“You are a strange fellow, Ammalat; you do not love Verkhoffsky for the very reason that he most merits frankness and affection!”

“Who told you that I do not love him?  How can I but love the man who has educated me—­my benefactor?  Can I not love any one but Seltanetta?  I love the whole world—­all men!”

“Not much love, then, will fall to the share of each!” said Saphir Ali.

“There would be enough not only to quench the thirst, but to drown the whole world!” replied Ammalat, with a smile.

“Aha!  This comes of seeing beauties unveiled—­and then to see nothing but the veil and the eyebrows.  It seems that you are like the nightingales of Ourmis; you must be caged before you can sing!”

Conversing in this strain, the two friends disappeared in the depths of the forest.

CHAPTER VII.

FRAGMENT OF A LETTER FROM COLONEL VERKHOFFSKY TO HIS BETROTHED.

Derbend, April.

Fly to, me, heart of my heart, dearest Maria!  Rejoice in the sight of a lovely vernal night in Daghestan.  Beneath me lies Derbend, slumbering calmly, like a black streak of lava flowing from the Caucasus and cooled in the sea.  The gentle breeze bears to me the fragrant odour of the almond-trees, the nightingales are calling to each other from the rock-crevices, behind the fortress:  all breathes of life and love; and beautiful nature, full of this feeling, covers herself with a veil of mists.  And how wonderfully has that vaporous ocean poured itself over the Caspian!  The sea below gleams wavingly, like steel damasked with gold on an escutcheon—­that above swells like a silver surge lighted by the full moon, which rolls along the sky like a cup of gold, while the stars glitter around like scattered drops.  In a moment, the reflection of the moonbeams in the vapours of the night changes the picture, anticipating the imagination, now astounding by its marvels—­now striking by its novelty.  Sometimes I seem to behold the rocks of the wild shore, and the waves beating against them in foam.  The billows roll onward to the charge:  the rocky ramparts repel the shock, and the surf flies high above them; but silently and slowly sink the waves, and the silver palms arise from the midst of the inundation, the breeze stirs their branches, playing with the long leaves, and they spread like the sails of a ship gliding over the airy ocean.  Do you see how she rolls along, how the spray-drops sparkle on her breast, how the waves slide along her sides.  And where is she?... and where am I?...  You cannot imagine, dearest Maria, the sweetly solemn feeling produced in me by the sound and sight of the sea.  To me, the idea of eternity is inseparable from it; of immensity—­of our love.  That love seems to me, like it, infinite—­eternal.  I feel as if my heart overflowed to embrace the world, even as the ocean, with its bright waves of love.  It is in me and around me; it is the only great and