A POST OF PERIL.
It is now time to return to the little band of Afghan converts left
in the Eagle's Nest.
Whilst Walter had been basking in the dangerous glare of prosperity,
a sharp storm of trial had been sweeping over his native friends. He
had not been fully aware how all-important had been the support of an
Englishman's influence, talent, and courage, to the newly-baptised
chief, Ali Khan. It was now as if the principal pillar supporting an
edifice had been taken away, or a vessel in a gale had been reft both
of its main-mast and rudder. Yet as a building may still stand,
though its strongest prop be removed, and a vessel float on the waves
though main-mast and rudder be lost, so the chief in the Eagle's Nest
for years held his dangerous post. This was chiefly owing to the
following three causes.
Ali Khan was a brave and--until his baptism--a popular leader.
Though he now discouraged war and forbade plunder, no one could doubt
the courage of a man who had slain a bear single-handed, and who had
brought home more trophies of the chase than did any other hunter in
the clan. Once finding three of his men, against his express orders,
looting and beating a travelling merchant, Ali Khan had knocked down
the chief offender, expelled him from the tribe, and made the two
others undergo the bastinado. This vigorous execution of justice had
for a time a very salutary effect on the minds of his turbulent
followers. The Afghans saw that they had to deal with no child.
And Ali Khan, as the husband of Sultána, commanded a certain amount
of respect. The young eaglet had from childhood been the darling of
the clan, and now they were proud of her, Christian as she was, as
being, in their eyes, the brightest, bravest, most beautiful woman in
all their land. Sultána was no _pardah_ prisoner in her zenana; her
light step, the glance of her eye, the tones of her voice were
familiar to all in the fort. There were many who had received from
her personal kindness not readily to be forgotten. In everything
relating to the management of his troublesome people, Sultána was to
her husband more than a right hand.
There was a third advantage possessed by the chief. From the manner
in which Walter Gurney had been received at the English camp, it was
concluded by the Afghans that he must have great influence with the
powerful invaders. The British troops were sweeping through
Afghanistan, and tidings of their wonderful marches and signal
victories reached the Eagle's Nest. Even when our warriors vacated
the land, they left their prestige behind. The Afghans of the fort
had an impression that Walter would return, and should he find his
friend Ali Khan defeated or deposed, would draw on them English
vengeance. The iron hand of power which had twice reached Kabul
itself, would easily crush a small tribe so near the British
dominions. Thus, for a considerable time, his own character, his
wife's influence, and the fear of Walter's anger made discontented
Moslems submit to the control of a Christian chief.
But there were no more conversions. It had been Walter Gurney's
habit, during the latter part of his residence in the Eagle's Nest,
to give daily expositions of Scripture, followed by singing and
prayer; and his parables had been so attractive, his music so fine,
his descriptions so vivid, that many unconverted Afghans had gathered
around to hear him. Often the nod of assent, or the appreciative
"wah! wah!" had expressed approval--if not of the doctrine, yet of
the illustration employed by the gifted preacher.
It was very different when Ali Khan, keeping his place on the page
with his swarthy finger, read slowly, and with many mistakes, from
the manuscript left for his use by Walter. His audience comprised
none but the Christians, sometimes only his wife, for her venerable
grandmother was slowly sinking into the grave. The seed sown by
Walter had in most cases fallen on the beaten highway; as soon as he
had quitted the fort, the evil one carried it away.
Nor were there wanting illustrations of the seed falling on the stony
ground, and springing up only to die. Mirza, one of the baptised
seven, soon grew weary of isolation from his Moslem companions, and
of bearing their taunts and ill-treatment. He very easily persuaded
himself that though Christianity might be good for Feringhees, it
would never suit the Afghan. Mohammed Sahib had been a bold and
successful chief, who had permitted his followers to loot, had
encouraged them to kill, and had promised on easy terms to his
followers paradise and its houris. The oriental mind is not logical;
Walter's proofs of the truth of Christianity, if ever understood by
Mirza, were forgotten almost as soon as heard. First the Afghan
absented himself from prayers, then received reproof with sullen
anger; finally he openly joined the party in the fort who scarcely
attempted to conceal their dislike of their Christian chief, and
their resolution to resist innovations. Mirza's wife, as a matter of
course, followed the lead of her husband, and never, except from
necessity, came near Sultána.
Then came death, still further to lessen the little band of
Christians. Sultána's aged relative passed from earth. Her faith
had been as that of a little child, and with the simple trust of a
little child she obeyed the call of her Heavenly Father. Sultána, as
she gazed on the placid face of the dead, felt that the venerable
woman had indeed been taken from the evil to come. She was sheltered
in the grave--or rather in the land of the blessed--from the trials
and perils which every day were coming on thicker and faster.
The mind of Ali Khan was sorely troubled by the spreading spirit of
disaffection; his patience sometimes gave way under the daily
provocations to which he was now exposed. His faith might have
failed altogether, had it not been sustained by the firmer piety of
his young wife.
