"A Kaffir--a Feringhee! kill him, kill him!" cried the villagers, male and female, as they crowded in wild tumult around him; even the tawny children raised their little hands against the weary wanderer, for the place was the abode of Ghazees, the wildest of Mohammedan fanatics. "Bismillah! there is one yet alive!" exclaimed a horseman. "But what said Ackbar Khan?--may the sun be his star, the new moon his stirrup-iron--one was to be left to tell the tale," exclaimed another, mercifully interposing his lance between Waller and the others; "and this is he." "Nay, one Kaffir has already got into Jellalabad--it is enough; let us have this one's head," was the general cry which rose to a mingled yell, and dark eyes flashed, and white teeth were ground around him. So poor Waller began to fear that he was the 'last man' after all, and worse off than when ploughing for old Nouradeen Lai. However, he kept close to the young chief who seemed disposed to protect him, and who was accoutred with a steel cap and shield. "The Prophet wrote at birth on each man's brow the day he was to die, and your time is to-day, O Kaffir!" exclaimed one, making a vicious thrust with his gaily tasselled lance, which, had it not been struck up by his protector's hand, had ended Waller's career there and then. "What business has a dog of a Feringhee with such a beard as that?" cried a woman; "it is unendurable." "I didn't make it," said Waller, simply. "Oho. This is the Toorkoman of Roum!" said the young horseman with the steel cap, in whom Waller now recognised Zohrab Zubberdust; "he has escaped from old Nouradeen Lai; well--he shall not escape from me. These Feringhees are excellent grooms, and I want one. Bismillah! it is written--let us go--I shall protect you." Like many a Christian, Zubberdust the Mussulman had the spirit of avarice and treachery in his heart; but as an Afghan mountaineer it was tempered with something of honour; for, strange to say, honour may exist among Mohammedans, as well as among Christians, without an atom of morality. So Waller found himself marched off in a direction precisely opposite to that which he had been pursuing; and he had the additional tantalisation of seeing, about six miles distant, the picturesque Bala Hissar, or citadel of Jellalabad, which he could recognise from an engraving he had once seen; and ere midday he was conveyed by Zubberdust and his people to one of the numerous little castles or fortlets called _kotes_, that stud all the country in the neighbourhood of the city, which has always been the winter residence of the kings of Cabul; and there he was set at once to groom the horses, with a distinct notice that if he attempted to quit the fort, which was a square edifice furnished with a round loopholed tower at each angle, and surrounded by a wet ditch, wherein innumerable pink and white water lilies floated, he would be shot without mercy.