COLVILLE OF THE GUARDS

BY

JAMES GRANT

AUTHOR OF
"THE ROMANCE OF WAR," "THE CAMERONIANS,"
"THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER,"
ETC., ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1885.

All rights reserved.

CONTENTS

I. [The "Flying Foam"]
II. [Ellinor]
III. [The Gale]
IV. [Alone!]
V. [In the Bala Hissar]
VI. [The Fort of Mahmoud Shah]
VII. [The Fugitive]
VIII. [The Ghilzie]
IX. [A New Snare]
X. [The House by the Fleethen]
XI. [In Hamburg Still]
XII. [The Plot Thickens]
XIII. [With Roberts' Column]
XIV. [The Battle of Charasiah]
XV. [Enough Done for Honour]
XVI. [The Fate of Ellinor]
XVII. [Among the Birks of Invermay]

COLVILLE OF THE GUARDS.

CHAPTER I.
THE 'FLYING FOAM.'

When Ellinor, whom we left some pages back in a very perilous predicament, opened her eyes again it was on an unfamiliar scene—the cabin of a ship—and on several male faces, all of which were also unfamiliar save one; and her eyes half closed again, as she was too weak and exhausted to disentangle the confusion of her thoughts and, half imagining she was in a horrible dream, would have striven to sleep but for the wet and sodden garments that clung to her.

'What has happened?' she moaned. 'Where am I?'

'Safe aboard the "Flying Foam,"' said the voice of the man who had rescued her, the sailing-master of that vessel, Mr. Rufane Ringbolt, whom we shall erelong describe more fully.

Her miserable plight and imminent peril had been seen from the deck by that personage, who at once had a boat lowered from his craft, which lay at anchor in the Elbe. He had saved her, and in a spirit of mischief—or not knowing what else to do with her—had brought her on board the yacht of his employer, Mr. Adolphus Dewsnap, whose present companion and bosom-friend was Sir Redmond Sleath, whose first emotions of perplexity and evil on Ringbolt bringing off a lady changed to those of blank astonishment and high triumph on recognising in the half-drowned girl—Ellinor Wellwood!

Dewsnap rubbed his hands with satisfaction. They had just landed two or three peculiar lady friends at the Brandenburgerhafen to go back to London by steamer, or remain in gay Hamburg as they listed, and already the Flying Foam seemed a little lonely.

'By Jove, you look more beautiful than ever, Ellinor!' exclaimed Sleath, taking her hands in his, as she reclined helplessly on a sofa. 'My friend, Mr. Dewsnap—let me introduce him—Miss Ellinor Wellwood. This is a most unexpected joy!'

'I am glad of the accident which gives me the honour of making your acquaintance, Miss Ellinor,' responded Mr. Dewsnap, near whom she recognised the grinning visage of Mr. John Gaiters, Sleath's devoted valet.

Seeing the helpless and terrified condition she was in, Mr. Ringbolt almost forced her to imbibe a little weak brandy and water from a liqueur-frame that stood on the cabin-table; and then, as there were no female attendants on board the yacht, with considerable readiness and forethought, brought down from the deck a Vierlander boat-woman, who had come off with vegetables for the steward and cook, to attend upon Ellinor.

The Vierlander had some doubts and scruples at first; but when a few twenty-groschen pieces were slipped into her hand these evaporated, and a smile of acquiescence spread over her weather-beaten but pleasant-looking countenance, for she had soft, dark eyes, a nez retrousse decidedly, and, if rather a large mouth, full red lips, as Mr. Ringbolt could remark appreciatively.

She took Ellinor into an inner cabin, and soon changed her wet garments for some that the late fair voyagers had left behind them; and when, in fear and terror, she implored to be set on shore, she was told that it was impossible, as a heavy fog had suddenly settled down on the land and river.

'Oh, heaven, what will become of me? Mary! Mary!' wailed Ellinor, as she clung, as if for protection, to the hands of the picturesquely-clad Vierlander.

'Hope I haven't brought you a Scotch prize aboard, gentlemen,' said Mr. Ringbolt, winking knowingly, as he mixed himself a glass of grog.

'A Scotch prize—what the devil is that?' asked Mr. Dewsnap, whose cognomen among his chums was generally 'Dolly.'

'Well—it means a mistake—worse than no prize—one likely to hamper the captors with heavy legal expenses.'

'A Scotch prize, and no mistake!' exclaimed Sleath, as Ellinor, weak, tottering, and scarcely able to stand or articulate, appeared with her new attendant at the door of the cabin, which was now so darkened by the evening fog that the steward was lighting the lamps.

Sleath, approaching, attempted to take her hand.

'Don't, sir—dare to touch me!' she cried, in a weak voice, while starting back.

'She knows you, Sleath, by Jove!' exclaimed Mr. Dolly Dewsnap, becoming interested.

'Rather,' said Sleath, with an ugly wink. 'Are you not glad to see me so unexpectedly, Ellinor?'

'Glad!' said she, shudderingly.

Her old repugnance was now increased tenfold, and mingled with genuine terror. A man with such a bearing and with such an expression as she read in the cold blue eyes of Sleath, would, she knew, have no mercy, so she turned to Dewsnap; but there was little to encourage her in his leery and blasé, though rather rubicund, visage.

'Put me on shore, sir, I entreat you,' she said.

'It is impossible—utterly impossible, till the fog lifts,' said he, emphatically.

'I shall die!' exclaimed Ellinor, in a low, husky voice, as the light seemed to leave her eyes.

She put her tremulous hands to her slender throat, for a painful lump seemed to rise there—nay, was there—catching her breath, while this meeting again, under all the circumstances, with Sir Redmond Sleath seemed 'one of those strange and almost incredible things which, however, we meet with every day in that marvellous volume of romance, real life.'

She cowered and shrank back before Sleath as if he were some wild animal, which only excited in him a spirit of anger and banter, while his friend Dewsnap knew not what to think of the situation as yet.

'Altona agrees with you,' said the baronet, jauntily. 'You are handsomer than ever. Womanhood gains instead of loses by maturity. But don't be so devilish stuck up! And what were you doing in Altona?'

She made no reply, but now glanced imploringly and appealingly to Ringbolt, while Sleath resumed in this fashion—

'I did not entrap you this evening—I did not run away with you,' said he, surveying with admiration the volume of her rich brown hair, which was then brushed out, and floated damp and at full length over her shoulders, and she figured now in a species of costume such as she had never worn before, including a tailor-made jacket and a round felt hat, part of the wardrobe of one of Mr. Dolly Dewsnap's recent fair voyagers, left for conveyance back to London, and now likely to prove exceedingly useful. And Ellinor was almost passive in the hands of those among whom Fate had so suddenly cast her.

After her recent narrow escape from a dreadful death, and now her present misery, she was too feeble and too full of fear to summon proper pride and just indignation to her aid.

