Breathlessly she listened!
Sounds passed at intervals through the large and scantily furnished chambers of the slenderly built house. The floors being all uncarpeted, and the windows without draperies, in the fashion of the country, the edifice was liable to produce strange echoes, and Mabel strove to gather from these something of good or bad augury as they fell on her overstrained ear.
Ah, were she but once more back in the hitherto abhorred fort of Saleh Mohammed—back to the sad companionship of the hostages—to the shelter and counsel of her own sex and people! In the power of the Khond she felt, truly and terribly, that if they had much to dread and to anticipate when in the fort, she had much that was more immediate to dread now; that within every shade there may be a deeper shadow. Rose could never know her fate, or how she had perished in seeking to rejoin her; and she might have to die and never know the story of the younger sister she loved so dearly.
Suddenly, amid her sad reverie, she heard the sound of heavy boots, the brown-tanned jorabs of Afghan horsemen, and the cadence of various guttural voices in the dewan-khaneh. Then a red light streamed through the jointings of the panelled wall. The wooden bolt outside was shot back; the great central panel slid down in its grooves, and within the square outline it left, framed as if in a picture, with the red smoky glare of an upheld torch falling strongly upon him, stood the tall and grim but most picturesque figure of the old Khan of the Dooranees, Saleh Mohammed, with one brown bony hand thrust into his yellow Cashmere girdle, and the other resting on the jewelled hilt of his sheathed sabre.
His bushy beard concealed alike the form of his mouth and chin; but his slender hooked nose, with arching nostril, his shaggy brows, and keen eagle-like eyes indicated firmness, decision, and rapidity of thought and action. He wore a loose and ample chogah of scarlet cloth, lined with fine fur, and richly embroidered; a short matchlock, beautifully inlaid with mother-of-pearl, was slung upon his back, with a silk handkerchief bound over its lock for protection; his girdle bristled with the usual number of elaborate knives, daggers, and pistols; and he wore a green turban to indicate his assumed or acknowledged descent from the Prophet.
With something of kindness mingled with sternness, he held out a hand to the drooping Mabel, and raised her from her knees; for she was half sitting and half reclining, hopelessly and weakly, against the wooden partition; and he saw how pale and piteous she looked. Now old Saleh had several wives and daughters of his own in a secluded fort among the Siah Sung Hills, and he was not without some promptings of human sympathy in his heart.
"Come," said he; "with me you are safe, and shall go back to your friends. From Shireen Khan I have been told how Zohrab, that liar who is now hanging over hell by the tongue, deceived you."
She thankfully placed her hand in that of the Dooranee chief, for, after the tiger-like visage of the Khond, his bearded face and venerable aspect were as those of a father to her, and most gratefully she welcomed him.
The hint of the Khond, that Ackbar Khan, or some of the other Khans, whose number was legion in Cabul, might confiscate his substance and appropriate his hard-won mohurs, tomauns, rupees, and good English guineas, had not been lost on the quiet and acquisitive Hindoo banker, who had straightway betaken him to Mohammed Saleh in the street, just as he was collecting his men to depart, and, to make his peace with all, had surrendered Mabel, while, for some reason known to himself alone, he had no future fear of Ferishta Lodi's anger.
As Mabel was too weak to ride on a side-saddle, and to walk was, of course, impossible, a palanquin was soon procured, and in that she was rapidly conveyed by four bearers in the fashion to which she was quite accustomed, away from the city, under the shadow of the great Bala Hissar, past the tomb of Baber, and round between the Siah Sung Hills and the Cabul river, once more to the fort of Saleh Mohammed, where, just as day was breaking, she was roused from a slumber that was full of painful visions and nervous startings, to find herself welcomed by pure English tongues and by the embraces of her companions in misfortune, the lady hostages of Elphinstone's hapless army.