CHAPTER XII.

ASSASSINATION.

No special correspondent had ever, or has ever, penetrated beyond the Indus and into the wilds of Kohistan, to saturate the English papers with narratives of the terrible scenes which we are about to describe in some of these pages.

Leaving the cantonments by the centre gate which faced the hills of Siah Sung, Denzil, Waller, and the officers who had joined them, Captains Mackenzie, Lawrence, and Trevor, now rode to where a group of others surrounded one on horseback, who proved to be the Envoy, who had with him a Hindoo syce, or groom, leading a marvellously beautiful Arab horse, which he meant to present in our Queen's name to the Sirdir. With all his avowed confidence in the latter, he had requested that, in case of any unforeseen emergency arising, the 51th Native Infantry, the Shah's 6th regiment and two field pieces should be in readiness for instant service; but so greatly was General Elphinstone debilitated, alike in mind and body, that no order to this effect was issued; so the men remained idle in their bungalows, though it was known that the cowardly Shah Sujah, who had eight hundred ladies, the flower of all his country, shut up with him in the Bala Hissar, was so apprehensive of the result of the meeting, that he coolly sent orders through his Kadun Kahia (or Mother of the Maids) placed in authority over them, that they should, if the rebels under Ackbar got into the city, be each and all prepared to take a deadly poison within an hour.

"Look alive, Denzil—waken up; here is the representative of Her Britannic Majesty in this pleasant part of the world," said Waller to his abstracted friend, while laughing and saluting, he approached Sir William Macnaghten, Baronet, who, for his great political services, had just been appointed Governor of Bombay, and who was in full diplomatic uniform, elaborately laced with silver embroidery, and had several jewelled orders glittering on his breast.

Like many men whom a perilous adventure or a sudden fate menaces, he was in excellent spirits this morning, and was by no means disposed to listen to the warnings of the solemn-visaged Wuzeer, who was relating all that he and Denzil had overheard in the Mosque of Baber. Captain Mackenzie also stated that there was certainly a plot laid by Ackbar for his destruction; but Macnaghten would listen to neither advice nor remonstrance.

"I must meet him," said he, "and already he and the chiefs are on the ground to consult about whether we shall remain here in peace or retire beyond the Indus; and you will see how I shall snub even such a fellow as Ackbar Khan," he added, lifting his cocked hat and bowing gracefully to the ladies who were gathering in numbers above the rampart of the Siah Sung gate, and all were busy with their opera-glasses, looking towards the east bank of the Cabul river, where, about a quarter of a mile distant, were clustered a group of Afghan horsemen, their brightly coloured flowing dresses and burnished weapons making a brilliant show in the sunshine.

In common with Captain Lawrence and Captain Trevor of the 3rd Light Cavalry, Waller begged the Envoy to consider well these repeated warnings, but the latter only laughed and said,

"Bold as he is—and even in this wild country there is none perhaps bolder—Ackbar dare not molest me."

"Be not over confident, Sir William: remember his remorseless character, and the homicides he has committed."

"I have my pistols."

"So have we all; but consider your wife—consider Lady Macnaghten, if you perish as Sir Alexander Burnes perished!"

Macnaghten's lip quivered slightly, and he glanced to where the row of fair English faces, the flutter of ribbons, veils, and gay bonnets, were all visible above the dark slope of the cantonment wall; but he concealed his rising emotion or anxiety by an angry outburst.

"I do not ask you, Captain Waller, to accompany me; Mackenzie, Lawrence, and Trevor are enough to be in front of the lines, if you think the risk so great."

Waller's open and ruddy countenance lowered and grew pale.

"Risk, Sir William!" said he, greatly ruffled, "of course there is risk, otherwise I should not be here as a volunteer."

"Nor I," added Denzil, glancing towards a certain blue crape bonnet, and detecting Audley's cocked hat very close thereby.

"Nor I," exclaimed the black-whiskered Polwhele, who had hitherto been intent on the points of the Arab courser.

"Come on then, gentlemen—the more the merrier, and a little time must solve all."

The Wuzeer sadly shook his head, and saying,

"As Darrah said of the hypocrite Aurungzebe, 'Of all my brothers most do I fear the teller of beads,' so say I of Ackbar;" and almost rending his beard as he went, this loyal minister of a most unpopular king retired into one of the forts to wait the event, while the Envoy laughingly spurred his horse and with his companions rode towards the group of Afghan Chiefs, around and in the rear of whom their armed followers were every moment increasing in number and excitement, as fresh horsemen accoutred with spear and shield, matchlock and sabre, came galloping from the gates of the city, uttering menacing and tumultuous cries, which could not fail to make the hearts of the ladies in the fortified camp to throb with apprehension.

The Envoy, with his little Staff, after crossing the canal by the bridge near an old and abandoned fort, advanced more leisurely towards where Mohammed Ackbar Khan, and many other great Chiefs, among whom were Shireen Khan of the Kussilbashes, on his towering camel, and Ameen Oollah Khan, were posted a little way in front of an armed, dark-visaged, and stormy-looking throng.

The last-named individual, Chief of Loghur, perhaps equalled Ackbar in cruelty; and it may be sufficient to illustrate his character to state, that in order to get rid of an elder brother who stood between him and the inheritance, he caused him to be seized and buried up to the chin in densely packed earth. Around his neck was then looped a rope, the end of which was haltered to a wild horse, which was driven round him in a circle, until the unhappy victim's head was torn from his shoulders, as a testimony of how Ameen Oollah Khan protested against the law of primogeniture.*

* Lieutenant Eyre's Narrative.

Conspicuous among all by his stature and deportment, the Prince Ackbar was magnificently attired in a camise of shawl pattern, all scarlet and gold; his plumed cap was of blue and gold brocade, with a fall and fringe that drooped on his right shoulder. He was armed only with his sabre, a poniard, and a pair of magnificent pistols, which Sir William Macnaghten had presented to him on a former occasion; but Ameen Oollah Khan, Shireen, the Kussilbash, the other chiefs, and all their followers, especially the Ghilzies, were accoutred to the teeth, with the arms usually borne by Afghan horsemen—a heavy matchlock with a long bayonet, a sabre, a blunderbuss, three long pistols, a dagger, four or five knives, a shield on the back, and a comical complication of bullet-bags, powder-flasks, priming-horns, and other things dangling at their girdles; and warlike, ferocious, and formidable-looking fellows they were, save their firearms, unchanged in aspect and in nature as their forefathers who dwelt on the mountains of Ghore, in the days when the Scots and English were breaking each other's heads on the field of Northallerton.

It was a strange scene, and picturesque in all its details.

