Another hour passed, when the look-out man, on the watch-tower, gave notice that he saw a horseman coming up the glen. As he approached nearer, he proved to be only one of the messengers despatched in the morning, and he reported that he could gain no intelligence of any of the young Khan’s escort.
The shades of evening were beginning to throw a deep gloom into the glen, when the look-out man again cried that he saw a party of horsemen approaching.
The Khan instantly threw himself on a gaily caparisoned steed, preceded by his banner-bearer. His squire and pages followed, with the principal of his retainers, and galloped down the glen to meet the expected bride. What was his rage and disappointment when he did not see his brother’s towering form, or the white veil of the betrothed; but met, instead, the travel-worn and agitated band of retainers who had set out with him?
“Where is my brother, and where my bride?” he exclaimed, riding furiously towards them with his drawn scimitar uplifted. “Say, caitiffs, ere I slay you.”
“As Allah is great, we dare not say, Khan, where your brother is. We know not—we cannot speak,” answered the foremost of the party. “The fair daughter of the Uzden Arslan Gherrei is with her father.”
“What! does she not come with my brother? Speak, slaves; answer, I charge you,” cried the Khan.
“This only we know, Khan. On my head be it that I say truth,” replied the first speaker:
“The brother of the Khan parted from the Uzden Arslan Gherrei in anger, that he would not let his daughter come to be queen of our chief’s anderoon. We then travelled towards the castle of the Urus at Ghelendjik, where Besin Khan, taking with him only Kiru, ordered us to proceed a day’s journey, and then wait for him. For two days he came not. We waited a third, and we then went to search for him. We heard that there had been a bloody fight between some of the tribes on the coast and the Urus, and we thought our young Khan would not have been absent; but all, of whom we asked for news of him, turned aside, and would not answer. We then went to the shore, where the combat took place, and among heaps of the vile soldiers of the Urus, almost destroyed by the birds of prey and wild beasts, we found the sabre, which was our young master’s, broken, and his iron cap and his corslet, with a deep dent on its centre.”
As he spoke, the horsemen opened their ranks, and discovered between them, on a led horse, the shattered arms of Besin Khan.
“As Allah is great, Khan, this is all we know,” added the man.