I did not see my way (as people always put it now, when they don't want to do what you want of them)—I did not see the fitness of discussing Dariel in this draught of echo, and with the bar in the background clinking pots and mumbling chaff.
"Hold my pipe, while I get up," the Captain said magnanimously, for his feet were on a leg-rest, and it was very good of him to move; "I never take anything so early in the day; but I don't judge the juniors. Come along, and bring my pewter."
When he had led me to an inner room, which appeared to be his sanctum, I told him what had happened, but could not by any means bring myself to show him Dariel's letter. And he did not ask for it; with all his bluffness, at heart he was a gentleman.
"Cut up rough, of course," he said; "would not have been worth her salt, if she hadn't. Only two things are added to our knowledge. One that they have been at Dresden, and the other that Hafer has been at work with that musk-rat of a Petheril. He sent him to Sheffield after you; that is plainer than a pikestaff. He could not have gone on his own hook; for he knows nothing of English ways, and very little of the language. He found that I would not do his dirty work, and so he took up with that blackguard. And cleaned me out, sir, cleaned me out! That is where I shall never forgive myself, until I cry evens with him. Would you look for any green lines in Bat Strogue, a tyke who has been round the world?"
He stared at me so fiercely that I could scarce help laughing. Then he laughed at himself, and said, "Allright, by-and-by. You go and see if Jemmy Nickols has heard anything. I can tell you one piece of good news. I told you what I was in London about. It has turned out ever so much better than I thought. Those confounded lawyers would not let me have a copper. But I put the enemy's lawyer at them; and by Jove, sir, I expect to get five thousand pounds. Not in a lump, mind; that would be too good for an unlucky son of a gun like me; but a thousand by the end of January, and the rest when some business in Yorkshire is wound up. So I need not come down upon you for a penny; and more than that, my boy, I will pay the piper, and you can pay your share, when your ship comes in. We will have a grand time among the niggers. Don't thank me, or I'll never forgive you. You have done me a good turn, and I'll repay it. Bat Strogue is a Christian, because he backs his friends up. But he doesn't hold with forgiving his enemies. He will have Hafer by the hip, and you shall see it. Stop a moment; you know some great swells, don't you?"
"One or two people of title I know. But none of them are in London yet. I could write to them, of course, if that would do as well."
"That never does as well. But they will soon come back. Parliament meets rather early this year. And we must not expect to stir a stump till March. My friend at Petersburg is not a great gun; of about my own mark, but not of my distinction. Bless you, I can go to Court anywhere, and plenty of bowing and scraping; but a tankard of malt is worth all of it. If you could get a line under cover from a friend to our Ambassador at Petersburg, he would pass it on to Sûr Imar when he gets there, and you might make it right with your lady-love. I suppose that never occurred to you. Strogue knows the way to go to work. What do you think of that, my friend?"
"I think it is a very good suggestion, and very kind of you to think of it. If I had not been in such a hurry, I daresay it would have occurred to me."
"Not likely; but Nickols might have thought of it. And I daresay he knows great guns too. All thosediamond-mongers do. You will manage it easily one way or another, and the sooner you do it the better. It will put a spoke in Hafer's wheel, but not the one I mean to put. Ask Nickols what sort of a winter they are having out that way. It might make a great difference to us. They very seldom have it as ours is, generally the very opposite. We are having it mild, so the chances are that they have got a stinger. All Azof was frozen up, and a good bit of the Black Sea, the last time I came that way, and in London and Paris there had not been one day's skating. However, you keep ready."
This was the very thing I meant to do, as soon as ever I could get the chance, and pick a little money up, for it was not likely that I would let the Captain bear the charges. With many thanks to him, I took an omnibus, and had a short conversation with Nickols. As soon as he had heard my story, he approved of Strogue's suggestion, and quite agreed with him that we should both be ready to start as soon as we could do any good. At the same time he said that there was not much chance of any mischief for the present, and he doubted whether Hafer had even returned to his native country yet. It was much more likely that after his taste of the sins of high civilization, which must have gone far to destroy the zest for dull Caucasian villainies, he would hanker for another sparkling draught, before going home to be frozen up. And now he had Petheril with him, to guide and interpret all sweet baseness.
"Petheril! where have I heard that name? Not only from Strogue, but somewhere else," I exclaimed, but could not remember.
For the rest, Signor Nicolo knew little, except that his nephew Jack was getting the rough side of British enterprise. His last note was short without any sweetness, unless it were a waft for Rosa, to whom he was all the more faithful, while frozen.
"All been snowed up ever so long," he was tersely graphic with his middle finger blue; "nothing to do, and less to eat. How I wish I had only stopped away! Saved our lives with a goat that was frozen to death, but had to eat him stiff, for the fire was frozen too. Tried tothink of mutton at Simpson's in the Strand; but imagination not warm enough. Snow is white, and emeralds green. Shall never see anything green again, unless it is gangrene in my toes. But you know that I never do complain."
"True enough," said the Signor, as he warmed the letter that he might not take a chill from it, "my nephew never does complain. But sometimes he exaggerates, and that made my daughter like him. I shall not let her know a word of this, or she might put some of the blame on me. I know that it is sure to be cold out there, when you go too far up the hillside. However, let us poke the fire up. You look rather chilly, Mr. Cranleigh. Rosa knitted him two pairs of mittens; but perhaps he put them by for keepsakes. Boys are so confoundedly romantic. But the wind has changed since yesterday. Strogue is the only man I know who understands the weather. He would warm poor Jack in no time."
"You had better send him out with another pair of mittens," I said, with some natural indignation. But the Signor had a pleasant gift of deafness to anything that twined against his twist.
"I shall see Strogue from time to time," he continued very comfortably; "there is a great deal of good in that man, when you get over his little oddities. And I am heartily glad to hear of his coming into property. Probably he will not drink now so freely; because it would be his place to pay for it. I know a fine fellow who was saved like that, when you would not have given twopence for his life. However, your course is clear, Mr. Cranleigh. Patience—what is it about the mulberry leaf? You should certainly write to St. Petersburg at once. Your brother-in-law, the Earl of Fitzragon, is sure to know some one who will do the needful for you. Or if not, I think I could manage it. You have been very lucky in falling in with Strogue, a man of great natural powers in his way, and very wide observation. Allow me; your coat is a little on the twist. You shall hear from me, if anything turns up. Ah, we want a little frost to kill the slugs, though we don't want to live upon frozen goat."
In proof of the critical, exacting, and thankless nature of the noble Briton, my father used to tell a little story savouring perhaps of the fable. Three excellent gardeners and botanists, representative of our "three islands"—as a learned Frenchman calls them—were searching some torrid mountain slope, as travellers for a great London nursery. When ready to drop with heat and thirst, for they had missed their supply of water, they chanced upon a vine in a sheltered spot, bearing three fine bunches of ripe grapes. Like good men and just, they tossed for choice; Paddy coming last, as his destiny decrees. His bunch was gone in no time, skin, stones, and stalk, while John Bull proceeded with a calm and steady munch. Sandy, however, stood contemplating his,—the finest cluster of the three,—holding it against the burning sky, with its dewy purple glistening like amethysts of ice. "Arrah, then, why don't ye ate it?" cried Pat; "if ye can't, it's meself that knows the bhoy as can." "Hoot, toots, mon, a' was joost conseederin'," the Scotchman replied, as he held it out of reach, "what a bonny boonch she wud a' been, gin I had only had the loock to come along aboot twal' weeks bock wi' my theening scissors."
