n corse! Oh that all her sufferings could fall on my head! and that
I could lie in her coffin, if that would restore her to health. Sweetest
and loveliest! thou art fading, rose of Avar, and destiny has stretched
out her talons over thee. Colonel," he cried at length, seizing my hand,
"grant my only, my solemn prayer--let me but once more look on her!"----

"On whom, my friend?"

"On my Seltanetta--on the daughter of the Khan of Avar--whom I love more
than my life, than my soul! She is ill, she is dying--perhaps dead by
this time--while I am wasting words--and I could not receive into my
heart her last word--her last look--could not wipe away the icy tear of
death! Oh, why do not the ashes of the ruined sun fall on my head--why
will not the earth bury me in its ruins!"

He fell on my breast, choking with grief, in a tearless agony, unable to
pronounce a word.

This was not a time for accusations of insincerity, much less to set
forth the reasons which rendered it unadvisable for him to go among the
enemies of Russia. There are circumstances before which all reasons must
give way, and I felt that Ammalat was in such circumstances. On my own
responsibility I resolved to let him go. "He that obliges from the
heart, and speedily, twice obliges," is my favourite proverb, and best
maxim. I pressed in my embrace the unhappy Tartar, and we mingled our
tears together.

"My friend Ammalat," said I, "hasten where your heart calls you. God
grant that you may carry thither health and recovery, and bring back
peace of mind! A happy journey!"

"Farewell, my benefactor," he cried, deeply touched, "farewell, and
perhaps for ever! I will not return to life, if Allah takes from me my
Seltanetta. May God keep you!"

He took the wounded Avaretz to the Hakim Ibrahim, received the medicinal
herb according to the Khan's prescription, and in an hour Ammalat Bek,
with four noukers, rode out of Derbend.

And so the riddle is guessed--he loves. This is unfortunate, but what is
yet worse, he is beloved in return. I fancy, my love, that I see your
astonishment. "Can that be a misfortune to another, which to you is
happiness?" you ask. A grain of patience, my soul's angel! The Khan, the
father of Seltanetta, is the irreconcilable foe of Russia, and the more
so because, having been distinguished by the favour of the Czar, he has
turned a traitor; consequently a marriage is possible only on condition
of Ammalat's betraying the Russians, or in