'Fate has given you to me again,' continued Sleath, 'so, why not stoop—yield to the inevitable, and the delight of living for and loving each other! We shall remain on the Continent now, Ellinor, and never again set foot in that cold-blooded England.'

A comical expression twinkled now in the eyes of Mr. Dewsnap, who was an undersized, but fleshy and flashy, personage, about thirty years of age, and vulgar in style and aspect, though dressed in accurate yachting costume, with gilt buttons and glazed boots. He knew not what to think of the situation, we say. Though far from straitlaced—though a thorough-paced scamp, in fact—he was puzzled and doubtful what to think of the past relations of his chum Sir Redmond and this young lady, who, he saw at a glance, was neither fast nor vicious, as most of the baronet's lady friends were; that she was no dove from St. John's Wood, or 'girl of the period' in any way.

While Ringbolt beckoned Gaiters on deck to obtain some information on the subject from him, Sleath began again, in low and softer voice, while hanging over her.

'We were about to run away together before, and would have done so, but for the brute your sister's dog. Now, Ellinor, darling, we shall elope in earnest, and we shall not be the first couple who have done so, and lived happy ever after, like couples in the old story books.'

'Don't be alarmed—don't fear, Miss Ellinor,' said Dewsnap, thinking it necessary to say something, as she turned her haggard eyes on him, and ignored the presence of Sleath.

'Don't fear!' says a writer. 'How often in this world of terror and trouble has that phrase been spoken, and how often will it yet be spoken—in vain.'

'Oh, sir, will you, in mercy, if you are a man, set me on shore?' she implored again.

Dewsnap shrugged his shoulders, and looked at Sleath, while muttering something about 'the fog.'

'No!' exclaimed the latter, emphatically; 'and no accident but one sent from heaven or hell shall rob me of you now!' he added, almost savagely, through his set teeth, as he recalled the castigation he had met with at the hands of Robert Wodrow and his own muttered vow of vengeance.

She gave him but one glance, yet it was expressive of loathing and fear that were unconquerable—as though he were some thing of horror; but somehow her strength of purpose and defiance piqued or attracted him, and he loved her with all the coarseness of his low nature.

'How she fears that fellow!' thought Ringbolt, who was peeping down the skylight. 'There is some secret—some strange story in all this.'

Of this strange interview, the Vierlander woman could make nothing; but, seeing that her charge was about to sink at their feet, she conveyed her into the little cabin or state-room, in which Ellinor's attire had been changed, and, closing the door, laid her on a bed to recover strength and composure, and there, fainting, feverish, and well-nigh delirious, she clung wildly, as if for protection, to her attendant.

Meanwhile the night darkened, and the fog undoubtedly deepened, so the yacht's bell was clanged ever and anon, while the two 'gentlemen,' with the sailing-master, Ringbolt, and the mate sat down to a luxurious dinner produced by Joe Lobscouse, cook of the Flying Foam, who, as a chef, was not equal to that of Dewsnap at home, Ragout—but Monsieur Ragout flatly declined to go to sea with that vessel, or 'any oder Voam,' as he always said. But in cooking Joe Lobscouse chiefly excelled in the famous olla podrida which bears his name, and is a compound of salt meat, biscuits, potatoes, onions, and spices, all minced and stewed together, and though dearly loved by those before the mast, such a dish was never seen in the cabin, of course.

The wine went freely round, for Dewsnap was lavish with his Clicquot and Mumm's extra dry.

'With all her air of ineffable innocence, I believe that girl to be a deep one,' said he, with a wink to Sleath, as he had no belief in female purity whatever, and had detestable views of society in general.

'She agreed to run away with me once, so why should I not go in for running away with her now?'

'Right you are, my boy!' said Dewsnap.

'You remember that cad, Colville of the Guards?' said Sleath, viciously.

'I have heard of him,' replied Dewsnap, evasively. 'Well?'

'He trumped up a story about this girl being a cousin of his to keep her, and her sister too, by Jove, to himself—a fact, Dolly; told me in London they were his cousins, though he never said so when we were at Dunkeld's place in Scotland. But now he has gone to Cabul, and the devil go with him!'

'What are we to do if the Vierlander woman won't remain on board after the fog lifts?' asked the sailing-master, Ringbolt.

'In that case we should have little difficulty in getting a sharp girl to attend, or, better still, some knowing and suggestive elderly party,' said Sleath.

'All right, sir—one has not far to look in Hamburg for what you want.'

'Dash it all!' exclaimed Dewsnap, who was fast becoming rather inebriated (this was not precisely what he said, but it looks milder in print). 'This girl of yours, Sleath, is likely to give us a deal of bother.'

'Not at all. I shall soon find a way to put an end to her nonsense,' growled Sir Redmond.

Like the latter, Dewsnap always suspected everybody until he knew they were innocent, and, if innocent, he deemed them fools. Thus he never doubted in his mind that the apparent repugnance of Ellinor was all coyness and affectation.

Mr. Adolphus Dewsnap, son of the late Alderman Sir Jephson Dewsnap, Knight, a soap-boiler in Bow, where he made a colossal fortune, was a fool and a cad of the first water, who looked up to Sleath, having a title, as one of 'the upper ten,' though Sleath's father had been, like the said alderman, a boy of the Foundling Hospital, from whence perhaps emanate many of the grotesque names we find in London.

The story of their titles is simple, and one of everyday recurrence.

The fathers of Sleath and Dewsnap had been made respectively a baronet and a knight for services rendered to the Ministry; but as those of the former, though equally important, had been performed with less scruple, he had been rewarded with the diploma of a baronet of Great Britain, and a coat-of-arms, which taxed the ingenuity of the entire College of Heralds.

Sir Redmond Sleath was a man of violent temper naturally, especially when his will was thwarted; thus he felt himself humiliated, and, when inflamed with wine, rendered almost savage by the spirit of opposition and dismay he encountered in Ellinor Wellwood, whom he still viewed as a poor girl, without parents, friends, or protector other than Leslie Colville, and he now was far away indeed.

Dewsnap occasionally had half-tipsy thoughts of pretending to befriend this stray girl, and getting her away somehow 'on his own hook,' as he phrased it to himself.

But he had a wholesome fear of Sleath, for, notwithstanding all his wealth, the latter had obtained somehow a great ascendency over him.

'She knows too much about one now,' muttered Sleath to himself. 'The marriage dodge and the ailing uncle won't do again—so how to deceive her?'

'"Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men are deceivers ever."

so says Shakespeare,' said Dewsnap, tipsily rolling his head from side to side; 'and he was right; devilish few of us are worth sighing for, I think.'

'Dolly Dewsnap turned moralist!' exclaimed Sleath, with a scornful laugh.

'Steward, some more moist!' cried Dewsnap. 'We'll drink Miss What-her-name's jolly good health. What says Byron, or some other fellow?

