SPEAK OR DIE!
It is necessary to explain the cause of Assad Khan's most unexpected
appearance.
The chief was holding late revels that night, to celebrate some
relative's betrothal, when a loud and continued call at the gate
announced that some one wanted admittance. The great iron key hung
at the girdle of Assad Khan, for he never at night trusted it into
any hands but his own. Such precaution was deemed necessary in that
land of treachery and sudden surprises. Followed by those who had
been sharing his banquet, Assad Khan stalked to the massive gate.
The call for admittance had excited the curiosity of the females of
his family, who, in their upper apartments, were having a feast of
their own. Sultána, to whom childhood gave freedom of action, came
down to behold and report.
The gate was not unclosed till it was ascertained that he who claimed
admittance was Attili Ullah, a trusted servant of the chief, who had
been chosen as his messenger to convey the letter of Dermot Denis to
the official in India.
On being admitted, the Afghan fell at the feet of Assad Khan, and
told his story. He spun it out to some length, with a great many
appeals to the Holy Being whose name is so lightly taken by Moslems.
But the story itself may be given in very few words. In fording a
river Attili's foot had slipped, he had been well-nigh drowned, and
the precious letter which was to have brought such heaps of rupees
had been lost!
Assad Khan was angry, and the poor messenger narrowly escaped a
flogging as well as drowning. Assad Khan thought, however, that the
delay of a few days was all the harm that had been done. If the
yellow-haired one, as he called the Irishman, had written one letter,
he was at hand to write another, and a second messenger should start
with it at once. It was this that brought to the prison at midnight
the unwelcome visitors who now thronged it.
"Where is he? Where is the yellow-haired?" exclaimed Assad Khan,
gazing around in surprise at finding only Walter within.
"Where is he?" echoed the wondering attendants.
Walter had resolved to answer no questions. Every minute's delay
was, he felt, important, as giving to Dermot Denis a better chance of
escape.
"Where is the Kafir dog?" exclaimed the furious chief, when no doubt
remained that the prisoner had vanished indeed.
Not a word from the lips of Walter.
"Who saw him last?" roared out the chief; "who brought the food which
I sent more early than usual?"
"I took it," answered an Afghan.
"Was the yellow-haired here? Did you see him?"
"I did not see him, for he," pointing to Walter, "took the food from
my hand, and I did not enter the room."
Several voices spoke at once; they bore witness that the
yellow-haired had been in the room when Walter was carried in on the
charpai; but nothing had been seen of him since.
"Then it may have been many hours since he passed through the
court-yard; and he could not pass without being seen!" exclaimed the
indignant chief. "Ali Khan and Mir Ghazan at least must have seen
him. If there has been treachery,--if the Feringhee has bribed with
his gold,--the vengeance of Assad shall fall on the traitors." Then
suddenly turning again towards Walter, he cried, "You must know how
and when he fled. Dog, speak! or I'll force out the secret by
torture!"
Walter pressed his white lips closely together; not a sound came
forth.
"Bind him and bastinado him, till he speak or die!"
The state of Walter's ankle, so inflamed that even a touch gave pain,
made the command most barbarous; every blow on that foot would be
torture indeed. The unhappy youth could but inwardly pray that
strength might be given to bear what he felt that unaided human
nature could not endure. But no compassion for the sufferer was
heard in any Afghan heart there--but one. Sultána did not weep, nor
cling to her father's knees; child as she was, she knew that to do so
would be of no avail whatever--she might as well try by tears to melt
a stone; like a young fawn she bounded forward--one little bare foot
just touching the charpai gave impetus to her spring. Sultána was in
the window aperture in a moment, and cried out in a tone of
defiance--"If you touch him, I'll throw myself over the cliff."
"Sultána, come down!" cried her father; "I will wring the secret out
of the Kafir!"
"But if _I_ can tell it?"--and what a bright face, bending down from
the aperture, was seen by the torchlight! "what if the little Eagle
knows how the yellow-haired fled!"
"Thou! speak, child!" cried the chief, in surprise.
"You will not hurt my friend if I tell all?"
"I have no wish to hurt him," was the reply, "if I can but get back
again into my grasp the wealthy Feringhee. This youth is poor as a
wandering fakir."
"The yellow-haired fled this way--by this opening," cried Sultána;
"he must have had an eagle's wings, indeed, if he got to the bottom
unharmed."
"How knowest thou that he escaped by the window?"
"He left a bit of his coat behind on this stone!" cried the
intelligent child, triumphantly exhibiting a fragment of the garment
which Denis had torn in his struggle to get through the hole, and
which her hand had accidentally touched.
"After him, and seize him!" cried the chief.
There needed no second command. Like hounds at the sound of the wild
halloo, the Afghans rushed from the room, knocking one another over
in their eagerness to descend the staircase-ladder. The chief
followed almost as quickly, remembering what his men had forgotten,
that he had the key at his girdle, by means of which alone they could
pass through the gate to commence their midnight search, after
descending the hill on whose summit the hill was built.
Sultána sprang down from the window. Walter heard her voice, as
clasping her little hands she exclaimed, "Allah! Sultána thanks
Thee! Thou hast sent her to save her Feringhee again!"