As Nouradeen entered the hedgerows which bordered the compounds of his farm-house and yard, he unslung his juzail, which seemed in somewhat better order than those of his companions, and, wheeling half round in his saddle, fired a shot rearward, Parthian-wise, and brought down a large eagle that was soaring high in mid air.
"Steel commands everything, and now in addition to the steel—the swords and lances of our forefathers—we have bullets, praised be God!" he exclaimed, flourishing his clumsy old matchlock, exactly such a weapon as might have figured at Marston Moor, or the field of Kilsythe.
Perceiving that the shot excited Waller's admiration, he drew a long brass pistol from his girdle, urged his horse to full speed, and a picturesque figure he seemed, with his flowing robes and magnificent beard floating on the wind. He then threw a lemon over his head, and, twisting his body completely round to the left, fired at it from the off flank of his horse, and pierced it as it was in the act of falling.
"Now," said he, with a grim smile, "should you attempt to escape without ransom, my ball will follow you thus surely—yea, did go far as the arrow of Arish, which was shot at sunrise, and did not fall till sunset. A soldier, you should remember, that even were you to conquer all the world, death at last will conquer you."
"It is unlawful to make a slave of a true believer," said Waller.
"One may repeat the Kulma, and not be a very true believer after all," replied the shrewd old Afghan, with a gleam of intense cunning in his glittering eyes; "nay, nor even a Turk of Roum," he added, meaning Constantinople; and hence Waller knew that he was suspected.
The farmer's wife—Nouradeen Lai had but one helpmate—saw how pale and wan their prisoner looked, and speedily set some food before him; a pillau of rice, dhye (or sour curds), odious stuff, which he ate with his fingers in the fashion of the country. One or two of "Malcolm's plums" (as the Persians and Afghans call the potato), with a little ghee or clarified butter, completed his simple repast. As he ate, falling to without uttering "Bismillah!" an omission which his captors did not fail to remark, he thought that cookery must be a sublime science at home—a veritable branch of the fine arts; but hunger is ever an excellent seasoning to any meal.
The snow had now begun to melt fast, and for four days Waller was kept a close prisoner, without a chance of escape, though he brooded over it incessantly, and writhed in spirit to be thus detained from his duty in Jellalabad, where doubtless the task of vengeance—it might be the deliverance of the unhappy hostages—had already begun. Besides, he was intensely bored by the hypocrisy of having to enact the part of Mussulman, by the pretended prayers and genuflexions, upon a piece of coarse felt, for the old man Nouradeen watched him closely. In all this Waller salved his conscience by the conviction that one is scarcely answerable for an act committed under a power one cannot resist.
On the morning of the fifth day the hills appeared in all their greenery; the sunshine was bright, and the atmosphere was clear and calm.
"The snow is gone," said Nouradeen; "when spring comes, the bones of your people will be whitening like ivory among the long green grass in the passes of the Khyber and Khoord Cabul."