"The thing is impracticable," said Sir Cæsar in the tone of one who lays down the law. "My term of service being nearly completed, in two months we shall start for England, and Walter had better come with us. You will have your uncle's interest to give you a good start in life," he continued, addressing himself to young Gurney; "I advise your entering on a course at the bar. I should not wonder," he added more gaily, "if you ended your career on the woolsack."
As in the interim between sending his letter, and receiving its reply, Walter never entered again with Flora on a distasteful subject, the lady almost forgot the whole affair. She was much engaged in preparations for a fancy ball, which she could not persuade the student to attend even by the lure of seeing her in Afghan costume personate his favourite Sultána. But often—very often—even in the midst of hard study, did Walter think, almost without fear, of what the mail from England might bring. His reading up for examination gave him a fair and true excuse for seeing less of Miss Dashley; but very hard was it to keep almost entirely away, except on Sundays, especially as the dreaded time of parting was every day drawing near and more near.
With almost feverish impatience the secretary's reply was opened when it arrived about a week after Walter had passed his examination with brilliant success. The letter, though couched in rather formal terms, was full of Christian courtesy. The committee, it said, had given due consideration to Mr. Gurney's offer to devote himself to founding a mission in the country of the Afghans. His high motives, his devotion and zeal, were highly appreciated. But after much thought the committee felt unable to send any agent into so dangerous a field, beyond the protection of the British flag. If Mr. Gurney would volunteer for work in India, his offer would be gladly entertained.
Walter gave a sigh—was it of disappointment, or of relief? He could scarcely have defined his own feelings. Almost intuitively he bent his steps towards the dwelling in which Flora resided, but paused at the entrance to listen to the delicious tones of her voice. He found the young lady at the piano. Flora had just finished her Italian song, and received her visitor with a smile.
"I thought that you were forgetting us," she said; "I have been wanting you for a practice."
Silently Walter Gurney placed the letter in Flora's hand, and watched her face to see what emotions it might call forth.
"The committee show some sense," the lady remarked, returning the letter. "I hope that now you will give up for ever your mad idea of re-visiting the Eagle's Nest."
"But my promise?" murmured Walter Gurney.
"You are not bound by so foolish a promise. Suppose that I promised to spend a week in the house of a friend, and on my arrival found all the building in flames! Does honour compel me to stay and be burnt?"
"The case is not quite to the point," said Walter. "I have passed seven years in the Eagle's Nest, and my danger would not be greater, but much less than it was at the first. When I entered it, I had not amongst the Afghans a single friend, save one poor child; now I have seven friends, Christian friends, to help—or desert!"
"Oh, I cannot argue on such matters," said Flora, turning over the leaves of her music-book to find some particular duet. "But really, Walter—Mr. Gurney—you should turn your mind from such projects, as regards Afghanistan or any other place. The profession of a missionary is not quite that of—of——-" She hesitated, not wishing to give offence. "I mean, that with prospects like yours, you might do a great deal better."
These few words gave Walter acute pain; they betrayed such utter want of sympathy in what regarded the spreading of the Gospel, in the woman whose favour was to him as the very sunshine of life.
Flora ran her fingers lightly over the keys. "It is for the bass to begin," said she.
Walter mechanically sang through the duet; his thoughts were far, far away. When the practising was over, he somewhat hastily took his departure.
Long did young Gurney ponder over the conversation at night, in the solitude of his chamber, with his Bible open before him. Had he not, again and again, given himself, with all his powers, all his talents, to the service of a crucified Lord, and now was he not suffering the world gradually to enclose him in a snare, none the less strong because its meshes were formed of the softest silk? Whence came his increasing repugnance to fulfil his promise to Sultána? Was it not the impossibility of taking an English bride to the Afghan mountains? Walter dared scarcely think of Miss Dashley in connection with his own future; union with Sir Cæsar's daughter seemed almost as utterly beyond his hopes as if she had been a star; yet—yet—things more impossible had happened before. Oh, how delicious were day-dreams! but were they safe?—were they right?
Walter knelt down and prayed for guidance, that Divine guidance which is never honestly sought in vain. He remained long on his knees. The young man arose with a pale cheek and a heavy heart. He opened his desk, and wrote a letter to his bishop, offering himself as a candidate for orders in the ordination shortly to take place, previous to entering on honorary missionary work. Walter enveloped the letter, and shut it up in his desk. He then retired to his couch, but not to sleep; no slumber visited his eyes on that night.
The following dawn ushered in Sunday. Walter was accustomed on that day to breakfast with Sir Cæsar, and then accompany him and his daughter to church, a privilege which made him an object of envy to some young officers and civilians. Young Gurney did not on this day break the understood engagement. Those Sabbath mornings sometimes gave him an opportunity of speaking a few words on religious subjects to Flora, or reading sacred poetry, of which they both were fond. How soon these too happy mornings would become things of the past!
At the accustomed hour Walter mounted the broad flight of steps which led to the wide verandah, and pushing aside the greenchik,* entered the drawing-room, in which were seated Sir Cæsar and his daughter. What a contrast that drawing-room presented to Walter's quarters in the Eagle's Nest! The Indian mat which covered the floor was itself partly hidden under rich Cashmere rugs, tiger's skins, and the thick fur of the bear. The whiteness of the walls was relieved by painted arabesque patterns, with here and there a chromograph or well-selected print in a gilded frame. The tables were adorned with fine china, and delicate specimens of Agra's inlaid marble work. A profusion of flowers from a dozen vases filled the air with delicious perfume. In a most richly-carved ebony cabinet appeared a collection of elegantly-bound books; albums lay on one of the tables. It was the home of luxury; and everything on which the eye rested, from the grand piano to the small bird of exquisite plumage in its flower-wreathed cage, told of the presiding taste of a refined and cultivated woman. It was a fit perch for a Bird of Paradise.
