It is half-a-mile long by a quarter of a mile broad, and presents externally a cluster of lofty, square, embattled towers, with its chief strength, or inner citadel, high up on the slope of a hill.
As they entered its arched gate between two circular towers, Colville heard a voice amid the scowling crowds exclaim, with uplifted hands,
'La Ilah ilia Allah? Why does not He shrivel them all up by a flash of lightning, and cast them into hell for ever?'
The speaker mingled with the multitude, but not before Colville recognised his figure, and remembered Mahmoud Shah, the sham hadji of Jellalabad; but it would have been alike unwise to notice or pursue him at that crisis.
In the Bala Hissar there were assigned by the Ameer apartments for the use of the ambassador and his suite and escort—apartments having marble floors and walls covered with arabesques, old as the days of Tamerlane and Baber perhaps, certainly as old as those of Nadir Shah, and for a time the whole party were to all appearance well received by the Sovereign and his people; but after a little space the former, notwithstanding his hollow protestations and fulsome letter to the Viceroy at Simla, grew cold and haughty, and daily saw less and less of Sir Louis Cavagnari, while the mobs without began to manifest alike turbulence and insolence, and the isolated embassy was doubtless involved in peril.
Roving brigands infested all the roads around the city, yet the months of July and August passed, quietly enough, though some Afghan troops who had marched in from Herat used threatening language against Sir Louis and insulted the soldiers of his escort, on one occasion compelling Colville and two of the guides to draw their swords.
It has been said—but we know not upon what authority—that Cavagnari received distinct information that the lives of himself and all his companions were in imminent peril, but the letters which those gentlemen sent to India, and those which Mary Wellwood received at long intervals from Colville, gave no indications of apprehension.
Yet a stormy cloud was gathering over the picturesque towers of the Bala Hissar.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
LONDON: PRINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE.