The garrison were promised their lives and liberty to depart.

They were attacked at night by an armed party, who may have been Hyder's horsemen, but who were perhaps merely a party of mounted robbers, who thought that they might be able to take some loot.

Most likely they were defeated, especially as you saw no other captives in the party, but in the confusion of the night attack, one of them probably came upon you, and carried you off, thinking you would be an acceptable present here, and that he would get a reward for you from the sultan.
"Are you not noticed, when you go into the streets on errands ?" "No; I always go veiled.

Except the slaves who are old and ugly, all the others wear veils when they go outside the Palace, and we all wear a red scarf, which shows we are servants in the harem; and so, even when the town is full of rough soldiers, no one ventures to speak to us.
"Now tell me, Dick--you see I have not forgotten--all about how you came to be here." Dick told her, briefly, how he had come out with his mother; and how, finding war had broken out, he had joined the army; and how, at the end of the war, having been able to learn nothing about his father, he had come up with Surajah to search for him.
"And then you saw that tiger break in," the girl said, eagerly.

"That was dreadful.