* A kind of blind, admitting the free circulation of air.
Sir Cæsar, on the easiest of easy chairs, was enjoying the coolness imparted by the measured, monotonous swing of thepunkah;* for, though it was but the end of March, the weather was already oppressively hot.
* An enormous kind of fan.
"Well, Walter," said Sir Cæsar, without rising for any more formal greeting, "we're to be off a good deal sooner than I had expected. I've had a telegram to say that the Warings, who were going by next week's steamer, are detained by one of the children taking the measles, so that their cabins are vacant. It's not a chance to be lost, though it rather hurries our movements; but it's worth a push to get out of this heat. So Flora and I will be off in a week. Don't look so startled, my good friend. I mean you to come with us, and we'll take Italy in our way."
"Oh, yes; it will delight you to see the art-treasures of Venice, Rome, and Florence," cried Flora. "Certainly, you must come with us."
The conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Captain Mills, an officer invited to breakfast.
A native servant in livery, bright with scarlet and gold, but with shoeless feet, announced that the meal was on the table; and Flora led the way into the room, in which was spread a luxurious repast served by half-a-dozen attendants.
Walter was unusually silent. The tidings of the sudden departure had struck like a knell in his heart. Sir Cæsar talked enough for both; he was full of his projected Italian tour.
Soon after the conclusion of the lengthened breakfast, the bells began to chime for Divine service, and in due course of time the party proceeded to the stately-looking church. Walter took his accustomed place behind Flora in the choir. Was it for the last time? he thought, with a pang; or might he not avail himself of Sir Cæsar's offer, as he had now an uncle's home to visit in England? The young man was dazzled by the brightness of the prospect opening before him, yet felt—had there been no other reason against his going—that it was undesirable to travel as a pensioner on Sir Cæsar's bounty.
It was exceedingly difficult for Walter to keep his attention to the prayers; he tried to do so, but scarcely succeeded. But it was very different when the organ pealed forth the first hymn. This hymn was a great favourite with Flora, who poured forth in it her splendid voice without giving a thought to the meaning of the words. But the words were to Walter the very soul of the hymn, merely clothed with a musical body.
"Nearer, my God, to Thee,Nearer to Thee,E'en though it be a crossThat raiseth me."
Walter could not sing that verse at that moment; he felt that it would be a mockery to offer that prayer in which his rebellious heart did not join; it would be an act of hypocrisy, for he saw plainly the cross before him, and he shrank from taking it up. To him, at that crisis in his life, the mountain fort in Afghanistan appeared much as the burning fiery furnace must have appeared to the three young Jews. Flora missed the familiar voice behind her, which had hitherto ever blended so harmoniously with her own.
After leaving the church, Walter declined Sir Cæsar's invitation to come home with him to tiffin. He had sometimes shared that meal, but had never joined in the Sunday drive, or the Sunday dinner-party. Walter felt that he must be alone; he could never exercise a calm judgment on such a matter as the important decision before him, under the fascination of Flora's presence.
"What is the matter with Gurney to-day?" said Sir Cæsar, when Walter had quitted the party. "He has been mum as a fish, did not sing, and looks thoroughly upset."
"He has studied too hard," observed Flora; but her smile betokened that some other cause for the young man's trouble had occurred to her mind.
"He feels this weather as I do," cried Sir Cæsar, passing his handkerchief over his heated brow.
"By-the-by," said Captain Mills, "did you see the paragraph in theWeekly Timeswhich came by this mail?"
"I have not opened the paper yet," said Sir Cæsar.
"There's a paragraph about a certain Gilbert Gurney, only surviving son of Augustus Gurney, Esq. of Eaton Square and Claverdon Hall being killed by a fall in the hunting-field."
"Ha! that must be the son of Walter's uncle!" exclaimed Sir Cæsar; "then our friend Walter will be, I suppose, next heir to a handsome estate and at least ten thousand a-year."
"Lucky fellow!" ejaculated the captain; "lucky in everything I take it. But I don't suppose that the property is entailed, and Mr. Gurney of Claverdon Hall may not sympathise with his nephew's missionary peculiarities."
"Oh, we'll hear no more of that nonsense now," said Sir Cæsar; "the heir to ten thousand per annum will see matters in quite a new light."
There the conversation on the subject ended. Flora had not joined in it, but busied herself with newly arranging some flowers in a vase. But it was noticed by those who accompanied her in her afternoon ride that the young lady was in unusually high spirits at the prospect of her speedy departure for England.
Walter's spirits were as depressed as hers were elevated. He passed a second sleepless night, and on the Monday morning was absent from the morning lecture at the college.
