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HADJI MURAD

CHAPTER XVI 

     In obedience to this command of Nicholas a raid was immediately made in Chechnya that same month, January 1852.

     The detachment ordered for the raid consisted of four infantry battalions, two companies of Cossacks, and eight guns.  The column marched along the road; and on both sides of it in a continuous line, now mounting, now descending, marched Fagers in high boots, sheepskin coats, and tall caps, with rifles on their shoulders and cartridges in their belts.

     As usual when marching through a hostile country, silence was observed as far as possible.  Only occasionally the guns jingled jolting across a ditch, or an artillery horse snorted or neighed, not understanding that silence was ordered, or an angry commander shouted in a hoarse subdued voice to his subordinates that the line was spreading out too much or marching too near or too far from the column.  Only once was the silence broken, when from a bramble patch between the line and the column a gazelle with a white breast and grey back jumped out followed by a buck of the same color with small backward-curving horns.  Doubling up their forelegs at each big bound they took, the beautiful timid creatures came so close to the column that some of the soldiers rushed after them laughing and shouting, intending to bayonet them, but the gazelles turned back, slipped through the line of Fagers, and pursued by a few horsemen and the company's dogs, fled like birds to the mountains.

     It was still winter, but towards noon, when the column (which had started early in the morning) had gone three miles, the sun had risen high enough and was powerful enough to make the men quite hot, and its rays were so bright that it was painful to look at the shining steel of the bayonets or at the reflections - - like little suns -- on the brass of the cannons.

     The clear and rapid stream the detachment had just crossed lay behind, and in front were tilled fields and meadows in shallow valleys.  Farther in front were the dark mysterious forest-clad hills with craigs rising beyond them, and farther still on the lofty horizon were the ever-beautiful ever-changing snowy peaks that played with the light like diamonds.

     At the head of the 5th Company, Butler, a tall handsome officer who had recently exchanged from the Guards, marched along in a black coat and tall cap, shouldering his sword.  He was filled with a buoyant sense of the joy of living, the danger of death, a wish for action, and the consciousness of being part of an immense whole directed by a single will.  This was his second time of going into action and he thought how in a moment they would be fired at, and he would not only not stoop when the shells flew overhead, or heed the whistle of the bullets, but would carry his head even more erect than before and would look round at his comrades and the soldiers with smiling eyes, and begin to talk in a perfectly calm voice about quite other matters.

     The detachment turned off the good road onto a little-used one that crossed a stubbly maize field, ant they were drawing near the forest when, with an ominous whistle, a shell flew past amid the baggage wagons -- they could not see whence -- and tore up the ground in the field by the roadside.

     "It's beginning," said Butler with a bright smile to a comrade who was walking beside him.

     And so it was.  After the shell a thick crowd of mounted Chechens appeared with their banners from under the shelter of the forest.  In the midst of the crowd could be seen a large green banner, and an old and very far-sighted sergeant-major informed the short-sighted Butler that Shamil himself must be there.  The horsemen came down the hiss and appeared to the right, at the highest part of the valley nearest the detachment, and began to descend.  A little general in a thick black coat and tall cap rode up to Butler's company on his ambler, and ordered him to the right to encounter the descending horsemen.  Butler quickly led his company in the direction indicated, but before he reached the valley he heard two cannon shots behind him.  He looked round:  two clouds of grey smoke had risen above two cannon and were spreading along the valley.  The mountaineers' horsemen -- who had evidently not expected to meet artillery -- retired.  Butler's company began firing at them and the whole ravine was filled with the smoke of powder.  Only higher up above the ravine could the mountaineers be seen hurriedly retreating, though still firing back at the Cossacks who pursued them.  The company followed the mountaineers farther, and on the slope of a second ravine came in view of an aoul.

     Following the Cossacks, Butler and his company entered the aoul at a run, to find it deserted.  The soldiers were ordered to burn the corn and the hay as well as the saklyas, and the whole aoul was soon filled with pungent smoke amid which the soldiers rushed about dragging out of the saklyas what they could find, and above all catching and shooting the fowls the mountaineers had not been able to take away with them.

     The officers sat down at some distance beyond the smoke, and lunched and drank.  The sergeant-major brought them some honeycombs on a board.  There was no sigh of any Chechens and early in the afternoon the order was given to retreat.  The companies formed into a column behind the aoul and Butler happened to be in the rearguard.  As soon as they started Chechens appeared, following and firing at the detachment, but they ceased this pursuit as soon as they came out into an open space.

