Chapter IX: The Circassian and His Family

In those days Kasi Mollah did not go by the name of Murstud--_i.e._, a pillar of the faith. He was a simple sheik at Himri, in the northern part of the land of Circassia, a remote little place, where the Muscovite was no more than a rumor from afar.

Nature herself had fashioned a strong fortress around Himri. Immense mountain-chains enclosed it within massive walls on both sides, rising bleak, interminable, and ever upwards into the dim distance.

In the midst of this valley of eternal shadows arose a third rocky mass, forming--on both sides--a steep, ladder-like wall; and, after extending far among the other mountains, terminating in a ragged-looking, concave hill, defended by the junction of the impetuous mountain streams, which dug a deep hollow among the excavated rocks. Along this channel, running like a spinal cord throughout the backbone of the mountain, extended some few thousands of acres of luxuriant corn--a long but narrow strip.

At the head of an opening in the chain a rocky scaffolding was visible, about one hundred feet in height, as regularly disposed as if a number of gigantic dice had been designedly placed there one on the top of another. By a marvellous freak of Nature, this rocky conglomeration was provided apparently with towers, bastions, and buttresses; so that, viewed from afar, it looked like a gigantic fortress, and, on the very first glance at it, the thought involuntarily occurs to one that if but four guns were planted on those summits a few hundred men might defend themselves against an army-corps. At the rear of the hill, moreover, where the cataracts make any approach impossible, the flocks and herds of the defending army could go on contentedly browsing for years together.

A foolish idea! To whom would it ever occur to attack Himri, that tiny Circassian village with scarcely five hundred inhabitants, who have nothing in the world but their kine, their goats, and their pretty girls? Who would ever come against Himri with guns and an army--against those most worthy men who all their life long have never done anything but make cheese and tan hides, who only exercise their valor against the devastating bands of bears, and only extirpate with their long, far-reaching muskets the wild goats of the rocks?

They do not even build their houses on the summit of this wondrous fortress of Nature, but among the rocks below, constructing them prettily of regularly disposed logs, with roofs like dove-cots, surrounding them with linden-trees and flower-gardens. And so far from keeping a visitor at bay with cannon-shots, they go forth to meet him, conduct him into their villages, hospitably entertain him, insist on his tarrying long with them; and if the visitor be a handsome young fellow, the loveliest eyes that ever smiled and wept grow moist at his departure. Who amongst those who have been lulled to sleep in Himri by the songs of the lovely and bewitching Circassian girls could ever have dreamed that the time would come when these mountain walls all round about would be dyed red with the blood of thousands and thousands of strangers, who came thither to seek death, and found what they sought?

The house of the meritorious sheik differed in no respect from the dwellings of the other inhabitants. It also was entirely built of timber, consisted of four rooms leading one out of another, and two venerable nut-trees stood in front of it.

Kasi Mollah sits outside, leaning tranquilly against the door-post beneath the projecting eaves, both sides of which are covered by large scarlet-runners, plaiting with great care and solemnity a whip out of twelve fine thongs of kid-skin hanging on a crooked nail.

Squatting on the ground beside him on a bear-skin sits a peculiar-looking stranger. Even if you had not seen it in his features and clothing, his mules standing before the door would have told you that he did not belong to these parts. He was, indeed, a Greek merchant from Smyrna, who visited Circassia every year to purchase kid-skins--or, so he said. He had three palaces in Smyrna; but it is scarcely credible that he could have acquired them by his kid-skins only. At any rate, his mules were laden now with whole bundles of furs and pelts, and the merchant was toasting his host in a sour beverage, made by the Circassian from horse's milk, the evil odor of which he was striving to dispel with the smoke of good Latakia tobacco.

It was for him also that the Circassian was making that long mule-driving whip of thongs of twelve different colors, serpentine in shape, and plaited at the ends with beautiful white horse-hair; and when it was ready he smacked it so vigorously, by way of showing it off, that the merchant could scarce save his eyes from it.

"A pretty whip, and a good whip," he said, at last, in order that its owner might leave off cracking it.

"I'll very soon prove whether it is a good whip or not," said the Circassian, without moving a muscle of his brown, oval-shaped, apathetic face; and with that he began to make the handle of the whip out of fine copper wire of a fantastically ornate pattern nicely studded with leaden stars.

"How will you prove that it is a good whip?" asked the merchant.

"Stop till my children come home."

"Your _children_?"

"Yes, naturally. I should not think of proving it on other people's children."

"You are surely not going to prove the whip on your own?"

"On whom else, then? Children should be whipped in order that they may be good, that they may be kept in order, and that they may not get nonsense into their heads. 'Tis also a good thing to train them betimes to endure greater sorrow by giving them a foretaste of lesser ones, so that when they grow up to man's estate, and real misfortune overtakes them, they may be able to bear it. My father used always to beat me, and now I bless him for it, for it made a man of me. Children are always full of evil dispositions, and you do well to drive such things out of them with the whip."

