But alas! what a conflict of languages we had! I think it is St. James who dwells with great eloquence upon the many miseries we suffer from the tongue; he has not, however, described for us one of its most diabolical conditions, when it cannot hit upon the word it wants, and flies into a fury of perplexity with itself, and indignation at the stupid ear that keeps it so in limbo. Stepan tried English, and that was very bad; then I tried Lesghian, but that was much worse. He could see that I wanted to know why his master had broken up their English home so suddenly, and without so much as a word of farewell; but all that he could do towards telling me was to shake his head, and make a great noise in his throat, and box the boy's ears for laughing at him. Then something not altogether devoid of true insight occurred to him, for he shouted in a mighty voice, "Stepan dam fool!" and gave Allai some order, which sent him to the buildings like an arrow. Something had occurred to me also, so often are ideas simultaneous, and while the messenger was gone, I took that leaf of which I have spoken, from my pocket-book, and handed it to Stepan. He looked at it with great surprise, and then put it to his lips and on his forehead, and then tore off a fibre and tasted it. "Adul! Adul!" or some word that sounded like that, he repeated frequently, and did his utmost to show me that he felt great curiosity about it. Upon this I pulled out a pencil and drew a rough sketch of myself being shot at, taking poetic licence to show the bullet in the air and the leaf dropping from it. Also I tried to represent a man crouching in a bush and popping at me, and although not a glimpse had been vouchsafed me of the villain on that occasion, I allowed imagination to indue him with the plumed hat of Prince Hafer. This I had no right to do; but surely a little liberty is pardonable with a gentleman who has taken a shot at one in the dark. At any rate Stepan fell in most briskly with the inference of this costumiery, and seemed rather pleased at the confirmation of his own moral estimate and foresight. Until I began to think, I was surprised that he should be so calm about that black attempt to annihilate me; but remembering what he had been through, I let him take it according to his nature. He liked me, he approved of me, he thought me a good Englishman; and yet it would have been no more than the finish of a bear-hunt to him to have carried me home on the hurdle I jumped, when I went to the rescue of Allai. And I looked at him, with some disappointment. "Enemy!" he said; it was the word that had long been hanging in his windcrop; and now he was so delighted with it that he said it three times over. "Good Englisk; dam enemy. Stepan see all--all right, dam enemy!"