"The Prophet wrote at birth on each man's brow the day he was to die, and your time is to-day, O Kaffir!" exclaimed one, making a vicious thrust with his gaily tasselled lance, which, had it not been struck up by his protector's hand, had ended Waller's career there and then.
"What business has a dog of a Feringhee with such a beard as that?" cried a woman; "it is unendurable."
"I didn't make it," said Waller, simply.
"Oho. This is the Toorkoman of Roum!" said the young horseman with the steel cap, in whom Waller now recognised Zohrab Zubberdust; "he has escaped from old Nouradeen Lai; well—he shall not escape from me. These Feringhees are excellent grooms, and I want one. Bismillah! it is written—let us go—I shall protect you."
Like many a Christian, Zubberdust the Mussulman had the spirit of avarice and treachery in his heart; but as an Afghan mountaineer it was tempered with something of honour; for, strange to say, honour may exist among Mohammedans, as well as among Christians, without an atom of morality.
So Waller found himself marched off in a direction precisely opposite to that which he had been pursuing; and he had the additional tantalisation of seeing, about six miles distant, the picturesque Bala Hissar, or citadel of Jellalabad, which he could recognise from an engraving he had once seen; and ere midday he was conveyed by Zubberdust and his people to one of the numerous little castles or fortlets called kotes, that stud all the country in the neighbourhood of the city, which has always been the winter residence of the kings of Cabul; and there he was set at once to groom the horses, with a distinct notice that if he attempted to quit the fort, which was a square edifice furnished with a round loopholed tower at each angle, and surrounded by a wet ditch, wherein innumerable pink and white water lilies floated, he would be shot without mercy.
Before the gate were two brass six-pounder guns, taken from Elphinstone's unfortunate army.
Waller acquiesced with a groan in his breast. Well, thought he, working as a groom and rubbing down Zubberdust's beautiful horse, which had come from the land of the Usbec Tartars, was more congenial than ploughing; and hope suggested that the very animal he tended might gain him liberty; but his new master seemed to be merely a visitor at the fort, which belonged to an old Hazir Bashi of the King's Guards, and after remaining there for ten days, he departed to rejoin Amen Oollali Khan. Prior to doing so, with great liberality he presented Waller, as an excellent groom, to a wealthy grazier of camels, named Jubar Khan, who was passing that way with several of these solemn-looking quadrupeds and some yaboos or Cabul ponies, which he meant to dispose of in Bhokara.
Seeing that Waller appeared crushed by the prospect before him, Zohrab said, ere he went,
"Think yourself happy, for if Ackbar Khan were to get you, he might do as he has done to others, chain you to a stone in a vault, dark and cheerless as the tomb of a miser. Dogs!" he added, true to his overbearing nature: "you came hither thinking to make us crumb-eaters of Shah Sujah! Bah! the cup of the covetous, saith the proverb, is filled with the dust of the grave. And where lie the covetous now? in the passes of Khoord Cabul!"