As he sat at his solitary breakfast, a letter was brought in which bore English post-marks. It had arrived by the same mail as that from the secretary of the mission, but a mistake in the address had for two days delayed its transmission. The student expected no letter from England, as his uncle, his only correspondent there, had written to him but twice in the course of nine years. But Walter recognised the handwriting of Augustus Gurney. His epistle, as usual, was brief:—
"Dear Walter,—You have probably seen in the papers that I have had the misfortune to lose my last remaining son, killed by a fall from his horse. You are now my nearest relative, and in declining years, with broken health, I should like to have one beside me. If you accept the position of a son, I propose receiving you as my heir. Come to England at once; I enclose a cheque for travelling expenses."
Walter felt dizzy,—almost as if he had received a stroke of the sun. Will he sink very low in the reader's estimation when it is owned that the latter gave him a wild thrill of delight? It was not that he coveted a fortune,—it was not merely the prospect of wealth that made his pulse beat so high. As a penniless adventurer he could hardly have aspired to the hand of Flora Dashley; but the heir of the wealthy Augustus Gurney might, without any presumption, ask her to be his bride. Walter sprang from his seat, and with rapid steps paced up and down the apartment. Satan tempted him—as he is so ready to tempt God's people—with arguments drawn from religion itself. Was not this letter, coming at so critical a time, an indication of the leading of Providence? What a talent to be used for God would be wealth devoted to the noblest objects! What visions of schools opened and alms-houses built, a happy peasantry, a delightful home, rose before the mental vision of Walter! He was almost persuaded for a few moments that his own will was the will of God. His was nearly being a case of spiritual sun-stroke indeed.
Walter's intoxicating day-dream was interrupted by the entrance of Will Green, a gay young college companion.
"Walter, you played truant from the lecture this morning. I'm glad that you kept me in countenance for once. No" (as Walter motioned for him to take a chair), "I've really no time to sit down. I've brought you a present, a dirty old picture from the bazaar, put up for two annas, and hardly worth them. But I saw your good father's name and Santgunge written in the corner, so I thought that it might be some family relic of yours that I had lighted on by chance. There it is," he added, throwing down his purchase on the table; "I can't stop now, I have an appointment," and the student went off as suddenly as he had entered.
A family relic, yes! In that stained, fly-spotted, insect-eaten piece of paper, Walter recognised the picture which had hung in his earliest home; it was the print of the Israelites crossing the desert, the story of which, Walter as a child, had first heard from the lips of his mother. As he gazed on it the young man seemed to hear again the voice of his venerated father uttering these words, which had been Walter's comfort in one of the most critical points of his life—"God may lead us into a desert, my boy, but it is a blessed way if His presence go with us."
A straw may turn a balance; a single sentence change the course of a life. Walter was again on his knees, in a wrestling agony of prayer. He arose comparatively calm, but pale as a corpse. Walter sat down, opened his desk, and took out the letter which he had written to the bishop, but which he had not yet had resolution to send. He then, with unsteady hand, wrote another. It was a grateful one to Sir Cæsar, thanking him for kindness which could never be either repaid or forgotten, but bidding him a long farewell. Walter could give no reason for not seeking a personal interview; he thought that a father might guess the cause. Young Gurney could not trust himself to say good-by to Flora. He but added a postscript, with a hand that trembled with agitation, in which he requested Sir Cæsar to remember him gratefully to his daughter.
It was almost as painful a task to write to his uncle; Walter was as one undergoing an operation, who would, while writhing under the knife, have all over as quickly as might be. The terrible work was over—the letters completed, enveloped, and sealed. Walter summoned the servant who waited in the verandah, gave him the three epistles, bade him take two to their respective destinations, and the third to the post. When he had done this, the unhappy young man seemed to have reached the utmost point of endurance. As the servant departed, Walter sank back on his chair, and covered his face with his hands.
"Oh, pillar of cloud!—dark, terrible pillar!" he groaned; "thou art leading me into a waste and howling wilderness, indeed!"
In another hour Walter was being whirled along in a train, he cared not whither; he had taken his ticket almost at random for a place of which he scarcely knew the name, and whose recommendation was that it was so retired that he was not likely to meet there with any one who knew him. There, in a drearydák-bungalow* young Gurney lay for some days in a fever; before he had thoroughly recovered, Sir Cæsar and his daughter had started for England.
* A kind of inn, provided by Government for the convenience of travellers.
Walter Gurney had narrowly escaped from one of the chief perils of his life—that of union with a vain and worldly woman, who would sooner have drawn him down to her own level than have risen up to his. He had all but crossed over the stile into the Bypath Meadow described by Bunyan, which leads to the territory of Giant Despair; that he had not done so was the result of faith's upward glance at the pillar of cloud and fire.
It is now time to return to the little band of Afghan converts left in the Eagle's Nest.
Whilst Walter had been basking in the dangerous glare of prosperity, a sharp storm of trial had been sweeping over his native friends. He had not been fully aware how all-important had been the support of an Englishman's influence, talent, and courage, to the newly-baptised chief, Ali Khan. It was now as if the principal pillar supporting an edifice had been taken away, or a vessel in a gale had been reft both of its main-mast and rudder. Yet as a building may still stand, though its strongest prop be removed, and a vessel float on the waves though main-mast and rudder be lost, so the chief in the Eagle's Nest for years held his dangerous post. This was chiefly owing to the following three causes.
Ali Khan was a brave and—until his baptism—a popular leader. Though he now discouraged war and forbade plunder, no one could doubt the courage of a man who had slain a bear single-handed, and who had brought home more trophies of the chase than did any other hunter in the clan. Once finding three of his men, against his express orders, looting and beating a travelling merchant, Ali Khan had knocked down the chief offender, expelled him from the tribe, and made the two others undergo the bastinado. This vigorous execution of justice had for a time a very salutary effect on the minds of his turbulent followers. The Afghans saw that they had to deal with no child.