Perhaps I was not quite so hard to please as that. But instead of being grateful for the many strokes of luck vouchsafed in my present strait, I did nothing but grumble at all that went amiss and growl at the heavy roll and everlasting lurch of time. However, let every man act according to his nature, or his own perversion of it; but I was not going to be beaten thus. It wouldnever do to leave the chance of obtaining some news from St. Petersburg to a casual traveller, like Strogue's friend. I must try to learn a little more about that. Therefore, as I would not go to Lord Fitzragon, it came into my mind that really I owed some amends to Lord Melladew; not for the peppering of his spats (for I had not even used a gun that day), but for my tolerance of such a stupid business, and the absence of wrath in my sorrow for it. The Earl had employed his lame time in writing a fine poem upon Russia, which had received a little private circulation; and a cultivated Russian, who had seen the poem, pronounced it the finest thing in the English language. Without going to that extent, I knew that his lordship was now a "Persona grata" (which means properly a welcome mask) at the Court of the Northern Universe.
When I met him at his club by appointment, for he was still in some terror of his mother, he showed himself as cordial as any young man who operates mainly with his intellect can be. "We never have mutton-chops here," he said, glancing along me, as if I were a hedgerow, with the side-look that comes from living always in a street; "but the view from the window is pleasing, George; and I can show you spots quite historical."
"Much obliged. But history is no good without age; and our own affairs are no good, when they get it."
He saw that I was going to be a plague, and he sank into a gimcrack velvet chair, which was handicapped too heavily, even with such weight as his, and he waved his hand for me to do the like; but I found a thing like a music-stool having more satisfactory understanding.
"How I have longed to be down your way!" Conversation with him reminded me always of holding a skein of tissue silk for a lady to wind while you bob your thumbs. "Any sign of spring, George? Willow catkins? Elder-leaves?"
"No, nor yet younger leaves," I answered gently. "Lots of frost to come yet, I daresay. Lovely time for fruit-growers—cut their noses off in May."
"I hope not. That bugbear must have been exploded. If I come down to see the budding year, dear George, could you—I mean, could you tell me where to go? I want to write a paper for the R.H.S. I began one on the Kentish pear and apple bloom last year, with a County Council lecturer who came down that he might be certain which was which. But the wind chopped round suddenly, and we got snowed up, and naturally all the fruit failed that season. But the year before that, there would have been a splendid crop, except for that gale on the 1st of September; I daresay you remember it. When I went to make an estimate of the saving to the country by growing its own fruit, with my usual luck I could find no proper specimens. The walks were so strewn with green fruit that my feet were too tender to get along among the heaps, without two men with brooms in front of me; and even so I could scarcely get upstairs that night. But how is our good friend Bandilow?"
"Becoming rather nervous, I am afraid. His family did their best to keep it from him about that other poor grower towards Godalming, who made that frightful application of his gooseberry-knife. But poor Bandilow had a sharpish tiff with his mother-in-law, as he could not see his way to keep her; and the cruel woman sent him full account of the inquest, with the lunatic doctor's evidence, and the balance-sheet of several years' jam-boiling, underlined in crimson ink. He told all the parish at the Bell-tap on Friday, that the only plantation he should ever make now must be in a box, and grow up into a stone."
"I hope not, I trust not most heartily," said the Earl, brushing his eyes, for he was very tender-hearted. "But let us turn to more cheerful subjects. I feel sadly upset about it. Let us have a glass of port."
After that he appeared a little stronger, and gladly undertook to forward any letter of mine to a friend of his who was attached to our embassy in Russia, and he felt no doubt that as soon as Sûr Imar appeared in that capital, it would be placed in his hands. Without losing an hour I wrote my letter, and left it in his charge, for there could be no harm in being too early, whereas it would be fatal to all my hopes, if I were even an hour too late.
My letter was short, and not too cordial; for really, when one came to reflect upon all the circumstances, my Lesghian friends had scarcely allowed me fair play, or so much as a chance to right myself. No man can be sure what he would have done, in a case which has not hit him in the breast, although we are very fond of talking so. Nevertheless, when I put a bit of spirit into my own consideration of myself, I could not help thinking that I would have given any one who fell into a sudden cloud of dust with me, more opportunity to clear the dirt away, and a fairer chance of asking from whose chimney it had come.
For weeks and weeks, I kept on waiting, looking out for anything that might throw light on the whereabouts of my wandering friends, but obtaining disappointment only. The mildness of the winter continued here; but a bitter frost prevailed in Eastern Europe, and the Danube was frozen over at the Iron Gates. Strogue heard from his friend at St. Petersburg that the ice on the Neva was six feet thick, and they could scarcely keep the railways open. And Signor Nicolo was compelled to hope all he could about his nephew Jack, and comfort his daughter Rosa with tales of a cat who lived three months in a snow-drift, and the horse who got into a hay-rick near Durham, and ate his way out again when the thatch began to drip. But he told me in confidence that he never was more pleased to have a bad leg than when Jack's mother came to see him. For sweethearts, being young, may shortly take up with another; but a widow with one child has locked up all her reason in him.
However, there was this advantage in the long suspense and waiting, that it gave me time to make all preparations leisurely, and get the money ready for a costly expedition. The cash I could have had from several quarters; Nickols, Strogue, Tom Erricker, and Stoneman, now beginning to recover from his troubles, all in the kindest manner offered to advance me a good round sum. But wonders, when they once set in, are like boys playing leap-frog. Over each other's back they vault, and then down they drop with hand on knee for a taller one to top them. And surely now came the tallestone that ever rolled in at a tithe-barn door, or struck the lintel of a giraffe-house.
Hitherto I have felt throughout that every word must be believed exactly as I tell it, not on the faith of my character only, but from internal evidence. This has made me careless perhaps; but now I mean to be very strict, confining every vocable to its first intention, and every numeral to its precise notation. For if any other person had related as follows, my interjections probably would have made him knock me down!
The days were beginning to pull out a little, and the wind was gone round to the east—as it always does, when too late to be of service for skates, or wild ducks, or golden plovers, but in good time to kill all bloom and foliage—and having had my bit of bacon in my Privy Council Office (as Grace now called the harness-room), I was dwelling on my bad luck; than which there is no messuage more insanitary for any man to inhabit. When in came my brother Harold, with his hands in his pockets, and his usual slouch, and soft melodious whistle. I had wanted him many times, when I could not find him, especially to show him to Sûr Imar; but now I could see little chance of turning him into any value.
"Not fool enough to want a fiver, I suppose," he said without offering to shake hands, for if ever there was a careless fellow about forms, here you had him.
"To have one to spare is what you mean to say. If a man is a fool who wants a fiver, I know a very clever fellow, who is a great fool always. But he can't get it out of me.Nulla bona."