A peculiar smile passed across the long, olive-colored face of the Greek at these words; he seemed to be only smiling to himself. Then he fixed his sly, coal-black eyes on the sheik, and inquired, sceptically:

"But surely you don't beat your children without cause?"

"Oh, there's always cause. Children are always doing something wrong; you have only to keep an eye on them to see that, and whoever neglects to punish them acts like him who should forbear to pull up the weeds in his garden."

"Kasi Mollah," said the Greek, puffing two long clouds of smoke through his nostrils, "I tell you, children are not your speciality, for you do not understand how to bring them up. In the whole land of Circassia there is none who knows how to bring up children."

"Then how comes it that our girls are the fairest and our youths the bravest on the face of the earth?"

"Your girls would be still more beautiful and your lads still more valiant if you brought them up in the land where dwell the descendants of white-bosomed Briseis and quick-footed Achilles. O Hellas!"

The Greek began to grow rapturous at the pronunciation of these classical names, and in his excitement blew sufficient smoke out of his chibook to have clouded all Olympus.

"I tell you. Kasi Mollah," continued he, "that children are the gifts of God, and he who beats a child lifts his whip, so to speak, against God Himself, for His hands defend their little bodies. You do but sin against your children. Give them to me!"

"You are a Christian; I am a Mussulman. How, then, shall you bring up my children?"

"Fear nothing. I do not want to keep them for myself; I mean rather to get them such positions as will enable them to rise to the utmost distinction. I would place them with some leading pasha, perhaps with the Padishah himself, or, at any rate, with one of his Viziers, all of whom have a great respect for Circassians."

"Thank you. Midas, thank you; but I don't mean to give them up."

"Prithee, prithee, call me not Midas; that is an ominous name which I do not understand. You might have learned any time these ten years, when I first came to buy pelts from you, that my name is Leonidas Argyrocantharides, and that I am a direct descendant of the hero Leonidas, who fell at Thermopylæ with his three hundred valiant Spartans. One of my great-great-grandfathers, moreover, fell at Issus, by the side of the great Alexander, from a mortal blow dealt to him by a Persian satrap. If you do not believe me, look at this ancient coin, and at these others, and at this whole handful which are in my purse, all of which were struck under Philip of Macedon, or else under Michel Kantakuzenos or Constantine Porphyrogenitus, all of whom were powerful Greek emperors in Constantinople, which now they call Stambul, and built the church of St. Sophia, where now the dervishes say their prayers; and then look at the figures which are stamped on these coins, and tell me if they do not resemble me to a hair. It is so. No, you need not give me back the money; give me rather the two little children."

The Circassian, who had taken the purse with the simple intention of comparing the figures on the coins with the face of the merchant, drew the strings of the purse tight again at this offer, and thrust it back into the merchant's bosom.

"Thank you," said he, dryly. "I deal in the skins of goats, not in the skins of men."

The face of the merchant showed surprise in all its features. Not every man possesses the art of controlling his countenance so quickly, especially when his self-command is put to so sudden and severe a test. The Georgians, more to the south, were a much more manageable race of men. With them one could readily drive a bargain for their daughters and give them a good big sum on account for their smallest children. One could purchase of them children from two to three years of age at from ten to twenty golden denarii a head, and sell them in ten years' time for just as many thousands of piastres to some illustrious pasha. This was how Leonidas was able to build himself palaces at Smyrna.

"You talk nonsense, my worthy Chorbadzhi," said the merchant, when he had somewhat recovered himself. "Shall I prove it to you? Well, then, in the first place, you do not sell your children, and, in the second place, why shouldn't you sell them? If a Circassian wrapped in a bear-skin comes to you and asks you for your daughter, would you not give her to him? And at the very outside he would only give you a dozen cows for her, and as many asses. I, on the other hand, offer you a thousand piastres for them from good, worthy, influential beys, or perhaps from the Sultan himself, and yet you haggle about it."

The sheik's face began to show wrath and irritation. He was well aware that the merchant was now dealing in sophisms, though his simple intellect could not quite get at the root of their fallacy. It was plain that there was a great difference between a Circassian dressed in bear-skin, who carries off a girl in exchange for a dozen cows, and the Captain-General of Rumelia, who is ready to give a thousand ducats for her--and yet he preferred the gentleman in bear-skins.

The Greek, meanwhile, appeared to be studying the features of the Circassian with an attentive eye, watching what impression his words had produced, like the experimenting doctor who tries the effects of his medicaments _in anima vili_.

