MABEL DELUDED.
On receiving the note from Rose Trecarrel, the cunning Zohrab, full
of his own nefarious plans, had ridden straight from the white-walled
fort of Shireen Khan to that commanded by Saleh Mohammed, which is
situated exactly three miles from Cabul, amid a well-cultivated
country; and there, knowing well the time when, after hearing morning
prayers read according to the service of the Church of England by one
lady who had preserved her "Book of Common Prayer," the poor
captives, with the children who were among them, were wont to take an
airing in the garden, he chose the occasion; for, as he was aware,
Saleh Mohammed, kneeling upon a piece of black xummul, under the
shadow of a great cypress, would be also at _his_ orisons, and
telling over his string of ninety-nine sandal-wood beads, with his
face bowed towards the _west_, as is the custom in India and Persia.
The precept of the Koran is, that when men pray they shall turn
towards the Kaaba, or holy house of Mecca; and, consequently,
throughout the whole Moslem world, indicators are put up to enable
the faithful to fulfil this stringent injunction. So selecting, we
say, a time when the grim old commandant of the fort was deep in his
orisons, with his head bowed, and his silver beard floating over the
weapons with which his Cashmere girdle bristled--for the modern
Afghan (like the Scottish Highlander of old) is never found unarmed,
even by his own fireside--he made a sign to Mabel that he wished to
speak with her; but he had to repeat this salaam more than once ere
she understood him, as she was intently toying with and caressing a
little boy, whose parents had perished in the late disasters, and who
clung specially to her alone.
Mabel, pale and colourless now more than was her wont, though she
never had possessed a complexion so brilliant as her sister Rose,
bowed to Zohrab, whom she little more than knew by sight, and by the
force of local custom was lowering her veil (for she, too, like all
the rest, now wore the Afghan female dress) and turning away, when
Zohrab placed a hand on his lips, and, making a motion indicative of
entreaty, silence, and haste, held up the tiny note of Rose.
On this Mabel's pale cheek flushed; she hesitated, and many ideas
shot swiftly through her mind, while she glanced hastily about her,
to see who observed them. Was this note some plot for her release
and the release of her friends--some political or military stratagem?
Had it tidings of her father's burial--for she knew that he had
fallen in the Pass--of the army, of those who were in Jellalabad?
Was it a love-letter? Zohrab Zubberdust was certainly very handsome;
her woman's eye admitted that. This idea occurred last of all; yet
the note might be from Waller--dear Bob Waller, with his fair honest
face and ample whiskers. All these thoughts passed like lightning
through her mind as she took the missive, which was written on a
small piece of paper, folded triangularly and without an address.
Then, as she opened it, a half-stifled cry of mingled astonishment
and rapture escaped her.
"Rose, it is from Rose; she yet lives! Oh, my God, I thank Thee! I
thank Thee!--she yet lives, but where?" she exclaimed, in a voice
rendered low by excess of emotion, as she burst into tears, and read
again and again the few words her sister had written.
Zohrab was attentively observing her. He saw how pure and beautiful
she was; how unlike aught that he had ever looked upon before--even
the fairest, softest, and most languishing maids of Iraun; for Mabel
was an English girl, above the middle height, and fully rounded in
all her proportions. All that he had heard of houris, of those
black-eyed girls of paradise, the special care of the Angel Zamiyad,
seemed to be embodied in her who was before him. Her quiet eyes
seemed wondrously soft, clear, and pleading in expression, to one
accustomed ever to the black, beady orbs of the Orientals; and as he
gazed, he felt bewildered, bewitched by the idea that in a little
time, if he was wary, all this fair beauty might be his--his as
completely as his horse and sabre!
"My sister! my dear, dear sister!" exclaimed Mabel, impulsively,
kissing the note and pressing it to her breast. "Oh, I must tell of
this. Lady Sale, Lady Sale!" she exclaimed, looking around her; but
Zohrab laid a hand on her arm, and a finger on his lip significantly.
"Lady Sahib," said he, in a low guttural voice, "you will go with me?"
"Yes, yes--oh yes; but how? to where?--and I must confer with my
friends and the Khan, Saleh Mohammed."
"Nay; to do so would ruin all."
"With my friends, surely?"
"Nay; that too would be unwise: to none."
"None?"
"I repeat, none," said Zohrab, whose habit of mind, like that of all
Orientals, was inclined to suspicion, secresy, and mistrust.
"Why?" asked Mabel.
"Does not your letter tell you?"
"No--but can I--ought I to--to----" she paused and glanced
irresolutely towards the group of her companions in misfortune, who
were generally clustered round the chief matrons of their party, Lady
Sale and the widowed Lady Macnaghten; and the idea flashed upon her
mind that she might be unwise to leave the shelter of their presence
and society, and trust herself to this Afghan warrior. But, then,
had not Rose bade her confide in him?
