'She brought us cherry-stick pipes, obediently assumed her native guitar, and sang to us, as her lord and master suggested. The night passed pleasantly, for the tent was in a sheltered spot; and I got up betimes to return to the cantonment, escorted part of the way by Zemaun Khan, to whose wife I presented one of the pretty charms that hung at my watch-chain.
'As we parted within a mile or so of the cantonment gate, he again expressed his gratitude to me, but said to me impressively, and with a low earnest voice:
'"If you can quit this place for Candahar or Jellalabad go at once—go, and go quickly; in three days, perhaps, it may be too late! The hills will then be alive with men."
'"You say either too much or too little," I exclaimed rather angrily.
'"I have said what I have said. The web of your existence has been spun of the thread of sorrow, and the sword of the Afghan will rend it asunder."
'"If a rising of the natives is attempted," said I, "we shall not leave one stone of yonder Balahissar standing on another."
'"Be it so; but," he added, pointing to the stupendous mountains, "you cannot destroy these—the fortresses given by God to the hill-tribes of Afghanistan! And Ackbar Khan has sworn an oath that your whole host shall perish save one man, who will be only spared to tell the fate of his comrades!"
'I had already heard something of this before, and it had been a source of laughter, but for a time only, in our mess-bungalow in Cabul; and that evening, when Vassal Holland and I were discussing my adventure, through the pleasant medium of brandy-pawnee and Chinsurah cheroots, he laughed loudly at the threat, like a heedless and handsome young fellow as he was, and stigmatised Zemaun Khan as "a melodramatic old donkey! After traversing the Bolan Pass under Willoughby Cotton, storming Ghuzni, and then taking Cabul, we won't be so jolly green as to take fright at the Afghans;" adding, "and now to talk of something else. I may mention that your absence during the storm last night, and from parade this morning, caused much speculation in the lines, and, if it is any gratification to you, not a little in the villa of the Berriedales."
'And he lay back in his long arm-chair, and watched alternately the rings of smoke from his cheroot as they ascended to the straw roof of the bungalow, and the expression of my face.
'"Was Mabel indeed interested?" I asked, with heightened colour.