"But I know that you will give them. Kasi Mollah," he resumed, filling up his chibook. "No doubt you have promised them to another trader. Well, well! you are a cunning rogue. Merchants of Dirbend or Bagdad have no doubt offered you more for them. They can afford it, they do such a roaring business. Those perfidious Armenians! They buy the children for a mere song, and sell them when they are eight or nine years old to the pashas, so that not one of them lives to see his twentieth year, but all die miserably in the mean time. I don't do such things. I am an honest man, with whom business is but a labor of love, and who is just to all men. It is sufficient for me to say that I was born where Aristides used to live. Numbers and numbers of my ancestors were in the Areopagus, and one of my great-great-uncles was an archon. Do not imagine, therefore, that I would do for every foolish fellow what I offer to do for you. I only do kindnesses to my chosen friends; the ties of friendship are sacred to me. Castor and Pollux, Theseus and Pirithous are to me majestic examples of that excellent brotherhood of kindred spirits which I constantly set before me. Wherever I have gone people have always blessed me; nay, did I but let them, they would kiss my feet. The daughter of a Georgian peasant whose father trusted me is now the first waiting-woman of the wife of the Governor of Egypt. Is that glory enough for you! The daughter of a poor goatherd, whom I picked up from the mire, is now the premier pipe-filler of the Pasha of Salonica. A high office that, if you like! What Ganymede was to Jove in those classical ages-- Ah! the tears gush from my eyes at the sound of that word. O Hellas!"

The Circassian allowed his good friend to weep on, considering it a sufficient answer to let his dark bushy eyebrows frown still more fiercely, if possible, over his downcast eyes. Then he caught up a hammer and hammered away with great fury at the handle he had prepared for the whip, riveting the wire with copper studs.

"Kasi Mollah, hitherto I have only been joking, but now I am going to speak in earnest," resumed Leonidas Argyrocantharides, raising his voice that he might be heard through the hammering. "You should bethink you seriously of your children's destiny. I am your old friend, your old acquaintance; my sole wish is for your welfare. I love your children as much as if they were my own, and the tears gush from my eyes whenever I part from them. What will become of them when they grow up? I know that while you are alive it will be well with them, but how about afterwards? You may die to-morrow, or the next day; who can tell? We are all in the hands of God. Now I'll tell you something. Mind. I'm not joking or making it all up. I know for certain that Topal Pasha has been informed that you have two lovely children. Some flighty traders of Erzeroum revealed the fact to him. They are wont to trade with you here, and he has paid them half the stipulated sum down on condition that they bring the children to him. Now this pasha is a filthy, brutal, rake-hell sort of fellow, the pressure of whose foot is no laughing matter, I can tell you; a horrible, hideous, cruel man. I can give you proofs of it. And these merchants have made a contract with him, and have engaged, under the penalty of losing their heads, to deliver your children to him within a twelvemonth. What do you say? You'll throw them down into the abyss, eh? Ah! they are not as foolish as I am. They will not openly profess that they have come here for your children, as I do, but they will lie in wait for them when they go to the forest, and when nobody perceives it they will clap them on the back of a horse and off they'll go with them, so that nobody will know under what sky to look for them. Or, perhaps, when you yourself are going along the road with them, they'll lay a trap for you, shoot you neatly through the head, and bolt with your children. Well, that will be a pretty thing, won't it? You had better not throw me over."

The Circassian did not know what to answer--words were precious things to him--but he thought all the more. While the merchant was speaking to him, his reflections carried him far. He saw his children in the detested marble halls, he saw them standing in shamefully gorgeous garments, waiting upon the smiling despot, who stroked their tender faces with his hands, and the blood rushed to his face as he saw his children blush and tremble beneath that smile. Ah, at that thought he began to lash about him so vigorously with the whip that was in his hand, that the Greek rolled about on the bear-skin in terror, holding his hands to his ears.

"Do not crack that whip so loudly, my dear son," said he, "or you'll drive away all my mules. I really believe your whip is a very good one, but you need not test it to the uttermost. I thank you for making it; but now, pray, put it down. I must go. It is a good thing you have not knocked out one of my eyes. You certainly have a vigorous way of enjoying yourself. But let us speak sensibly. Do you believe that I am an honest man, or not?"

At this the Circassian did _not_ nod his head.

"Very well, then. It is natural that you should believe, you ought to believe it. Since Pausanias there has not been a sharper among my nation. He was the last faithless Greek, and they walled him up in the temple. I am a man without guile, as you are well aware. But I am more than that, more than you suspect. Oho! in this shabby, worn-out caftan of mine dwells something which you do not dream of. Oho! I know what I really am. I am on friendly terms with great men, with many great men, standing high in the empire, whose fame has never reached your ears. In the palm of this hand I hold Hellas, in the other the realm of Osman. I shake the whole world when I move. Why do I take all this trouble? Oh, for the sake of your holy shades, Miltiades, Themistocles, Lysippus, and Demosthenes! for the sake of your shades, O Solon, O Lycurgus, O Pythagoras, and a time is coming in which I will prove it! It is thy memory, Athene, which inspires me to heap up treasures for the future! Thou, O holy Goddess of Liberty, hath whispered in my ear that thou canst make use of the lowly as well as of the mighty to promote thy cause!" Here the merchant leaped to his feet in his enthusiasm, and, extending his hand towards the Circassian exclaimed, "Kasi Mollah, you groan beneath the yoke just as much as we do; let us join hands against our oppressors, and let us gradually melt the hearts of their leaders by the strongest of fires, by the fire of the eyes of the Greek and Circassian maidens, and we shall catch them in a flowery net!"

