“That may be; but there is a religious side to Mullah Nour’s wrath against you; he knows that you are a partisan of Ali, and he has sworn to slay all who believe in Ali.”

  “A partisan of Ali, I? Why, I would pluck him by the beard, this Ali and his twelve caliphs! What is more, if I had lived in Egypt in the time of the Fatimites, I should not have rested until I had dragged them from the throne. I am a Sunnite, pray understand, a Sunnite, heart and soul! Who is he, this Ali?

  An atom of dust, — I give a puff and it flies away; a grain of sand, — I crush it under foot as I walk.”

  “But, above all, look you, the thing Mullah Nour will never forgive you is your friendship for Iskander, his mortal enemy.”

  “My friendship!” cried Yussef.

  “Was it not a proof of friendliness, then, your accompanying him to Schach Dagh?”

  “Of friendliness, no doubt, directed especially toward my own pleasure.”

  “Well, the affair has ended rather worse for him than for you, and his head has fallen before yours.”

  “His head has fallen?” echoed Yussef. “Ah, well, it was no great loss, that. His head was not of much account. But instead of bearing me ill-will, Mullah Nour ought to thank me, since it was I who brought him Iskander, who delivered him up, bound hand and foot. Iskander my friend? A precious friend he is now! but when he was alive, I would have exchanged him for a piece of gingerbread. Iskander my friend! one of the greatest rakes in Derbend, who ate ham with the Russian officers? He my friend? I would burn his mother’s beard.”

  “Wretch that you are! Leave the dead in peace. If fear had not turned your head, you would reflect that his mother could n’t have a beard.”

  “No beard? Why, I tell you, myself, that she used to shave. Allah! the number of razors that she broke! Iskander’s friend? I? — why, would I have been such a fool as to make a friend of a man whose father was a brigand, whose mother was a lunatic, and whose uncle made boots?”

  “I am tired of hearing you perjure yourself, renegade! liar! tongue of a dog! Bend your neck, the sword is raised!”

  Iskander made his schaska whistle around Yussef’s head; but instead of touching him with its blade, with his usual skill he lifted on its point the handkerchief that bandaged his eyes.

  Yussef, terror-stricken, looked at his pretended executioner and recognized. skander.

  He uttered a cry and sat stupefied.

  “Well, and what do you see, you wild boar stuffed with folly? Come, tell me again that my father was a brigand, my mother was a lunatic, and my uncle made boots!”

  Yussef, instead of seeking pardon and looking confused, burst out laughing, and threw himself upon Iskander’s neck.

  “Ah! then I have managed to put you in a rage. There was no lack of skill on my part. It took a long time, but I succeeded at last. Ha! ha! snare a nightingale, and catch a crow! Why, do you think that, with the very first word, I did not recognize your voice, — — your voice, the voice of my best friend? Why, I should know it amidst the crying of jackals, the mauling of cats, and the barking of dogs!”

  “Very well; you knew me?”

  “Do you doubt it?”

  “No; you scoffed at me.”

  “Just for a laugh, a joke, — for nothing else; you understand, surely?”

  “But how about your surrendering to Mullah Nour’s wife? How about your letting her disarm you?”

  “Do you not recall having seen at the house of the commandant of Derbend an engraving which represents a very beautiful woman indeed, unlacing the breastplate of a beg called Mars? Underneath, it says in Russian: Mars disarmed by Venus. That is the reason why I allowed myself to be disarmed, my dear friend. Why, to such a beautiful creature I would have given up everything, Iskander, from my bourka to my heart. I would like to know what you would have done, you rogue, on meeting her face to face. Such a nose! such eyes! and a mouth no bigger than the hole in a pearl bead! And her figure, too! A connoisseur like you would have noticed her figure. I longed to rob her of her belt to make me a ring.”

  “And so it was for love that you let yourself be bound, and that is why you followed her at the end of a rope?”

  “I would have followed her at the end of a hair.”