On one side a few fair-faced English officers in full uniform, with glass in eye and cigarette in mouth, cool, quiet, and secretly rather disposed to "chaff the niggers"—men of that type of whom Bob Waller might be taken as the representative, frank, fearless, and light-hearted, with his honest blue eyes and those long, fair whiskers which Mabel Trecarrel thought so adorable—quite as much so as he deemed her tresses of ruddy, golden auburn; on the other, a horde of those hardy warriors from the hills of Kohistan—men whose ideas were beyond the middle ages of the world's history, with their hearts full of proud disdain, rancorous hate, and all the malignant treachery that adversity of race, religious fanaticism, and profound ignorance can inspire, and yet suavely dissembling for the time.

"Permit me, Khan, to present you with this horse, in the name of Her Majesty the Queen of England, with her wishes that you may long be spared to ride him," said Sir William Macnaghten, with a profound salaam, after he and his companions drew close to the carpet on which Ackbar awaited them. He then alighted from his horse and seated himself, together with Captains Trevor, Lawrence, and Mackenzie, upon a piece of carpet, among the chiefs and sirdars; but, luckily for themselves, Waller, Denzil, and the rest remained in their saddles, at a little distance. The Sirdir coldly and haughtily thanked the Envoy for his new gift, the points of which he praised with all a horseman's perception. It cost Sir William 3000 rupees, and had belonged to Captain Grant, the Assistant Adjutant-General. Then with an eye to any confusion that might ensue during the Conference, he ordered the Hindoo syce to lead it off at once towards the city, and a sly, cruel gleam came into his black eyes, as this was done. After a few solemn salutations in oriental fashion and phraseology, Ackbar Khan said—

"Bismillah! let us talk."

All the chapters in the Koran, except nine, commence with this word, which signifies, "In the name of the merciful God;" thus it is incessantly used in conversation by the Arabs, and still more by the somewhat canting Afghans.

He then proceeded to business at once, by asking the Envoy if he was prepared to effect a proposition that had before been made, to the effect that we should deliver up the Shah Sujah, with all his household and family, male and female, to his—the Sirdir's—mercy; that we should lay down our arms and colours, yielding also cannon and horses, together with those two obnoxious sahibs, Sir Robert Sale and Brigadier Shelton, as hostages—in fact, an unconditional surrender—in virtue of which he should graciously pardon our appearance in Afghanistan, our interference with its affairs, and permit our whole force to retire with their lives, on the further condition of swearing to return no more!

"Such proposals," said Sir William, endeavouring to preserve his temper, "are too dishonourable for British troops to entertain. You know not, Sirdir, the men you speak to, and if you persist——"

"Ah, if we persist, what then?"

"We shall simply appeal to arms."

"You Feringhees are proud," said Ackbar, scoffingly; "but Allah punishes the proud and humbles them."

He breathed hard as he spoke, and the splendid jewels on his breast heaved with each excited respiration as he strove to restrain his fiery temper; but his dark eyes sparkled, and his teeth glistened like those of a wild animal.

"I have to lament, Khan," resumed Sir William, "that relations of friendship which have hitherto existed between your people and us have been clouded; and I am ignorant wherefore it should be so. Good-will towards the people of Afghanistan caused my mistress, the Queen of England, to lend her aid——"

"In dethroning my father, Dost Mohammed Khan," interrupted Ackbar, with sombre fury.

"In restoring Shah Sujah to the throne of his ancestors," continued Macnaghten, heedless of the pointed interruption; "and now, Khan, I beseech you to remember that I received your royal father's sword at yonder gate of Cabul, when he rode in, a hunted fugitive, after his escape from the Emir of Bokhara, and I saved his life, sending him with all honour to Calcutta, when I might have slain him."

"I have not forgotten it, Kaffir, and would rather you had cut him to pieces, than made him a dependent on your bounty."

Sir William took no heed either of the injurious epithet or the prince's somewhat unfilial wish.

"The paths of the just are rugged like yonder hills of Kohistan; yet the snowy peaks are nearer Allah than the plain around us," said Ackbar, in true Afghan phraseology.

"I know that, Khan; but——"

"Peace! You Kaffirs pretend to know all things, whereas ye know nothing. How can it be else, when ye know not the blessed Koran? You can be grasping and cruel, however, and well know how to be so. Was it not your secret intention to send Ameen Oollah Khan, Skireen Khan, and even me, chained, as slaves to your Queen, a Kaffir woman, in her little island, which, Abdallah the Hadji tells us, is a mere spot of mud amid a misty sea?"

"It was a lie of the Ghilzie chiefs," replied Sir William, becoming uneasy at the decidedly offensive tone so rapidly assumed by the Khan.

"There is but one God, and before Him none other did exist," resumed the royal hypocrite; "He formed seven heavens, seven worlds, and eighteen creations, and He sent his friend Mohammed as the Prophet to mankind; and by every hair in that Prophet's beard I swear to see you brought low—very low, and to exult over you."

"Perhaps so, Khan—you are younger than I," replied the other, affecting to misunderstand the ominous threat.

"You will not accept our terms?"

"It is impossible; as I have said, they are too dishonourable."

"Then, while the Khyberees guard the passes, we shall starve you in yonder cantonments, till the horses gnaw each other's tails, and the tent-pegs too, for very hunger; till the babe shall suck in vain for milk at its dying mother's breast, and the jackals and pariah dogs shall gorge themselves with the flesh of camels, of horses, and those who are lower yet than even the beasts of the field—the accursed of the Prophet!"

Ere Macnaghten could reply to this remarkable outburst, an officer (Captain Lawrence) drew near, and called his attention to the great number of armed men who had been gradually stealing in between them and the gate of the cantonments, and suggested that they "should be ordered to withdraw."

"No," exclaimed Ackbar, starting to his feet; "they are all in the secret; begeer! begeer!" (seize—seize).

At these words, as if they had been a given signal, the Envoy, Captains Trevor, Lawrence, and Mackenzie were seized by a crowd of Afghans, and were so completely taken by surprise, that their swords, pistols, and epaulets were torn from them before they could strike a blow in their own defence.

With an expression of indescribable ferocity in his dark face, Ackbar grasped Sir William with his own hand, and proceeded to drag him violently and by main strength down a bank towards the Cabul river.

"Ah! Kaffir," said he, tauntingly, "you think to take my country, do you?"

"For God's sake, beware!" exclaimed the unfortunate man, making all the resistance that rage, just indignation, and fear of a sudden death, such as that endured by his friend Burnes, would inspire; so finding it impossible to carry him off, Ackbar shot him dead with one of the beautiful pistols, a present from his victim; and ere the corpse touched the ground it was impaled by a hundred swords and bayonets. The head was then hewn off and upheld by the hair.

