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.