To his intense mortification, regimental duty detained Denzil in the cantonments all the following day, thus precluding his visiting the General's house at the time he intended; but as a natural sequence to their pleasant little airing by the shores of the Lake of Istaliff, it occurred to him that at their next interview he must beg Rose Trecarrel's acceptance of some suitable love-token; and for this purpose he resolved to visit the great bazaar while it was yet safe for a European to traverse the streets of the Shah's capital, as the dreaded Ackbar Khan was not as yet known to be within its walls at that precise juncture; and evening parade being over, he hastened along the road to the Kohistan gate, and turning to the left after entering it, proceeded at once towards the Char Chouk, the aforesaid great bazaar, with his mind intent on his proposed purchase, and so full of the tender memories of yesterday, that he was quite oblivious of the manner in which the armed Afghans, the red-capped Kussilbashes, and others who were thronging the narrow thoroughfares in unwonted numbers, regarded him; how they scowled ominously, handled their weapons, and muttered curses under their thick flowing mustaches. He was thinking only of Rose, when there were those hovering about him who required but the precept, or example, of one bolder or more cruel than the rest, to cut him to pieces and elevate his head on some conspicuous pole in the market-place; for the Afghans almost invariably slice off the heads of those they slay. It never occurred to him, that in her own laughing way, her manner yesterday had been somewhat forward, over-confident, or "flirtatious" as Polwhele would have phrased it. He had but one idea and conviction; "How _fond_ she is of me?" and thus a few gold pieces which he had once intended to invest in a present for his mother--alas! he knew not all that had happened at home--or for Sybil, his gentle sister, were now to be spent in a suitable love-gift for Rose Trecarrel. "She loves me--and she is so beautiful!" he whispered to himself again and again; for there is much truth in the old Roman maxim, that "what we wish should be, we readily believe;" and what reason had he to doubt her? Doubtless, she had flirted with many--but she loved _him_. Followed and alternately mocked, reviled or importuned insolently for alms, by Osman Abdallah, the Arab Dervish, to be rid of whose inodorous presence, he thrice gave him a rupee, Denzil reached the great bazaar, the largest in all the East (and once famed as the emporium of Asia), which was built in the days of Aurungzebe; but which exists no longer, as it was subsequently destroyed by our troops.