Chapter XXI: The Attack

"Awake, awake, Ali Khan! chief! if you would not be slain where you lie!" was the loud summons which startled the Afghan from his repose.

"It is the voice of Mir Ghazan!" exclaimed Ali, springing from his couch, and seizing his scimitar.

"If the chief linger, Mustapha and his rebels will be upon him! No time for delay!" cried Mir Ghazan, as Ali Khan drew back the heavy curtain which served in place of a door.

"What mean ye?" asked the Afghan chief. "Mustapha left the fort at noon and cannot return at night, for the key of the gate is with me."

"I know not how that may be," said Mir Ghazan, with impatience; "I found the gate open not an hour ago, for there had been a stirring in the courtyard, and I knew that some mischief was brewing. I went forth, following two figures that moved before me; they stopped just below the Vulture's Crag. I was present, unseen, at a meeting where, had they caught a glimpse of me, I had been silenced with a dagger. Mustapha is rousing the tribe against us Christians. I outstripped the rebels to give you warning, but even at this moment the bloodthirsty throng must be close at the gate. Hark! hear you not their wild yells!"

Sultána, pale, but perfectly calm, with Rahim, her ten-days' old babe in her arms, now stood by the side of her husband. "We have no means of escape," she said; "if we go to the gate we but meet them. Let us hasten to the Feringhee's room" (it still commonly went by that name); "it has a strong door and a lock. We can at least hold out there for some hours--till the Lord, in His mercy, send us succour."

There was no time for more words. Mir Ghazan's wife, roused by the noise, was at the foot of the dark stair which led up to the chief's apartments. The small band of Christians with hurried steps made their way into the court-yard, open to the silver moonlight, and then sped up the ladder staircase, Ali Khan himself being the last to mount it. Scarcely had he entered the Feringhee's room when the court-yard was full of Pathans, some shouting the Moslems' hulma* some, "Down with the renegade _Karanis_! Mustapha! Mustapha! he is our chief!"

* "There is but one God, and Mohammed is his prophet."

The door was shut, the key turned in the lock. Thus a breathing space of time was secured to the fugitives, standing in semi-darkness within their narrow place of retreat.

"Let us pray," said Sultána, and every knee was bent in silent prayer.

There was a rush up the ladder, an angry knocking and thumping at the door; but the timber of which it was made was strong, and resisted the efforts of Ali Khan's assailants.

"Let alone!" cried a voice from without, loud enough to be heard above the clamour. "We have good allies within yon room. Unless the eagles bring the Kafirs food, and the hot winds water, hunger and thirst will soon force them to open the door!"

The words had their effect. The assault was for the time reduced to a blockade. No one was to be suffered to come out of the prison which the Christians had made their fortress. Pent up in their narrow quarters, exposed to hunger, thirst, and heat (for the month was May), the Kafirs should be driven at last to surrender and apostatise--or perish. In the meantime their enemies should feast; there should be a banquet to celebrate the elevation of Mustapha to the leadership of the tribe, and his fallen rival should hear the festal mirth.

Wild noisy revelry took place in the court-yard, and lasted till long after dawn. Notwithstanding the affected fervour of their religious zeal, some of the Afghans unscrupulously broke the law of their Prophet by copious libations of the strictly forbidden drink. Bang, a spirituous liquor, was freely circulated round, and its effects were shown in louder shouting, coarser jests, and more savage threats. It was as if demons were holding their revels below.

As day advanced the noises gradually ceased; no banquet can last for ever; most of the revellers were stretched in drunken slumber. But Mustapha had effectually provided against the escape of his victims by placing an armed guard of the more sober of his men to watch in turns in front of the ladder. The opening of the door above would be a signal for instant attack, or the fugitives would be shot down, one by one, as they emerged from their prison.

It was a time when the faith of the Christians in that upper room was tried in a very hot furnace. The courage of Fatima, Mir Ghazan's wife, was not equal to the trial. The poor woman beat her breast, and tore her hair, and declared that Allah had forsaken them, and given them up to their foes.

"Allah never forsakes His children," said Sultána. "As soon, O Fatima, could I desert this babe who is dearer to me than my life's-blood. Dost thou not remember what our Feringhee friend told us of the pillar of cloud and fire which guided Beni-Israel? When the fierce enemy pursued with his horses and chariots, an enemy thirsting for blood, did not that pillar stand as a wall of defence between the weak and the strong, the faithful and their pursuers? The God of Israel is with us now, and will either save or strengthen us to endure!"

Not once did the faith or the courage of the young Afghan fail through all that terrible day. When Sultána had owned her Saviour at baptism she had counted the cost, she had known that she was entering on a path which might lead to martyrdom, following in the track of Him who had endured it in its most terrible form. Sultána now cheered and encouraged her companions, and hushed her little infant to rest with hymns of praise.

The hours passed on--how terribly slowly! The heat increased, every throat was parched with thirst. Fatima crouched in one corner, moaning and weeping. Mir Ghazan found some repose in sleep. Ali Khan stood with arms folded, stern and still. He thought of what men in like desperate circumstances have done--how the husband has slain the wife of his bosom, and then rushed forth to die. But such deeds are not for Christians; their consciences are bound, their hands are tied--they must wait till Allah send death to release them. Sultána saw her husband's stern eyes turned towards the opening through which the wretched Denis had passed; she read the thought which flashed through Ali Khan's mind at that moment, before it found expression in words.

