"And this was not the worst of it, for as soon as I entered Karthlos, my good Steward, Kobaduk, a very faithful servant, told me that beyond any doubt Rakhan, the Osset, had compassed and probably with his own hand committed the murder of my father, Sûr Dadian. I replied that the Imaum himself had assured me that the Russians were guilty of that crime, and this had impelled me to quit all friends and hurry without going home to Bodlith. But he spat on the ground, as our peasants do, when they hear of a black deception, and soon proved to me that the Czar's troops were guiltless; and not only so, but that Shamyl the Tartar--as he was frequently called in contempt--knew as well as Kobaduk did, that there was not a Russian within miles of Karthlos, when that cowardly shot was fired. Moreover, the foremost of my father's men who had spurred along the defile, made oath that he saw a white globe whirl away where the crags broke apart in the distance, and he put his jaded horse to the utmost speed, all in vain among darkness and precipices. Now every one knows that no Russian soldier, and the Ossets alone in our part of the range can be found with that hideous head-gear flapping, a sheep-skin puffed out into a ball at the top, like a great white onion at the end of a stick. And there was other evidence as well as this. "My twin-sister, my only near of kin, for my father had no other children--was I likely, although she had acted thus, to rob her of a single copek? Nay, rather would not every one of mine be at her service? At the same time, could any son endure that his good father should be robbed not only of life but also of a third part of his property by a scoundrel of inferior race, who had stolen his daughter for that very end. Thereupon I was compelled to believe--for charity is by St. Paul described as the greatest of Christian virtues, but he does not appear (though a native of Cilicia) to have travelled in the Caucasus, as Peter did, otherwise never could he have retained enough of that virtue to describe it--young as I was, the conviction grew upon me that Prince Rakhan, the Osset, had murdered my father, Sûr Dadian, because he had refused him his daughter Marva. Instead of answering the letter therefore in which he demanded his portion, I set forth with a few troopers well armed to pay him a visit in his stronghold at Zacca, near the fountains of the Ardon river.