Captain Trevor, of the 3rd Bengal Cavalry, also fell, the victim of innumerable wounds. Mackenzie and Lawrence were borne off towards the city by one horde of fanatics, while another, led by Ameen Oollah Khan, with juzails cocked and swords drawn, and with flashing eyes and infuriated faces and gestures, uttering screams of "Kaffirs—Feringhees—Sugs!" (infidels—Europeans—dogs), rushed upon Waller, Denzil, Polwhele, and two other officers, who could hear the shrill cries of dismay uttered by the ladies on the wall of the cantonments, where now, when it was too late, old Elphinstone had ordered the drums to beat to arms, and General Trecarrel brought the cavalry, half-saddled, from their stables.

"Stick close to me, Devereaux," cried Waller, shortening his reins and raising himself in his stirrups. He escaped two juzail balls, and parried a most vicious poke of a lance made at him by Shireen Khan; and then by one tremendous blow, which, however, fell harmlessly on the thick folds of the loonghee or scarlet cap of that personage, he tumbled him from his perch on the camel's hump. The next blow he gave rid Denzil of Abdallah, the Arab Hadji, who, shouting "Mohammed resoul Allah!" had actually sprung, with all the fierce activity of a tree-tiger, upon his horse's crupper, and was about to plunge an Afghan dagger—a formidable weapon, as it is twenty-four inches in length, broader than a sword-blade, and sharp as a razor—into his back or throat; it only grazed his neck, however, when Waller's sword, with all the impetus that strength of arm and speed of horse could give it, was through and through the body of the savage fanatic.

"There is another nigger sent to the other end of nowhere," cried Waller. "Dash right through them, gentlemen; we must cut for our lives!"

Riding close together and abreast, the five officers, making a charge right through the mob (who were chiefly Ghilzees, and who, in their blind fury, wrath, and confusion, wounded and shot each other), succeeded by hard riding in reaching the cantonments, the gates of which were instantly closed and barricaded.

Polwhele left his sword in one man's body, so firmly was it wedged in the spinal column. Waller's sword was only one of the rubbishy regulation blades of Sheffield, a poor weapon when opposed to the keenly tempered sabres of those Afghan warriors, yet towering over them all, his bulk, strength, and stature had availed him greatly; he had shot two, and cut down three. Denzil, though half stunned by confusion at the suddenness of the whole affair, and by the explosion of a matchlock close to his face, struck about manfully, and must have sent at least one Mussulman on his way to the dark-eyed girls of paradise; for when he dismounted, breathless and excited, within the gates, he found his sword and right hand both covered with blood.

In the exasperation of his mind at Rose Trecarrel, the tumult of the time was a relief to Denzil's mind; and he was not sorry that she, through her lorgnette, had seen him, sword in hand, among the Afghans.

On this conflict the poor ladies had gazed, with faces paled by terror, and lips that were mute, save when a shriek escaped them involuntarily as blood spirted upward in the air, as a man or horse went down, yet they gazed with the strange fascination that the ferocity of a conflict between men—more than all armed men—will sometimes have for the gentlest woman, for it seemed a species of wild phantasmagoria. But they wrung their hands and wept piteously; for they saw the terrible butchery of Sir William Macnaughten and of Captain Trevor, and could only tremble for the too-probable fate of Captain Lawrence and Captain Mackenzie, who, in sight of the entire troops in the cantonment, and in sight of all their friends, were borne off captives amid a yelling horde, whose weapons, spear-heads, crooked sabres, and polished horseshoes, flashed out brightly from amid a cloud of dust that rolled away towards the Lahore Gate of the now-hostile city of Cabul.

"Well, this is a shindy that will suffice to scare our blue devils for awhile," said Polwhele, with a grim smile on his dark face.

"Denzil, my boy," said Waller, "you had a narrow squeak for your life; that Arab wasp's dagger was pretty close."

"I have no words to thank you," replied Denzil, breathlessly, and turning away somewhat bluntly from Audley Trevelyan, who frankly came to shake his hand in token of congratulation; for their escape was almost miraculous—without wounds, too.

Lady Sale was thanking Heaven that her husband was safe in Jellalabad, and Mabel Trecarrel made a pretty plain exposé of what her emotions were on beholding Waller safe.

"Mr. Devereaux," said a voice that made his heart thrill—"Denzil, thank God you have escaped! But, Heavens! your hands are all over blood; it is horrible!"

There was infinite tenderness in the tone of Rose. It is the slavery of great love to be ever very humble. The lad blessed her in his heart; yet her honeyed accents, though they recalled the joy of yesterday, could not remove the sting of that morning's mockery which still was sore and rankling.

"Poor Trevor, and all the rest, God help them!" exclaimed General Trecarrel, and many others, who had no hope now save in vengeance; but, ere nightfall, Taj Mohammed stole into the cantonments with some final tidings.

The body of Sir William, who was a brave, good, and highly accomplished gentleman, had been ignominiously stripped and hung, with all its gaping wounds, in the Char Chouk, or Great Bazaar, where Denzil had so nearly lost his life; and the head was taken by a khan, named Nawab Zuman, and, together with one of the hands, exhibited with ferocious triumph to Captain Conolly, an officer who had unfortunately fallen into their power, and whose brother, with Major Stoddart, afterwards perished miserably under torture in the dungeons of the Emir of Bokhara.

The other two officers were detained as prisoners by Ackbar Khan. General Trecarrel, who had just come in from the Bala Hissar with an escort of the 5th Cavalry, was furious, and wished the cantonment to open with round shot, grape, and canister, on everything and everybody within their range; but grave consideration was necessary now—our little force was so isolated in that hostile land. At the time these events were occurring, the remains of Sir Alexander Barnes's body, cut in pieces, were still hanging on the trees of his garden as food for the vultures, and Ackbar Khan was driving in the Char Chouk, in the carriage of Sir William Macnaughten, whose head he hung there in a bhoosa bag (or forage-net) till it could be transmitted by a tchopper, or mounted messenger, to the Emir of Bokhara; and the poor ladies in the cantonments looked at each other with blanched faces, as they heard of those terrible things.

So closed the night of the 23rd December over our troops in far-away Cabul.

CHAPTER XIII.

HOME IN THE SPIRIT.

"And now for my letter!" exclaimed Denzil, as he hurried eagerly from the excited throng about the cantonment gate to his new quarters, a bungalow of somewhat humble construction, as its low roof was thatched, and its walls built of the unburnt brick peculiar to Cabul. Save his bed and table, a chair, some bullock trunks, and accoutrements, furniture or ornament it had none.

