Fires were lighted, and around them all of the Dooranee guard, who were not posted in the chain of sentinels, sat cross-legged, smoking hempseed, cleaning their arms, fixing fresh flints or dry matches to their musket-locks; others were industriously picking out of their furred poshteens those active insects of the genus _pulex_, called by the Arabians "the father of leapers," while the flesh of a camel, which had been shot by the way, as useless--its feet being wounded and sore--sputtered and broiled on the embers for supper, and the light from the flames fell in strong gleams and patches on the strange equipment, the swarthy turbaned faces, and gleaming eyes of those wild fellows, whose shawl-girdles bristled with arms and powder-flasks, and some four hundred of whom were furnished with muskets and bayonets. A spear stuck upright in the earth--its sharp point glittering like a tiny red star--indicated the head-quarters, where, muffled in his poshteen and ample chogah, with a piece of thick xummul folded under him, Saleh Mohammed Khan, propped against the saddle of his camel, prepared, with pipe in mouth, to dose away the hours of the short August night. Most, if not nearly all, the lady captives, wore now, of necessity, the Afghan travelling-dress, a large sheet shrouding the entire form, having a bourkha, or veil of white muslin, furnished with two holes to peep through; and with those who, muffled thus, sat in kujawurs, or camel-litters, the semblance of their orientalism was complete. From time to time, dried branches or cass--a prickly furze grass which grows in bunches--were cast upon the fire, causing the flames to shoot up anew, on the pale faces of the prisoners and the dark faces of their guards, till at last the embers died out and the white ashes alone remained; and such was the scene which, like a species of phantasmagoria, met the eyes of Mabel Trecarrel, when, in the still watches of the night, she drew back the curtains of her palanquin and looked forth occasionally. But the stars began to pale in the sky; its blue gave place to opal tints; the sun arose, and after the Mohammedans had said their prayers with their faces towards Mecca, and the Christians with their eyes bent towards the earth or to heaven, once more the heartless march was resumed, in the same order as on the preceding day, through a pass in the mountains, and from thence across the beautiful valley of Maidan.