He came up with a horseman completely armed:  another horseman rode out of Khounzakh to meeting, and hardly did they perceive one another when they put their horses to full speed, rode up to each other, leaped down upon the earth, and suddenly drawing their swords, threw themselves with fury upon each other without uttering a word, as if blows were the customary salutation of travellers.  Ammalat Bek, whose passage they intercepted along the narrow path between the rocks, gazed with astonishment on the combat of the two adversaries.  It was short.  The horseman who was approaching the town fell on the stones, bedewing them with blood from a gash which laid open his skull; and the victor, coolly wiping his blade, addressed himself to Ammalat:  “Your coming is opportune:  I am glad that destiny has brought you in time to witness our combat.  God, and not I, killed the offender; and now his kinsmen will not say that I killed my enemy stealthily from behind a rock, and will not raise upon my head the feud of blood.”

“Whence arose your quarrel with him?” asked Ammalat:  “why did you conclude it with such a terrible revenge?”

“This Kharam-Zada,” answered the horseman, “could not agree with me about the division of some stolen sheep, and in spite he killed them all so that nobody should have them ... and he dared to slander my wife.  He had better have insulted my father’s grave, or my mother’s good name, than have touched the reputation of my wife!  I once flew at him with my dagger, but they parted us:  we agreed to fight at our first encounter, and Allah has judged between us!  The Bek is doubtless riding to Khounzakh—­surely on a vizit to the Khan?” added the horseman.

Ammalat, forcing his horse to leap over the dead body which lay across the road, replied in the affirmative.

“You go not at a fit time, Bek—­not at all at a fit time.”

All Ammalat’s blood rushed to his head.  “Why, has any misfortune happened in the Khan’s house?” he enquired, reining in his horse, which he had just before lashed with the whip to force him faster to Khounzakh.

“Not exactly a misfortune, his daughter Seltanetta was severely ill, and now”——­

“Is dead?” cried Ammalat, turning pale.

“Perhaps she is dead—­at least dying.  As I rode past the Khan’s gate, there arose a bustling, crying, and yelling of women in the court, as if the Russians were storming Khounzakh.  Go and see—­do me the favour”——­

But Ammalat heard no more, he dashed away from the astounded Ouzden; the dust rolled like smoke from the road, which seemed to be set on fire by the sparks from the horse’s hoofs.  Headlong he galloped through the winding streets, flew up the hill, bounded from his horse in the midst of the Khan’s court-yard, and raced breathlessly through the passages to Seltanetta’s apartment, overthrowing and jostling noukers and maidens, and at last, without remarking the Khan or his wife, pushed himself to the bed of the sufferer, and fell, almost senseless, on his knees beside it.