"But Hafer himself has been long away," I interrupted him in some surprise, and with faulty words, which made Strogue smile, but the Russian was more courteous; "he has been for months in England."
"Of that I was not aware," the officer answered, after some reflection. "But the winter has been the worst ever known, and almost all the passes blocked, except those we kept open. But, gentlemen, as I said before, we do not interfere in private matters. You are going on, you told me, to that place upon the mountain, where certain Englishmen with our permission are in search of minerals. They may know more about such matters; for I believe that the lady has demanded payment from them, and does not recognise our licence, though Kazbek is not within her boundaries, or certainly not that part of it. If you will take my advice, which I offer simply as a private friend, and one who admires Englishmen, you will trespass as little as possible upon the domain of Madame Marva. I hope for the privilege of entertaining you, upon your return from the mountain."
This was plainly our dismissal, and his horse was waiting at the door for him. So as the sun was still high in the heavens, and the weather very favourable, we resolved to try to reach the mine that night, or rather I should say the diggings, for it had not attained the dignity of a mine, and was not very likely to do so. We took a young goatherd for a guide, and leaving our horses at a hut, set forth in search of the emerald-hunters.
Although we had no very great height to ascend, for the diggings were far below the summit, and there was a fair track nearly all the way, and a rope laid along the worst places, it was close upon sunset before we reached the magnificent gully where the miners had their camp. They were just leaving work for the day, and marching almost like a squad of soldiers to the cells they had scooped for their dwelling-places under the shelter of an overhanging crag. Each of them carried a rifle on his shoulder as well as a strong iron rod with a crook at the end, and a tool something like a spud, and a hammer with a long peak of steel. The captain, or master, or foreman, came last in the file with nothing in his hands but a deep tar-pot, and he proved to be Mr. Jack Nickols, a sturdy young man with a round red face, active, resolute, and profoundly contented with his own endowments.
"Halloa! Haven't you got a word to throw at a brother Englishman?" Strogue was sadly short of breath, but still capable of indignation, as these twelve or fourteen men regarded him with some suspicion, and not a token of hospitable emotion kindling in their bosoms. "We are not come to steal your dirty stones, or to set up shop against you. We are of the highest English birth, cousins to two Dukes, six Marquises, and a good round dozen of Earls. And what will touch you up more, my boys, if you are driven against nature to be Radicals, we have got three pounds of fine tobacco left; and if you are good, you shall have half of it."
This was an outburst of "Altruism," as the people who ought to be in Bedlam call it, which found no echo in my breast (because we were beginning to smoke our ashes), but set up an irresponsible rub-a-dub in theirs.
With one accord they all turned round; though bound for their suppers (as their mouths would have frankly declared, if sure of having more than they could do with), still they proved their higher value, and their sense of the fine arts—such as we cultivate now with picture-frames on Sunday—by stopping and pulling out empty pipes, and dropping their thumbs from the barrel to the bowl.
"Plenty of time," said Captain Strogue, who was up to all those little things; "fine fellows all of you; but you don't get a whiff till I know more about you. The laws of Great Britain hold good all over the globe, because they are righteous. You may shout in vain for Bacco, as the heathen gods did in their time. I am not a man of many words. We have had to smoke a lot of poison ourselves, and not a blessed son of a gun among you tastes a shred of the genuine weed, till I have got all I want out of you."
I thought that they would have turned crusty. But such misgivings showed that I did not understand my countrymen. An Englishman can put up with everything but humbug. Bar that, and he begins to think of you.
"I want a young fellow called Jack Nickols, the nephew of my old friend, Jemmy Nickols," Strogue went on with louder shouts, as he saw that the men were taking to him; "you are a rough lot, and you know it. But I have been round the world seven times; and take you as you are, I would rather have you than any other fellows I have ever come across. You are no wonders, mind you; but you know what's what. And more than that, you do it."
This was rather vague, though it sounded so precise. And I whispered to the Captain, "You are as good as John Bright." But he shoved me with his elbow, while his eloquence went down. Then the young man with the tar-pot came up mildly, in the presence of a larger spirit, and said, "Captain, you must be the celebrated traveller;" and Strogue looked at him augustly, and said, "Young man, you are right."
After this it is impossible for me to tell the gloriousnight they made of it. They had spent all the time, when they could not work, in making themselves more comfortable; and all the starvation they had been through was avenged upon itself by its own power. I have seen a good deal of eating; and Strogue had both seen and done a great deal more; and the voice of travellers is unanimous that the Caucasian native acknowledges no superior in that line. It is not for me to contradict them, but the impression I formed that night, and with my own mouth confirmed it, was that the British settler can in that, as in less important matters, adapt himself to his environment. The sheep of the mountain are but small, and we furthered nature's ordinances by making six, or perhaps I should say seven of them, smaller still. For the valleys were spread with the verdure of spring, and it covered their saddles with sweet white fat.
"One little slice more," Jack Nickols said; "this is the best of the batch, I know. What would we have given for a cut out of him last winter! But we were obliged to leave this place altogether. Forty feet deep the snow was here, and not a bit of firing to be got for love or money. You heard that two of us were frozen to death; but we never lost a man. We set that story going, and it did us a lot of good, and choked off another lot who wanted to come here. We have got it all to ourselves at present, and mean to keep it. You saw my tar-pot. Capital plan. An invention of my own. We have scarcely gone underground at all as yet. We scratch the crannies, and the dribble-places, and I stand by and watch every fellow. Wonderfully honest, and all that, no doubt; but just as well to look after them. Every bit of green they find, I drop it in the tar. They can't get it out again, even if they could find it, without telling tales on their fingers. Nine out of ten are not worth keeping; but we have got a few real beauties. There is one stone I wouldn't take a hundred pounds for, and a lot worth more than fifty. I'll show you some of them by daylight. It's the flaws, the flaws that murder them."
"We don't know anything about stones," replied Strogue, "and I would rather look through a good greenbottle than all the emeralds that ever came from Peru, or wherever they get them. What we want to talk about is quite another pair of shoes, and I know you will help us if you can. We gave you that letter from your uncle. He will be out here this summer if he can. But we cannot wait for that. We must set to work at once. When the rest are gone, I will tell you all about it."
"We will go outside, if you don't mind. I can show you a very cosy place where we do our cooking, and the ashes warm the rock all night. Let us have our pipes there, and leave the tag-rag here."
We followed him gladly to the open air, and sat upon some bear-skins in a snug alcove of rock, with the stars shining on us, and the embers of the fire doing better service still. And here we told young Jack Nickols all our story, a great part of which he must have known already.
"You will never go home alive," he said, "if you are going to meddle with that woman. Let her have her own way. She always does. What right have you to conclude that she wants to murder her own twin-brother? It is likely enough, mind, from what you say, and in fact I have little doubt about it. But for all that, you don't actually know it, and if you did you are not the Russian Government. Let her alone, for God's sake."
We told him that this was the very thing we had sworn to ourselves we would never do; and that he must stand by us, like an Englishman, and like his uncle's nephew. "Stand a long way off more likely," he replied, "though I don't call myself a coward, and I hate that woman. But I will try to contrive something, and let you know to-morrow."
