As Colville was swept downward, while in the desperate agonies of seeking to save his own life, he could take in the terrible details of the tragedy, and saw how the river was crowded with men, horses, and white helmets rolling past; how heads, hands, and spurred heels rose momentarily and vanished to rise again, and then sink for ever beneath the cruel and greedy current.
Amid all this scene of death and horror, there came not one cry from our perishing hussars; each battled with the waters of the hostile river as they would have battled with the Afghans.
Colville struck out to reach the bank, after he sank a third time; but, encumbered by his heavy boots and putties (or leg bandages), his sword, revolver, and ammunition, he was unable to keep himself afloat, and the agony of a helpless death was in his heart!
He knew that at the time all this was happening Mary Wellwood would probably be sleeping, sweetly and peacefully, on her pillow; and even in that moment of supreme anguish and terror, he wished that if death came, his soul might flash home to her in a dream—a farewell dream!
He felt himself sinking at last, as he had only been getting occasional breaths of air; the last of his strength seemed going, and all hope with it, when suddenly his feet touched the bottom, and a prayer rose to his lips.
Rousing himself for a final effort, he pushed forward, and hope began again to dawn on him as he found the water getting shallower; but he was too weak to reach the river's bank, and, grasping some wild jasmine trailers that grew between two boulders, he propped himself up to rest and breathe.
At this point, seeing neither man nor horse near him, he thought that all must have perished—perished through the diabolical hatred and treachery of Mahmoud Shah!
Suddenly he heard a voice cry out,
'Is this you, Captain Colville?'
The questioner, whose grammar was not very choice, proved to be the hussar Toby Chace, who was sitting bareheaded, dripping, and disconsolate on the river bank.
Colville was almost voiceless, so Toby waded in, and assisted him to dry land, where he could scarcely stand from exhaustion, but was able ultimately, with the assistance of Chace, to reach the camp, where he found that his horse had arrived before him.
All the troop horses were heard to snort wildly as the current swept them away, and, being overweighted by their saddles, the slung carbines, and other trappings, they beat the air with their hoofs as they rolled about; but only twelve were drowned.
When the roll was called, forty-six hussars, who would never hear it again, were missing, with Lieutenant Harford and another officer. Many of their bodies, when found, showed broken limbs, the result of kicks from iron-shod hoofs, and many of them had their hands raised to their heads, either for protection or through pain from blows, and in that position they had stiffened in death.
One poor fellow was swept a long way down the Cabul river, but clambered into a native boat, where he was found next day, dead from exhaustion and cold.
'An awful calamity! A devil of a business!'
'How did it happen? Whose fault was it?'
Such were a few of the exclamations heard on every hand in camp, from whence, on the first arrival of the riderless horses, soldiers had rushed to the river side with lanterns and ropes, and staff-surgeons with restoratives.
Ten rupees reward was offered for every body recovered from that fatal river, and some were buried severally near the places where they were found. Colville made many inquiries about that of Robert Wodrow, as the one in whom he was personally most interested, but no trace of him could be discovered.
In one eddy of the river nineteen of our gallant hussars were found huddled together in one ghastly heap.
These and the bodies of others were all buried in one vast grave at the western end of the camp; and those who saw that solemn scene—that grim row of bodies, each rolled in a blanket, and lying side by side in close ranks, shoulder to shoulder—never forgot it.
Neither did they forget the funeral service of the following evening, when the body of Lieutenant Francis H. Harford and that of a private of the Leicestershire Regiment, who had been mortally wounded in action, were interred about dusk.
Solemn and strikingly impressive was the episode.
The red Afghan sun had set amid dim and sombre clouds beyond the snow-clad summits of the Ramkoond Mountains, but some ruddy light yet lingered on the awful peaks of the Suffaidh Koh. There had been rain and thunder all afternoon, and the clouds were gathered in sombre masses that were edged by the radiance of the now nearly full moon.
Athwart the clouds ever and anon shot gleams of ghastly lightning, producing strange and sudden effects of light and shade, adding to the weird effect of the funeral cortége—the coffins on gun-carriages, draped with the Union Jack, followed by officers and other mourners in long, spectral-like cloaks, preceded by the dark-clad band of the Rifle Brigade playing a low and wailing dirge-like piece of music.
So ended the tragedy of the 10th Hussars.
In the meantime, in perfect ignorance of that event, our troops under Macpherson and Gough had proceeded to the scene of their services elsewhere, to fight the Khugianis and win the battle of Futteabad, which, as Leslie Colville was not present, lies somewhat apart from our story.
After the defeat of the Khugianis and the subsequent dispersal of the Afreedis, the summer of the year was drawing on, and as Yakoub Khan showed a disposition to come to terms with Great Britain, and the hostilities seemed to be drawing to a close, Leslie Colville began fondly to hope that he might with honour resign his appointment for 'special service,' and return home after the treaty of peace was signed.
The negotiations for the latter were placed in the hands of Major Louis Cavagnari, and, after some hesitation on the part of the new Ameer, it was eventually signed in the British camp at Gundamack—that place of ill-omen, where the Red Hill ofLal Teebahmarks the spot on which the last men of Elphinston's army perished under Afghan steel in the year 1842.
Its chief objects were to place the foreign affairs of Afghanistan under British control, and to guarantee that country against Russian aggression by the aid of our money, arms, and troops, to provide for the maintenance of a British Embassy in the dominions of the Ameer, and other details.
Thus the war came to an end—as Mary Wellwood, with many more at home, read with joy, and our troops in the valley of Jellalabad were withdrawn within the new frontier, lest the prolonged presence of foreigners might inflame the ready susceptibilities of the fiery Afghans, and render them less amenable to the influence of Ayoub Khan.
