AGAIN IN CABUL.
A change had now come over him; he had grown sullen and thoughtful;
but even this mood of mind she preferred to his obnoxious and
intrusive tenderness. He stood silently and gloomily eyeing her for
a time.
Will it be believed that, too probably, he was actually pondering
whether or not policy and his own future safety required that he
should pistol or sabre this helpless creature, whom a minute before
he had been professing so ardently to love? He could not help
speculating on what _might_ have been the sequel, regarding himself,
had her wild and despairing cry, instead of bringing up a stupid old
mountain farmer, like Nouradeen Lal, summoned to the spot the
ferocious Dooranee horsemen of Saleh Mohammed, who was bound to
account for the prisoners, dead or alive, body for body, to Ackbar
Khan. He knew that by this time all the roads diverging from Cabul
would be beset in every direction by the horsemen of Saleh Mohammed
and the Sirdir; that, sooner or later, some of these would meet and
question the farmer returning to his home among the hills, and the
information he and the Hazir-bashi must give, would soon bring a
mounted Rissallah round by Beymaru in search and pursuit; so his own
bold measures were instantly taken.
In Cabul would he and his prize alone be safe, and, as he hoped,
unsought for a time at least; and there he resolved to convey her,
ere day broke, and to conceal her in the house of one who he knew
would be faithful to him--a man named Ferishta Lodi, who had been
sutler to the Shah's Goorka Regiment, and whose life he had spared,
and whose escape he had connived at, when the whole of that luckless
battalion was massacred in cold blood, by the Afghans at Charekar.
Sternly he commanded her again to mount before him, and, aware that
resistance and entreaty were alike futile, the unhappy girl, crushed
in spirit, weeping heavily, and feeling utterly lost and helpless,
obeyed; and once more their progress was resumed, but at a slower
pace, as Zohrab was evidently husbanding the strength of his wearied
horse. Day was breaking as they passed, unquestioned, through the
Kohistan Gate of Cabul; but its light was yet grey and dim jis they
traversed the narrow, dark, and high-walled tortuous streets, to some
obscure quarter perfectly unknown to Mabel.
A few persons passed them, some going to market in the Char-chowk,
others afield to tend the trellised vines; but she dared neither
speak nor show her pallid face. She might find mercy at the hands of
Zohrab, but none among the rabble of Cabul, where the miserable
remains of the Queen's Envoy yet hung unburied in the great bazaar.
Mabel knew but too well, by observation and experience, the nature of
the nation among whom she now found herself--alone. Nearly forty
years had made no change on the people, since a Scottish traveller
described them; and his pithy account may be summed up in the
following quotation:--
"If a man could be transported to Afghanistan without passing through
the dominions of Turkey, Persia, or Tartary, he would be amazed by
the wide and unfrequented deserts and the mountains covered with
perennial snow. Even in the cultivated part of the country he would
discover a wild assemblage of hills and wastes, unmarked by
enclosures, not embellished by trees, and destitute of navigable
canals, public roads, and all the great and elaborate productions of
human refinement and industry. He would find the towns few and far
distant from each other; he would look in vain for inns and other
conveniences, which a traveller would meet with in the wildest parts
of Great Britain. Yet he would sometimes be delighted with the
fertility and population of particular plains and valleys, where he
would see the productions of Europe mingled in profusion with those
of the torrid zone, and the land tilled with an industry and judgment
nowhere surpassed. He would see the inhabitants accompanying their
flocks in tents or villages, to which the terraced roofs and mud
walls give an appearance entirely novel. He would be struck with
their high and harsh features, their sun-burnt countenances, their
long beards, loose garments, and shaggy cloaks of skins. When he
entered into society, he would notice the absence of all courts of
justice, and of everything like an organised police. He would be
surprised at the fluctuation and utter instability of every civil
institution. He would find it difficult to comprehend how a nation
could subsist in such disorder, and pity those who were compelled to
pass their days amid such scenes, and whose minds were trained by
their unhappy situation to fraud and violence, to rapine, deceit, and
cruel revenge. Yet he could not fail to admire their lofty and
martial spirit, their hospitality, their bold and simple manners,
equally removed from the suppleness of the citizen and the rusticity
of the clown. In short," he adds, a stormy independence of spirit,
which leads them to declare, "'We are content with fierce discord; we
are content with alarm; we are content with bloodshed; but we shall
_never be content_ with a master!'"
