“We thank you for your kindness; but we are not wont to take forced hospitality; and haste is even more necessary for us than rest.”

“You ride to your death without a guide.”

“Guide!” exclaimed the traveller; “I know every step of the Caucasus.  I have been where your serpents climb not, your tigers cannot mount, your eagles cannot fly.  Make way, comrade:  thy threshold is not on God’s high-road, and I have no time to prate with thee.”

“I will not yield a step, till I know who and whence you are!”

“Insolent scoundrel, out of my way, or thy mother shall beg thy bones from the jackall and the wind!  Thank your luck, Nephtali, that thy father and I have eaten one another’s salt; and often have ridden by his side in the battle.  Unworthy son! thou art rambling about the roads, and ready to attack the peaceable travellers, while thy father’s corse lies rotting on the fields of Russia, and the wives of the Kazaks are selling his arms in the bazar.  Nephtali, thy father was slain yesterday beyond the Terek.  Dost thou know me now?”

“Sultan Akhmet Khan!” cried the Tchetchenetz, struck by the piercing look and by the terrible news.  His voice was stifled, and he fell forward on his horse’s neck in inexpressible grief.

“Yes, I am Sultan Akhmet Khan! but grave this in your memory, Nephtali—­that if you say to any one, ‘I have seen the Khan of Avar,’ my vengeance will live from generation to generation.”

The strangers passed on, the Khan in silence, plunged, as it seemed, in painful recollections; Ammalat (for it was he) in gloomy thought.  The dress of both bore witness to recent fighting; their mustaches were singed by the priming, and splashes of blood had dried upon their faces; but the proud look of the first seemed to defy to the combat fate and chance; a gloomy smile, of hate mingled with scorn, contracted his lip.  On the other hand, on the features of Ammalat exhaustion was painted.  He could hardly turn his languid eyes; and from time to time a groan escaped him, caused by the pain of his wounded arm.  The uneasy pace of the Tartar horse, unaccustomed to the mountain roads, renewed the torment of his wound.  He was the first to break the silence.

“Why have you refused the offer of these good people?  We might have stopped an hour or two to repose, and at dewfall we could have proceeded.”

“You think so, because you feel like a young man, dear Ammalat:  you are used to rule your Tartars like slaves, and you fancy that you can conduct yourself with the same ease among the free mountaineers.  The hand of fate weighs heavily upon us;—­we are defeated and flying.  Hundreds of brave mountaineers—­your noukers and my own—­have fallen in fight with the Russians; and the Tchetchenetz has seen turned to flight the face of Sultan Akhmet Khan, which they are wont to behold the star of victory!  To accept the beggar’s repast, perhaps to hear reproaches