Discovering nothing of any kind, concerning Sûr Imar and his daughter, after they had quitted Athens, we made up our minds that the proper course was to pay a visit to the Princess Marva, and try to get some inkling of her plans. It was not very likely that a couple of clumsy fellows, like Strogue and my humble self, would prove a match, or even a serious check, for a subtle and ruthless woman, commanding a reckless tribe, and probably well informed of all the plans of her unsuspicious victims. So that if we appeared in our own characters, or even let her know that we were here, our days in this land, or indeed in any other visible except to the eyes of faith, were likely to be brief indeed.
But for the sake of those who mean well, and desire fair play on the whole, whenever it leaves a chance for them, Providence has been gracious enough to lay down one universal rule—that every wicked person has some special weakness, some nick in his black shell for the oyster-knife of justice; so that a simple and straight mind, like Strogue's and mine, may find its way through, and turn the whole to righteous uses.
"I have hit the mark," Jack Nickols said, when he came home to breakfast with his tar-pot; "when the sun comes up these rattling peaks, instead of down over them, is the time to think. I could not see things clear last night, though you know how little I take, Captain, compared with anybody else about. But when the sun came up from under to me, my brains, which are bright now and then, began to work. I thought of you snoozing in the ashes, and I resolved to do my best for you."
"Go on, my son," said the Captain kindly, with the tolerance of a gentleman who is offered lager-froth, instead of solid Bass; "there is no doubt that you have fine ideas. A man who turns out so early picks up something."
"Then what do you say to this?" cried Jack. "You might roll over fifty times, till nine o'clock, as old gentlemen do in England, and yet never find it occur to you. That Clipper of the mountains"—"Cleopatra" was the word in his mind perhaps—"is a terrible oner for money, they say, and we have had a tip or two to that effect. Till we paid her toll, though it is robbery downright, a bullet used to come from some black corner, and my very best hand had a sample through his hat. One must expect that sort of thing of course, in an out-of-way part of the world like this; but luckily they have never been at Wimbledon. I came very near the Queen's Prize once; but I told you all about that, last night. These beggars won't give me a chance. Never mind, it will come some day. But they haven't tried to pot us, since we paid toll. Now why shouldn't you go upon the same tack? Go to Her Majesty, as an opposition company, and offer a premium over our heads."
"Upon my word, you are a clever fellow," said Strogue, looking at him thoughtfully; "I fancied so when I saw the tar-pot. But, Jack, my dear boy, is there any foundation, anything for us to go upon?"
"Yes, there is. And we can make much more of it. I can promise you an interview with the tigress, if you will offer to put stripes of gold on her. You know what those confounded Germans are. No sooner do they hear of any English enterprise than they want to go one better and collar it. They come in, and hoist us out, and get the cream of all our sweat. There was a tremendous man of science, Herr Baddechopps, or Baddechumps, or some such name, poking about here with spectacles last autumn; I have got his card, and you shall have it. We put a rope round him, and two men at either end, and swept him down the hill faster than he came up, and we promised him the loop round his neck if he came back; for I can't stand their jealousy of everything wediscover! You go and tell Marva that we have got the place too cheap; that it all belongs to her, and you will pay three times the royalty. Take a notary with you, but sign nothing."
"George, I am up for trying it, if you are," said Strogue. "What is the name of her place—Gomorrah? Doesn't sound very inviting, does it? But the lady won't hurt us, if we leave our cash behind. We can get there in three days, you said last night. Let us beard the tigress in her den. I have never been quite in that part before. There is no such thing as a road, of course. All the better for that sometimes."
Nickols advised us to take no horses, lest we should be murdered for their sake; but to hire a guide, and a tent, and half-a-dozen of his men (whom he would try to spare), as well as our own interpreter, and a Tartar or two who were always hanging about the Russian fort. Thus we should be ten or twelve in number, all well-armed, and capable of giving a good account of some thirty Ossets, if they took our expedition roughly; for they are not good shots, and their guns are very poor.
We spent that evening in consultation, receiving many hints from our young friend, who would have been glad to join us, if the state of his work had allowed it. But his mate, as he called him, was away, and so he could not well leave the diggings; moreover, there would have been some danger that he might be recognised, which would prove fatal to our case at once. Yet he promised to help us with all his force, in any great emergency, if we could only give him notice in good time, and this was of no less value to us than a troop of Cossacks. Meanwhile he would send to make inquiry at Vladikaukaz, the chief town on the north, which travellers from Russia would be almost sure to pass, whether our friends had been heard of there. And so, with many thanks, we left him for the present, and spent a day at Kazbek village, preparing for our visit to the Princess Marva.
Against so fierce an enemy, and with so good an object, our stratagem for obtaining an audience was fair enough; but to use the German professor's card seemed to me far beyond the most elastic stretch of honesty; so I threw itinto the fire, to save argument, for Strogue took a different view of the case. "You may take the lead, and you may call yourself a German," I told him resolutely; "I am a silent partner, and it does not matter who I am. The lady speaks better French perhaps than you do, and certainly much better than I do. You do all the talking, and I nod my head. Cator is drawing up the rough agreement, which we submit for her consideration. The beauty of it is, that if in her greed she even gives a nibble at the bait, we can dangle it ever so long before her, and are sure to find out something of what we want to know. Cator must put it as vaguely as he can, and leave the royalty blank for us to fight about."
Cator was one of Jack Nickols' men, a sharp and well-educated youth, who had been in a lawyer's office, but found a lack of bracing qualities in the air, and left his stool in search of them. And now we gave him a double fee to prepare a document and enact the lawyer's clerk at our interview, for men of law were almost as rare as men of medicine in these parts. A formidable deed it was, with half-a-dozen seals to it, and we wrapped it round a straight black horn from some sheep or goat of the mountains.
The roads were bad, being over-metalled by the melting of the snow. For the roads are the river-courses, and when nature lays too much water on, it is not easy to get along them, even the right way of the grain. And our course now was against the grain, towards the head springs, or mother glaciers of the river Terek; which would have conducted us, when in a proper mood, but now knocked us back again, with a gruff and grey adversity. Neither was there anything for the eyes to spread their rims at, and make light of all the discontent of legs and back. All was dry rock, except where it was wet with dribble, or dirty with reek of thaw; and there was scarcely a tree to wipe the air, or show what way the wind came.
Nevertheless we strove along, following our guide, who cared much more about putting his own feet right than ours. For these men are not like the Alpine guides, whose loyalty is more to them than money. At length, on the third afternoon, we stood before a strange place,which I cannot describe, nor even give a rough idea of it, unless I may compare it with a great pile of big dominoes, set at any angle, some on end, and some on edge, on the top of a black pillow bolt-upright. And this was the fortress of the Osset Queen.
We sounded a trumpet, but received no answer. And then we made a rub-a-dub on a goat-skin drum, which was hanging on a stump for visitors. And when we left off, we heard a screech of metal going rustily and heavily upon its hinges. Then a muzzle, as big as a small church bell, came out, and we thought it was all up with us.
