Yossouf knocked gently at the door.
"Who is there?" a voice at once inquired, from within.
"I come on urgent business with Domajee," Yossouf replied. "Open quickly, there are but two of us here."
There was a slight pause, and then the door was opened; and closed, immediately the two visitors had entered. A light was burning in the large anteroom, as they entered it; and several Hindoos--who had been lying, wrapped up in cloths, on the floor--rose to their feet to inspect the newcomers. A moment later the trader, himself, came down the stairs from an apartment above.
"What is it?" he asked.
He did not pause for an answer. The light from the lamp he carried fell upon Will's face, now white as a sheet from loss of blood. With the one word, "Follow," the Parsee turned on his heel, and led the way upstairs.
"Has the mission been captured?" he asked, as they entered an empty room.
"Yes," Will replied, "and I believe that I am the only survivor."
The fatigue of climbing the stairs completed the work caused by prolonged excitement and loss of blood and, as he spoke, he tottered; and would have fallen had not Yossouf seized him and, with the assistance of the Parsee, laid him on a couch. In a few words, Yossouf informed the trader of what had happened; and satisfied him that no suspicion could arise, of the presence of one of the British in his house. As the residency had been burnt down, and the bodies of those who had fallen within it consumed, no one would suspect that one of the five Englishmen there had effected his escape; and it would be supposed that Will's body, like that of Doctor Kelly, had been consumed in the flames.
The Parsee was sure that Cabul would soon be reoccupied by the British and--putting aside his loyalty to them--he felt that his concealment of an English survivor of the massacre would be greatly to his advantage, and would secure for him the custom of the English, upon their arrival at the town.