For some reasons the latter was suffered to depart from Gundamack to Cabul alone, and the despatch thither of a British resident was deferred for a time. When the time came, Leslie Colville—afterwards to his own great regret—instead of resigning and returning home, suffered himself to be named in general orders as one of the staff to accompany the new Resident—Major, then Sir Louis Cavagnari—on that perilous and, as it proved, most fatal and calamitous mission, and when Mary heard of it she sighed bitterly with apprehension, she knew not of what.
'He should not have allowed himself to be thus prevailed upon—surely he has done enough for honour, by winning his Victoria Cross!' exclaimed Mrs. Deroubigne, with surprise, and poor Mary quite agreed with her; but Colville was under certain military influences which they could not quite understand.
Thus he wrote to Mary, stating that, when once the Embassy was fairly established, he would lose no time in returning home.
'Does he not know how I am yearning for him,' thought the girl in her heart.
Damped and disconcerted by the sudden hopelessness of his regard for Mary Wellwood on learning that she was betrothed to another, the young baron—after leaving cards subsequent to the night of the ball—did not visit the villa so frequently as had been his wont; but the society there was so pleasant and attractive, that he began to drop in during the afternoons and evenings for a little music and singing, in both of which, like most foreigners, he could bear his part very well.
That Ellinor had undergone some grief—he knew not precisely what it was—he was perfectly aware, but her story was not one on which Mrs. Deroubigne cared to enlighten him fully. He could also see that she wore black or sombre dresses, with suites of jet ornaments, for Ellinor felt that to do so was at least all that she might indulge in, as a proper tribute to the memory of one who had loved her well.
The sisters were to have been photographed in their sixteenth century ball costumes for the delectation of Colville; but this frivolity they abandoned after hearing of Robert Wodrow's catastrophe.
Ellinor often recalled the night of that brilliant festivity, when she had waltzed and promenaded to and fro as one in a dream of delight, and spoke in a hushed tone as if she feared to waken from it to a real and commonplace life, for never before had she been in so gay and glittering a paradise; but now that was all over—gone like a dissolving view, and she could but think of the poor heart that had loved her so well and so fondly now lying cold and stiff in the waters of the Cabul river.
Mrs. Deroubigne knew of Robert Wodrow only by name. Thus her natural equanimity on the subject of his fate, combined with her social qualities and equally natural brightness, helped much to calm, even to soothe, the equally natural grief, and also perhaps the remorse of Ellinor, who, of course, became in time composed and consoled over the inevitable, though she was still too terrified or too much pained to write to his parents—a task which she relegated to Mary.
And in her quiet and subdued grief, most generous, unvaryingly kind and sympathetic was young Rolandsburg, though he knew not quite the cause from which it sprang; and charmed by her sadness, softness, and beauty, finding that the elder sister was lost to him, it seemed to Mrs. Deroubigne that he was already turning his attention to the younger.
Ellinor had—as she said to Mary—wept her eyes out for poor Bob Wodrow; and thus, after a time, the elasticity of her volatile nature began to reassert itself, to the delight of the baron.
Nature, we are told, abhors a vacuum; so did the heart of the handsome young Uhlan; hence he adopted a newrôlein his bearing to Ellinor, all the more easily and all the more readily that he had not committed himself with Mary.
Blooming as the German girls are, Ellinor's softer beauty was a new experience to him; she was like a tea-rose, a sea-shell, a wonderfully delicate and tinted bit of feminine nature, and as before, he first made Mrs. Deroubigne his confidant.
'Ah, madame!' said he, clasping his hands melodramatically, while drooping his head on one side till it nearly touched his gilt shoulderstrap, 'I suppose she could not understand anyone dying of love—of love of her?'
'I think not,' replied Mrs. Deroubigne, laughing excessively at this leading remark when remembering that he had been in the mood of 'dying for love' of Mary but some weeks before.
Yet he was a pleasant, handsome fellow, with so muchbonhommieabout him that it was impossible not to be pleased with him, all the more that the iron cross on his breast showed that he had comported himself gallantly in the field.
'The Fraulein Ellinor is very cold and very calm,' said he; 'she can take a man's heart—take all his love and give him none in return.'
'It is not so,' replied Mrs. Deroubigne.
'How, madame, then?'
'You do not know her story; but why should I recur to it?'
'Her story—she has had, then, anaffaire du coeur?'
'One at least, certainly,' said Mrs. Deroubigne, laughing again at the baron's expression of face and tone of pique.
'Der Teufel! One at least? How sad it is to think of a young lady having a story! And this—or these—render her indifferent to me?'
'Perhaps,' replied Mrs. Deroubigne, who, much as she liked the young Prussian, did not wish to flatter his hopes, but he was not the less resolved to put the matter to the issue.
Calling one afternoon when Mrs. Deroubigne and Mary had driven into Hamburg, he intercepted Ellinor in the garden, with her little camp-stool, easel, and colour-box, about to go forth and sketch; and though he had but a few minutes to spare, as his horse was at the gate to take him back to barracks, he resolved to utilise them.
Shaded from the declining sun by a broad garden-hat, he thought Ellinor's face never looked so charming before. Her eyes were peculiarly her greatest beauty; they were of the clearest and most luminous hazel—not very dark, and sweetly trustful and straightforward in expression; but they drooped now and sought the flower-beds, for something she read in those of young Rolandsburg told her what was coming.
In the physical nature of some people who love keenly there is a mysterious sympathy that draws them together, and the baron, thinking that she was inspired by that now, put out his hand to touch hers, but she withdrew it.
This was not encouraging, but he drew nearer her half-averted ear, and whispered bluntly enough, but tremulously, nevertheless,
'This is a great joy finding you alone—alone, that I may tell you what I have been longing—dying to tell you for weeks past—that I love you, Ellinor, and you only!'
In his foreign accent and half-broken English, the avowal sounded very pretty and simple, but did not touch Ellinor much, though she trembled and grew pale, for no woman can have such things said to her and remain quite unmoved.
'Loveme—how strange!' said she, scarcely knowing what to say.