     Not one of Butler's company had been wounded, and he returned in a most happy and energetic mood.  When after fording the same stream it had crossed in the morning, the detachment spread over the maize fields and the meadows, the singers of each company came forward and songs filled the air.

     "Verry diff'rent, very diff'rent, Fagers are, Fagers are!" sang Butler's singers, and his horse stepped merrily to the music.  Trezorka, the shaggy grey dog belonging to the company, ran in front, with his tail curled up with an air of responsibility like a commander.  Butler felt buoyant, calm, and joyful.  War presented itself to him as consisting only in his exposing himself to danger and to possible death, thereby gaining rewards and the respect of his comrades here, as well as of his friends in Russia.  Strange to say, his imagination never pictured the other aspect of war:  the death and wounds of the soldiers, officers, and mountaineers.  To retain his poetic conception he even unconsciously avoided looking at the dead and wounded. So that day when we had three dead and twelve wounded, he passed by a corpse lying on its back and did not stop to look, seeing only with one eye the strange position of the waxen hand and a dark red spot on the head.  The hosslmen appeared to him only a mounted dzhigits from whom he had to defend himself.

     "You see, my dear sir," said his major in an interval between two songs, "it's not as it is with you in Petersburg -- 'Eyes right!  Eyes left!'  Here we have done our job, and now we go home and Masha will set a pie and some nice cabbage soup before us.  That's life -- don't you think so?  -- Now then!  As the Dawn Was Breaking!"  He called for his favorite song.

     There was no wind, the air was fresh and clear and so transparent that the snow hills nearly a hundred miles away seemed quite near, and in the intervals between the songs the regular sound of the footsteps and the jingle of the guns was heard as a background on which each song began and ended.  The song that was being sung in Butler's company was composed by a cadet in honor of the regiment, and went to a dance tune.  The chorus was:  "Verry diff'rent, very diff'rent, Fagers are, Fagers are!"

     Butler rode beside the officer next in rank above him, Major Petrov, with whom he lived, and he felt he could not be thankful enough to have exchanged from the Guards and come to the Caucasus.  His chief reason for exchanging was that he had lost all he had at cards and was afraid that if he remained there he would be unable to resist playing though he had nothing more to lose.  Now all that was over, his life was quite changed and was such a pleasant and brave one!  He forgot that he was ruined, and forgot his unpaid debts. The Caucasus, the war, the soldiers, the officers -- those tipsy, brave, good-natured fellows -- and Major Petrov himself, all seemed so delightful that sometimes it appeared too good to be true that he was not in Petersburg -- in a room filled with tobacco smoke, turning down the corners of cards and gambling, hating the holder of the bank and feeling a dull pain in his head -- but was really here in this glorious region among these brave Caucasians.

     The major and the daughter of a surgeon's orderly, formerly known as Masha, but now generally called by the more respectful name of Marya Dmitrievna, lived together as man and wife.  Marya Dmitrievna was a handsome, fair-haired, very freckled, childless woman of thirty.  Whatever her past may have been she was now the major's faithful companion and looked after him like a nurse -- a very necessary matter, since he often drank himself into oblivion.

     When they reached the fort everything happened as the major had foreseen.  Marya Dmitrievna gave him and Butler, and two other officers of the detachment who had been invited, a nourishing and tasty dinner, and the major ate and drank till he was unable to speak, and then went off to his room to sleep.

     Butler, having drunk rather more chikhir wine than was good for him, went to his bedroom, tired but contented, and hardly had time to undress before he fell into a sound, dreamless, and unbroken sleep with his hand under his handsome curly head.

