And memory drew also a sigh, and a heavy one, from Dermot Denis. He thought of merry shooting parties over Erin's green fields, or games of billiards in his own luxurious home. Then fancy wandered to London, and he was again in Hyde Park, amongst the equestrians in Rotten Row, meeting acquaintances at every turn, bowing, laughing, making his horse curvet, with a pleasant consciousness that he himself was, perhaps, the most striking figure amongst the fashionable throng. Or there was a drive in a four-in-hand with jovial companions to feast at Richmond. Ah! the thought of a feast to an almost famished man, who had nothing but black bread to eat! For Assad Khan had either forgotten his promise to send better food, or had deliberately broken it, choosing to keep down the strength and spirit of his captives by bringing them to a state of semi-starvation. This was all the more irritating as there were no signs of scarcity in the court-yard which the prisoners' room overlooked.
An hour after rising, Walter seated himself, Oriental fashion, directly in front of the open door. His appearance called forth a few insults and jests from the Afghans below, and fragments of melon-rind were thrown at his head; but, restrained by the orders of the chief, no one dared to set a foot on the ladder. Insult was also changed to sudden silence when the prisoner began to chant verses aloud, to the wild, monotonous air of an Indian bhajan. Walter's voice was a very fine one, and the sound drew immediate attention. The woman at her wheel, the bihisté* drawing water, the warrior burnishing his weapon or smoking his hookah, listened to the Feringhee minstrel; the very children left their play to cluster around the foot of the ladder. When, after about ten minutes, the singer paused, a clamour arose of "Go on!"
* Water-carrier.
"He's a strange fellow who sings when others would curse or groan," said one of the wild denizens of the mountains. "The Feringhee may be shot or hanged to-morrow, but he sings like one at a wedding-feast."
Walter took care not to weary his audience; at the first signs of restlessness amongst his hearers, he rose and retired from their view.
"I say, Walter, what was that extraordinary chant with which, like a second Orpheus, you were taming the beasts?" asked Denis.
"I was chanting part of my father's Pushtoo translation."
"You don't mean to say that you were repeating anything from the Bible to those savage, bloodthirsty, Mohammedan bigots?"
"I commenced with what never provokes even a Moslem," replied the missionary's son; "I gave the Afghans part of the Sermon on the Mount."
"And are you insane enough to imagine that it has done, or could do good to any one here?" asked Denis.