'To you it may seem so,' he continued, slowly and earnestly; 'for I know or suspect that you cherish some dead—some mysterious memory, and that you cannot or may not care for me as I wish you to do; but that does not prevent me from loving you, and you may never understand, even dimly, how much I do love you, and I can keep this secret untold no longer.'
'I respect you much, baron,' replied Ellinor, for his declaration was more formal than impetuous; 'but mere talking to me will not make me love you in return. I feel quite confused—most unhappy to hear all this; and we shall have to go away from Altona.'
'Go from Altona?'
'Yes.'
'I only tell you because I can not control—can not help myself,' said he, humbly and sadly, and not without an emotion of pique at the ill-luck of his second venture.
'I thank you, baron, but it cannot be,' said Ellinor, shaking her pretty head decidedly.
'You cannot—love me.'
'No—not as you wish.'
'Well,' said he, after a pause, during which he had been eyeing her downcast face with an expression of disappointment and chagrin, 'be it so; but I trust you will pardon any unpleasantness my perhaps abrupt avowal has occasioned you; and I also trust that in the future you will always view me as your friend—as one who will ever be ready and eager to hold out the hand of a brother to you, Miss Ellinor. Even with that conviction I shall be happy,' he added, with a voice that certainly broke a little with emotion.
She now gave her hand frankly, and he pressed it kindly, and then, proceeding to fill with tobacco his consolatory meerschaum pipe (that dangled at his button-hole) prior to riding back to the Dammthor Wall, he said, with a sigh,
'Ach—I will get over this, no doubt!'
'As you must have got over others, no doubt,' said Ellinor, laughing now, but piqued by his philosophy, and to see that he could so calmly canvass the prospect of ceasing to care for her already. But what does it matter? Robert Wodrow had loved her as no man had ever loved her, and what had beenhisreward?
'Now leave me, please, baron,' she said, a little bluntly; 'the tide is far out, and I wish to sketch the creek and villa from yonder bank of dry sand ere the sun sets.'
'I must go—for parade awaits me; but must I recur to this dear subject no more?'
'Yes—no more,' said Ellinor, with decision, yet with a smile nevertheless.
The baron felt that all was over when he saw that smile; indeed, when with Ellinor, he always felt that he was in the presence of some feeling deeper than he could fathom; and, bowing low, he turned sadly away. Then in a few minutes the clatter of his horse's hoofs was heard as he cantered off towards the Millernthor, and so ended another little romance in Ellinor's life—at least, she thought so. And the baron knew that now never again could they enjoy each other's society as they had done so innocently till that afternoon.
Proceeding over the firm dry sand left by the far retreating tide, she selected a point upon a rough pebble-covered knoll, a quarter of a mile from the little wooded creek, set her sketching-block upon her tiny easel, and, seating herself upon a little camp-stool, proceeded, with her back to the setting sun, to outline the creek, with the trees, the garden, and sandy beach in foreground, and the villa in the middle distance.
She was very full of her work, to have it as a souvenir of Altona, but it proceeded very, very slowly; she was too full of the late episode to do much with her pencil—much successfully at least, and paused ever and anon to sink into deep thought over the past, the present, and the future.
When Mary and Mrs. Deroubigne returned home to a late dinner, Ellinor was not to be seen, she was not in the villa, and she was not in the garden, nor in the adjacent shrubberies, so the house-bell was rung for her in vain; and to Mrs. Deroubigne, Ellinor, always dreamy, delicate, and in temperament excitable, had been somewhat of a responsibility, more than her sister Mary.
Dinner was served up, but remained on the table untasted, while search after search was made without avail, and sunset was at hand.
She had last been seen in the garden, with Baron Rolandsburg, with her drawing materials and apparatus, going forth to sketch.
With the baron!
'Could she have eloped with him?' thought Mary, while her heart sank—recalling Ellinor's former folly—the folly she had been on the brink of committing with Sir Redmond Sleath.
Oh, that was very unlikely! Ellinor was a changed girl, and less confiding, and the young baron was too confident in himself, his position, wealth, and resources to love mystery or mischief when neither were needed.
A presentiment of evil—an emotion that she could not have explained—came over Mary's mind. Vainly she sought to settle her thoughts to some fixity of purpose. A vague terror seized her, and she could scarcely even think.
She remembered when Ellinor was ill how the tolling of the Passing Bell in the adjacent church appalled her with the dread that she was about to lose her—her only relation in the world; and had she lost her now?
'Was she going far to sketch?' Mrs. Deroubigne suddenly inquired of her now scared domestics.
'No, madame! Only to the sands beside the river, when the tide was out.'
'The tide!' exclaimed Mrs. Deroubigne; and, accompanied by Mary, she rushed to the foot of the garden, to find the creek full and the Elbe at flood tide and more.
'My God—oh, what can have happened?' exclaimed Mrs. Deroubigne, who was aware of a periodical event of which Mary knew nothing.
It was this. When the wind is from the west, and especially if violent, the waters of the Elbe become swollen to such a degree that the canals of Hamburg overflow their banks, the cellars, magazines and all channels, become gorged and inundated—that, in fact, the tide suddenly rises, sometimes to the height of twenty feet, with a rapidity that is alike dangerous and terrible. So the gorged tide, swollen by the incoming waves of the German Sea, was rolling inshore now, and Ellinor had been on the sands—the temporary dry sands, to sketch!
A wild waste of water was rolling and boiling there now, and where was she?
'Ellinor—oh, Ellinor!' cried Mary, again and again, in a voice of agony; but, save the sough of the waves, there was no response.
Soaked to pulp her sketch-book was found at the foot of the creek washed inshore, and, if other evidence of a tragedy was wanting, something was seen floating in the oozy waves about ten yards distant.
