"Slay him, even as I slew Burnes Sahib!" added that pleasant personage who rejoiced in the name of Ameen Oolah Khan. "Ha! what said the Khan of Khelat-i-Ghilzie to him, when he heard of the Feringhees first coming hither by the Khyber and the Khoord Cabul passes? 'Ye have brought an army into the land of the Pushtaneh; but how do you propose to take it back again?'"*
* These were almost the words of the Duke of Wellington (by a singular coincidence) when intimation was first made in Parliament of our advance into Afghanistan.—Macfarlane's Hist. of British India, p. 537.
"Had we killed Burnes Sahib when first he came among us alone, he had not returned with all those Kaffirs who are now cantoned between yonder hills of Siah Sung and Behmaru," said another chief, who wore the sword of Sir Alexander Burnes in his girdle; "so now, that we have the opportunity, let us slay the dogs ere they can escape us."
"Nay, let us get the ransom first," suggested Shireen Khan.
"Yes; and then let them march and be in the Passes, we know by which they must depart; and remember," added Ackbar, with a tone and face of indescribable ferocity, "the old Arab proverb—Al harbu Khudatun!"—(All war is fraud).
"Moreover," said Ameen Oollah, "the Prophet tells us, that promise as we may, no faith is to be kept with heretics."
"I came to retake my father's rights; the rights he sold to the Feringhees. It was written that I should do so; for who that could sit on a lofty throne in yonder Bala Hissar, would content him with a carpet in a tent? Those Feringhees—those Anglo-Indians are the most presumptuous dogs in the world," continued Ackbar, "they are accustomed to see their servile sipahees, their effeminate Hindoos, and others cower before them; but did they expect the same homage from us—the free men of Afghanistan?"
A fierce laugh answered the question, and those who had lances, made their iron-shod butts to crash on the marble floor.
Much more to the same purpose passed. Many of the arguments used and impulses given, were nearly the same as those which excited the terrible mutiny of a subsequent year; but what plan those conspirators meant to adopt—whether to take a bribe, and let our troops retreat in peace; or take the bribe, and lure them to destruction in those terrible passes by which alone they could return to India; in either case, to make slaves of the white women, neither Mohammed, who translated much of what we have written, nor the other listener, could determine; but the farewell words of Ackbar, ere they departed, were ominous of much evil to come.
"To your castles and tents," said he; "let every Khan and tribe be prepared, for to-morrow may determine all. You, Shireen Khan, shall dispatch tchoppers* to the chiefs of the Ghilzies, and those of the Khyberrees, to guard the passes to the death, promise what we may—for remember all war is fraud!"