And Ali Khan, as the husband of Sultána, commanded a certain amount of respect. The young eaglet had from childhood been the darling of the clan, and now they were proud of her, Christian as she was, as being, in their eyes, the brightest, bravest, most beautiful woman in all their land. Sultána was nopardahprisoner in her zenana; her light step, the glance of her eye, the tones of her voice were familiar to all in the fort. There were many who had received from her personal kindness not readily to be forgotten. In everything relating to the management of his troublesome people, Sultána was to her husband more than a right hand.
There was a third advantage possessed by the chief. From the manner in which Walter Gurney had been received at the English camp, it was concluded by the Afghans that he must have great influence with the powerful invaders. The British troops were sweeping through Afghanistan, and tidings of their wonderful marches and signal victories reached the Eagle's Nest. Even when our warriors vacated the land, they left their prestige behind. The Afghans of the fort had an impression that Walter would return, and should he find his friend Ali Khan defeated or deposed, would draw on them English vengeance. The iron hand of power which had twice reached Kabul itself, would easily crush a small tribe so near the British dominions. Thus, for a considerable time, his own character, his wife's influence, and the fear of Walter's anger made discontented Moslems submit to the control of a Christian chief.
But there were no more conversions. It had been Walter Gurney's habit, during the latter part of his residence in the Eagle's Nest, to give daily expositions of Scripture, followed by singing and prayer; and his parables had been so attractive, his music so fine, his descriptions so vivid, that many unconverted Afghans had gathered around to hear him. Often the nod of assent, or the appreciative "wah! wah!" had expressed approval—if not of the doctrine, yet of the illustration employed by the gifted preacher.
It was very different when Ali Khan, keeping his place on the page with his swarthy finger, read slowly, and with many mistakes, from the manuscript left for his use by Walter. His audience comprised none but the Christians, sometimes only his wife, for her venerable grandmother was slowly sinking into the grave. The seed sown by Walter had in most cases fallen on the beaten highway; as soon as he had quitted the fort, the evil one carried it away.
Nor were there wanting illustrations of the seed falling on the stony ground, and springing up only to die. Mirza, one of the baptised seven, soon grew weary of isolation from his Moslem companions, and of bearing their taunts and ill-treatment. He very easily persuaded himself that though Christianity might be good for Feringhees, it would never suit the Afghan. Mohammed Sahib had been a bold and successful chief, who had permitted his followers to loot, had encouraged them to kill, and had promised on easy terms to his followers paradise and its houris. The oriental mind is not logical; Walter's proofs of the truth of Christianity, if ever understood by Mirza, were forgotten almost as soon as heard. First the Afghan absented himself from prayers, then received reproof with sullen anger; finally he openly joined the party in the fort who scarcely attempted to conceal their dislike of their Christian chief, and their resolution to resist innovations. Mirza's wife, as a matter of course, followed the lead of her husband, and never, except from necessity, came near Sultána.
Then came death, still further to lessen the little band of Christians. Sultána's aged relative passed from earth. Her faith had been as that of a little child, and with the simple trust of a little child she obeyed the call of her Heavenly Father. Sultána, as she gazed on the placid face of the dead, felt that the venerable woman had indeed been taken from the evil to come. She was sheltered in the grave—or rather in the land of the blessed—from the trials and perils which every day were coming on thicker and faster.
The mind of Ali Khan was sorely troubled by the spreading spirit of disaffection; his patience sometimes gave way under the daily provocations to which he was now exposed. His faith might have failed altogether, had it not been sustained by the firmer piety of his young wife.
"I am weary of my life!" exclaimed the chief one day, as he entered the upper apartment or zenana, where Sultána was plying her wheel.
"Mirza is a false traitor to me as well as to his faith; he is trying to undermine my power in my own fort. Half of the men of my tribe would not care were I to share the fate of the yellow-haired stranger. There were curses muttered to-day which I did not choose to seem to hear, as a Christian must not for a personal affront knock down a fellow with the butt end of a gun, or shoot him through the head. The fellows know that, and they take their advantage. Our Feringhee friend should never have come, or never have left us!"
"He will come again," said Sultána; "he promised to return to his Afghan children, and he never will break his word."
"He hath sent us no token, and years have gone by," said the chief, gloomily, seating himself on the skin of a cheetah, spread on the bare floor. It was too true that neither Walter's letters nor gifts had reached their destination; the latter had been appropriated by their bearers, or the unscrupulous Afghans of the fort; the former, which Sultána would have prized more highly, had been destroyed or flung away.
"My men," continued the chief, "accustomed to a wild life of plunder, cannot or will not take to the means of earning their livelihood which the Feringhee friend proposed. They say that they are not Persians to weave carpets, nor Kashmiris to embroider shawls. They are accustomed not to make but to take; not to exchange goods but to seize them."
"My lord has many troubles," said Sultána; "but there is One who can and will bear him through all. We will not yield, nor fear, nor complain."
"I feel the difficulty myself," said the chief, pursuing the train of his own thoughts. "In old times when we needed aught, we belted on scimitars and loaded our guns, and made a sudden foray. We came back fewer perhaps in numbers, but anyhow laden with spoil. Now—how am I to provide for your needs and my own? I have not a silver piece left."