Jack, the terrier—that dog which had such amazing facility for getting into canine troubles—sprang in, and yapping and yelping laid that something at the feet of his mistress, who recognised at once her sister's garden-hat; and a low cry of despair escaped Mary as she turned it over in her trembling hands, and painfully and vividly it brought before her the face, figure, and whole individuality of the lost one.
A torrent of tears escaped Mrs. Deroubigne, but Mary seemed to have lost the power to shed one.
Even as the angry waves came rolling into the creek, so did wave after wave of sorrow seem to be coming upon her again, dark and sharp as ever.
'Oh, Lord—how long—how long!' she wailed in her heart.
She stretched out her hands as if clutching the air for support, she swayed a little, and then, her strength failing her, she would have fallen on her pallid face had not Mrs. Deroubigne caught her fast in her motherly arms.
Night drew on and day came again without a trace of the lost one, dead or alive.
Baron Rolandsburg, who was appalled by a catastrophe so sudden and unforeseen, corroborated the story that she had gone on the stretch of dry sand to sketch, and no doubt remained till the sudden tide had overtaken and overwhelmed her!
He now made himself invaluable in his exertions for intelligence. Rewards were offered to boatmen and river-pilots, and in theHamburger Nachrichtenand other journals 'for her remains' (how horrible did this sound), but unknown to Mary, who was for several days and nights all but unconscious. He also put himself into communication with theirHerrshaften(their Excellencies) the four Burgomasters and four Syndics, and the Gendermerie, but all in vain.
Other traces of Ellinor than those which the hungry waves had washed to Mary's feet were never found!
The latter was now a prey to two emotions, when a time came that she could consider calmly. One was an intense longing to get away from Altona as a place which had now become hateful to her, as the scene of so much sadness; and the other was an affectionate repugnance to leave it, until her sister's fate was made certain, and her remains found.
But the latter might have been washed out to sea, and never—never might be heard of more.
The inexorable had to be accepted, but we fear that poor Mary Wellwood could not do so with the calmness of a disciple of Epictitus, the stoic.
Ellinor's sketching, as we have said, did not progress much.
She was full of thoughts, yet none of pride, of flattered vanity, or exultation were in her mind, but a dull and curious sense of fear and shame—a vague consciousness of doubt and wrong.
Could it be that she—unwittingly—had in any way given encouragement to this young baron, or done aught that led up to the sudden declaration he had made?
She could not tax herself with having done so. She liked him very much—who would not that knew him?—he was so suave, so gentle, and so manly. But love, no—she had no heart for him; and how were they to meet now, after this?
She felt as if suddenly wakened from a dream; but a more terrible awakening was soon to come upon her.
'Nonsense!' she thought; 'this silly young officer must evidently love or flirt with some one. Latterly it was Mary, now it is Ellinor.'
The Baron Rolandsburg was—as Sleath had been in her eyes apparently—the possessor of all she had wished for, and learned to worship—position, rank, riches, and luxury; but neither could love her as poor Bob had done! And now Ellinor was—when too late for the sake of the latter—changed from a somewhat selfish and frivolous girl into a woman of thought, and one capable of much endurance and self-sacrifice.
Through Sir Redmond Sleath her pride had received a severe shock; she had long since come to loathe the very idea of him; as for his name, it never escaped Mary or Mrs. Deroubigne, and her soul sickened when she thought of all she had sacrificed for his unworthy sake, and of the horrible pitfall he had prepared for her.
But why recall these things now, she thought, as she resumed her pencil.
The deep red tints of the golden sun, setting amid fiery haze beyond the Elbe and the tiny hills of Hanover, lay in all their richness on the creek, on the villa and its flowers and shrubs: on Altona in the background, with all its rows of poplars and pointed roofs; and Ellinor often paused in her work, and, wooed by the lap, lap, lapping and murmur of the tide, sank into a kind of dream.
The present fled—the past returned.
She no longer saw the rows of lofty poplars, the longPalmaille, and the great church of Altona, or the house on the hill where Dumourier dwelt. She was back in the old summer garden of Birkwoodbrae, with the fragrance of its roses and honeysuckle around her; she heard the familiar hoot of Mary's pet owl—the owl that Robert Wodrow had risked his life to secure; she heard again the murmur of the May and the song of the thrush mingling with the rustle of the silver birches that shadowed the roof under which her parents died.
So, lulled by the beauty of the evening, by the warmth of the sunshine, and the murmuring wavelets of the glorious river, she dropped asleep.
She could not have sat thus above twenty minutes when she was suddenly awakened by the flow of water over her ankles, and, starting up, found herself surrounded by water—water on all sides, and water between her and the shore, which was nearly a quarter of a mile distant, but seemed to be much further off, the once dry sands being now covered by the incoming flood-tide—a tide that flowed with exceeding violence and fury.
A half-stifled shriek escaped her, and she started to her feet. Her easel had been swept away; she attempted to run shorewards; but as the water deepened and rose to her knees she uttered a despairing cry, and rushed back to the sandy knoll on which she had planted her chair, and over which the encroaching water was rising and deepening with every inward flow of the waves.
She was lost!
From the beach (that seemed now so awfully distant) not a soul seemed to observe her terrible predicament.
From being shrill and continuous, her despairing shrieks became hoarse and faint, and, worse than all, the wind seemed to sweep them seaward. Wild and black despair, with the terror of immediate death, filled her heart. What terrible retribution was this? Was she to perish by drowning—to die the same death that Robert Wodrow had died—to perish and leave poor Mary alone in the world—all alone!
She parted the rich brown hair from her brow, and, casting her eyes upward to the flushed evening sky, prayed for strength to die, and for submission to the will of heaven; and, even as she prayed, a wave that rolled nearly to her knees made her stagger. The sandy knoll was completely covered, and the water was rising fast.
A very few minutes more and she would be swept off her feet, to sink and drown! Across the waters of the broad river, the red sun, now level with them and the flat horizon, shed his dazzling rays into her eyes, that were becoming half-blinded by the rising spoon drift torn from the waves by the storm.