Mabel gave herself up more than ever for lost on finding herself
within the fatal walls of Cabul; a benumbed and despairing emotion
crept over her heart, and all her energies seemed away from her. She
found herself lifted from horseback in a paved court that was dark,
damp, and gloomy, and in the centre of which a fountain was plashing
monotonously. She felt herself borne indoors somewhere, she knew not
by whom, and then she fainted for a little time.
She had been carried into one of those apartments which open by a
large sliding panel off the dewan-khaneh, the principal hall or
receiving-room of a Cabul house. She had been there deposited at
length on a soft mattrass, which was simply spread on the floor, as
in that country bedsteads and sofas are unlike unknown. So people
there both sleep and sit on the floor, unless in the case of persons
of rank, who may seat themselves cross-legged on a divan.
Though prettily ornamented with carving, stucco, and painting, in
this room there was a total absence of those invariable sentences
from the Koran, woven among arabesques, which mark an Oriental
mansion; but in lieu thereof were some in a language of which Mabel's
weary eyes could make nothing. These were lines from the Vedas of
the Hindoos; and in three little niches, most elaborately carved,
were the three monstrous statuettes of the god who is worshipped by
so many millions under the names of Vishnu, Siva, and Brama; for the
house to which she had been conveyed belonged partly to Ferishta
Lodi, the ex-Sutler, who now kept a shop in the great bazaar, and to
a Hindoo, one of those same schroffs, or bankers, through whom the
luckless General Elphinstone and his staff had negotiated the
enormous sum which was paid to procure our peaceful march through the
Passes--and paid for our slaughtered troops--in vain.
The Hindoo banker and the Khond were alike absent; but the wife of
the former, a soft-eyed and gentle little woman, with massive golden
bangles on her wrists and glittering anklets round her ankles,
assisted the somewhat awkward and decidedly bewildered Zohrab in the
task of recovering Mabel, by plentifully besprinkling her face, neck,
and hands with cool and delightfully perfumed water from a large
flask covered with elaborate silver filagree work. The Hindoo woman,
who knew that the visitor was a helpless Feringhee captive, worked at
her humane duty in silence, and without venturing to ask any
questions.
A quivering of the long eyelashes, a spasmodic twitching of the
handsomely cut mouth, as she heaved a long and deep sigh, showed that
animation was returning. Slowly, indeed, did Mabel--though a girl
with naturally a good physique and splendid constitution--struggle
back to life and consciousness. Her beautiful face was pale as
marble now; all complexion, save that of alabaster, was gone; cold
and white she was, and her brilliant auburn hair in silky masses
rolled over her shoulders and bosom, which heaved painfully, for
every respiration was a sigh.
To the admiring and undoubtedly appreciative eyes of the enterprising
Zohrab she presented a powerful contrast to the dusky little Hindoo
woman, on whose ridgy shoulder her head was drooping, and whose
fingers, of bronze-like hue, seemed absolutely black when placed upon
the pure snowy arm of the English girl; for in aspect, race, and
costume (a shapeless and indescribable garment of red cotton) the
wife of the schroff was unchanged from what her ancestors had been in
the days of Menon the Lawgiver.
As Mabel gradually became conscious, she sat up and gently repelled
the services of the Hindoo woman. Then she burst into tears. This
relieved her; and then she began to look around her, and to remember
where she was--in fatal Cabul; and in whose hands--those of the
lying, treacherous, and unscrupulous Zohrab Zubberdust!
For what was she yet reserved? This was her first thought. The
slender chances of escape were the next; but escape from walled and
guarded Cabul! and to where or to whom could she go for succour? To
the bones of the dead, who lay in the passes of the Khyber mountains!
Thirst--intense thirst, the result of over-wrought emotions, of deep
and bitter anxiety, and of all she had undergone mentally and bodily,
made her ask Zohrab imploringly for something to quench it; and in a
few moments the Hindoo woman brought her, on a scarlet Burmese
salver, a china cup filled with deliciously iced water and white
Cabul wine, which is not unlike full-bodied Madeira; with this
refreshing beverage was a cake of Cabul apricots, folded in rice
paper, the most luscious of all dried fruit, and which the Afghans
have no less than fourteen distinct modes of conserving. To these
she added a small slice of sweet Bokhara melon--the true melon of
Toorkistan--we say a small slice, as they are of such enormous bulk,
that two are sometimes a sufficient load for a donkey.