"My lord will never shrink from poverty endured for Christ's sake," said Sultána.
"I do not shrink," said the chief; "I know that it is better to starve as a Christian than feast as a Moslem."
"My lord will not starve," said Sultána; "have we not heard that God feeds the ravens?" She had stopped her wheel in order to converse, and now drew the anklets over her slender bare feet, took the jewels from her ears, and the ornaments from her beautiful hair. Silently she placed them beside her husband.
"How could I rob you of your jewels!" he exclaimed, knowing how precious to the women of the East are such personal adornments.
"I need them not," said the daughter of a robber chief—how changed from what she had been in her childhood! "Let me not lay up treasures on earth; mine is the pearl of great price."
And a gift better than gems was to reward the young Afghan wife. In the course of that month a little bud of beauty bloomed beside the parent rose. Sultána clasped in her arms a lovely boy, and in grateful adoration she and her husband devoted him at once to the Lord.
Few earthly joys come without some drawbacks. It caused great dissatisfaction in the fort that the birth of the chief's first-born son was not celebrated by the gluttonous revels and superstitious orgies which had never before been omitted in the Eagle's Nest on such a joyful occasion. Sheep indeed had been killed, and a banquet provided; but vice and profanity had been excluded, and to the special indignation of the old women, not a single charm against the evil eye had been tied around the neck of the babe!
Ali Khan and Sultána had long been making a brave struggle to swim against the tide of dissatisfaction, but now it appeared likely to sweep them away in its current. Mustapha was—and had been for months—plotting against his chief. The traitor tried, and succeeded but too well, in stirring up the smouldering embers of discontent into a flame. He contrived to have another key made for the large outer gate, so that it could be opened without the knowledge of Ali Khan, who, like his predecessor, always kept the key at night. Then Mustapha arranged a meeting of Afghans in a retired spot outside the fort, and to this meeting all the men except Mir Ghazan and Ali Khan himself were invited.
The gathering took place by moonlight,—by knots of twos and threes the mountaineers sought the appointed place. When Mustapha judged that the number was complete, springing on a piece of rock which raised him a little above his audience, with passionate gestures he addressed the listening throng of the fierce, long-haired Afghans.
"How long, O Pathans! will you submit to the rule of a vile renegade, who has left his faith to become the disciple of a Feringhee Kafir, who has deceived, and now deserted him! Are you, who soared like mountain eagles, ye who as eagles swooped down on your prey, to become as timorous doves? Is the bear who went crashing through the woods in his freedom, defying and destroying whoever opposed him, to be led by a silken thread? Ye are not men, ye are women, if ye longer own Ali Khan as your chief, seeing that he has disgraced his name, deserted his faith, and cast dirt on the graves of our fathers!"
"Down with him! down with him! death to the infidel!" cried some of the fiercer of the Afghans, unsheathing their knives.
The disaffection was not universal; Ali Khan had still his admirers and Sultána her friends even in that excited throng; but, as is usually the case, the louder voices and the more fiery spirits carried the day.
"Mustapha is our chief! Down with Ali Khan—hurl him from the rock!" shouted the renegade Mirza; and others took up the cry, "Mustapha! Mustapha! the true believer! Mustapha is the chief of our clan!"
"Awake, awake, Ali Khan! chief! if you would not be slain where you lie!" was the loud summons which startled the Afghan from his repose.
"It is the voice of Mir Ghazan!" exclaimed Ali, springing from his couch, and seizing his scimitar.
"If the chief linger, Mustapha and his rebels will be upon him! No time for delay!" cried Mir Ghazan, as Ali Khan drew back the heavy curtain which served in place of a door.
"What mean ye?" asked the Afghan chief. "Mustapha left the fort at noon and cannot return at night, for the key of the gate is with me."
"I know not how that may be," said Mir Ghazan, with impatience; "I found the gate open not an hour ago, for there had been a stirring in the courtyard, and I knew that some mischief was brewing. I went forth, following two figures that moved before me; they stopped just below the Vulture's Crag. I was present, unseen, at a meeting where, had they caught a glimpse of me, I had been silenced with a dagger. Mustapha is rousing the tribe against us Christians. I outstripped the rebels to give you warning, but even at this moment the bloodthirsty throng must be close at the gate. Hark! hear you not their wild yells!"
Sultána, pale, but perfectly calm, with Rahim, her ten-days' old babe in her arms, now stood by the side of her husband. "We have no means of escape," she said; "if we go to the gate we but meet them. Let us hasten to the Feringhee's room" (it still commonly went by that name); "it has a strong door and a lock. We can at least hold out there for some hours—till the Lord, in His mercy, send us succour."
There was no time for more words. Mir Ghazan's wife, roused by the noise, was at the foot of the dark stair which led up to the chief's apartments. The small band of Christians with hurried steps made their way into the court-yard, open to the silver moonlight, and then sped up the ladder staircase, Ali Khan himself being the last to mount it. Scarcely had he entered the Feringhee's room when the court-yard was full of Pathans, some shouting the Moslems' hulma* some, "Down with the renegadeKaranis! Mustapha! Mustapha! he is our chief!"
* "There is but one God, and Mohammed is his prophet."
The door was shut, the key turned in the lock. Thus a breathing space of time was secured to the fugitives, standing in semi-darkness within their narrow place of retreat.