It all seemed an unreality—a horrid nightmare.
She heard, or imagined she heard, a cry of encouragement—of coming succour; but, blinded by terror and despair, she knew not whence it came, whether from the land or the water.
A numbness seemed to creep fast over her—a sensation, or rather the want of it, that threatened speedily to paralyse alike thought and feeling.
Human endurance, in the weak and delicate form of the girl, could stand no more; an incoming wave, stronger than the rest, struck her above the waist, and she fell backwards into the water, and, as the latter rose over her head, her senses left her, and darkness closed around her.
Anon she breathed again, and the light flashed into her eyes. She found herself in a boat, encircled by the strong and protecting arm of a man, and closed her eyes with an invocation to heaven, believing that she was being rowed shoreward, for she could hear the regular dash of the oar-blades, and the hard breathing of those who pulled them; but she remained passive and voiceless, with closed eyes, incapable of volition, almost of thought, and certainly of speech.
After a brief space the boat jarred against something. It was the side of a vessel, and she felt herself lifted upward—up—up—and placed in the arms of a man, whose exclamation gave her a species of electric shock.
It was the voice of Sir Redmond Sleath, and it was his astonished and certainly bewildered face that she found close to her own when she opened her eyes, only to shut them once more, as weakness and horror took away her senses again.
Sleath!
'I am on the eve of departing with Sir Louis Cavagnari to Cabul,' Colville had written. 'With his mission the chances of future war are over, and then I can come home with honour—home to you, love Mary.'
But while the British troops were now retiring from every point within the new frontier, Colville, to whom activity or action of any kind was a species of relief till he could once again see her whose varying expression of feature defied alike artist or photographer to fix or do justice to, gladly undertook to convey to the viceroy at Simla that letter from the Ameer which brought the embassy into existence—the embassy which was doomed to have such a fatal end—and a portion of that fulsome, false, and deluding document ran as follows, after the usual solemn invocation which preludes every chapter of the Koran, and the words of which, when sent down from Heaven, caused, says Giaab, the clouds to fly eastward, the winds to lull, the sea to moan, all the animals of the earth to erect their ears and listen, while the devils fell headlong from the celestial spheres:—
'Be it known unto your High Excellency that since the day of my arrival in Cabul from the British camp at Gundamuck I have been happy and pleased with the reception accorded me by the British officers. I had resolved to visit Simla and give myself the boundless pleasure of a joyous interview with your Excellency, for the purpose of strengthening our friendly relations, but circumstances prevented me carrying my intention into effect... After completing my tour through the country, during which I shall inspect the frontiers, I intend, God willing, to have a joyful meeting with your Excellency, for the purpose of making firmer the basis of our friendship and drawing closer the bonds of our amity and affection.
'Further, what can I write, beyond expressions of friendship?'
So, encouraged by this letter, which was framed in the genuine Oriental spirit of fraud and treachery, a brilliant embassy was arranged.
After delivering to the viceroy, the letter with which he had been entrusted at head-quarters, Leslie Colville lingered for a few days at beautiful Simla, where the Court Sanatorium is in a deep and woody dell, called—doubtless by some old Scottish officer—Annandale, where the forests are thickly inhabited by grinning baboons, having white bodies with black hands and feet, and where a savage tribe, named the Puharries, dwell among the hills, some of which are so vast—though mere vassals of the Himalayas—as to seem like the barriers of the world on the left bank of the Indus, from which they slope down to the steppes of Tartary, the deserts of Gobi, and the marshes of Siberia; and then he hastened again to the front to join Cavagnari.
The embassy and escort, the fate of which will never be forgotten in the history of British India, consisted of seventy-six men of the brilliant Guide Corps, twenty-six of whom were troopers, the rest infantry, under Lieutenant Hamilton, V.C. Their uniform was drab colour, piped and faced with scarlet. The ambassador was accompanied also by a staff of medical and other officers, including his secretary, Mr. William Jenkyns, of the Punjaub Civil Service.
All set out on their perilous though apparently peaceful mission in high glee, while the master spirit of the whole was Major Sir Louis Cavagnari, then in his thirty-seventh year, a gallant officer who had served with the Bengal Europeans in the Oude campaign, was present at the capture of a brigade of guns at Shahelutgunge, and served with the Kohat column at the capture and destruction of Gara.
He was popular personally with the natives, as he could speak several of their languages with fluency, while his bronzed features and dark hair enabled him to assume when he chose, any Oriental costume with facility, and thus he was invaluable in all cases where courage, promptitude, and adroit demeanour were necessary.
All our columns having, as stated, fallen back, the only British troops now beyond the new frontier of Afghanistan were his slender escort, with which he left Ali Musjid on the 17th of June, and rode through the savage defiles of the Khyber Pass by Lalpura, Chardeh, and once more in sight of Jellalabad, pursuing the course and bank of the Cabul river.
They had now traversed about sixty miles of their journey amid some of the most stupendous scenery in the world, and the evening of the second day's march was closing in when, near the Surkab, a stream which joins the Cabul at the foot of the Siah Koh, a man was seen gesticulating violently and making signs to them, on which the whole party halted in obedience to command.
Was he the harbinger of danger, the announcer of an ambush; had armedsungahsbeen formed across the path, or what?
Carbines were unslung, revolver cases opened, sword-blades loosened in the sheath, and there were whispers of treachery on every hand, and every man's face darkened, and his brows were knit, in anticipation of a barbarous struggle and having to sell his life dearly, for they were all picked and tried soldiers, second to none in Her Majesty's Indian army for daring and discipline. All were splendid horsemen too—the mounted guides—and, like their infantry, picturesque-looking fellows in their uniform and bearing.
'The man is not an Afghan, but a European, so far as one can judge by his face,' said Colville, who, with his bridle reins dropped on his holsters, had been using his field-glasses intently.
