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top speed, the enemy at our heels. They brought down man after man as they gained on us.

'Within a couple of miles of Akhsi there is a place called the Garden-Dome. We had just passed it when Ibráhím Beg called loudly to me for help. I looked round and saw him engaged with a home-bred slave of Shaikh Báyazíd. I turned at once to go back, when Ján Kúli and Biyán Kúli, who rode beside me, seized my rein and hurried me on, saying, "What time is this for turning back?" Before we reached Sang (three miles from Akhsi) they had unhorsed most of my followers; but after Sang we saw no more pursuers. We followed the river of Sang, being then only eight men. A sort of defile leads up stream among broken glens, far from the beaten track. By this unfrequented path we went, till leaving the river on the right we struck into another narrow track. It was about afternoon prayers when we came out from the glens upon the level country. There we saw a black spot far off on the plain. I put my men under cover, and crept up a hillock on foot to spy what it might be; when suddenly a number of horsemen galloped up behind us: we could not tell how many there were, but took to our horses and fled. The horsemen who followed us (I afterwards learnt) were not above twenty or twenty-five in all, and we were eight. Had we but known their number at first we should have given them warm work, but we thought they were in force; and so we continued our flight. The truth is that the pursued are no match for the pursuers, even though numbers be in their favour, for

A single shout is enough to finish the vanquished.

'Ján Kúli said, "We cannot go on like this; they will take us all. Do you and the foster-brother (Kukildásh) take the two best horses of the party and galloping together keep the spare horses on your bridle; perhaps you may escape."