Note (return) — Chapter I

At this moment there rode up to Ammalát his emdjék,20 Saphir-Ali, the son of one of the poor beks of Bouináki, a young man of an agreeable exterior, and simple, cheerful character. He had grown up with Ammalát, and therefore treated him with great familiarity. He leaped from his horse, and nodding his head, exclaimed—"Noúker Mémet Rasoúl has knocked up the old cropped21 stallion, in trying to leap him over a ditch seven paces wide." "And did he leap it?" cried Ammalát impatiently. "Bring him instantly to me!" He went to meet the horse—and without putting his foot in the stirrup, leaped into the saddle, and galloped to the bed of a mountain-torrent. As he galloped, he pressed the horse with his knee, but the wearied animal, not trusting to his strength, bolted aside on the very brink, and Ammalát was obliged to make another turn. The second time, the steed, stimulated by the whip, reared up on his hind-legs in order to leap the ditch, but he hesitated, grew restive, and resisted with his fore-feet. Ammalát grew angry. In vain did Saphir-Ali entreat him not to force the horse, which had lost in many a combat and journey the elasticity of his limbs. Ammalát would not listen to any thing; but urging him with a cry, and striking him with his drawn sabre for the third time, he galloped him at the ravine; and when, for the third time, the old horse stopped short in his stride, not daring to leap, he struck him so violently on the head with the hilt of his sabre, that he fell lifeless on the earth.