"George," said my brother in that slurring tone, which means that any care of pronunciation would be wasted on the muff before you; "you can have some, if you like. But don't let me force it upon you, George. There are several other fellows after me."
"In that case," I answered, simply for his benefit not my own—for I did not expect to see anything worth counting; "that old tobacco-jar is empty; out with it, and let me put the top on. Is it from the sneezers, and the Local Board?"
"Who ever got a penny from a Local Board? If Icould invent a machine to do that, I should beat the great man in America. My sneezers, as you call them, will be household words, when reason has a voice in sanitation. But this new discovery is of a million times the value, because it is for the destruction of mankind. It will kill a thousand men, before they can call upon the Lord; and there will be no pieces left for the Devil. I had scruples at first, because of the wholesale carnage, and some of the victims might deserve to live; but the kindest-hearted man alive, and the chairman of five or six humane societies, ridicules that objection, and has taken shares. At the first blush it may seem too strong a measure; but when you know that it puts an end to war, you are reconciled to a few harsh moments."
There is a certain sound, enjoyed more often by bankers and brewers than by delvers of the earth, a silken harmony of thoughtful notes, silvery and sensitive, suggestive also of golden tones yet mellower. Seldom, alas! do we find it thrilling through the music of our spheres. Once heard, it is never forgotten; and now I heard it murmuring in my tobacco-jar, as it flowed from the lyre of my brother's fingers.
"Hold hard!" I shouted. "What the deuce are you about? You villain, you have been forging! I was sure you'd come to that. But I doubt whether even Free-Trade makes it honest."
"Nice gratitude," he answered, "when it is all for you. One would think that you alone had the gift of making money. But it would take you a long time to make that, my boy. Now help yourself. Don't be shy."
"Harold, you have worked hard for this." As I spoke, I regarded my elder brother with respectful sympathy, such as he never had inspired until now; "and I cannot perceive that I have any right to make a hole in your hard earnings. Do you think that I would do anything so mean? But how much do you suppose you have dropped into that jar? If you heartily desire to make me a little present—"
"Perhaps there may be about two-fifty there. They got up a company, you see, to work my patentSlaughter-ball. That makes everything straightforward. The investors throw in, to get other people's money, and it is their own look-out about keeping their own. But peg away, George; peg away."
"You are indeed a noble fellow." I spoke heartily and generously; when the facts come to this, between two brothers, how can there be either grudge or greed? "But you would only run through every penny, my dear brother. The wisest thing probably would be for me to secure for you some five-and-twenty."
"You had better take larger views. But I leave you altogether to your own devices." He jerked a chair over, and put his heels upon the hob, and whistled to the modest fire, with his back toward me.
"Fifteen, twenty, twenty-five," I said, "thank you heartily, my dear fellow, I call it very kind of you." He gave me a nod, without stopping his whistle, and that made me look into the jar again.
"Well, there does seem to be a jolly lot. I have a great mind to go a little further down. In all probability, you would only waste it, Harold." He gave me two nods this time, as if to say—"I will not deny it, if you take that view."
"Fifty would be quite as well, while one is about it. Forty, forty-five, fifty. Ah! you may not see me again for months, my dear fellow; even if I ever come back alive. I am going to the most dangerous part of the world, where they stick a thing into you they call a kinjal. Harold, we have always been fond of one another, although we are so different. Well, fifty then; but only as a loan, mind."
"I tell you what," he said, turning round and looking at me with resolute authority, "I am your elder brother, George, and know more of the world than you do. In fact, you are nothing but a farmer; and even the Government, stupid as it is, can make game of a farmer. Now if you don't take a hundred pounds, as a gentleman and a brother should, you may go to the Devil, and how shall I ever see you again, while you are there? So take your choice, and have done with it."
I tell you what, he said, turning round and looking at me with authority
"'I tell you what,' he said, turning round and looking at me with authority."
How could I part with him on such terms? And itstruck me suddenly, that if he were going to knock over all the human race, or at least the non-British branches of it, nothing could stand him in better stead than to be able to say that the first-fruits of his discovery had been used to set a true Briton upon his legs. With a grateful heart I left him at least a hundred and fifty pounds of his money, reminding him at the same time of that duty towards our parents, which he alone now would have the privilege of fulfilling. He promised to leave at least fifty pounds for that; and then he went into particulars about his "astrapebolia," as he called his discovery for visiting mankind with a human touch from heaven. This I could not understand, and therefore make no pretence to remember it; for my brain is not mathematical. Only I know that he pleased me by a promise that he would always keep behind the guns, when he sent them into action.
He went away suddenly as he came, being always of the comet order, but as lovable as the evening-star, whenever you could get hold of him. And when I had clapped a patent padlock on the first product of his genius, a dark terror seized me that my only brother, so endeared to small people like me, by his largeness, might be tempting Providence too far, and meddle too freely with fulminates, just as they began to pay. I longed to write to him upon the subject; but no post ever knew where to find him.
Then I was suddenly called away from vague apprehensions to perils at arm's-length, and even closer than that—blows eye to eye, and cheek by jowl, and tooth to tooth, such as a peaceful Englishman would never face, if he could help it; but must take as the will of the Lord, when they come. Sith it will no better be; he is sorry for himself, and does his best to make his enemies share his dejection.
In token I need only say that when I was going on peacefully, sore at heart with outraged love, but too proud to allow it to be mentioned, and girding myself for the work of the spring and that duty to the earth which a farmer must discharge even in despair of recompense—a dirty yellow envelope was put into my hand, as I camehome with two faithful horses as tired with dragging as I was with guiding, but all of us ready for the manger. I leaned againstSmiler'ssweaty chest, which looked as if lathered for shaving, and read the words which took me away from all smiling operations, almost forever.
"Sudden news. Fear to be too late. All gone crooked. Tidal train to-morrow. Meet me at Charing, 12.30, all packed.Bat Strogue."
"Sudden news. Fear to be too late. All gone crooked. Tidal train to-morrow. Meet me at Charing, 12.30, all packed.Bat Strogue."
Short notice indeed for so long a journey, and not a word said about passports. But I concluded that the old traveller would see to that matter for both of us; and having long since prepared my friends, and arranged home-affairs for a sudden departure, I was almost glad to exchange suspense for even headlong action. My father was kind enough to say that he would do the best he could without me; and Stoneman would even have come with me, if his business could have done without him. My mother was just what a mother should be, faithful, tearful, hopeful, and my sister Grace implored me to forgive sayings and doings on her part, which I had long ago forgotten. Everybody went on as if I had no chance of being seen alive again, and yet expressed a world of confidence in the care which Heaven would take of me.
In the days of yore, whenever any new pestilence or distemper fell from heaven upon the sons of men, the first thing to agitate the human mind was a strong and bitter controversy. Chiron, the son of Philyra, and Melampus of Amythaon, instead of attacking the common foe, fell pell-mell upon one another, maintaining or spurning their various doctrines—contagion, infection, epidemism, conduction by water, by earth, by wind—until they were driven to run away headlong, or lie down forever. Such questions surpass our understanding. But one malady there is, contagious, infectious, endemic also as well as epidemic, grandly contemptuous of pill and bolus, sticky as a limpet, while as slimy as a slug, and the name of this blessed disease is—"The Blues." And the beauty of it is, that everybody who has got it believes that he alone of all the people in the neighbourhood is free from every atom of a symptom of it.
