The chief of police shook as if he had been stung by a scorpion, and laid his hand on his pistol.

  But the traveller bent down to his ear and said, —

  “Mouzaram Beg, if I were to give you a bit of advice, it would be that you do not meddle with old friends. I have come, too, for your own good; I can do you a service, only, let us go within. I can tell you something for which all Derbend will thank me. But if you make a doubtful sign, you know my pistol carries a ball, and that that ball goes, too, just where I wish it to go, as surely as if, instead of placing it with the eye, I were to place it with my finger. At the first move, then, I fire. I appear to be alone, but do not trust to that. A dozen of my brave men keep me in sight, and at my first summons they will be here. Come, lead the way, Mouzaram Beg.”

  The chief of police made no protest and went in first.

  What took place then? The interview was without witnesses; no one can tell.

  We know only that a quarter of an hour after entering, the unknown came out, calmly mounted his horse, threw a silver rouble to the noukar who had held the bridle, and left the city.

  But two days later it was told how the celebrated brigand Mullah Nour had had the audacity to enter the city; how, thanks to his active surveillance, the chief of police had been warned of his presence, and had sent after him a dozen noukars, to whom Mullah Nour was glad to show his horse’s heels.

  Ill-bred people said much worse; but one never has to believe what ill-bred people say.

  During this time poor Iskander was moping within the four walls of his house. He had but to say one word to establish his innocence; but he would a hundred times have preferred to die rather than dishonor Kassime.

  To await trial is purgatory for every native of Asia. An Asiatic can better sustain an undeserved punishment than a merited trial if the latter is delayed.

  “Ah!” he cried in his impatience, “eternal chains, the snows of Siberia, everything rather than the suspicion of the Russians, who force me to love them, and the mockery of my compatriots, whom I detest. I am ready to die by the sword, but to die by the rope is to die twice.”

  And, bound by his parole, he began to roar and rage like a caged tiger, to rend the sleeves of his tchourka and weep like a child.

  In the evening, at an hour when all the streets in the city were empty, when the houses were enlivened by the sound of voices and the flashing of lights, when the married Mussulman was enjoying repose of soul beside his wife, — even beside the four wives allotted him by the prophet, — and when, on the other hand, the celibate was moping at his hearth, Iskander, sitting by his own with his head thrust between his two hands, heard one of his window-panes crash under a blow from some object, and that object fell into his room.

  It was a pebble, to which was attached a small note.

  He unfolded it, and read, —

  “Mullah Nour to Iskander, greeting! Better to be a captive and innocent, than a free man and guilty, believe me.

  “I know all; I will declare everything in order to prove your innocence.

  “The rest lies with Allah.”

  “Patience and hope; your deliverance shall not be long in coming.”

  The next morning, Iskander was summoned before the commandant; but he had not had time to arrive before every one was already congratulating him upon the happy turn in his affairs.

  The robbers were captured; they had got together to divide the booty at Baktiara, where they had been surrounded and made prisoners.

  Two were Lesghians, two were men of that city.

  In the house of one of the latter was a double wall in which the plunder had been secreted.

  Iskander Beg was quite innocent.

  Then Iskander, deeply touched by the kindly regard bestowed on him by the commandant, in turn sought a private interview. He confessed all, — his love for Kassime, Festahli’s broken promise.

  The commandant listened, half smiling, half sad.

  “Iskander,” said he, “you see yourself into what your imprudence has led you. Festahli did wrong, doubtless; but one is not avenged of a wrong by doing wrong. Thieves of gold are not the only thieves; an upright man does nothing underhandedly. Secrecy and night are the cloaks of ravishers and brigands. Your future happiness occupies your heart; I shall do what I can to make it expand from your heart into your life. Adieu, Iskander. In the name of those who love you, remain what you are, and what you nearly ceased to be, — — an honest man!”

  And he pressed his hand affectionately, again wishing him happiness.

  Iskander was proclaimed innocent, Iskander was free; his enjoyment of the twofold happiness lasted but a moment. It was such grief for the young man to believe that he must renounce his Kassime.

