[41] Tchinar, the palmated-leaved plane.

Another report soon interrupted his meditation; then another, and another.  Shot answered shot, and at length thickened into a warm fire.  “’Tis the Russians!” cried Ammalat, drawing his sabre.  He pressed his horse with the stirrup, as though he would have leaped over the ridge at a single bound; but in a moment his strength failed him, and the blade fell ringing on the ground, as his arm dropped heavily by his side.  “Khan!” said he, dismounting, “go to the succour of your people; your face will be worth more to them than a hundred warriors.”

The Khan heard him not; he was listening intently for the flight of the balls, as if he would distinguish those of the Russian from the Avarian.  “Have they, besides the agility of the goat, stolen the wings of the eagle of Kazbec?  Can they have reached our inaccessible fastnesses?” said he, leaning to the saddle, with his foot already in the stirrup.  “Farewell, Ammalat!” he cried at length, listening to the firing, which now grew hotter:  “I go to perish on the ruins I have made, after striking like a thunderbolt!” At this moment a bullet whistled by, and fell at his feet.  Bending down and picking it up, his face was lighted with a smile.  He quietly took his foot from the stirrup, and turning to Ammalat, “Mount!” said he, “you shall presently find with your own eyes an answer to this riddle.  The Russian bullets are of lead; but this is copper[42]—­an Avaretz, my dear countryman.  Besides, it comes from the south, where the Russians cannot be.”

     [42] Having no lead, the Avaretzes use balls of copper, as they
     possess small mines of that metal.

They ascended to the summit of the crest, and before their view opened two villages, situated on the opposite sides of a deep ravine; from behind them came the firing.  The inhabitants sheltering themselves behind rocks and hedges, were firing at each other.  Between them the women were incessantly running, sobbing and weeping when any combatant, approaching the edge of the ravine, fell wounded.  They carried stones, and, regardless of the whistling of the balls, fearlessly piled them up, so as to make a kind of defence.  Cries of joy arose from one side or the other, as a wounded adversary was carried from the field; a groan of sorrow ascended in the air when one of their kinsmen or comrades was hit.  Ammalat gazed at the combat for some time with surprise, a combat in which there was a great deal more noise than execution.  At length he turned an enquiring eye upon the Khan.

“With us these are everyday affairs!” he answered, delightedly marking each report.  “Such skirmishes cherish among us a warlike spirit and warlike habits.  With you, private quarrels end in a few blows of the dagger; among us they become the common business of whole villages, and any trifle is enough to occasion them.  Probably they are fighting about some cow that has been stolen.