'He wears a scarletloonjee,' said another officer, 'and his dress seems a uniform. Strange, is it not?'
'By heaven, he is one of the 10th Hussars!' exclaimed Colville.
'What is he doing here? His regiment fell back with the rest of the army weeks—yes, two months—ago. Can he be a deserter?' suggested Hamilton.
'Scarcely, when making for us in this frantic fashion,' replied Colville.
He came close up to the party, and, halting within ten paces, saluted. Then all could see that he was a hussar, but wan, pale, bearded, and with his braided uniform sorely worn and tattered.
'Come on, my man,' cried Sir Louis Cavagnari; 'come on and tell us how you happen to be here?'
'I am here through God's mercy, sir,' replied the hussar, coming forward, adding, 'Captain Colville—Captain Colville, don't you know me?'
'Robert Wodrow—Heavens above!' exclaimed the latter, holding out his hand, which the former grasped warmly and energetically; 'so you did not perish in the river?'
'It was a pretty close shave, sir,—I shall never be nearer death again, but once,' replied Wodrow, who seemed so faint that he could scarcely stand, and received with gratitude a pull from an officer's brandy flask.
'Have you been a prisoner?' asked Cavagnari.
'No, sir—I was long ill in the hands of the enemy, and was well treated.'
'Then you were not escaping?'
'No, sir—but making my way to your party when I saw it on the march, and I blessed God when I first heard of it, for I was told that the whole army had fallen back, and that I—alone—was left behind.'
'You are one of the Hussars who were swept away at the ford?' queried an officer, suspiciously.
'Yes, sir, and my story is rather a long one.'
'We shall hear it in a few minutes,' said Sir Louis, and, riding on slowly, the party reached the village of Balabagh, where it halted for the night, and where the party found quarters.
The story of Robert Wodrow, who was full of joy to find himself among comrades again, was a very simple one, and, though made in the form of a species of report or explanation to Sir Louis Cavagnari as the senior officer present, was principally directed to Leslie Colville, whom, of course, he viewed as a friend, and from whom he heard, with no small dismay, of the actual extent of the catastrophe to the squadron.
Though kicked more than once by his own charger after he fell into the stream, he had, after a time, got his feet free from the stirrups; but was swept away like a cork by the current after he had passed through the rapids. Being a good swimmer, he contrived to keep his head above water, but was incapable of reaching the banks, as they were steep, rocky, and in many places rose sheer like walls from the bed of the Cabul. Thus he was borne for nearly three miles below the point where so many of his comrades perished; and, feeling that he could struggle with fate no more, was about to relinquish further effort when suddenly voices caught his ear; he saw some strange white figures near the bank of the river—figures like those of witches or spectres as seen by the radiance of the stars (as the moon was under a cloud now), and by some strange and lambent lights that were floating on the surface of the water, and in the very midst of which he suddenly found himself, but with a current which shallowed so fast that he could make good his footing.
Among the Mahomedans and Hindoos there is a pretty custom—which the former have no doubt borrowed from the latter, as they both practise it—of going to a river or tank after the fulfilment of a vow, and setting afloat, as an offering, small, saucer-like lamps of earthenware, each containing oil, with a lighted wick.
After having said thefatihar, or necessary prayers, they watch their votive lamps as they float down the stream, and girls often augur their success in love by the steadiness of the journeying down the darkening waters.
There are certain seasons of the year, such as the Shabibarat feast in the month of Shaban, when this ceremony is carried out on a vast and beautiful scale.
It was a fleet of votive lamps amid which Robert Wodrow now found himself, and for a moment or two he had a striking view of some groups of Indian girls clad in white floating drapery, their long black hair unbound, their arms bare to the elbow, their other limbs to the knee, half lost in shadow and half seen in light, upon the steps of a Temple-ghaut—we say for a moment or two only, as on beholding him rising, as it were, from the water, they fled with shrill cries of affright.
Worn and faint, and heedless of what became of him, he reached the marble steps of the ghaut, and lay there for a time oblivious of everything.
When he recovered a little, though well-nigh dead with cold and exhaustion, he could see by the light of the moon, which now shone out clearly, a tall, thin, and venerable-looking Afghan bending over him.
His ample beard was snowy white, his eyes were keen and glittering, his features were of the Jewish type peculiar to the country, while his costume was that of the primitive Afghan—wide pantaloons of blue stuff, a brown camise with flowing sleeves, and a black fur cap.
Putting a hand on Wodrow's head, he told him in Afghani—which is the Pushtu language spoken by all the Afghans, and the origin of which is unknown—to take courage, as he would protect him; and Robert Wodrow, having picked up a little Sanscrit from his father, the old minister, made a shift to understand him, and knew also that he quoted the fourth chapter of the Koran, which recommends charity and protection to all helpless strangers.
And between cold and exhaustion, added to more than one kick from his horse, poor Wodrow was helpless indeed, but he had fortunately fallen into excellent hands—those of Abou Ayoub, a good, pious, and intelligent hakim, or physician of the adjacent village, the inhabitants of which were friendly to the British, or to anyone who would protect them from the Afreedies on the one hand and the Khyberees of the Suffaidh Koh on the other, and for defence against these the village, which consisted of a mosque, a tank, and some sixty houses, was surrounded by a strong wall pierced with double rows of loopholes for musketry.
He conveyed him to his house, and there on acharpoy, or native truckle bed, Robert Wodrow lay for days and weeks in fever and delirium, attended by the hakim and his three daughters and a Belooch slave. The former had skill enough to dose his patient with ipecacuanha, with infusions of manna, and food, including rice, tamarinds, and stewed prunes; but he and they believed much more in sentences of the Koran, written on paper, and washed off into the drink he imbibed, which was generally cool tamarind sherbet, that proved in times of feverish thirst a delicious draught, especially from the hands of Ayesha, the eldest and prettiest daughter of the three.