"Man, being reasonable, must get drunk;
The best of life is but intoxication."

So let us—drink—drink as long'sh—there'sh—a shot—in—the—locker!' he added, in a voice that became every moment more thick and 'feathery.'

So in these perilous hands was Ellinor Wellwood now.

But for the presence and companionship of the honest Vierlander woman, to whom she clung, though of whose patois of Danish or North German she could make little or nothing, Ellinor thought she must have died.

Her own clothes had been destroyed by her immersion, and meantime, when quite conscious, she felt it something odious and repellant to wear the clothes of others of whom she knew nothing, but suspected much.

How long was this atrocity to be continued?

She remained resolutely in the little cabin, declining to enter the saloon, or take food or refreshment of any kind, and, when sense quite returned, she watched from the little eyelet-hole—the port was nothing more—of her sleeping-place for a passing ship or boat, to which she might shriek for aid; but dense dark mist obscured everything, and she cast herself on the bed in despair.

The Flying Foam was cutter-rigged, and sat in the water gracefully. She was about a hundred and fifty tons burden, and consequently had an immense fore-and-aft boom-mainsail. Her deck was of narrow deal planks, and was always white as snow—white as swab and holystone could make it. Her ten guns were all burnished brass; the binnacles and bitts were of polished mahogany; the cabins were all panelled maple, with gilded mouldings; everything there was alike luxuriant and recherché; for the purse the old soap-boiler left to his only son and heir was a pretty long one; yet he was sometimes a little in debt, and found yachting then convenient.

The crew consisted of twelve men all told, including the sailing-master and Joe Lobscouse, the cook.

The former, Rufane Ringbolt, was, if not a good, not a bad-looking man, about forty years of age; his eyes were clear, blue, and penetrating, but cunning, leery, and shifting at times. The expression of his mouth, about the curves especially, was sinister and lascivious. There was a self-confident and reckless bearing about him too aggressive to be that of a gentleman or officer, for he had been the latter once, having served in Her Majesty's navy, but been—dismissed.

He and his captain had both fallen in love with one of those fast young ladies who are to be met with on the promenades of Portsmouth and Plymouth; but, as she preferred the young lieutenant to the elderly captain, the latter was always 'down' on the former, who from that moment became what is known in the service as 'a marked man.'

His temper was sorely tried, and he soon found himself before a court-martial, charged with neglect of duty and insubordination. Never while he lived did Ringbolt forget the day of that court-martial in the cabin of the Victory, and amid his potations it always came most vividly before him in its bitter details, with the sunshine streaming through the cabin windows, the ripple on the harbour waves, and Portsmouth Hard in the distance.

There was the exulting and malevolent face of the prosecutor when the court was cleared for 'finding;' there was the ringing of the bell that announced it was reopened, and in custody of the master-at-arms, with cocked hat and drawn sword, he—the prisoner—appeared before the court, all captains in full uniform, whose faces were graven on his memory.

During the proceedings his sword had been laid on the table, with the point towards the president and the hilt towards himself; now he saw that its position was reversed, and he knew that all was over, and he went down the ship's side into a shore boat a broken and degraded man!

And as the young lady, the cause of all the mischief, soon afterwards bestowed her hand upon the elderly captain who had 'smashed him,' Ringbolt had ever after but a very poor opinion of womankind.

He felt some natural curiosity about the damsel he had been the means of bringing on board the cutter, but there all further interest in her ended.

He thought if Sir Redmond Sleath, whose general character was well known to him, knew the lady it was all right; he had no fear of being deemed an accessory in an abduction; for though Mr. Ringbolt did not fear God, like many other men in the world, he mightily feared the police.

As for the Vierlander woman, she thought the ailing girl was the wife of one of the two Englanders, though she saw no wedding-ring on her finger; but then, like all foreigners, she thought the Englanders very eccentric.

For several days the fog, consequent to swollen tides, rested on the Elbe, and the cutter rode with her foresail loose, Sleath having proposed a trip to Heligoland; but Ellinor was ill—almost oblivious of everything, while Dewsnap dared not land her, and yet feared to keep her on board, thinking that Sleath's story of her utter friendlessness might be falsehood after all.

CHAPTER II.
ELLINOR.

Sir Redmond Sleath had no pity for the suspense and agony of mind now endured by Mary; and as for Dewsnap and Ringbolt, they knew nothing about her.

During the days just mentioned the clanging of the ship's bell from time to time, and the din of fog horns from vessels passing with less than half-steam up, informed Ellinor that the fog still rested on the river; yet every morning she heard the rasping of the holystones as the deck was cleaned, and the mysterious cry of 'soak and send'—the order to pass the wet swabs along.

The terror she had undergone, the subsequent affronts, unblushing and terrible—for such she deemed Sleath's love-making—and the uncertain future, all throbbed in hot and wretched thought wildly through her heart, till at last, when the yacht was fairly under way, fainting-fits and the torment of sea-sickness made reflection, fear, and regret alike impossible, for a kind of delirium came upon her, and she grew oblivious of her surroundings; but we are anticipating.

'The girl may die on our hands, if this sort of thing goes on,' said Dewsnap, 'and that might prove deuced awkward for us all.'

'I have thought of that, sir,' said Ringbolt; 'but one may as well whistle psalms to the taff-rail——'

'As attempt to move me—you are right, Mr. Ringbolt,' interrupted Sleath; 'but there is no dying in the case.'

'Why not send her ashore——?' began Dewsnap.

'And relinquish her? Not if I know it.'

'I mean to the boarding-house of the old Frau Wyburg, near the Bleichen Canal—you know the place.'

'Few rascals in Hamburg don't. She would keep her safe enough for me—it is not a bad idea; but I shall try my luck with her again before resorting to that.'

At the cruelty Dewsnap's suggestion involved, even Ringbolt shook his head dissentingly, and said,

'Whatever you do, steer clear of her husband—the Herr Wyburg, as he calls himself—he is a dangerous and a shady party—worse than the devil himself.'

'You know Hamburg, then, Mr. Ringbolt?'

'Rather!' replied the other, with a wink that inferred a great deal.

If this affair of Ellinor's abduction found its way into any of the social weeklies, it might form a very awkward thing for her; but neither for Sir Redmond or his friend, Mr. Adolphus Dewsnap, as both were now rather out of the social 'scratch race.'

'A pleasant story for the fair Blanche to hear,' surmised Sleath, as he laughingly made up a cigarette.

'Who is she?' asked Dewsnap.

'The daughter of Lord Dunkeld.'

'He is, of course, a topsawyer,' said Dewsnap, superciliously, as, notwithstanding his wealth, he had been rather ignored in society, 'and speaks in the House, I suppose?'

'Yes.'

'But I have never heard of a word he said.'

'Likely enough—he never gets beyond "Hear, hear!" He is a Scots' representative peer.'

