2i6 CASUALS IN THE CAUCASUS 



versemcni, and he looked very shaken indeed as he 

 sat in the midst of the debris, holding his arm. 



The buffaloes, lethargic as ever, took freedom by the 

 forelock and painstakingly hunted grass spears among 

 the stones ; the horses, used to this sort of thing evi- 

 dently, waited the word to start again. The telega itself, 

 built on the lines of a battering-ram, made simply 

 nothing of the affair. 



The poor little injured Tatar drooped like a withering 

 sunflower, of which his black sheepskin hat was the 

 centre and his golden-brown tattered coat the hanging 

 leaves. The Tatars, of course, are all Mahommedans 

 and a good many of them of the fanatical Shiah variety, 

 and this made us hesitate to offer first aid lest we 

 might defile the pitiful object in some way. 



However, as he wilted more and more, my cousin 

 and I threw scruples to the winds and split his ragged 

 sleeve to the top. We found a very bad abrasion on 

 the elbow, so we got out our little box of necessaries, 

 and dressed and bandaged the wound quite scientifi- 

 cally. We had a little audience at last, including two 

 Cossacks who were riding by and dismounted to join 

 the interested group. 



The ideal Homocea, we knew, was brandy, but the 

 Mahommedan ban on it stood in its reviving way. I 

 suggested to Cecily that the Tatars would not know 

 the meaning of a silver flask, and if we said that it 

 contained a highly efficacious medicine we should carry 

 the thing through, and once the man had swallowed the 

 stimulant nothing very much could happen even if 

 they found the trick out. The invalid was almost 



