"And Mabel--dear, dear, Mabel," she exclaimed in a touching voice, "how often do I dream of her, and fancy at times that I feel her cheek, wet with tears, against mine; for though but a little older than I, she has ever been as a mother to me, and these visions are passages of intense emotion, Denzil. Our mamma, who died so long ago, comes to me in my sleep and poor papa too, looking just as when I kissed him last, ere we went to rest, in that wretched tent in the snowy Pass; so my heart is wrung with suffering and I shed tears, Denzil--hot salt tears in my sleep--I, who used to be so merry and thoughtless!"
The Khan and his family were, for the time, utterly forgotten; so was his game of chess, and he gazed alternately from the rooks, pawns, and castles, to the lovers, in great and grave bewilderment, for in the _empressement_ of their meeting, there seemed something more than the mere joy of two friends, or natives of the same country recognising each other. Were they brother and sister, or husband and wife, or what?
"But how came you to be here--what happened?" asked Denzil.
Her story, with all its apparent mystery, was both short and simple. She had heard shots in the night, and was peeping from the door of the tent, while her weary companions slept. A crowd of Afghans were passing,--the Shah's 6th Regiment were deserting _en masse_. A _loonghee_, or turban-cloth, was cast over her face by one of them, who twisted it across her mouth in such a manner as to stifle her cries completely; a havildar, mounted on a stolen horse, dragged her up beside him, and thus she was borne off, unseen in the dark, as they evidently believed that a white woman would be deemed the most valuable species of loot by some wealthy Khan or Nawab. When day broke they found themselves among the Black Rocks, near Cabul, and then a vehement dispute ensued between the havildar and her first captor as to to whom she should belong--whether they should keep, sell, or cast lots for her. Knives were promptly drawn; but some Kuzzilbash Horse came up and solved the difficulty by sabreing them both. They then carried her off to the fort of Shireen Khan, who had treated her with marked kindness and hospitality; and now she and Denzil turned towards him, and the latter expressed his extreme gratitude for all he had done for them both, adding, that he hoped they would be mercifully permitted to rejoin their friends and people.