So sang to Wodrow that jovial English trooper, Toby Chace, light of heart, if unsteady of purpose, while bustling about his horse—Chace, who, in his more palmy days, had more than one hunter of his own in stall; who had once handsome rooms in Piccadilly, a snug corner in his club, and was never without an invitation for cub-hunting in the shires, or to pot the deer in the Highlands; the heir to an old English baronetcy, and yet, in his fallen estate, was wont to designate himself 'jolly as a sandboy, whatever the devil kind of boy that is!'
Left behind his regiment sick, Toby Chace was now, like Robert Wodrow, attached pro tem. to a squadron of the 9th Lancers ordered to the front.
'So we march to-morrow to clear off the score we owe these fellows at Cabul,' said he.
'In that business, then, I have lost the best friend man ever had,' said Wodrow, sighing; 'Captain Colville.'
'A right good sort; we'll drink his health—his memory, I mean. I wonder if Fred Roberts will let us sack the town?'
'I think not, Toby—but why?'
'It would be rare fun prying into the harems, or having them escaladed by reprobates in regimentals.'
Toby's naturally elastic spirits rose at the prospect of more fighting, for his disposition was always to make the best of everything, and it served him in good stead now.
Ignorant of all that was transpiring to those most dear to him far away in Europe, Colville was still a prisoner in the hands of Mahmoud Shah.
The cruel and barbarous murder of the young and gallant Hector Maclain, after he had been so many weeks the prisoner and guest of Ayoub Khan, proved that our Afghan enemies could be true or false to their salt, exactly as suited their caprice or cruelty; thus, though Leslie Colville was in precisely the same position in the Cabul fort, it by no means followed that his life might not be taken in any moment of fear or hatred.