CHAPTER XII.

THE SHADE WITHIN THE SHADOW.

So one more dreadful tragedy had been enacted in that land of bloodshed!

Barbarous though she deemed the Mohammedan Afghans, she was to find herself in the grasp of those who were more barbarous still--for whose depth of cruelty there was no name--the Khonds, a race or tribe whose sacrifices of human life, though not offered up in such numbers as those of the Thugs, were done in a fashion quite as secret, and known only to themselves, and whose existence, like that of those subtle assassins, had become only known to the Indian Government of late years.

Powerless in the hands of Ferishta Lodi, the girl felt as if hovering on the verge of some death of which she knew not the form or fashion, save that it must be lingering, protracted, and horrible!

Her past life, with all its peace, happiness, and ease, its gaiety, luxury, brilliance, and good position, seemed to be, as it was indeed, like a previous state of existence--as a dream; the horrible present appeared alone the stern reality. Was her identity the same? she asked of herself many, many times, in half-audible whispers; or had she undergone that species of metempsychosis, or transmigration of soul from the body of one being to the body of another, which is a doctrine of the Indian Brahmins--of those Hindoos whom she was now beginning to loathe? Was she no longer Mabel Trecarrel, a Christian woman, a civilised European, who had a father, a sister, and so many friends? Was the existence of Waller, or was her own, a myth? She felt as if she was about to become insane, and, pressing her delicate hands upon her throbbing temples, prayed God to preserve her senses, whatever her ultimate fate might be.

Surely, unknown to herself, she must have committed some great sin, to be tortured thus, and thus punished, enduring here that she might not endure hereafter, was her next idea.

The six months or so which had elapsed since that stirring morning on which the army, under its aged and dying general, with its mighty encumbrance of camp-followers, began its homeward march for India from the old familiar cantonments seemed as so many ages to Mabel Trecarrel now! So many well-known faces and happy existences had been swept away; so complete a change had come over all the few who survived, and their prospects seemed so strange and dark. So much misery, so many sent to untimely deaths--it could not be said to their graves, as the Afghans never interred one of our dead.

What did it all mean? Why did Heaven so persecute, or leave to their fate, so many Christians in the hands of utter infidels?

Voices again roused her to action--at least to listen.

They were those of the Khond and the Hindoo conversing in Hindostanee.

"So, so," said the former, chuckling, "all is over with Zohrab; he can 'overbear' no longer."

"Yes; the head he carried so proudly is gone to the gate of the Char-chowk; but the Kuzzilbashes are still in the street, and I wish they were gone to their own quarter."

"Why?"

"They may take a fancy to our heads, too."

"Why, I say?" asked the Khond, fiercely.

"Can you ask?--if the Feringhee woman is not forthcoming."

"She is mine, and I have saved my two hundred tomauns."

"How yours?"

"Zohrab is gone; none seem to know that she is here; and you will be silent, if you are wise. Ackbar Khan would like an excuse to plunder a schroff so rich as you; hence you must, I know, be silent."

The last words sounded more like a threat than an advice or an entreaty, as the voice of the fierce Khond accentuated them; the sly Hindoo, however, made some evasive response, and then Mabel heard him draw on his slippers and tunic and shuffle from the room. Where he went she knew not; but, after a time, with an exclamation of anger and mistrust, the Khond tossed aside the mouth-piece of his hubble-bubble, and followed him.

So the Kuzzilbashes were still in the adjacent streets! Could she but reach them! They were gallant and soldierly fellows, though, till of late, as bitter foes of the British troops as any tribe in the country. But now the politics of their Khan had begun to change, and he had kept aloof from Ackbar and his interests. She once more applied herself to the windows. Many dark figures were hovering about in the street, and looking up at the house. Who or what these people were she knew not. The courtyard was quite empty; but she heard the clatter of hoofs and the clink of arms, as horsemen rode hastily to and fro in the main thoroughfare that led to the bazaar.

She was in perfect darkness now.

She sought feebly to draw or push down the panel that separated her from the dewan-khaneh; but the wooden bolt secured it beyond all the efforts of her humble strength to force a way; and she feared to make the least noise, lest, by being caught in the act of escaping, she might only accelerate her own fate.

Breathlessly she listened!

Sounds passed at intervals through the large and scantily furnished chambers of the slenderly built house. The floors being all uncarpeted, and the windows without draperies, in the fashion of the country, the edifice was liable to produce strange echoes, and Mabel strove to gather from these something of good or bad augury as they fell on her overstrained ear.