"Let us pray," said Sultána, and every knee was bent in silent prayer.
There was a rush up the ladder, an angry knocking and thumping at the door; but the timber of which it was made was strong, and resisted the efforts of Ali Khan's assailants.
"Let alone!" cried a voice from without, loud enough to be heard above the clamour. "We have good allies within yon room. Unless the eagles bring the Kafirs food, and the hot winds water, hunger and thirst will soon force them to open the door!"
The words had their effect. The assault was for the time reduced to a blockade. No one was to be suffered to come out of the prison which the Christians had made their fortress. Pent up in their narrow quarters, exposed to hunger, thirst, and heat (for the month was May), the Kafirs should be driven at last to surrender and apostatise—or perish. In the meantime their enemies should feast; there should be a banquet to celebrate the elevation of Mustapha to the leadership of the tribe, and his fallen rival should hear the festal mirth.
Wild noisy revelry took place in the court-yard, and lasted till long after dawn. Notwithstanding the affected fervour of their religious zeal, some of the Afghans unscrupulously broke the law of their Prophet by copious libations of the strictly forbidden drink. Bang, a spirituous liquor, was freely circulated round, and its effects were shown in louder shouting, coarser jests, and more savage threats. It was as if demons were holding their revels below.
As day advanced the noises gradually ceased; no banquet can last for ever; most of the revellers were stretched in drunken slumber. But Mustapha had effectually provided against the escape of his victims by placing an armed guard of the more sober of his men to watch in turns in front of the ladder. The opening of the door above would be a signal for instant attack, or the fugitives would be shot down, one by one, as they emerged from their prison.
It was a time when the faith of the Christians in that upper room was tried in a very hot furnace. The courage of Fatima, Mir Ghazan's wife, was not equal to the trial. The poor woman beat her breast, and tore her hair, and declared that Allah had forsaken them, and given them up to their foes.
"Allah never forsakes His children," said Sultána. "As soon, O Fatima, could I desert this babe who is dearer to me than my life's-blood. Dost thou not remember what our Feringhee friend told us of the pillar of cloud and fire which guided Beni-Israel? When the fierce enemy pursued with his horses and chariots, an enemy thirsting for blood, did not that pillar stand as a wall of defence between the weak and the strong, the faithful and their pursuers? The God of Israel is with us now, and will either save or strengthen us to endure!"
Not once did the faith or the courage of the young Afghan fail through all that terrible day. When Sultána had owned her Saviour at baptism she had counted the cost, she had known that she was entering on a path which might lead to martyrdom, following in the track of Him who had endured it in its most terrible form. Sultána now cheered and encouraged her companions, and hushed her little infant to rest with hymns of praise.
The hours passed on—how terribly slowly! The heat increased, every throat was parched with thirst. Fatima crouched in one corner, moaning and weeping. Mir Ghazan found some repose in sleep. Ali Khan stood with arms folded, stern and still. He thought of what men in like desperate circumstances have done—how the husband has slain the wife of his bosom, and then rushed forth to die. But such deeds are not for Christians; their consciences are bound, their hands are tied—they must wait till Allah send death to release them. Sultána saw her husband's stern eyes turned towards the opening through which the wretched Denis had passed; she read the thought which flashed through Ali Khan's mind at that moment, before it found expression in words.
"On one side the precipice, on the other the foe; there the short agony—the fall—here lingering death by thirst and starvation. Such is the choice now left us, and yet—we trusted in God!"
"We trust yet and will trust!" cried Sultána, "did not the friend teach us the word,Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him!"
"Mother of Rahim!"* said Ali Khan; "thy faith is stronger than mine. It is well that we have hope in heaven, on earth there is nought but despair."
* The Oriental style of addressing a woman by the name of her child—not her own.
"Nay, not despair, my lord," said the young Eagle, her eye still bright though her wan cheek and parched lip told of physical suffering; "a wild fit of madness has seized the tribe. Mustapha has cast over them an evil spell; but the madness may pass away and the spell be broken. Let my lord be assured that some true hearts are with him still. Yar Mohammed will never forget who saved his life when the bear was clawing his face; nor Sadik Khan who nursed him, as a brother might, in his sickness. Hossein Ghazi—I could answer for his truth; he served my father and my father's father—he never will forsake their daughter. Let us but gain a little time till the first frenzy has spent its force, and then appeal to the honour and loyalty of our gallant Pathans. Wot not, my lord, how our friend would sway our fierce warriors by his powerful words, till eyes that never before were wet, eyes wont to look on bloodshed unmoved, were dim with strange tears, and proud spirits were bowed like trees when the wind sweeps past?"
"The Feringhee spake with power," said the chief; "his words were like the bullet from a gun aimed with skill, and sent with force—the bullet that strikes, and down falls the deer!Mywords are like the bullet thrown by an unskilled hand—it either falls short of the quarry, or if it reach it would not ruffle a hair. I never knew how to use any argument but one—the strength of my own right hand, and of that my new faith deprives me. Ha! what is that sound! they are at us again!" he exclaimed.
Mustapha perhaps thought, like Sultána, that the wild rage of the men whom he had seduced from their allegiance to their brave chief, might be like some mountain torrent, though furious quickly spent. He would leave them small space to consider. About two hours before sunset, when the greater number of his followers had awoke from their drunken slumber, Mustapha again led an assault up the ladder. He now applied other means to burst open the door. A strong ruffian, by his orders, wielding a heavy hatchet, dealt blow after blow on the wood. Every thud was echoed by a faint shriek from Mir Ghazan's terrified wife.