Kasi Mollah did not clasp the hand of the enthusiastic Greek; and, without turning towards him, replied, coldly, "I do not grudge you the drink which I put before you, worthy merchant, but I perceive that it has begun to mount into your head, or else you would not talk such rubbish as selling free people to your enemies from motives of freedom. Nor do you say well in saying that we are under the yoke, for that is not true. Nobody has ever made the Circassian do homage, nor would any try to conquer us for the sake of the eyes of our poor damsels. Say no more about my children. I will not give them up. If any one comes to visit me, I'll send him about his business; if any one tries to deceive me, I'll cudgel him; and if any one tries to rob me, I'll slay him. And tell that to the merchants of Erzeroum also. And now say no more about it."

At these words the face of the merchant grew very long indeed. In his spite he began pulling at the stem of his chibook with such force that his face was furrowed right down the middle, and his eyebrows ascended to the middle of his forehead. From time to time he kept on wagging his head, and his scarlet, mortar-shaped fez along with it, and burned the tips of his fingers by absently poking the red-hot bowl of his pipe. But his indignation did not go beyond a shaking of the head, and there he wisely let the matter rest.

"Very well, Kasi Mollah. You are an honest fellow. We shall see--we shall see."

The sun was now setting, and from among the hills the bells of the home-returning cattle resounded across the level plain which extended in front of the rocky heights of Himri. Fifteen head of snow-white kine strolled leisurely towards the house of Kasi Mollah, passing one by one through the gate of their enclosure; behind the last of them came the children of the sheik, who guarded the herd in the forest.

The boy appeared to be about twelve, and the girl a year younger, and so closely did they resemble each other that, viewed in profile, it was impossible to distinguish one from the other. Both had the same long, black hair, which flowed in wondrous ringlets down their shoulders, the same soft complexion of a naïve maturity, and as smooth as velvet, just as if they never walked in the sunlight, and yet they had no head-coverings. The youth's face revealed so much girlish tenderness, and the girl's so much vigor and expression, that by changing their clothes it would have been possible to substitute one for the other; and, but for the well-known, tight-fitting corset, peculiar to the Circassian maidens, which caused her figure, slender as a delicate flower-stalk, to bend somewhat backwards, throwing into relief the contours of her childlike breasts, it would have been scarcely possible to have distinguished her from her brother, especially when, as now, they walked side by side, half embracing. The snow-white arm of the girl was round her brother's neck, and her humidly glittering black eyes seemed to be sucking the virile courage from his face; the boy held the slim figure of his sister encircled by one of his arms, tapping her, from time to time, caressingly on the shoulder, while his eyes rested, full of tenderness, on her beloved face.

"What a majestic pair of children!" exclaimed Leonidas Argyrocantharides, in his enthusiasm. "What a shame it is to lock them up in this corner of the world! But what the deuce is the lad dragging along with his left hand while he embraces his sister with his right? What _is_ it, my pretty children? Nay, don't bring it here. What sort of unclean animal is it?"

The lad, with a triumphant smile, stood before the merchant while his sister ran to her father, climbed on to his knees, and throwing her arms shamefacedly round his neck hid her face from the stranger.

"Do you not recognize the bear-skin?" cried the youth, in a strong, clear voice; and as he spoke you became aware of the light black down which shaded his upper lip and revealed the man, and with one of his hands he raised up the beast he was dragging after him on to its hind legs. It was a young bear, about a year and a half old, whose head was battered and smashed in a good many places, thus showing what a severe struggle it had cost to bring it down.

"Where did you find that monster? Who gave it to you?" cried Leonidas, holding his hand before him as if he believed that the hideous monster, even when dead, could clutch hold of his thin drumsticks of legs.

"Where did I find it? Who gave it me?" cried the youth, proudly, and with that he pointed to his sister, and, as if ashamed to speak of his heroic deed himself, he said, "Tell him, Milieva!"

The old Circassian looked attentively at the two children. Neither of them perceived that their father was angry.

"We were in the forest," began the girl--her voice was like a silvery bell. "Thomar was carving a fife, and I was twining a garland for his head, because he pipes so prettily, when all at once a little kid with its mother came running towards us, and the little kid hid itself close to me--it trembled so, poor little thing! but its mother only bleated and kept running round and round, just as if it wanted to speak. Thomar looked all about, and not far from us perceived two young bears running off, and one of them had another little white kid on its back, which was certainly the young one of the little she-goat that was trying to talk to us. 'Thomar,' said I, 'if I were a boy, I would go after that young bear and take away the poor little kid from it.' 'And dost thou think I will not do it?' replied Thomar, and with that he caught up his club and went after the two young bears. One of them perceived him and quickly ran up a tree, but the other would not give up his prey, but turned to face Thomar. Ah! you should have seen how Thomar banged the wild beast on the head with his club till the blood ran down its shoulders, and suddenly it let go the white kid, which ran bleating after its mother."

