In haste Ayesha prepared for him a kafta kawab, or dish of savoury meat balls, with her own hands, and, unseen by Wodrow, her tears dropped into the pipkin as she did so; but he could scarcely eat of it, he was in such haste to be gone.
From the loopholes in the village wall the Hakim showed him the gleam of arms as a party of troops came defiling into the narrow valley, through which the Surk-ab flows to the Cabul river, and then they wrung each other's hands in farewell.
'Peace be upon you!' cried Wodrow, who knew enough of the language to say this.
'And likewise on you be peace and the mercy of God!' cried the Hakim, in his sonorous Afghani, and another moment saw Robert Wodrow hurrying down the hillside, and leaving the walled killa, or village, fast behind him.
'Things in this world wag strangely,' said Robert Wodrow to Colville, and forgetting that others heard him. 'As you may know, I didn't care to live; but I pulled through—pulled through when those with a happier future and more hope might have succumbed.'
What followed has already been narrated.
'After the kindness of that old Hakim to me, I shall ever think well of these Afghan fellows in future,' said Robert.
'Quite right too, Wodrow,' responded Leslie Colville; 'but we have yet to see how we get on with them at Cabul.'
He had his doubts, and, curiously enough, they were prophetic.
With a sigh of genuine thankfulness, Robert Wodrow accepted a few cigars from the proffered case of young Hamilton, of the Guides (a gallant fellow who had already won the V.C.), as luxuries he had not known for many a day.