CHAPTER XVIII.

THE GOVERNOR OF BAMEEAN.

Waking up Saleh Mohammed without much ceremony, the young Toorkoman chief proceeded to business at once, but in a very cunning way, commencing with another subject, like a wily lawyer seeking to lure and throw a witness off his guard.

"After a nine days' journey, Khan, you must be short of provisions?" said he.

"Oh, fear not for our presence here in Bameean," replied Saleh Mohammed, leisurely sucking at his hubble-bubble, the light of which had gone out; "every tobrah full of oats, every maund of ottah and rice, we require shall be duly paid for."

"You mistake me; I did not mean that."

"What then? Bismillah! we are rich: the spoil of the Kaffir dogs who come to Cabul has made us happy."

Zoolficar's almond-shaped eyes glistened with covetousness on hearing this. He reflected: the Dooranees were not quite five hundred strong, and he could bring a thousand Tartar horsemen into the field; hence, why might not all this plunder so freely spoken of, and these slaves, two of whom he had seen (and they were so white and handsome!), be his?

"You propose to remain here for some days, aga?" he resumed, seating himself cross-legged, and playing with the silken tassel of his sabre.

"Yes."

"Waiting for orders from Ackbar Khan?"

"Yes."

"His final firmaun, I think you said?"

"Yes."

"To advance or retire?"

"Yes."

"If he has proved signally victorious?" queried Zoolficar sharply, as he grew impatient of these mere affirmatives, which were resorted to by the other merely to give him time to think and sift the other's purpose.

"Wallah billah--victorious."

"Yes--which, under Allah, we cannot doubt?"

"Well, aga."

"Then his orders will be to sell these hostages, I suppose?"

"Yes--perhaps."

"Where, Khan?--here in Bameean?"

"No; they will bring larger prices nearer Bokhara."

"But if he is not victorious?" suggested Zoolficar.

"Staferillah! Then we must leave the event to fate; or my orders may be----" and here even Saleh Mohammed paused ere he made the atrocious admission that hovered on his tongue.

"What--what?"

"To behead them. Ackbar has sworn that none should live to tell the tale of those who came up the Khyber Pass; and I must own that his sparing these surprised me."

There was a pause, after which the Governor of Baraeean said--

"And when may you expect those final orders?"

"Or tidings, let us call them."

"Well, well, aga, this is playing with words."

"Tidings that shall guide me may come without orders," replied Saleh Mohammed, glancing at the green flag of Ackbar which was flying on the fort, and then half closing his eyes to watch the other keenly, and as if to read in his face the drift of all these questions. "You surely take a deep interest in these Kaffirs, Zoolficar Khan?" he added.

"I take an interest, at least, in two whom I have seen--in one particularly."

"The Hindoo ayah in the red garment?" suggested Saleh, pointing with the amber mouthpiece of his pipe to an old nurse who was passing, with two of the captive children.

"The devil--no! One who is beautiful as the rose with the hundred leaves--one with a skin as fair as if she had bathed in the waters of Cashmere; an idol more lovely than ever adorned the house of Azor! She was under yonder tree asleep, when I lifted her veil and looked on her."

"Allah Ackbar--now we have it!" exclaimed Saleh Mohammed, with something between irritation and amusement. "Well, know, aga, that to quote a Parsee or Hindoo banker's book in lieu of Hafiz might be more to the purpose."

"Perhaps so: we have more metal in our scabbards than in our purses, in the desert here."

"They have tempers, these Feringhee women, I can tell you," said the Dooranee, with a quiet laugh.

"So have ours, for the matter of that, and are free enough with their slipper heel on a man's beard at times."

"Ah! all women, I dare say, are like the apples of Istkahar, one half sweet and one half sour," said the old Khan, shaking his long beard.

"You must seek the well of youth again," rejoined the young Toorkoman, laughing. "There is another Kaffir damsel whose voice sounded sweetly, as if she had tasted of the leaves that shadow the tomb of Tan-Sien," he continued, using in his ordinary conversation figures and phraseology that seem no way far-fetched to an Oriental; "yes, aga, tender and soft, for I heard her sing her two children to sleep in yonder hut. Yet she may never have been in Gwalior," added Zoolficar; for the lady was an officer's widow, young and pretty, with two poor sickly babes; and the _tomb_ he referred to was that of the famous musician, who once flourished at the court of the Emperor Ackbar, and the leaves of a tree near which are supposed to impart, when eaten, a wondrous melody to the human voice.

"Then am I to understand that you have set eyes upon both these prisoners?" asked Saleh Mohammed, his keen black eyes becoming very round, as he seemed to make up more fully to the matter in hand.

