In perfect ignorance of all that was passing in the outer world of far-away Europe, of India, and even Afghanistan, they and the other hostages, from whom they were, happily for themselves, kept apart, knew nothing of all that was passing elsewhere, or of the plans that were forming and the hopes that grew for their rescue or release. We say, happily they were sequestered from those who were in the hands of Ackbar Khan: thus they were not harassed by dreadful and incessant doubts of their future fate, especially the vague and terrible one of transmission to Toorkistan; for the old Kuzzilbash lord treated them kindly, and, to the best of his resources, hospitably, confidently believing that it was his personal interest to do so, as the gaily embroidered regimental colour of the 44th, or East Essex, in which Denzil purposely aired his figure occasionally in the garden of the fort, still impressed him with the idea that he had secured a great Feringhee Nawab whom the Queen or Company might ransom, or who might prove a powerful friend to him if reverses came upon Cabul, and not a poor Ensign, or Lieutenant, as Denzil was now; though he knew not that, consequent to slaughter, death by disease, and so forth, he had now been promoted in the corps. Chess-playing was the great bond between old Shireen and the bright laughing Rose, whom he treated with infinitely more care and tenderness than either of his own daughters; but to Denzil he would frequently say in his hoarse, guttural, and most unmusical language, between the whiffs of his silk-bound and silver-cupped hubble-bubble-- "I am thy friend; yet remember that friendship with unbelievers is forbidden by the Koran, especially with Jews or Christians; for saith the fifth chapter, 'Are they not friends one with another?' and they will corrupt us, their alms being like the icy winds which blow on the fields of the perverse, and blast their corn in the ear." Denzil could not repress an impatient grimace under a smile, for it was the Koran--always and ever the Koran--among these Afghans; every casual remark or idea suggested a quotation from or a reference to it, so that the Khanum could not dye her nails, adjust her veil, put pepper in the kabobs, or chillis among the pillau of rice, without a reference to something that was said or done on a similar occasion by the Holy Camel-driver of Mecca,--their whole conversation being interlarded with pious sayings, like that of the Scottish Covenanters or English Puritans of old. Isolated as they were in that lonely Afghan fort, surrounded by towering green hills, the interest that Denzil and Rose had in each other grew daily and hourly deeper; so that at last she learned to love him--yes, actually to love him--as fondly as he had ever loved her, and to feel little emotions of pique and jealousy when he strove to address the daughters of the house and teach them a very strange kind of broken English.