The wuzeer looked surprised.
"It is because your face is smooth that you look so young. We Afghans wear our beards; I see that you do not, for even this brave officer, who has come to fight for us, has no hair on his face. He has told me that you will stay here, and assist with your advice."
"So far as I am able to do so, I will; but I am not greatly skilled in such matters. Still, I will assist him so far as I can."
"It is good," the Afghan said.
"It would be better, your highness, that it should not be known that I am an agent of the British minister; though of course you can, if you find it necessary, cheer your soldiers by telling them if they fight bravely and well the British minister will try and mediate between you and the Shah, and to persuade him to draw off his army. But were the Shah to know that the British minister has an agent here, he would be wroth with him, and might not listen so willingly to his representations. Let it then, I beg you, be supposed that, like Mr. Pottinger, I am but an English traveller, who, chancing to be here, is willing to do all that he can to aid in the defence of the town against the Persians."
"Your words are good; so let it be. Where are you dwelling now?"
"At the house of the Armenian carpet-weaver Kajar. The times being bad, his looms are at a stand-still, and he was glad to let me an apartment."
"He is a good man," the wuzeer said, "a good man and honest, but not rich."
Angus felt that the last words were rather a question than an assertion, and he said:
"Surely no. His rooms are very simple, but they are clean, and if a traveller can but find a clean lodging, he cares not how poor it is."