"'It is the very best thoroughbred Arabian steed that I have ever seen; thou didst excessively tire it and thou wilt certainly ruin this jewel for good if you do not give him rest. I don't know thy master and don't wish to know his name, but even on his own land I cannot allow such a treasure to be ruined. Mount then my horse, gallop away to thy lord and tell him that thou didst leave his half-dead horse at the tavad of Bidandara's. If he wishes to sell him I shall pay any price he may demand; if he does not want to part with him, why then let him send back my horse and take back his own; at Bidandara's everybody finds hospitality--even animals,' and he got off his horse, took hold of and led away mine without listening to my exclamations of grat.i.tude.

"I gave him time to go a long way and then chased his horse still more mercilessly than thine. I knew that thou wilt give him the centuple, and therefore thought only how I could reach thee the soonest. Upon entering the town he fell and I ran the rest of the way on foot. What doest thou command me to do now?"

"This moment thou wilt choose two of the best horses and lead them hither. We shall immediately start in pursuit; tell my lifeguards secretly to catch up with us. Let them have pity upon the horses and take plenty of wine and provisions with them, for thou must be quite hungry!"

In a few minutes the two cavaliers rode out of town and later on they were followed by a whole detachment of warriors, trying to catch up with them. Morphiliziy was not riding very fast, but thinking. He remembered that still a short time before, when but a simple army commander, he had no other wishes besides military glory; all his plans seemed to have been successfully carried out when he was proclaimed King and his name pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth, surrounded with all the glitter of the recent victory.

The triumph over Damask, the most glorious warrior of his century, appeared to him as the height of blissfulness. He remembered also that unusual, up to this time new to him, feeling which suddenly arose in him upon beholding Nina.

The very glance at this young girl, hardly out of her teens, drove out of his heart and imagination everything in which he up to this moment had prided himself--military glory and victories over Valarsa.s.s and the accession to the throne--all vanished somewhere in the distance, occupied some remote spot and was no longer of any interest to him. And to think that this child had made fun of him! This child had managed her nurse and servants and warriors and even him, Morphiliziy, the terrible, powerful and invincible conqueror! This little girl feared not his anger, was not frightened by his forces, did not tremble before his might. His warrior's renown, his monarchy, his personal charms had not won her. She was not at all excited or especially delighted over the impression she had produced upon the hero, and in just the same way she treated a little boy, whom he could knock down with one blow like some piece of paper!

He resolved that Nina should be his wife however difficult it might be to obtain her hand. She did not wish his love--she did not see the need of his caresses--"then," thought he, "let her feel my strength, my might, my power--yes, my wrath!"

These reflections were interrupted by the approaching warriors. Morphiliziy turned around; the moon lit up his pale face and sparkling eyes. The soldiers were frightened, never yet had they seen him look thus.

"Give Noy wine and bread--he will eat on the way, but to you, my comrades in battle, I shall now unfold the secret of my soul. You know my whole life, you know very well that there is not a man who could boast of having conquered me; you know too that my very glance can put regiments to flight, that my name was sufficient to make kings and nations tremble, and now, when I reached the height of glory and power, I wanted to divide them with an orphan, I wanted to place her upon that throne for which I am indebted to your love and submission to me, I wished to proclaim her Tsaritsa and share with her my glory, my happiness, and my power! But she refused all these things, and me too, and ran off with a boy. Now...."

Morphiliziy's speech was interrupted, he sighed deeply and continued:

"We are out to pursue them. Think up some punishment worthy of their crime. What shall be done with her?"

"Kill them both!" was the unanimous reply.

"That is insufficient!" answered the Tsar.

"Drown them in the river, where they betrayed their deception!"

"Not enough!"

"Have them burned alive!"

"Still too good for them!"

"Let them be torn to pieces by wild beasts!"

"All this is very little!" replied Morphiliziy. "All this is quickly over and does not appease my desire for revenge. They must be captured alive and locked up one opposite the other, so that through the open windows of their dungeons they may see each other, and then I shall prepare my rival a spectacle that will wound him worse than fire, but afterwards I shall hand over to you Nina, and then there will be time to cut off their proud heads and throw them away to be eaten by the dogs!"

The Tsar grew silent, his face became still paler, his eyes stared out worse than before; he was so terrible to look at, that even the fearless warriors could not glance at him and hardly approached his horse and Noy's, which they were hurrying on at full speed. The sun rose--they continued their ride, a whole day went by, the journey went on as before, and night overtook them again when they entered a forest. Noy announced that it was the same forest in which he had left the fugitives. The moon shone poorly from behind the eternal trees, it became necessary to get off the horses, which were left to the care of several warriors, but the others went on and soon found that little field of wild copse on which Cicero and Nina had rested, they even found the place where they had been sitting.

The gra.s.s was trodden down, it bore the traces of spilt wine and crumbs of bread--one large shrub was cut down--but there were no branches.

"They probably burned them in a wood-pile," remarked Noy.

"Well, where then are the traces of the wood-pile?" replied Morphiliziy. Upon noticing that from the place where they stood onward the gra.s.s was trodden down and seemed to form a kind of road, all followed upon this track. By sunrise they left the forest and spread themselves out over a splendid meadow, which ended in a field. The track went on across the meadow to the very field, which was beginning to be worked by laborers.

Morphiliziy dispatched one of his warriors to ask to whom this field belonged and whether they had not seen two boys on horseback yesterday. The soldier returned with a peasant.

"This is the field of the tavad Bidandari, we are his men and did not work here yesterday, but we heard that our master had brought home some two youths, one of whom is ill, and to-day by the orders of the proprietor, my brother went for the znabar (a kind of doctor) on the seacoast."

