"Can you roll off your horse, and down the bank on your left?" he added, hurriedly. "If you can, I can save you."
"Save yourself," I replied; "how can I move a step with a ball in my ankle-bone?"
"Silence!" interposed the Cossack, with a bang over the Beloochee's shoulders.
"Both or none," whispered the latter after a few seconds' interval, "do exactly as I tell you."
"Agreed," I replied, and waited anxiously for the result.
Our Cossack was getting wet through. To his hardy frame such a soaking could scarcely be called an inconvenience; nevertheless, it created a longing for a pipe, and the tobacco-bag he had taken from Ali was fortunately not half emptied. As he stopped to fill and light his short silver-mounted meerschaum, the spoil of some fallen foe, the troopers in our rear passed on. We were left some ten paces behind the rest, and the night was as dark as pitch.
Ali handed me a small knife: he had concealed that and one other tiny weapon in the folds of his sash when they searched him on the field of battle. I knew what he meant, and cut the cord that bound our wrists together; his other hand, meanwhile, to lull suspicion, caressed the Cossack's horse. That incautious individual blew upon his match, which refused to strike a good light.
In a twinkling Ali's shawl was unwound from his body and thrown apparently over the Cossack's saddle-bow. The smothered report of a pocket-pistol smote on my ear, but the sound could not penetrate through those close Cashmere folds to the party in front, and they rode unconsciously forward. The Beloochee's hand, too, was on his adversary's throat; and one or two gasps, as they rolled together to the ground, made me doubt whether he had been slain by the ball from that little though effective weapon, or choked in the nervous gripe of the Asiatic.
I had fortunately presence of mind to restrain my own horse, and catch the Cossack's by the bridle; the party in front still rode on.
Ali rose from the ground. "The knife," he whispered hoarsely, "the knife!"