'With a family tree, of course. D—n'm, I would rather have a good gooseberry-bush!'

The little state-room or cabin occupied by Ellinor she saw had evidently and recently been used by ladies before. In the drawers of the dressing-glass were hair-pins, an old kid glove, a broken jet bracelet, and other etcetera.

The door had a bolt on the inside.

One night she found, to her terror, that this had been removed!

Her heart grew sick within her; but, with the assistance of her attendant, she contrived to barricade the door most efficiently by placing a chair between it and her bed, on which, without undressing, she lay down with her temples throbbing like every other pulse with terror.

All grew still in the cutter, and not a sound was heard but the ripples that ran alongside as she strained at her anchor—so very still that Ellinor was about to sleep, when a sound startled her, and she sprang up in dismay.

Some one without was attempting to force her door. Who that some one was she doubted not; but, after a time, finding himself completely baffled, with a half-suppressed malediction, he went away.

Ellinor lay awake in an agony of mind till morning dawned, when she opened the eyelet port of her cabin, and looked out. The fog was less thick, and a gasp of joy escaped her on seeing a boat with several men in it approaching. She shrieked to them for succour, and waved her handkerchief. On this they paused on their oars, and seemed to confer with each other, but, instead of drawing nearer, they laughed, kissed their hands to her in mockery, resumed their pulling, and vanished into the mist.

Had any boat's crew actually boarded the yacht to make inquiries, Sleath was quite prepared to assert that the lady on board was his demented wife.

With the fog resting on the Elbe, she could see nothing of the land, and as the cutter might—she thought—have shifted her position in the night—she knew not where she was. Altona, she thought, might be miles away, yet it was only a rifle-shot distant. But for its extreme protraction, she might, at times, have thought she was in a dream, and that all her mental misery was but a provoking and ghastly phantasmagoria.

Days had elapsed now since her separation from Mary and Mrs. Deroubigne. They must, she knew, deem her dead—drowned—and might have gone away, she knew not where.

Torn in this outrageous fashion from the society of the only persons she loved on earth! Exiled from happiness, doomed to probable disgrace and misconstruction of conduct.

Her whole soul was wrapped up in one idea—escape! But how was she to achieve it, out of that accursed vessel, unless she cast herself headlong into the river? She certainly shrank from self-destruction, and hoped that something—'that vague something, the forlorn hope of the desperate'—might intervene to save and set her free.

Sir Redmond's persistent love-making could draw no response from her.

This enraged him; he ground his teeth, while longing to take her in his arms, and kiss her whether she would or not; yet he dared not attempt to molest her when he was sober and in daylight; something in the girl's purity and disgust of him repressed him. He dissembled, and said, submissively,

'With your love, Ellinor—in offering mine—I would be a very different man from what I have been.'

'Your love!' she muttered, in a low voice of scorn.

'Yes.'

'Dare you offer it again to me after all I know?'

'What a little tragedy spit-fire it is! Well, it is perhaps too much to ask you to love me, so I will only crave permission to love you.'

'Insult on insult! Oh, this is intolerable!' exclaimed Ellinor, covering her face with her hands. 'It is useless to remind a man like you of his marriage.'

Sleath's eyes gleamed dangerously. He and Ellinor were alone in the saloon, as Dewsnap and the sailing-master were smoking on deck, and the companion-way was kept bolted to prevent any attempt at escape.

'What did I know of life, of the world, or of human nature when I met that artful woman with the absurd name, Fubsby, and took vows—if vows they were—for a life-time. Married! Well, even if I were so legally—which I don't quite admit—what then? In the society in which we move—'

'We?'

'Dewsnap and I—flirtation forms the great occupation—even accomplishment—of married life on the part of those who are bound by it. You have much to learn yet, my simple little Ellinor.'

'Do you call this conduct of yours flirtation—this illegal and punishable abduction of me—and insulting, loathly love-making?'

'Loathly—an unpleasant phrase to use. Instead of the wretched life you lead at Paddington, I can give you one well worth living,' said he, as if he addressed a girl at a bar or a buffet, and in ignorance of all that had passed since he had discovered their residence in St. Mary's Terrace; 'and in turn, Ellinor, you will learn that a faithful old lover is not to be despised.'

'I have already learned that,' said Ellinor, her tears beginning to fall hotly as she thought of Robert Wodrow.

'I am glad to hear you say so,' said Sleath, thinking of himself, 'and to find that after all you cannot forget a man who has once loved you—and loves you so fondly still, in spite of the coldness you manifest and the obliquy you heap upon him. How grand it is to forgive!' he continued, attempting to take her hand. 'The literary bear Samuel Johnson never seemed so wretched as a man and a moralist, than when he gloried in loving a good hater.'

Ellinor prevented him from capturing her hand by shudderingly retreating to the other end of the saloon. The contrast between the two men—the one who had sought, and still sought, to ensnare, and he whom she had wronged—who loved her so well, and had found, as she thought, a grave in that far away land, burned itself into her heart and brain with growing intensity, and wringing her hands, his name escaped her in a low voice.

'Robert—oh, Robert!'

Would time ever heal—ever conquer her reproachful heart-wound?

Fury gathered in the heart of Sleath.

'So,' said he, 'our mutual friend, Mr. Robert Wodrow, was not born to be hanged, if the newspaper accounts were true, by Jove; ha! ha!'

'Sir?' said Ellinor, scarcely understanding his brutal jest.

'Cheated the gallows—that is all.'

In that speech he revealed the underlying brutality of his nature—of the parvenu—the son of the foundling; and, in his wrath, he followed it up by another home-thrust.

'What will be said of you—what thought, when it becomes known that you have been alone, cruising on board this yacht with us—with me?'

He saw without pity the start, the pained flush and pallor that crossed her face by turns, as he coarsely put into words the fear that had been hovering in her own mind.

She tried to reply to his cruel mockery; her white lips unclosed, and then shut again, for her voice died away upon them.

With all his love-making, never once did Sleath's heart—or what passed for that organ—really soften towards the helpless girl, and times there were when he regarded her as a wolf might have done. He still made a mockery of the 'cousin story,' as he called it, and, though Ellinor on one occasion condescended to partially explain it, he did not, and could not, believe it to be anything else than some cunning scheme of Colville; and as that individual, whom he hated, was now in India, he had nothing to fear from him, and only hoped he might soon get 'knocked on the head.'

At times there was something—what shall we call it?—almost savage in the admiration and exultation with which this man regarded the creature who was so entirely at his mercy, and who had been brought to him as flotsam from the sea!

He keenly relished, too, in one sense, all blasé as he was, the air of resistance with which she repulsed him; her bearing was so different and apart from that of most of the conventional girls he had generally met—not that he much affected the society of ladies generally.

But he regarded them chiefly as a means of excitement—like champagne, an unruly horse, or a close run at écarté, and, so far as Ellinor was concerned, he had a firm desire to prove that his will was the stronger of the two.

