Note (return) — Chapter II

Néphtali soon came up with the strangers. Their horses were covered with foam, and the sweat-drops rained from them on the narrow path by which they were climbing the mountain. The first was clothed in a shirt of mail, the other in the Circassian dress: except that he wore a Persian sabre instead of a sháshka,38 suspended by a laced girdle. His left arm was covered with blood, bound up with a handkerchief, and supported by the sword-knot. The faces of both were concealed. For some time he rode behind them along the slippery path, which overhung a precipice; but at the first open space he galloped by them, and turned his horse round. "Salám aleikom!" said he, opposing their passage along the rugged and half-built road among the rocks, as he made ready his arms. The foremost horseman suddenly wrapped his boúrka39 round his face, so as to leave visible only his knit brows: "Aleikom Salám!" answered he, cocking his gun, and fixing himself in the saddle.