The excitement, the glory, and the splendour of our mountain host equipped for war, with the hopes of conquest and of triumph, filled my soul with such ardour and exultation that my emotion nearly overcame me. The hope of winning back in this war, if it was successful, the land, the home, and the grave of my forefathers, and with these the flower of the Abassian maids for my bride, made me pant for the hour of battle with such ardour as never bridegroom awaited the unveiling of his new-made wife. The great Dervish Mohammed Mansoor, from the misty land of Daghestan, had foretold our triumph when he died at Anapa, and we never doubted we should be victorious. Over my father's fugitive people a command was assigned me by the confederated princes; my brothers, Selim and Karolyi, rode by my side; all who followed us shared our ardour, and we were brave even to ferocity: thus, pouring down from the snow-capped Alps of the Caucasus towards the hosts of the Russ, then blackening and desolating the banks of the Kuban, while their fleets of three deckers and steamers scared the golden dolphins from our shores, we commenced the desperate war of 1840. I was full of delicious hope, and the last words of Basilia, for I had visited her in secret before we marched, were ever in my ears,-- "Hope for everything from Heaven, O Osman. The angels of Mohammed will deliver you from the swords of the Russians, and like all, my beloved, who fight against the spirit, they shall wither and perish!" Her prophetic words inspired me with new ardour. "Farewell, Basilia," I exclaimed, as I grasped the mane of Zupi; "we go to teach those Muscovite liars who mark our country in their maps that the Circassians have no masters save God and the Prophet." CHAPTER XVII. THE HUSSARS OF TENGINSKI