The child clapped her little hands for joy, while her father softly stroked her long hair.

"But now the young bear, gnashing its teeth, rushed upon Thomar and seized the club in Thomar's hands with its teeth and claws. 'Thomar, don't let him have it!' cried I. But, indeed, he had no fear of the wild beast, for he drew his knife from his girdle and thrust it with all his might into the head of the furiously charging wild beast."

"Oho!" interrupted Thomar, "don't forget that you also rushed upon it, and gave me time to draw out my knife by seizing the ears of the bear in both hands and dragging it off me."

The father looked at the two children with an ever-darkening face, but the merchant solemnly shook his head and raised his hands aloft with an expression of horror. "O foolish--O mad children!" cried he.

"The bear had now had enough," continued Milieva, trying to give her talkative little mouth an earnest expression befitting her serious narration; "it tore itself out of our hands, and with a great roar took refuge from us in a subterranean cave, taking along with it Thomar's knife, buried in its head. Now this knife we had got from Hassan Beg, so we could not afford to lose it. So what do you think Thomar did? He dived into the narrow hole after the bear, and, seizing it there by the throat, throttled it, and dragged it out."

Cold drops of perspiration trickled down the foreheads of the two men.

"Then he caught the young bear by the foot, and as it was heavy we both dragged it along together. We had to make haste, for the old bear had scented our trail and was after us, and pursued us as far as the herds, where the herd-keepers shot it down, but its young one we brought along with us."

"O ye senseless children!" cried the merchant in his terror. "O blockheads! Suppose the bear had clawed your faces, you would have been disfigured forevermore. It would really serve you right if your father gave you a good thrashing with this new whip."

And that is what really did happen.

In his wrath Kasi Mollah seized the freshly made, mule-driving whip, and cannot one imagine the fury, begotten of fear, which would take possession of a father's heart on hearing such a hair-bristling narrative from the lips of his children? To poke their noses into a bear's den, forsooth! The old bear would have torn the pair of them to pieces had she been able to catch them! They had certainly well deserved a thrashing, and a good thrashing too! Thomar would not have wept or groaned however many stripes he might have got; he only clinched his teeth, and, standing upright, bore with tearless eyes the lashing of the whip on his back and shoulders without a cry, without a sob.

But Milieva cast herself, shrieking, on her father's breast, and the tears began to pour abundantly from her radiantly bright eyes. She caught hold of the Circassian's chastising right arm with both her hands, and begged so sweetly, "Do not hurt Thomar; do not hurt him, father! It was indeed not his fault. I assure you I set him on. I told him to go after them. Thomar only went because I asked him."

Kasi Mollah tried to push the child aside, whereupon she flung her arms round Thomar's neck and protected her brother's body, exclaiming, her face all aglow, "'Tis my fault, beat me, but don't hurt Thomar!"

The lad would have disengaged her arms, and, clinching his teeth for pain, said:

"'Tis not true! Milieva did not urge me to do it. Milieva was looking on from a distance. Milieva was not there. Don't hit Milieva."

But the girl threw her arms so tightly round her father that he was not able to tear himself loose. At last, in sheer desperation, he was obliged to lift the paternal instrument of admonition against the girl also. But now the youth snatched at the whip, and exclaimed, with sparkling eyes:

"Strike her not, for she has done no wrong! Beat me as much as you like, but do not strike Milieva. If you do I will leave your house, and you shall never see me more!"

"What, you ragged cub, you!" cried the old Circassian, infuriated by the opposition of his son, and forcibly tearing away the whip from his hand, he struck the girl a violent blow across the shoulders with it.

Milieva ceased to weep, she only pressed her lips together, as her brother had already taught her to do, and cast down her eyes; but Thomar perceived a tremor run through her tender, maidenly bosom at the torture.

The old Circassian himself felt sorry for the poor thing, though he was too proud to show it; but it was plain he had put his wrath behind him from the fact that he now began to wind the whip round its handle.

Thomar bent over the girl's shoulder, and wherever he saw one of the painful bruises which she had got on his account he kissed it softly, and after that he kissed the girl's face, and those kisses were parting kisses.

He said not a word to anybody in the house, but taking up his shepherd's staff and his rustic flute, he went forth from his father's dwelling without once looking behind him.

"Father," cried the girl, sobbing, "Thomar is going away forever!"

The old Circassian made no reply. His son did not look back at him, and he did not cast a glance after his son, and yet they were both heart-broken on each other's account.

"He'll soon be back," thought the father to himself. "Hunger and want will bring him back."

It was late evening, and still the youth had not returned. The sun had set long ago. A violent storm with thunder and lightning arose. The wind roared among the trees of the distant woods, and the wolves howled in the mountains.

"Father, let me go and bring back Thomar," pleaded the girl, gazing sorrowfully into the dark night through the window.

"He will come back of his own accord," replied the Circassian, and he would not let the girl go.

