'Your despatch, no doubt, refers to the vengeance of heaven which has overtaken the Feringhee dogs at the Bala Hissar?' 'I presume so,' replied Wodrow, eating cold meat and buttered chupatties with infinite relish. 'If it isn't an angel they are entertaining unawares, they little think it is one of the 10th Hussars,' was his thought. 'As for the Feringhees, they are now eating other food than this,' said he aloud. 'True,' added the merchant; 'the tree of Al Zakkum, which issueth from the bottom of hell, and the fruit whereof resembleth the heads of devils.' 'May all their kindred come, as they have done, to a knowledge of their fiendish idolatry,' said another, his voice becoming hoarse in the extremity of his hatred; 'the heathens--the savages that they are--dogs who come among us to cast a slur upon civilised men and a holy religion--who eat of the unclean pig, a brute like themselves; but we shall not cease to strike and slay, Bismillah! till not one of them remain alive on this side of Attock!' 'Oho, my friend,' thought Robert Wodrow; 'by Jove, I must keep my eye upon you, now that I know the amiability of your sentiments.' He then learned with extreme satisfaction that they meant to pass Lundi-Khana Kotal. He was accommodated with a seat on one of the camels, which, though laden, travelled at a good average pace, and he resolved to be very taciturn and careful in his bearing and demeanour, especially after the morning dawned. 'Fate and fortune have long seemed dead against me,' thought he; 'yet, heaven knows, it is not because I have been faint of heart; and heaven always helps those who help themselves.' With these merchants he now travelled in ease and security for the remainder of his journey, passing undiscovered through Sador, Baru, Basawul, and other villages, and traversing the upper end of savage Khoord Khyber Pass. Ere long he found himself approaching Lundi-Khana Kotal, a post two thousand four hundred and eighty-eight feet above the level of the sea, just as dawn was breaking, and there came to him on the morning wind a sound there was no mistaking--the pipers of a Highland regiment playing the morning reveille, 'Hey, Johnnie Cope,' among the white tents of the British camp, and then he knew that he was safe. CHAPTER IX. A NEW SNARE. In detailing the adventures of Leslie Colville and Robert Wodrow in the distant land where fate and the fortunes of war had cast them together, we have somewhat anticipated the time and the troubles brought upon Ellinor by the daring of her unscrupulous abductor.