As his luck, or perhaps mine, would have it, Strogue was in the blues, when he came to Charing Cross. He received me with a grunt, and would say nothing, except to be down upon the cabman, and the porters, and shove his way along as if there were no English language. This is a very useful way to go to work, whenever you can be quite certain that you are the biggest fellow in the place, with no one to try to think otherwise. But unless there is money right and left behind it, at a big railway station it does not succeed.
"You are not among the niggers yet," I said, being always polite to everybody, and indignant at not beingallowed to speak, while his voice rang along the glazing. But he deigned me no answer, not even a glance, but shouted out "Third Class! Where the devil are you driving to? Have you never seen the Chairman of this Line?" The porters were too wide-awake to do anything but grin, and touch their caps ironically, and then he said "First Class," whereupon they all believed him.
Not a word however would he say to me, though we had all the carriage to ourselves at starting; so I took him at his humour, and went to the other window, and drowned all my anxieties in "The Money Market." Possibly his heart was heavy about the landlady of the "London Rock," or the barmaid thereof, or the daughter of the Boots, if a maiden there were in that capacity; or perhaps a traveller even so well-seasoned could not bid adieu to his native land once more, without emotions honourable to his head and heart alike. Then the contagion of his low spirits began to spread around me, like the influenza vapour; and if he had tried to talk, I should not have cared to answer.
Such tacit respect and mutual affability of silence do more to endear two heavy-witted Britons to one another, than a folio of flippant words. Strogue was kindly pleased with me, and I thought well of Strogue, when our lofty regard for the sea-sick passengers, as we had a rolling time of it, opened, as with one accord, the valves of communication. "Give us a light, old chap," said the Captain, as he clapped me on the back; "come out of the sulks, and talk a bit."
After all the temper he had shown, this was rather ludicrous; but I let him put his own interpretation on it, for he was in this predicament for my sake, quite as much as to please himself. But strange as it may seem, we both avoided all important subjects, until the question of route compelled us to consider them. Then I told him that money need not stop us, only mine must be put into proper form in Paris; and then we discussed the whole question.
It seems that he had ordered this sudden start by reason of something that came to his knowledge only on the previous afternoon. In St. Paul's churchyard heencountered quite by chance, according to his view of it, a man well known through his travels in Central Asia, and most interesting account of them. Strogue took him back to the "London Rock," and there entertained him hospitably, for a traveller has generally acquired the power of feeding upon any wayside bench. By and by the two great wanderers came to a subject pretty sure to be handled by them, but never with unanimity. Strogue thought highly of the classic charms of the fair Ionian ladies; but Sir Robert B. called them a brown and skinny lot, and declared that there was not a girl of any Hellenic race fit to walk beside a maiden he had seen at Athens, not more than a month ago, and who was said to be of old Caucasian lineage. Knowing that the ladies of the Caucasus are not much addicted to travel, the Captain began to enquire into this, and although he had never met Dariel, and had seen Sûr Imar at a distance only, his friend's account left him in no doubt whatever that the pair he had been so vainly seeking, by letters to half the capital towns of Europe, were in Athens at the end of February. Not only did the description tally with all he heard from me and Nickols, and that scoundrel of a Hafer, but also Sir Robert, while making enquiries about the beautiful stranger, had been told by some facetious Greek that she was worthily named indeed, the daughter of Himeros, of love, of passion, of delight, and yearning. And again he had learned at the hotel, where they were staying, that their journey to St. Petersburg had been prevented, or at any rate deferred, through the extreme severity of the winter surpassing any season within memory. This I could well understand, for I knew Sûr Imar's dread of bad weather, not on his own account but lovely Dariel's.
Father and daughter were still at the ancient centre of civilization, when Sir Robert left it, and their intentions were unknown to him. But he was inclined to think, from certain purchases which he saw them making, that they were more likely to be on their way home than to proceed to Russia now, and if so there could be little doubt that they would make their way first to Constantinople. Therefore it seemed to be our proper course,though beset with much doubt and perplexity, to betake ourselves at the utmost speed to the Turkish capital, and try to intercept them there, or if too late for that, to follow them. For everything now would depend upon time. In a few more weeks the golden sun would have captured the mountain parapets, and begin to swing open with summer light the bars of the steepest citadels; and then if Sûr Imar were a day before us, what chance of overtaking him? And his foes were not likely to hold much parley, when once they found him in their hands.
Out upon it! Who could imagine such a crime overlooked by the Power that rules the world? A loyal confidence possessed me for a while, that Heaven would protect its noblest produce, the few who ever think of looking up to it, from the venom of its abject spawn.
"It will never do to take it in that light," said Strogue, though he always attributed his own escapes, which had been manifold as well as narrow, to celestial perception of his merits; "no, you must never trust to that cock's fighting. Sometimes it will, and sometimes it won't. And where are you then without your revolver? And one thing you overlook altogether; setting aside all holy motives—which those fellows take revenge to be—when a savage wants your property, does he dwell upon your character?"
"Then they ought to be all exterminated. What are the lives of a thousand savages, in comparison with that of one great good man, who lives only for their benefit?"
"If you kill them, what good can he do them?" Strogue asked, being always more captious than logical. "Imar is in front of his age; and the age makes martyrs of fellows of that kind and leaves the future to make saints of them, if their ghosts turn up, within memory. Our business is to act, and not to argue. Now look to your luggage, my boy, and the most important part of it is firearms."
So we took our course along the chord of Europe by abominably slow lines, whenever there were any; and at last without any line at all. It gave an Englishman the tingles to see everybody crawling, as if time were a tortoise with the gout, and the hours the produce of a copritebeetle, which he slowly travels backward to bury. The slowest man on our farm, after eating two days' dinner, was a swallow with a nest to feed, compared to any one I saw throughout the east of Europe.
There was a little more vigour at Constantinople, and plenty of fellows with fine pegs to stir, if they could only see the use of it. But as for any briskness, and punctuality, and eagerness to get a job and do it, the loafer who stands by the horse-trough on the green in any Surrey village would have his hands out of his pockets and stand on his head, before their eyes were open. And yet we are told every day of our lives that it serves the British farmer right to starve, because he has no activity!
We had spent two days without any possibility of avoiding it in Paris, and but for Strogue it would have taken me twice as long to make the needful arrangements; and now we lost four days in the City of the Sultan, making search for our friends in all probable quarters, and procuring what was indispensable. Without obtaining any further clue, we set forth on the 10th of April, by a poor little steamer very badly found, for a place called Poti at the mouth of the Rion, one of the four chief rivers of the Caucasus, formerly known as the Phasis, whence the bird, whose lustre shames the glories of the golden fleece.
