He was thinking only of Rose, when there were those hovering about him who required but the precept, or example, of one bolder or more cruel than the rest, to cut him to pieces and elevate his head on some conspicuous pole in the market-place; for the Afghans almost invariably slice off the heads of those they slay.
It never occurred to him, that in her own laughing way, her manner yesterday had been somewhat forward, over-confident, or "flirtatious" as Polwhele would have phrased it. He had but one idea and conviction; "How fond she is of me?" and thus a few gold pieces which he had once intended to invest in a present for his mother—alas! he knew not all that had happened at home—or for Sybil, his gentle sister, were now to be spent in a suitable love-gift for Rose Trecarrel.
"She loves me—and she is so beautiful!" he whispered to himself again and again; for there is much truth in the old Roman maxim, that "what we wish should be, we readily believe;" and what reason had he to doubt her? Doubtless, she had flirted with many—but she loved him.
Followed and alternately mocked, reviled or importuned insolently for alms, by Osman Abdallah, the Arab Dervish, to be rid of whose inodorous presence, he thrice gave him a rupee, Denzil reached the great bazaar, the largest in all the East (and once famed as the emporium of Asia), which was built in the days of Aurungzebe; but which exists no longer, as it was subsequently destroyed by our troops.
Like other Oriental bazaars, it was formed of stone, like a long double gallery, arched in with wood elaborately painted, gilded, and carved, and having to the right and left bezetzeins or shops opening off it; and in these, merchants displayed their various goods for sale. The true Afghans never engage in trade; but despise it. All their shopkeepers, merchants and artizans are generally men of other nations—Tadjiks, Hindoos, or Persians; and through a scowling and well armed crowd of idle men and veiled women, Denzil wandered amid a maze of shops, some of their windows being ablaze with jewels, gold and silver work, rich draperies, divans, Persian carpets, Cashmere shawls; shops where iced sherbet and luscious fruits were vended in summer; shops where chupatties and sweet confectionery were sold; others where silver-mounted saddles, gold-handled sabres, silks, muslins and riches of all kinds were displayed, a more picturesque aspect being imparted to the whole scene by the variously-coloured lamps of perfumed oil which hung from the ceilings, and which, as the dusk of evening was now stealing into the bazaar, were being lighted here and there.
At last he stood before the booth of a jeweller, who was seated cross-legged behind the trays whereon female ornaments of every conceivable kind for the neck, ankles and wrists, for the hair and the girdle, rings for the ears, the fingers and nose were displayed, all fashioned of that bright-coloured gold and delicate workmanship for which the East, but more especially the city of Delhi is so famed. The prices of these were marked on labels in Afghan money, from the rupee and gold mohur upwards.
While Denzil was looking over these gems of art for a ring of some value as a suitable present for Rose Trecarrel, he did not perceive that the cross-legged and remarkably cross-visaged proprietor—a huge Asiatic, who wore a green turban, declaring thereby his descent from the prophet, and who sat smoking on a piece of carpet within his shopboard, his beard of intense blackness, flowing almost to his knees—was eyeing him with a deepening scowl, and seeming to shoot towards him with fierce and insulting energy the pale blue smoke wreaths that issued from his lips and the nostrils of his hooked nose—a veritable eagle's beak.
At last Denzil selected a ring, the price of which was marked as eight gold mohurs, and was about to proffer the money therefor, when the merchant snatched the jewel from his hand, and saying, with savage energy, the single epithet, "Kaffir!" spat full in his face. At the same moment Osman Abdallah, the filthy, greasy and unshorn Arab Hadi, who had been watching closely, uttered a shrill and hostile yell.
Startled and justly enraged by an insult so sudden and so foul, Denzil drew back with his hand on his sword. As his assailant was quite unarmed, he had no intention of drawing it unless farther molested. He looked round in vain for a choukeydar (or policeman) and saw only a gathering crowd with black-gleaming eyes and swarthy malevolent visages closing round him. How the affair might have ended there is little difficulty in foreseeing. He must have been slaughtered on the spot, but for the intervention of a splendidly equipped horseman, who at that critical moment rode up, and seizing him by the arm waved the people back by his sabre, and assisted by his followers, six juzailchees, half led half dragged Denzil from the bazaar into the open street.
"Are you mad or weary of your life, Sahib, that you venture into Cabul in the present state of the city, and, more than all, to-day?" asked his protector, sternly.