Читать книгу: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 329, March, 1843», страница 3

CHAPTER II

The vernal noon was shining upon the peaks of Caucasus, and the loud voices of the moollahs had called the inhabitants of Tchetchná to prayer. By degrees they came forth from the mosques, and though invisible to each other from the towers on which they stood, their solitary voices, after awaking for a moment the echoes of the hills, sank to stillness in the silent air.

The moollah, Hadji Suleiman, a Turkish devotee, one of those missionaries annually sent into the mountains by the Divan of Stamboul, to spread and strengthen the faith, and to increase the detestation felt by the inhabitants for the Russians, was reposing on the roof of the mosque, having performed the usual call, ablution, and prayer. He had not been long installed as moollah of Igáli, a village of Tchetchná; and plunged in a deep contemplation of his hoary beard, and the circling smoke-wreaths that rose from his pipe, he gazed from time to time with a curious interest on the mountains, and on the defiles which lay towards the north, right before his eyes. On the left arose the precipitous ridges dividing Tchetchná from Avár, and beyond them glittered the snows of Caucasus; sáklas scattered disorderly along the ridges half-way up the mountain, and narrow paths led to these fortresses built by nature, and employed by the hill-robbers to defend their liberty, or secure their plunder. All was still in the village and the surrounding hills; there was not a human being to be seen on the roads or streets; flocks of sheep were reposing in the shade of the cliffs; the buffaloes were crowded in the muddy swamps near the springs, with only their muzzles protruded from the marsh. Nought save the hum of the insects—nought save the monotonous chirp of the grasshoppers indicated life amid the breathless silence of the mountains; and Hadji Suleiman, stretched under the cupola, was intensely enjoying the stillness and repose of nature, so congenial to the lazy immobility of the Turkish character. Indolently he turned his eyes, whose fire was extinguished, and which no longer reflected the light of the sun, and at length they fell upon two horsemen, slowly climbing the opposite side of the declivity.

"Néphtali!" cried our Moollah, turning towards a neighbouring sákla, at the gate of which stood a saddled horse. And then a handsome Tchetchenetz, with short cut beard, and shaggy cap covering half his face, ran out into the street. "I see two horsemen," continued the Moollah; "they are riding round the village!"

"Most likely Jews or Armenians," answered Néphtali. "They do not choose to hire a guide, and will break their necks in the winding road. The wild-goats, and our boldest riders, would not plunge into these recesses without precaution."

"No, brother Néphtali; I have been twice to Mecca, and have seen plenty of Jews and Armenians every where. But these riders look not like Hebrew chafferers, unless, indeed, they exchange steel for gold in the mountain road. They have no bales of merchandise. Look at them yourself from above; your eyes are surer than mine; mine have had their day, and done their work. There was a time when I could count the buttons on a Russian soldier's coat a verst off, and my rifle never missed an infidel; but now I could not distinguish a ram of my own afar."

By this time Néphtali was at the side of the Moollah, and was examining the travellers with an eagle glance.

"The noonday is hot, and the road rugged," said Suleiman; "invite the travellers to refresh themselves and their horses: perhaps they have news: besides, the Koran commands us to show hospitality."

"With us in the mountains, and before the Koran, never did a stranger leave a village hungry or sad; never did he depart without tchourek,³⁶ without blessing, without a guide; but these people are suspicious: why do they avoid honest men, and pass our village by by-roads, and with danger to their life?"

"It seems that they are your countrymen," said Suleiman, shading his eyes with his hand: "their dress is Tchetchná. Perhaps they are returning from a plundering exhibition, to which your father went with a hundred of his neighbours; or perhaps they are brothers, going to revenge blood for blood."

"No, Suleiman, that is not like us. Could a mountaineer's heart refrain from coming to see his countrymen—to boast of his exploits against the Russians, and to show his booty? These are neither avengers of blood nor Abreks—their faces are not covered by the báshlik; besides, dress is deceptive. Who can tell that those are not Russian deserters! The other day a Kázak, who had murdered his master, fled from Goumbet-Aoúl with his horse and arms.... The devil is strong!"

