THE HORSE AND HIS RIDER. 149 



I would freely give the half of them for your courser, 

 Kasbitch." 



" Aha, Kasbitch !" said I to myself; and I called to 

 mind the shirt of mail. 



" Ay," replied Kasbitch, after a moment's silence, 

 " there is not his like in all Kabarda. Once this was 

 beyond the Terek I set out with the Abreks to 

 capture Russian herds of horses. The attempt was 

 a failure, and we scattered, one this way, another that. 

 Four Cossacks were after me. I could hear the 

 villains shout behind me, and before me was a thick 

 forest. I bent down in the saddle, commended myself 

 to Allah, and for the first time in my life dealt my horse 

 a blow with my whip. He darted like a bird through 

 the branches, my clothes were torn in shreds, and the 

 twigs lashed me in the face. My horse leaped over 

 the stumps of trees, and burst the thick underwood 

 asunder with his chest. As far as myself was con- 

 cerned, I should have done better to have turned my 

 horse loose in the copse, and hid myself in the wood, 

 but I could not part from him, and the prophet 

 rewarded me. Some bullets whistled over my head, 

 and I heard my pursuers close behind me. Suddenly 

 a deep chasm yawned before me my courser recoiled 

 on his haunches and leaped. His hind feet slipped 

 on the further bank, and he hung on by his fore feet. 

 I dropped the rein, and let myself fall into the chasm : 

 that saved him, he regained his footing. The Cossacks 