"Listen, how the rain pours, and how the wild beasts are howling! Thomar is all alone there in the tempest, and it is so dark."

"'Tis a good night for a son who forsakes his father," replied the sheik. But within himself he thought, "Some neighbor is sure to take the lad in and give him shelter."

At midnight the tempest abated, and the moon shone forth brightly. From the distant woods came floating back to the village the notes of a rustic flute. Neither father nor daughter had had any sleep.

"Listen, father!" said Milieva. "Thomar is piping in the wood; let me go and bring him back!"

"That is not a flute, but a nightingale," replied the stony-hearted Circassian. "Lie down and sleep!"

Yet he himself could not sleep.

In the morning both the tempest and the song had ceased. The old Circassian pretended to be asleep. Milieva softly raised her head and looked at her father, and seeing that his eyes were closed, stealthily put on her clothes and went out of the house on tiptoe. Her father did not tell her not to go. He had already forgiven his son, and resolved never to be angry with him any more. After all, it had only been an ebullition of fatherly affection that had made him punish his son for jeopardizing his life so blindly.

Shortly afterwards the jingling of the asses' bells told him that the Greek, who slept on the floor outside, was getting ready to depart. The merchant seemed to be in great haste. He piled his boxes on the backs of his beasts higgledy-piggledy, even overlooking a parcel or two here and there, and all the time he kept talking to himself, stopping short suddenly when he caught sight of the Circassian.

"I was just going to take leave of you, Chorbadzhi. Why do you get up so early? Go to sleep! What a nice day it is after the storm! Salám aláküm! Peace be with you! Greet my kinsmen, your sweet children. No, I will speak no more of your children. I will do as you desire, I promise you, and what I have once promised-- So our business is at an end? You are a worthy man, Kasi Mollah! . . . You are a good father--a very good father. I only wish every man was like you. The only thing that grieves me is that you cannot join our holy covenant. The Hellene and the Circassian groan together beneath the yoke of a common tyrant. And then you don't reflect who are on our side. Our northern neighbor is always ready to liberate us. I say no more. To a wise man a hint is a revelation. But do you not long for glory? You have no glorious ancestors. With you there are no memories of a Marathon, a Platäa. . . . God bless you, Kasi Mollah! Go on shooting lots of antelopes, and I'll come back and buy the hides from you; mind you let me have them cheap! Take this kiss for yourself, this for your son, and this third one for your daughter. Then you won't give them to me, eh? Well, God bless you, Kasi Mollah!"

The sheik felt as if a great stone had rolled off his breast when at last he saw his guest depart, though even from afar the Greek turned back and shouted all manner of things about Leonidas and the other heroes. But the Circassian did not listen to him. He went back into his house again, lest he should seem to be moping for his children.

Leonidas Argyrocantharides, on the other hand, whistling merrily, proceeded with his asses on his way to the forest, and, when he found himself quite alone there, began to sing in a loud voice the song of freedom of the Hetairea, which put him into such a good humor that he even began to flourish his weapon in the most warlike manner, though, unfortunately, there was nobody at hand whom he could smite.

It would be doing a great injustice to the worthy merchant, however, to suppose that he was fatiguing his precious lungs without rhyme or reason, for during this melodious song he kept on looking continually about him, now to the right and now to the left. He knew what he was about.

Yes, he had calculated well. Any one who might happen to be hidden in the forest was bound to hear the great blood-stirring song. He had not advanced more than a hundred yards or so when a well-known suppliant voice struck his ear. It came from among the thick trees.

"Oh, please! listen, please!"

At first he pretended not to know who it was, and, shading his eyes with his hand, made a great pretence of looking hard.

"Oho, my little girl! so 'tis you, eh? Little Milieva, by all that's holy! Come nearer, child."

The girl was not alone. She had found her brother, and was shoving and pushing the lad on in front of her, who, sulkily and with downcast eyes, was skulking about among the trees as if he were ashamed to appear before the Greek, who had been a witness of his flogging.

Milieva had insisted on his returning home and begging his father's pardon, and the lad had consented, not for his own sake, but for his sister's.

"What a good job I've met you! Come here, little girl. Don't be afraid of me. I want to whisper something in your ear that your brother must not hear."

And he bent down towards the girl from the back of the ass and whispered in her ear, it is true, but quite loud enough for her brother to hear also:

"My dear child, don't take your brother home now, for your father is furious with the pair of you, and is coming after you straightway. That is why I have been singing so loudly, for I thought you had come hither and might hear; and let me tell you that it will be just as well for Thomar to hide himself for a time, for your father, when I left him, had shouldered his musket, and he swore in his wrath that he would hunt his runaway son with the dogs, and shoot him down wherever he found him."

"Let him shoot me down!" cried the lad, defiantly. He had heard the whole of the whisper.

The good-hearted merchant shook his head reprovingly.

