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.