Mabel gave herself up more than ever for lost on finding herself within the fatal walls of Cabul; a benumbed and despairing emotion crept over her heart, and all her energies seemed away from her. She found herself lifted from horseback in a paved court that was dark, damp, and gloomy, and in the centre of which a fountain was plashing monotonously. She felt herself borne indoors somewhere, she knew not by whom, and then she fainted for a little time. She had been carried into one of those apartments which open by a large sliding panel off the dewan-khaneh, the principal hall or receiving-room of a Cabul house. She had been there deposited at length on a soft mattrass, which was simply spread on the floor, as in that country bedsteads and sofas are unlike unknown. So people there both sleep and sit on the floor, unless in the case of persons of rank, who may seat themselves cross-legged on a divan. Though prettily ornamented with carving, stucco, and painting, in this room there was a total absence of those invariable sentences from the Koran, woven among arabesques, which mark an Oriental mansion; but in lieu thereof were some in a language of which Mabel's weary eyes could make nothing. These were lines from the Vedas of the Hindoos; and in three little niches, most elaborately carved, were the three monstrous statuettes of the god who is worshipped by so many millions under the names of Vishnu, Siva, and Brama; for the house to which she had been conveyed belonged partly to Ferishta Lodi, the ex-Sutler, who now kept a shop in the great bazaar, and to a Hindoo, one of those same schroffs, or bankers, through whom the luckless General Elphinstone and his staff had negotiated the enormous sum which was paid to procure our peaceful march through the Passes--and paid for our slaughtered troops--in vain. The Hindoo banker and the Khond were alike absent; but the wife of the former, a soft-eyed and gentle little woman, with massive golden bangles on her wrists and glittering anklets round her ankles, assisted the somewhat awkward and decidedly bewildered Zohrab in the task of recovering Mabel, by plentifully besprinkling her face, neck, and hands with cool and delightfully perfumed water from a large flask covered with elaborate silver filagree work. The Hindoo woman, who knew that the visitor was a helpless Feringhee captive, worked at her humane duty in silence, and without venturing to ask any questions.