass; but water
was pouring fast into the ship, and as a portion of her deck was
beginning to break up, Richard, who was powerful and brave as most
men, grasped his faithful servant by the arm, and was assisting him
towards this temporary and comfortless bourne, when some of the
planking parted below him, and he was suddenly enclosed nearly to the
waist, in the jarring woodwork.  Then a double shriek escaped him,
for both his thighs were broken, and he was so peculiarly jammed
among the wreckage, that at that particular time no human power could
either aid or save him.

Derrick could only remain near him, helpless, bewildered, and
uttering exclamations of commiseration, which mingled with Richard's
groans, the hiss of the sea, the roaring of the wind, and the piteous
ejaculations of the passengers.

"Oh, Derrick, what a wretched thing I am now," said he, through his
clenched teeth, "and what a proud, hale man I was some five minutes
ago!  Well, well, a six pound shot might have done as much for me
elsewhere; but Derrick, God and myself alone know the agony--the
awful agony I am enduring.  Would to Heaven it were all over--even
though I shall never see _them_ more--Constance--Constance, and the
children!" he added, while nearly gnawing through his nether lip, in
the intensity of his pain and despair.

He made more than one frantic effort to wrench his crushed limbs, and
torn and bleeding flesh out of the sudden and terrible trap into
which he had fallen; but all such attempts were hopeless and futile,
and he would pause exhausted and as pale as a corpse, with the
perspiration wrung by agony, mingling with the spray on his temples.
That he must soon be drowned, or die in an ecstasy of suffering was
but too evident.

"I have often thought to die, Derrick," said he, in a husky voice,
"and knew that the day and hour must come to me as they come to all;
but I never thought to die thus.  Blessed be God, that she knows
nothing of it!  Do you hear me, Braddon, my old comrade?"

And the servant wept as his master wrung his hand, and in weaker
accents urged him to take possession of the two documents which were
of such value to the family, and to preserve them even as he would
his own life; and with tears in his eyes--tears that mingled with the
wind-swept foam--Derrick promised to do so; and every minute Richard
Trevelyan's once powerful and athletic frame grew weaker and weaker.
Some of the arteries of his limbs had been torn as well as the
ligaments, and he was evidently bleeding to death in his half-crushed
situation.

Amid their own sufferings and danger, his dying words and prayers
were unheeded by the pale and drenched wretches who clung close by to
the windlass and forecastle ring-bolts; but terribly his sinking
accents fell on the tympanum of Derrick's listening ear.  His whole
soul seemed as if filled by the idea of those he should never see
again.

His last utterances were all about Sybil, Denzil, and their mother;
he imagined himself to see them, to be speaking to them, to hear
their voices, and to feel their kisses on his sodden face, over which
the sea washed ever and anon; and thus, happy it might be in his
delirium, he passed away, and when more of the wreck broke up, the
body dropped quietly into the sea, and was swept away in the trough
to leeward, just as the grey dawn began to steal in, and the wind and
waves to go down together, as if their object had been accomplished
in the destruction of the ill-fated ship.

A boat that was not stove in, but was still dragged alongside by the
fall-tackle, was now properly lowered.  Ten men who survived got on
board of her and shoved off from the wreck.  But Derrick, who, in
grief and weakness, had dropped asleep in the forecastle bunks, was
unseen or forgotten by them in the hurry and selfishness of the
moment; thus when he awoke, the sun was nearly setting, and he was
alone upon the sea, for the boat had been picked up by one of Her
Majesty's steam vessels, the captain of which duly reported the
circumstance, with the loss of the _Admiral_, to Lloyds and the
owners in London.

Derrick's reflections on finding himself alone in the sinking ship
were far from soothing.  He had death before him, in its most
terrible form, by slow starvation; and all the horrors he had read or
heard of in shipwrecked men occurred to him with vivid minutiæ most
painful to endure.  But he prayed quite as much that he might be
spared to fulfil the wishes of his master as for the prolongation of
his own humble life, and the honest fellow's supplications were not
uttered in vain, for ere the twilight came, a vessel bound for
Tasmania took him off the wreck; and now, after long, perilous, and
penniless wanderings, he found himself once more safe in old England.

Sharkley, who had listened to all this narrative with deep
interest--not that he cared a jot about the escapes, the sufferings,
or the perseverance of the narrator, but because it formed a
necessary sequence to the other portions of his story, which related
to Montreal--now said,--

"After all you have undergone, you will, I hope, be careful to whom
you show, and with whom you trust, papers, upon the production of
which, in a proper and legal manner, so much depends."

"Make yourself perfectly easy on that head," replied Braddon, winking
knowingly, as he refilled his pipe.

"Lord Lamorna would give a good round sum, I doubt not--a good round
sum, my dear sir, to possess them."

"I am neither a dear sir, nor a cheap one," growled Derrick; "if you
mean by Lord Lamorna Master Denzil, the papers are his already by
right; if you mean Downie Trevelyan, they sha'n't be his, even if he
piled up money as high as Bron Welli.  Ah--he had ever an eye to the
main chance."

"And haven't we all?"

"In some ways, perhaps, more or less; but harkee, comrade, no more
hints like that you gave just now.  I had a kind, good master, and
was his faithful servant.  I am an old soldier, and know what honour
is, though my coat be a tattered one."

"Yet, if I have heard aright, you were not always a soldier," sneered
Sharkley, who despised monetary scruples that were beyond his
comprehension.

"No," replied Braddon, his wrinkled cheek flushing with anger as he
spoke; "I was in my youth a smuggler, and here in Cornwall ain't
ashamed to say so.  I know well the Isles of Scilly, and every creek
and cranny in those whose inhabitants are only gulls and rabbits; for
in them, as in the Piper's Hole at Tresco, and in many a place hereby
known only to myself now, have I at the risk of my life by steel and
lead, and storm, run the kegs of Cognac and the negrohead, that never
paid duty to the Crown.  But what of that; I am not a smuggler now,
though I had to bolt for being one!  I suppose few will dispute that
you have been a lawyer in heart since you first saw the light, or
learned to steal your school-mates' apples and nuts, till able to aim
at bigger prizes--eh?"

"Come, don't let us quarrel after so pleasant an evening, Mr.
Braddon," urged Sharkley, deprecatingly.

"I ain't _Mister_ Braddon," said the old soldier, doggedly; "I am
only plain Derrick Braddon, once full private, and No. 2006 in
Captain Trevelyan's company of the Old Cornish; and now, I think, I
shall turn in."

Sharkley succeeded in talking the veteran into a better humour again,
to throw him off his guard; but his eyes never wandered from that
left breast pocket where the outline of the tin case was distinctly
visible, impressed on the worn-out, faded cloth.

As the storm continued, he remained all night at the Trevanion Arms;
and, after assuring himself that Derrick Braddon had no intention of
leaving the neighbourhood in a hurry, an early hour next morning saw
him spinning along the Cornwall and Devon Railway, in a corner of a
third-class carriage, _en route_ to Rhoscadzhel.



END OF VOL. II.



BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.