Strogue had shown in very early days the quick force of his genius by running away from school, and defying pursuit, and beginning earnest life in a wherry. "You are picking up the lingoes very smart," he said, as we churned the muddy waters; "but I can't stand affectation, George, and I won't have the old Ark called theArgo. Besides, she never came here in her life; she drew a deal too much water. She went to pieces on Ararat, I tell you, and Satan took her upper deck and put it on top of Elbruz. Why? Why, that people might go against the Bible, as they are only too glad to get an excuse to do. And he put about a story that she grounded upon Elbruz, which she could not have done from the shape of it. No, no. Holy Writ is what I stick to, and as long as I do that, the Lord will always stick to me. I won't hear another word about it."
However, though he would not have the Argo even mentioned, he made no objection to the golden fleece; in fact he confirmed it, having seen some gold in the upper waters of the Rion; and as for Medea, when I told him all her story, her treachery, incantations, murder of her brother and even her own babes, he became quite excited, and vowed that she must have come to life again as the Princess Marva. Upon that I begged him to tell me all he knew about that extraordinary lady, for I had never understood from her brother's description that her nature was particularly fierce and unforgiving, though she certainly behaved in a cold and distant manner, when she informed him that his wife was gone. But that might arise from nothing more than the sense of the wrong she herself had received through her faithless husband Rakhan. And would a ruthless woman feel such emotion at the casualty to another person's child?
"Not knowing, can't say," the Captain answered in his favourite short style; "but you must remember that I have not heard that story as he told it. And another thing, he was not there to see it; for he was far away settling that other fellow's hash,—and his own too by being in such a blessed hurry. But I have got a very shrewd suspicion, my boy; you will laugh at it, I dare say, and there certainly are some things that pretty nearly knock it on the head. What do you say to this? Suppose it was her own child that was killed, and that she contrived to change them, fearing that she would never have another, and so would lose her position altogether. For among those Ossets, as I have been told, the childless wife of the chief must eat humble-pie at every corner, and is apt to be superseded after six or seven years. And she might have other motives too for getting Imar's heir into her possession."
"The idea is ingenious, but most improbable," I replied after thinking for a moment. "Not that she could not have done it, for there was no one to observe her, except her own nurse, whom she could easily silence. But her own conduct now proves that it cannot have been so. Shows that she had not gone for that game, I mean. They may be a lawless lot, everybody says so; but evenyour Medea would never send a man to marry his own sister."
"I hope not. It is too horrible to think of. Though it might be part of her hideous scheme for revenge. I tell you, Cranleigh, it is but a very stale thing to say, that a woman of the lowest depth of woman's wickedness is as far beneath any man's deepest pitch, as a good woman is above his highest stretch. I don't go by what they tell you in the books. I have seen a big lot of men and women—civilized as they call themselves, and savage; the latter on the whole more trustworthy; and you know that I never dogmatise. Only a fool does that: and though I am an ass very often, especially when I yield to my feelings about right and wrong, you can't call me altogether a fool—now can you?"
"Captain Strogue," I answered warmly, perceiving that he asked for it, "fools are always numerous enough. But if you are one, I wish that they were universal." And in saying this I was no hypocrite.
"There is not such a thing as a wise man now," he proceeded, after one quick glance, which showed that he liked my testimony. "We don't want them. They would never suit the age; and so the Lord abstains from sending them. The two or three last, who pretended to come, spent all their energy in scolding, which shows that they were not the proper stuff. But about this Medea—is that all you have got to say, to show that she is not trying on this little game?"
"No. I have a much stronger argument than that. No one could imagine for a moment that Sûr Imar, the most benevolent man on earth, could be the father of a hateful, spiteful, low-minded scoundrel, such as Hafer is."
"You have put it fairly. No one would imagine it; and therefore it is the very thing that may be true. I am not a scholar; but such things have been, and will be again, while the world endures. From bodily likeness you may reason more than from the greater things you cannot see. I have never seen Imar close at hand; but they are both tall, strong men, straight, well-built, and active. Imar is fair you say, and Hafer dark. That proves nothing."
"It is a vile idea, and I will not listen to it," I replied, with some inward sense of outrage on our race; "I have never seen Hafer for a close examination, and am not sure that I could swear to him, if he stood before me now. But from the glimpses I have had of him, I know this—he is as different from the grand Sûr Imar, as a blackberry bush is from a Muscat vine."
"Yet the one may be grafted on the other, I believe. The difficulty is not concerning that, George Cranleigh; the difficulty is about the woman's motives. Prove that it would suit her purposes to bring such a horrible affair about, and the horror of it is no obstacle to the fact. What makes me doubt my own suggestion is, that I cannot see how the scheme would work for the benefit of Madame Marva. All other objections on the score of human nature, or what human nature ought to be, are as nothing to the will of such a woman. Remember that she has a double object—to make herself the Queen of both the tribes, and to avenge her husband's death."
Wicked, and ruthless, and inhuman, as the sister of that lofty and noble-minded man might be, I could not bring myself to believe her capable of any such horrible design. But the misery, agony, and anxiety for the pure and innocent Dariel, and her father already so cruelly tried by the dark decree of Heaven, also my deep and abiding fury at bloodthirsty treachery, and the terror of being too late for the rescue, all together these drove me to the verge of madness, when the rotten old hulk they called a steamer yawed to this side and to that, and quivered, and rattled, and groaned, and the decrepit engines panted, and the craven crew fell upon their knees and wept; and it was announced in three languages, that we had done miracles of daring, and must tempt the Lord no longer, but thank Him for saving us from our own valour. The Rion was in such high flood that we must cast anchor, and wait for three days outside the Bar, till the rush of snow-water subsided.
There are thousands of people (Englishmen especially, and Germans universally) who would find terrible fault with me—if they ever heard of it—for the absence of calmness and self-command, which I ought to have helped, but couldn't. Taking myself, as it ought to be, and always is in theory, I must have gone out of it, without asking leave, or even knowing that it took leave of me. Others, who have been in the like condition, and perhaps they may be counted by the million, will freely allow for all I did, and all I said—which was a great deal worse. Even Strogue, though acquainted with many languages, and tolerant of all their excesses, admitted at last that there must be a power in our own, beyond all foreign scope.
"You never use a wicked word," he said to me; "or at any rate none that could be scored against you, by any angel that understands our tongue; and yet you contrive to put things in such a way, that I would rather not stand by you in a thunderstorm."
That of course was rubbish; for I spoke most mildly, and if ever I used a strong expression, the sound of my own voice hurt me. I was trying, throughout the long trial, to be of the large mind, which I admired so much whenever to be found for certain, in any human beings within my knowledge; and these being unsatisfactorily scarce, I went back to the many I had read of, in my early days at Winchester, and did my utmost to believe in them, and shape myself accordingly.
