In tears and silence she lay on her pallet, her head propped upon pillows; near her the Hindoo woman had kindly placed a vase of fresh flowers, a feather fan, and a flask of essences; and then, left to herself for hours, she could but wait, and weep, and pray at intervals, dreading the coming night.
Some of the sounds without in Cabul were not unfamiliar to her; she had often heard them before, when driving through the central street in the carriage, or when riding with the other ladies of the garrison. Again, at stated times, she heard the shrill cries from the minarets and summits of the mosques proclaim that the hour for prayer had arrived; for the Moslems observe this frequently daily. "Glorify God," says the Koran, "when the evening overtaketh you, and when you rise in the morning; and unto Him be praise in heaven and on earth: and at sunset, and when you rest at noon, for prayer is the pillar of religion, and key of paradise."
Once she peeped forth between the parted shutters and blinds, shrinking back timidly as she did so, lest her pale white face should catch a casual passer's eye, and elicit a yell of recognition and of thirst for Christian blood. There the street below was dark and narrow; the clumsy wooden pipes projected far over, to carry off the rain from the roofs, which were flat and terraced; the walls were high, black, and almost windowless. Such was her view on one side. The other opened to a paved court, overlooked by houses built of sun-dried brick, rough stones, and red clay. Four mulberry-trees grew there, with a white marble fountain in the midst; and near it were some grizzly-bearded Afghans of mature years, in long, flowing garments, smoking and playing marbles, exactly as children do in Europe. Another party, also of full-grown men, were hopping against each other, on their right legs, grasping their left feet with their right hands. They seemed all pleasant fellows, hilarious and in high good humour; yet she dared neither to seek their aid, nor to trust to their compassion. In her eyes, they were but as so many tigers at play!
The circumstance of her being deemed the prisoner, the slave, or peculiar property of such a formidable soldier as Zohrab Zubberdust secured her from all interruption on the part of his male friends, the Khond and the Hindoo schroff, who jointly occupied the house in which he had placed her, and which was situated at the bottom of a narrow alley (opening off the main street that led to the Char Chowk, or great bazaar), a regular cul-de-sac, where many Khonds lived together, congregating precisely as the Irish do in the towns of England and Scotland; but this was deemed no peculiarity in Cabul, where the city was apportioned in quarters, to the different tribes of the Afghan people, the most formidably fortified being that of the Kuzzilbashes.
As evening drew on, Mabel became aware of a conversation that was proceeding in the next room; and, as she could from time to time detect the voice of Zohrab, she thought herself fully excusable in listening, which she could do with ease, as the partitions of the apartments which opened off the dewan-khaneh were all of them boarding panelled.
In one place a knot had dropped out, and to the convenient orifice made thereby, as she breathlessly applied her ear and eye alternately, she heard and saw all that was passing, and in some respects more than she cared to know, as much that she did hear only added to her repugnance and terror of those on whose mercy she found herself cast by an unhappy fate.
CHAPTER XI.
THE ABODE OF THE KHOND.
Seated on the floor were Zohrab Zubberdust and two other men.
One was the Hindoo banker. He was slight in figure, with diminutive hands and feet; like all his vast race, he was of a dark-brown colour, with straight black hair, that seemed almost blue when the light struck it, hanging straight and lankly behind his large ears—an undoubted worshipper of Brama, of the monkey god, and of all those unnumbered idols that for forty centuries have been the objects of adoration to millions upon millions—even before the Temple of Juggernaut was built. He sat cross-legged on a nummud, or carpet of red frieze, above which was spread a yellow calico covering. A cushion supported his back. He had cast off his headdress, slippers, and tunic—the day had been warm—and all save his loose dhottee, or what passed for unmentionables. He had the eye of Siva painted in the centre of his forehead (the eye that, by winking once, involved the world in darkness for a thousand years), thereby adding to the diabolical grotesquerie of his visage; and he was occupied from time to time by indulgence in the "eighth sensual delight" of the Hindoos—chewing betel-nut, a hot and aromatic stimulant.