Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 053.djvu/762

 Ammalat Sek.

[June,

though a weight were removed from off his heart. " I should like to speak with the priest," said he to the ser- geant, after a moment's pause. ' " He shall be sent for immediately," was the reply.

' And now my friend," said Alexis, turning to me, and taking my hands in his, "you have been Louise's guardian and defender, will you for once act as her father ? "

The folio wing morning at ten o'clock, Louise, accompanied by the governor and myself, and Alexis by Prince Troubetskoy and the other exiles, en- tered the little church of Koslowa by two different doors. Their first meet- ing was at the altar, and the first word

they exchanged was the yes that unit- ed them for ever.

The Emperor by a private letter to the governor, of which Ivan was the bearer, had ordered that the Count should only be allowed to see Louise as his wife. It has been seen how willingly my friend obeyed, I should rather say anticipated, the Emperor's commands. And rich was his reward for thus promptly acknowledging the just claims of this devoted and very admirable woman. She was one of " nature's own nobility" refined and graceful, intelligent and high-minded and would have graced higher rank than that to which she was raised by the gratitude of Count Alexis W.

AMMALAT BEK.

A TEUE TALE OF THE CAUCASUS. FROM THE RUSSIAN OF MARLINSKI. CHAPTER X.

" WILL you hold your tongue, little serpent?" said an old Tartar woman to her grandson, who, having awaken- ed before daylight, was crying for want of something better to do. " Be quiet, or I will kick you into the street.'*

This old woman was Ammalat's nurse : the hut in which she lived stood close to the tents of the Begs, and had been given to her by her foster-son, Am- malat. It was composed of two clean whitewashed rooms, the floor of both was strewed with coarse mats, (gha- sil ;) in niches close to each other, for the room was without windows, stood boxes bound with iron, and on them were arranged a feather- bed, blankets, and all the utensils. On the cornices, at half the height of the wall, were ranged porcelain cups for pillau, ha- ving tin covers in the form of helmets, and little plates hanging side by side on wires : the holes with which they were pierced showing that they served not for use, but for ornament. The face of the old woman was covered with wrinkles, and expressed a sort of malicious sorrow : the usual conse- quence of the lonely pleasureless life of a Mussulman woman. As a wor- thy representative of persons of her age and country, she never for a mo- ment ceased scolding her grandson

from under her blanket, and to grum- ble to herself. " Kess," (be quiet,) she cried at length, yet more angrily, " or I will give you to the ghaouls, (devils !) Do you hear how they are scratching at the roof, and knocking at the door for you?"

It was a stormy night ; a thick rain pattering on the flat roof which served as a ceiling, and the roaring of the wind in the chimney, answered to her hoarse voice. The boy became quiet, and straining his eyes, hearkened in a fright. It really seemed as if some one was knocking at the door. The old woman became frightened in her turn : her inseparable companion, a dirty dog, lifted up his head from sleep, and began to bark in a most pitiful voice. But meanwhile the knocking at the door became louder, and an un- known voice cried sternly from with- out, " Atch kapini, akhirin akhirici ! " (open the door for the end of ends.) The old woman turned pale. " Al- lah bismallah!" she exclaimed, now addressing heaven, then threatening the dog, and then quieting the crying child. " Sh, accursed beast ! Hold your tongue, I say, kharamzada, (good- for-nothing son of shame !) Who is there ? What honest man will enter, when it is neither day nor dawn, into the house of a poor old woman ? If