of Wood-on-Wood. When Kara Yussuf was marked by a Persian blade, this Guchee fellow banged his chin on the edge of a stump. The old wench at the well saw him do it."
A merry laughter went round the pot; even the Tatars sharing.
"Laugh, old gourds, till ye crack!" cried Guchee. "My turn shall come. He that looks like the great may be called to act for the great. Who can say what is written by Ulluh?"
"I can see 'tis a wise stick beats thy yaboos, my friend. Ulluh yarin!" said Mangali, departing. The Tatars thundered down the rock trail.
With his left hand—for the khan was left-handed—Guchee hoisted the mushk of koomiss and swigged valiantly. In lofty style he addressed the dried cynic:
"I tell thee, old jackass, thou'rt jealous. Can I help that I look like the khan? Why, when I galloped into Nisapur on my white stallion—"
"Mule!" yelled somebody.
"Fool, thou knowest my white stallion. When I galloped into Nisapur, the lord of the city with twenty dancing maidens welcomed me: saying: 'Hail, Kara Yussuf!' But I would not fare by deceit, so I convinced him he was in error."
"Twenty broken-hearted damsels," groaned someone.
"In a great hour," Guchee continued, "I could substitute for the khan. Believe it or not, ye rump-headed skeptics. It is the will of Ulluh I should look like a khan, and something important shall come of it. A holy Eeshan prophesied that."
The feast of the bakshi continued—long enough to gather the clans. Then Kara Yussuf rolled up his portable city; packed kajavaks of provisions on camels and yaboos; reviewed the largest and fiercest army of Turkomans ever mobilized by a nomad khan; galloped stealthily night by night down from the craggy Kopet range, to crack the frontiers of Timur.
In the middle of the Black Sand desert, two days from the oasis of Merv, they ran into Mangali's army.
"The old fox worked fast!" Kara Yussuf pulled his split beard. "But verily my eye is a liar, or we outnumber them two to one."
He ordered the pack train moved to the right to avoid a possible stampede. Five hundred camels, yaboos and mules, half hid in a valley of tamarisk scrub, were watched by fifty Persian slaves commanded by ten stout Turkomans, of whom Guchee was one.
Kara Yussuf set his horde in formation. Too wily to charge into a steel-tipped hail from the mighty horned bows of the Tatars, the Turkoman chief chose to wait. Lord Timur, he knew, had much need of Mangali to assist him in smashing the Jat. Mangali would not dare to dally.
Mangali accepted the challenge. His bannermen waved the advance.
"Dar u gar!" The terrible Tatar cry had paralyzed half of Asia.
Pouring death from their bristling quivers the Tatars stormed over the plain. Thousands of croaking partridges in panic-smitten swarms roared from the patchy wormwood and fought through the furling dust clouds to the sky. The crimson banners of Samarkand dartled above the low breakers of drifted sand. Plumed helmets swam along the dunes like shark fins over billows.
Confident of their overwhelming
