"Besides, yonder hills are the chosen haunt of the Ghoul Biaban," said Taj Mohammed, and though a brave man, he lowered his voice as he spoke, for the Afghans believe devoutly in the existence of "the Spirit of the Waste," a lonely demon inhabiting the mountain solitudes; frightful he is, and gigantic in form, devouring any passenger who comes in his way; forming by spells the mirage of the desert to snare the traveller, and disinterring the dead that he may devour them like the wife of the young king of the Black Isles.
"I must take my chance of the Ghoul and the Ghazeeas too; though it will be deuced hard lines to be killed by the latter and eaten, without salt, by the former," said Polwhele, laughing again.
"The shadow of the Prophet be over you and your soldiers, Sahib," said the Afghan, not without a knitted brow; for though he knew perhaps, but the half of what Polwhele said, he saw in his bearing much of that disposition to ridicule, which is so thoroughly intolerable to all foreigners, and does us much mischief everywhere; and to this, and some other mistakes of manner, we owed many of the mischiefs that ensued subsequently in Cabul.
"Historical truth compels us to acknowledge," says the Chaplain to the Forces, "that less regard was paid to the inhabitants than could have been wished. Though they do not, like other Mohammedans, universally shut up their women, the Afghans are as open to jealousy as Orientals in general, and treating their wives often rudely, the latter could not but be pleased with the attentions the young Feringhees showed them. It is much to be feared that our countrymen did not always bear in mind that the domestic habits of any people ought to be sacred in the eyes of strangers. And hence arose by degrees, distrust, alienation, and hostility, for which it were unfair to deny there might be some cause. Whatever errors they committed, the great mass of the garrison of Cabul atoned for them terribly."
We greatly fear that we must also admit to Messieurs Bob Waller, Jack Polwhele, and Harry Burgoyne being among the Feringhee delinquents referred to; and that some of their peccadilloes were alleged to have gone beyond mere oglings, hand-squeezings, and exchange of flowers with the fair Afghani at the Cantonment, the Band-stand, in the Bazaar and the narrow streets of Cabul, which are barely a yard wide.
But to resume:—
"I go to the Bala Hissar to seek the secret ear of the Shah," said Taj Mohammed, as coldly and as drily as if some of the preceding thoughts had been flitting through his mind; "I have but done my grateful duty in coming to warn you of the future storm, for the Envoy of your Queen has more than once turned a deaf ear to my advice; and now——salaam."
And with a low bow he retired ere Waller could start to his feet and usher him out. For sooth to say, Bob had been lounging in his bamboo chair with a leg over each arm thereof and a cheeroot between his teeth; a very undignified mode of sitting in presence of the Hereditary Wuzeer of Cabul.
"A horrid bore!" commented Polwhele; "glad he has gone—took his tipple like a Christian, though; and despite him of Mecca, has polished off the best part of a bottle of mess sherry."
"What the deuce are we to think of all this?" asked Denzil, who had hitherto sat completely silent, and who already in imagination saw the bright and beautiful Rose Trecarrel in the hands of innumerable Afghan Bluebeards with brandished cimitars, and Mabel waving her handkerchief like "Sister Anne" from the tower-head.