THE SCHEME OF ZOHRAB.
Time, to the young, seems but a slow and cold comforter (alas! how
different it must appear to the old); so Denzil knew that, though
sluggish, time must eventually bring about some change in the
captivity he was enduring in the hands of Shireen Khan--a mode of
life that, but for the sweet companionship of Rose, would have been
simply so intolerable that he should certainly have attempted to
escape even at the risk of death.
In perfect ignorance of all that was passing in the outer world of
far-away Europe, of India, and even Afghanistan, they and the other
hostages, from whom they were, happily for themselves, kept apart,
knew nothing of all that was passing elsewhere, or of the plans that
were forming and the hopes that grew for their rescue or release.
We say, happily they were sequestered from those who were in the
hands of Ackbar Khan: thus they were not harassed by dreadful and
incessant doubts of their future fate, especially the vague and
terrible one of transmission to Toorkistan; for the old Kuzzilbash
lord treated them kindly, and, to the best of his resources,
hospitably, confidently believing that it was his personal interest
to do so, as the gaily embroidered regimental colour of the 44th, or
East Essex, in which Denzil purposely aired his figure occasionally
in the garden of the fort, still impressed him with the idea that he
had secured a great Feringhee Nawab whom the Queen or Company might
ransom, or who might prove a powerful friend to him if reverses came
upon Cabul, and not a poor Ensign, or Lieutenant, as Denzil was now;
though he knew not that, consequent to slaughter, death by disease,
and so forth, he had now been promoted in the corps.
Chess-playing was the great bond between old Shireen and the bright
laughing Rose, whom he treated with infinitely more care and
tenderness than either of his own daughters; but to Denzil he would
frequently say in his hoarse, guttural, and most unmusical language,
between the whiffs of his silk-bound and silver-cupped hubble-bubble--
"I am thy friend; yet remember that friendship with unbelievers is
forbidden by the Koran, especially with Jews or Christians; for saith
the fifth chapter, 'Are they not friends one with another?' and they
will corrupt us, their alms being like the icy winds which blow on
the fields of the perverse, and blast their corn in the ear."
Denzil could not repress an impatient grimace under a smile, for it
was the Koran--always and ever the Koran--among these Afghans; every
casual remark or idea suggested a quotation from or a reference to
it, so that the Khanum could not dye her nails, adjust her veil, put
pepper in the kabobs, or chillis among the pillau of rice, without a
reference to something that was said or done on a similar occasion by
the Holy Camel-driver of Mecca,--their whole conversation being
interlarded with pious sayings, like that of the Scottish Covenanters
or English Puritans of old.
Isolated as they were in that lonely Afghan fort, surrounded by
towering green hills, the interest that Denzil and Rose had in each
other grew daily and hourly deeper; so that at last she learned to
love him--yes, actually to love him--as fondly as he had ever loved
her, and to feel little emotions of pique and jealousy when he strove
to address the daughters of the house and teach them a very strange
kind of broken English.
Propinquity and a just appreciation of his sterling character
achieved this for him, and he felt supremely happy in the conviction
of this returned love, though the end of it yet was difficult to
foresee.
But it was such a divine happiness to dream softly on for the
present, shut in there as they were alone for themselves apparently,
and, as it seemed, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot."
Denzil's doubts of her were gone now; yet Rose had the power to
conceal for a long time the gradual change in her own sentiments and
secret thoughts from him who had inspired them; for the coquette was
loth to admit that she had succumbed at last.
Denzil had contrived, after innumerable essays, in the most
remarkable species of polyglot language, to make old Shireen
comprehend that they had not, as yet, been married before a Cadi (or
Moollah, as the Christians are), and had to wait the permission of
others. On this he stroked his vast beard in token of assent, and
thrice muttered "Shabash!" with great solemnity, meaning,
"Well-done--agreed."
Rose had lost much of her heedlessness of manner now; her latest
flirtation, which had been with Audley Trevelyan, was utterly
forgotten, as many others had been; and the quaint Afghan dress she
was compelled by the exigencies of her scanty wardrobe to wear--to
wit, a yellow chemise of silk embroidered with black, trousers of
fine white muslin, which revealed through its thin texture the
roundness of each tapered ankle, with her veil floating loose, in
token of her being unmarried, did not afford her much room for
coquetry, although it afforded scope for her old waggery, and her
long unbound auburn tresses, that spread over her shoulders in
brilliant ripples, she was wont to ridicule as a _coiffure à la
sauvage_, though one with which Denzil's fingers--when unobserved by
the Afghan household, he and she could ramble among the parterres,
rosaries, and shrubberies of the Khan's garden--were never weary of
toying.
"You will tire of this life, as I do, and more soon of waiting too,"
said she one day.
"I shall wait and be faithful to you, Rose, even as I was taught at
school Jacob was to Rachel," he replied, fondly caressing her hands
in his.