"He is strong in them in whom the faith is weak, Néphtali;—yet, if I mistake not, the hinder horseman has hair flowing from under his cap."

"May I be pounded to dust, but it is so! It is either a Russian, or, what is worse, a Tartar Shageed.³⁷ Stop a moment, my friend; I will comb your zilflárs for you! In half-an-hour I will return, Suleiman, either with them,—or one of us three shall feed the mountain berkoots (eagles.)"

Néphtali rushed down the stairs, threw the gun on his shoulders, leapt into his saddle and dashed down the hill, caring neither for furrow nor stone. Only the dust arose, and the pebbles streamed down after the bold horseman."

"Alla akbér!" gravely exclaimed Suleiman, and lit his pipe.

Néphtali soon came up with the strangers. Their horses were covered with foam, and the sweat-drops rained from them on the narrow path by which they were climbing the mountain. The first was clothed in a shirt of mail, the other in the Circassian dress: except that he wore a Persian sabre instead of a sháshka,³⁸ suspended by a laced girdle. His left arm was covered with blood, bound up with a handkerchief, and supported by the sword-knot. The faces of both were concealed. For some time he rode behind them along the slippery path, which overhung a precipice; but at the first open space he galloped by them, and turned his horse round. "Salám aleikom!" said he, opposing their passage along the rugged and half-built road among the rocks, as he made ready his arms. The foremost horseman suddenly wrapped his boúrka³⁹ round his face, so as to leave visible only his knit brows: "Aleikom Salám!" answered he, cocking his gun, and fixing himself in the saddle.

"God give you a good journey!" said Néphtali. repeating the usual salutation, and preparing, at the first hostile movement, to shoot the stranger.

"God give you enough of sense not to interrupt the traveller," replied his antagonist, impatiently: "What would you with us, Kounák?"⁴⁰

"I offer you rest, and a brother's repast, barley and stalls for your horses. My threshold flourishes by hospitality: the blessing of the stranger increaseth the flock, and giveth sharpness to the sword of the master. Fix not the seal of reproach on our whole village. Let them not say, 'They have seen travellers in the heat of noon, and have not refreshed them nor sheltered them.'"

"We thank you for your kindness; but we are not wont to take forced hospitality; and haste is even more necessary for us than rest."

"You ride to your death without a guide."

"Guide!" exclaimed the traveller; "I know every step of the Caucasus. I have been where your serpents climb not, your tigers cannot mount, your eagles cannot fly. Make way, comrade: thy threshold is not on God's high-road, and I have no time to prate with thee."

"I will not yield a step, till I know who and whence you are!"

"Insolent scoundrel, out of my way, or thy mother shall beg thy bones from the jackall and the wind! Thank your luck, Néphtali, that thy father and I have eaten one another's salt; and often have ridden by his side in the battle. Unworthy son! thou art rambling about the roads, and ready to attack the peaceable travellers, while thy father's corse lies rotting on the fields of Russia, and the wives of the Kazáks are selling his arms in the bazar. Néphtali, thy father was slain yesterday beyond the Térek. Dost thou know me now?"

"Sultan Akhmet Khan!" cried the Tchetchenetz, struck by the piercing look and by the terrible news. His voice was stifled, and he fell forward on his horse's neck in inexpressible grief.

"Yes, I am Sultan Akhmet Khan! but grave this in your memory, Néphtali—that if you say to any one, 'I have seen the Khan of Avár,' my vengeance will live from generation to generation."

The strangers passed on, the Khan in silence, plunged, as it seemed, in painful recollections; Ammalát (for it was he) in gloomy thought. The dress of both bore witness to recent fighting; their mustaches were singed by the priming, and splashes of blood had dried upon their faces; but the proud look of the first seemed to defy to the combat fate and chance; a gloomy smile, of hate mingled with scorn, contracted his lip. On the other hand, on the features of Ammalát exhaustion was painted. He could hardly turn his languid eyes; and from time to time a groan escaped him, caused by the pain of his wounded arm. The uneasy pace of the Tartar horse, unaccustomed to the mountain roads, renewed the torment of his wound. He was the first to break the silence.

