ensure him future
success.

But Seltanetta turned pale--bowing her head like a flower, when she
heard of this new and more cruel separation. Her look, as it dwelt
upon Ammalat, showed painful apprehension--the pain of prophetic
sorrow.

"Allah!" she mournfully exclaimed: "more forays, more slaughter.
When will blood cease to be shed in the mountains?"

"When the mountain torrents run milk, and the sugar-canes wave on the
snowy peaks!" said the Khan.

CHAPTER IV.

Wildly beautiful is the resounding Terek in the mountains of Darial.
There, like a genie, borrowing his strength from heaven, he wrestles
with Nature. There bright and shining as steel, cutting through the
overshadowing cliff, he gleams among the rocks. There, blackening
with rage, he bellows and bounds like a wild beast, among the
imprisoning cliffs: he bursts, overthrows, and rolls afar their
broken fragments. On a stormy night, when the belated traveller,
enveloped in his furry bourka, gazing fearfully around him, travels
along the bank which hangs over the torrent of Terek, all is terror
such as only a vivid imagination can conceive. With slow steps he
winds along, the rain-torrents stream around his feet, and tumble
upon his head from the rocks which frown above and threaten his
destruction. Suddenly the lightning flashes before his eyes--with
horror he beholds but a black cloud above him, below a yawning gulf,
beside him crags, and before him the roaring Terek. At one moment he
sees its wild and troubled waves raging like infernal spirits chased
by the archangel's brand. After them, with a shout as of laughter,
roll the huge stones. In another moment, the blinding flash is gone,
and he is plunged once more in the dark ocean of night: then bursts
the thunder-crash, jarring the foundations of the rocks, as though a
thousand mountains were dashed against each other, so deafeningly do
the echoes repeat the bellow of the heavens. Then a long-protracted
growl, as of massive oaks plucked up by their roots, or the crash of
bursting rocks, or the yell of the Titans as they were hurled
headlong into the abyss; it mingles with the war of the blast, and
the blast swells to a hurricane, and the rain pours down in torrents.
And again the lightning blinds him, and again the thunder, answering
from afar to the splinter-crash, deafens him. The terrified steed
rears, starts backward--the rider utters a short prayer.

But after this how softly smiles the mor