Life in the Eagle's Nest

by A. L. O. E.

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."