"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, Néphtali, 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 Kazáks are selling
his arms in the bazar. Néphtali, thy father was slain yesterday beyond
the Térek. 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,
Néphtali--that if you say to any one, 'I have seen the Khan of Avár,' my
vengeance will live from generation to generation."

The strangers passed on, the Khan in silence, plunged, as it seemed, in
painful recollections; Ammalát (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