"Why have you refused the offer of these good people? We might have stopped an hour or two to repose, and at dewfall we could have proceeded."

"You think so, because you feel like a young man, dear Ammalát: you are used to rule your Tartars like slaves, and you fancy that you can conduct yourself with the same ease among the free mountaineers. The hand of fate weighs heavily upon us;—we are defeated and flying. Hundreds of brave mountaineers—your noúkers and my own—have fallen in fight with the Russians; and the Tchetchenetz has seen turned to flight the face of Sultan Akhmet Khan, which they are wont to behold the star of victory! To accept the beggar's repast, perhaps to hear reproaches for the death of fathers and sons, carried away by me in this rash expedition—'twould be to lose their confidence for ever. Time will pass, tears will dry up; the thirst of vengeance will take place of grief for the dead; and then again Sultan Akhmet will be seen the prophet of plunder and of blood. Then again the battle-signal shall echo through the mountains, and I shall once more lead flying bands of avengers into the Russian limits. If I go now, in the moment of defeat, the Tchetchenetz will judge that Allah giveth and taketh away victory. They may offend me by rash words, and with me an offence is ineffaceable; and the revenge of a personal offence would obstruct the road that leads me to the Russians. Why, then, provoke a quarrel with a brave people—and destroy the idol of glory on which they are wont to gaze with rapture? Never does man appear so mean as in weakness, when every one can measure his strength with him fearlessly: besides, you need a skilful leech, and nowhere will you find a better than at my house. To-morrow we shall be at home; have patience until then."

With a gesture of gratitude Ammalát Bek placed his hand upon his heart and forehead: he perfectly felt the truth of the Khan's words, but exhaustion for many hours had been overwhelming him. Avoiding the villages, they passed the night among the rocks, eating a handful of millet boiled in honey, without the mountaineers seldom set out on a journey. Crossing the Koi-Soú by the bridge near the Asheért, quitting its northern branch, and leaving behind them Andéh, and the country of the Boulinétzes of the Koi-Soú, and the naked chain of Salataóu. A rude path lay before them, winding among forests and cliffs terrible to body and soul; and they began to climb the last chain which separated them on the north from Khounzákh or Avár, the capital of the Khans. The forest, and then the underwood, had gradually disappeared from the naked flint of the mountain, on which cloud and tempest could hardly wander. To reach the summit, our travellers were compelled to ride alternately to the right and to the left, so precipitous was the ascent of the rocks. The experienced steed of the Khan stepped cautiously and surely from stone to stone, feeling his way with his hoofs, and when they slipped, gliding on his haunches down the declivities: while the ardent fiery horse of Ammalát, trained in the hills of Daghestán, fretted, curveted, and slipped. Deprived of his customary grooming, he could not support a two days' flight under the intense cold and burning sunshine of the mountains, travelling among sharp rocks, and nourished only by the scanty herbage of the crevices. He snorted heavily as he climbed higher and higher; the sweat streamed from his poitrel; his large nostrils were dry and parched, and foam boiled from his bit. "Allah berekét!" exclaimed Ammalát, as he reached the crest from which there opened before him a view of Avár: but at the very moment his exhausted horse fell under him; the blood spouted from his open mouth, and his last breath burst the saddle-girth.

The Khan assisted the Bek to extricate himself from the stirrups; but observed with alarm that his efforts had displaced the bandage on Ammalát's wounded arm, and that the blood was soaking through it afresh. The young man, it seemed, was insensible to pain; tears were rolling down his face upon the dead horse. So one drop fills not, but overflows the cup. "Thou wilt never more bear me like down upon the wind," he said, "nor hear behind thee from the dust-cloud of the race, the shouts, unpleasing to the rival, the acclamations of the people: in the blaze of battle no more shalt thou carry me from the iron rain of the Russian cannon. With thee I gained the fame of a warrior—why should I survive, or it, or thee?" He bent his face upon his knee, and remained silent a long time, while the Khan carefully bound up his wounded arm: at length Ammalát raised his head: "Leave me!" he cried, resolutely: "leave, Sultan Akhmet Khan, a wretch to his fate! The way is long, and I am exhausted. By remaining with me, you will perish in vain. See! the eagle soars around us; he knows that my heart will soon quiver beneath his talons, and I thank God! Better find an airy grave in the maw of a bird of prey, than leave my corse beneath a Christian foot. Farewell, linger not."

