Groping along the boarded wall, I suddenly heard voices. One of them I recognized instantly for that scamp Asamat’s, our host’s son; the other person spoke less, and in a lower tone. What are they coshering about? thought I; not about my horse, is it? With that I squatted down by the wall, determined not to lose a word; but the noise of the singing, and the din within doors now and then drowned a part of the conversation in which I was so much interested. ‘You have a splendid horse,’ said Asamat. ‘Were I master here, and had a herd of three hundred mares, I would freely give the half of them for your courser, Kasbitch.’ Aha, Kasbitch! said I to myself; and I called to mind the shirt of mail. ‘Ay,’ replied Kasbitch, after a moment’s silence, ‘there is not his like in all Kabarda. Once—this was beyond the Terek—I set out with the Abreks to capture Russian herds of horses. The attempt was a failure, and we scattered, one this way, another that. Four Cossacks were after me. I could hear the villains shout behind me, and before me was a thick forest. I bent down in the saddle, commended myself to Allah, and for the first time in my life dealt my horse a blow with my whip. He darted like a bird through the branches, my clothes were torn in shreds, and the twigs lashed me in the face. My horse leaped over the stumps of trees, and burst the thick underwood asunder with his chest. As far as myself was concerned, I should have done better to have turned my horse loose in the copse, and hid myself in the wood, but I could not part from him, and the prophet rewarded me. Some bullets whistled over my head, and I heard my pursuers close behind me. Suddenly a deep chasm yawned before me—my courser recoiled on his haunches—and leaped. His hind feet slipped on the further bank, and he hung on by his fore feet. I dropped the rein, and let myself fall into the chasm: that saved him, he regained his footing. The Cossacks saw the whole affair, but none of them thought of descending in search of me. They believed, no doubt, I must have broken my neck, and I heard them dash after my horse to catch him. The blood curdled in my breast. I crept through the deep grass along the bottom of the channel, and looked out: the wood ended there, and some of the Cossacks were just riding out of it into the open country, and I saw my Karagos running straight towards them. The whole pack made at him with a yell; he turned; they followed him a long, long while; and one in particular was twice near flinging the noose over his neck. I shook from head to foot, shut my eyes, and began to pray. Some moments afterwards I opened them again, and behold, there goes my Karagos, with his tail at full stretch, flying like the wind, and the Cossacks creeping away one after the other, on their jaded horses far off towards the Steppe. By Allah! every word I tell you is the truth, the strict truth! I staid in the chasm till a late hour of the night.