But this was of very little help to me. Epaminondas, Timoleon, even the grand Aristides, and the Roman whosacrificed his own son, were nothing but shadows on a cloud, while I was the shivering form inside it. Strogue himself was limp and grim, and could not see how to get out; and it was not in his mouth to talk of angels, unless it was to give them more to do. He might say what he liked, but he tried my temper, a great deal more than I trespassed upon his. Moreover he had made a very serious mistake, and one which would probably prove fatal. If we had only gone straight to Odessa, instead of losing time at Constantinople, we might have been at Kutais a week ago, supposing we had caught the proper steamer. This he could not for a moment deny; and all he could say was, that as I knew so much more about it than he did, although I had scarcely heard of this part of the world before, the best thing would be for me to command the expedition, and conduct it entirely in the English language. But I pointed out to him that my remarks must not be distorted in that manner, and that all of them were intended as compliments, though he had not for the moment perceived it. Upon this he came out of his anger, and said that every allowance must be made for me, and that if he were fool enough to be in love he should have carried on worse than I did.
At the same time he announced, when at length and at last we had got ourpodoroshno—or something like that, which cost a lot of money at Poti—that from what he was told about the condition of the passes, his plan of the route must be abandoned, and we must go first to Tiflis, though far to the south of our proper course. There we should get into the great Russian road, which cuts the main link of the mountain-chain, and find a course open in almost any weather, and vehicles of some sort to be had for hire. Moreover it was not at all unlikely that our Lesghian travellers might be there, waiting for the spring to tempt them home.
For people in haste and having baggage, any railway (however vile and utterly profane, both in itself and all its consequences) is better than the best carriage-road, or horse-track, likely to be found in the same direction or anywhere near it. So we took to the new line (the wonder of the age, to all Oriental intellects, and madeas nature requires by Englishmen), and instead of leaving it, as Strogue had first intended, at Kutais, or further on, we followed its rugged course throughout to the "City of languages," as the world calls Tiflis.
Until the weather becomes too hot this is the usual residence of the Commander-in-Chief of the Caucasus, and Strogue suggested that we should call upon him, so as to start well with the authorities, in case of any violence being done or suffered by us among fierce tribesmen, who might not look at things as we did. For what could two men, even though of English birth, avail among so many? Strogue himself spoke Russian very fairly; and even I could make out a little by this time, after taking much trouble, and undergoing a crick in the hinges of both jaws, for in certain conditions of the human mind nothing seems too arduous.
His Highness Prince L. received us most politely, and at the Captain's request allowed us the privilege of a separate audience; for if it should once get wind among the tribes of the upper Terek that we were coming to meddle with their affairs, they were likely to show us nothing more than loop-holes studded with rifle-muzzles. The Prince, who was a very fine and handsome man, listened attentively to Strogue's account, and then (after telling us that he feared Sûr Imar was already in the net and beyond our reach) he took a course which puzzled us altogether, and made us look rather foolish.
"Gentlemen," he said with a pleasant smile, "observe that I do not question the accuracy of your account. In fact I believe every syllable of it, and it confirms my own opinions. But unless you have brought me attested depositions, or are prepared to make them from your own knowledge, and recent presence on the spot, I have no power to do anything. Have you any such evidence to lay before me?"
Strogue shook his head, and I was compelled to do the same. "We did not intend to apply to your Highness," I said in the best form I could muster; "that was only thought of afterwards, lest we should do anything against the law."
"It is fortunate for you that you have applied," heanswered not unkindly. "You are doing nothing against our law by entering the country with our passports; but you are defying tribal laws, and outraging all their customs, by interfering with the private affairs of their ruling family. Have you at all considered what the result of that is? Captain Stronger, you have travelled on those mountains. Did you find encouragement to treat the people thus?"
"Your Highness, the conclusion I arrived at was—the further I keep away from all of them, the better."
"It was wise. It shows your great abilities. The same conclusion is mine; and I regret that we have been obliged to embody them. But if we had not done so, it is certain that you would. But for years we must deal very carefully with them. All we endeavour is to keep some sort of order, and encourage them to try to live without much thieving. Work they will not, even for the four months, which is all the time many of them could work, if they tried. Gentlemen, your sympathies are wasted in such quarters."
"Your Highness, I should like to shoot them all; and probably in your position we should have done it." Strogue had not travelled for nothing, and he held up his thumb for me not to contradict him. "You are the great civilizing power, as England begins at last to acknowledge. We did not come here with the audacity to think that your Highness would help us in a private matter which does not concern your authority. But we know that this Lesghian chief, although he was compelled to side with Shamyl in his boyhood, and has paid the just penalty by long exile, is now the warmest friend of your great Empire. The object for which he has returned is this, to bring the barbarians into peaceful ways, and make them good Russian subjects, able, and at the same time glad, to pay good taxes. This gentleman with me, of the highest English family, is an intimate friend of Sûr Imar, and he will confirm every word I have said. Speak up, Sir George, and tell his Highness what you know."
"How many times more am I to be Sir George?" I muttered to myself in English. And then as the Prince'seyes fell upon me, I said very bravely, "It is so, your Highness." For everything was true, except perhaps about the taxes.
"And will the Commander-in-Chief allow," cried Strogue, getting stronger in his eloquence, "a faithful and fervent Russian subject to be murdered by barbarous Ossets, the most cantankerous and anti-Russian tribe remaining in the Caucasus?"
The Captain made a true hit here. The gorgeous decorations rose on the ample bosom of the Prince, and his strong eyes flashed, as if in battle. But a Russian of high rank keeps his head, and he answered rather formally.
"As I said before, I cannot interfere. But in case of any savage tumult, I will give you a letter to the officer on duty in the Kazbek district, which you will not present unless needful. And now, gentlemen, I wish you well. You must bear in mind that you go with your lives in your hands, and we are not responsible. There is a little band of your countrymen on the northern side of Kazbek, who hold our permission to quest for minerals. Two of them were frozen to death last winter, through their own imprudence. But that has not prevented more from coming, in the manner of your country. You may find them of service to you in the matter of supplies. Farewell."
We took our leave with many thanks, not daring to put any further questions, although we concluded that he knew more than he saw fit to tell us. An officer brought us the promised letter, and looked at us very curiously, as if we were even more insane than the English race in general. I wanted Strogue to question him; but he said that it would be a breach of etiquette, and might set the Commander against us. So we made our bows, and went back to our inn, which was one of the queerest places ever seen.
And this reminds me that I may have been expected to say something about the many noble and wonderful sights of our long and tedious journey. But the plain truth is, that they passed me by, without leaving any clear impression, or even creating the interest which at any othertime must have swallowed me. I looked upon the grandest scenery of the world, without even thinking of its grandeur, caring for nothing but to leave it behind, as another obstacle gone by. Scarcely would I even lift my eyes to the majesty of giant Tau, or peak that towered in dazzling white (like the hand of God spread on the heavens), or the sombre awe of mountain forest, deep with impenetrable gloom. Yet in after times all these came gliding along the slides of memory, and now and then they stand and hold me, when I want to think of something else.
But what we had to think of now was to get along the roadless roads from Tiflis into the black abysses and white steeps of the mountain range. Many of the passes still were blocked, although the strong sun scorched our skin, and the road was swamp or flood, whenever it was not crag or boulder. Strogue, being accustomed to such doings, took them with grim philosophy; and I cared little what they were, except for the delay they caused. The Prince most kindly sent a couple of Cossacks for our escort, and we had four men with their hired ponies, as well as an interpreter, for Strogue might often be at fault even with the Lesghian tongue, and we might visit places where that and Russian were of small avail.