"For shame, Ammalát! you trip against a straw....! What the great harm? You are wounded, and your horse is dead. Your wound will soon healed, and we will find you a better horse! Allah sendeth not misfortunes alone. In the flower of your age, and the full vigour of your faculties, it is a sin to despair. Mount my horse, I will lead him by the bridle, and by night we shall be at home. Time is precious!"

"For me, time is no more, Sultan Ahkmet Khan ... I thank you heartily for your brotherly care, but I cannot take advantage of it ... you yourself cannot support a march on foot after such fatigue. I repeat ... leave me to my fate. Here, on these inaccessible heights, I will die free and contented ... And what is there to recall me to life! My parents lie under the earth, my wife is blind, my uncle and father-in-law the Shamkhál are cowering at Tarki before the Russians ... the Giaour is revelling in my native land, in my inheritance; and I myself an a wanderer from my home, a runaway from battle. I neither can, nor ought to live."

"You ought not to talk such nonsense, dear Ammalát:—and nothing but fever can excuse you. We are created that we may live longer than our fathers. For wives, if one has not teazed you enough, we will find you three more. If you love not the Shamkhál, yet love your own inheritance—you ought to live, if but for that; since to a dead man power is useless, and victory impossible. Revenge on the Russians is a holy duty: live, if but for that. That we are beaten, is no novelty for a warrior; to-day luck is theirs, to-morrow it falls to us. Allah gives fortune; but a man creates his own glory, not by fortune, but by firmness. Take courage, my friend Ammalát.... You are wounded and weak; I am strong from habit, and not fatigued by flight. Mount! and we may yet live to beat the Russians."

The colour returned to Ammalát's face ... "Yes, I will live for revenge!" he cried: "for revenge both secret and open. Believe me, Sultan Akhmet Khan, it is only for this that I accept your generosity! Henceforth I am yours; I swear by the graves of my fathers.... I am yours! Guide my steps, direct the strokes of my arm; and if ever, drowned in softness, I forget my oath, remind me of this moment, of this mountain peak: Ammalát Bek will awake, and his dagger will be lightning!"

The Khan embraced him, as he lifted the excited youth into the saddle. "Now I behold in you the pure blood of the Emírs!" said he: "the burning blood of their children, which flows in our veins like the sulphur in the entrails of the rocks, which, ever and anon inflaming, shakes and topples down the crags." Steadying with one hand the wounded man in the saddle, the Khan began cautiously to descend the rugged croft. Occasionally the stones fell rattling from under their feet, or the horse slid downward over the smooth granite, so that they were well pleased to reach the mossy slopes. By degrees, creeping plants began to appear, spreading their green sheets; and, waving from the crevices like fans, they hung down in long ringlets like ribbons or flags. At length they reached a thick wood of nut-trees; then came the oak, the wild cherry, and, lower still, the tchinár,⁴¹ and the tchindár. The variety, the wealth of vegetation, and the majestic silence of the umbrageous forest, produced a kind of involuntary adoration of the wild strength of nature. Ever and anon, from the midnight darkness of the boughs, there dawned, like the morning, glimpses of meadows, covered with a fragrant carpet of flowers untrodden by the foot of man. The pathway at one time lost itself in the depth of the thicket; at another, crept forth upon the edge of the rock, below which gleamed and murmured a rivulet, now foaming over the stones, then again slumbering on its rocky bed, under the shade of the barberry and the eglantine. Pheasants, sparkling with their rainbow tails, flitted from shrub to shrub; flights of wild pigeons flew over the crags, sometimes in an horizontal troop, sometimes like a column, rising to the sky; and sunset flooded all with its airy purple, and light mists began to rise from the narrow gorges: every thing breathed the freshness of evening. Our travellers were now near the village of Aki, and separated only by a hill from Khounzákh. A low crest alone divided them from that village, when the report of a gun resounded from the mountain, and, like an ominous signal, was repeated by the echoes of the cliffs. The travellers halted irresolute: the echoes by degrees sank into stillness. "Our hunters!" cried Sultan Akhmet Khan, wiping the sweat from his face: "they expect me not, and think not to meet me here! Many tears of joy, and many of sorrow, do I bear to Khounzákh!" Unfeigned sorrow was expressed in the face of Akhmet Khan. Vividly does every soft and every savage sentiment play on the features of the Asiatic.

