Chapter XIV: Speak or Die!

It is necessary to explain the cause of Assad Khan's most unexpected appearance.

The chief was holding late revels that night, to celebrate some relative's betrothal, when a loud and continued call at the gate announced that some one wanted admittance. The great iron key hung at the girdle of Assad Khan, for he never at night trusted it into any hands but his own. Such precaution was deemed necessary in that land of treachery and sudden surprises. Followed by those who had been sharing his banquet, Assad Khan stalked to the massive gate. The call for admittance had excited the curiosity of the females of his family, who, in their upper apartments, were having a feast of their own. Sultána, to whom childhood gave freedom of action, came down to behold and report.

The gate was not unclosed till it was ascertained that he who claimed admittance was Attili Ullah, a trusted servant of the chief, who had been chosen as his messenger to convey the letter of Dermot Denis to the official in India.

On being admitted, the Afghan fell at the feet of Assad Khan, and told his story. He spun it out to some length, with a great many appeals to the Holy Being whose name is so lightly taken by Moslems. But the story itself may be given in very few words. In fording a river Attili's foot had slipped, he had been well-nigh drowned, and the precious letter which was to have brought such heaps of rupees had been lost!

Assad Khan was angry, and the poor messenger narrowly escaped a flogging as well as drowning. Assad Khan thought, however, that the delay of a few days was all the harm that had been done. If the yellow-haired one, as he called the Irishman, had written one letter, he was at hand to write another, and a second messenger should start with it at once. It was this that brought to the prison at midnight the unwelcome visitors who now thronged it.

"Where is he? Where is the yellow-haired?" exclaimed Assad Khan, gazing around in surprise at finding only Walter within.

"Where is he?" echoed the wondering attendants.

Walter had resolved to answer no questions. Every minute's delay was, he felt, important, as giving to Dermot Denis a better chance of escape.

"Where is the Kafir dog?" exclaimed the furious chief, when no doubt remained that the prisoner had vanished indeed.

Not a word from the lips of Walter.

"Who saw him last?" roared out the chief; "who brought the food which I sent more early than usual?"

"I took it," answered an Afghan.

"Was the yellow-haired here? Did you see him?"

"I did not see him, for he," pointing to Walter, "took the food from my hand, and I did not enter the room."

Several voices spoke at once; they bore witness that the yellow-haired had been in the room when Walter was carried in on the charpai; but nothing had been seen of him since.

"Then it may have been many hours since he passed through the court-yard; and he could not pass without being seen!" exclaimed the indignant chief. "Ali Khan and Mir Ghazan at least must have seen him. If there has been treachery,--if the Feringhee has bribed with his gold,--the vengeance of Assad shall fall on the traitors." Then suddenly turning again towards Walter, he cried, "You must know how and when he fled. Dog, speak! or I'll force out the secret by torture!"

Walter pressed his white lips closely together; not a sound came forth.

"Bind him and bastinado him, till he speak or die!"

The state of Walter's ankle, so inflamed that even a touch gave pain, made the command most barbarous; every blow on that foot would be torture indeed. The unhappy youth could but inwardly pray that strength might be given to bear what he felt that unaided human nature could not endure. But no compassion for the sufferer was heard in any Afghan heart there--but one. Sultána did not weep, nor cling to her father's knees; child as she was, she knew that to do so would be of no avail whatever--she might as well try by tears to melt a stone; like a young fawn she bounded forward--one little bare foot just touching the charpai gave impetus to her spring. Sultána was in the window aperture in a moment, and cried out in a tone of defiance--"If you touch him, I'll throw myself over the cliff."

"Sultána, come down!" cried her father; "I will wring the secret out of the Kafir!"

"But if _I_ can tell it?"--and what a bright face, bending down from the aperture, was seen by the torchlight! "what if the little Eagle knows how the yellow-haired fled!"

"Thou! speak, child!" cried the chief, in surprise.

"You will not hurt my friend if I tell all?"

"I have no wish to hurt him," was the reply, "if I can but get back again into my grasp the wealthy Feringhee. This youth is poor as a wandering fakir."

"The yellow-haired fled this way--by this opening," cried Sultána; "he must have had an eagle's wings, indeed, if he got to the bottom unharmed."

"How knowest thou that he escaped by the window?"

"He left a bit of his coat behind on this stone!" cried the intelligent child, triumphantly exhibiting a fragment of the garment which Denis had torn in his struggle to get through the hole, and which her hand had accidentally touched.

"After him, and seize him!" cried the chief.

There needed no second command. Like hounds at the sound of the wild halloo, the Afghans rushed from the room, knocking one another over in their eagerness to descend the staircase-ladder. The chief followed almost as quickly, remembering what his men had forgotten, that he had the key at his girdle, by means of which alone they could pass through the gate to commence their midnight search, after descending the hill on whose summit the hill was built.

Sultána sprang down from the window. Walter heard her voice, as clasping her little hands she exclaimed, "Allah! Sultána thanks Thee! Thou hast sent her to save her Feringhee again!"