"Let him shoot me down!" cried the lad, defiantly. He had heard the whole of the whisper.

The good-hearted merchant shook his head reprovingly.

"Keep your temper, my son; anger is mischievous. It would be much better if you left these parts for a little while, and Milieva can go back in the mean time and pacify her father. I should mention, however, that Kasi Mollah is preparing a rope in salt-water, with which he intends to beat her."

"What!" cried Thomar, with flashing eyes. "He would whip her again, and with a rope?"

He could say no more. The two children fell upon each other's necks and wept bitterly.

"Poor children! orphans worthy of compa.s.sion!" cried the sympathetic Leonidas, stroking their pretty heads. "It is plain that they have no mother. Willingly would I shed my blood for you. But it is vain to speak to that savage madman. The last thing he said was that your mother had been faithless to him, and that was why he was so furious against you."

"Then he shall never see us again," said the lad, tenderly embracing his sister. "I will go away, and I will take you with me."

"Where?" said his sister, trembling.

"The world is wide," said the lad. "I have often seen from the summits of the mountains how far it stretches away. I will go away as far as ever I can."

"But what provision have you got?" inquired the worthy merchant.

At this idea the lad seemed to hesitate, and for a moment his face flushed red; but he soon recovered his _sang-froid_.

"You complained the other day that your a.s.s-driver had run away, and that you had all the trouble of looking after the beasts yourself.

Take me for your a.s.s-driver. I will do all your work for you, and I will ask nothing except that Milieva may come with me without doing any hard work. I will work extra in her stead."

The merchant was quite overcome by these words.

"O children, what words must I hear! Thou art the pearl of youths, my son. What a pity thou wast not born in Samos, the isle of heroes! Thou shalt be no a.s.s-driver of mine; no, thou shalt be my own son, and thy sister shall be my own daughter, and ye shall both sit on my a.s.ses, not follow after them. In the neighboring village I shall get a.s.s-drivers and to spare. I will share my last crumb with you, and ye shall dwell at home within my palace as if ye were my own children."

And with that he embraced them both.

As for the children, they were overpowered by so much unexpected goodness, and did not hesitate to accept the offer, although Milieva said, somewhat tremulously:

"But you will take us back afterwards to our father, won't you?"

"Certainly; is he not my good friend? When we get to my house I will let him know that you are with me, and he will be very glad. But first we will go from here to splendid cities by the sea, where edifices three stories high float on the surface of the water. There my great palaces are--you could put the whole of your father's house inside the hall of any one of them--and my gardens are full of those beautiful fruits which I have so often brought for you in my sack. Thomar shall have a beautiful steed. You would like to ride a horse, my son, eh?

Well, don't be afraid, and it shall fly away with you like the wind.

And it shall have a mane as white as a swan's--or perhaps you'd like a black one? I have got both, and you shall sit on which you like, with a sword dangling at your side. And when you draw that sword? Ah, ha!

It shall be a bright Damascus blade, and you will be able to make it span your body right round without breaking. I will bet anything that among five hundred Turkish youths you will carry off the wreath of pearls in the sports. How nicely that wreath of pearls will become Milieva's head! How beautifully the folds of the silken robe embroidered with flowers will sweep around her slim figure! And then the palm-leaf shawl when she dances! Eh, children?"

"When will you take us back to our father?" inquired the girl, sorrowfully.

"Why, at once, of course. As soon as Thomar has become a famous man; as soon as half the world recognizes him as a valiant bey, and the fame of him spreads to the huts of Himri likewise. Then will Thomar go with you to your father. He will sit on a proudly prancing horse, tossing its head impatiently beneath its gold trappings. A grand retinue will come riding behind him--valiant heroes, all of them, with glittering shields and lances. And after them will follow a litter on two white a.s.ses, with curtains of cloth of gold, and in this litter will sit a wondrously bright and beautiful maiden, and men will stand at all the gates and cry, 'Make way for the valiant lord and the majestic lady!'

"But, meanwhile, old Kasi Mollah will be sitting at his door, and, perceiving the splendid magnates, will do obeisance to them; then you will leap from your horse, a.s.sist Milieva to descend from her litter, and will go to meet him. He, however, will not recognize you. Milieva will be so much rosier, and her figure so much more lovely; and as for you, you will be wearing a beard and mustache, and without doubt you will be scarred with wounds received upon the field of glory. So Kasi Mollah will conduct you into his house with the utmost respect and make you sit down; but you will have victuals and sherbet brought from your carriages, and will constrain him to eat and drink with you. Then you will fall a-talking, and you will ask him whether he has any children, and thereupon the tears will start to his eyes."

"Oh," sighed the girl, melting at the thought.

"No, no; it would not do at all to make yourself known all at once.

The joy would be too much for him; he might even have a stroke. You, little Milieva, would be content to sit and listen, leaving Thomar to speak. And Thomar will say that he has heard tidings of Kasi Mollah's lost children, gradually leading him on from hope to joy, and at last you will throw yourselves on his neck, and say to him, 'I am thy son Thomar! I am thy daughter Milieva!' How beautiful that will be!"

