"It is false," she answered, with eyes full of anger and sorrow; "Osman was a brave Circassian warrior, and I loved him; oh! how dearly and how well; but he fell in battle at Mikhailov. Thou art either a base Muscovite, or some fiend in the shape of Osman; a ghoul it may be, a son of Ifrit; begone, and leave me." I could have wept at these stinging words, which sank like poisoned arrows in my heart, and I feared that grief had disordered her intellects; but I did injustice to Basilia, for her language was the first prompting of honest grief and indignation to find me in the uniform of the Tenginski Hussars, and false, as she deemed, to my country and to her. For so she told me, when more composed, and when she heard my story, as we sat side by side under a broad chesnut tree with the plunder of the Turkish ship around us, and the flames of its burning timbers to light our little bivouac. When we fired it, with all the branches and withered leaves that were piled over it, the flames burned bravely, and shot above the copse-wood, as they licked the mast and its well-tarred cordage. I sat at the feet of Basilia, my heart teemed with joy, half the objects of existence seemed accomplished now, and I could no longer believe that fortune had greater favours in store for me. In the language of our own beloved country, we formed innumerable projects of happiness, or whispered plans of escape from the toils of the Russians, and I had resolved in the night, if possible, to elude my own sentinels, to mount Basilia on Zupi, and to depart by the vale of Mezip towards the wilderness of mount Shapsucka, when my sergeant, with a dark and singular expression in his eye, came to inform me that my brother "the Lieutenant Selim was nowhere to be found." Karolyi, who was sitting beside us, looked up, and gave a deep smile as the Cossack spoke. In short, after seeing the last Turk cut down, Selim, while our dismounted hussars were overhauling the ship, had turned his horse's head towards the mountains and escaped. I rejoiced at this for a time. "But brother Osman," said Karolyi, "Selim has done us a wrong in this; we should all have fled together, for thou and I will now be watched with double suspicion, and have our simplest actions subjected to the severest scrutiny." "Remember, there is the maiden, whom I cannot leave behind; so let us rejoice that Circassia has one brave warrior more." Karolyi made a gesture of impatience. "Circassia," said he, "has maidens enough and to spare; but for every warrior on her hills, she requires at least a hundred. This is no time for wedding or acting the lover, for twangling on the lute and kneeling on the verge of a pretty maid's carpet." "These were my own words, Karolyi, when urged by you and Selim to wed ere Schamyl rose in arms."