  The kiss that he had snatched from her lips thrilled him yet to the depths of his heart. He recalled minutely every detail of his last meeting with his beloved; his soul seemed ready to fly at the thought of that sweet voice whose echo it had become.

  “No,” said he, “Mullah Nour has written nonsense, and as for what the commandant told me, it is easily seen that he is not in love. I am ready to purchase Kassime even with a crime, and I am sure that in spite of the crime I should be happy with her, — happy, even if I should be forced to carry her to the mountain, with her consent or without it. I will take her away, if only for an hour; I will steep my heart in heavenly delights.”

  Poor Kassime was sorrowful also. In her solitude she was learning with tears to count the hours of separation.

  “I fastened a rose on my breast,” sighed she, “and it whispered, ‘I am the Spring;’ a nightingale sang me his song of love, and I called it joy; Iskander looked into my eyes and gave me a kiss, and with that kiss I knew love. But where art thou, lovely rose? where art thou, sweet nightingale? where art thou, Iskander? They are gone where my happiness has flown.”

  CHAPTER XIII.

  THE MILLER.

  KNOW you the Tengua?

  It is sometimes a brooklet, sometimes a torrent, sometimes a stream, and at times a river.

  For a quarter of a verst it runs cramped within a narrow gorge, into which it plunges with abhorrence, and through which it madly courses.

  The storms of many centuries have not washed the blackened traces of lightning from the walls of the gorge where the Tengua thunders.

  Entire masses of rock, precipitated from the mountain’s height to the bottom of the gorge, form the bed over which it leaps and foams with maddening uproar.

  The neighborhood of this chasm is wild and gloomy; its entrance is formidable.

  The right bank of the torrent casts the shadow of its rocks far over the valley.

  The left bank lowers into the water a narrow path which first traverses a little wood.

  Ill luck to the horseman who, without guide, engages in a struggle with this liquid hell, especially at seasons of thaw or melting snow.

  Ill luck to him if he encounter brigands in this pass, which seems expressly planned for an ambuscade. Defence and flight are impossible here.

  At this spot Mullah Nour, the bandit from the book of whose life we are taking a page, — this very Mullah Nour with a dozen of his fellows stopped three regiments which were returning with the enormous spoils of General Pankratief’s expedition.

  When they were just on the point of descending into the river, he appeared before them mounted and completely armed, threw his bourka on the ground and said, —

  “I salute you, comrades! Allah has granted you victory and spoils. Honor be to you! but it would only be like the good Christians you are to let me share your happiness. I exact nothing, — I entreat; be generous, and let each give me what he will. Think now, brothers, you are returning rich, carrying presents to your relatives. As for me, I am poor, I have no home; and for an hour’s repose under others’ roofs, I pay a handful of gold. Yet, know you, brothers, men have, like cowards, stripped me of everything. Happily, Allah has preserved my courage; more than that, he has given me these gloomy ravines and these naked rocks which you yourselves scorn. Of these rocks and ravines I am king, and no one shall pass through my territories without my permission. You are in great numbers, you are brave; but if you mean to pass by force, it will cost you much blood, and of time much more, for you will cross only when I and my brave men have fallen. Every stone will fight for me, and as for myself, I will shed here the last drop of my blood; I will burn here my last grain of powder. Choose; you have much to lose, and I nothing. Men call me Nour, The Light, but my life, I swear, is gloomier than the darkness.”

  A murmur rose from the ranks of the troopers; some frowned, others were wrathful.

  “Let us trample Mullah Nour under our horses’

  feet,” said they, “and go on. You see how many we are, how many you are. On! let us charge the bandits!”

  But no one ventured first into the roaring stream, whose ford was covered by the guns of a dozen brigands.

  Rashness made way for reflection, and the three regiments yielded to Mullah Nour’s demands.

  “We shall give you what we like, and nothing more.”

  And so saying, each cavalier threw a little money down on the bandit’s bourka.

  “But understand that, by force, you could not have taken a nail from our horses’ shoes.”