But Strogue, like a brave man, waved a white handkerchief on the screw of his ramrod, and we pushed the interpreter foremost, though it required three men to do it. What he said was beyond me altogether, though crowded with illustrious but anxious words. And if words were ever known to afford relief, it is fair to acknowledge that they did so then. The great muzzle which commanded all our bodies, so that to fly was hopeless, sank upon its pivot—or whatever it might be—and a ladder, which had been out of sight behind a buttress, came sliding down the base to meet us. "One man first" was the order from the loop-hole; and every one of us quite admitted his friend's claim to precedence. "Can die but once," cried Strogue; "here goes." Upon which I felt my cheeks burn, and said, "Let me." But he answered, "No, you shall come next, my son."
The Captain went up heavily, with the scroll upon his back, and the four-chambered "bull-dog" in his left breast-pocket; and we saw two men receive him on a narrow parapet, and he waved his hand to us to indicate all right. Then he vanished round a corner, and we waited for some minutes, having found a little shelter where it would take some time to shoot us. We assured one another very strongly that if anything happened to Captain Strogue, we would not be satisfied with avenging him, but would have the whole place down, and a British fleet in a position to rake all the Caucasus, when to our great relief he appeared again at the head of the ladder and shouted, "Three more fellows may come up now." This time, I was the foremost to run up. Not that Iwas really afraid before; only that I waited to know what the others thought, as a man of modesty and deliberation does, when the circumstances are unusual. Cator followed readily, and so did another of Jack Nickols' men; but the interpreter said that we should find him more useful at the bottom of the ladder. "She is a stunner, and she has got a stunning place," Strogue whispered to me, as he led us through a dark passage into a long low room; "she beats the Begum all to fits."
What Begum he meant I could not tell, having heard him speak of several whose hearts he had broken in his early days. But if he meant some regal-looking woman, he was not beyond the mark in his comparison. For I had never beheld one so stately and grand as the lady who now received us with a slight inclination, reflected by the polish of the black walnut table before her. She was sitting in a chair of purple velvet with a leopard's skin thrown over it, and her dress was of soft maroon brocade, with white fur trimmings at the neck and wrist, and a gold chain flowing upon her full broad bosom. There was not a wrinkle or a spot to mar the shapely column of her neck, or the firm sleek comeliness of her face; and her eyes, if there had only been some sweetness in them, would have been as lovely as they were splendid. Her complexion was darker than Sûr Imar's, and the lineaments more delicate, so that her face excelled his in perfection of form, as the feminine face should do. But as to expression, the gentler element was by no means in its duty there; for the aspect was of one who scorns, mistrusts, and repels all fellow-creatures, and sees the evil in them only.
"These, then, are the members of your company, Herr Steinhart,"—she addressed herself to Strogue, after one flashing glance at each of us, as we entered, and her French pronunciation was a little too good for me to follow all of it, though she did not infuse much nasal twang; "and it is your opinion that I am deluded by those who are working my mines at present?"My minesindeed, how grand! I thought; what would the Russians have to say to that?
"I never speak ill of the poor," replied Strogue, "andwe must make every allowance for the British audacity, your Highness. All cannot afford to pay as we can, for the reason that they have not our enormous capital at command. We always find it the wisest course to treat the landowners liberally. We make no pretence to be better, more honest or more generous, than those Englishmen. Your Serene Highness, although so young, has had sufficient experience of the world, to know that all men are by nature rogues."
"My faith, but it is true! How seldom, though, have the men the good manners to acknowledge that! Rather do they not put the fault upon the more simple and righteous sex?"
"Your Serene Highness," Strogue answered gravely, seeing that this title was not ungrateful, "the ladies perceive at once that they are grossly wronged; but they are too magnanimous, too regardless of gain, to remonstrate. You, for example, how much do you care? You have ample revenues from your sovereignty, and things that occur on the back of a mountain are of small account to you. Nevertheless the right is right, and it ought to be defended."
"And the right shall be defended, when it is my right," said the lady; "I am not accustomed, as you well observed, to the smaller business, Herr Steinhart; but those who defraud me suffer for it. Make your offer, if you please, more intelligible."
This was the very thing we did not want to do, having no offer of any kind to make. But Strogue had gone far enough, and wide enough, to know that a question is answered best by another question.
"Is it possible that your Serene Highness will oblige us with the amount which those arrogant Englishmen have been in the habit of contributing to your lofty revenues? We are a wealthy company, but we cast away no money."
"It is just," she replied, "and my desire is for justice. This is what they pay me now. But they would have to double it for the coming year. The trumpery sum of two hundred roubles. With you I will not treat for less than a thousand, and for one year only at that price."
"Your Highness is very just and moderate," saidStrogue, while I turned away to hide my indignation, and sadness, that a woman so magnificent should stoop to such a lie; for I knew that Jack Nickols had paid her only twenty roubles, to last for two years, as she had no title there whatever. "But your Highness will pardon me for mentioning that we have heard a rumour, perhaps an absurd one, that a brother of yours, a great Lesghian chief, who was banished by the Russians, is now returning to his country, and may claim his rights over that desolate spot, and finally establish them. In that case our lease from your Serene Highness might not be so valuable as we were led to hope."
A deep colour flushed, or I might say flashed, into the clear dusk of her cheeks, and a brilliance into the darkness of her eyes. Then she placed the long oval of her smooth plump hands (which reminded me of Dariel's, but were half again as large) on the black walnut wood before her, and gazed at the Captain, till he scarce knew where he was. Then she turned her eyes on me, with contempt subduing anger.
Gazed at the Captain till he scarce knew where he was
"Gazed at the Captain till he scarce knew where he was."
"If you think to defraud me by such pretences,"—as she spoke she rose, and her head towered over the dumb-foundered Strogue's, and Cator's also,—"it would have been better for you, if you had remained at the foot of my hospitable ladder. As to the chances of Sûr Imar's interference, you shall have the evidence of Prince Hafer. His signature also you shall have. I will produce him to you." With swift yet dignified steps, she left the long gloomy room, and we stared at one another.
"Better cut and run, if they have left the ladder there," Strogue whispered, for several men now occupied the doorway; "it is all up, if Hafer sees us. I made sure from what they told us that he was miles away. What's the good of four of us?"
"They can shoot us all the easier, if we run," I said; "let us have it out here, if it must be; this thundering walnut table makes a grand breastwork. After all, they may not want to fight us."
"We can settle at least half-a-dozen of them;" Cator's eyes shone with legal pugnacity, "four Englishmen can lick a score of Ossets."
"Not if they are like that man," said the fourth of us, Tommy Williams, pointing to the door, which was not a door (as the old joke has it), neither could it be a jar, but looked more like a bed-curtain. The lintel was appointed for men of good stature, and I had passed beneath it without much bend; but the young man, who made his entry now, was above any moderate stature of mankind, as he promised in breadth to out-do them. In a flash of thought, Sûr Imar stood before me, as I first beheld him. "Has that woman killed him, and is this his spectre?" I asked myself, as I fell back, and stared.
Dark as the room was, another moment showed me the excited wandering of my wits. This was not Sûr Imar's face, but one of similar comeliness, without his resolution behind it. A gentle, pleasant, large, and kindly countenance as his was, but with very sad placidity, and no strong will to enforce its lines. The face of a man who can be trusted to do you no wrong, and never to stop any other man from doing it. Like that of the friends we value most, when our little world goes smoothly.
