Worn and faint, and heedless of what became of him, he reached the marble steps of the ghaut, and lay there for a time oblivious of everything.
When he recovered a little, though well-nigh dead with cold and exhaustion, he could see by the light of the moon, which now shone out clearly, a tall, thin, and venerable-looking Afghan bending over him.
His ample beard was snowy white, his eyes were keen and glittering, his features were of the Jewish type peculiar to the country, while his costume was that of the primitive Afghan—wide pantaloons of blue stuff, a brown camise with flowing sleeves, and a black fur cap.
Putting a hand on Wodrow's head, he told him in Afghani—which is the Pushtu language spoken by all the Afghans, and the origin of which is unknown—to take courage, as he would protect him; and Robert Wodrow, having picked up a little Sanscrit from his father, the old minister, made a shift to understand him, and knew also that he quoted the fourth chapter of the Koran, which recommends charity and protection to all helpless strangers.
And between cold and exhaustion, added to more than one kick from his horse, poor Wodrow was helpless indeed, but he had fortunately fallen into excellent hands—those of Abou Ayoub, a good, pious, and intelligent hakim, or physician of the adjacent village, the inhabitants of which were friendly to the British, or to anyone who would protect them from the Afreedies on the one hand and the Khyberees of the Suffaidh Koh on the other, and for defence against these the village, which consisted of a mosque, a tank, and some sixty houses, was surrounded by a strong wall pierced with double rows of loopholes for musketry.
He conveyed him to his house, and there on a charpoy, or native truckle bed, Robert Wodrow lay for days and weeks in fever and delirium, attended by the hakim and his three daughters and a Belooch slave. The former had skill enough to dose his patient with ipecacuanha, with infusions of manna, and food, including rice, tamarinds, and stewed prunes; but he and they believed much more in sentences of the Koran, written on paper, and washed off into the drink he imbibed, which was generally cool tamarind sherbet, that proved in times of feverish thirst a delicious draught, especially from the hands of Ayesha, the eldest and prettiest daughter of the three.
Among the Afghans women are not secluded from all male society, as they are strictly in other Mahommedan communities, for the women of the middle and lower orders share in all the domestic amusements of their husbands, who generally content themselves with one wife, and in the country the latter is unveiled.
Young unmarried women are distinguished by wearing their hair loose and by their trousers being white. Thus Ayesha and her two sisters wore their long black hair loose, but interwoven with gold chains and strings of Venetian sequins. And the hakim, who never omitted an opportunity of quoting the Koran, duly informed Robert Wodrow that she was so named from Ayesha—one of the four perfect women, and a wife of Mahomet the Prophet—a lady who had a very terrible adventure in the sixth year of the Hejira.
After a few weeks of their care, Robert became convalescent. He was young, courageous, and buoyant with hope; he felt a trust in his own resources and exertions, and, encouraged by the praise he had won from Colville and other officers, had begun to take a new interest in life—to have some hope for the future, and a desire to grapple with any difficulties and dangers that lay before him; but certainly he felt something akin to consternation when informed by the hakim that the Treaty of Gundamuck had been signed; that Great Britain had made peace with the Ameer; that all our troops had retired towards the Indus, and that he himself was left behind among the wild mountains by the Surkhab, some seventy miles from the frontier—a distance which he could scarcely hope to traverse alone on foot in safety, amid such perilous surroundings.
'Death cometh to everyone—even though he be in a lofty tower, saith the Koran, but your time, Feringhee, is not come yet,' said the Hakim Abou Ayoub to his guest, while smiling at the scared expression of his face.