"Keep your temper, my son; anger is mischievous. It would be much better if you left these parts for a little while, and Milieva can go back in the mean time and pacify her father. I should mention, however, that Kasi Mollah is preparing a rope in salt-water, with which he intends to beat her."

"What!" cried Thomar, with flashing eyes. "He would whip her again, and with a rope?"

He could say no more. The two children fell upon each other's necks and wept bitterly.

"Poor children! orphans worthy of compassion!" cried the sympathetic Leonidas, stroking their pretty heads. "It is plain that they have no mother. Willingly would I shed my blood for you. But it is vain to speak to that savage madman. The last thing he said was that your mother had been faithless to him, and that was why he was so furious against you."

"Then he shall never see us again," said the lad, tenderly embracing his sister. "I will go away, and I will take you with me."

"Where?" said his sister, trembling.

"The world is wide," said the lad. "I have often seen from the summits of the mountains how far it stretches away. I will go away as far as ever I can."

"But what provision have you got?" inquired the worthy merchant.

At this idea the lad seemed to hesitate, and for a moment his face flushed red; but he soon recovered his _sang-froid_.

"You complained the other day that your ass-driver had run away, and that you had all the trouble of looking after the beasts yourself. Take me for your ass-driver. I will do all your work for you, and I will ask nothing except that Milieva may come with me without doing any hard work. I will work extra in her stead."

The merchant was quite overcome by these words.

"O children, what words must I hear! Thou art the pearl of youths, my son. What a pity thou wast not born in Samos, the isle of heroes! Thou shalt be no ass-driver of mine; no, thou shalt be my own son, and thy sister shall be my own daughter, and ye shall both sit on my asses, not follow after them. In the neighboring village I shall get ass-drivers and to spare. I will share my last crumb with you, and ye shall dwell at home within my palace as if ye were my own children." And with that he embraced them both.

As for the children, they were overpowered by so much unexpected goodness, and did not hesitate to accept the offer, although Milieva said, somewhat tremulously:

"But you will take us back afterwards to our father, won't you?"

"Certainly; is he not my good friend? When we get to my house I will let him know that you are with me, and he will be very glad. But first we will go from here to splendid cities by the sea, where edifices three stories high float on the surface of the water. There my great palaces are--you could put the whole of your father's house inside the hall of any one of them--and my gardens are full of those beautiful fruits which I have so often brought for you in my sack. Thomar shall have a beautiful steed. You would like to ride a horse, my son, eh? Well, don't be afraid, and it shall fly away with you like the wind. And it shall have a mane as white as a swan's--or perhaps you'd like a black one? I have got both, and you shall sit on which you like, with a sword dangling at your side. And when you draw that sword? Ah, ha! It shall be a bright Damascus blade, and you will be able to make it span your body right round without breaking. I will bet anything that among five hundred Turkish youths you will carry off the wreath of pearls in the sports. How nicely that wreath of pearls will become Milieva's head! How beautifully the folds of the silken robe embroidered with flowers will sweep around her slim figure! And then the palm-leaf shawl when she dances! Eh, children?"

"When will you take us back to our father?" inquired the girl, sorrowfully.

"Why, at once, of course. As soon as Thomar has become a famous man; as soon as half the world recognizes him as a valiant bey, and the fame of him spreads to the huts of Himri likewise. Then will Thomar go with you to your father. He will sit on a proudly prancing horse, tossing its head impatiently beneath its gold trappings. A grand retinue will come riding behind him--valiant heroes, all of them, with glittering shields and lances. And after them will follow a litter on two white asses, with curtains of cloth of gold, and in this litter will sit a wondrously bright and beautiful maiden, and men will stand at all the gates and cry, 'Make way for the valiant lord and the majestic lady!'

"But, meanwhile, old Kasi Mollah will be sitting at his door, and, perceiving the splendid magnates, will do obeisance to them; then you will leap from your horse, assist Milieva to descend from her litter, and will go to meet him. He, however, will not recognize you. Milieva will be so much rosier, and her figure so much more lovely; and as for you, you will be wearing a beard and mustache, and without doubt you will be scarred with wounds received upon the field of glory. So Kasi Mollah will conduct you into his house with the utmost respect and make you sit down; but you will have victuals and sherbet brought from your carriages, and will constrain him to eat and drink with you. Then you will fall a-talking, and you will ask him whether he has any children, and thereupon the tears will start to his eyes."

"Oh," sighed the girl, melting at the thought.

"No, no; it would not do at all to make yourself known all at once. The joy would be too much for him; he might even have a stroke. You, little Milieva, would be content to sit and listen, leaving Thomar to speak. And Thomar will say that he has heard tidings of Kasi Mollah's lost children, gradually leading him on from hope to joy, and at last you will throw yourselves on his neck, and say to him, 'I am thy son Thomar! I am thy daughter Milieva!' How beautiful that will be!"