Ha! a portion of the wood gives way, a splinter flies into the room, a breach is made—not large, but wide enough to admit the muzzle of Mustapha's pistol, and long enough to let him take aim.
"I have him now! Dog of a renegade, die!" exclaimed Mustapha, aiming the pistol at the head of Ali Khan, who was not two yards' distant.
"'I have him now! Dog of a renegade, die!' exclaimed Mustapha, aiming the pistol at the head of Ali Khan.""'I have him now! Dog of a renegade, die!' exclaimed Mustapha,aiming the pistol at the head of Ali Khan."
Sultána sprang forward, and interposed her own form between the deadly weapon and her husband. "Fire!" she cried, "but your bullet will only reach the heart of a woman!"
"Give up Ali Khan! we thirst for no blood but his!" cried the savage Mustapha.
Ali Khan himself unlocked and flung open the door. "Here is your chief!" he exclaimed, manfully facing his foes.
Ali's sudden appearance somewhat startled Mustapha, but far more was he startled by a loud voice of command which suddenly rang through the court-yard behind him—
"A pistol levelled at your chief! can ye behold it, Pathans, and not strike down the villain! Seize him—seize the false traitor!"
The faithful Mir Ghazan dashed forward, and seized Mustapha by the throat. There was a brief desperate struggle between the two men, in which the pistol went off. Its contents were lodged in the brain of Mustapha.
"Shot by his own pistol—the judgment of God!" exclaimed Walter, for it was he who had given the order, as the bleeding corpse of Mustapha fell heavily from the height to the ground.
"The judgment of God!" repeated many voices with subdued awe, as if he who spake the words was a prophet. Walter stood amongst the wild mountaineers as one in command.
"What is all this?" he said to the chief, who, springing down the steps, was now warmly embracing his deliverer. "What has caused this mad tumult?"
"The tribe are weary of a chief who is a Christian," was Ali Khan's brief reply.
"The tribe!" repeated Walter. "Not half of them are present. And do men without sense of religion," he continued, looking sternly around, "men who break the laws of him whom they call their Prophet"—(he pointed indignantly to the traces of the drunken revel)—"do such pretend to zeal for their faith!" The Moslems cowered beneath the Englishman's glance and scathing words. "We will know what is indeed the will of the tribe. Mir Ghazan, Hossein Ghazi, summon every man to meet us here to-morrow at sunrise; let none be absent. And in the meantime, remove the corpse of that traitor."
"We'll throw it to the jackals," exclaimed Mir Ghazan.
"No!" cried Ali Khan, "give it burial. Christians avenge not themselves on their enemies, be they living or dead."
"Ah, Sultána, my brave child!" exclaimed Walter, all the sternness of his countenance softening to an expression of paternal tenderness as he beheld the young wife and mother, with her infant in her arms, descending the blood-stained steps, radiant with unspeakable delight.
"I knew that our friend would return! I knew that the Lord would send help! Glory—glory to His name!" exclaimed Sultána, the tears which suffering could not bring, now welling from her beautiful eyes.
If anything dashed the joy which the missionary experienced at that moment, it was a feeling of self-reproach and shame that he had so hesitatingly, doubtingly, gloomily followed the pillar which had led him back to the Afghan mountains,—nay, that he had all but given up following its guidance. Had his return been delayed for but one day longer—one hour—nay, five minutes, he would have arrived too late.
The fort, as has been mentioned, was by no means the dwelling-place of all the members of Ali Khan's tribe; though, their numbers being small, in times of danger all would seek refuge within its walls. There were rude hamlets scattered here and there in the mountains, as well as some huts clustered in a little valley below. From every tenement ere sunrise on the following day come the Pathans in answer to Walter's summons. At dawn the court-yard, with its recesses, was crowded; the mountaineers' manly forms, picturesque attire, and the various emotions expressed on their swarthy countenances, giving great interest and animation to the scene.
Ali Khan, with Walter on his right hand, stood on the narrow landing-place at the top of the ladder-staircase; this served as an elevated platform from which to address the people. Sultána, in the room behind, was an eager listener to all that passed.
"Ali Khan, brave chief, it is for you to speak to your tribe," said Walter.
"I never could speak in my life," said the Afghan bluntly. "You know my heart—you will be as my tongue."
"Nay, a few words from yourself will be needful."
Ali Khan was not the first gallant warrior who has shrunk from the effort of making a speech; however, after the pause of a few seconds, with manly frankness thus he spake:—
"Afghan brothers! we have been born amongst you, lived amongst you, and I had thought to stay amongst you to the end; but if you do not wish me for your chief, I tell you that I will only rule over free men, not over unwilling slaves. The world is wide—so is God's grace. We can seek for graves elsewhere. We will go, carrying with us our Christian faith, and leaving behind—our forgiveness."
Short was the speech; but it had its effect on the throng, who had listened with profound attention. Sultána felt proud of her husband's eloquence, and looked fondly into the face of her boy, discovering in his baby features a likeness to his brave father.