At last he left her and went on deck. She stretched out her arms on the saloon table, and bowed her head on them in a kind of dumb despair, as she thought over all the degrading speeches to which she had been subjected.

'Oh,' thought she, 'that I could bury my hot face among the cool, dewy roses that bloom at Birkwoodbrae! There I think I should get well—get well—get strong and be myself again perhaps.'

But instead, she was fated to get worse, for the moment the fog lifted, sail was made on the yacht, and—as stated in the beginning of this chapter—the horrors of sea-sickness assailed her, and she lay prostrate in the little cabin.

She had often been afraid to eat or drink, lest what she partook of might be drugged; she had read or heard of such things; but she was past all such reflections or considerations now.

There was something daring and lawless in the conduct of Sir Redmond with reference to the whole affair; but of that, too, she was—for the present time—oblivious.

CHAPTER III.
THE GALE.

The crew of the cutter knew not what to make of the solitary and singular passenger they had on board, and whom the Vierlander woman agreed to attend till they reached Heligoland.

They had often seen ladies on board during runs to the Mediterranean and elsewhere, who were certainly not quite the crême de la crême; but that was no business of theirs, and now, though Sleath would have disdained to acknowledge it, and Ellinor knew it not, the presence of Dewsnap and Ringbolt (though neither of them were very meritorious characters) proved a species of protection to her, but the sturdy, honest Vierlander more than all.

Thus her tormentor resolved that he would take her ashore with him in some place, where she would be more completely at his mercy among absolute strangers and dependent upon him for existence.

The crew of the yacht had saved her life, so they could scarcely be accused of abduction in keeping her on board during the bewildering fog or the blowy weather that succeeded it; but, without making the slightest effort by the use of a well-manned boat to put her ashore at Altona, they were now beating against a rough, head wind, and attempting to get out of the Elbe for sea.

To where and for what purpose? Heligoland could only be touched at in passing. Were they to haul up for England after that? Such, were a few of the surmises among the men forward.

Mid-day after the fog lifted saw the Flying Foam under weigh, with canvas set, the foresail braced sharp up, the jib and fore-and-aft mainsail set, the boom of the latter well on board, as she was running close-hauled against a head wind for the mouth of the Elbe, some eighty miles distant, and making long tacks as the river widened.

Altona and then Blankenese, a tiny fishing village, with its houses scattered along the green slope among the trees, terraced over each other, were soon left astern, and the head of the cutter pointed towards Hamburg and then Stade, with the Prussian flag flying on the ramparts of Swingerschanze, where the White Horse of Hanover will never fly again.

The wind was blowing half a gale, and some reefs were taken in the boom-mainsail when the low batteries of Gluckstadt, on the Danish side of the river, were in sight, and darkness fell soon after the last rays of the sun faded out on the spire of Freyburg; and still the close-hauled cutter, with her lights hung out, laboured on, and ere long, as the river, with all its treacherous shoals, widened, she became assailed by impetuous attacks of the sea.

The past day had been dull and hazy, and the half-gale now subsided almost entirely, but then the cutter rolled heavily, adding to the misery of the unfortunate Ellinor. Then the wind, blowing from the level coast, would recover its strength, and, changing its direction, become furious, while a heavy swell came on, and when dawn stole in the Flying Foam, still close-hauled on the port tack, was standing over towards Cuxhaven, the shore of which is so low that the only objects seen against the sky were the flagstaff of a battery and the guns of the latter mounted en barbette.

There the river pilot went on shore, when the cutter, lying on the next tack, headed off to seaward, steered by Ringbolt himself, close to the wind, with her head just so near it as to keep the sails full without shaking them.

The baffling head-wind soon increased to a tempest; the timbers of the cutter groaned as she strained in the trough of the sea one moment and rode over a great wave the next, while the water poured in volumes over her deck, gorging the scuppers and carrying every loose article to leeward, and ere long the canvas was reduced until none was left than what was necessary for steering purposes.

All on board, even Dewsnap and Sleath, had donned their 'storm toggery,' and appeared on deck in oilskin jackets, with sou'-westers tied under their chins, the baronet making vows, as ever and anon he clutched a belaying pin, floundered into the loose bight of a rope, or had to oppose his back to a drenching sea, that if he were once safe on German or Danish soil, he would tempt the perils of 'the briny' no more.

All day the cutter, though so beautifully modelled and built, beat against the wind without making progress, and now one of those tempestuous gales that so often sweep the North Sea began to spend its fury on her.

Rufane Ringbolt began to look thoughtful; he had the well sounded; glanced at the binnacle and aloft ever and anon; put a fresh quid of tobacco in his cheek, and took a survey of the weather.

A cloud darker than usual and lower down obscured the sky, spreading over the zenith. A lambent glare of lightning shot through its darkest or densest part; another and another followed, and like the roar of artillery the thunder hurtled through the stormy air.

The wind lulled for an instant, permitting the Flying Foam to right herself from her careen, but again the wind bellowed over the sea, tearing away the foam and snow-white spoondrift from the wave-crests, and again the cutter was pressed down to her bearings by its force and fury.

Pitchy darkness came on, but the vivid lightning flashes were incessant.

Owing to the obscurity, the difficulty of the watch on deck in passing ropes to each other became great, and the alternate gleams, with a deluge of rain, so blinded them that they were scarcely able to execute an order; so, hoarsely and angrily, Ringbolt summoned on deck the watch below, and as they were somewhat tardy in obeying, he resorted, we are sorry to say, to much strong language.

'Show a leg and turn out!' he bellowed down the forecastle hatch, 'tumble up the watch—quick, you infernal chowderheads, you'll find it no child's play now.'

As this reinforcement, only three or four in number, came 'tumbling up,' half dressed, the wind suddenly burst—but for a few minutes only—from an unexpected quarter, taking the cutter aback and throwing her nearly on her beam-ends.

The man steering was hurled right over the wheel, the rest, with coils of rope and whatever was loose or had become loosened, were heaped in a mass of confusion among the lee scuppers. In alarm that the craft was foundering, Sir Redmond Sleath, forgetting all about Ellinor, then praying on her knees with arms stretched over her bed—praying till sickness again overpowered her—sought some Dutch courage in the steward's pantry by imbibing more than one stiff glass of brandy.

Ringbolt was the first to gather himself up. With an oath he reached the wheel; the spokes revolved rapidly in his powerful grasp, and the cutter was righted in time to save the mast, but still intense darkness reigned—the lights of Cuxhaven had long since melted into the sea—with tremendous peals of thunder, while vast masses of water passed over the buoyant and gallant cutter, and the blinding rain and the bitter salt spray were mingled together.

The lamp still burned in the binnacle, and the wetted garments and bronzed visage of Ringbolt shone in its wavering gleam as he grasped the spokes of the wheel, planted his feet firmly on the deck grating, and looked from time to time aloft, though he could discern nothing.

