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.