"Now it is your turn," said Ali Khan to Walter Gurney, who thus addressed the listening crowd:—
"Afghans—friends (may I not call you so, for albeit of another race I am willing to cast in my lot with you all)—you are assembled on an important occasion, to decide upon who is to be the chief who shall henceforth be at the head of your tribe. For more than two years you have been under the rule of Ali Khan; you know him well, he has been amongst you from childhood. Is there any man here who has sustained wrong at the hands of the chief; is there one who has been oppressed, or robbed, or tortured? If there be one who has just cause to complain of the Christian Ali Khan, let that man now lift up his hand."
There was no movement in answer to the appeal.
"It then follows," continued Walter, after a pause, "that you own that Christianity makes a man neither tyrannical nor unjust; it does not make him unfaithful to his engagements, nor neglectful of the cries of the poor. Brothers! ye have listened to the words of your chief, and what I say now I say as his spokesman. It is the desire of Ali Khan that I set two alternatives before you. If you, as Moslems, find that you cannot endure the leadership of a Christian, Ali Khan will make no struggle, shed no blood to maintain his right; he and his family will quit a land which rejects so brave and true a son. I have enough influence to procure honourable employment in India for my brother and friend." (Here a dissentient murmur was heard from the crowd below, but no distinctly audible words.) "If, on the other hand, you wish to keep amongst you as leader the best and bravest man of your tribe, who asks but that toleration for his religion which he accords to that of others, Ali Khan is willing to forgive the past, to forget that his Pathans ever wavered in their loyalty to their chief. My own connection with the English will enable us to open up commerce, to procure for you advantages not possessed by tribes more remote from the frontier. The two countries, as you know, are now at peace; the scimitar of war is sheathed, the Afghan trader is welcomed if he descend into the plain." (There was again a murmur, but not this time of dissatisfaction.) "If I remain here, I tell you frankly, it will be as a missionary, a spiritual guide; but Christianity, unlike Islam, makes no converts by the sword. No man's freedom of conscience shall be violated; ye shall listen to my teaching or turn away as ye will. I come to you, O Afghans! as one who, having found a treasure, seeks to share it with others; as one who, having slaked his thirst at a fountain, would call his thirsty, weary brethren to come and drink also. And now, Afghans, I put to you the question, on your answer to which will depend whether we remain amongst you, or quit these Afghanistan mountains—perhaps for ever. Are ye willing to retain and to obey Ali Khan as your chief?"
Out flashed many a bright scimitar, weapons were waved on high; if there were any dissentient voices they were drowned in the almost universal shout of "Long live Ali Khan! Prosperity to our brave chief! We will stand by him to the death!"
While Ali Khan responded to the tumultuous acclamations of his followers, Walter turned and entered the room in which he had left Sultána.
"Oh, God-sent friend!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands, "you will remain with us—teach us—guide us—show us the way to heaven!"
"If the Lord will," replied Walter Gurney, "I am ready to live and to die in the Eagle's Nest."
—————
The world would deem the resolution that of a mad enthusiast, carried away by the excitement of the moment. What! should one before whom was opening a brilliant career, with wealth, fame, friendship, love to beckon him on, give up all for what that world would deem a mere philanthropical dream! Could the brilliant genius find no better employment for his talents than teaching ignorant savages, who might at the last reward his labours by taking his life? Were all the comforts, the luxuries of refined civilisation, to be exchanged for exile amongst the mountains, with hardships to be endured, and perhaps a martyr's obscure grave to be filled at the end! "Strange folly!" the world would exclaim, "to give up all that man holds precious, with nothing to weigh in the balance against it!"
Nothing! Oh, how different the calculations of angels! In the balances of heaven what would the crown of a Cæsar weigh against one immortal soul? Did not the Son of God think it worth while to leave heaven itself to win it? Let me quote the words of the missionary Duff—more powerful than any that I can pen: "This great and mighty Being did for our sakes consent to veil His glory and appear upon earth as a Man of Sorrows, whose visage was so marred,—more than any man's,—and His form more than the sons of men. Oh! is not this love, self-sacrificing love, condescension without a parallel and without a name! God manifest in the flesh! God manifest for the redemption of a rebel race! Oh! is not this the wonder of the world; is not this the astonishment of a universe!" Referring to the angels, the missionary continues: "Tell me, oh, tell me, if in their cloudless vision it would seem aught so marvellous, so passing strange, did they behold the greatest and mightiest of a guilty race, redeemed themselves at so vast a price, ... issue forth in the footsteps of the Divine Redeemer into the waste and howling wilderness of sin, to seek and to save them that are lost!"
One more word to the reader ere we part. It may be not to you, O my brother or sister, that the call is given to leave your country to carry the message of salvation to the heathen; for you the pillar of cloud and fire may rest over some Elam; God may bid you watch over an aged parent, make a home happy, bring up children for Him. Your work may be in Scotch or English parish; perhaps in the crowded city, perhaps in the peaceful village. But is your eye fixed on that pillar, the emblem of the will of your Heavenly King? Is the calm peaceful resolution of your heart, "WhereverThou wilt,howeverThou wilt, O my adorable Lord! but guide me, and I will follow!" Then blessed is your path, whether in wilderness or green pastures, whether through roaring billows or beside the still waters! Dispensing blessings to the poor around, teaching the ignorant, comforting the afflicted, fighting against the power of Satan both within and without, you may be as truly serving the Lord, as truly pressing forward to the prize, as if planting the banner of the Cross on the height of some
EAGLE'S NEST.
FINIS