So bad was the season, and the ways so roundabout and rugged, that not until the 3d of May did we enter the deep defile which leads to the foot of the crag of Karthlos. We threaded the narrow pass, and looked up at the fearful heights, from which those playful children fell, when frisking on their little legs among the treacherous snow-drift. And then we saw the rocky elbow of the dark ravine where Imar's father Dadian fell to the stealthy shot of Rakhan. The lonely gorge, where a man felt half afraid to provoke an echo, seemed to be formed by nature for the darkest deeds her sons can do. While the pale slant of declining sunshine, webbed with quivering vapour, here and there came partway down the walls of rent and jagged rock, but nowhere reached the bottom. There was not a sound to make us think of life in this unfathomable grave; even the Cossacks shuddered mutely under the gloomy chill of awe.
"Thank God!" cried Strogue, when one of our horses, less romantic than the rest, or lulled by power of contrast into a dream of clover, set up a lively neigh, which rang like a peal of bells along the chasm; "my son, thou shalt taste oats for that. This old hole never used to frighten me. The 'London Rock' must have spoiled my nerves for rocks that have got no chimneys. Here we are, George; let me see if I can blow. I used to know how. Or you try, if you like. You are more of a huntsman."
We had stopped at a place where a steep, narrow channel cut the north wall of the gorge at right angles, and a battered old horn of great size hung from a staple at the rocky corner. I made a sign to him to blow, and blow he did, to such effect that the tattered grass, hanging here and there on either side of the chasm, shook as a matted cobweb shakes when a stag-beetle tumbles into it. In the midst of the solemn desolation, and my own profound anxiety, I could not help laughing at the Captain's face, as his great cheeks puffed with the rush from the lungs, and his fat chin went into plough-lines, and his grizzled eyebrows into gables over his wet projecting eyes.
"Laugh at me?" he said; "then do it better." But I could not do it half as well; and we all looked vainly up the steep ascent, whose winding hid the house from us—no one came, neither any answer, nor sign that we had moved the air. Suddenly it occurred to me, how poor Sûr Imar had stood where we were standing, and blown that very same horn in vain, with the flush of bright hope, and the glow of home, on the day that broke his life in twain. Some men are content to accept the tricks of others and of fortune; not from their own want of power, but because of their contempt of it.
Strogue, who was not by any means of this too lofty order, glared and stamped, and shook his fist at all the void magnificence from which he could get no response. "Up we go," he said at last, "if the mountain won't come down to us—but keep your revolver ready."
One of the Cossacks came with us, according to his orders; the other stayed with the horses and their owners in the trackway. The ascent was easy enough for any one not encumbered with four legs, though the rope thatskirted the worst places was cut away, or worn out by time. And then we mounted some big steps, with a slush of snow upon them, and struck a heavy ring of brass upon a great gate of some dark wood. The mansion, or tower, or whatever it should be called, rose large and lofty before us, gazing with a dull and ancient aspect down a wilderness of craggy clefts. For about a third part of the year the scene must be all majesty, and for the rest all melancholy, even with life inside it. But now it appeared as if it did not care for any outlook; winter or summer, good or bad, could not matter much to it.
"Nobody at home. They don't keep bailiffs in this part of the world," said Strogue, "or I should think some of those lovely fellows were having their steak in the kitchen. Down, George, down behind the parapet, or you'll never wear a hat again!"
Like an accomplished traveller, the Captain ducked his head out of shot. But I was too slow and stupid, and had caught the despondency of the place. "Fire away," I said, "if you can strike a light; I don't believe that you can hit me."
Want of faith is infectious, and the silver mop behind the rail, on which was resting a long brown barrel, arose very slowly, and behold, it was the uncovered head of a very ancient man! Long white hair flowed down his shoulders and over his breast, and I heard a hollow sigh. "Blow me, if it isn't old Kobaduk!" cried Strogue, who was taking a cautious peep; "don't be in a funk, George; he knows me. Hold hard, old fellow, and keep your powder dry."
The old gentleman seemed to be in doubt about his eyes, till the Captain went down a flight of steps and round towards the kitchen-entrance where the ancient watchman stood. Then a few words of Lesghian passed, and Kobaduk leaned his gun against the rail, and flung his wrinkled arms round the thick form of Strogue.
"Is he coming? Will he never come again?" That much I could make out among his many trembling words. "Is old Kobaduk to die without seeing him? without ever hearing his voice again?"
Then he tottered to the corner of the steps, and spread his hand over his brows, where the sunset struck through the glare of snow, and he leaned on the ramrod which he had picked up, and gazed, with his wrinkled eyes casting forth a bushy sparkle, down the lonely passage from the road below. "Take it easy, old chap," shouted Strogue; and he answered, "I am too old to take it easy."
Thereupon his long beard fell lower on his breast, and his lips, which were far out of sight behind it, mumbled some sadness which we could not understand, and he shuffled his feet to be sure that they were there, and made off for the kitchen-door, without another sign to us.
"Hospitable I call that," said Strogue; "the poor old beggar doesn't know what he is about. But we must put up here, willy, nilly, for the night. We will make him rout up a bit of grub, and stir the dregs of his ancient brain."
The Cossacks had discharged their duty now, after seeing us into friendly hands, and in the morning they rode off to rejoin the detachment at Tiflis. We sent a letter of thanks by them to the Russian Prince, for although we had not been molested, we owed our exemption in all probability to the presence of the uniform. We had passed through a district especially delightful, even among their many happy hunting-grounds, to the heart of the only men among these mountains [unless it be the foreign gunsmiths, and a few of the timber-dealers] who have a profession and practise it with any decent diligence—I mean the gallant brigands. But they must not be quoted as a real exception to the rule of sovereign indolence; because they are not true Caucasians, otherwise they could never get through half of the robberies they accomplish.
The rest of us spent a whole day and two nights at the poor deserted tower, partly to refresh our horses, which were sent to the post-house down below, and partly to consider our plans, after receiving from the ancient steward the feeble light he could contribute. Although he had recognised Strogue so suddenly and with such affection, he forgot him entirely, and with equal speed, until we began to talk in English, and then he broke forth with the declaration that our language was sweeter to his ears than the murmur of a hive of bees breathing their last among their honey, or the first music of the waterfall that has broken the chains of winter.
When Strogue translated this to me, I felt some gratifying surprise; for our language is not so wonderfullymellifluous, or melodious; though our voices are not such a cackle as theirs. But the old gentleman soon revoked his claim upon my gratitude by explaining, as interpreted by Strogue, that the words indeed were strange and hideous, like the sound of a saw on a flinty rock; nevertheless, he loved them always, because they brought to his mind the years that had unrolled day after day, as bright as the rising of the sun, and as smooth as a lake at the foot of the mountains, where no wind comes blowing.
I could not quite see what his wits were driving at; but Strogue, who had very little reverence for anything, from seeing too much of all things, sang out, "Signor Nicolo?" and Kobaduk took it to his heart (which works much longer than the brain does), and came up to us, and touched both of us, with a shrivelled finger, upon either chest. "It is the name of the happy time; the time of the beautiful lady, and the noble lord, and the lovely babes; and nothing to do but to laugh and eat."