The letter lay on the table, and, as he entered, its black-edged envelope gave him a shock. Audley had not mentioned this circumstance, for he humanely knew that until the fatal conference was over, and Denzil could get it perused, his anxiety would be torture, as "the dim shadow of an unknown evil is worse than the presence of a calamity whose worst is told."

It proved to be from Sybil, and, curiously enough, had been brought from Bombay by Audley Trevelyan! In India, people when "up country" are thankful to get their home letters, even though six months old, and, in the joy of receiving one, the longing to learn all it contained—tidings of those he loved, and who were so far away—Denzil forgot the terrible double catastrophe he had so recently witnessed—the cruel butchery of two gallant gentlemen; he forgot even about Rose Trecarrel, and cast himself into his chair, to enjoy the full luxury of perusing it; but for a time an envious film spread over his eyes when he attempted to read—a film that was soon to turn to tears.

"Ah! England and Sybil," he murmured, "how far, far, I am away from you!"

The letter was dated some months back; and the first few words gave the young military exile a dreadful shock, for they told him of his mother's death:—

"Oh, Denzil, my brother, how my heart yearns for you now more than ever! You know how much she loved us, Denzil, and how much our lives were bound up in each other; thus I cannot convince myself that I am quite alone, that she has gone from this world for ever, and that we shall never see her more—never see that sweet smile which her beautiful dark eyes always wore for us. Our darling mamma! I send you a lock of her hair (you will see that grey had begun to mingle with it); and I send you also a wild violet that grew near the grave where I buried her."

Sybil's writing here became tremulous, almost illegible, and falling tears had evidently blotted the ink. The poor young subaltern seemed to forget his present surroundings; he felt himself a boy again, and, covering his bowed-down face with his hands, wept bitterly.

"Time will soften what we suffer, Denzil; but shall I ever be the same again? I never had any plan or future unconnected with poor mamma, after you left us, and our papa was lost. I fear she wore her life out with thinking of what would become of us—of me, perhaps, more especially—when she was, as she now is, dead and gone. There cannot be two beings more isolated than you and I are now, dear Denzil, and your letters are my only comfort. I am so thankful to find from them that you are a favourite with so many, that General Trecarrel is so kind; and that honest fellow, Bob Waller, too, I feel that I quite love him. How do you like the Misses Trecarrel? Rather giddy, are they not? Has Mr. Audley Trevelyan joined yet?"

Then, as if with the mention of Audley's name other thoughts that were unknown to Denzil occurred to her, Sybil added—

"My music and my sketching days are ended now, Denzil; as some one has it, 'I may put away all the bright colours out of my paint-box, for they have gone out of my life.' Vainly has our rubicund Rector, fresh from his pretty parsonage, his happy family circle, as yet unbroken and unclouded by sorrow, fresh, perhaps, from his sumptuous luncheon and glass of full-bodied old port, besought me to take comfort—that grieving for the dead was useless—and told me that there is One above 'who turneth the shadow of death into mourning,' for I can only weep as one who would not be comforted. The old man is very kind to me, however—bless him! though we have suffered much through that horrid Lamorna peerage story—much at the hands and tongues even of those to whom mamma was ever open-hearted, and all charity and benevolence; but you will remember what Lady Fanshawe says of our common Cornish folks in her time, that 'they are of a crafty and censorious nature, as most are so far from London.'

"My next letter will tell you more certainly of my future intentions, and all that immediately concerns myself. Our faithful nurse, Winny Braddon, whose brother perished with papa, has gone to spend—to end, I should say—her days with old Mike Treherne and his wife, who, as you know, is her sister; and the Rector, who takes care of me—for I am all but penniless now—is to give me an introduction to a lady of high rank, who is about to go abroad; to where I know not—to India itself perhaps. Would to Heaven it were! for then we might meet again."

"My sister a companion—compelled, for bread, to submit to whim, caprice, neglect, and mortification! Oh, my father, has it come to this!" groaned Denzil in agony of spirit.

"The sunlight is setting redly on the rough summits of the Row Tor and Bron Welli. All is quiet—quiet as death around me; I can hear but the beating of my own heart, the most earnest prayers and blessings of which go with these lines across the seas to you, dear Denzil."

So ended this letter, which he read many, many times, heedless of the unwonted bustle which reigned in the cantonments, where the gunners were getting additional cannon mounted, the miners forming barricades and traverses, and other vigorous preparations being made for defence in case of a too-probable attack.

Denzil had learned that within every shadow, however deep, there may be a darker shade; and now that shade within the shadow that had fallen on him was the death of his mother.

His mother dead! Another beloved face gone as his father's had gone—a sweet and winning face he saw in fancy still, yet never should look on again. How much there were of past care and years of love and tenderness to remember now! Then there were his only sister's utter loneliness and helplessness to appal him. How trivial a calamity seemed the coquetry of Rose Trecarrel when compared to sorrows such as these! And she had died the tenant of a humble cottage on the moors—the property of Mike Treherne, the miner, whose son was now a sergeant in his company!

And could it be that for months past, while he had been happy, thoughtless, heedless, and full of merriment among his comrades, that she who loved him beyond her own life, purely and unselfishly as only a mother can love an only son, had been in her dark cold grave, and he knew it not? No thought by day, no vision by night, no intuition or thrill of magnetic affinity (such as that of which we read in the Corsican twins and their mother), had told him of this; and yet it was so.

Far away from where the embattled Bala Hissar looked down on the flowing Cabul, on the Mosque of Baber and the Obelisk of Alexander the Macedonian, from the English cantonments and all their associations, even from thoughts of Rose Trecarrel's auburn hair and tender brown eyes, Denzil's mind, swifter than the electric telegraph, flashed home to the land from whence that letter came—to Cornwall with its mines below the rolling sea; to its granite quarries where the thunder-blast, loud as a salvo from the Bala Hissar, told of the riven rock; to its stone avenues solemn and hoary, and the great rock-pillars of the Fire Worshippers of old; to the dark brown moors of Bodmin, where in summer the drowsy bee hummed over the heath-bells and wild honeysuckle; to the towering bluffs on which the empurpled waves were rolling in the light of the sun as he set beyond Scilly, "the isles of the god of day;" to tarns where the water-lily floated, and to pools where the speckled trout was darting to and fro; to his rugged home, we say, went all his thoughts—to the Land's End with all its masses of splintered rocks, worn and bleached by the seas of ages, split and rent like columns of basalt amid the brine—rocks where the fresh-smelling seaweed and the scarlet sea-anemone clung, and on whose summit the weary miner sometimes sat and rested after his toil to watch the passing ships, or to ponder when next his pickaxe would discover "a lode of tin or a goodly bunch of copper ore" in those burrows beneath the sea over which the keels were gliding, their crews little wotting that human beings were in those lighted mines fathoms deep below;—over all these familiar scenes the mind of Denzil wandered, to settle again in fancy on his dead mother's face; to think of his sister's loneliness—of the vast distance by sea and land that separated them,—of his own now-narrow means; and his heart seemed to wither up within him.

