“How boldly you answer, rash youth, for another’s pardon, for another’s life!  Are you sure of your own life, your own liberty?”

“Who should desire my poor life?  To whom should be dear the liberty which I do not prize myself?”

“To whom?  Think you that the pillow does not move under the Shamkhal’s head, when the thought rises in his brain, that you, the true heir of the Shamkhalat of Tarki, are in favour with the Russian Government?”

“I never reckoned on its friendship, nor feared its enmity.”

“Fear it not, but do not despise it.  Do you know that an express, sent from Tarki to Yermoloff, arrived a moment too late, to request him to show no mercy, but to execute you as a traitor?  The Shamkhal was before ready to betray you with a kiss, if he could; but now, that you have sent back his blind daughter to him, he no longer conceals his hate.”

“Who will dare to touch me, under Verkhoffsky’s protection?”

“Hark ye, Ammalat; I will tell you a fable:—­A sheep went into a kitchen to escape the wolves, and rejoiced in his luck, flattered by the caresses of the cooks.  At the end of three days he was in the pot.  Ammalat, this is your story.  ’Tis time to open your eyes.  The man whom you considered your first friend has been the first to betray you.  You are surrounded, entangled by treachery.  My chief motive in meeting you was my desire to warn you.  When Seltanetta was asked in marriage, I was given to understand from the Shamkhal, that through him I could more readily make my peace with the Russians, than through the powerless Ammalat—­that you would soon be removed in some way or other, and that there was nothing to be feared from your rivalry.  I suspected still more, and learned more than I suspected.  To-day I stopped the Shamkhal’s nouker, to whom the negotiations with Verkhoffsky were entrusted, and extracted from him, by torture, that the Shamkhal offers a thousand ducats to get rid of you.  Verkhoffsky hesitates, and wishes only to send you to Siberia for ever.  The affair is not yet decided; but to-morrow the detachment retires to their quarters, and they have resolved to meet at your house in Bouinaki, to bargain about your blood.  They will forge denunciations and charges—­they will poison you at your own table, and cover you with chains of iron, promising you mountains of gold.”  It was painful to see Ammalat during this dreadful speech.  Every word, like red-hot iron, plunged into his heart; all within him that was noble, grand, or consoling, took fire at once, and turned into ashes.  Every thing in which he had so long and so trustingly confided, fell to pieces, and shrivelled up in the flame of indignation.  Several times he tried to speak, but the words died away in a sickly gasp; and at last the wild beast which Verkhoffsky had tamed, which Ammalat had lulled to sleep, burst from his chain:  a flood of curses and menaces poured from the lips of the furious Bek.  “Revenge, revenge!” he cried, “merciless revenge, and woe to the hypocrites!”