"Why, is it far to the sea?" asked Morphiliziy.

"Six or seven agatches" (an agatche is a little more than six and less than seven versts).

"What! is there no doctor nearer than that?" again asked Morphiliziy.

"Why should there not be one? We have a doctor in the village who is immediately at the side of the patient when required, but the other one is cleverer because he takes advantage of the sea tide in order to collect plants, sh.e.l.ls, insects, and little fishes, which our own doctors do not get a chance to use for their medicine."

"Tell thy master that the owner of the Arab horse came to thank him for his favor, to pay his debt, and asks permission to come in."

The peasant went off, but Morphiliziy ordered his warriors to return to the forest, and taking Noy with him, followed from afar the running laborer. He was very particular in explaining to Noy why he did not wish his name to be disclosed before the right time.

Bidandari came out to meet his guest and led him to some gorgeous apartments where a number of fashionably attired servants surrounded the newcomer, offering elegant clothes, aromatic soaps, and every kind of luxury customary in those times. Having washed and dressed, Morphiliziy came into an adjoining room where a dinner was set. The host met him at the door with two large horns filled with old wine, which, joining hands, they drank at the same time, as a sign of friendship. Notwithstanding that Morphiliziy had eaten almost nothing for more than two days, the rare and numerous dishes did not dazzle him. He had to make an effort in order to pretend that he was eating. At the end of the dinner the host offered him to take a rest, but Morphiliziy said that before that he would like to talk with him alone: then Bidandari, who had not even looked as though he had recognized his sovereign, respectfully fell down on one knee and kissed the edge of the royal coat.

"You recognized me, tavad?" said the surprised King.

"Yes, your Majesty, but I did not dare to say this before the rest, because I did not know the reason you had for not speaking openly."

"I came hither to carry out my revenge and I cannot do it without your help."

"Pray tell, what is it you order?"

"But this is against the laws of hospitality, in which your house has always glorified itself."

"If it be impossible to receive satisfaction for being insulted otherwise--then give orders to kill me--in such a way at least I fulfil my duty as to you, like a faithful subject, obliged to defend the honor of his sovereign even to death and shall not be responsible for what occurs in my house after my death."

"But, tavad, you forget that in such a case I fulfil my duty neither like a Tsar, nor like a guest, but of this let us speak later. The point of the affair is that in your own house my bride is hiding, disguised as a boy, and I want to take her immediately with me. It seems to me that by handing her over to me you do nothing offensive to the rules of hospitality; as to her companion, he has insulted my royal honor, and it is only natural that every true subject should himself chase him out of his house as soon as he learns about his crime."

Bidandari sighed and his face took a sad expression.

"I ask a favor of you, sire; sooner order that I be killed than that my guest receiveth the merited punishment and let me now tell you all that weighs on me. Before death one is permitted to put aside every etiquette and to speak with one's sovereign without the customary court formalities, thereupon I take the liberty of treating you like a brilliant warrior."

"You forget, tavad, that I am very much obliged to you, and that you therefore have the right to demand anything you like of me except to pardon my rival. You yourself are a young and unmarried man, is it possible you do not understand my thoughts?"

"Forgive me, sire, but I must again speak none but the bare truth! My meeting with your negro you already know about. Wishing to come home by the very most direct way, I went on a trail which by chance brought me up to two boys. The younger of them was shaking from malaria, he was pale and lay upon a bourka, but the older one sat by him in despair and wrung his hands. On this same little meadow two saddled and tired horses were feeding; by their exhausted look it was perfectly clear that the travellers came a long way. I came up from behind, and when I greeted them, the elder brother quickly jumped up and seized a kinjall (Caucasian knife or rather dagger), while the younger boy simply sighed and looked at me in a terrified way; he was evidently either too ill or too exhausted to make any kind of a movement. 'Fear nothing,' I said, 'I came to offer you my hospitality, which you hardly have a right to refuse as you are on my lands.'

"'Excuse me,' suspiciously answered the older one--'before I accept your kind offer, I should like to ask you where you took this horse from, which yesterday was still the property of the monarch?'

"I explained it. The boy reflected. 'What dost thou think of, young man, accept quickly my offer, and together we shall carry the sick brother into a warm room, in which his illness will be over by morning, while here he may die from taking cold.'

"The boy got frightened.

"'Promise me not to hand us out to Morphiliziy alive or dead, and I will readily accept your invitation with grat.i.tude; otherwise we should both prefer to die.'

"I glanced at the sick boy, he evidently made an effort to smile and thus confirm his brother's words, but this smile lit up his face with such an inexpressible magnificence that I began to be very much puzzled--after all was it not a woman? I accorded the desired promise. We made litters of the branches of a soft coppice. I told them that I would send horses for their conveyance, but thy horse tied itself to the girdle and we safely brought our litter to the house. During the night the patient began to groan and constantly repeated:

"'Darling Cicero, if they discover us--kill me, I wish to be neither a Tsaritsa nor anything else except thy wife!'

"There was not the least doubt left by this time; this was a woman who had run away from some detested man together with her lover. Seeing that it was no longer possible to hide anything, Cicero related the whole story to me. They already loved each other, sire, when thou didst first see her. Perhaps thou wilt say that Cicero might perfectly well have conquered his attachment; taking into account that Nina was the object of this attachment--such a change was very improbable indeed. I say further that I myself was overtaken by such an extraordinary feeling of delight before this utmost perfection of beauty that I felt as though it was not worth living on earth if one could not possess Nina; and in consequence of all this, sire, thou dost partly fulfil my proper wish if thou dost order me to be executed as one bending down before thy will. To hand them out to you after my promise is beyond my powers."