We greatly fear that we must also admit to Messieurs Bob Waller, Jack Polwhele, and Harry Burgoyne being among the Feringhee delinquents referred to; and that some of their peccadilloes were alleged to have gone beyond mere oglings, hand-squeezings, and exchange of flowers with the fair Afghani at the Cantonment, the Band-stand, in the Bazaar and the narrow streets of Cabul, which are barely a yard wide.
"I go to the Bala Hissar to seek the secret ear of the Shah," said Taj Mohammed, as coldly and as drily as if some of the preceding thoughts had been flitting through his mind; "I have but done my grateful duty in coming to warn you of the future storm, for the Envoy of your Queen has more than once turned a deaf ear to my advice; and now----salaam."
And with a low bow he retired ere Waller could start to his feet and usher him out. For sooth to say, Bob had been lounging in his bamboo chair with a leg over each arm thereof and a cheeroot between his teeth; a very undignified mode of sitting in presence of the Hereditary Wuzeer of Cabul.
"A horrid bore!" commented Polwhele; "glad he has gone--took his tipple like a Christian, though; and despite him of Mecca, has polished off the best part of a bottle of mess sherry."
"What the deuce are we to think of all this?" asked Denzil, who had hitherto sat completely silent, and who already in imagination saw the bright and beautiful Rose Trecarrel in the hands of innumerable Afghan Bluebeards with brandished cimitars, and Mabel waving her handkerchief like "Sister Anne" from the tower-head.
"An unpleasant rumour, any way, and we shall not go without our pistols," said Waller. "However, I hope his anxiety for his own post at Court, if Ackbar triumphs, exaggerates the situation."
"They are a strange people, these Afghans," resumed Polwhele musingly, as he filled his tumbler again, adding, "Father Adam's pale ale--water--is always mightily improved by a dash of brandy, thus."
"But I have seen stranger," replied Waller; "when I was in China with the 26th, for there the men wear petticoats and the ladies don't; old fellows fly kites and spin tops, while the young ones study; when puzzled they scratch their feet and not their polls like Europeans; when angry they don't punch the head, but viciously pull each other's tails; and they can write books without an alphabet in that delightful language which we see on the tea-chests. Oh, the Afghans are reasonable fellows, when contrasted with the countrymen of him of the Wonderful Lamp."