Another report soon interrupted his meditation; then another, and another. Shot answered shot, and at length thickened into a warm fire. "'Tis the Russians!" cried Ammalát, drawing his sabre. He pressed his horse with the stirrup, as though he would have leaped over the ridge at a single bound; but in a moment his strength failed him, and the blade fell ringing on the ground, as his arm dropped heavily by his side. "Khan!" said he, dismounting, "go to the succour of your people; your face will be worth more to them than a hundred warriors."

The Khan heard him not; he was listening intently for the flight of the balls, as if he would distinguish those of the Russian from the Avárian. "Have they, besides the agility of the goat, stolen the wings of the eagle of Kazbéc? Can they have reached our inaccessible fastnesses?" said he, leaning to the saddle, with his foot already in the stirrup. "Farewell, Ammalát!" he cried at length, listening to the firing, which now grew hotter: "I go to perish on the ruins I have made, after striking like a thunderbolt!" At this moment a bullet whistled by, and fell at his feet. Bending down and picking it up, his face was lighted with a smile. He quietly took his foot from the stirrup, and turning to Ammalát, "Mount!" said he, "you shall presently find with your own eyes an answer to this riddle. The Russian bullets are of lead; but this is copper⁴²—an Aváretz, my dear countryman. Besides, it comes from the south, where the Russians cannot be."

They ascended to the summit of the crest, and before their view opened two villages, situated on the opposite sides of a deep ravine; from behind them came the firing. The inhabitants sheltering themselves behind rocks and hedges, were firing at each other. Between them the women were incessantly running, sobbing and weeping when any combatant, approaching the edge of the ravine, fell wounded. They carried stones, and, regardless of the whistling of the balls, fearlessly piled them up, so as to make a kind of defence. Cries of joy arose from one side or the other, as a wounded adversary was carried from the field; a groan of sorrow ascended in the air when one of their kinsmen or comrades was hit. Ammalát gazed at the combat for some time with surprise, a combat in which there was a great deal more noise than execution. At length he turned an enquiring eye upon the Khan.

"With us these are everyday affairs!" he answered, delightedly marking each report. "Such skirmishes cherish among us a warlike spirit and warlike habits. With you, private quarrels end in a few blows of the dagger; among us they become the common business of whole villages, and any trifle is enough to occasion them. Probably they are fighting about some cow that has been stolen. With us it is no disgrace to steal in another village—the shame is, to be found out. Admire the coolness of our women; the balls are whizzing about like gnats, yet they pay no attention to them! Worthy wives and mothers of brave men! To be sure, there would be eternal disgrace to him who could wound a woman, yet no man can answer for a ball. A sharp eye may aim it; but blind chance carries it to the mark. But darkness is falling from heaven, and dividing these enemies for a moment. Let us hasten to my kinsmen."

Nothing but the experience of the Khan could have saved our travellers from frequent falls in the precipitous descent to the river Ouzén. Ammalát could see scarcely any thing before him; the double veil of night and weakness enveloped his eyes; his head turned: he beheld, as it were in a dream, when they again mounted an eminence, the gate and watch-tower of the Khan's house. With an uncertain foot he dismounted in a courtyard, surrounded by shouting noúkers and attendants; and he had hardly stepped over the grated threshold when his breath failed him—a deadly paleness poured its snow over the wounded man's face; and the young Bek, exhausted by loss of blood, fatigued by travel, hunger, and anguish of soul, fell senseless on the embroidered carpets.