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!