CONCLUSION.
PROBABLY the letter written to Festahli by his friend, Mullah Sédek, left the former not a ray of hope for the union on which he had counted; for, one evening after the letter had reached his address, music and songs were heard in the streets of Derbend.
Kassime was being escorted to the home of her betrothed husband, Iskander.
All Derbend followed her; shouts and acclamations rent the air on every side, and from every house-top innumerable guns discharged their fires, like brilliant rockets.
The whole town seemed ablaze, rejoicing in Iskander’s happiness.
Iskander Beg, on hearing the noise and music, had twenty times drawn near to his door, and every time custom forbade his opening it.
Finally, at the twenty-first time, when the procession was almost at his threshold, as he half-opened his door and shyly put out his head, a horseman extended his hand, saying, —
“Iskander, may Allah grant you all the happiness that I wish you!”
And the same instant he wheeled his horse away, that he might not be caught in the midst of the crowd.
But, just as the horse turned, he found himself face to face with Yussef, who, naturally, was the best man at Iskander’s wedding.
Yussef Beg recognized the horseman, and could not restrain an exclamation of terror.
“Mullah Nour!” he cried.
That name, as one can well understand, threw the fête into great confusion.
The cry “Mullah Nour! Mullah Nour!” re-echoed on all sides.
“This way! that way! catch him! hold him fast!” howled the ten thousand voices together.
But Mullah Nour shot away like a flash of lightning.
All the young men who were on horseback in the bride’s train dashed off in pursuit of the bandit.
Mullah Nour flew through the streets of Derbend, and all they saw of him in the dark was the shower of sparks from his horse’s hoofs.
But as the city gates were closed Mullah Nour could not get out.
By the glare of shots fired at him along his course, they saw that he was headed toward the sea.
He would there find himself caught between the ramparts and the water.
One instant the bandit paused; the sea was high. They saw the leaping waves and tossing foam; they heard their roar.
“He is caught! he is ours! Death to Mullah Nour!” shouted his pursuers.
But Mullah four’s whip whistled like the wind, flashed like the lightning, and from the rock where he had an instant paused, at one leap his horse plunged into the sea.
His pursuers drew rein as the waters of the Caspian Sea washed their horses’ flanks.
They strained their eyes, screening them with their hands, in an effort to pierce the gloom.
“He is lost! drowned! dead!” they shouted at last.
A formidable peal of laughter answered their shouts, and a hurrah sent up from a dozen throats was heard in the direction of a little island uprising about a quarter of a verst from Derbend, which announced to the disappointed pursuers that not only had Mullah Nour escaped, but that he was even surrounded by his comrades.
In Iskander’s house the doors are closely shut. All is very quiet within; a faint whispering can scarcely be heard.
Gayety seeks the crowd; happiness loves silence and solitude.