So the long night wore away, and the day began to break. Its advent was heralded by the boom of a 24-pounder from the Bala Hissar, by the merry drums and fifes giving the reveillez, and by strokes on the flat metal ghurries that hung in front of the guard-houses; but Denzil sat heedless, very pale, and absorbed in thought.

* * * * * *

"Come, my dear fellow, don't mope, and don't give way thus—it is no earthly use doing so," said the cheerful voice of Bob Waller on the evening of the second day that Denzil had been permitted to absent himself from parade. "I know what I felt when my own mother died—God rest her! We were on the march to Ferozepore, under General Duncan, when the letter reached me—thought I should die too—wanted sick leave to go home, and all that sort of thing. Come to my bungalow and have a weed, with some brandy-pawnee; or shall I stay with you? By the way, here is Trevelyan's card of condolence. Good style of fellow, Trevelyan: he and the Trecarrels give you their kindest wishes." (This conjunction made Denzil wince.) "Will you come with me to Mabel—Miss Trecarrel, I mean?" added the good-hearted, well-meaning Waller. "She is so sensible, sympathetic, and kind."

"I should prefer being alone," replied Denzil moodily.

"But you can't be alone."

"Why?"

"The whole 37th have come in, and the Shah's 6th Foot from the Bala Hissar. These Afghan beggars have some movement in contemplation to cut us off, and the cantonments are quite crowded."

But for a time Denzil would seek no relief, save in military duty.

CHAPTER XIV.

IN THE FORTIFIED CAMP.

The place of Sir William Macnaghten as Envoy of the Queen was supplied by Major Pottinger, C.B., who, together with Brigadier Shelton, renewed negotiations with Ackbar Khan, and strove to effect a peaceful retreat of our troops from Cabul. After the recent assassinations and many other outrages,—after the reoccupation by the natives of the eleven square Afghan forts that stood around the cantonments, thus almost entirely enclosing and secluding our slender European force,—after all hope of Sir Robert Sale's gallant brigade returning from Jellalabad to their aid, and other hope of succour from our troops in Candahar passed away, matters began to look gloomy indeed; but none could foresee, though many feared, the end.

No attempt was made by General Elphinstone, who, though once a gallant officer, was aged and ailing now, to avenge the deaths of Macnaghten, Trevor, Burnes, and others; to uphold the Shah, then all but besieged in his citadel by rebels under Ackbar; or to assert the dignity of Britain in that remote quarter of the world. Many officers murmured and remonstrated on the necessity for immediate action; but such is the force of discipline and of military etiquette, that not one had the moral courage to assume the serious responsibility of appealing to the troops and usurping the command. Councils of war were held; but it is well known that such councils seldom urge fighting; and all these ended in mere vacillation, indecision, and inanity.

The greatest force of the insurgent Afghans was in Mahommed Khan's fort, which stood nine hundred yards distant from the cantonment guns; but these, being only nine-pounders, were useless for breaching purposes; and as this fort commands the road that leads to the city and the Bala Hissar, supplies from that quarter were completely cut off; and so were they from every other point save the village of Beymaru, where they were procured at vast cost; and when that source failed—our troops, who with their camp-followers, the necessity and the curse of every Indo-British army, made up six and twenty thousand souls penned within the cantonments—the threat of Ackbar, that our horses would yet gnaw each other's tails and the tent-pegs, would become terribly true, unless a successful retreat through the passes were achieved; but for that movement, who now could trust to the promises, the honour, or the humanity of the hostile and exulting Afghans?

Though formed into innumerable petty septs, like the clans of the Scottish Highlands, these people are attached more to the community than the chief of it; and though divided by many bitter quarrels among themselves, they were united enough in their hatred of all Kaffirs and Feringhees, and in the hope of getting all their women and property as spoil. Like a Scottish clan of old, an Afghan tribe never refuses the rights of hospitality to a native suppliant. The fugitive who flies from his clan, even though stained with blood, is protected by the tribe upon whose mercy he casts himself, and war to the death would ensue rather than surrender him. All these little republics were now amalgamated for two purposes—the destruction of Shah Sujah and his family, and the expulsion or destruction of our little army that had enthroned him.

No one ever ventured beyond the secure walls of the cantonment now, and every other day shots were exchanged between the sentinels and scouting-parties of Afghan horsemen who rode between the forts, brandishing their sabres or matchlocks in angry bravado; and now and then the artillery tried a little practice with their nine-pounders on Mahommed Khan's fort. Nor were the Shah's Gholandazees, under his Topshee Bashee, or General of the Ordnance, in the Bala Hissar quite idle; thus almost nightly there floated above the city a red light, that brought forth tower and dome in dark relief, as the gleam of musketry and cannon fell on the atmosphere; the smoke of gunpowder at night is always somewhat of a red tint.

The ladies had got over much of their squeamishness about the discharge of firearms. Poor things, they were learning fast to look, almost without shrinking, on the fall of friend and foe, nor to wink at the flash of a musket, even those who had once shared the old dame's idea with regard to such implements, that, "whether loaded or unloaded, they were apt to go off."

The music of the bands was heard no more, promenades, rides, and drives were at an end now, and General Trecarrel's handsome London-made carriage, with its crimson-lined tiger-skin, the spoil of a splendid animal potted by Waller in the Siah Sung, had become, by the simple law of appropriation, the property of Ameen Oollah Khan for the use of his four wives.

Denzil and Audley Trevelyan did not meet much on duty, as the latter was on the Staff, had little to do with parades, and nothing whatever with guards, pickets, or working parties. Puzzled by the Lamorna peerage story (as Sybil called it), a story so strange and unsupported by proper evidence, Denzil deemed that as yet perfect silence in the matter was his proper plan; thus he was coolly courteous to Audley, whose advances, made in consequence of the secret interest felt in Sybil, he rather repelled.

Audley was sometimes in the mess-bungalow of the battalion to which the company of Denzil was attached; but his staff duties kept him much about the quarters of General Trecarrel, and consequently more in the society of Rose than Denzil quite relished. Since the day of the conference he had never once visited her, and thus he felt with intense bitterness that he had been quietly supplanted there by the son of one who had supplanted him at home in rank and title, and hence more than ever did he loathe the obligation—the debt of gratitude he owed to Audley for the service he had done to Sybil; and under all the circumstances in which he was placed, he felt the sense of it most oppressive.

"And where is Sybil now?" thought Denzil, despondingly; "in what country, and with whom?"

