"And he was lame!" said Madame Caterna.

"Yes, madame, like Genseric, like Shakespeare, like Byron, like Walter
Scott, like Talleyrand, but that did not hinder his getting along in
the world. But how fanatic and bloodthirsty he was! History affirms
that at Delhi he massacred a hundred thousand captives, and at Bagdad
he erected an obelisk of eighty thousand heads."

"I like the one in the Place de la Concorde better," said Caterna, "and
that is only in one piece."

At this observation we left the mosque of Gour Emir, and as it was time
to "hurry up," as our actor said, the arba was driven briskly toward
the station.

For my part, in spite of the observations of the Caternas, I was fully
in tone with the local color due to the marvels of Samarkand, when I
was roughly shaken back into modern reality.

In the streets--yes--in the streets near the railway station, in the
very center of Tamerlane's capital, I passed two bicyclists.

"Ah!" exclaimed Caterna. "Messrs. Wheeler!"

And they were Turkomans!

After that nothing more could be done than leave a town so dishonored
by the masterpiece of mechanical locomotion, and that was what we did
at eight o'clock.