He simply gave the scared Mabel a smile, full of confidence and saucy meaning, and then turned away, leaving her a prey to emotions of fear—a fear that might have been all the greater had she heard what passed between him and Saleh Mohammed at the time when she, trembling in heart and feeble in limb, crept back to the ladies' huts to tell them, with lips blanched by terror, that "the first Toorkoman had come!"
And stronger than ever grew her presentiment within her.
The craving to hear of the movements of the three British armies which they knew to be still in Afghanistan was strong as ever in the hearts of the captives—to hear the last, ere a barrier rose between them and their past life; and that barrier seemed now to be the mighty chain of Hindoo Koosh rising between them and the way to India and to home. Long had they hoped against hope. Nott, and Pollock, and Sale—where were they and their soldiers? What were they doing? For the Dooranees would tell nothing. Had they and their forces been destroyed in detail, even as Elphinstone's had been? Those yells and noisy discharges of musketry, in which the captors at times indulged in honour of alleged victories over the three Kaffir Sirdirs, on tidings brought by wandering hadjis, filthy faquirs, and dancing dervishes, could they be justified? Alas! fate seemed to have done its worst!
Surmises were become threadbare; invention was worn out. Each of the poor captives had striven, by suggestions of probabilities and by efforts of imagination, to flatter themselves and buoy up the hearts of others; but all seemed at an end now.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE GOVERNOR OF BAMEEAN.
Waking up Saleh Mohammed without much ceremony, the young Toorkoman chief proceeded to business at once, but in a very cunning way, commencing with another subject, like a wily lawyer seeking to lure and throw a witness off his guard.
"After a nine days' journey, Khan, you must be short of provisions?" said he.
"Oh, fear not for our presence here in Bameean," replied Saleh Mohammed, leisurely sucking at his hubble-bubble, the light of which had gone out; "every tobrah full of oats, every maund of ottah and rice, we require shall be duly paid for."
"You mistake me; I did not mean that."