  “Perhaps; yet one thing is very certain, — you will not talk in Derbend, and especially in my presence, of your devotion to Goulchade.”

  “Goulchade? Her name is Goulchade? What a charming name! But you are the one that is making me prate; that is the reason why I have not asked how you chance to be here.”

  Iskander briefly related what had passed between him and Mullah Nour. When he reached the point of the brigand’s fall over the precipice, Yussef interrupted him.

  “Then he must be dead!” said he.

  “No.”

  “What! not dead?”

  Iskander told how he had saved Mullah Nour and returned him to his men.

  “Then he is there, this dear Mullah Nour?” demanded Yussef.

  “No, he has gone away.”

  “Where?”

  “On an expedition.”

  “You are very sure of it?”

  “I have seen the dust flying after his last horseman.”

  “And he fell from a height of five hundred feet, say you, and the devil did not break his neck? and he did not shatter his arms and legs into a thousand pieces? I shall spit on the gun of that brigand yet. Ah! if he had come to bar my way himself, instead of sending his wife, I should have taught him how to write the word brave. But he did not dare, the coward!”

  “Come, come, be silent, you braggart! Why, if you had met Mullah Nour in person, you would have left off lying and boasting, for you would have been frightened to death.”

  “Frightened! I? Learn, my dear Iskander, that there is but one man in the whole world that can make me afraid, and he is the man I see in the mirror when I look at myself.”

  This time Iskander could not contain himself. The gasconade was so strong, even for a Tartar, that he burst out laughing.

  “Come,” said he, “enough of this. You have just taught me something new about yourself, and yet I thought I knew you very well. To horse! and away, brave Yussef!”

  “You know the road?”

  “Yes; Mullah Nour pointed it out to me.”

  “Well, go ahead and I will follow you, and he shall fare ill that attacks us in the rear.”

  Iskander took the path which the bandit had shown him.

  Watching them from below, one would certainly not have thought that human beings would venture on such a road.

  When they had reached the snow line. Iskander gave his horse to Yussef to hold, and he alone, jar in hand, began to scale the highest peak.

  For the first time, this virginal snow was receiving the imprint of a human foot.

  Iskander prostrated himself upon the peak where, hitherto, only the angels had prayed.

  When he lifted his head and gazed about, he looked upon a land of marvellous beauty.

  Before him ran down the whole chain of mountains which extend from the Caspian Sea to the Avari; his sight penetrated the depth of the valleys, where he saw rivers as shining and slender as silken threads.

  All was calm and silent. Iskander was too far distant to be able to distinguish either men or animals; too high up to hear a sound.

  He might have remained a long time admiring the splendid spectacle, had not the atmosphere, totally free at this height from all terrestrial vapors, been too rare for human lungs.

  The young beg’s every artery began to throb, as if the blood, not being sufficiently compressed by the air, were ready to issue from the pores.

  He then bethought him to acquit himself of his mission, and in his profound faith that everything was possible to the God between whom and himself nothing seemed to intervene, he formed a ball of snow, placed it in his vase, and began to descend, holding the vessel high above his head, in order that, in accordance with the decree, it should not be sullied by contact with the earth.

  The descent was as difficult as the ascent, in a very different way; but throughout the entire expedition, a higher power had seemed to watch over Iskander.

  At the end of almost an hour he found himself beside Yussef.

  Yussef questioned him, hut Iskander shook his head. Yussef tried to engage him in jest, but Iskander gravely pointed to the sky.

  He was descending to the plain, full of the sublimity of those tall summits.

  “Umph!” said Yussef, “you must have taken a bite of the sun up there; you seem afraid of dropping a morsel if you open your mouth.”

  But Yussef spoke in vain; he did not succeed in extracting a single word from Iskander.

  He finally became silent in turn.

  In spite of all their haste, our travellers did not arrive at Derbend until far into the night, and long after the gates had been shut.

