On descending the other side of an intervening eminence, that was covered by wild sugar-canes and aromatic shrubs, the leaves of which were tossing in the evening breeze, he curtly desired her to place her right foot upon his left within the stirrup-iron, and then, with the aid of his hand, he readily placed her on the holsters of his saddle before him. He now applied the spurs with vigour to his strong, active, and long-bodied Tartar horse, and, with a speed which its double burden certainly served to diminish, it began quickly to leave behind the dreaded fort of Mohammed Saleh.
As the latter began to sink and lessen in the distance, Mabel Trecarrel felt as if there was a strange and dreamy unreality about all this episode. Many an officer and Indian Sowar had ridden into the Khoord Cabul Pass with his wife or his children before him, even as she was now borne by Zohrab; she had heard and seen many wild and terrible things since her father, with other officers of the Company's service, had come, in an evil hour, "up country," to command Shah Sujah's Native Contingent; she had read and heard of many such adventures, escapes, flights, and abductions in romance and reality; but what might be her fate now, if this should prove to be the latter—an abduction of herself—some trick of which she had permitted herself to become the too-ready victim?
She was in a land where the people were prone to wild and predatory habits, and, moreover, were masters in trickery, cunning, and cruelty. Had she been deceived? she asked of herself, when she felt the strong, sinewy, and bony arm of Zohrab tightening round her waist, while his wiry little horse, with its fierce nose and muscular neck outstretched, and its dancing mane streaming behind like a tiny smoke-wreath, sped on and on, she knew not whither!
Had she been deceived, was the ever-recurring dread, when the handwriting was that of Rose, beyond all doubt? But written when? or had Rose been deluded? Was this horseman the person in whom she had been desired "to confide," or had he stolen the note from another?—perhaps, after killing him! Those Afghans were such subtle tricksters that she felt her mistrust equalled only by her loathing of them all.
Mabel asked herself all these tormenting questions when, perhaps, too late; and she knew that, whether armed or unarmed, Heaven had never intended her to be a heroine, or to play the part of one: she felt a conviction that she was merely "an every-day young lady," and that if "much more of this kind of thing went, she must die of fright."
Just as she came to this conclusion an involuntary cry escaped her. The boom of a cannon—one of Her Majesty's nine-pounders, of which the Khan had possessed himself—pealed out on the calm still atmosphere of the Indian evening, now deepening into night. Another and another followed, waking the echoes of the woods and hills; and, though distant now, each red flash momentarily lit up the sky. They came from the fort of Saleh Mohammed to alarm the country; and still further to effect this and announce the escape of a prisoner, a vast quantity of those wonderful and beautiful crimson, blue, green, and golden lights, in the manufacture of which all Oriental pyrotechnists excel so particularly, were shot off in every direction from the walls, showering upward and downward like falling stars, describing brilliant arcs through the cloudless sky; and with an exclamation on his bearded mouth, expressive of mockery and malison with fierce exultation mingled, Zohrab Zubberdust looked back for a moment, while his black eyes flashed fire in the reflected light.
"Hah!" he muttered, "dog of a Dooranee, may the grave of the slave that bore thee be defiled!"
And while one hand tightened around his prize, with the other he urged his horse to greater speed than ever.