"On one side the precipice, on the other the foe; there the short agony--the fall--here lingering death by thirst and starvation. Such is the choice now left us, and yet--we trusted in God!"

"We trust yet and will trust!" cried Sultána, "did not the friend teach us the word, _Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him!_"

"Mother of Rahim!"* said Ali Khan; "thy faith is stronger than mine. It is well that we have hope in heaven, on earth there is nought but despair."

* The Oriental style of addressing a woman by the name of her child--not her own.

"Nay, not despair, my lord," said the young Eagle, her eye still bright though her wan cheek and parched lip told of physical suffering; "a wild fit of madness has seized the tribe. Mustapha has cast over them an evil spell; but the madness may pass away and the spell be broken. Let my lord be assured that some true hearts are with him still. Yar Mohammed will never forget who saved his life when the bear was clawing his face; nor Sadik Khan who nursed him, as a brother might, in his sickness. Hossein Ghazi--I could answer for his truth; he served my father and my father's father--he never will forsake their daughter. Let us but gain a little time till the first frenzy has spent its force, and then appeal to the honour and loyalty of our gallant Pathans. Wot not, my lord, how our friend would sway our fierce warriors by his powerful words, till eyes that never before were wet, eyes wont to look on bloodshed unmoved, were dim with strange tears, and proud spirits were bowed like trees when the wind sweeps past?"

"The Feringhee spake with power," said the chief; "his words were like the bullet from a gun aimed with skill, and sent with force--the bullet that strikes, and down falls the deer! _My_ words are like the bullet thrown by an unskilled hand--it either falls short of the quarry, or if it reach it would not ruffle a hair. I never knew how to use any argument but one--the strength of my own right hand, and of that my new faith deprives me. Ha! what is that sound! they are at us again!" he exclaimed.

Mustapha perhaps thought, like Sultána, that the wild rage of the men whom he had seduced from their allegiance to their brave chief, might be like some mountain torrent, though furious quickly spent. He would leave them small space to consider. About two hours before sunset, when the greater number of his followers had awoke from their drunken slumber, Mustapha again led an assault up the ladder. He now applied other means to burst open the door. A strong ruffian, by his orders, wielding a heavy hatchet, dealt blow after blow on the wood. Every thud was echoed by a faint shriek from Mir Ghazan's terrified wife.

Ha! a portion of the wood gives way, a splinter flies into the room, a breach is made--not large, but wide enough to admit the muzzle of Mustapha's pistol, and long enough to let him take aim.

"I have him now! Dog of a renegade, die!" exclaimed Mustapha, aiming the pistol at the head of Ali Khan, who was not two yards' distant.

Sultána sprang forward, and interposed her own form between the deadly weapon and her husband. "Fire!" she cried, "but your bullet will only reach the heart of a woman!"

"Give up Ali Khan! we thirst for no blood but his!" cried the savage Mustapha.

Ali Khan himself unlocked and flung open the door. "Here is your chief!" he exclaimed, manfully facing his foes.

Ali's sudden appearance somewhat startled Mustapha, but far more was he startled by a loud voice of command which suddenly rang through the court-yard behind him--

"A pistol levelled at your chief! can ye behold it, Pathans, and not strike down the villain! Seize him--seize the false traitor!"

The faithful Mir Ghazan dashed forward, and seized Mustapha by the throat. There was a brief desperate struggle between the two men, in which the pistol went off. Its contents were lodged in the brain of Mustapha.

"Shot by his own pistol--the judgment of God!" exclaimed Walter, for it was he who had given the order, as the bleeding corpse of Mustapha fell heavily from the height to the ground.

"The judgment of God!" repeated many voices with subdued awe, as if he who spake the words was a prophet. Walter stood amongst the wild mountaineers as one in command.

"What is all this?" he said to the chief, who, springing down the steps, was now warmly embracing his deliverer. "What has caused this mad tumult?"

"The tribe are weary of a chief who is a Christian," was Ali Khan's brief reply.

"The tribe!" repeated Walter. "Not half of them are present. And do men without sense of religion," he continued, looking sternly around, "men who break the laws of him whom they call their Prophet"--(he pointed indignantly to the traces of the drunken revel)--"do such pretend to zeal for their faith!" The Moslems cowered beneath the Englishman's glance and scathing words. "We will know what is indeed the will of the tribe. Mir Ghazan, Hossein Ghazi, summon every man to meet us here to-morrow at sunrise; let none be absent. And in the meantime, remove the corpse of that traitor."

"We'll throw it to the jackals," exclaimed Mir Ghazan.

"No!" cried Ali Khan, "give it burial. Christians avenge not themselves on their enemies, be they living or dead."

"Ah, Sultána, my brave child!" exclaimed Walter, all the sternness of his countenance softening to an expression of paternal tenderness as he beheld the young wife and mother, with her infant in her arms, descending the blood-stained steps, radiant with unspeakable delight.

"I knew that our friend would return! I knew that the Lord would send help! Glory--glory to His name!" exclaimed Sultána, the tears which suffering could not bring, now welling from her beautiful eyes.

If anything dashed the joy which the missionary experienced at that moment, it was a feeling of self-reproach and shame that he had so hesitatingly, doubtingly, gloomily followed the pillar which had led him back to the Afghan mountains,--nay, that he had all but given up following its guidance. Had his return been delayed for but one day longer--one hour--nay, five minutes, he would have arrived too late.