"I am weary of my life!" exclaimed the chief one day, as he entered
the upper apartment or zenana, where Sultána was plying her wheel.
"Mirza is a false traitor to me as well as to his faith; he is trying
to undermine my power in my own fort. Half of the men of my tribe
would not care were I to share the fate of the yellow-haired
stranger. There were curses muttered to-day which I did not choose
to seem to hear, as a Christian must not for a personal affront knock
down a fellow with the butt end of a gun, or shoot him through the
head. The fellows know that, and they take their advantage. Our
Feringhee friend should never have come, or never have left us!"
"He will come again," said Sultána; "he promised to return to his
Afghan children, and he never will break his word."
"He hath sent us no token, and years have gone by," said the chief,
gloomily, seating himself on the skin of a cheetah, spread on the
bare floor. It was too true that neither Walter's letters nor gifts
had reached their destination; the latter had been appropriated by
their bearers, or the unscrupulous Afghans of the fort; the former,
which Sultána would have prized more highly, had been destroyed or
flung away.
"My men," continued the chief, "accustomed to a wild life of plunder,
cannot or will not take to the means of earning their livelihood
which the Feringhee friend proposed. They say that they are not
Persians to weave carpets, nor Kashmiris to embroider shawls. They
are accustomed not to make but to take; not to exchange goods but to
seize them."
"My lord has many troubles," said Sultána; "but there is One who can
and will bear him through all. We will not yield, nor fear, nor
complain."
"I feel the difficulty myself," said the chief, pursuing the train of
his own thoughts. "In old times when we needed aught, we belted on
scimitars and loaded our guns, and made a sudden foray. We came back
fewer perhaps in numbers, but anyhow laden with spoil. Now--how am I
to provide for your needs and my own? I have not a silver piece
left."
"My lord will never shrink from poverty endured for Christ's sake,"
said Sultána.
"I do not shrink," said the chief; "I know that it is better to
starve as a Christian than feast as a Moslem."
"My lord will not starve," said Sultána; "have we not heard that God
feeds the ravens?" She had stopped her wheel in order to converse,
and now drew the anklets over her slender bare feet, took the jewels
from her ears, and the ornaments from her beautiful hair. Silently
she placed them beside her husband.
"How could I rob you of your jewels!" he exclaimed, knowing how
precious to the women of the East are such personal adornments.
"I need them not," said the daughter of a robber chief--how changed
from what she had been in her childhood! "Let me not lay up
treasures on earth; mine is the pearl of great price."
And a gift better than gems was to reward the young Afghan wife. In
the course of that month a little bud of beauty bloomed beside the
parent rose. Sultána clasped in her arms a lovely boy, and in
grateful adoration she and her husband devoted him at once to the
Lord.
Few earthly joys come without some drawbacks. It caused great
dissatisfaction in the fort that the birth of the chief's first-born
son was not celebrated by the gluttonous revels and superstitious
orgies which had never before been omitted in the Eagle's Nest on
such a joyful occasion. Sheep indeed had been killed, and a banquet
provided; but vice and profanity had been excluded, and to the
special indignation of the old women, not a single charm against the
evil eye had been tied around the neck of the babe!
Ali Khan and Sultána had long been making a brave struggle to swim
against the tide of dissatisfaction, but now it appeared likely to
sweep them away in its current. Mustapha was--and had been for
months--plotting against his chief. The traitor tried, and succeeded
but too well, in stirring up the smouldering embers of discontent
into a flame. He contrived to have another key made for the large
outer gate, so that it could be opened without the knowledge of Ali
Khan, who, like his predecessor, always kept the key at night. Then
Mustapha arranged a meeting of Afghans in a retired spot outside the
fort, and to this meeting all the men except Mir Ghazan and Ali Khan
himself were invited.
The gathering took place by moonlight,--by knots of twos and threes
the mountaineers sought the appointed place. When Mustapha judged
that the number was complete, springing on a piece of rock which
raised him a little above his audience, with passionate gestures he
addressed the listening throng of the fierce, long-haired Afghans.
"How long, O Pathans! will you submit to the rule of a vile renegade,
who has left his faith to become the disciple of a Feringhee Kafir,
who has deceived, and now deserted him! Are you, who soared like
mountain eagles, ye who as eagles swooped down on your prey, to
become as timorous doves? Is the bear who went crashing through the
woods in his freedom, defying and destroying whoever opposed him, to
be led by a silken thread? Ye are not men, ye are women, if ye
longer own Ali Khan as your chief, seeing that he has disgraced his
name, deserted his faith, and cast dirt on the graves of our fathers!"
"Down with him! down with him! death to the infidel!" cried some of
the fiercer of the Afghans, unsheathing their knives.
The disaffection was not universal; Ali Khan had still his admirers
and Sultána her friends even in that excited throng; but, as is
usually the case, the louder voices and the more fiery spirits
carried the day.
"Mustapha is our chief! Down with Ali Khan--hurl him from the rock!"
shouted the renegade Mirza; and others took up the cry, "Mustapha!
Mustapha! the true believer! Mustapha is the chief of our clan!"