But Seltanetta turned pale—­bowing her head like a flower, when she heard of this new and more cruel separation.  Her look, as it dwelt upon Ammalat, showed painful apprehension—­the pain of prophetic sorrow.

“Allah!” she mournfully exclaimed:  “more forays, more slaughter.  When will blood cease to be shed in the mountains?”

“When the mountain torrents run milk, and the sugar-canes wave on the snowy peaks!” said the Khan.

CHAPTER IV.

Wildly beautiful is the resounding Terek in the mountains of Darial.  There, like a genie, borrowing his strength from heaven, he wrestles with Nature.  There bright and shining as steel, cutting through the overshadowing cliff, he gleams among the rocks.  There, blackening with rage, he bellows and bounds like a wild beast, among the imprisoning cliffs:  he bursts, overthrows, and rolls afar their broken fragments.  On a stormy night, when the belated traveller, enveloped in his furry bourka, gazing fearfully around him, travels along the bank which hangs over the torrent of Terek, all is terror such as only a vivid imagination can conceive.  With slow steps he winds along, the rain-torrents stream around his feet, and tumble upon his head from the rocks which frown above and threaten his destruction.  Suddenly the lightning flashes before his eyes—­with horror he beholds but a black cloud above him, below a yawning gulf, beside him crags, and before him the roaring Terek.  At one moment he sees its wild and troubled waves raging like infernal spirits chased by the archangel’s brand.  After them, with a shout as of laughter, roll the huge stones.  In another moment, the blinding flash is gone, and he is plunged once more in the dark ocean of night:  then bursts the thunder-crash, jarring the foundations of the rocks, as though a thousand mountains were dashed against each other, so deafeningly do the echoes repeat the bellow of the heavens.  Then a long-protracted growl, as of massive oaks plucked up by their roots, or the crash of bursting rocks, or the yell of the Titans as they were hurled headlong into the abyss; it mingles with the war of the blast, and the blast swells to a hurricane, and the rain pours down in torrents.  And again the lightning blinds him, and again the thunder, answering from afar to the splinter-crash, deafens him.  The terrified steed rears, starts backward—­the rider utters a short prayer.

But after this how softly smiles the morning—­morn, in whose light Terek glides, and ripples, and murmurs!  The clouds, like a torn veil whirling on the breeze, appear and vanish fitfully among the icy peaks.  The sunbeams discover jagged profiles of the summits on the opposing mountain wall.  The rocks glitter freshly from the rain.  The mountain-torrents leap through the morning mist; and the mists themselves creep winding through the cliffs, even as the smoke from a cottage chimney, then twine themselves like a turban round some ancient tower, while Terek ripples on among the stones, curling as a tired hound who seeks a resting-place.