HADJI MURAD

CHAPTER XVII

     The aoul which had been destroyed was that in which Hadji Murad had spent the night before he went over to the Russians.  Sado and his family had left the aoul on the approach of the Russian detachment, and when he returned he found his saklya in ruins -- the roof fallen in, the door and the posts supporting the penthouse burned, and the interior filthy.  His son, the handsome bright-eyed boy who had gazed with such ecstasy at Hadji Murad, was brought dead to the mosque on a horse covered with a barka; he had been stabbed in the back with a bayonet.  the dignified woman who had served Hadji Murad when he was at the house now stood over her son's body, her smock torn in front, her withered old breasts exposed, her hair down, and she dug her hails into her face till it bled, and wailed incessantly.  Sado, taking a pick-axe and spade, had gone with his relatives to dig a grave for his son.  The old grandfather sat by the wall of the ruined saklya cutting a stick and gazing stolidly in front of him.  He had only just returned from the apiary.  The two stacks of hay there had been burnt, the apricot and cherry trees he had planted and reared were broken and scorched, and worse still all the beehives and bees had been burnt.  The wailing of the women and the little children, who cried with their mothers, mingled with the lowing of the hungry cattle for whom there was no food.  The bigger children, instead of playing, followed their elders with frightened eyes.  The fountain was polluted, evidently on purpose, so that the water could not be used.  The mosque was polluted in the same way, and the Mullah and his assistants were cleaning it out.  No one spoke of hatred of the Russians.  the feeling experienced by all the Chechens, from the youngest to the oldest, was stronger than hate.  It was not hatred, for they did not regard those Russian dogs as human beings, but it was such repulsion, disgust, and perplexity at the senseless cruelty of these creatures, that the desire to exterminate them -- like the desire to exterminate rats, poisonous spiders, or wolves -- was as natural an instinct as that of self-preservation.

     The inhabitants of the aoul were confronted by the choice of remaining there and restoring with frightful effort what had been produced with such labor and had been so lightly and senselessly destroyed, facing every moment the possibility of a repetition of what had happened; or to submit to the Russians -- contrary to their religion and despite the repulsion and contempt they felt for them.  The old men prayed, and unanimously decided to send envoys to Shamil asking him for help.  Then they immediately set to work to restore what had been destroyed.

HADJI MURAD

CHAPTER XVIII

     On the morning after the raid, not very early, Butler left the house by the back porch meaning to take a stroll and a breath of fresh air before breakfast, which he usually had with Petrov.  The sun had already risen above the hills and it was painful to look at the brightly lit-up white walls of the houses on the right side of the street.  But then as always it was cheerful and soothing to look to the left, at the dark receding and ascending forest-clad hills and at the dim line of snow peaks, which as usual pretended to be clouds.  Butler looked at these mountains, inhaling deep breaths and rejoicing that he was alive, that it was just he that was alive, and that he lived in this beautiful place.

     He was also rather pleased that he had behaved so well in yesterday's affair both during the advance and especially during the retreat when things were pretty hot; he was also pleased to remember how Masha (or Marya Dmitrievna), Petrov's mistress, had treated them at dinner on their return after the raid, and how she had been particularly nice and simple with everybody, but specially kind -- as he thought -- to him.

     Marya Dmitrievna with her thick plait of hair, her broad shoulders, her high bosom, and the radiant smile on her kindly freckled face, involuntarily attracted Butler, who was a healthy young bachelor.  It sometimes even seemed to him that she wanted him, but he considered that that would be doing his good-natured simple-hearted comrade a wrong, and he maintained a simple, respectful attitude towards her and was pleased with himself for doing so.

     He was thinking of this when his meditations were disturbed by the tramp of many horses' hoofs along the dusty road in front of him, as if several men were riding that way.  He looked up and saw at the end of the street a group of horsemen coming towards him at a walk.  In front of a score of Cossacks rode two men:  one in a white Circassian coat with a tall turban on his head, the other an officer in the Russian service, dark, with an aquiline nose, and much silver on his uniform and weapons.  The man with the turban rode a fine chestnut horse with mane and tail of a lighter shade, a small head, and beautiful eyes.  The officer's was a large, handsome Karabakh horse.  Butler, a lover of horses, immediately recognized the great strength of the first horse and stopped to learn who these people were.

     The officer addressed him.  "this the house of commanding officer?" he asked, his foreign accent and his words betraying his foreign origin.

     Butler replied that it was.  "And who is that?" he added, coming nearer to the officer and indicating the man with the turban.

     "That Hadji Murad.  He come here to stay with the commander," said the officer.

     Butler knew about Hadji Murad and about his having come over to the Russians, but he had not at all expected to see him here in this little fort.  Hadji Murad gave him a friendly look.

     "Good day, Kotkildy," said Butler, repeating the Tartar greeting he had learnt.