"Where is my sister, and with whom?" she asked.
"I can only tell you that she is in perfect safety," replied
Zubberdust, unwilling in that locality to compromise himself by
mentioning the name of Shireen Khan.
"I shall be silent, and go with you," said Mabel, making an effort to
master her deep and varied emotions.
"When?"
"Now--this instant, if you choose."
"That is impossible. At dusk, when the sun is set, I shall be here
again on this spot, and take you to her. Till then, be silent, and
confide in none: to talk may ruin all!" said Zubberdust, whose active
mind had already conceived a plan for outwitting Saleh Mohammed and
his guard of Dooranees, who watched the walls of the fort from the
four round towers which terminated each angle, and on each of which
was mounted a nine-pounder gun taken from our old cantonments.
Too wary to remain needlessly in her company, with all her
allurements, now that his pretended mission was partly performed, and
thereby draw the eyes of the observant or suspicious upon them, and
more particularly upon himself, he at once withdrew, leaving poor
Mabel, who naturally was intensely anxious to question him further,
overwhelmed by emotions which she longed eagerly to share by
confidence with her friends; for news of any European, especially of
one who belonged to the little circle of English society at Cabul,
must prove dear and of deepest interest to them all. Yet had not
this mysterious messenger impressed upon her, that if she was to see
her sister, to rejoin her, and hear the story of her wonderful
disappearance at the mouth of the Khyber Pass, if she would soothe,
console, it might be protect her, she must be silent?
Slowly passed the day in the fort of Saleh Mohammed. The tall and
leafy poplars, the slender white minars, the four towers of the fort,
which was a perfect parallelogram, and the wooded and rocky hills
that overlooked them all, cast their shadows across the plain
(through which the Cabul winds towards the Indus) gradually in a
circle, and then, when stretching far due westward, they gradually
faded away; the snow-capped peaks of the Hindu-Kush, the mighty
Indian Caucasus, rose cold and pale against the clear blue sky, where
the stars were twinkling out in succession; and with a nervous
anxiety, which she found it almost impossible to control, Mabel
Trecarrel stole away, with mingled emotions, from the apartments
assigned to the lady hostages--emotions of sorrow, half of shame for
her silence concerning the project she had in hand, and her enforced
reticence to those who loved her, and had ever been so kind to her
amid their own heavy afflictions--compunction for the honest alarm
her absence would certainty occasion them on the morrow; but hope and
joy in the anticipated reunion with her sister soon swept all such
minor thoughts away, and she longed and thirsted for the embrace and
companionship of Rose, to whom, though the difference in their years
was but small, she had ever been a species of mother and
monitress--never so much as when in their happy English home in
Cornwall, far away!
Since their strange separation on that fatal morning, when their poor
father, in his despair and sorrow, galloped rearward to perish in the
skirmish, how much must the pretty, the once-playful, and coquettish
Rose have to tell; and how much had she, herself, to impart in return!
Her heart beat almost painfully, when, on approaching the appointed
spot for the last time, she saw the figure of Zohrab Zubberdust
standing quite motionless under the shadow of the great cypress,
where in the morning Saleh Mohammed had knelt at prayer. He wore his
steel cap (with its neck-flap of mail), on which the starlight
glinted; he had a small round gilded shield slung on his back by a
leather belt; his poshteen was buttoned up close to his throat, and
he was, as usual, fully armed; but in one hand he carried a large,
loose chogah, or man's cloak, of dull-coloured red cloth; and now
Mabel felt that the decisive moment had, indeed, all but arrived:
beyond that, her ideas were vague in the extreme, and her breathing
became but a series of hurried and thick respirations.
"Is all safe? is all ready--prepared?" she asked, in a broken voice.
"Inshallah--all," replied the taciturn Mahommedan, who, like all of
his race and religion, had few words to spare.
The idea of escaping by ladders of rope or wood had never seemed to
him as possible. The walls of the fort were twenty-five feet high,
and surrounded by a deep wet ditch, the water of which came by a
canal, through a rice-field, from the Cabul river. Its only gate was
guarded by a party of Saleh Mohammed's men, under a Naick (or
subaltern), with whom Zohrab was very intimate; and beyond or outside
these barriers he had left his horse haltered (in sight of the
sentinels), and so that it could not stir from the place, as the only
portion of the gate which the Naick was permitted to open was the
_kikree_, or wicket, through which but one at a time could pass.
Zohrab Zubberdust, scarcely daring to trust himself to look on
Mabel's fair, anxious, and imploring face, lest it might bewilder him
from his fixed purpose, took from his steel cap the white turban
cloth he wore twisted round it, and, speedily forming it into a
single turban with a falling end, placed it on her head. He
enveloped her in the ample chogah, hiding half her face, gave her his
sabre to place under her arm, and the simple disguise was complete;
for, in the dusk now, none could perceive that she wore slippers in
lieu of the brown leather jorabs or ankle-boots of the Afghans; and
looking every inch a taller and perhaps a manlier Osmanlie than
himself, Mabel walked leisurely by his side towards the gate, where,
as watch-words, parole, and countersign were alike unknown to the
guard, fortunately none were required of them; but her emotions
almost stifled her, when she saw the black, keen, and glossy eyes of
the Dooranees surveying her, as they leaned leisurely on their long
juzails, which were furnished with socket bayonets nearly a yard in
length.