  And they passed one by one in single file before Mullah Nour.

  Mullah Nour smilingly bowed to them.

  “Allah!” said he, after this adventure which had brought him three or four thousand roubles, “it is no feat to shear the wool from the sheep of Daghestan, when I have shaved the hair from the wolves of the Karabaeh. I do not know why these people of Daghestan should complain about their crops; I take no pains to sow, plough, or cultivate; I stand on the highway and pray, and my prayer brings me an ample harvest. Only know how to set about it, and you can extract an abassi, not from every carriage, but from every gun-barrel.”

  But early in the summer of the year in which the events that we are relating took place, no one had seen Mullah Nour, no one had heard Mullah Nour spoken of as on the banks of the Tengua. Where was he, then?

  In the government of Shekin perhaps; perhaps in Persia, where he might indeed have been forced to take refuge; and perhaps he was dead.

  Nobody knew anything about him, — not even Mullah Sédek, who pretended to have been robbed by him on his way from Persia to Derbend.

  He had left Kouban early in the morning, this worthy, this respectable Mullah Sédek, and, toward noon, he had reached the spot where the Tengua, freed from the confines of the gorge, goes on its way. Insatiate as the desert sand, he was unwilling to take a guide, whose trouble he must have paid for by a few paltry pieces of the coin that he had gathered by the bushel at Derbend.

  The June sun was terribly warm, and our wayfaring mullah was in the act of transferring his gun from the right shoulder to the left.

  When he caught sight of a little wood in the distance, he was delighted; but when he saw the river close at hand, he was in despair.

  “May the devil take me!” murmured he; “had I known what this river was like, I would not have attempted to cross it without a guide, although its bed were silver and gold instead of rocks. In fact, I was crazy not to have hired one.”

  And he gazed about him in terror; the spot was deserted and solitary.

  However, after careful search, he discovered, tied to a tree in the wood, a horse all saddled and bridled; and under this same tree was a simple Tartar, armed only with his kandjiar, a weapon that no Tartar ever goes without.

  Mullah Sédek approached step by step and looked attentively.

  The flour whitening the Tartar’s coat and beard indicated that he was a miller. The miller was eating his breakfast.

  Our holy man, who had felt his heart beat for an instant, became reassured.

  “Hi! friend!” cried he to the unknown, “it seems to me that you belong hereabouts, do you not?”

  “To be sure I belong here,” replied the miller with his mouth full.

  “In that case, you ought to know all the fords of this river?”

  “Oh! I certainly think I ought to know the fords of the Tengua; she runs only with my permission. Such as you see her, this river is my servant.”

  “You will do me a great service, my good man, and Allah will bless you, if you will conduct me to the other side of the gorge.”

  “Wait until night,” tranquilly returned the miller. “Between now and night the river will fall, my horse will be rested, and I, too, shall be refreshed. It will not take us more than a quarter of an hour then to ford the torrent; but just now it is dangerous.”

  “In the name of Allah! In the names of Ali and Hussein! In the name of my prayers! I am a mullah; lead me across without delay, now, instantly!”

  “Oh!” said the miller, “neither prayers nor blessings will bring that to pass. Never, at such high water, will I try to ford the Tengua!”

  “Have some feeling, my friend; Allah will reward you, you may be sure, if you do anything for a mullah.”

  “Mullah as much as you like, but I would not risk getting drowned to guide the prophet himself.”

  “Do not despise me; I am not so poor as you think, perhaps, and if you render me this service, it shall not be for nothing.”

  The miller smiled.

  “Well, let us see, what would you give me?” he said, scratching his beard.

  “I will give you two abassis; I hope that is reasonable.”

  “Good! two abassis? With two abassis I should not even have the means of getting my horse shod. No, I will not take you across for two roubles even; because a new head is not to be bought with two roubles, and a man would plainly be risking his head in that frightful ford.”

  They bargained a long time; at last Mullah Sédek ended by promising the sum exacted by the miller.

