ld
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 lightnin