[37] The mountaineers are bad Mussulmans, the Sooni sect is predominant; but the Daghestánetzes are in general Shageeds, as the Persians. The sects hate each other with all their heart. Néphtali rushed down the stairs, threw the gun on his shoulders, leapt into his saddle and dashed down the hill, caring neither for furrow nor stone. Only the dust arose, and the pebbles streamed down after the bold horseman." "Alla akbér!" gravely exclaimed Suleiman, and lit his pipe. Néphtali soon came up with the strangers. Their horses were covered with foam, and the sweat-drops rained from them on the narrow path by which they were climbing the mountain. The first was clothed in a shirt of mail, the other in the Circassian dress: except that he wore a Persian sabre instead of a sháshka,[38] suspended by a laced girdle. His left arm was covered with blood, bound up with a handkerchief, and supported by the sword-knot. The faces of both were concealed. For some time he rode behind them along the slippery path, which overhung a precipice; but at the first open space he galloped by them, and turned his horse round. "Salám aleikom!" said he, opposing their passage along the rugged and half-built road among the rocks, as he made ready his arms. The foremost horseman suddenly wrapped his boúrka[39] round his face, so as to leave visible only his knit brows: "Aleikom Salám!" answered he, cocking his gun, and fixing himself in the saddle. [38] The Circassian sabre. [39] A rough cloak, used as a protection in bad weather. "God give you a good journey!" said Néphtali. repeating the usual salutation, and preparing, at the first hostile movement, to shoot the stranger. "God give you enough of sense not to interrupt the traveller," replied his antagonist, impatiently: "What would you with us, Kounák?"[40] [40] Friend, comrade. "I offer you rest, and a brother's repast, barley and stalls for your horses. My threshold flourishes by hospitality: the blessing of the stranger increaseth the flock, and giveth sharpness to the sword of the master. Fix not the seal of reproach on our whole village. Let them not say, 'They have seen travellers in the heat of noon, and have not refreshed them nor sheltered them.'" "We thank you for your kindness; but we are not wont to take forced hospitality; and haste is even more necessary for us than rest." "You ride to your death without a guide." "Guide!" exclaimed the traveller; "I know every step of the Caucasus. I have been where your serpents climb not, your tigers cannot mount, your eagles cannot fly. Make way, comrade: thy threshold is not on God's high-road, and I have no time to prate with thee." "I will not yield a step, till I know who and whence you are!"