Another window faced the south, affording the more ample view of the huts and compounds (_i.e._, hedges and palisades) of the British Cantonments, and about two miles beyond them the great city of Cabul, surrounded of course by a fortified wall, as what city in that part of the world is not. Here and there rose above the flat roofs of its narrow streets the tower or castle of a chief; the dome or minar of a mosque; and the huge mass of its vast bazaar, built in the time of Aurengzebe, when it became the trade emporium of Central Asia; and high over all, the Bala Hissar, or palace (wherein resided the Shah Sujah, whose power our troops had come most unwisely to uphold) and which was also the citadel or fortress--a place of vast strength; and far away in the distance, rising like the waves of a frozen sea against a deep blue sky, were the mighty peaks of Kohistan and Hindoo Koosh, in height fourteen thousand feet above the plain, and crowned by eternal snows, unchanged in aspect and character, as the dwellers there have been since Alexander marched past them with his Greeks to the conquest of the Eastern world, and since Malimoud of Ghuznee poured his hordes across the Indus in the eleventh century. The boy ensign--he over whose couch a pale, sad mother hung, watching as he lay asleep and unconscious on the eventful morning of his departure--watching him tearfully and tenderly while he was _yet her own_--was now a well knit, well set up and weather-beaten looking young fellow. A few months of campaigning had changed the erratic Sandhurst cadet, whose best exploits had been breaking lamps and dismounting the college guns to spite the governor, into a practical soldier; and all that remained in him of the mere lad had nearly given place to the quietly confident air of a man--one who could take his part in society as the leader of others; one who had faced perils and surmounted them by his own unaided energy; for already had Denzil been twice under fire, and had, with a small party, defeated more than one plundering band of the fierce Beloochees. Ignorant of the calamitous state of matters at home, and of the sorrows of his sister, Denzil, with the natural elasticity of youth, aided by the excitement consequent to military life in the cantonments of Cabul, had recovered the first shock occasioned by his father's loss at sea, and hence on the evening we have met him again, he was in excellent spirits. General Trecarrel had arrived shortly before this, and was now in command of a brigade. His daughters were with him, and proved leading attractions in that little circle of British residents, the European society, military and diplomatic, in and about Cabul, of which Lady Sale and Lady Macnaghten were the recognised heads; and Denzil had been duly introduced to Mabel and Rose by his friend Waller (who had known them in Calcutta), of the result of which introduction we shall have more to say in time to come.