Who was the lady of rank she had referred to? No more letters could reach Cabul now, and months must elapse ere he heard from her again or learned her fate.

No confidences passed between him and Audley; yet the latter, had he known of it, would have risked much to have perused her last epistle, with the single mention of his own name therein, and the current of thoughts it seemed to open up—thoughts to which he alone had the key.

Denzil had a longing desire to do something brilliant, that he might shine in the estimation of Rose Trecarrel. With the combined vanity and diffidence natural to a young man, he sometimes flattered himself that his handsome uniform might regain him favour in her eyes, if no other merit, mental or physical, did so; but in that he reckoned without his host, for Rose was too much accustomed to see regimentals about her—the scarlet of the Queen's troops, the silver grey of the Indian cavalry, the blue and gold of the artillery, and the quaint, half-oriental splendour of the irregular horse. As a flirt she preferred the scarlet, and, perhaps, as one with an eye to a good marriage, the sombre black swallow-tail of the C.S.

With all her constitutional coquetry, she was not without a certain emotion, of compunction at times for the part she had played with Denzil. Of all the admirers she possessed, he had seemed the most earnest, the most bewildered by her beauty, and the most true; but then, as she said to Mabel, "he was so young, and, poor fellow, only a subaltern, so what did it matter in the long run, a little trifling with him, when it amused her, and Cabul had been so dull."

"Going to India to be married," said Mabel, "of course means going there to be married well. Trevelyan is only a subaltern, too."

"But the son and heir of Lord Lamorna; so one may cast one's hawks at him."

"And Polwhele is only a subaltern."

"But with a place that spreads from Cornwall into Devonshire. I shall not make a fool of myself, Mab—yet I shall marry for love, and love only, if I marry at all," said Rose, as her white fingers wreathed up the shining ripples of her hair before retiring for the night.

"Going out" was then one of the matrimonial institutions of Anglo-Indian society; but the P. and O. liners, with the Overland Route, have knocked that institution on the head, or nearly so.

"I told you how it would be, old fellow," said Polwhele to Denzil, who was sad and sombre; "she affects Trevelyan now, and we are all at a discount now, even the cavalry men."

"But Trevelyan has come back to India a lord's son, and is on papa's staff. A deuced fine thing it must be to wake up some morning and find oneself famous in that fashion," said Burgoyne of the 37th, ignorant of how galling his remarks were to Denzil.

And so several days of constant excitement were passed in the cantonments, yet no definite plan as to the future was formed, whether to risk a retreat through Khyber Pass, or throw the whole force into the Bala Hissar, and defend it to the last gasp, as more than once General Trecarrel had urged at the council of war, but urged in vain.

CHAPTER XV.

CHRISTMAS AT CABUL.

The state of suspense endured by our whole force in Cabul, especially those men who had wives and families, was fully shared by Waller, whose chief anxiety was Mabel Trecarrel; yet it could not repress his great flow of animal spirits, and thus his bungalow was always the resort of a few happy heedless fellows, who had no particular care but to kill time when not killing the Afghans, a resource that was yet to come.

Somehow the world reproduces itself everywhere, and though provisions were scant and short, and shot and shell were in plenty and to spare, in the crowded cantonments of Cabul, there were yet space and leisure for fun and flirtation—even scandal and gossip.

It was Christmas-time there too, but, save the blasts of snow that came from the hills of Kohistan, how unlike our Christmas-time at home!

There was no Christmas cheer, to begin with: plum-pudding and roast goose were thought of and remembered, certainly; but no such things were to be found in that fortified camp between the Black Rocks and the Hills of Beymaru; neither were there dark green holly with scarlet berries and mistletoe to dance under, nor Christmas bells to usher in the morn, for even our humble mission-house had been fired by the Afghans; no Christmas gifts, or boxes, or trees full of shining toys to make happy the hearts of those little ones whose parents looked forward with intense dread to the future, and thought regretfully of Christmas in happy England—the merry meetings of parents and home-returning boys. Christmas, we say, was remembered with all its happy and hearty associations of yule, festivity, and wassail, the pledge old as the days when Hengist's Saxon daughter drank Waes Hael to Vortigern; but now, on the anniversary of that day when the star shone over Bethlehem, and a Babe was born to die for all mankind, our half-starved troops were giving shot and shell, grape and canister, with right good will, and the sombre night closed down upon red flames in the towering city, and its silence was broken, not by music, or carols, or chimes, but the voice of many a jackal and hyæna as they preyed on the corpses that lay unburied by the Cabul river.

Waller's bungalow had several visitors on the following evening; among others, Jack Polwhele and Denzil, who had returned from the village of Beymaru, where they had partly purchased and partly looted, and most successfully brought into camp at the point of the bayonet, a vast quantity of ground wheat and dhal or split peas, from the stores of a bunneah or corn-contractor. With these they also brought in several head of cattle for the use of the troops.

"Supplies but for which," as Waller said, "the morrow might have found us starving, or having only the resort of the Polar bears, who, in time of scarcity, find a pleasure in licking their paws. You'll come to my bungalow," he added, as the foraging party came in double quick through the Kohistan gate. "Trevelyan's coming—he and Polwhele; Trevelyan is one of ours now, so we four Cornishmen shall make a night of it. I have a round of beef that is getting small by degrees and beautifully less, a gallant jar of Cabul wine that I looted in the house of a kussilbash, and no end of cheroots. Deuce! I'll take no excuse," said Waller, on seeing how flushed and sombre Denzil became on hearing Audley's name.

"I shall take care to bring him, Waller," said Polwhele, as he went off to his quarters, full of excitement with his recent success, and singing the refrain of the old song,—

"And will Trelawney die?
    And will Trelawney die?
Then thirty thousand Cornishmen
    Shall know the reason why?"

"I wish we had but the third of those thirty thousand here to help us out of this beastly place where it has pleased her Majesty we should set up our tent-poles," said Waller. "I expect Burgoyne also to-night, and he will be sure to bring us the last news from the city, as he has accompanied Brigadier Shelton to another conference with those children of the prophet."

"Another conference?" said Denzil.

"Yes, by Jove! risky and plucky, is it not?"

"Awfully so, after what has happened to poor Burnes, Macnaghten, and the rest."

"But needs must, for we cannot choose now."

For on this evening fresh and, as the event proved, nearly final negotiations had been opened between the General and Ackbar Khan, to whom he had sent Brigadier Shelton, Major Pottinger, and Burgoyne. Thus the ladies in camp and all the white women, whose persons had been demanded as hostages, were in no ordinary state of anxiety to learn the result.

