put in his great black hand, and tear out the luscious
morsel. I called him up, and charged him with purloining,
whereupon he said that when the crate fell,
which it had done early in the day, one of the
camels had put his nose into the crate and cleaned out
the melon. Sevier, however, witnessed against him,
and I gave him a lecture.
But shortly after Rosy came to divulge that Murad
had stolen about five-and-twenty, or nearly half, o f my
native bread-cakes, whereupon I felt that it was high
time for me to turn policeman, and to give him something
more than sharp words, which by the time they
had left me in English, Sevier in Russian, and Rosy in
Turki, had lost much of their flavour. I adopted, therefore,
a corrective idea from Captain Burnaby’s book,
and holding up the bag with the remaining cakes
before Murad’s face, I addressed him in English, and,
to make it understandable, I administered on his back
two or three sharp cuts with my horsewhip. He wore
so many khalats over his well-seasoned hide that I do
not think he was much hurt, but under the consciousness
of guilt his swarthy face became a few shades
darker than before, and Sevier cried out that he acknowledged
himself wrong, promising not to offend again ;
whereupon I desisted.
I know not whether this narrative may cause some
to think that I was forgetting my profession, but I
acted advisedly and thought I was right. W e were
not yet half-way to the Caspian, and if I did not in
some way establish my authority, we might have half
our provisions stolen. There was no policeman, magistrate,
or bek within scores of miles, and I could not
rid myself of the thief either by advance or by retreat.
I was thankful, therefore, that I had the courage to
“ take the bull by the horns ” and administer what the
French call une petite correction, and it had precisely
the effect that I wished.
Murad slunk off to Nazar, and presently a message
came in the plural number to say that, if I scolded and
beat them, they would go back, which united action I
counter-manoeuvred by telling both that they had only
to be honest and all would be well, and adding that
I was not angry with Nazar. This honourable exception
pleased Nazar, and he thanked me, and, what was
better, proved himself afterwards true as steel. Murad
continued the idle, lazy lout he had been all along,
putting his work, when he could, on the others, and
wanting to ride when Nazar walked ; but I had established
my position as master, and he obeyed, so that
henceforward we got on better.
After resting three hours at the well, we ascended
out of the river bed by a path equally difficult to that
by which we had entered. Murad’s temper had not
quite recovered, and he said at first that they were
going back, but made no attempt in that direction, and
soon after midnight we came to a land o f reeds and
rushes. Then the men came to say that the camels
were so tired that they must rest, for one o f them was
i l l ; also that it was so dark they could n o t see the way.
With regard to the camels I thought it a lie, but as for
the other plea, if they did not know the way, certainly
I could not tell them, nor blame them, for it was so
dark as to surprise me how they could make out the
way at all. I gave permission, therefore, to stop and
rest till daybreak, when, on opening our eyes, we saw
stretched out in the grey light of morning the littleknown
lakes of Sar*v Kamish.