CHAPTER X.
AGAIN IN CABUL.
A change had now come over him; he had grown sullen and thoughtful; but even this mood of mind she preferred to his obnoxious and intrusive tenderness. He stood silently and gloomily eyeing her for a time.
Will it be believed that, too probably, he was actually pondering whether or not policy and his own future safety required that he should pistol or sabre this helpless creature, whom a minute before he had been professing so ardently to love? He could not help speculating on what might have been the sequel, regarding himself, had her wild and despairing cry, instead of bringing up a stupid old mountain farmer, like Nouradeen Lal, summoned to the spot the ferocious Dooranee horsemen of Saleh Mohammed, who was bound to account for the prisoners, dead or alive, body for body, to Ackbar Khan. He knew that by this time all the roads diverging from Cabul would be beset in every direction by the horsemen of Saleh Mohammed and the Sirdir; that, sooner or later, some of these would meet and question the farmer returning to his home among the hills, and the information he and the Hazir-bashi must give, would soon bring a mounted Rissallah round by Beymaru in search and pursuit; so his own bold measures were instantly taken.
In Cabul would he and his prize alone be safe, and, as he hoped, unsought for a time at least; and there he resolved to convey her, ere day broke, and to conceal her in the house of one who he knew would be faithful to him—a man named Ferishta Lodi, who had been sutler to the Shah's Goorka Regiment, and whose life he had spared, and whose escape he had connived at, when the whole of that luckless battalion was massacred in cold blood, by the Afghans at Charekar.
Sternly he commanded her again to mount before him, and, aware that resistance and entreaty were alike futile, the unhappy girl, crushed in spirit, weeping heavily, and feeling utterly lost and helpless, obeyed; and once more their progress was resumed, but at a slower pace, as Zohrab was evidently husbanding the strength of his wearied horse. Day was breaking as they passed, unquestioned, through the Kohistan Gate of Cabul; but its light was yet grey and dim jis they traversed the narrow, dark, and high-walled tortuous streets, to some obscure quarter perfectly unknown to Mabel.
A few persons passed them, some going to market in the Char-chowk, others afield to tend the trellised vines; but she dared neither speak nor show her pallid face. She might find mercy at the hands of Zohrab, but none among the rabble of Cabul, where the miserable remains of the Queen's Envoy yet hung unburied in the great bazaar.
Mabel knew but too well, by observation and experience, the nature of the nation among whom she now found herself—alone. Nearly forty years had made no change on the people, since a Scottish traveller described them; and his pithy account may be summed up in the following quotation:—
"If a man could be transported to Afghanistan without passing through the dominions of Turkey, Persia, or Tartary, he would be amazed by the wide and unfrequented deserts and the mountains covered with perennial snow. Even in the cultivated part of the country he would discover a wild assemblage of hills and wastes, unmarked by enclosures, not embellished by trees, and destitute of navigable canals, public roads, and all the great and elaborate productions of human refinement and industry. He would find the towns few and far distant from each other; he would look in vain for inns and other conveniences, which a traveller would meet with in the wildest parts of Great Britain. Yet he would sometimes be delighted with the fertility and population of particular plains and valleys, where he would see the productions of Europe mingled in profusion with those of the torrid zone, and the land tilled with an industry and judgment nowhere surpassed. He would see the inhabitants accompanying their flocks in tents or villages, to which the terraced roofs and mud walls give an appearance entirely novel. He would be struck with their high and harsh features, their sun-burnt countenances, their long beards, loose garments, and shaggy cloaks of skins. When he entered into society, he would notice the absence of all courts of justice, and of everything like an organised police. He would be surprised at the fluctuation and utter instability of every civil institution. He would find it difficult to comprehend how a nation could subsist in such disorder, and pity those who were compelled to pass their days amid such scenes, and whose minds were trained by their unhappy situation to fraud and violence, to rapine, deceit, and cruel revenge. Yet he could not fail to admire their lofty and martial spirit, their hospitality, their bold and simple manners, equally removed from the suppleness of the citizen and the rusticity of the clown. In short," he adds, a stormy independence of spirit, which leads them to declare, "'We are content with fierce discord; we are content with alarm; we are content with bloodshed; but we shall never be content with a master!'"
Mabel gave herself up more than ever for lost on finding herself within the fatal walls of Cabul; a benumbed and despairing emotion crept over her heart, and all her energies seemed away from her. She found herself lifted from horseback in a paved court that was dark, damp, and gloomy, and in the centre of which a fountain was plashing monotonously. She felt herself borne indoors somewhere, she knew not by whom, and then she fainted for a little time.
She had been carried into one of those apartments which open by a large sliding panel off the dewan-khaneh, the principal hall or receiving-room of a Cabul house. She had been there deposited at length on a soft mattrass, which was simply spread on the floor, as in that country bedsteads and sofas are unlike unknown. So people there both sleep and sit on the floor, unless in the case of persons of rank, who may seat themselves cross-legged on a divan.