Ah, were she but once more back in the hitherto abhorred fort of Saleh Mohammed--back to the sad companionship of the hostages--to the shelter and counsel of her own sex and people! In the power of the Khond she felt, truly and terribly, that if they had much to dread and to anticipate when in the fort, she had much that was more immediate to dread now; that within every shade there may be a deeper shadow. Rose could never know her fate, or how she had perished in seeking to rejoin her; and she might have to die and never know the story of the younger sister she loved so dearly.

Suddenly, amid her sad reverie, she heard the sound of heavy boots, the brown-tanned jorabs of Afghan horsemen, and the cadence of various guttural voices in the dewan-khaneh. Then a red light streamed through the jointings of the panelled wall. The wooden bolt outside was shot back; the great central panel slid down in its grooves, and within the square outline it left, framed as if in a picture, with the red smoky glare of an upheld torch falling strongly upon him, stood the tall and grim but most picturesque figure of the old Khan of the Dooranees, Saleh Mohammed, with one brown bony hand thrust into his yellow Cashmere girdle, and the other resting on the jewelled hilt of his sheathed sabre.

His bushy beard concealed alike the form of his mouth and chin; but his slender hooked nose, with arching nostril, his shaggy brows, and keen eagle-like eyes indicated firmness, decision, and rapidity of thought and action. He wore a loose and ample chogah of scarlet cloth, lined with fine fur, and richly embroidered; a short matchlock, beautifully inlaid with mother-of-pearl, was slung upon his back, with a silk handkerchief bound over its lock for protection; his girdle bristled with the usual number of elaborate knives, daggers, and pistols; and he wore a green turban to indicate his assumed or acknowledged descent from the Prophet.

With something of kindness mingled with sternness, he held out a hand to the drooping Mabel, and raised her from her knees; for she was half sitting and half reclining, hopelessly and weakly, against the wooden partition; and he saw how pale and piteous she looked. Now old Saleh had several wives and daughters of his own in a secluded fort among the Siah Sung Hills, and he was not without some promptings of human sympathy in his heart.

"Come," said he; "with me you are safe, and shall go back to your friends. From Shireen Khan I have been told how Zohrab, that liar who is now hanging over hell by the tongue, deceived you."

She thankfully placed her hand in that of the Dooranee chief, for, after the tiger-like visage of the Khond, his bearded face and venerable aspect were as those of a father to her, and most gratefully she welcomed him.

The hint of the Khond, that Ackbar Khan, or some of the other Khans, whose number was legion in Cabul, might confiscate his substance and appropriate his hard-won mohurs, tomauns, rupees, and good English guineas, had not been lost on the quiet and acquisitive Hindoo banker, who had straightway betaken him to Mohammed Saleh in the street, just as he was collecting his men to depart, and, to make his peace with all, had surrendered Mabel, while, for some reason known to himself alone, he had no future fear of Ferishta Lodi's anger.

As Mabel was too weak to ride on a side-saddle, and to walk was, of course, impossible, a palanquin was soon procured, and in that she was rapidly conveyed by four bearers in the fashion to which she was quite accustomed, away from the city, under the shadow of the great Bala Hissar, past the tomb of Baber, and round between the Siah Sung Hills and the Cabul river, once more to the fort of Saleh Mohammed, where, just as day was breaking, she was roused from a slumber that was full of painful visions and nervous startings, to find herself welcomed by pure English tongues and by the embraces of her companions in misfortune, the lady hostages of Elphinstone's hapless army.

A severe illness, consequent on all her delicate frame had undergone, now fell upon Mabel--a nervous illness, which her friends were without the means of alleviating, when on the, to them, most memorable 25th of August, came the cruel order of Ackbar Khan for the immediate transmission of all to Toorkistan, where he had condemned them all to sale and slavery--an order consequent on his fury at the retention of Jellalabad, and the combined advance of General Pollock and Sir Robert Sale upon Cabul.

So on that day, by horse, on foot, on camels, or in dhooleys, the hapless females and children, a few accompanied by husbands and fathers, the sick, the wounded, and the ailing, all in misery, in tears, and despair, under Saleh Mohammed and a strong guard of Dooranees, set forth towards the frontier of the land where they were to be scattered and lost to their friends and to freedom for ever--the land of Toorkistan, a name so vaguely given to all that vast, lawless, and uncivilized region that lies between the plateau of Central Asia and the shores of the Caspian Sea!