"I have no words to thank you," replied Denzil, breathlessly, and turning away somewhat bluntly from Audley Trevelyan, who frankly came to shake his hand in token of congratulation; for their escape was almost miraculous—without wounds, too.
Lady Sale was thanking Heaven that her husband was safe in Jellalabad, and Mabel Trecarrel made a pretty plain exposé of what her emotions were on beholding Waller safe.
"Mr. Devereaux," said a voice that made his heart thrill—"Denzil, thank God you have escaped! But, Heavens! your hands are all over blood; it is horrible!"
There was infinite tenderness in the tone of Rose. It is the slavery of great love to be ever very humble. The lad blessed her in his heart; yet her honeyed accents, though they recalled the joy of yesterday, could not remove the sting of that morning's mockery which still was sore and rankling.
"Poor Trevor, and all the rest, God help them!" exclaimed General Trecarrel, and many others, who had no hope now save in vengeance; but, ere nightfall, Taj Mohammed stole into the cantonments with some final tidings.
The body of Sir William, who was a brave, good, and highly accomplished gentleman, had been ignominiously stripped and hung, with all its gaping wounds, in the Char Chouk, or Great Bazaar, where Denzil had so nearly lost his life; and the head was taken by a khan, named Nawab Zuman, and, together with one of the hands, exhibited with ferocious triumph to Captain Conolly, an officer who had unfortunately fallen into their power, and whose brother, with Major Stoddart, afterwards perished miserably under torture in the dungeons of the Emir of Bokhara.
The other two officers were detained as prisoners by Ackbar Khan. General Trecarrel, who had just come in from the Bala Hissar with an escort of the 5th Cavalry, was furious, and wished the cantonment to open with round shot, grape, and canister, on everything and everybody within their range; but grave consideration was necessary now—our little force was so isolated in that hostile land. At the time these events were occurring, the remains of Sir Alexander Barnes's body, cut in pieces, were still hanging on the trees of his garden as food for the vultures, and Ackbar Khan was driving in the Char Chouk, in the carriage of Sir William Macnaughten, whose head he hung there in a bhoosa bag (or forage-net) till it could be transmitted by a tchopper, or mounted messenger, to the Emir of Bokhara; and the poor ladies in the cantonments looked at each other with blanched faces, as they heard of those terrible things.
So closed the night of the 23rd December over our troops in far-away Cabul.