  On giving up his horse’s bridle to the guide, Mullah Sédek surrendered at discretion and trusted himself entirely to the other’s experience. The holy man nearly died of fright when he began to ford the river and penetrated the entrance of the gorge. But when, through the opposite gap, he again caught sight of the valley covered with grass, with sunlight and flowers, his courage revived, and supposing there was nothing more to fear, he addressed his guide, —

  “Come, will you get on a little faster, you rascal?”

  But our brave mullah had found his courage a little too soon. The last part of the ford was the deepest and most dangerous.

  The guide halted just at that part, and turning his horse, he said, —

  “Well, Sédek, ten steps more and you are on the bank. Now let us settle our accounts. You know that I have well earned your gold-piece, eh?”

  “A gold-piece! Have you no conscience, friend? No, you are joking, surely. I might as well have built me a silver bridge to cross on. Go on, now, good fellow, and on the other side I will give you two abassis and you can be off.”

  “Good! we shall come to better terms, I fancy.”

  “Undoubtedly, undoubtedly. Necessity — you hold a knife to my throat, and I must certainly cross over. Where do you expect a poor traveller to get so much money? Alas! I have already been robbed. Come, come, take me to the other side, brother; and once there, you can go about your business, and I will go about mine.”

  “Not so,” said the miller, shaking his head; “I told you, and I repeat that I will not leave this spot without having settled my account with you, and our account docs not date from to-day. You have no conscience, Mullah Sédek, but you doubtless have a memory. To excite sympathy and obtain money at Derbend, you invented the story that Mullah Nour had stopped you, stripped you, and taken everything. Tell me, where did that happen?”

  “I have never said such a thing!” cried Mullah Sédek; “may Allah condemn me if I said that!”

  “Recall the court of the mosque, Sédek; remember what you said to the Lesghian, what you told the wayfarer who slept on his bourka. And now look me in the face, as I am looking at you, and perhaps we shall recognize each other.”

  Mullah Sédek scanned the face of his guide; under the flour which covered it he was at first unrecognizable, but the flour had disappeared; gradually the whitened beard had become black; under the frowning brows glittered two black eyes. However, seeing that he had no weapon but his kandjiar, Mullah Sédek seized his gun; but before he could cock it, the kandjiar’s point was at his breast.

  “If you twitch so much as a hair of your moustache,” said the counterfeit miller, “I warn you that, like Jonah, you shall go to preach to the fishes against drinking either wine or brandy. Come, now, away with your gun, away with your sword! Your business is to cheat people in the shops and in the pulpit; to lie in the morning, to lie in the evening, to lie at all times; but fighting is the business of brave men, — not yours, therefore. Do not move, I say, you son of a dog! In this place, there is no need for me to waste even one charge of powder on you, and that is why I carry no fire-arms; I have only to drop your horse’s bridle, and in five minutes you are a corpse.”

  At these words Mullah Sédek turned as white as wax. He clutched his horse’s mane, conscious that he was growing dizzy, and about to slip from his saddle. But, without for an instant losing sight of the wicked kandjiar that glittered against his breast like a flashing light, he cried, —

  “Mercy! I am a mullah!”

  “I am myself a mullah,” responded the guide, “and even more than a mullah, — I am Mullah Nour.” Mullah Sédek gave a shriek and cowered to his horse’s mane, clasping both hands about his own neck, as if he already felt the steel’s sharp edge upon its nape.

  Mullah Nour began to laugh at Sédek’s terror; then raising him up at last, he said, —

  “Your story to the people of Derbend maligned me; you made everybody believe that I had robbed you of your last kopeck, of your last shirt even, — I, who give the poor man the bit of bread that he begs in vain at the rich man’s door, — I who never take more than one piece of gold from the merchants themselves, and that not for myself, but for my comrades, — comrades who would kill and plunder without shame and without remorse, did I not restrain them. And more than that, — you are the robber, for you meant to rob your guide by refusing him what you had promised; lastly, you are an assassin, for when I demanded what was legitimately my due you would have assassinated me.”