Day began to dawn, but the gale still continued. The cutter was in the Elbe mouth, though no land was in sight; but Ringbolt knew that the two sandbanks between what is called the Southern and Northern Elbe lay ahead, but northward of Merwark Island; and, just as this reflection occurred to him, the mate came aft in the grey dawn, his face expressive of concern, to report 'the lower mast sprung!'

This startling intelligence proved true, for Ringbolt found the mast had been thus injured in the gale—a great crack ran obliquely through it, rendering it quite unsafe for carrying the usual quantity of sail thereon, and he knew that unless instant precautions were taken the cutter might speedily become a wreck aloft, tidings which made the teeth of the selfish Sleath chatter in his head.

With all his errors and backslidings, Ringbolt was equal to the occasion, and became the English seaman and the officer at once.

'Sprung it is, by heavens!' he exclaimed. 'Take in sail—away aloft to the cap with the top-maul, out with the fid, stand by the mast-rope, and lower away the topmast.'

Three active fellows were soon up at the cross-trees. A stroke or two of the maul knocked out the square bar (with a shoulder at one end) that supported the weight of the topmast, which quickly slid down in front of the foremast through its upper and lower cap, and was at once made fast.

This eased alike the cutter and the mast, but it was necessary to put her before the wind, and run up the river again, as it would have been rashness to venture into the North Sea with a crippled mast. The storm had nearly spent itself, but thunder could still be heard in the distance between the lulls of the wind.

So the Flying Foam was once more running up the Elbe, to be repaired at Hamburg, with her topsail-yard down on the cap, her jib and staysail set, her fore and aft mainsail close reefed, and the boom so well eased off that its end skipped the waves at times as she rolled heavily before the wind.

At Cuxhaven another pilot, to take her up the river, came on board from the yacht, which, by their statutes, the inhabitants of that place are bound to have always at sea, or near the outermost buoy, to conduct any vessel requiring assistance; and, aided ere long by a tug-steamer, the Flying Foam, passing Altona in the night, when dawn came in again, was moored for repair in the outer portion of the Binnen Hafen, under the shadow of the lofty and wonderfully picturesque old houses of the Stubbenhuck.

And now, having recovered from his fear and tribulation. Sir Redmond Sleath began to consider in what way he could delude his luckless victim ashore.

CHAPTER IV.
ALONE!

In furtherance of his own cruel and nefarious schemes against Ellinor, Sir Redmond had forbidden the Vierlander attendant to inform her of where the yacht was now, and a few silver kassengelds effectually sealed her lips, while Ellinor, still confined to her little cabin, was prostrate in strength, and only thankful that the din of the storm had passed away, and the awful pitching and rolling of the cutter was at an end.

Dewsnap had fortified himself with so many potations of brandy and water during the last few hours that he was scarcely sober now, and swayed about on his feet swearing it was still 'the roll of the ship.'

'My watch has stopped,' said he, in a thick voice, to Sleath.

'Indeed,' said the baronet, not much interested in the matter.

'I tried to wind it up last night, and mistook the corkscrew for a key.'

'After such a devil of a time as we have had of it I don't wonder at anything.'

Meanwhile Sleath was still considering how he would induce Ellinor to trust herself on shore with him, after writing to announce her coming to the Frau Wyburg's residence, or pension as she was pleased to call it; and Dewsnap was busy imbibing a 'pick-me-up' of iced seltzer and brandy, while conning over the sporting intelligence at several recent meetings—the plates run for, the bets at starting, the Welter sweepstakes, and so forth, without even caring to open the letters the steward had brought him from the Poste Restante at the Post Strasse, when suddenly a loud interjection escaped him.

'What is up?' asked Sleath, looking up from his coffee.

'The devil to pay in the East!'

'How?'

'A Reuter's telegram announcing the murder of Sir Louis Cavagnari, and massacre of the entire embassy at Cabul!'

'The entire lot?'

'Escort and every man-jack of the Europeans!'

Sleath was of course interested, and read for himself the brief and alarming despatch.

'So that cad Colville is wiped out then—a devilish good job too!' was his first comment, and he contrived soon to let Ellinor Wellwood know the fate of her 'cousin,' as he called Colville in mockery.

Her first thoughts were of Mary.

More than ever did Ellinor long to be with her now. She strove to leave her bed, but sank helplessly back upon the pillow, and lay there still choked by dry sobs, her face pallid to the lips; in her half-closed eyes an unnatural gleam that came of mental and bodily suffering, while her hands were clenched at times till the nails almost cut the tender palms.

Ringbolt, the sailing-master, had a keen appreciation of the charming in female nature, and was able to admire every variety of the sex that came under his observation.

The wonderful beauty and delicacy of Ellinor inflamed his fancy. He saw that she seemed, somehow, utterly helpless—a mysterious waif, cast upon the waters; he saw that she trembled under the unpleasant gaze of Dewsnap, and simply loathed Sleath, who sought to make himself the arbiter of her destiny; so Mr. Rufane Ringbolt thought why should he not enter stakes for this prize? Why should not he try to make his innings when others failed?

She had been picked up like a derelict craft, and by himself, too; and then Hamburg—dissipated Hamburg—filled with people of many races and creeds—was just the place where people may play the wildest pranks with ease.

Thus Ringbolt had been a kind of protection in one way to Ellinor, over whom he kept an eye, on his own account, and, as Sleath began to think, was always on the watch, as he was one who took what he called 'dog watches,' or 'dog snoozes,' and could sleep by night or day with wonderful facility, and apparently with one eye open.

And now that the yacht was moored along the quay of the Binnen Hafen, close by such thoroughfares as the Deich Strasse, and would soon be dismasted and in the riggers' hands, he thought the time had come when he might venture on some scheme of gaining Ellinor's gratitude first by pretending to succour and free her.

And, as these ideas occurred to him, his eyes sparkled, the colour in his grog-pimpled cheeks deepened, and he mumbled about with his lips like a man who had been in the habit of chewing twist tobacco, which was the case with Ringbolt after he was turned out of the navy and took to the yachting line of business.

The watchfulness we have referred to had not been unnoticed, and Sleath began to suspect that, if Ringbolt was not doing this for himself, he must be acting in the interests of Mr. Dolly Dewsnap, and thus some action on his own part was imperatively necessary.

He was becoming exasperated, piqued, and disgusted, moreover, with Ellinor's trembling abhorrence of him, and began secretly to arrange with the faithful and unscrupulous Gaiters a scheme for having her more completely in his power ashore, and luring her quietly from the yacht on the pretence of restoring her to Mrs. Deroubigne.

'The embassy massacred—every officer and soldier destroyed!' exclaimed the latter, when she read the same startling telegram that gave Sir Redmond such extreme satisfaction. 'The hope of her future—her soul—her existence gone—poor Mary! Poor darling! How am I to break this to her?'

