I slipped behind the bushes and took my aim. I was about to fire, when I noticed that scar on your forehead, and said to myself, 'There, it is my master,' and took my finger off the trigger. How changed you are! The devil himself could not recognize you."
Musdo again embraced his master.
"You intended to kill me, Musdo?" asked the young man.
"Certainly. I wanted your spear, mine was broken. It is a shame for a Kurd to go about without a spear."
"When did you break yours?"
"I had a fight with the Kurds when they were carrying away our sheep. The godless dogs carried them all off. They carried off your colt too, Sarhad,—that sorrel colt. I wish you could see him now. What a fine horse he had become! Eevry[errata 1] day I fed him, cleaned him and led him out for exercise, thinking all the time that some day my master would return and ride him. But the infidels carried him off. Of all our sheep they did not leave one."
"Our sheep?"
"Yours, of course; whose else could they be? Musdo has no sheep. A bullet hit my foot, too, but I rolled several of them over. My gun did capital work."
"Where were you going, with your foot so lame?"
"I was going that way,—there was—a—"
"There was what?"
"Oh, I can't tell you! Curse the Kurds. My old master—!"
Musdo could not finish his sentence; his eyes filled with tears, and he began to sob like a child.
"Well, they have killed him; I know it," said the young man, "but what were you going to do?"
"To bury him, of course; he could not be left unburied; my master was a good master."
"I have buried him. Tell me, Musdo, do you know anything about my mother, my sisters and brother?"
"Musdo knows all; he is not so stupid as not to know what happened to his master's family. Shall I start at the beginning?"
- ↑ Correction: Eevry should be amended to Every