"Please God, I have. In a word," said Zoolficar Khan, lowering his voice, "I shall give you a purse of five hundred tomauns for them both--peaceably, and help you to plunder the Hazarees on your way home."

"And what of the Sirdir?"

"Tell him they died on the way: moreover, I don't want the two children--you may keep them."

This liberality failed to find any approbation in Saleh Mohammed, who affected to look indignant, and exclaimed--

"I am Saleh Mohammed Khan, chief of the Dooranees, and not a slave-dealer, staferillah!--God forbid!"

"Neither is Ackbar Khan--a son of the royal house of Afghanistan; yet he has sent hither those people for sale, in _your_ charge--for sale to the Toorkomans; and what am I?"

"I have no final orders--as yet," replied the Khan, doggedly.

"For their disposal, you mean?"

"No."

"For what, then?"

"Simply to halt here; to act peaceably, but watchfully, Zoolficar Khan--_watchfully_," replied the other in a pointed manner; "and hourly now I may expect a cossid with a firmaun from Cabul."

"The Hazarees are in arms in your rear, and, ere your cossid comes, there may be a chupao in the night, and the fort may be looted."

"By them, or your people?"

"Nay, I said not mine, aga."

"But you thought it," was the blunt response.

"Who, save Allah, may pretend to know what another man thinks?"

"Well, we are prepared alike to protect ourselves and to keep or slay; yea--for it may come to that--to slay, root and branch, those Kaffir hostages. I would not betray my trust, were you Kedar Khan with all his wealth!" continued Saleh Mohammed, flushing red, and speaking as earnestly as if he really felt all he said, while referring to that ancient king of Toorkistan, whose fabled riches were so great, that when on the march he had always before him seven hundred horsemen, with battle-axes of silver, and the same number behind, with battle-axes of gold.

So far as slaughter was concerned, if that sequel were necessary, Zoolficar Khan felt sure that Saleh Mohammed would keep his word; and he was about to retire partially baffled, with his mind full of visions for securing the plunder by a midnight attack on the Dooranees, either while in the fort or when on the march; and he was casting a furtive glance to where he had last seen Mabel, combining it with a low salaam to his host, when, ere he could take his leave, a strange figure on a foam-covered yaboo rode furiously into the fort and dismounted before them. He was almost nude; his lean body, reduced to bone and brawn, was powdered with sandal-wood ashes; his hair hung in vast volume over his back and shoulders; his only garment was a pair of goatskin breeches; a gourd for water hung by a strap over his shoulder, and this, together with a long Afghan knife, a large wooden rosary of ninety-nine beads, and a knotted staff, completed his equipment.

"Lah-allah-mahmoud-resoul-Allah!" he yelled, flourishing the staff as he sprang from his shaggy yaboo.

"We know that well enough, Osman Abdallah," said the Dooranee chief, impatiently, to the Arab Hadji, for it was he who came thus suddenly, like a flash of lightning; "but from whence come you?"

"Cabul; or the mountains near it, rather."

"To me?"

"Yes, Khan, with a message from the Sirdir," replied this fierce, wild, ubiquitous being, whose skin bore yet the scarcely healed marks of Waller's sword-thrust, as he drew from his girdle a sorely soiled scrap of paper, and bowed his head reverentially over it; for the bearer of a letter from such a personage as the Prince Ackbar must treat the document with as much respect as if he himself were present.

"And what of the Sirdir?" asked Saleh, starting forward.

"Allah kerim; he has been defeated by the Kaffir's dogs at Tizeen--routed by Pollock Sahib--totally!"

"Silence, fool!" cried the Dooranee, with a swift, fierce glance at the Toorkoman, as he snatched from the hands of the Hadji, and without a word of greeting or thanks, the little scroll, and then opened it deliberately and slowly, as if the disposal of a flock of sheep were the matter in hand, and not the lives or deaths, the captivity or liberty, of so many helpless human beings. The missive contained but three words, and the seal of Ackbar--

"_March to Kooloom._"

And Zoolficar Khan, who peeped over his shoulder without ceremony, had read it too. The beetle brows of Saleh Mohammed were close over his fiery eyes, as he said, haughtily--

"Where is this place? I may ask, as you have read the name."

"Kooloom--it is a steep, rugged, and perilous journey, Khan."

"And what am I to do when I get there?" asked Saleh Mohammed, ponderingly, of himself, and not of his companion.

"But you are not yet there," said the latter, in a low voice.

"How--what do you mean?"

"The way may be beset. Have I not said that it is perilous?"

"Well, perhaps we shall not go," replied the other, with an unfathomable smile; and with low salaams they separated, each quite ready for and prepared to outwit the other.

One fact they had both learned: Ackbar Khan was defeated, and not victorious!