"Khan, in front of yonder Cantonments and under the very guns of the forts, I should scarcely say that even Ackbar Khan, desperate though his character is, would attempt such a thing," observed Polwhele. "You doubt me, then?" said the Afghan, proudly. "Nay; I only hope that you are labouring under a mistake." "We shall see; even Ezra had his doubts, so why not may you? Ezra doubted the means by which Jerusalem and its inhabitants would be again restored; but he was cured of those doubts--do you know how?" "'Pon my soul, I don't," said Polwhele, repressing a yawn. "By seeing the bones of a dead ass suddenly clothed with flesh and resuscitated with life and breath and action, for so the blessed Koran tells us," replied the Khan; for among the Afghans so much of their common life and daily conversation are tinged with their religion, its legends and precepts, that from the Shah to the veriest slave, one might imagine the whole people to be engaged alone in holy reflections, for seldom is a sentence uttered without some allusion to the Deity; yet, as a nation, they are lively and merry. "I wish to do you both a service, Sahibs, as gratitude has placed me in your debt. You saved my wife in the Great Bazaar from the insults of a Sepoy soldier, who when drunk with bhang, attempted to overturn her palanquin. I wish to do the Envoy a service and his Queen too, by saving the lives of her servants; thus I repeat and implore you to give ear. Warn Macnaghten Sahib, against the conference to which he is invited, for Ackbar Khan has sworn that he will, if possible, kill every man among you save _one_, and get all your wives and female children into his possession." "As for my wife," laughed Polwhele, "he is welcome to her." The Afghan stared at him and frowned. "By Jove!" exclaimed Waller, incredulously playing with both his fair whiskers this time; "and what is to be done with the lucky fellow he so generously means to spare?" "He shall have his hands and feet cut off, and be placed at the entrance of the Khyber Pass with a written notice to deter all Feringhees from entering our country again." "And has the scoundrel sworn this?" "By every word in the Holy Kulma, the creed of our Prophet, he has. Ackbar the Sirdar is the very incarnation of Eblis--the evil spirit who betrayed Adam to transgression, and yet seeks to do injury to all his race," continued Taj Mohammed with gleaming eyes and a glow in his dusky cheek, for he and Ackbar Khan were politically rivals and mortal enemies. "I have heard that this fellow Ackbar is somewhat slippery if not more; but if he has ventured to conceive such projects, we should have him tied to the mouth of a nine-pounder," exclaimed Polwhele, adding sundry adjectives and expletives, in which young Englishmen are apt to indulge in moments of excitement, and again the reproving eye of the Wuzeer fell on him.