But broken it had to be, and then to Mary came hours of agony—such hours as in our lives count for years!

'Ellinor drowned and—and Colville slain.'

Mary Wellwood was stunned and sorely stricken, and bowed her head as if the waves of Destiny were rolling over her.

She read the paragraph, so comprehensive and yet so terrible in its brevity, again and again, till it seemed to pierce like burning needles into her heart and brain.

So Leslie Colville was gone—dead—destroyed in what manner or after what torment she would never, never know.

His face and figure—his voice and smile came vividly and poignantly to memory as she sat like one turned to stone, with the kind arms of Mrs. Deroubigne around her, caressing her head on her bosom.

The dire calamity she had hourly dreaded might happen, had come at last, and yet there seemed to be an impossibility in the realisation of it.

Oh, why did men become soldiers?

'Alone—alone in the world now!' wailed Mary.

'My darling, you have me and my little girls to love you as sisters,' said Mrs. Deroubigne, folding the deathly-pale girl again and again to her motherly breast; but, passionate though her sympathy and regard, Mary shivered, and thought who could ever replace Ellinor as a sister, and felt, as she said, most fearfully alone.

Her mind at times became confused. Something more had happened to her—she scarcely knew what it was.

Never again did it seem possible that she could take any interest in the life of the world and its daily routine. She was apathetic—careless of what was done with herself or anything around her.

Existence and its ties seemed over and done with, yet her present calamity seemed also a kind of dream to her. 'Sometimes in great trouble,' says a writer, 'the brain acts in this way of itself—it will return to events of long ago and recall them vividly, while the immediate moment becomes remote. But the reaction is all the more intense for this mental rest; and when the mind returns to the contemplation of the present it is to see with greater vividness.'

'The embassy massacred to a man!' How often was she to reiterate mentally that appalling line?

It was now Mary's evil fortune to feel perhaps—nay, surely—more keenly than her sister had done this new calamity, for poor Ellinor had certainly ceased for a time to love, though she had never failed to respect Robert Wodrow, now deemed also with the dead.

All was silent in that pretty villa by the broad and shining Elbe—shining in the light of the moon. The fire glowed in the tall, cylindrical, porcelain stove in a corner of the room; that room ere while decorated and prepared for her and Ellinor so lovingly by Mrs. Deroubigne, and there she lay restless, sleepless, and alone, too bewildered to realise the dire calamity that had befallen her, and been acted in blood and wrath so far, far away, and yet but a few hours ago.

The curtains were drawn back, and the red glow of the half-open stove and of the night-light shed a radiance on her surroundings, but whenever her eyes wandered they seemed to see something that was familiar and yet strange to them.

Her mind was every way confused and involved, and poor Jack from time to time licked her hand unnoticed.

There was, however, always the one prominent idea. Leslie Colville, the one love of her heart, her affianced husband, was dead—killed cruelly—horribly, she doubted not, but in what fashion she knew not, and, fortunately perhaps, should never know.

And ever and anon aching memory went back to that sunny noon when she first met him, yet knew him not, as they fished together by the bonnie Birks of Invermay.

CHAPTER V.
IN THE BALA HISSAR.

Our advanced post was in the Kurram Valley—the only part of the Afghan border which had been trodden by the foot of a Briton since the previous Cabul war—a post, the boundary of the so-called 'scientific frontier,' which had been held by a body of our troops, European and native, for some three months during the summer of this eventful year; and all had been suffering more or less from the breathless heat and malaria, dulness, and that growing ennui which a languid game of polo or lawn-tennis (without ladies) utterly failed to ameliorate; and all thought that, as anything exciting was better than nothing, a brush with the Mongols, the Ahmed, or Hassan Keyls would be a relief.

Many officers began to think, even to talk, hopefully of leave of absence to visit India, to look up old chums in Peshawur, Rawul Pindi, or Lahore; or when longer leave for Europe must be given; when news of the attack on the Residency at Cabul, and the massacre of the envoy and his people fell upon them like a clap of thunder!

These terrible tidings were brought by Taimur, a Usbeg Tartar, who served as a trooper in the Guide escort—a man of undoubted daring, bravery, and hardihood—who had achieved his escape from the city of blood by the aid of some of his own race who were among the Cabulee troops that had come in from Herat.

After twelve days' wandering, and enduring great suffering in those savage and stupendous mountain gorges that lie between Cabul and the Kotal of Lundikhani, he reached the advanced post in the Kurram Valley, in rags, famished, and every way in a deplorable state of destitution, to make his report, which was instantly telegraphed by the officer commanding to the Viceroy at Simla.

'Everyone cut off as close as a whistle! By Jove, colonel, we'll have to be up and doing something,' said Algy Redhaven, the hussar, as he lounged, pipe in mouth, and hands in the pockets of his pyjamas, into the tent of old Spatterdash.

The early summer months had been passed peacefully and pleasantly by our embassy at Cabul, notwithstanding the petty insults and annoyance we have already referred to. In the cool, breezy morning, when the sun was coming up above the hills that look down on the clear, shallow, and rapid Cabul flowing towards the Indus; or in the evening, when he was setting behind the summits of the Haft Kotal, Sir Louis Cavagnari, attended by Colville and others, escorted by a few of the Guide Corps, rode through the city to view places of interest in the neighbourhood, sometimes towards the Chardeh Valley eastward, or the plains of Killa-Kazi on the west.

Their quarters in the picturesque and ancient Bala Hissar were rendered as comfortable as furniture of English style and make—relics of Elphinstone's slaughtered army and plundered cantonments—could make them; but the walls of the rooms were scribbled over with ribald pencillings, anti-English hits and insolent political allusions there was no mistaking, left there by members of the late Russian mission; while 'from the Ameer himself, as from the commandant, dalis of fruit and vegetables, fish, milk, and sweetmeats were daily provided; and whatever Cabul could offer in the way of entertainment or amusement was readily forthcoming.'

All seemed so peaceful, and the chances of renewed hostility so remote, that Colville was about to make arrangements for quitting the Embassy, resigning his appointment, and procuring an escort through the passes to Lundi Khani Khotal in the Kurram Valley on his homeward way.

He also intended to take with him Robert Wodrow. The latter had changed greatly of late for the better. In his face, that which had been mere good looks had deepened into earnestness of purpose in every feature. If, under the heat of the summer sun, his cheek was browner and less round, his mouth, in expression, was a trifle harder and more set, changes indicative of one who was aware that he had his way in the world to hew out, and due to Colville's influence, presence, and friendly encouragement.

He found him one day whistling loudly while grooming his horse in the stables of the Bala Hissar.

'Wodrow, old man,' said Colville, laughingly, 'by Jove, I am glad to hear you whistling. Your lips seemed only capable of sighing once. But the air you indulge in is a sad one.'