Polwhele and Denzil were betimes in Waller's quarters, where two officers of the 37th and two of the 54th had dropped in. Trevelyan had not arrived, and Denzil in fancy saw him hanging over the chair of Rose, as he had seen him last. He was nervously jealous, somewhat afraid of his own temper, and hoped the night should pass without an unseemly quarrel. He was in wretched spirits, for Sybil's letter and her future weighed upon his mind. This air of gloom was unheeded by his companions. What was the demise, so far away, too, of one whose face they never saw, to them, who were daily and hourly front to front with death himself? Yet he strove to join in their conversation, while cigars were lit and Waller's jar of wine passed briskly to and fro, and the cold round, with flour chupatties, was in great request.

"As things go now," said the host, who lounged on a couple of bullock-trunks, "we are thankful to get even the leg of a wild sheep—a regular Persian doomba, with a tail a foot broad, and can only think regretfully of choice entrées, of pâtés de foie gras from beautiful Strasburg, of boned larks and truffled turkeys of Paris—croquettes, côtelettes, and kidneys stewed in Madeira, caviare from the Don, and ortolans from Lombardy, and a thousand other nice little things we shall never see, till the cold white cliffs of the South Foreland are rising on our lee bow. Oh! soul of Lucullus and of the noble science of gastronomy!"

"Waller, you are irrepressible," said Polwhele. "Devereaux, how is the General? have you heard?"

"Trecarrel?" asked Denzil, colouring.

"No. You think, perhaps, there is no other General in the world. I mean poor Elphinstone."

"The old man is going fast."

"And the evening of his life is full of dark clouds, without a single star," added Waller.

"You grow quite poetic, Bob."

"Then it is amid the veriest prose of life."

"I had a narrow escape from a juzail ball," said Denzil, rather pensively. "It passed through my forage-cap, and I have no wish to be killed as a subaltern."

"A bullet won't feel a bit the more pleasant if it hits you as a captain," said a 37th man, laughing.

Would Rose regret him? had been Denzil's secret thought; and now amid the gay clatter of tongues around him, the speculations as to the treaty on the tapis, the chances of a peaceful retreat, the pros and cons of why Sale did not cut his way back from Jellalabad, and some of that banter about women which seems inseparable from the conversation of young men—more than all, of military men—he was startled by some of the things that were said of Rose Trecarrel, and which, though bitter to hear, served to divert his grief. His self-esteem—his amour propre had been severely wounded, and he had to conceal these emotions from Waller and Polwhele; yet they suspected that "something was up," by his ceasing to go near the Trecarrels, at whose villa near the Residency he had been almost a daily visitor.

Could the young man have foreseen it, in his bitterness he might have rejoiced that the Afghan sabre was ere long to cut the Gordian knot of all his difficulties.

Jack Polwhele, who had been eyeing him silently with a comical twinkle in his black eyes, said, in a low voice—

"So, Devereaux, the mistress of your destiny has proved slippery after all! Laugh at the whole affair, and you'll soon forget all about it. Were I in your place, she might—as the song has it—go to Hong Kong for me."

Denzil knit his brow and reddened with irritation; but, tipping the ashes of his cigar and watching the smoke thereof as it ascended to the straw-roof of the bungalow, Jack resumed, in a voice so low as to be unheard by Waller—

"With a vast amount of espièglerie, Rose, I must admit, has many physical attractions; and, Denzil, you were her pet flirtation for the nonce—every fellow saw that—nothing more. It is a fine thing to talk to a handsome girl about 'elective affinities and the union of souls,' that 'marriages are made in heaven, and not in the money-market' or the shop of some sharping lawyer; but it often grows perilous work for a griff, with a girl like Rose, who cannot care very much for any one."

Denzil still sat smoking in silence, and felt somewhat perplexed by the extreme candour of his brother-officer. In short, he knew not quite how to take it.

"Could she only have been flirting with me?" thought he, and we fear Rose would have answered in the affirmative. "No two persons, I have heard, have exactly the same or correct idea of what flirting is (he had not): talking a deal to a pretty girl, or laughing much with her, are called so; but surely there may be deeper flirting, at times, in silence. Oh! we were not flirting: I loved her—I love her yet—and thought she loved me, when glance met glance, and eye answered to eye the unasked question!"

"I know her style perfectly," resumed Polwhele, oddly enough proceeding to crush the unuttered thought; "so does Burgoyne; so do Grahame and Ravelstoke, of the 37th, and ever so many more. She asked you tenderly about animal magnetism—showed you the whiteness of her ungloved hand, and asked you, no doubt, about the trimming of her dress; but you were to be friends—the dearest friends only, and all that sort of thing."

Poor Denzil was petrified; but these words were partly effecting a cure, and he strove to laugh.

"Don't quiz me, Jack," said he; "but, upon my soul, I could be guilty of any folly for that girl—yet it would be madness, you know. What would the General say, and the mess think and say, too?"

"I don't precisely catch your meaning,—folly and madness are pretty synonymous in a matrimonial sense; but what did you think of committing yourself to? a proposal—eh?"

Denzil did not reply; he could only sigh and smoke viciously.

"Take your wine, old fellow, and don't bother about it," said Waller, who had just begun to listen. "I nearly went mad for love myself in my first red coat; but the Colonel saved me by detachment duty; and when last I saw my inamorata, after seven years of matrimony, her figure quite spoiled for waltzing, and a squad of little squalling infantry about her, I laughed at my escape."

Denzil remembered the bantering remarks of the cavalry officer at the band-stand; and their estimate of Rose seemed to tally unpleasantly with that of Polwhele.

"Fool that I have been!—yet could I help it?" he thought. "Could I help doing so again—though she is one that makes of love a jest and a scoff?"

He felt that she had lured him into a passionate declaration merely to cast him off wantonly and laugh at him, perhaps, with Audley Trevelyan. She might not care for him, and yet dislike to see him, care for another. Hence rage prompted him one moment to try and fall in love with some other girl (there was not much choice in the cantonment, certainly), and the next he felt cynically disposed to hate her and all womankind. Anon that emotion would pass away, and he felt himself still her very slave, who would plead for a word, a glance, or smile.

To abstain from visiting as before would soon excite remark; and yet to resume his visits would be to see, with bitterness and humiliation, another too palpably preferred, where he had deemed himself the chosen favourite.

"And is it actually true that Waller is booked at last?" said Polwhele.

"Deuce! how can I tell?" replied Denzil, curtly, blowing away a ring of smoke.

"It may be all gossip—for he is one whom hitherto the female world have found impossible to entrap; but here comes Trevelyan," he added, as the Hindoo servant placed lighted wax candles on the table, and Audley entered, looking, as Denzil thought, provokingly handsome, cool, self-possessed, and fashionable in bearing.