     "Saubul!" ("Be well!") replied Hadji Murad, nodding.  He rode up to Butler and held out his hand, from two fingers of which hung his whip.

     "Are you the chief?" he asked.

     "No, the chief is in here.  I will go and call him," said Butler addressing the officer, and he went up the steps and pushed the door.  But the door of the visitors' entrance, as Marya Dmitrievna called it, was locked, and as it still remained closed after he had knocked, Butler went round to the back door.  He called his orderly but received no reply, and finding neither of the two orderlies he went into the kitchen, where Marya Dmitrievna -- flushed with a kerchief tied round her head and her sleeves rolled up on her plump white arms -- was rolling pastry, white as her hands, and cutting it into small pieces to make pies of.

     "Where have the orderlies gone to?" asked Butler.

     "Gone to drink," replied Marya Dmitrievna.  "What do you want?"

     "To have the front door opened.  You have a whole horde of mountaineers in front of your house.  Hadji Murad has come!"

     "Invent something else!" said Marya Dmitrievna, smiling.

     "I am not joking, he is really waiting by the porch!"

     "Is it really true?" said she.

     "Why should I wish to deceive you?  Go and see, he's just at the porch!"

     "Dear me, here's a go!" said Marya Dmitrievna pulling down her sleeves and putting up her hand to feel whether the hairpins in her thick plait were all in order.  "Then I will go and wake Ivan Matveich."

     "No, I'll go myself.  and you Bondarenko, go and open the door," said he to Petrov's orderly who had just appeared.

     "Well, so much the better!" said Marya Dmitrievna and returned to her work.

     When he heard that Hadji Murad had come to his house, Ivan Matveich Petrov, the major, who had already heard that Hadji Murad was in Grozny, was not at all surprised.  Sitting up in bed he rolled a cigarette, lit it, and began to dress, loudly clearing his throat and grumbling at the authorities who had sent "that devil" to him.

     When he was ready he told his orderly to bring him some medicine.  The orderly knew that "medicine" meant vodka, and brought some.

     "There is nothing so bad as mixing," muttered the major when he had drunk the vodka and taken a bite of rye bread.  "Yesterday I drank a little chikhir and now I have a headache. ... Well, I'm ready," he added, and went to the parlor, into which Butler had already shown Hadji Murad and the officer who accompanied him.

     The officer handed the major orders from the commander of the left flank to the effect that he should receive Hadji Murad and should allow him to have intercourse with the mountaineers through spies, but was on no account to allow him to leave the fort without a convoy of Cossacks.

     Having read the order the major looked intently at Hadji Murad and again scrutinized the paper.  After passing his eyes several times from one to the other in this manner, he at last fixed them on Hadji Murad and said:

     "Yakshi, Bek; yakshi!  ("very well, sir, very well!")  Let him stay here, and tell him I have orders not to let him out -- and what is commanded is sacred!  Well, Butler, where do you think we'd better lodge him?  Shall we put him in the office?"

     Butler had not time to answer before Marya Dmitrievna -- who had come from the kitchen and was standing in the doorway -- said to the major:

     "Why?  Keep him here!  We will give him the guest chamber and the storeroom.  Then at any rate he will be within sight," said she, glancing at Hadji Murad; but meeting his eyes she turned quickly away.

     "do you know, I think marya Dmitrievna is right," said Butler.

     "Now then, now then, get away!  Women have no business here," said the major frowning.

     During the whole of this discussion Hadji Murad sat with his hand on the hilt of his dagger and a faint smile of contempt on his lips.  He said it was all the same to him where he lodged, and that he wanted nothing but what the Sirdar had permitted -- namely, to have communication with the mountaineers, and that he therefore wished they should be allowed to come to him.

     The major said this should be done, and asked Butler to entertain the visitors till something could be got for them to eat and their rooms prepared.  Meanwhile he himself would go across to the office to write what was necessary and to give some orders.

     Hadji Murad's relations with his new acquaintances were at once very clearly defined.  From the first he was repelled by and contemptuous of the major, to whom he always behaved very haughtily.  Marya Dmitrievna, who prepared and served up his food, pleased him particularly.  He liked her simplicity and especially the -- to him -- foreign type of her beauty, and he was influenced by the attraction she felt towards him and unconsciously conveyed.  He tried not to look at her or speak to her, but his eyes involuntarily turned towards her and followed her movements.  With butler, from their first acquaintance, he immediately made friends and talked much and willingly with him, questioning him about his life, telling him of his own, communicating to him the news the spies brought him of his family's condition, and even consulting him as to how he ought to act.

