Sultan Akhmet Khan, learning what the people were assembling about in the street, rode up to the crowd.  “Coward!” he cried with mingled anger and contempt to the Ouzden:  “you are a disgrace to the name of Avaretz.  Now every Tartar may say, that we let wild beasts devour our guests, and that we know not how to defend them!  At least we know how to avenge him:  you have sworn upon the Koran, after the ancient usage of Avar, never to abandon your comrade in distress, and if he fall, not to return home without the skin of the beast ... thou hast broken thine oath ... but we will not break our law:  perish!  Three days shall be allowed thee to prepare thy soul; but then—­if Ammalat be not found, thou shalt be cast from the rock.  You shall answer for his head with your own!” he added, turning to his noukers, pulling his cap over his eyes and directing his horse towards his home.  Thirty mountaineers rushed in different directions from Khounzakh, to search for at least the remains of the Bek of Bouinaki.  Among the mountaineers it is considered a sacred duty to bury with honour their kinsmen and comrades, and they will sometimes, like the heroes of Homer, rush into the thickest of the battle to drag from the hands of the Russians the body of a companion, and will fall in dozens round the corpse rather than abandon it.

The unfortunate Ouzden was conducted to the stable of the Khan; a place frequently used as a prison.  The people, discussing what had happened, separated sadly, but without complaining, for the sentence of the Khan was in accordance with their customs.

The melancholy news soon reached Seltanetta, and though they tried to soften it, it struck terribly a maiden who loved so deeply.  Nevertheless, contrary to their expectation, she appeared tranquil; she neither wept nor complained, but she smiled no more, and uttered not a word.  Her mother spoke to her; she heard her not.  A spark from her father’s pipe burned her dress; she saw it not.  The cold wind blew upon her bosom; she felt it not.  All her feelings seemed to retire into her heart to torture her; but that heart was hidden from the view, and nothing was reflected in her proud features.  The Khan’s daughter was struggling with the girl:  it was easy to see which would yield first.

But this secret struggle seemed to choke Seltanetta:  she longed to fly from the sight of man, and give the reins to her sorrow.  “O heaven!” she thought; “having lost him, may I not weep for him?  All gaze on me, to mock me and watch my every tear, to make sport for their malignant tongues.  The sorrows of others amuse them, Sekina,” she added, to her maid; “let us go and walk on the bank of the Ouzen.”

At the distance of three agatcha [20] from Khounzakh, towards the west, are the ruins of an ancient Christian monastery, a lonely monument of the forgotten faith of the aborigines.

[Footnote 20:  “Agatcha,” seven versts, a measure for riding—­for the pedestrian, the agatcha is four versts.]