wildest things; she would like, she said, to see the
whole four corners of the world set on fire so that the flames might
shoot up on all four sides of it, and every living man within it, good
as well as bad, might be burned. Listen not to such words. O Allah!

Behram was a very quiet fellow, not more than six and twenty years
old; little Ali was scarce sixteen. But this wild, restless lad was
already wont to wander for days together amongst the glens and
mountains, and whenever he came home he invariably brought his mother
money or jewels. And nobody knew whence he got them save Behram, to
whom the youth confessed everything, for he loved him dearly.

Ali joined the company of the Epirot adventurers and with them he
would go sacking villages, waylaying rich merchants, and shared with
them the easily gotten booty.

And whenever he returned home without money, his mother. Khamko, would
rail upon and chide him, and let him have no peace until he had
engaged in fresh and more lucrative robberies.

Behram looked askance at the perilous ways of his young comrade, and
as often as he was alone with him did his best to fill his mind with
honest, noble ideas, which also seemed to make some impression on Ali,
for he gradually began to abandon his marauding ways, and in order
that he might still be able to get money for his mother, he fell to
selling his sheep and his goats, and even parted with his long,
silver-mounted musket. At last he had nothing left but his sword. Dame
Khamko, meanwhile, scolded Ali unmercifully. If he wanted to eat, let
him go seek his bread, she said. And the lad wandered through the
woods and thickets, and lived for a long time on the berries of the
forest. At last, one day, when he was wellnigh famished and in the
depths of misery, he came upon an Armenian inn-keeper standing in the
doorway of his lonely little tavern. Ali rushed upon him, sword in
hand, like a wolf perishing with hunger. The Armenian was a worthy old
fellow, and when he saw Ali he said to him:

"What dost thou want, my son?"

The honest, open look of the old man shamed Ali, and casting down his
eyes, he replied: "I want to give thee this sword." Yet the moment
before he had determined to slay him with it.

The Armenian took the sword from him, and gave him ten sequins in
exchange for it, besides meat and drink. So Ali returned home without
his sword.

When Dame Khamko saw her son return home disarmed she was greatly
incensed a