The heads of the children were completely turned by this conversation, and they followed the merchant joyfully all the way to the next village. There Leonidas Argyrocantharides rested for a little while, and made the children dismount and have some lunch in a hut. Then he produced a gourd full of strong, sweet wine, and the children drank of it. The wine removed whatever of sadness was still in their hearts, and they then resumed their journey. The asses he left behind, but two well-saddled horses were awaiting them in front of the hut. On these the children mounted, and leaving the asses to stroll leisurely on by one road, under the charge of the hired ass-drivers, they themselves took another. How delighted the children were with their fine steeds!

The sheik, meantime, was still awaiting the return of his children, and as they did not come back by the evening he began to make inquiries about them. Some of his neighbors, who had been in the forest, informed him that they had seen the children with the Greek merchant; they were riding on his asses. At this Kasi Mollah began roaring like a wild beast.

"He has stolen my children!" he groaned in his despair, and flew back home for his horse and his weapons, not even waiting for his comrades to take horse also. One by one they galloped after him, but could not easily overtake him.

Riding helter-skelter he soon reached the neighboring village, but here the track of the asses led him off on a false scent, for only when he overtook them did he realize that the merchant with his children had gone far away in another direction.

With the rage of despair in his heart he galloped back again. Not till evening did he dismount from his horse; then he watered his horse in a brook and rushed on again. Through the whole moonlit night he pursued the Greek, and as towards dawn Argyrocantharides looked behind him he saw a great cloud of dust on the road rapidly approaching him, and the bright points of lances were in the midst of it.

"Well, children," said he, "here we must all die together, for your father is coming and will slay the three of us. But whip up your horses."

Then, full of terror, they bent over their horses' necks, and the desperate race began.

The Circassian perceived the merchant and the children, and rushed after them with a savage howl. They had better horses, but the Circassian's horses were more accustomed to mountainous paths and had better riders.

The distance between the two companies was visibly diminishing. The merchant flogged with his whip the horses on which the children were riding. They dared not look back.

Their father shouted to them to turn their horses' reins. He called Thomar by name, and bade him tear the merchant from his saddle. The son heard his father's voice, he heard his own name mentioned; but he fancied his father was threatening him, and clung to his horse still more tightly.

A steep mountain torrent ran across the road in front of them. If only the Greek could succeed in getting across it with but two minutes to spare, so that he might pitch the little wooden bridge over it down into the abyss below, he would be saved, for the space between the two steep mountain-sides was much too wide for a horse to leap, and a ford was not to be found within an hour's ride.

By the time they came to the bridge the pursuing Circassians were scarcely distant more than three gunshots, and Kasi Mollah was riding well in advance of the rest. He must needs overtake them before the Greek could push the bridge over.

At that instant the horse on which Milieva sat slightly stumbled, and plunging forward on to its knees, fractured its leg.

"Hah!" cried the sheik, with wild delight, "I have got back one of my children, at any rate."

But how amazed was he when he saw Milieva, instead of running to him or even remaining in the road, cry out in terror to her brother and raise her arms towards him, and Thomar, never expecting to save her, bent down from his horse, and grasping his sister round the waist with a swift hand, placed her in the saddle in front of him, casting a wild look behind him, and then galloping on farther.

Kasi Mollah suddenly reined in his flying horse and stopped short, allowing them to escape. Not a step farther did he pursue them. By the time his comrades had joined him the Greek was well on the other side of the bridge, and they could all see Thomar helping the merchant to cast it down.

Two burning tear-drops stood in Kasi Mollah's eyes. They really burned, and he felt the pain. And yet--and yet, when the two children sat in the saddle again, Milieva extended her hands towards her father as if in most ardent supplication. What was the meaning of it?

The good Greek shortly afterwards arrived safely in Smyrna with the children, and had them taught singing, riding, and how to walk about in nice clothes, and some years after he sold them to the Seraglio of the Grand Vizier for two thousand sequins.

And all that he had said at random to the children during the journey, to cheer their spirits, actually came to pass, as we shall presently see.

When Sultan Mahmoud lost his favorite damsel so strangely, Milieva was brought into the Seraglio instead. The girl was then about fourteen years old. The Circassian girls at that age are fully mature, and the bloom of their beauty is at its prime. Milieva, from the very first day when she entered the harem, became the Sultan's favorite damsel.

Thomar joined the ranks of the ichoglanler, a band of youths who are brought up in the outer court and form the Sultan's body-guard.

It was in this year that Mahmoud instituted the Akinji corps, selecting its members from amongst the Janissaries, and formed them into a small regular army. Thomar very soon won for himself the command of a company, and continued to rise higher and higher till at length he reached the eminence which the merchant had foretold to him; and when the course of time brought with it the day on which he was to see Kasi Mollah again, he had become Derbend Aga, one of the Sultan's very highest officials, and his name was mentioned respectfully by all true believers. And in the village of Himri his name was also mentioned. Kasi Mollah often heard it attached to the title of "bey," and Thomar also heard a good deal of the village of Himri and of Kasi Mollah, for they now called his father "murshid," and the name "murshid" is full of mournful recollections for both Moscow and Petersburg.

But of all these things we shall know more at another time.