serpent?" said an old Tartar woman to
her grandson, who, having awakened before daylight, was crying for want
of something better to do. "Be quiet, or I will kick you into the
street."

This old woman was Ammalat's nurse: the hut in which she lived stood
close to the tents of the Begs, and had been given to her by her
foster-son, Ammalat. It was composed of two clean whitewashed rooms, the
floor of both was strewed with coarse mats, (ghasil;) in niches close to
each other, for the room was without windows, stood boxes bound with
iron, and on them were arranged a feather-bed, blankets, and all the
utensils. On the cornices, at half the height of the wall, were ranged
porcelain cups for pillau, having tin covers in the form of helmets, and
little plates hanging side by side on wires: the holes with which they
were pierced showing that they served not for use, but for ornament. The
face of the old woman was covered with wrinkles, and expressed a sort of
malicious sorrow: the usual consequence of the lonely pleasureless life
of a Mussulman woman. As a worthy representative of persons of her age
and country, she never for a moment ceased scolding her grandson from
under her blanket, and to grumble to herself. "Kess," (be quiet,) she
cried at length, yet more angrily, "or I will give you to the ghaouls,
(devils!) Do you hear how they are scratching at the roof, and knocking
at the door for you?"

It was a stormy night; a thick rain pattering on the flat roof which
served as a ceiling, and the roaring of the wind in the chimney,
answered to her hoarse voice. The boy became quiet, and straining his
eyes, hearkened in a fright. It really seemed as if some one was
knocking at the door. The old woman became frightened in her turn: her
inseparable companion, a dirty dog, lifted up his head from sleep, and
began to bark in a most pitiful voice. But meanwhile the knocking at the
door became louder, and an unknown voice cried sternly from without,
"Atch kapini, akhirin akhirici!" (open the door for the end of ends.)
The old woman turned pale. "Allah bismallah!" she exclaimed, now
addressing heaven, then threatening the dog, and then quieting the
crying child. "Sh, accursed beast! Hold your tongue, I say, kharamzada,
(good-for-nothing son of shame!) Who is there? What honest man will
enter, when it is neither day nor dawn, into the house of a poor old
woman? If you are Shaitan, go to neighbour Kitchkina. It has been long
time to show