"And sleep," I suggested in his own language; and that completed his round of perfection, for he sent up the roots of his beard in a grin, and said, "Thou hast hit the mark." And then he sat down upon a swab to do it.
"Very fine, old codger, but beyond his time." Strogue gave him a tender poke with a stick, to make sure that he was not shamming; "we used to have faithful stuff like this in England; but education has vanquished it. He is sure to have a wife about twenty years old. Let us go in and stir her up. The wives are nothing but head-servants here. They are not sentimental, but they can cook, which is the highest duty of the female."
My feelings were shocked; but I left them so, because victuals alone could relieve them. The faithful retainer had overdone himself by that sudden outburst of decrepit hope. But he had got a young wife, which I thought too bad, until she proved the contrary by making us very comfortable, with a number of hot little barley-cakes, and some grilled kid flesh, which put a shine upon our faces. Then she poked her ancient husband up, and he came and fed, and played the host, and made runaway knocks at the time-worn gates of his memory.
The worst of it was that we could not be sure howmuch truth, and how much fiction, or at any rate confusion, issued from that antique repository. The older the thing was, the more it might be trusted—a truth which holds good with the bulk of modern work. Whenever we brought him to recent affairs, and the state of things now existing, he shook the silver tissue over his bright black eyes, and stared at us. "Kobaduk forgets, too long ago," was his chief perception of yesterday. However, we fetched him nearer date, by speaking of the Princess Marva.
Then the old man trembled, and turned his head away; and his fingers (which looked like empty bean-pods) fiddled at the cartridge loops which hung, like the smocking of a Surrey parish-clerk, on the quivering of his sunken breast.
"For the sake of God, who made us all," he mumbled; and although he had been feeding well, his wife offered him some brown bits in vain. "Let him be," said Strogue, "perhaps he'll have more pluck to-morrow."
But it did not seem to be so at all. He went up a ladder to bed that night in a loft that reeked of onions, and he dragged his old gun after him; but how he got his crooked knees up the rungs, and how he failed to shoot himself in the stomach, were difficulties not to be explained even by the miraculous powers of habit. "The old cock will come down like a lark to-morrow," Strogue prophesied, as the trap-door banged. But larks are more famous for going up, and the Captain's prediction was about as correct as his reference to natural history.
"What a set of funks these people are! Is there no one here to tell us anything?" we exclaimed almost with one accord, on the evening of the following day, the only one we spent at Karthlos. We had asked at the post-house, where Sûr Imar used to keep his horses, and we had tried Mrs. Kobaduk the fourth, and a grandson of the steward who hung about the house, and a woodcutter who came home sometimes, and a fellow called the huntsman, and everybody else we could come across. Most of them sat down and stared at us, and feigned not to understand what we meant; and then when we put the interpreter at them, all they would do was to shaketheir heads, and stretch their lazy hands westward. As for old Kobaduk, if he was like a lark, it was one who has a skewer through him; and all we could get him to do was to show us where the Princess Oria and her baby lay.
Alas, what an end for the loving and lovely, the passion of a warm life cold in dust, and the sad shadows creeping along the sadder grave. But I knew a heart in which she lived still, and a life as lovely as her own—were these to share her fate, or have a doom yet worse, and not even be restored to her in the silent home of death?
"I'll tell you what we will do, my boy," Strogue said to me after supper that night, and after we had puffed and spat and stamped at the noxious vapour of the native weed (which we should have to come to in the end, unless our own end spared us that), the frightful stuff, grown badly, and cured worse, which they dare to call tobacco; "this is a very grand place in its way, and the tradition of good victuals lingers still about. But the fragrance of the past is not enough for a man getting on in his forties. Hardships I have endured by the hundred, and could do it again like Elijah; though he only went forty days, which is nothing to my record. But you must understand, my son, that the fun of it is not so evident, when a man has got into napkin ways, and wants to lean back in his chair, and think of the things he has done, instead of doing them. Don't be in a wax, George, I am not thinking of cutting the expedition. Bat Strogue is made of too good stuff for that, and he means to have his little revenge as well. Only he must keep his headquarters somewhere within hail of the jack-spit. That sound has become of importance to him, and his nature is not ungrateful. The world is not made of love alone, or precious little there would be of it. Listen to the words of wisdom. Men who work hard must live well. Miners work hard, therefore they must live well. I never learned logic, but that sounds square."
"Very well, I am not going to controvert your logic. But how does it bear upon the present state of things?"
"Thus, thou wooden-headed Saxon. Nicolo's fellowsare at work again. That much I found out yesterday; and you know the Prince as good as told us so. Kazbek is their diggings, a pretty large district, but not so extensive as Elbruz. It will be easy enough to find them out; then we hear a civilized tongue again, and get something civilized to put upon it. Here we can learn nothing; there we may get news. In the morning let us start for Kazbek."
I was only too glad to have it so. For although not belonging to those up-and-down natures, which are either at the zenith or the nadir, I found myself many pegs below the proper mark, among all this great breadth and vast height, with nothing to touch, or lay hold of anywhere. If Strogue was lost in sentimentality of stomach, which had been regarded with an excess of feminine tenderness at the "London Rock," I could feel for him heartily—though nobody might think it, through the affection of an organ of my own, which is not so far distant as the poets do imagine. So I said, "You are right. We will start again to-morrow."
This we did, and our spirits began to rise, as we left that grand but ill-fated place behind. From a rise of the mountain-track we saw it, magnificent in its dark command, and vastly improved by the distance. And then we struck into the great Dariel road, the causeway of the Caucasus. This we followed as far as the Russian fort, where we presented ourselves, and our letter from the Commander-in-Chief, and were entertained most hospitably. The Colonel was as kind as man could be, and showed no reserve or reluctance in answering most of our questions. My experience is too small to be of any value; but Strogue, who had seen a great deal of Russian policy and management in the vast tracts added to their empire, always maintained that the common talk about their grinding tyranny is jealous exaggeration; though they can be very stern and hard when they meet with savage treachery, even as we ourselves have been.
And now this officer, a very capable, active, and intelligent man, told us plainly that his orders were to hold himself entirely aloof from all the private feuds and quarrels among the mountain races, unless they revolted,or refused to pay their very moderate taxes, or were guilty of open violence, or outrage upon travellers. He had heard of Sûr Imar, as still the legitimate chief of an important tribe, for many years an exile now, but regarded kindly by the Government, and still in receipt of the larger part of his revenues through a Russian agent, who had been appointed upon his kinsman's death. But of his return or present whereabouts he knew no more than we did.
Then we asked him about the Princess Marva, and he smiled mysteriously. "We don't talk of her so freely," he said, as Strogue still pressed him. "She is a lady of very strong will, and has given us some trouble. But we hope that she is improving now, and her son is a pattern of excellence. If he would only take the command, which according to his rights he should have done long ago. But he is mild and submissive, though endowed with great abilities. Many of the village headmen are indignant that she does not retire, for he is beloved, while she is not. But we never interfere in such matters; we let them settle their own successions. Only in case of absence, such as that of Imar—"