Revived by these delicate viands, and feeling a necessity for action,
Mabel began in plaintive and piteous accents to urge upon Zohrab the
chances of pecuniary reward, if he would set her at liberty near
Jellalabad, or if he would even restore her to the perilous
guardianship of Saleh Mohammed; for to be once more among the English
hostages, his prisoners, was to be, at least, among dear friends.
But Zohrab listened in sullen and tantalising silence, gnawing the
curled ends of his long moustaches the while. Now that he had her in
Cabul, he saw but slender chances of getting her out of it for a
time. Gossips might speak of her presence there (was it not already
known to the Hindoo woman?), and so inculpate him with Ackbar Khan,
whose vengeance would be swift, sharp, and sure. And now he was
beginning to revolve in his own mind, whether or not his best policy
would be to take his horse and quit the country for Khiva, Cashmere,
or Beloochistan--all were many miles away, the latter three hundred
and more--leaving Mabel in the hands of the banker and merchant, to
keep or deliver up, as they chose. Yet when he thought of the
peculiar _creed_ of the Khond he shuddered; and she looked so
beautiful, so gentle, and was withal so helpless, that he wavered in
his selfish purpose, and the temptation of hoping to win her made him
pause in forming any decided resolution; so the noon of the first day
passed slowly and uneventfully on.
He knew that Mabel, as an European woman, dared make no attempt to
escape, or even to show her face at a window; so he had no necessity
either to watch or to warn her when he left her.
In tears and silence she lay on her pallet, her head propped upon
pillows; near her the Hindoo woman had kindly placed a vase of fresh
flowers, a feather fan, and a flask of essences; and then, left to
herself for hours, she could but wait, and weep, and pray at
intervals, dreading the coming night.
Some of the sounds without in Cabul were not unfamiliar to her; she
had often heard them before, when driving through the central street
in the carriage, or when riding with the other ladies of the
garrison. Again, at stated times, she heard the shrill cries from
the minarets and summits of the mosques proclaim that the hour for
prayer had arrived; for the Moslems observe this frequently daily.
"Glorify God," says the Koran, "when the evening overtaketh you, and
when you rise in the morning; and unto Him be praise in heaven and on
earth: and at sunset, and when you rest at noon, for prayer is the
pillar of religion, and key of paradise."
Once she peeped forth between the parted shutters and blinds,
shrinking back timidly as she did so, lest her pale white face should
catch a casual passer's eye, and elicit a yell of recognition and of
thirst for Christian blood. There the street below was dark and
narrow; the clumsy wooden pipes projected far over, to carry off the
rain from the roofs, which were flat and terraced; the walls were
high, black, and almost windowless. Such was her view on one side.
The other opened to a paved court, overlooked by houses built of
sun-dried brick, rough stones, and red clay. Four mulberry-trees
grew there, with a white marble fountain in the midst; and near it
were some grizzly-bearded Afghans of mature years, in long, flowing
garments, smoking and playing marbles, exactly as children do in
Europe. Another party, also of full-grown men, were hopping against
each other, on their right legs, grasping their left feet with their
right hands. They seemed all pleasant fellows, hilarious and in high
good humour; yet she dared neither to seek their aid, nor to trust to
their compassion. In her eyes, they were but as so many tigers at
play!
The circumstance of her being deemed the prisoner, the slave, or
peculiar property of such a formidable soldier as Zohrab Zubberdust
secured her from all interruption on the part of his male friends,
the Khond and the Hindoo schroff, who jointly occupied the house in
which he had placed her, and which was situated at the bottom of a
narrow alley (opening off the main street that led to the Char Chowk,
or great bazaar), a regular cul-de-sac, where many Khonds lived
together, congregating precisely as the Irish do in the towns of
England and Scotland; but this was deemed no peculiarity in Cabul,
where the city was apportioned in quarters, to the different tribes
of the Afghan people, the most formidably fortified being that of the
Kuzzilbashes.
As evening drew on, Mabel became aware of a conversation that was
proceeding in the next room; and, as she could from time to time
detect the voice of Zohrab, she thought herself fully excusable in
listening, which she could do with ease, as the partitions of the
apartments which opened off the dewan-khaneh were all of them
boarding panelled.
In one place a knot had dropped out, and to the convenient orifice
made thereby, as she breathlessly applied her ear and eye
alternately, she heard and saw all that was passing, and in some
respects more than she cared to know, as much that she did hear only
added to her repugnance and terror of those on whose mercy she found
herself cast by an unhappy fate.