He came to the table, behind which we had posted ourselves for a desperate stand, and there he bowed very gracefully to us, and then looked round for his admirable mother, as if he were quite at a loss without her. Strogue, in his polite way, asked in English, "Who the devil are you, sir?" The young giant looked at him, and shook his head, like a stranger to our fine language. "No fear; he won't fight," the Captain cried to comfort us; and we all took our hands from the triggers in our pockets.
His golden curls were waving still—for he had the finest crop that I ever did see—and he was looking at us calmly, and as we thought with a sweet and hospitable intent, when back came the lady almost with a rush, and tokens of fury on her too expressive face. She had not meant her son to come in without her; and we smiled among ourselves, as we thought how he would "catch it," by and by at any rate, if not in our presence. However, she controlled herself, and introduced him grandly.
"Gentlemen, this is my son Prince Hafer, who will add his signature to mine, to remove all your hesitation, if the terms you propose should be suitable. Also hewill confirm my declaration that my brother Sûr Imar will raise no claim to the valuable mines you propose to rent from me. The Prince is capable of speaking French; though not perhaps with my facility. Your concession, which I have perused, is in French, but the amount of your payment is not yet stated. It will be useless to say less than one thousand roubles, five hundred of which must be paid in advance. Herr Steinhart, I am not a lover of money; but I must insist upon my son's rights. Do you consent to the sum I mention?"
Strogue looked at me, and then at Cator. Intending no business, but only a sham for the purpose of seeing the lady, and hearing something about her brother, he was taken aback at this close issue, especially the demand for a large payment on the nail. Moreover, his mind was in sad confusion, and so was mine, I must confess, about the existence of two Prince Hafers, while we durst not even hint at any explanation. But Cator was quicker, and more ready with a quiddity.
"Your Highness," he said, "as the legal adviser of this wealthy company, I may say that we shall not object to the rent you reserve, nor to the prepayment, which to us is a trifle below consideration. Only I should take a note of guarantee from your Highness, and also from Prince Hafer, against interference on your brother's part. That will have to be embodied in this instrument, which moreover has not as yet the necessary stamp. You have already given us your full assurance. If the Prince in my presence will add his, according to your proposition, I will put them into legal form."
"Bravo, Cator!" cried that stupid Strogue in English. "Did you speak, sir?" asked the Princess. "Your Serene Highness, I am afflicted with a cough," the Captain replied, with his hand before his mouth.
"My son," said the lady, looking steadily at Hafer, "oblige me by sitting down in that chair. It is one of my afflictions, gentlemen, that he is not always in strong health. But he is the delight of all our tribe; so amiable, so just, so generous! Now," she continued, with her back towards us, so that we could not see the expression of her eyes, "assure these gentlemen, my dear son, of yourcertain knowledge that Prince Imar will never set foot upon Kazbek again."
"I have no knowledge. I have never seen him. His doings are unknown to me. I cannot affirm at all where he is." As the Prince spoke, in French rather worse than my own, he began to tremble violently, and his eyes turned away from his mother's face.
We saw her place one hand below her solid breast. And then she said, coaxingly as we thought, "The poor dear, what an affliction it is! But, my son, you can give us your firm belief that he will never tread the mountain of Kazbek any more."
"He will never tread that mountain any more," the young man replied in a low sad voice; and then he broke into a torrent of tears.
"Excuse me, gentlemen. It is most grievous. From a child he has suffered from these heart-attacks. Oh, the unfortunate mother that I am!" As she spoke, she was leading him out of the room; and we drew aside respectfully.
Before we had time to discuss this scene, her ladyship returned with some tears in her eyes, which made her look strangely beautiful. "I thank you for your most kind sympathy," she said, "and will not detain you any longer. If you will put all into proper form (for even in trouble such things must be seen to), and return with the 500 roubles and the deed, if it may be this day-week, I will grant all your desires. Till then, farewell."
With silent salaams we took our leave, and were shown forth, not from the rock-front of the castle, but through a narrow passage, or gallery, cut in the crag, and provided with iron doors. And the Ossets who conducted us could not be tempted to open lips, or to make a sign.
Thus far Cator, the attorney's clerk, had proved himself the most sagacious and quick-witted of our party; though Captain Strogue would have been amazed and indignant to hear me say so. And now, when we had rejoined the rest of our little expedition, and all were recruiting the inner man (or the middle man perhaps he is, body being first, stomach second, and mind—when found, third portion), that sprig of the law came up, with a bone between his teeth, and begged the Captain and myself, who were feeding from the outside tops of our hats, to go a little further round the elbow of a crag. There he asked us what opinions we had formed; and when we had taken our seats, we said: "None at all; except that we are all bamboozled."
"No doubt about that. But how, and why?" He answered with a mysterious look, which we were inclined to smile at, not having known him long enough to be sure of his prophetic gifts. "A lot of things have occurred to me, which may be very absurd of course, and it is not likely that all are right; but I am pretty sure that some are. Shall I tell you, and hear what you think of them?" We lit our pipes, and nodded to him, and smiled at one another.
"To begin with, then, I suspect most strongly that her Majesty, the Devil's wife, for so she deserves at least to be, has got her brother under lock and key somewhere, snug enough, and at her mercy, if she owns such a quality. Did you see what she touched, when she went to gag, and at the same time to cram, that poor young fellow, whose will she has crushed out of him by years and years of bullying?Perhaps you could not see where you stood; and she did not think that I could. But I saw the tips of her long fingers playing with a key which was in her belt—a mere household key of course—but enough to remind her unlucky son where his poor Uncle was, without much chance of ever coming forth, but in his coffin. And I caught a glance of his which proved that he understood her meaning, and might soon have the same thing for himself. And then you saw how he broke down; for he is a very tender-hearted youth."
"By Jove, it sounds uncommonly like it; I was so taken aback," said Strogue, "at seeing another Prince Hafer in the field, and so different from my Simon Pure, that I could not notice small things much; and perhaps it was the same with Cranleigh. There is some abominable villany at work, and we shall be too late to stop it. I would like to insure friend Imar's life for ten thousand at five thousand premium. Go on, my son, thou speakest well."
"Another thing, according to my lights. He is not in that queer old place at all, Gomorrah Castle, or whatever they call it, although there are plenty of black holes there, enough to starve a regiment man by man. No, he is away to the North at present, perhaps on the other side of the mountains. You saw the big window that faced the North, more like a door than a window it was. Well, every time her brother was in question, and especially when she was fingering that key, she gave a quick glance through that window, very likely without even knowing it. People who gesticulate much often follow it up in that way. When they speak of a distant thing, they glance in that direction, if they can see it, or anything anywhere near it; and there was a great double-peaked mountain covered with snow, like a white mitre, stuck against the sky in the North. And if her brother had been in the castle dungeons, she would have made us go down the front ladder again, instead of getting a wink of back premises."
"Upon my word, this boy is wide-awake, considering how little he has seen yet of the world. Cator, like Cato, thou reasonest well. Go ahead, my son, we hearken thee."
"You see, Captain," said the young man, feeling abashedin the presence of such renown, and doubtful about some chaff in its palm; "you see, I should never care to offer you advice. It might be in place with Mr. Cranleigh here, because he is only a young beginner. But you know what's what, I should say, ever so much better than I do. But as you tell me to go on, I will. Her Serene Highness intends to make away with her twin-brother, on Monday next."
"Come now, come now! I can stand a great deal, Cator. And none of your butter-Scotch—no, you are a Shropshire man, you say. Whatever you are, it won't make that go down. Why, Old Moore, and Zadkiel would be nothing to you."
"Captain, I will tell you what I go by, and then you'll be able to judge for yourself, whether I talk bunkum, or good sense. I have been in these parts for a twelvemonth now, and I ought to know something of these blessed natives. There are no two lots of them quite alike, any more than two mountains or two valleys are. But there is not a pin to choose among them in the matter of laziness. Poor beggars, they can scarcely help that, I dare say, frozen as they are for half the year, and roasted for the other half. Well, about here the manner is to keep three holidays, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, just as if they did anything on the other four days. These Ossets about here have no religion of any sort worth speaking of. Some call themselves Christians, some Mahometans, many are simple idolaters; but all are full of superstition, as such people must be. All they do in the religious way, is to stick to their fasts and festivals, particularly the festivals. And their great festival of the year finishes up next Sunday."
"What the deuce has that got to do with it?" Strogue enquired impatiently, for the sun was beginning to slope along the valley, and we had ten miles to go to the next covered place.
"Everything, if you will hear me out. That festival goes on for three weeks; and during that time it is not lawful to follow up even the blood-feud. But on Monday, it will be the proper thing to stick and stab all who are waiting for it. And what makes me think that this little game is on, according to institution, is that we have notseen a living soul, except an old woman and a child or two, in the miserable villages we have come by. Why? For the very simple reason that every noble savage who can swing a dagger is off for this great act of faith on Monday; to see the death of the head of the clan avenged."
"I won't believe a word of it," I exclaimed, meaning no rudeness of course to Cator, but scouting the possibility of such fiendish abominations, after all I had heard of the great man's lofty hopes and pure ideals.
"To me it seems likely enough," said Strogue. "I have been among fellows who would eat their mothers, and serve up their own babies for a garnish. We have none of that sort to deal with here; and the men of these mountains, taking them all round, are an indolent rather than a cruel lot. Quarrelsome of course, and hot of blood, but most loyal to their chiefs, and very generous sometimes. It is the blood-feud that makes devils of them; but how can they help that? It is their test of honour, ever since they came out of the Ark with the raven. What we have got to do is to act exactly as if all our friend Cator suggests were the fact. Thursday to-day; there is little time to lose, even if we can catch it up at all. We shall want every son of an emerald of you; and you must fight like sons of the Emerald Isle. By Jove, what a ripping turn-up it will be! Right about face, quick march for Kazbek!"
It was all very well for him, and Cator, and the rest to take things lightly thus. They could not be expected to feel much concern for the Lesghian Chief, or a Lesghian lady even more adorable. And as for Strogue his main object was less to rescue Sûr Imar, than to wreak his own vengeance upon Hafer—that is to say the London Hafer, the one who had leaped the ivied wall, and shot at me, and robbed the Captain, by some blackleg's process, of £300.
But I (with my warm affection and deep pity for the father, and passionate love of the daughter) could see no adventurous joy or fierce delight in the issue impending. I wanted no revenge, no compensation for anything done against me. Hafer the genuine, and Hafer the counterfeit, might settle their claims to the title as they pleased; even that most malignant and awful woman—if she were as black as she was painted—the Princess Marva might live her lifeout, and give the best account of it when her time came; if only she could be kept from harming her relatives so innocent. There must be in her motives something more than we could see. Revenge alone for the loss of a husband, with whom she had lived on the worst of terms, and who had wronged her on the tenderest point—that, and the time-worn grievance about the refusal of her marriage-portion were not enough to drive her to such a horrible and unnatural deed as—unless we wronged her most shamefully—she was now in cold blood designing. There must be some other strong motive too, some great temptation of self-interest, some of that stern, sour stuff which drives us out of the hive that should be sweet to us.
No man knows what he does or thinks (unless he can keep himself separate from the thoughts of all around him, which requires a wonderful nature) when his legs go along with the legs of other men, and he has to swing his arms accordingly. There was no sort of march among us; for we had never been even of the Volunteer Force (except myself, and that only made me critical, without any help in it), and if we had wanted to show the Caucasus any sense of drill, we could never have done it, even if we had known how. By order of the rocky way, or of rocks without any way among them, we could never march two abreast, or even three in file with decency. All we could do was to get along, and admire one another's clumsiness.
Then we came to a place with a sudden gap in front, and nothing but the sky beyond it. A cleft in the crown of a rugged ascent, with spires of black rocks right and left. And there on the saddle-ridge that we must pass, a gaunt and wondrous figure arose, whether of man or of beast, and wavered against the grey mist of the distance, and swayed. Two long arms, like a gallows out of gear, or a cross that has rotted with its weight, struck up; and having been severely tried already we were much at a loss what to make of it. There was good light still, and we were not to be frightened, as we must have been after sunset; but the Interpreter being always nervous turned round, and exclaimed: "She has sent the Devil, the Devil himself, to stop us." While he spoke the long figure fell down on its knees, and swung its lank arms, like a windmill.
"Hold hard! Don't fire!" Strogue shouted sternly, as some of our men had brought their guns to bear. "Idiots, it is nothing but a poor lost man, a fellow without a bit of food inside him. George, let us go and see what he is up to."
I was ready to go anywhere and do anything in my present state of mind; and when we came up to him, our poor brother mortal fell upon his face, and put his hands upon our feet. He muttered some words which we could not understand, and then he opened his mouth, which was very large, and pointed down it intelligibly to the slowest comprehension.
"He may be the Devil, but he wants some grub," Strogue shouted back to our company, who were still looking towards us doubtfully, for people become superstitious, without intending it, in these wild places. Then Cator came up, with a barley-cake in one hand and his rifle in the other. The unfortunate starver took no heed of the weapon in his extremity, but stretched his shrivelled arm across the muzzle, and tore the cake from Cator. In a moment it was gone, almost without a munch; and then he stared at us, with sun-scorched eyes projecting from their peel like a boiled potato,—and groaned for more, crooking his fingers like prongs of a rake. We shrank from him so that he might not touch us. But for the blood he was covered with we should have taken him for a skeleton; and but for his groans and nakedness we should have passed him as a scarecrow.
"Don't be in such a hurry, old chap, or you'll do yourself more harm than good," Strogue suggested reasonably. But even if the other had understood, it would have made no difference. He spread his face out in such a manner that there was nothing left but mouth; as a young cuckoo in a sparrow's nest, when his stepmother cannot satisfy him, squattles his empty body down, and distends himself into one enormous gape. Then Tommy Williams came up laughing, with his hat full of broken victuals; and the Captain, who understood the subject, said: "Not too fast, or he'll fall to pieces. And pour down a little whiskey to soften it."
When the poor fellow came round a little—and flatenough he had been before—to our surprise he proved himself an exceedingly brave and well-intentioned man. In fact, if he had been otherwise we should never have found him there. A barbarian he appeared at first, but that was appearance only, and under the stress of misfortune, although he belonged to a race which is the most barbarous of the Caucasus. When through our nervous interpreter we began to understand him, we soon perceived that it was our good luck as well as his own, which had brought him to us. And much as at first we grudged the time expended in this humanity, we soon came to see that it had been well spent, even for our own purposes. After such a fast, and then such feasting (prolonged in even more than due redress), it would have been most unfair to expect many words from him prematurely. We clothed him a little, for he was stark naked,—and so hairy a person I never beheld,—and then we cut the tight cord knotted round his waist, from which even famine had not freed him; and then we made a litter—for he could not walk—and carried him to our night-quarters. Luckily there was no foe in search of us, or that miserable sufferer's groans and snores must have told our whereabout to every echo. He surprised us again by an eager call for supper, but none would we give him, until he had splashed for a quarter of an hour in the glacier stream. Then we fed him again, and clothed him fairly, and a decent and reputable man he looked, though going down the vale of years. And his tale was interpreted as follows.
"I am Usi, of Ushkul, in the country of the Svâns; Usi the Bear-slayer was my name, as long as I lived among them. The custom of the country is that as often as a female child is born, any youth of the village who looks forward to his need of marriage may come to the cradle and hang his own bullet around the neck of the infant, and from that time she is pledged to him, and he must marry her when she is old enough. When I was a stripling, the wife of our Priest produced him their fourteenth child, a daughter; and I was the first to go in at his door, and bespeak the young creature for myself. But as fortune ordained, the damsel proved deaf and dumb, though in other ways quite useful; and I very justly refused in the presence of all the village to marry her. And this I did, when she was ten years old, allowing her plenty of time for others, who might esteem it to their pleasure and advantage to possess a wife without a tongue. But the very next day, when I was watching the maize, a bullet came through my hat, and lodged in a tree behind me; and when I dug it out, behold it was my own with the fancy pattern on it, with which I had betrothed myself ten years before. To that I need not have paid much attention, but that the Priest had nine well-grown sons, and it would be the duty of all these nine in succession to lie in wait for me, and endeavour to shoot me through the head. The eldest had been too near the mark for me to believe without rashness that the other eight would fire in vain; so I took my good mother's advice, which she gave me with many tears, and left my native place for lifetime. Neither was it safe forme to dwell in any of the villages for miles and miles around, because we people of the Svâns had suffered from want of food for the last two years, and had been obliged to take all the loaves, and corn, and cattle of our neighbours within three days' journey; and so we were out of favour with them.
"On this account I was compelled, having borne a strong hand in those forages, to keep myself away from spots where I would have settled gladly. At a distance I saw beautiful maidens, over the tops of the raspberries; but whenever I desired to draw near them, there was sure to be a father or a brother, whose cow or whose sheep had been beef or mutton to me. And those people bear such things in mind, not being generous as we are. And thus I went along the valleys, feeding on the fruit, wherever the bears had left a tail of it. Then going further towards the rising sun, which is the strength of all of us, I came upon a man who carried a kinjal on a gun-mouth.
"In those days, I could jump as high as I could put my hands up; and being surprised by his pointing at me, I did it to give him time to think. This made him think more of me than I deserved, and instead of shooting me, he asked in what land men could jump so. I could not understand at first, though he did it with all his fingers; because we had kept ourselves apart from other people, whenever we could live without our neighbours' goods. But I was always considered the foremost of the young men for understanding, and I contrived to make out what he meant, and to do a thing which is much harder—to make him know what I meant. He was a soldier of the great Imaum, desiring to shoot Russians; and as soon as we made out one another, he showed me the notches on his gun, and I counted forty-two, and he said every one was the good corpse of a Russian. This made me long to do the like, though the Russians had never shot at me, but my own friends had; and my soul arose to look along a gun at any stranger, even as it had been done to me.
"Others came up, and when they found how straight my barrel was, and what it was famous for doing among the bears, the Captain said, 'Thou shalt do it, my lad, with the bears that eat our people.' And so I was put intoShamyl's army, and for many years enjoyed myself. I have shot three Russian colonels, and small officers by the dozen; and I could have shot the Commander once; but his daughter was by his side, and I stopped my finger when it was on the crook, with my mind upon my mother.
"Twelve years I fought under Shamyl, and did so much good that as often as a great man came on the Russian side, it was my place to put a stop to him. If you come across any of our old men now, and say to them, 'What about Usi the Bear' you will see their eyes sparkle, and hear them say, 'Not one among us could compare with him for sending a Cossack to the devil three-quarters of a verst away.' Alas that I shall no more do it! The times are not as they used to be.
"Then there came a man who was the noblest of all the sons of men to look at that ever the red sun shone upon. Imar, the son of Dadian, Master of the Western Lesghians, stronger than an Auroch bull, and gentler than a suckling woman. His father Dadian had been mighty, and a lord of men; but Imar was as the Saint Christ that stands in gold among the images of clay. Though I was not of his tribe, I craved to be put into his troop, and whatever he did Usi was never far away. Until the war came to an end, and all who were not shot or starved went home to their own mountains. But I dared not go to Ushkul yet, and had forgotten how to live without a rifle in my hands. Then Imar, the son of Dadian, took me, and beholding in me an honest man, and the surest with a long gun of all whom he had proved in battle, he appointed me a little place on the northern slope of Kazbek, to keep the wild beasts from the crops, and the wolves who had thriven by means of the war from eating the helpless children. As long as he reigned I had a hut in the forest, and twenty-five kopeks a week, and all the timber I could cut, and a wife who behaved very softly to me, and bore me several children.
"Then the Russians spread their hands along the mountains and the valleys, when there was no longer any power of men in arms to stop them, and they put a tribute on every house, and they sent away all the leaders of the men who had fought against them, and among them the LordImar, to a little island in the West which had never been friendly with them. My money was cut down to ten kopeks; but I had my cattle and sheep and goats, and all the things that I could grow or shoot, until that Princess Marva came, the widow of Rakhan Houseburner, and claimed the command of everything. I would not rebel against the sister of the man I had loved so much, and she said that she sent him all the money to keep him in his exile, and for a long time people believed her. Until a great man of authority was sent to us from Russia, to see to the forests and the revenue, and he told us that the lady had never sent a kopek to her brother, but that the Russians very justly allowed him most of his revenue, because he had friends of clever voices and power in high places. Then the Princess said that I defied her, although I had never said a word of lies, and she sent fierce men to turn me out; but I had a little powder left, and my eye was straight though my hands are old, and I made two of them fall as dead as bears, and the rest flew away, like the shadow of a cloud, when the wind is blowing.
"But a week after that my house was burned, while my wife and I were fast asleep; and I lost the gun that shoots so straight, though I think it must be in the ashes still. My little daughter, nine years old, died in the stream we put her in to relieve her of her death-pain, and the other damsel and both my boys were hurt by jumping into the fir-tree. The hair of my wife's head was scorched so that I had to put a sheep-skin on; and the doctor said that if I had been a smooth man, I never could have worn a shirt again. But people were good, and I had shot a bear, which was hanging on a tree unmelted; and when you have such fat to rub you, you can cure anything outside.
"Ossets, and Lesghians, and such races might think none the worse of Marva for treating them in that kind of way; but Svâns, such as I am, have never abandoned their bodies and their goods to the authority of any one since the time of the great Queen Tamara, none of us can tell how long ago; and although I might not be a true Svân now, yet the nature of the race abode in me. Then, while I was thinking, I heard a thing which stirred me like the trumpet of the great Imaum,—Sûr Imar himself was coming home totake his proper place again, and do good to his people. Great joy was spread among the Lesghians; but the Ossets went against the thought, because he had too much strength of law, and had grievously wronged them of the many goods flowing in to their dwellings from robbery, for the short time he governed at Karthlos. It was said, moreover, that Queen Marva, as she loved to hear herself called, would now have no chance of holding fast her manifold encroachments, fruitful valleys which she had stolen, and flocks and herds, and timber-trees, and crag-sides where some strangers pay her for hunting stones which they can change for gold.
"Now I will tell you a little thing; and it is the wisdom of the wiser days. There are two sorts of bears which prowl and devour in the corn-land and the forest; the big brown bear calledMichael, who destroys the crops and the fruit-trees, but is glad to run from an unarmed child, unless his body is wounded; and then there is another bear, not so large indeed, but black with a white frill to its bosom. This animal we callMichaina; and a wise man flies from it, unless he can slay it at one shot; because it will rush upon him in the dark, and tear out his intestines. And our fathers have left word for us through many generations, that the brown bear is the form in which bad men on earth have been condemned to come back to it and see the harm they did; when some of it has been stopped by death. But the black bears are the wicked women, still going on in wickedness, not so often met with as the evil men, but a hundredfold to be dreaded, being black to the depth of their hearts and souls. And this black bear Queen Marva is.
"I had no house in the forest now, and no place left me in the world better than any other; and it mattered little to my flesh what became of all great people. I had my wounded children, or as many as remained of them, to carry on my back sometimes, or sometimes to run and pull me on, according to the power of our courage. And my wife, when I grieved about her hair, which had brought men in office to admire her, said that without it her head felt lighter, and begged me not to accept another woman, with no hut of my own to bring her to, and no meat to put into her. Why she asked me such a thing—when Ihad never thought of it, and was going along in a steadfast way, with a child on either shoulder-blade—only the Lord, who made most of the women for our good, can tell us.
"Sir, and honourable gentlemen (who have saved my life upon a hair), when I was a boy my teaching was to believe in the Devil only, and to pray to certain images that knew the way to appease him. But now I have been among wiser people, who look up to the sky, and think that it was made for good as well as evil. And whether that be true or false, I have found the people who think thus a great deal better than the dark believers."
At this point the poor Svân broke down, and shed a flood of tears after a long sad gaze at the mountains as if he had no home now, and at the sky as if he had no hope there. We gave him a little more nourishment, for we saw that his tale was coming towards us now; and then he wiped his eyes, and set them sternly, and cast self-pity into the fire of his wrongs.
"Seven days agone I was seeking in the woods, together with my wife and little ones, with the worst of the winter past behind us, and kind roots shining above the snow (which had smothered all of them for months), and pith of growth as good as corn, to be found by those who are used to it; for the desire of our hearts was only to keep a spark of life in them, until we might get to places where mankind grows corn and grinds it. For I had heard of an ancient friend, the best man I ever knew to fight, when it came to axe or kinjal, though he never could shoot afar like me; and his name was Stepan, the Lesghian. For a number of years he had been away, following his master's fortunes; but lately he was come back, they said, bringing household goods to prepare for him.
"Then in the dark woods, as we crept along, weary and hungry and trying vainly to comfort one another, we beheld a company of well-fed people, riding in the timber-track below, which we had been afraid to occupy. By the white sheep-skins upon their heads, we knew that they were Ossets, men of Queen Marva's bodyguard, whom she had chosen from all the tribe; even as the great Imaum had riders of the Avar race continually faithful to him. At the head of them rode the young Prince Hisar, as wicked a young man as ever drew breath; and behind them came a score of footmen, rejoicing in cruelty, and haters of the Lord.
"'Go you on, my child,' I said to my wife Rhada; 'in the morning I will be with you by the great red pine;' so I left my family in the hands of God, and putting dust uponmy head, like an old man seeking alms, I fell in with the rear of that sprawly-jointed troop, and none of them knew that it was Usi. When a man calls for alms in the name of the Lord, his brethren are happy to escape expense by letting him walk with them, as if they heard him not. And so I went on with them till night, for I wanted to know what their wickedness was; and I sang them sweet verses which they could not understand, and they gave me some scraps to keep me quiet. Then from a boy who was pitiful to me, perceiving how much of the world I had seen, when the flesh-pots hung upon the crooks and bubbled, I learned what the meaning of this armed troop was. They were coming with a strong force by order of their Mistress, to make a hearty welcome to her brother and his daughter upon their return to the native land, from the place where the Russian steam-road ends at the Northern plain of the great mountains. All had been settled that Sûr Imar and his daughter should come from Vladikaukaz in a hired troika, and be received by their loving sister and aunt, at a place appointed; and there they must leave the great Dariel road, and be conducted by her to Karthlos, with great rejoicing and affection kindled. But why were all these men thus armed? Not as for travelling only? Why did they carry ropes and chains? Why was there not a Lesghian among them? and why was there no sign of the Princess, eager to embrace her kindred? Loving Sûr Imar as I did, I resolved to go on, and understand these things.
"On the following day, the Ossets drove me from among them with many blows; but I cared not, since I had renewed my strength with plentiful waste victuals, and a warm sound sleep. For I could watch them none the worse for being outside of their wicked troop, and by this time I well knew what they meant. So I followed them to the great Russian road, towards which the forest track whereon I found them led; and there they encamped on either side. There were steep rocks around them, full of black caves and crannies, and without much risk I crawled up into one of these, so that I could see all these warriors and the road beyond them, without any risk of their seeing me.
"Before I had been there very long, a three-horse carriage came up the road, followed by two carts piled withgoods; and the young chief rode to meet them, and much salutation might be seen, and the carriage and carts were unloaded and sent back again, so that only Sûr Imar—for I knew his gait and stature even at that distance—with a young lady, and two attendants, a man and a woman, stood in the road. Hisar no doubt had assured them that the Princess was close at hand with vehicles well prepared to conduct them home. But it seemed to me that the Prince and the lady were looking to this side and to that, and gazing at every corner, as if they expected some one who ought to have met them, but was not to be found. And suddenly I thought that they were looking out for Stepan, Imar's milk-brother and most faithful friend. And I wished with all my heart that he were there, or could even be advised of his lord's return.
"Sir, and honourable gentlemen, I will not deceive you by speaking as if I had seen the shameful things that happened, almost before one could think of them, to the great Chief and his daughter. For they were led very politely into a dark narrow valley that slopes from the road, and cannot be discerned at all from it. And a torrent, that rushes along the lower end, goes by with such an uproar that an army with drums might scarcely be heard at the mouth of it. They were led there perhaps on pretence of a hospitable meal such as I would with joy pursue. But in sad truth it was to overthrow them by means of ropes, and loops, and trees, for Sûr Imar was known to be the strongest man in all the great army of Shamyl; and although he might now be unarmed and defenceless, it would be easier to master him by fraud than force. And although I saw not the doing of it, the old head sees more than young eyes sometimes; according to an ancient tag of ours, 'The grey bush looks round the corner.'
"They came not back into the wide strong road, for fear of Cossacks or other gapes; but went along the forest ways of rock and slough and waterfall; and through my old experience in the turn of war—for Shamyl was fox, wolf, and lion in one—it was easy enough for me to keep in their track, without giving them any smell of me. They had my old commander strapped on poles across two horses, whichmust have been great pain for him, and would have torn a loose man in two; but I never heard him speak a groan, although they passed through hollow places, where the misery of a man sounds loud. The fair damsel had not her senses with her, being of softer substance; and cruel as they were, they bore her gently upon a litter of slender wood, not desiring to hurt her yet, and having perhaps later occasion for her. Some of them jested about her beauty, till the violent young man rode back, and sent their loose mouths sprawling on the rocks. He means to keep her for himself, I trow.
"When the sun was getting low, and but for my memory of honest warfare, and the love of an old soldier for a kindly leader, I must have dropped away through weariness, the feet of their horses struck on softer ground, and behold they were entering a fair green valley, on the northern breast of Kazbek, where the sun strikes not from on high, but twinkles along the rocky passages, when the slope of the earth invites him, in the morning and in the evening time, like a low flight of arrows, such as I have seen when the Svâns were mighty bowmen. Wherefore this valley is never parched up, as they are on the south of the mountains, but is covered with moss, like the breath of night, and soft with trickling moisture. And the learned men say that an ancient race, who had come through the gates of Caucasus, having conquered the whole world all around, set up their last pillars here, and desired to go no further. And the masonry of giants is there to prove it, such as no man can make when the world grows old.
"Here that troop of brigands—for such a name is almost too good for them—opened a narrow door in the cliff, which cannot be seen from every place, because dark rocks encompass it. What they did there I cannot tell, for I durst not set foot down the valley, and there was no getting near it in time from above, so as to look down over them. I could only discover that some went in, stepping as if with burdens, while others were left on guard outside. By and by, I heard a clanking like the swing of an iron door, and presently all, or as I thought all, the riders came back, and with laughter and singing, and the young chief Hisar at their head, made off by the track which leads home to their village.
"Then I did a very foolish thing, which has all but cost me my life, without being of any use to Sûr Imar. If I had counted the men on horseback, which I might have contrived perhaps to do, though it would not have been very easy, I should have learned that they were not all gone, but that two were left on guard. Descrying no horses tethered in the valley, and knowing that the prisoners could not escape, I concluded rashly that all the Ossets were gone, at least for the present, and that I might safely spy all around, and perhaps even try to let Sûr Imar know that I would do my best to save him. So I hastened with some care, but still too boldly, along the foot of the cliff which rims the valley, so as to endeavour to approach the door. For the shadows were wiping out the shapes and colours of a man, or a bush, or a rock standing still; while the soft moss and herbage took away the fear of sound.
"Looking out winkingly in all directions, like a man of the chase who has espied the Tûr, at the end of the valley in the clouding of the dusk, I beheld a company of little rocks, jutting from the soft land, and standing in jags, like an old man's teeth, across the butt-end, where the dungeon began. In and out of these I crept, going very stealthily, as if I were dealing with a Cossack outpost; but the mischief of it was that I had no gun, only the dagger that everybody has; and this one was more like lead than steel, having come to me cheap in my distress from some city in the west calledBrummerum. By breathing upon it many times, I was doubtful of its temper, but never thought how much it would betray me.
"Among those jags of rock I stood, watching the face of the cliff beyond, and the deep withdrawal of the iron door set in the granite masonry of some nation as old as Noah. And I said to myself that with a good ash-trunk, and Stepan, and myself, and a score of strong men to charge at it like a battering-ram, stout as it was it would perhaps give in. There were loop-holes also on either side, to give air and a little light sometimes, and I ventured a low breath of whistle in a soft and friendly tone, to ask whether anybody might look forth, though there was no width for a fox to squeeze through. But the whole of my wisdom only proved what a fool an old soldier is sometimes.
"For a loop was thrown over my head from behind, and then two strong men had hold of me. I managed to twist with one arm free, and struck with my dagger at one of them. But instead of making any hole in him, it came back on my wrist like an osier, having met with his metal cartridge-belt; and then they pulled me off my feet, and I lay like a sheep with his legs tied. I thought they would have cut my throat outright, for my head fell back the right way of it, and one of them whipped out his knife to do it; but the other cried out about the holy season, and then put his arm across. So they satisfied themselves with binding me with cords that cut into my flesh; and they carried me through the night, shaken up with pain; and I knew not where I was, till I came back to myself through necessity of lying to Queen Marva.
"But as my evil fortune fell, there happened to be among the Ossets, another old soldier of Shamyl, and one who had never served under Sûr Imar. This man knew me, and told the Queen who I was; and but for the holy time she would have crucified me then and there. 'Religion forbids us to slay the wretch,' said Marva, with a glance of blackness, 'but doth not forbid to make wolf's meat of him.'
"Three days ago I was fastened to a rock with the big rope round my body, and my wrists and ankles corded, so that if any wolves came by they should have no trouble with me. But the Lord commanded only one wolf to come, and he was overtaken with great wonder at the sight; and I had the courage to keep silence, and gaze at him, as if demanding what he meant by being there. Seeing me naked and so hairy, he could not understand such an animal; for I could no longer stand upright. Then, as I never flinched nor moved, he sheathed his teeth, and turned his eyes, and his tail began to quiver. I kept my eyes fixed on him steadily, and my face as firm as the crag behind; until with a little whine of doubt he drew in his nostrils, and dropped his tail, and trotted off to consult his friends, and perhaps he has taken his family to look for me this evening. A monstrous wolf he was in truth, and as hungry perhaps as I could be.
"For two days I had been numbed, and parched, and struck by the sun and the moon so much, that instead of any brave time of thought, I had only leaped and raved and yelled, and dashed myself about in vain, tearing my skin in strips, and cutting gashes into my purple flesh, and making holes all over me.
"But the moment that wolf was out of sight, I was seized with a cold and shivering dread, so that I could see the naked hairs of all my body quivering. Death I knew that I must have; and death had seemed a reasonable thing, when I gave it to another man who was trying to do the same to me. But to see myself being crunched alive, to feel those yellow fangs pulling my strings out, and that long tongue lapping up my blood—let me die before he came again. Surely I must have strength enough left to burst the veins of my neck and die. Were there any rocks within my reach so rugged and sharp that I might fling one of my leading blood-pipes down, again and again, till it should burst? I flung out my legs, and strained my length, like a chained dog clawing for a bone out of reach, in search of some blade of flint keen enough to saw my gullet or windpipe through.