Happy, thoughtless, heedless Rose, with all her flirting and pretty coquettish ways—where was she now? Dead, butchered, or dying in misery amid the snow, or a captive; and, if so, in whose hands? A captive kept for worse than death, too probably! It was an episode that was maddening to her sister; to her old father, who loved her so tenderly; to Denzil, who doted on her shadow, and whose heart was full of the memory of that happy day by the Lake of Istaliff; to Waller; and all who had known and liked her, or laughed and danced with her in the happy time that was past.
"Oh, God!" murmured the poor General, half audibly, as he raised his eyes and tremulous hands upwards; "give my child back to me, or take me to her! Lord, Lord, let me not go mad!" he added piteously. "To find her lying dead would be better than to be thus ignorant of her fate—of her sufferings—of her end!"
Life seemed to die out of his heart; yet he breathed and lived, and had speech and hearing left.
"Those scoundrels who levanted in the dark, the Shah's Sixth, have something to do with this," said Burgoyne; "they furnished the chain of sentinels towards the rear."
"Right," exclaimed the General hoarsely, "and in the rear must she be sought."
"The enemy are already in motion and in sight," said Brigadier Shelton, who was examining the distant portion of the Pass through his field-glass.
"I care not if all Afghanistan was there," said Trecarrel, mounting; "come with me, Trevelyan! Ladies, I entreat you to look to Mabel while I go in search of my lost one."
"Papa, papa," implored Mabel, "don't leave me."
"You are safe for the time," he replied, checking his horse for an instant; "but I must go in search of my lost darling—to find her, or to die."
And now the old man rode wildly to the rear, followed by Audley, who had to ride with caution among the frozen dead and other debris, as the horses were ill-roughed, the Nalbunds, or native farriers, having all deserted.