Among rocky mountains, divested of all verdure and green clothing, his way lay now for miles, and, if the utter loneliness of the scenes ensured safety, it was at times not the less impressive and appalling to the solitary man, and made him think,
'The silent gloom around hath power
To banish aught of gladness;
The good with awful dreams to thrill,
The guilty—drive to madness!'
CHAPTER VIII.
THE GHILZIE.
In avoiding the village of Gundamuck by making a detour to the right, Robert Wodrow came upon a handsome Moslem edgah built in a solitary place. The mausoleum—for such it was, erected over the remains of a santon or holy man—was built of white marble, with a dome and finely carved horseshoe-shaped entrance door.
The oleander and rose shed perfume around it, with many a flower grown wild, as the garden which once environed it, either by dissensions incident to Afghanistan or the departure of a tribe, was completely neglected now. The custard apple, the pomegranate, and the citron hung their golden but untasted fruit around it, and the snow-white blossoms of the sweet jasmine hung in garlands from tree to tree.
The tomb looked solemn and picturesque, and Robert Wodrow was in the act of pausing in his lonely way to admire it, when, somewhat to his consternation, there stalked forth from the interior a tall and grim-looking Afghan warrior, completely armed.
His rosary of ninety-nine beads—each representing an attribute of the Diety—dangled at his left wrist; thus he had evidently been saying his prayers at the shrine of the santon.
By some of the details of his costume he was evidently a Ghilzie, a tribe above seven hundred thousand in number, who occupy the central portion of that mountainous district which lies between Candahar and Cabul—fierce, hardy, and warlike people, led always by many chiefs of undoubted valour, under whom they have always given, and will yet give, the British troops infinite trouble.
His long, aquiline face was fair for an Afghan, being what they term 'wheat-coloured,' but his glittering eyes were dark and keen, and his beard was black as the conical fur cap that surmounted his beetling and shaggy eyebrows.