"Silence, fool!" cried the Dooranee, with a swift, fierce glance at the Toorkoman, as he snatched from the hands of the Hadji, and without a word of greeting or thanks, the little scroll, and then opened it deliberately and slowly, as if the disposal of a flock of sheep were the matter in hand, and not the lives or deaths, the captivity or liberty, of so many helpless human beings. The missive contained but three words, and the seal of Ackbar-- "_March to Kooloom._" And Zoolficar Khan, who peeped over his shoulder without ceremony, had read it too. The beetle brows of Saleh Mohammed were close over his fiery eyes, as he said, haughtily-- "Where is this place? I may ask, as you have read the name." "Kooloom--it is a steep, rugged, and perilous journey, Khan." "And what am I to do when I get there?" asked Saleh Mohammed, ponderingly, of himself, and not of his companion. "But you are not yet there," said the latter, in a low voice. "How--what do you mean?" "The way may be beset. Have I not said that it is perilous?" "Well, perhaps we shall not go," replied the other, with an unfathomable smile; and with low salaams they separated, each quite ready for and prepared to outwit the other. One fact they had both learned: Ackbar Khan was defeated, and not victorious! CHAPTER XIX. THE ALARM. "Then you have seen the fighting against the Kaffirs, I suppose?" asked Saleh Mohammed, grimly. "Seen! Nay, Khan, I fought against them in person; at Jugdulluck, the defence of the village was entrusted to me----" "And lost by a Hadji," said the Khan, with a sneer. "Yes, even as the heights of Tizeen were lost by a Khan," retorted the other. "A Khan--who?" "Amen Oolah--who was killed there." "Was the slaughter great?" "Of the Faithful, mean you?" "Yes: I ask not of the Kaffirs--may their white faces be confounded!" "The slaughter might remind Azrael, and the angels who looked on us, of the Prophet when he fought at Bedr. It was not so great, of course, as that of the Feringhees when they left Cabul; for Ackbar's orders were then, that but one should be left alive, if even that; but the white smoke, as it rolled on the wind, along the green sides of the hills, and ascended skyward out of the deep, dark Passes, was like that which shall precede the last day, and for two moons fill all space, from the east to the west, from the rising to the setting of the sun." "Silence!" grumbled Saleh Mohammed, who was full of earnest thought, and in no mood for religious canting just then, as the orders of Ackbar and the collateral news of his defeat perplexed, while the hints and covert threats of the Governor of Bameean alarmed and irritated him. "So this is all you know, Hadji Osman?" "All, save that I have a letter for Pottinger Sahib." "From whom?" asked the chief, sharply. "Shireen Khan, of the Kuzzilbashes."