"It is thine, Marguerite!" exclaimed Caterna. And could he have better
expressed his admiration than in appropriating the celebrated reply of
Buridan to the Dauphine's wife--and not the queen of France, as is
wrongly stated in the famous drama of the _Tour de Nesle_?
It was our superb Mongol to whom we were indebted for this marksman's
masterpiece.
"What a hand and what an eye!" said I to the major, who continued to
look on Faruskiar with suspicion.
Among the other animals of the Pamirian fauna appeared wolves and
foxes, and flocks of those large wild sheep with gnarled and gracefully
curved horns, which are known to the natives as arkars. High in the sky
flew the vultures, bearded and unbearded, and amid the clouds of white
vapor we left behind us were many crows and pigeons and turtledoves and
wagtails.
The day passed without adventure. At six o'clock in the evening we
crossed the frontier, after a run of nearly two thousand three hundred
kilometres, accomplished in four days since leaving Uzun Ada. Two
hundred and fifty kilometres beyond we shall be at Kachgar. Although we
are now in Chinese Turkestan, it will not be till we reach that town
that we shall have our first experience of Chinese administration.
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