She moved mechanically, like one in a dream, and the circumstance of
striking her head as she failed to stoop low enough in passing
through the wicket added to her confusion; nor was she quite aware
that they had been permitted to pass free and unquestioned, as two
men, by the Naick, to whom Zohrab made some jesting remark about the
"awkwardness of his friend," until she saw behind her the lofty white
walls of the fort gleaming in the pale starlight, their loopholes and
outline reflected downward, in the slimy wet ditch where water-lilies
were floating in profusion.
Unhaltering his horse and mounting, her new companion desired her,
with more impressiveness than tenderness of tone--for the former was
his habit, and the moment was a perilous and exciting one--to walk on
by his side a little way, as if they were conversing, and thereby to
lull any suspicion in the minds of such Dooranees as might be
observing them; for they were still within an unpleasant distance of
the long rifles of those who were posted on the towers of the fort;
and still more were they within range of those ginjauls which are
still used in India, and are precisely similar to the swivel
wall-pieces invented long ago by Marshal Vauban, and throw a pound
ball to a vast distance.
On descending the other side of an intervening eminence, that was
covered by wild sugar-canes and aromatic shrubs, the leaves of which
were tossing in the evening breeze, he curtly desired her to place
her right foot upon his left within the stirrup-iron, and then, with
the aid of his hand, he readily placed her on the holsters of his
saddle before him. He now applied the spurs with vigour to his
strong, active, and long-bodied Tartar horse, and, with a speed which
its double burden certainly served to diminish, it began quickly to
leave behind the dreaded fort of Mohammed Saleh.
As the latter began to sink and lessen in the distance, Mabel
Trecarrel felt as if there was a strange and dreamy unreality about
all this episode. Many an officer and Indian Sowar had ridden into
the Khoord Cabul Pass with his wife or his children before him, even
as she was now borne by Zohrab; she had heard and seen many wild and
terrible things since her father, with other officers of the
Company's service, had come, in an evil hour, "up country," to
command Shah Sujah's Native Contingent; she had read and heard of
many such adventures, escapes, flights, and abductions in romance and
reality; but what might be her fate now, if this should prove to be
the latter--an abduction of herself--some trick of which she had
permitted herself to become the too-ready victim?
She was in a land where the people were prone to wild and predatory
habits, and, moreover, were masters in trickery, cunning, and
cruelty. Had she been deceived? she asked of herself, when she felt
the strong, sinewy, and bony arm of Zohrab tightening round her
waist, while his wiry little horse, with its fierce nose and muscular
neck outstretched, and its dancing mane streaming behind like a tiny
smoke-wreath, sped on and on, she knew not whither!
Had she been deceived, was the ever-recurring dread, when the
handwriting was that of Rose, beyond all doubt? But written when? or
had Rose been deluded? Was this horseman the person in whom she had
been desired "to confide," or had he stolen the note from
another?--perhaps, after killing him! Those Afghans were such subtle
tricksters that she felt her mistrust equalled only by her loathing
of them all.
Mabel asked herself all these tormenting questions when, perhaps, too
late; and she knew that, whether armed or unarmed, Heaven had never
intended her to be a heroine, or to play the part of one: she felt a
conviction that she was merely "an every-day young lady," and that if
"much more of this kind of thing went, she must die of fright."
Just as she came to this conclusion an involuntary cry escaped her.
The boom of a cannon--one of Her Majesty's nine-pounders, of which
the Khan had possessed himself--pealed out on the calm still
atmosphere of the Indian evening, now deepening into night. Another
and another followed, waking the echoes of the woods and hills; and,
though distant now, each red flash momentarily lit up the sky. They
came from the fort of Saleh Mohammed to alarm the country; and still
further to effect this and announce the escape of a prisoner, a vast
quantity of those wonderful and beautiful crimson, blue, green, and
golden lights, in the manufacture of which all Oriental pyrotechnists
excel so particularly, were shot off in every direction from the
walls, showering upward and downward like falling stars, describing
brilliant arcs through the cloudless sky; and with an exclamation on
his bearded mouth, expressive of mockery and malison with fierce
exultation mingled, Zohrab Zubberdust looked back for a moment, while
his black eyes flashed fire in the reflected light.
"Hah!" he muttered, "dog of a Dooranee, may the grave of the slave
that bore thee be defiled!"
And while one hand tightened around his prize, with the other he
urged his horse to greater speed than ever.