  Iskander’s heart beat as if it would rend his breast; fear, doubt, hope, challenged each other with every throb. He hung the jar on a branch of a tree, and moodily regarded, sometimes the black wall, which separated him from what he held dearest on earth, sometimes the heavens, which seemed to be frowning at him. He appeared to be asking all Nature: “Must I fear! May I hope!”

  Ere long he saw with joy that clouds were gathering in the sky and stealing over the brilliant face of the moon.

  Overjoyed, he plucked the sleeping Yussef by the arm and exclaimed, —

  “Look, Yussef! look at these clouds scudding across the heavens, hurrying like a flock of sheep!”

  “A flock of sheep!” muttered Yussef. “Pick out the tenderest, and take the ramrod from my gun to make chislik out of him. I am literally dying of hunger.”

  “Listen to the animal,” said Iskander; “he never thinks of anything but his stomach. The sheep that I am talking about are in the clouds, Yussef; it is going to rain, my friend.”

  “Ah!” murmured Yussef, “if that meant larks, I would get under the spout, with my mouth wide open, too!”

  “Well, sleep then, brute, for there is a proverb that says: ‘Who sleeps, dines.’”

  “Good-night, Iskander!” said Yussef, yawning.

  And lie went to sleep on his bourka. As for Iskander, he did not close his eyes during the night, nor did he cease scanning the heavens, which became more and more overcast.

  At daybreak the gates of Derbend were opened, and in a brief space of time it was known throughout the town that Iskander had arrived with the snow from Schach Dagh.

  After a short prayer, the mullahs, accompanied by the people, led the way to the sea.

  Iskander modestly bore the vessel containing the melted snow; but Yussef, the centre of an immense crowd, narrated with great gusto the events of their journey. Only, in Yussef’s story, Iskander wholly disappeared. As for himself, Yussef, he had gone so near to heaven as to hear the snoring of the seven sleepers and the voices of the houris. He had suffered horribly from the cold; but, fortunately”, he had got warmed up in a fight with two bears and a serpent of frightful dimensions. He had wished to bring home the serpent’s skin, and had flayed it for that purpose; but his horse was so terribly afraid of it that he was obliged to abandon it on the way. However, he knew exactly where it lay, and, on the morrow, he would send the muezzin to fetch it.

  But, however interesting Yussef’s tales might be, he had not a single auditor when the time came for Iskander to turn the water from his jar into the sea.

  Since early morning a high wind had been blowing; but the wind brought no rain, — not one drop of water fell.

  When, after a long prayer by the mullah, Iskander was ready to empty his jar into the Caspian, he turned to Festahli, who was walking in the front rank, and said, —

  “Remember your promise.”

  “Remember the conditions,” Festahli in turn replied. “Your fate lies not with those now, but with the rain. If you are dear to Allah, you are very dear to me.”

  Iskander elevated the jar above his head, and in the sight of all he poured the snow-water from Schach Dagh into the sea.

  Immediately, as if by magic, a great tempest arose; clouds, which seemed charged with rain, blackened the sky; thunder was heard rumbling in the distance; the leaves, violently agitated by the wind, shook off the dust which covered them. Young Tartar girls peeped brightly from the veils which the wind tried to snatch from their heads. The hands of all were outstretched to feel the first drops of the rain so impatiently awaited. At last a flash rent the dome of clouds amassed above Derbend, and it seemed as if all the windows of heaven had opened at once in another deluge.

  A torrent of rain poured from the clouds and flooded the land of Daghestan.

  This time no one dreamed of fleeing, no one thought even of opening his umbrella.

  Not joy, but delirium, possessed the people.

  Papaks flew up into the air and fell back into the water; prayers and shrieks of delight joined in flight to heaven. They hugged each other, they congratulated each other, they gazed at the water which was descending like a giant waterfall, or rather, like a hundred waterfalls, from Tartar city to Russian city, and leaping from the citadel into the sea.

  Iskander alone felt more joy within himself than all the other inhabitants of Derbend put together.

  For him, a wife was coming down from heaven with the rain.

  CHAPTER XI.

  TWO HOLY MEN.

