Colville was compelled to dissemble his hatred and horror of those who had so wantonly slaughtered his brave companions, many of whose bright, joyous, and handsome English faces came so painfully to memory at that time, all lying cold and gashed and bloody among the ruins of the Residency; and that horror was blended with a great disgust of his host and protector, when he recalled the tragedy his treachery was supposed to have brought to pass with the squadron of the 10th Hussars; that he was a spy who had imposed upon himself at Jellalabad, and had led the Ameer's rebel tribes against us on more than one occasion; but with all this, policy, and his own personal safety, and hope of ultimate freedom compelled him to dissemble.
'Are you thirsty, sahib?' was the first question Mahmoud asked him on quitting his saddle.
'Yes; dying with it! Who could be otherwise after the horrors and exertion of the past day?' exclaimed Colville.
'Drink, then—the commands of the Prophet are nothing to you,' said Mahmoud, as he gave him a large cup filled with Cabul wine (which has a flavour not unlike full-bodied Madeira), and with it a bunch of the grapes of Ghuznee, which are greatly superior to those that grow in the plain of Cabul; and Colville, half-sinking with exhaustion caused by bodily fatigue and fierce over-excitement, thought he had never had refreshment more grateful and acceptable.
Built of mud and sun-dried bricks, the fort of Mahmoud was strong and spacious; it was square, with a squat, round tower at each angle and a keep in the centre, well loopholed for musketry, armed with jingals, and those huge swivel blunderbusses named zumbooracks, which, as firearms, are often as perilous to those who work them as to those at whom they are levelled.
The fort had two gates, in its eastern and western faces; these were protected by demi-bastions, and there was a moat, once filled by the Cabul, but now dry, neglected, and overgrown by vines and orange-trees.
The courtyard was spacious. In the keep was Dewan-i-Am, or audience-chamber, surrounded by a divan or continuous seat; beyond it was the Dewan-i-Kas, or principal private apartment, and in the towers were lodged the servants of the establishment; apart from all was a zenana, or women's apartments, and elsewhere, in every corner, were stowed away the garrison, composed of the budmashes and other tatterdemalions just described.
When not in the courtyard or on the summit of the keep—always closely watched—Colville was generally in the Dewan-i-Kas, where he shared the meals of the Mahmoud. Here carpets were laid on the floor, and there was a kind of chair or stool of state, with cushions for arms, and before it lay the tulwar, shield, and pistols of the sirdir, as in a place of honour.
The fort stood—and no doubt still stands—close to a bend of the clear and otherwise shallow Cabul, a river which is formed by the junction of the Ghorbund and Panjshir, and after dividing into three branches it reunites and flows into the Indus, three miles above the great fortress of Attock.
And Colville, in his prison in the fort—for a prison to all intents and purposes it was—lay for many a weary hour on a charpoy, or native bed, listening to the murmur of the stream as it flowed over its pebbled bed towards the mountain passes that led to India, and marvelled what was in store for him; how long his captivity would last; whether Mahmoud wanted a ransom or held him as a kind of hostage: for that the destruction of the embassy would be amply avenged none could doubt. Then how would it fare with the crafty Ameer?