"Oh! that is much more solemn than Paul and Virginia," said she
laughing; "but, for Heaven's sake, don't imitate our dingy friends
here in pious quotations."
When Rose Trecarrel calmly learned to know herself, she found upon
consideration, and came to the conclusion, that it was not mere
admiration for Denzil's handsome person and earnest winning manner;
it was not gratitude for his steady faith to herself, it was not the
charm of propinquity, nor the emotion of self-flattery at his
passion,--that it was not any of these singly, but all put together,
that made her love him so dearly now, and wonder at her heedless
blindness in the time that was past.
Save Zohrab Zubberdust, that handsome, reckless, and wandering
Mohammedan soldier of fortune, no visitor at this time came to the
fort; and he was openly permitted to see Rose with the other ladies
of the family, and occasionally to converse and smoke a cherry-stick
pipe with Denzil, who deemed it rash on the part of Shireen to permit
them--Rose and himself--to be seen so freely by one who was a paid
follower of Ackbar Khan; but the leader of five thousand mounted
Kuzzilbash spearmen doubtless felt himself pretty independent in
action now. Moreover, since Ackbar's signal defeat before the walls
of Jellalabad, his influence had been lessening in Cabul and all the
surrounding country; and Zohrab, like many other "khans," who had
only their swords and pistols, and, like many other Afghan snobs,
that title to maintain, was beginning to wax cool in his service,
even as the funds ebbed in his treasury; for Ackbar now had but one
hope of replenishing these--the ransom or sale of the captives left
in his hands, and each head of these he reckoned at so many mohurs of
gold.
It was from some casual remarks of Zohrab that Rose and Denzil first
learned, with mingled emotions of satisfaction and fear, compassion
and hope, that so many more hostages, male and female, were in the
hands of Ackbar, and that their own hopes of rescue or ransom were
thereby increased.
Rose, through the medium of the Khan and of Denzil, overwhelmed
Zubberdust with questions as to who these prisoners were. Was her
father among them? No description he gave her answered to that of
the burly, bronzed, and grizzle-haired "Sirdir Trecarrel;" but there
was _one_ "mem sahib," whose appearance tallied so closely in
stature, face, eyes, and colour of hair with her own, that knowing as
she did all the ladies who had been in the cantonments, Rose could
not doubt but that she was Mabel--Mabel, her dear and only sister,
who must have been within a few miles of her all those weary, anxious
months, and yet neither could know of the other's existence; for
Mabel, like all who were with Elphinstone's ill-fated host, had now
learned to number all who had loved her with the dead.
Now it happened that Zohrab Zubberdust had frequently seen Mabel
Trecarrel among the hostages, and been struck by her beauty. Indeed,
Ackbar Khan, who cared not for such personal attributes as she
possessed, and was long since past all soft emotions now, or, indeed,
any save those of ferocity, ambition, and avarice, had frequently
indicated her to Ameen Oollah Khan and others as the one upon whom he
put most value, and for whom he expected the largest sum from a
certain Toorkoman chief whom he named, and who was in the habit of
purchasing or exchanging horses for such pleasant commodities; for at
that precise time, or in that year of Queen Victoria's reign,
Mohammed Ackbar could scarcely realise as a probability the fact that
the year 1871 would see a descendant of the Great Mogul--he who was
lord of Persia, Transoxana, and Hindostan--one of the royal race of
Delhi, sentenced in a Feringhee court of law, by a cadi in a tow wig,
to four years' imprisonment with hard labour "for burying a
slave-girl" in the city of Benares! So,
"Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes,
Tenets with books, and principles with times!"
Thus Zohrab, perceiving that the power and influence of Ackbar had
been daily growing less in Cabul, especially since the flight of the
young Shah to the British General, had begun to dream of possessing
himself of this rare European beauty, and departing with her, his
horse and lance, in search of "fresh fields and pastures new," and,
if possible, of another paymaster; perchance to the court of the Emir
of Bokhara, the Shah of Persia, or some one else, alike beyond the
ken of Ackbar and the influence of the Feringhees and their queen.
In this intention, Zohrab felt the less compunction, that Ackbar had
of late permitted his pay to be in arrears several _tillas_ of gold.
But how to get her quietly out of his power, still more how to get
her out of the immediate care and wardship of such a wary old soldier
and chief as Saleh Mohammed, to whom the especial keeping of the
hostages had been confided by the Sirdir, were the two principal
difficulties of Zohrab.
He hoped to achieve much through the real or supposed relationship to
Rose, with whom he conversed freely, at times, on this and other
subjects (Denzil acting as their interpreter), and from him she
gradually learned much of which Shireen and his household had,
perhaps, kept her in ignorance--the state of affairs before
Jellalabad and in the Passes.
"Are not the poor dead creatures buried there?" Rose once asked,
while many a face and voice came back to memory.
"Buried? a few--but not deep," replied Zohrab, evasively.
"How--what mean you?"
"Because, as I rode through the Pass but yesterday, my horse's hoofs
turned up great pieces of human flesh, while the jackals and hyaenas
have been busy with the rest; they are dry bones now."
Rose tremulously clasped her white hands and shuddered.
"And those bones," was the sententious remark of Shireen, who was
listening, "not even the voice of Ezekiel could, as we are told it
once did, call back to life, as it called the dead Israelites of old."
"A fortunate thing for us, Khan," said the irreverent Zohrab,
laughingly.
"Why?"
"I mean, if the result was to be the same; for all arose and lived
for years after; and is it not written that they moved among living
men with a stench and colour of corpses, and had to wear garments
blackened with pitch?"
"That weary Koran again!" murmured Rose; while the Khan frowned, and,
to change the subject, said,
"Tell us, Zohrab, more about the Feringhee damsel whom this lady
deems must be her sister, and your plans regarding her."
"I fear she could not be prevailed upon to trust herself to me under
any pretext, or to leave the companionship of her friends in
misfortune without some assurance that she who is with you, Khan
Shireen, is indeed her sister in blood."
"Most true," said Shireen, running his brown fingers through his
dense beard with an air of perplexity.
"Oh, that may be easily arranged," said Denzil, full of hope at the
prospect of seeing Mabel, of the joy it would afford Rose, and the
wish to learn from her own lips all that had happened to so many dear
friends since that terrible day when so many thousands perished, and
so many were separated never to meet more. Thus, he suggested that
Rose should entrust Zohrab with a note to be delivered, on the first
convenient opportunity, to Mabel, or the lady who was supposed to be
she. Zohrab did not care about her identity the value of a
cowrie-shell, provided his own plans succeeded.
"And you shall bring her here without delay?" said Shireen, while he
knit his bushy and impending eyebrows.
"Where else would she be safe, Khan?"
"Not with you, at all events," was the dubious response.
Zohrab coloured perceptibly, and a covert gleam flashed in his glossy
black eyes, as he said,
"My head may answer for this project, Khan, if I am taken."
"Taken--how? Do you mean to fly?" asked Shireen, with another keen
glance.
"Nay--nay; not if I can help it," stammered Zohrab, who saw that the
Khan's sunken eyes were full of strange light.
"If it becomes known that she is here, the fact will embroil me with
Ackbar; but, bah! what matter is it?" said Shireen, proudly. "The
city is divided against him, and he knows I can bring five thousand
red caps into the field; and she will be one more prisoner for
Shireen of the Kuzzilbashes!" he muttered under his beard. "Go then,
Zohrab; go and prosper."
"May I not accompany him?" asked Denzil, eagerly, as for months he
had never been beyond the wall and ditch of the fort, and he longed
to make a reconnaissance with a future eye to escape.
"Nay," said Zohrab, "you know not what you propose, Sahib. Your
presence would but encumber me, and add to the lady's peril: it is
not to be thought of."
Rose added her entreaties that he would not think of it either; for
she might lose her lover, and not regain her sister, so suddenly, so
recently, heard of; and then an emphatic and brief command from the
Khan ended the matter, so far as poor Denzil was concerned, and he
felt himself compelled to succumb.
Writing materials, such as the Afghans use, the strong fibrous paper,
a reed split for a pen, with deep black and perfumed Indian ink, were
soon brought; and Rose, with a prayerful emotion in her fluttering
heart, and a hand that more than once almost failed in its office, so
great was her excitement, wrote a single line assuring Mabel that
she, herself, was safe, and to "confide in the bearer of this, who
would bring her to where she was residing;" and with this tiny
missive--which he placed to his lips and then to his forehead in
token of faith, while his black eyes flashed with an expression which
Rose saw, but failed to analyse--safely deposited in the folds of his
turban, Zohrab took his departure; and with a heartfelt invocation
for his success on her lips, Rose heard the sound of the hoofs of his
swift Tartar horse die away on the road that led towards the dark
rocky hills of Siah Sung.
"Shabash! such children of burnt fathers those Feringhees are!" said
Zohrab, laughing as he galloped along. "Well, well, let me enjoy the
world ere I become the prey of the world!"
Zohrab had promised to return with the lady, or, if without her, to
bring some sure tidings, not later than the evening of the second
day; but the evening sun of the third had reddened and died out on
the mountain peaks, the third, the fourth, the fifth, and a whole
week passed away, yet there came no word or sign from Zohrab, and
never more did he cross the threshold of Shireen's dwelling!
Had he been discovered and slain by Saleh Mohammed, or what had
happened?
Rose wept, for the tender hope, so suddenly lighted in her impulsive
heart, only to be as suddenly extinguished; but as yet no suspicion
of treachery on the part of Zohrab Zubberdust had entered the minds
of her or Denzil, whatever Shireen Khan, as an Afghan naturally prone
to suspicion, may have thought.