'It is "The Birks of Invermay," sir. I was thinking as usual of old times, and of those from whom we are so far away.'

'Many a thousand miles, even as the crow flies.'

All remained, to all appearance, peaceful, we say, at Cabul, till one fatal morning, about eight o'clock, when the Turkistani and Ordal Regiments, consisting of several battalions in the Ameer's army, were mustered for arrears of pay in one of the stately courts of the Bala Hissar.

Daud Shah, a sirdir or general of the army—a venerable soldier—could only distribute one month's pay, but, with shrill and vehement shouts that made every carved arcade and shaded balcony re-echo, they demanded two.

'Two months' pay or blood!'

The sirdir attempted to remonstrate with them, on which tumult and disorder pervaded their ranks, and they broke out into open mutiny.

Then another sirdir—whose name is not unknown to the reader—exclaimed, with a voice loud enough to be heard above the fast-growing disturbance,

'Let us kill the Envoy and then the Ameer who would sell us to the Feringhees!'

'Deen! deen! deen and death,' shouted all, and, rushing into the greater court of the palace, they proceeded to stone and loot without mercy the servants of the Residency.

Enraged by this rough treatment, Taimur, the Usbeg Tartar, and some of his Guide comrades, without temporising or waiting for the orders of their officers, betook them to their carbines and opened a fire upon the multitude from the open windows and stately galleries overlooking the court.

Colville and other officers called upon them to cease firing, and they did so for a time.

Then it was that the Sirdir Mahmoud Shah, a man whose fanaticism made him all but a Ghazi, shook his hand upwards at the gallery where they stood, and called, with a shrill voice,

'Brutes! beasts! vermin! filthy Feringhees! Enjoy the pleasures of life for a brief time, but your speedy departure shall be into the flames of hell, with water like molten brass to drink, and ye shall say, as the Koran tells us—"Oh, Malec, intercede for us, that the Lord may end us by annihilation."'

He spoke in Afghani, yet many understood him, and an officer said,

'These beggars quote their Koran as glibly as Cromwell's Puritans did the Bible, and with the same view to blood and slaughter.'

Led by Mahmoud chiefly, the mutineers rushed away to procure their arms and ammunition, with which they returned in a few minutes, inflamed by all the hate and rancour of race and religion, and pitilessly resolved to massacre all.

The time of their absence has been given as about fifteen minutes, and, with horses at hand, it is said that all in the Residency might have made their escape, had they chosen to attempt it, but either they trusted to the sacred character of the embassy, underrated the actual amount of peril, or, like bold Britons, were determined to face it, and show fight.

The roof of the Residency was an untenable place, being commanded by the flat roofs and windows of loftier houses, yet there Sir Louis Cavagnari and his little band were gathered, and there, making a kind of rampart or shelter-trench with what they could collect, they resolved to sell their lives as dearly as possible in conflict with the savage hordes—the sea of human beings that surged around them.

The mutineers, all well-armed with rifles and bayonets, and supplied with excellent ammunition, were now joined by the fanatical multitudes of the city, by robbers intent on plunder, budmashes, and villains of every kind, seeking blood and outrage, brandishing long juzails, sabres, and charahs, or deadly native knives, with points like needles and edges like razors—blades that flashed and glanced in the sunshine like their bloodshot and malevolent eyes; their strange garments, wide-sleeved camises, sheepskin cloaks, and bright-coloured loonghees or caps, adding to the picturesqueness of the savage and bewildering scene, overlooked by the pillared arcades, with horse-shoe arches, and the carved balconies on ponderous marble brackets projecting from the palace walls, and all half revealed and half hidden amid the eddying smoke of pistols and musketry.

All were yelling, till their yells ended in a death-shriek, as a shot struck them down; many were quoting the inevitable Koran, or hurling offensive and abusive epithets, as they crushed upon and jostled each other, while seething and surging around their victims.

Hope of victory—even of successful defence—the latter could have none. For them nothing was left now but to struggle to the last of their blood and breath, and until the last man perished in his agony!

Colville, while handling the carbine of a Guide who had fallen near him, even in that desperate time, thought how hideous looked the sea of human faces into which he was sending shot after shot, as fast as he could drop them into the block of the breechloader.

'The faces of the Afghans,' says a writer, 'often develop into those of the most villainous-looking scoundrels. Shylock, Caliban, and Sycorax and his dam all have numerous representatives, though I think the first is the commonest type, on account of the decidedly Jewish cast of most Cabuli features, and the low cunning and cruelty which supplies the only animation in their otherwise stolid countenances, true indices of the mind beneath—fatalist by creed; false, murderous, and tyrannical by education. In this description,' he adds, 'I do not include the Kuzzil Bash (Persian), or Hindoo settlers, who preserve their own distinctive features, both mental and physical.'

For five hours had the unequal conflict been waged, when Sir Louis Cavagnari, who was in the thick of it, was wounded in the forehead by a ball that had ricochetted from a wall near him.

Close and terrible was the fire poured by the Guides with their carbines and by the few European officers into the dense masses of the foe beneath, and deadly that fire proved—the front files, if they could be termed so, melted away or fell over each other in heaps, but fresh men pushed forward from the rear and took their places, serving only to feed the harvest of death gathered at the hands of those who fought not for existence—the hope of that was quite lost now—but for vengeance.

'Allah! Allah! Allah! Deen! Deen! Deen!' were the shouts that loaded the air below, rising above the sputtering roar of the firearms. On the other side was no sound, but a yell or a groan as a man fell wounded, too often mortally. 'La Ilah illa Allah!' ('There is no God but God.')

Yet devilry, cruelty, and slaughter were there supreme.

'I wish we could make a headlong rush on them and clear the square by a charge—cut our way through,' cried Colville; 'but we have not men enough, and then Sir Louis Cavagnari and all the wounded would be butchered if left behind.'

'How fast the devils fire!' exclaimed a young officer; 'my revolver barrel is quite hot already.'

'You'll soon get used to the whizz of the bullets,' replied Colville, whose face if now pale with desperation, was filled with an expression of determination too. 'Keep cool, men—aim well, and let every shot tell.'

But amid that dense mob below—a literal sea of upturned and dark, revengeful faces, with glistening teeth and flashing eyes—no bullet could miss a mark; while all around were heard the crash of falling bricks, beams, and plaster, the yells of the Afghans, the shrieks of their women, and the roar of the fast gathering flames.

'Mark that fellow!' cried several officers, indicating a leader in a green loonghee, who seemed to have a charmed life—Mahmoud Shah, in fact.

'I should like to pick that devil off,' said Robert Wodrow, dropping a cartridge into the breechblock of his carbine. 'He seems to be head cock and bottle-washer of the whole shindy!' he added, in the phraseology of his student days. His ballet sped, but only grazed the shoulder of the old fanatic, and added to the latter's fury.