As not one of them had ever seen a Turk of Feringhistan, these answers seemed to perplex them.
"Then why here?" asked Zohrab, suspiciously.
"I served Shah Sujah, and have left him, for fate is against him, and he shall never reign in Afghanistan," said Waller, thinking in his heart, "How many falsehoods must I tell to deceive these artful savages?"
"You are right," said Amen Oollah, grimly; "but as we deem that in serving the Shah you have been guilty of a crime, I give you as a slave to Nouradeen Lai. You shall help him to plough the land."
"Salaam and thanks, Khan Sahib—I have need of a sturdy servant, as I shot one in a fit of passion lately," said a horseman, a powerfully built and venerable looking Afghan, to whose horse-girth Waller speedily found himself attached by a rope which was passed round his waist. To resist, would be simply to court death; and he was thus conducted, a prisoner, into a valley of the mountains. In fact, his captors were probably too glutted with slaughter to kill him, and so spared him for the time. But he felt that his existence would be at the caprice of his owner, Nouradeen Lai, whose first act of power was to take away his regimental sword and belt, after another acquisitive Afghan had possessed himself of his gold repeater, his purse and rings.
"What fools, and sons of burnt fathers, you Feringhees were to come among us here in Afghanistan, to put upon our throne a king we loathed, in lieu of Dost Mohammed," said Nouradeen, as they proceeded; "you will now know how true it is, that though two Dervishes may sleep on one carpet, two kings cannot reign in one kingdom. But the will of God be cdone! The whole world depends upon fate and fortune. It is one man's destiny to be depressed—the other's to be exalted."
"Canting old humbug!" thought Waller, who learned ere long that his agricultural owner was especially a man of proverbs, like Sancho Panza.
The farmer, and two other horsemen, with much ceremony bade adieu to Amen Oollah Khan; but the latter only waved his hand and said—
"Adieu till we meet again—most likely before Jellalabad," and, with his armed followers, galloped into that terrible pass, where an entire army, with all its debris, strewed the way for miles upon miles, back even into the gates of the burned cantonments.
"So those rascals think of beating up Sale's garrison," thought Waller, with reference to the parting words of the Khan.