The entrance of servants with trays, on which were plums, peaches, and other fruit preserved in sugar, sweet chupatties, and a flask or two of yellow Derehnur wine (though forbidden by the Prophet), enabled Denzil to address some apologies to the ladies of the house, who invited him to seat himself on the edge of their carpet, an unwonted honour; and then the simple collation proceeded without the use of spoons or forks, which are alike unknown in that region.
Fresh southern-wood was thrown on the fire, and its fragrance filled all the apartment with a powerful perfume.
Rose felt herself constrained, but most unwillingly, to resume her part of chess-player, which she did in silence, as she scarcely knew a word of the Khan's language, but he had been delighted with her on first learning that she could play the knightly game, and play it well too, as chess is peculiarly an Oriental pastime, and was brought into Europe originally by the returned Crusaders.
"Shabash!" (Bravo) he exclaimed, and patted her kindly on the shoulder, as she again took her place near him; but her eyes ever wandered from the chess-board to the face of Denzil, whom the Kuzzilbash lady and her daughters overwhelmed with questions, many of which they had long since asked Rose. Among these were the three invariable queries, whether the East India Company was a man or a woman; if it was true that our ruler in Feringhistan was a Queen, and if the men in that region wore trousers, while the women did not. They conversed with him freely, and without constraint, for among the Afghans, unlike other races which profess the Moslem faith, intercourse between the sexes is somewhat on an European footing, and the home of the Afghan husband is one which deserves to be accounted such, as all his leisure hours are spent with his wife and children; and he leads his guest without fear or scruple into the family circle. Hence, with all their ferocity, the passion of love is neither unknown nor unhonoured among them.
Two or three days elapsed after their meeting before Denzil and Rose Trecarrel became aware that so many hostages were retained in the hands of Ackbar as pledges, to answer with their lives, or at least with their liberties, for the final withdrawal of all our troops from Afghanistan, including Sir Robert Sale's Brigade in Jellalabad and General Nott's division, 9000 strong, in Candahar; and now they found that, owing to a split in the enemy's camp, and a coolness between the Sirdir and the Khan Shireen, the latter was detaining them in secret as hostages on his own account.
"Set me free!" she had frequently implored of him.
"Not if you gave me all the lost riches of Khosroo," he replied, referring to the supposed buried treasure of Cyrus.
She had next besought aid of his wife, who shook her head, and said laughingly—
"Ere long, you will too probably be sold to a chief in Toorkistan, and live in a castle, or perhaps a tent, as his wife; if he chooses to make you such before the Cadi," added the Kuzzilbash lady, gazing with her great black eyes into the clear hazel orbs of the shocked and perplexed English girl, and feeling herself the while as much embarrassed in their difference of ideas as if her guest had come from Jupiter, Saturn, or any other of those planets which to her were but as lamps set in the sky by God or the Prophet, she knew not which, as the moollahs were somewhat uncertain on the subject.
But now the great event of having the society of Denzil made Rose, who had previously felt herself so friendless and forlorn, so desolate and lost, much more hopeful and contented; and something of her old coquetry came to the surface again, when daily he walked with her in the garden of the fort, as they were never permitted to go beyond its walls. They had both undergone much, and witnessed some frightful scenes; but it was with them there, as with those who dwell "in the countries where earthquakes are frequent, and where in almost every century some terrible convulsion has laid a whole city in ruins—the inhabitants acquire a strange indifference to peril till the very instant of its presence, and learn to forget calamities when once they have passed."