Among the Afghans women are not secluded from all male society, as they are strictly in other Mahommedan communities, for the women of the middle and lower orders share in all the domestic amusements of their husbands, who generally content themselves with one wife, and in the country the latter is unveiled.
Young unmarried women are distinguished by wearing their hair loose and by their trousers being white. Thus Ayesha and her two sisters wore their long black hair loose, but interwoven with gold chains and strings of Venetian sequins. And the hakim, who never omitted an opportunity of quoting the Koran, duly informed Robert Wodrow that she was so named from Ayesha—one of the four perfect women, and a wife of Mahomet the Prophet—a lady who had a very terrible adventure in the sixth year of the Hejira.
After a few weeks of their care, Robert became convalescent. He was young, courageous, and buoyant with hope; he felt a trust in his own resources and exertions, and, encouraged by the praise he had won from Colville and other officers, had begun to take a new interest in life—to have some hope for the future, and a desire to grapple with any difficulties and dangers that lay before him; but certainly he felt something akin to consternation when informed by the hakim that the Treaty of Gundamuck had been signed; that Great Britain had made peace with the Ameer; that all our troops had retired towards the Indus, and that he himself was left behind among the wild mountains by the Surkhab, some seventy miles from the frontier—a distance which he could scarcely hope to traverse alone on foot in safety, amid such perilous surroundings.
'Death cometh to everyone—even though he be in a lofty tower, saith the Koran, but your time, Feringhee, is not come yet,' said the Hakim Abou Ayoub to his guest, while smiling at the scared expression of his face.
The house of Abou Ayoub was a low but comfortable-looking building, surrounded by groves of tall palm-trees; it had a flat roof and a verandah, where Robert and the Hakim sat at times in the evening smoking, talking of the time when the former must make an effort to get away, or listening to the girls playing the saringa, or native guitar, and singing monotonously the odes of Rebman, the Khan of the Khutticks.
In this verandah the Hakim received his poor patients, who gazed with wonder and awe when the door of his sanctum or surgery was open, though therein were only a few boxes of books and drugs—a great vase of rose-water, and a three-lipped brass lamp suspended from a tall iron rod—for with them the science of healing was associated with something of sorcery and witchcraft. Robert Wodrow, with all the Hakim's kindness, wearied of the routine of the daily life there—the perpetual prayers and ablutions of his host. At each meal the old man always poured water into a brass basin, in which Robert had to dip his hands ere he could plunge them into the pilao, which Ayesha had prepared; though, sooth to say, the Hakim, after uttering the invariable Bismillah, usually had his fingers in first, selecting the most delicate morsels for his guest, as knives and forks are unknown in the land of Baber. Then would come little cups of savoury curries, chutnees, and sweetmeats; and, when evening fell, ablutions again; a white cloth was spread over the carpet, and, turning his bowed face in the direction of Mecca, old Abou Ayoub devoutly said his prayers for the night.
There is a language of the eye, and a freemasonry when hand touches hand that all women know or learn; and ere long Robert Wodrow discovered, to his alarm, that the eldest daughter of his host had eyes for him alone—we say to his alarm, for, if he did not respond, her heart might grow revengeful.
This made his situation perilous amid society so strange, and more intently did he long to be gone, though the girl was, in her own way, very pretty, very fair for an Afghan, and coquettishly wore the brightest coloured camises, embroidered vests, and laced trousers of the finest muslin to attract him,
When the Hakim was absent, there was no mistaking her languishing demeanour, which sorely perplexed the hussar.
If she loved him, as he doubted not, he at least did not know how to fall in love again, and to what end could it be withher?
Too intensely had he passed through the passion not to know how it was crushed out of him by the agony of loss; and he had but one desire, to get well and strong, and at all risks evade this new peril.
One morning the Hakim came to him with a face expressive of excitement and pleasure; it was to announce that atchopper, or Cabulee mounted courier, had ridden through the adjacent pass and seen British troops marching north-westward from Jellalabad.
'British troops!' exclaimed Wodrow, starting up, and at the moment in haste to be gone.
'Bismillah, not so fast, my son,' said the Hakim; 'you must have food ere you go.'
In haste Ayesha prepared for him akafta kawab, or dish of savoury meat balls, with her own hands, and, unseen by Wodrow, her tears dropped into the pipkin as she did so; but he could scarcely eat of it, he was in such haste to be gone.
From the loopholes in the village wall the Hakim showed him the gleam of arms as a party of troops came defiling into the narrow valley, through which the Surk-ab flows to the Cabul river, and then they wrung each other's hands in farewell.
'Peace be upon you!' cried Wodrow, who knew enough of the language to say this.
'And likewise on you be peace and the mercy of God!' cried the Hakim, in his sonorous Afghani, and another moment saw Robert Wodrow hurrying down the hillside, and leaving the walled killa, or village, fast behind him.
'Things in this world wag strangely,' said Robert Wodrow to Colville, and forgetting that others heard him. 'As you may know, I didn't care to live; but I pulled through—pulled through when those with a happier future and more hope might have succumbed.'
What followed has already been narrated.
'After the kindness of that old Hakim to me, I shall ever think well of these Afghan fellows in future,' said Robert.
'Quite right too, Wodrow,' responded Leslie Colville; 'but we have yet to see how we get on with them at Cabul.'
He had his doubts, and, curiously enough, they were prophetic.
With a sigh of genuine thankfulness, Robert Wodrow accepted a few cigars from the proffered case of young Hamilton, of the Guides (a gallant fellow who had already won the V.C.), as luxuries he had not known for many a day.
'And now for the march towards Cabul—nearly eighty miles from the village of Balabagh. As I have a spare horse, you shall ride him, Wodrow,' said Colville.
'I shall never forget your kindness, sir.'
This was all Robert Wodrow said, but his heart was very full, for Colville's manner and bearing to him were kind and considerate in the extreme; and he knew that—the latter's generosity of nature apart—much of this sprang from their mutual regard for Mary and Ellinor Wellwood.