  YOUTH — what is it without love? Love — what is it without youth?

  The fire burns readily in pure air, and what air is purer than the breath of spring?

  True, the walls of Mussulmans’ courts are high, and the locks of their gates are strong; but the wind blows over the walls and through the key-holes.

  The hearts of beautiful women are well protected, — they are kept behind the padlocks of a thousand prejudices; but love is like the wind, — it easily finds a passage.

  Kassime was already in love without the courage to confess it. Iskander Beg had the most of her thoughts by day and the most of her dreams by night; while embroidering in advance with gold, as every young Tartar girl does, the pistol-case for the fiancé whom she did not know, Kassime kept saying to herself, —

  “Oh! if this might be Iskander’s!”

  Judge, then, of her joy when her uncle came officially to announce that she was the promised bride of this handsome young man!

  She became redder than a cherry, and her heart began to beat like a wild dove’s.

  And so her dearest and most secret wishes were to be realized.

  From that moment, her nameless hopes were called Iskander; from that moment she could receive with pride the congratulations of her companions, and, in her conversations with them, she, too, could speak of her future husband.

  As for Iskander, he did not feel the earth under his feet, and to console himself for not being allowed to see his promised bride, he thought of her incessantly.

  “She will work here on this rug; she will drink out of this cup; she will refresh her rosy cheeks with the water from this silver ewer; she will sleep under this satin coverlet.”

  Into those countries of the Caucasus that follow the religion of Ali, there frequently come priests and mullahs from Persia to expound the Koran and recount the miracles of their imdms.

  This, as a rule, takes place in the month of May.

  Beginning with the first day of this month, the Shiites celebrate the death of Hussein, Ali’s son, who, after the death of his father, rebelled against Yazid, son of Moawyah, with the intention of seizing the caliphate; but engaging in battle with Obaid Allah, Yazid’s general, ho was killed in the combat. The Shiites celebrate the anniversary of this event with great splendor. The fete takes place at night, by the light of numberless torches; and this time, coming from Tabbas to direct the fête, Mullah Sédek had remained in Derbend throughout the entire month of May.

  Mullah Sédek was a man of forty years, affecting extreme dignity, for which reason he walked as slowly as a man of seventy, — in a word, for twenty paces round him he exhaled the odor of sanctity and attar of rose.

  And yet, while Sédek’s eyes were raised to heaven, he never quite lost sight of earth. He had few friends; but as soon as a man came to him with money in his hand, that man found a welcome. He had reaped a rich harvest of presents at Derbend, but it was his desire to carry away something else besides money and jewels. He thought of marrying, and after having secured information as to the best matches in the city, he made overtures to Hadji Festahli, with respect to his niece, whom he knew to be richly endowed.

  He began his overtures by flattering Hadji Festahli, and as vanity was the weakness of Kassime’s uncle, Sédek had, in a short time, come to be his most intimate friend.

  “Ahsaid Sédek,” the end of the world is not far distant now. Houtte, the fish on whose back the universe rests, is weary of bearing, along with the weight of men, the otherwise heavy burden of their sins. The Mussulmans are corrupt: they worship money; they wear decorations in their button-holes and ribbons of many colors on their swords. Truly, I know not what would have become of Derbend when she was threatened by the Lord, if you had not been there to act with your virtues as a counterpoise to the crimes of the people. You are a pure man, a respectable man, a holy man, a true Shiite; you are in league with neither the Armenians nor the Russians. The only thing I will not and cannot believe is that you are marrying your niece to this wretched Iskander, who i3 as poor as a dervish’s dog. When I heard that report I said to myself: ‘It is not possible! A man like Hadji Festahli would not cast the pearl of the prophet into the mud; he will not give his brother’s daughter to the first-comer.’ No, I am sure it is either a lie or a jest.”

  “And yet, it is the truth,” admitted Festahli, quite embarrassed.

  And he told Sédek the whole story; how Iskander had made his conditions, and how he himself had been obliged to consent to this marriage.