The heads of the children were completely turned by this conversation, and they followed the merchant joyfully all the way to the next village. There Leonidas Argyrocantharides rested for a little while, and made the children dismount and have some lunch in a hut. Then he produced a gourd full of strong, sweet wine, and the children drank of it. The wine removed whatever of sadness was still in their hearts, and they then resumed their journey. The a.s.ses he left behind, but two well-saddled horses were awaiting them in front of the hut. On these the children mounted, and leaving the a.s.ses to stroll leisurely on by one road, under the charge of the hired a.s.s-drivers, they themselves took another. How delighted the children were with their fine steeds!

The sheik, meantime, was still awaiting the return of his children, and as they did not come back by the evening he began to make inquiries about them. Some of his neighbors, who had been in the forest, informed him that they had seen the children with the Greek merchant; they were riding on his a.s.ses. At this Kasi Mollah began roaring like a wild beast.

"He has stolen my children!" he groaned in his despair, and flew back home for his horse and his weapons, not even waiting for his comrades to take horse also. One by one they galloped after him, but could not easily overtake him.

Riding helter-skelter he soon reached the neighboring village, but here the track of the a.s.ses led him off on a false scent, for only when he overtook them did he realize that the merchant with his children had gone far away in another direction.

With the rage of despair in his heart he galloped back again. Not till evening did he dismount from his horse; then he watered his horse in a brook and rushed on again. Through the whole moonlit night he pursued the Greek, and as towards dawn Argyrocantharides looked behind him he saw a great cloud of dust on the road rapidly approaching him, and the bright points of lances were in the midst of it.

"Well, children," said he, "here we must all die together, for your father is coming and will slay the three of us. But whip up your horses."

Then, full of terror, they bent over their horses' necks, and the desperate race began.

The Circa.s.sian perceived the merchant and the children, and rushed after them with a savage howl. They had better horses, but the Circa.s.sian's horses were more accustomed to mountainous paths and had better riders.

The distance between the two companies was visibly diminishing. The merchant flogged with his whip the horses on which the children were riding. They dared not look back.

Their father shouted to them to turn their horses' reins. He called Thomar by name, and bade him tear the merchant from his saddle. The son heard his father's voice, he heard his own name mentioned; but he fancied his father was threatening him, and clung to his horse still more tightly.

A steep mountain torrent ran across the road in front of them. If only the Greek could succeed in getting across it with but two minutes to spare, so that he might pitch the little wooden bridge over it down into the abyss below, he would be saved, for the s.p.a.ce between the two steep mountain-sides was much too wide for a horse to leap, and a ford was not to be found within an hour's ride.

By the time they came to the bridge the pursuing Circa.s.sians were scarcely distant more than three gunshots, and Kasi Mollah was riding well in advance of the rest. He must needs overtake them before the Greek could push the bridge over.

At that instant the horse on which Milieva sat slightly stumbled, and plunging forward on to its knees, fractured its leg.

"Hah!" cried the sheik, with wild delight, "I have got back one of my children, at any rate."

But how amazed was he when he saw Milieva, instead of running to him or even remaining in the road, cry out in terror to her brother and raise her arms towards him, and Thomar, never expecting to save her, bent down from his horse, and grasping his sister round the waist with a swift hand, placed her in the saddle in front of him, casting a wild look behind him, and then galloping on farther.

Kasi Mollah suddenly reined in his flying horse and stopped short, allowing them to escape. Not a step farther did he pursue them. By the time his comrades had joined him the Greek was well on the other side of the bridge, and they could all see Thomar helping the merchant to cast it down.

Two burning tear-drops stood in Kasi Mollah's eyes. They really burned, and he felt the pain. And yet--and yet, when the two children sat in the saddle again, Milieva extended her hands towards her father as if in most ardent supplication. What was the meaning of it?

The good Greek shortly afterwards arrived safely in Smyrna with the children, and had them taught singing, riding, and how to walk about in nice clothes, and some years after he sold them to the Seraglio of the Grand Vizier for two thousand sequins.

And all that he had said at random to the children during the journey, to cheer their spirits, actually came to pa.s.s, as we shall presently see.

When Sultan Mahmoud lost his favorite damsel so strangely, Milieva was brought into the Seraglio instead. The girl was then about fourteen years old. The Circa.s.sian girls at that age are fully mature, and the bloom of their beauty is at its prime. Milieva, from the very first day when she entered the harem, became the Sultan's favorite damsel.

Thomar joined the ranks of the ichoglanler, a band of youths who are brought up in the outer court and form the Sultan's body-guard.

It was in this year that Mahmoud inst.i.tuted the Akinji corps, selecting its members from amongst the Janissaries, and formed them into a small regular army. Thomar very soon won for himself the command of a company, and continued to rise higher and higher till at length he reached the eminence which the merchant had foretold to him; and when the course of time brought with it the day on which he was to see Kasi Mollah again, he had become Derbend Aga, one of the Sultan's very highest officials, and his name was mentioned respectfully by all true believers. And in the village of Himri his name was also mentioned. Kasi Mollah often heard it attached to the t.i.tle of "bey,"

and Thomar also heard a good deal of the village of Himri and of Kasi Mollah, for they now called his father "murshid," and the name "murshid" is full of mournful recollections for both Moscow and Petersburg.

But of all these things we shall know more at another time.