She now poured upon him questions, some of which he dreaded to answer. When and where was he taken prisoner? Whom of those she loved had he seen last? Of her father, of Mabel and Waller Denzil professed total ignorance. He only knew that the body of the poor General had disappeared, and of subsequent events he knew nothing save that many ladies and officers of rank were retained in Cabul, held there by Ackbar Khan, as hostages for the future evacuation of Jellalabad; so hope and lightness of heart began to dawn on Rose, for neither she nor Denzil were aware of the exact state of matters, or of all the calamities that had befallen their friends.
"And Mabel—dear, dear, Mabel," she exclaimed in a touching voice, "how often do I dream of her, and fancy at times that I feel her cheek, wet with tears, against mine; for though but a little older than I, she has ever been as a mother to me, and these visions are passages of intense emotion, Denzil. Our mamma, who died so long ago, comes to me in my sleep and poor papa too, looking just as when I kissed him last, ere we went to rest, in that wretched tent in the snowy Pass; so my heart is wrung with suffering and I shed tears, Denzil—hot salt tears in my sleep—I, who used to be so merry and thoughtless!"
The Khan and his family were, for the time, utterly forgotten; so was his game of chess, and he gazed alternately from the rooks, pawns, and castles, to the lovers, in great and grave bewilderment, for in the empressement of their meeting, there seemed something more than the mere joy of two friends, or natives of the same country recognising each other. Were they brother and sister, or husband and wife, or what?
"But how came you to be here—what happened?" asked Denzil.
Her story, with all its apparent mystery, was both short and simple. She had heard shots in the night, and was peeping from the door of the tent, while her weary companions slept. A crowd of Afghans were passing,—the Shah's 6th Regiment were deserting en masse. A loonghee, or turban-cloth, was cast over her face by one of them, who twisted it across her mouth in such a manner as to stifle her cries completely; a havildar, mounted on a stolen horse, dragged her up beside him, and thus she was borne off, unseen in the dark, as they evidently believed that a white woman would be deemed the most valuable species of loot by some wealthy Khan or Nawab. When day broke they found themselves among the Black Rocks, near Cabul, and then a vehement dispute ensued between the havildar and her first captor as to to whom she should belong—whether they should keep, sell, or cast lots for her. Knives were promptly drawn; but some Kuzzilbash Horse came up and solved the difficulty by sabreing them both. They then carried her off to the fort of Shireen Khan, who had treated her with marked kindness and hospitality; and now she and Denzil turned towards him, and the latter expressed his extreme gratitude for all he had done for them both, adding, that he hoped they would be mercifully permitted to rejoin their friends and people.
But Khan Shireen shook his head, and replied, "Sahib, you know not what you ask, or how your friends are situated. Your army has been destroyed on its downward march to Jellalabad, and the hope of Ackbar is, that if the Sirdir Sale quits that city for Peshawur, the wild Khyberees and Ghilzies will soon annihilate his army too."
And such was indeed the hope of those in power at Cabul.
"Then our forces suffered severely, Khan?" said Denzil.
"So severely, that but one remained alive to tell the tale."
Denzil smiled at this, believing it to be mere Oriental hyperbole.