The first questions asked were, whether any tidings had come from the city, for after late events, the risk of death and decapitation run by those who ventured to confer with Ackbar and the insurgent Khans was indeed a painful and terrible one. Neither Brigadier Shelton, Major Pottinger, nor Burgoyne had returned as yet; so the conversation speedily fell back into its channel of light-heartedness.

"So, Trevelyan," said Waller, quite forgetting the presence of Denzil, and blundering on a most unlucky topic, "I heard that you have been flirting furiously all day with Rose Trecarrel; but then, as the aide-de-camp, you are quite a friend of the family."

"Oh! ours is an old affair," replied Audley, laughing heartily, as he selected a cheroot; "like the 'Belle of the Ball,'" he added, profoundly ignorant of Denzil's regard for her, "Miss Rose

'Has smiled on many, just for fun—
    I knew that there was nothing in it;
I was the FIRST, the ONLY one,
    Her heart had thought of for a minute;
I knew it, for she told me so,
    In phrase that was divinely moulded;
She wrote a charming hand, and oh!
    How sweetly all her notes were folded!'

We were old friends at home in Cornwall; besides, she is so lady-like and pretty—almost beautiful."

"That I grant you," said Polwhele, who saw—that which Denzil did not—that Audley's tone and manner had nothing of the lover in them; "but Rose has always more strings than one to her bow."

"Or, more beaux than one to her string," said Waller, laughing.

"Never puts all her money on one horse anyway. Bagging a sub. is to her like snipe-shooting in an Irish bog; poor sport after all; but a power sight better than none," said Ravelstoke, of the 37th Native Infantry, at whose freedom of speech Waller frowned.

And this was the consolation to which Denzil was treated.

How little he knew that at that very time, Audley Trevelyan, in his heart, was contrasting Sybil's pure and loving prattle, her genuine enthusiasm in poetry, art, and all that was beautiful in nature, with the occasional rantipole of this garrison belle.

"What is that?" said Waller, suddenly, as a drum was beaten hurriedly outside.

"The guard of ours, at the Kohistan gate, getting under arms," replied Ravelstoke; "Brigadier Shelton has come with tidings, and his head on his shoulders—we shall soon know our fate now!"

The sound of hoofs trotting fast through the Cantonments was heard, as the gate was closed and secured; and in a minute or less, Burgoyne, of the 37th, came in with his sword under his arm, and a brace of loaded pistols in his waistbelt.

He looked pale, excited, and weary indeed!

"Now, Burgoyne, for your news?" said Waller; "but take a pull at that wine-jar first."

Burgoyne did so, with an air of thirst and lassitude, though the atmosphere was intensely cold.

"Is the Brigadier safe?" said Polwhele.

"Yes."

"And Pottinger, too?"

"Yes; we have come back unharmed."

"And no attempt was made to assassinate or detain you?"

"None; but what think you is the proposal now—nearly the same as before—for we are checkmated here, and these insurgent scoundrels know it. Lawrence, Mackenzie, Conolly, and some other Europeans are still alive in their hands, and kept as hostages. These they offer to exchange, if the General will leave in their place all our married officers and their families; the entire treasure in the military chest; all our cannon, except six; and that we depart at once; our rear to be covered by four hundred armed Kohistanees, who, if handsomely paid, will march with us so far as Jellalabad, where, according to the news brought by a cossid, Sir Robert Sale is so closely besieged that those among us who survive to reach the plains, will have to cut their way in with the cold steel."

Mingled expressions of rage and indignation were uttered by all save Waller, who looked singularly pale and calm.

"And what was the reply to these degrading proposals?" he asked, while quietly selecting and lighting a cigar.

"It was answered that a British General might, if he chose, leave or give certain officers as hostages, but that he had no power over their wives and families. That without the full consent of husbands and parents, the ladies and children would not be left behind."

"I should think not—left, d—n it, to certain destruction!" exclaimed Polwhele, his dark eyes flashing fire. Burgoyne resumed:

"It was then that Ackbar said to us, mockingly, 'If you save your lives, what do the lives or honour, as you call it, of your wives or sisters matter? They are only women, and, as women, are spoil, like your horses and camels, yaboos, shawls, pipes, and gunpowder. Allah! you Kaffirs are strange dogs.' And there, for to-night, the matter rests. News came, however, that the Queen's 16th Lancers, the 9th, and 31st Regiments have come up country, as far as Peshawur; but that is fully two hundred miles distant; the defiles are full of snow, and they cannot be here in time either to assist or save us."

These details, which are matters of history, now filled all in that isolated camp with extreme dismay. Every hour provisions were growing more scarce; every hour the snow was falling more heavily, and thus the tremendous mountain gorges through which the route lies to Jellalabad or Peshawur, were hourly becoming more and more impassable.

To move or quit the fortified Cantonments without the solemn promise of safe conduct from the vast hordes in arms, was perilous in the extreme. To remain was but to die by slow starvation or the sword. So the question asked by the Khan of Khelat, was likely to have a terrible answer.

"Major Thain," writes Lady Sale, "was now sent round to ask all the married officers if they would consent to their wives staying, offering those who did so a salary of 2000 rupees a month! Lieutenant Eyre said, that if it was to be productive of good, he would stay with his wife and child. The others all refused to risk the safety of their families. Captain Anderson said that he would rather put a pistol to his wife's head and shoot her; and Sturt declared that his wife and mother should only be taken from him at the point of the bayonet; for himself, he was ready to perform any duty imposed upon him."*

* "Journal of the Disasters in Afghanistan." Major Thain belonged to H.M. 21st Foot, but was then on the Staff.

Sturdy old General Trecarrel swore that he would take his Company of the Cornish Light Infantry, put Mabel and Rose in the centre, and force a way through the Passes at all hazards, rather than leave them to a fate which none could foresee. At the worst, they could all die there together, and there could be little doubt of the event if we marched without terms, for tidings came from Taj Mahommed, the Wuzeer, that Aziz Khan, with 10,000 Kohistanees, had beset the road at Tezeen; and that the warriors of the Ghilzie tribe (which numbers 600,000 souls) were in possession of all the heights overlooking it.

Tears and distress were visible on all hands now; sickness and suffering increased rapidly, while every night the bugles sounded to arms, and cannon and musketry were discharged at the armed bands of horse and foot which menaced the front and rear gates, or sought plunder in the now abandoned Residency, and the villas previously occupied by General Trecarrel, Captain Trevor, and others.

Pale women clasped their children to their breasts, and men their wives, as if the parting hour of all was already come. The eyes of the soldiers filled and flashed with honest pity and manly indignation at the idea of yielding up civilized women, tender English ladies and helpless little children, to such barbarians as these; while the sick and wounded in hospital were full of horror and dismay at their own helplessness.