For Robert Wodrow to attempt to make his way alone to where his regiment was now quartered far in the rear, through passes filled by savage tribes, was not to be thought of; thus nothing was left for him but to proceed with the ambassadors' escort to Cabul.
He was safe now, and had escaped from that terrible catastrophe at the Ford of Isaac; but poor Robert was only a corporal, and the public papers barely recorded the circumstance. Now he was once more with Europeans; his whole bearing rapidly changed; his weakness and illness seemed to leave him, his step resumed its buoyancy, his eyes their fire and, if sad, old devil-may-care expression.
Though Robert Wodrow, by enlisting in the hussars, had opened a considerable social gulf between himself and Captain Leslie Colville of the Guards, it was impossible for them both not to have many sympathies in common; thus oblivious of that gulf the two rode frequently together, talking of the Wellwoods and the Birks of Invermay, on the route by Gundamuck, Suffaidh Sang, and Hazardaracht.
On service the bonds of rank and even of discipline, so to say, are often loosened, for the experience of fighting side by side makes the finest qualities of the soldier, forming the true and loving link between the officer and his men. It fires the sense ofesprit-de-corps, and blots out all the ignobler phases of garrison and barrack life, teaches self-reliance, inspirescameraderieand patriotism, and makes men less coarse in speech and kindlier to each other in spirit, and more grave and earnest with the work in hand.
After halting for the night near Hazardaracht, or the 'Place of the Thousand Trees,' Sir Louis Cavagnari and his party pushed upwards to the famous Shutargardan Pass, which is eleven thousand five hundred feet in height, and from thence the road to Cabul lies through narrow and rock-bound denies.
Immediately below this mighty mountain eminence lie lesser hills that diminish in height as they slope down into a vast plain in the richest state of cultivation, dotted by numberless villages, all of the most picturesque aspect.
At Shutargardan the embassy found themselves in the land of the powerful and most warlike Ghilzie tribe, whose fighting force was estimated at nearly two hundred thousand men; but there they were received with every outward honour by an escort of the Ameer's regular troops, whose equipment caused some surprise and even merriment among the Europeans of the escort.
'By Jove, Colville, here are some countrymen of yours!' cried a staff officer, choking with laughter, as some of the Ameer's 'Highlanders' presented arms.
The Ameer had actually dressed a body of his troops in tartan kilts, in imitation of the Gordon Highlanders, whose costume had greatly impressed him, and these they wore over baggy cotton breeches; while the cavalry who accompanied them wore the same nether garments (minus the kilt) with red tunics, white belts, and helmets of soft grey felt, and in addition to tulwar and pistols, every man rode with a whip, the wooden handle of which, when not required, was stuck into his right boot.
They had smooth-bore carbines slung over the right thigh, muzzle downwards.
'A precious set of dark-looking duffers they are,' was Robert Wodrow's off-hand comment, as he surveyed them.
Escorted by these troops, Sir Louis Cavagnari and his companions continued the remaining forty-five miles of the journey to Cabul, passing Kushi and other fortified villages, and it was not without emotions of interest and anxiety too, that they found themselves on the 24th of June, entering the gates and traversing the streets of that hitherto openly—perhaps yet secretly—hostile capital, which is surrounded by low, barren, and rocky hills, but amid a plain which time and human industry have made wondrously fertile and beautiful.
The dark-visaged and motley crowds in the streets—Afghans, Kuzzilbashes, Persians, Tajiks, and Jews—scowled very unmistakably at the Feringhees, whose presence they did not want, whose prowess in recent wars they feared, and whose race and religion they loathed.
The streets through which the visitors rode were all built of sun-dried bricks and wood, about two storeys high, with flat roofs, and low, square doorways, now and then a larger one, with a mulberry-tree overhanging a mud wall, indicating the residence of a great man.
The city is three miles in circuit, and is dominated by the Bala Hissar, in which the embassy took up their quarters, a place incapable of being defended, though the citadel, in consequence of the ruinous condition of its walls and ramparts. It has, however, a wide ditch, and stabling for a thousand horses.
It is half-a-mile long by a quarter of a mile broad, and presents externally a cluster of lofty, square, embattled towers, with its chief strength, or inner citadel, high up on the slope of a hill.
As they entered its arched gate between two circular towers, Colville heard a voice amid the scowling crowds exclaim, with uplifted hands,
'La Ilah ilia Allah? Why does not He shrivel them all up by a flash of lightning, and cast them into hell for ever?'
The speaker mingled with the multitude, but not before Colville recognised his figure, and remembered Mahmoud Shah, the sham hadji of Jellalabad; but it would have been alike unwise to notice or pursue him at that crisis.
In the Bala Hissar there were assigned by the Ameer apartments for the use of the ambassador and his suite and escort—apartments having marble floors and walls covered with arabesques, old as the days of Tamerlane and Baber perhaps, certainly as old as those of Nadir Shah, and for a time the whole party were to all appearance well received by the Sovereign and his people; but after a little space the former, notwithstanding his hollow protestations and fulsome letter to the Viceroy at Simla, grew cold and haughty, and daily saw less and less of Sir Louis Cavagnari, while the mobs without began to manifest alike turbulence and insolence, and the isolated embassy was doubtless involved in peril.
Roving brigands infested all the roads around the city, yet the months of July and August passed, quietly enough, though some Afghan troops who had marched in from Herat used threatening language against Sir Louis and insulted the soldiers of his escort, on one occasion compelling Colville and two of the guides to draw their swords.
It has been said—but we know not upon what authority—that Cavagnari received distinct information that the lives of himself and all his companions were in imminent peril, but the letters which those gentlemen sent to India, and those which Mary Wellwood received at long intervals from Colville, gave no indications of apprehension.
Yet a stormy cloud was gathering over the picturesque towers of the Bala Hissar.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
LONDON: PRINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE.