The six months or so which had elapsed since that stirring morning on which the army, under its aged and dying general, with its mighty encumbrance of camp-followers, began its homeward march for India from the old familiar cantonments seemed as so many ages to Mabel Trecarrel now! So many well-known faces and happy existences had been swept away; so complete a change had come over all the few who survived, and their prospects seemed so strange and dark. So much misery, so many sent to untimely deaths--it could not be said to their graves, as the Afghans never interred one of our dead. What did it all mean? Why did Heaven so persecute, or leave to their fate, so many Christians in the hands of utter infidels? Voices again roused her to action--at least to listen. They were those of the Khond and the Hindoo conversing in Hindostanee. "So, so," said the former, chuckling, "all is over with Zohrab; he can 'overbear' no longer." "Yes; the head he carried so proudly is gone to the gate of the Char-chowk; but the Kuzzilbashes are still in the street, and I wish they were gone to their own quarter." "Why?" "They may take a fancy to our heads, too." "Why, I say?" asked the Khond, fiercely. "Can you ask?--if the Feringhee woman is not forthcoming." "She is mine, and I have saved my two hundred tomauns." "How yours?" "Zohrab is gone; none seem to know that she is here; and you will be silent, if you are wise. Ackbar Khan would like an excuse to plunder a schroff so rich as you; hence you must, I know, be silent." The last words sounded more like a threat than an advice or an entreaty, as the voice of the fierce Khond accentuated them; the sly Hindoo, however, made some evasive response, and then Mabel heard him draw on his slippers and tunic and shuffle from the room. Where he went she knew not; but, after a time, with an exclamation of anger and mistrust, the Khond tossed aside the mouth-piece of his hubble-bubble, and followed him. So the Kuzzilbashes were still in the adjacent streets! Could she but reach them! They were gallant and soldierly fellows, though, till of late, as bitter foes of the British troops as any tribe in the country. But now the politics of their Khan had begun to change, and he had kept aloof from Ackbar and his interests. She once more applied herself to the windows. Many dark figures were hovering about in the street, and looking up at the house. Who or what these people were she knew not. The courtyard was quite empty; but she heard the clatter of hoofs and the clink of arms, as horsemen rode hastily to and fro in the main thoroughfare that led to the bazaar. She was in perfect darkness now. She sought feebly to draw or push down the panel that separated her from the dewan-khaneh; but the wooden bolt secured it beyond all the efforts of her humble strength to force a way; and she feared to make the least noise, lest, by being caught in the act of escaping, she might only accelerate her own fate.