His costume was extremely simple and consisted of a camise or blouse of scarlet stuff, with loose sleeves, wide baggy trowsers of dark cotton reaching to half-boots that were closely buttoned to the limb. Over his shoulder--as the season was winter--hung a large mantle of finely-dressed sheepskin well tanned, with the soft fleecy wool inwards, and round his waist a Cashmere shawl worn as a girdle, and therein he carried a pair of brass-butted flint-lock pistols, an Afghan knife and dagger. His sabre with cross-hilt and crooked blade dangled nearly in front of him, and on his left wrist, secured by a silver chain, sat a hooded hawk; for now in the nineteenth century, as in Europe ages ago, falconry is a favourite sport of the hardy Afghans. Such was the remarkable figure which the three young officers rose to greet. Unlike the cringing servility of the slimy Hindoo, the bearing of the Afghan mountaineer is proud, but grave and full of natural dignity; and few were nobler in Cabul than their visitor Taj Mohammed Khan, son of the Hereditary Wuzeer Golam Mohammed, a strenuous adherent of the reigning Shah Sujah and friend of the British Government, which upheld that feeble monarch on his shaky throne. Taj Mohammed was a very devout Mussulman, and most strictly obeyed the Koran in all its precepts (save one), repeating his prayers five times daily; namely in the morning, when noon is past, in the evening before sunset, and after dark, ere the first watch of the night be passed; but he could not resist an occasional glass of wine. His family had ever possessed vast influence in that remote region; he was lord of fertile lands and vineyards in the Pughman Valley, and already two of his brothers had fallen in battle, and one been burned alive, for adherence to the Shah, whose story we shall relate in a subsequent chapter. After being seated and assisted by Denzil to wine, which like many other Mohammedans he drank in secret, or when among unbelieving Feringhees, he proceeded at once to state the object of his visit, which he did in tolerable English, having been long an exile in one of the cities of British India, though the language of his native land is a dialect of the Scriptural Chaldaic. "You know, Waller Sahib, that the Envoy of the Queen of England and of the great Lord Sahib Bahadur Auckland, is to have a meeting with Ackbar Khan at an early period to consult as to the unsettled state of affairs--the discontents, in fact, among us--in Cabul?" "Yes, Khan--we have all heard so; and what then?" "Are you to be present?" "I expect to have the pleasure," replied Waller. "Then do not go, and bid the Envoy also not to go." "Why?" "Because the conference is a snare--a lure to his destruction and the destruction of all that may accompany him. He will perish, even as Burnes Sahib perished!" "We are but of subaltern rank, and may not presume to advise the Envoy," said Waller.