     The news he received through the spies was not good.  During the first four days of his stay in the fort they came to see him twice and both times brought bad news.

HADJI MURAD

CHAPTER XIX

     Hadji Murad's family had been removed to Vedeno soon after his desertion to the Russians, and were there kept under guard awaiting Shamil's decision.  The women -- his old mother Patimat and his two wives with their five little children -- were kept under guard in the saklya of the officer Ibrahim Raschid, while Hadji Murad's son Yusuf, a youth of eighteen, was put in prison - - that is, into a pit more than seven feet deep, together with seven criminals, who like himself were awaiting a decision as to their fate.

     The decision was delayed because Shamil was away on a campaign against the Russians.

     On January 6, 1852, he returned to Vedeno after a battle, in which according to the Russians he had been vanquished and had fled to Vedeno; but in which according to him and all the murids he had been victorious and had repulsed the Russians.  In this battle he himself fired his rifle -- a thing he seldom did -- and drawing his sword would have charged straight at the Russians had not the murids who accompanied him held him back.  Two of them were killed on the spot at his side.

     It was noon when Shamil, surrounded by a party of murids who caracoled around him firing their rifles and pistols and continually singing Lya illya il Allah! rode up to his place of residence.

     All the inhabitants of the large aoul were in the street or on their roofs to meet their ruler, and as a sign of triumph they also fired off rifles and pistols.  Shamil rode a white Arab steed which pulled at its bit as it approached the house.  The horse had no gold or silver ornaments, its equipment was of the simplest -- a delicately worked red leather bridle with a stripe down the middle, metal cup-shaped stirrups, and a red saddlecloth showing a little from under the saddle.  The Imam wore a brown cloth cloak liked with black fur showing at the neck and sleeves, and was tightly girded round his long thin waist with a black strap which held a dagger.  On his head he wore a tall cap with flat crown and black tassel, and round it was wound a white turban, one end of which hung down on his neck.  He wore green slippers, and black leggings trimmed with plain braid.

     He wore nothing bright -- no gold or silver -- and his tall, erect, powerful figure, clothed in garments without any ornaments, surrounded by murids with gold and silver on their clothes and weapons produced on the people just the impression and influence he desired and knew how to produce.  His pale face framed by a closely trimmed reddish beard, with his small eyes always screwed up, was as immovable as though hewn out of stone.  As he rode through the aoul he felt the gaze of a thousand eyes turned eagerly on him, but he himself looked at no one.

     Hadji Murad's wives had come out into the penthouse with the rest of the inmates of the saklya to see the Imam's entry.  Only Patimat, Hadji Murad's old mother, did not go out but remained sitting on the floor of the saklya with her grey hair down, her long arms encircling her thin knees, blinking with her fiery black eyes as she watched the dying embers in the fireplace.  Like her son she had always hated Shamil, and now she hated him more than ever and had no wish to see him.  Neither did Hadji Murad's son see Shamil's triumphal entry.  Sitting in the dark and fetid pit he heard the firing and singing and endured tortures such as can only be felt by the young who are full of vitality and deprived of freedom.  He only saw his unfortunate, dirty, and exhausted fellow-prisoners -- embittered and for the most part filled with hatred of one another.  He now passionately envied those who, enjoying fresh air and light and freedom, caracoled on fiery steeds around their chief, shooting and heartily singing:  Lya illyah il Allah!

     When he had crossed the aoul Shamil rode into the large courtyard adjoining the inner court where his seraglio was.  Two armed Lesghians met him at the open gates of this outer court, which was crowded with people.  Some had come from distant parts about their own affairs, some had come with petitions, and some had been summoned by Shamil to be tried and sentenced.  As the Imam rode in, they all respectfully saluted him with their hands on their breasts, some of them kneeling down and remaining on their knees while he rode across the court from the outer to the inner gates.  Though he recognized among the people who waited in the court many whom he disliked, and many tedious petitioners who wanted his attention, Shamil passed them all with the same immovable, stony expression on his face, and having entered the inner court dismounted at the penthouse in front of his apartment, to the left of the gate.  He was worn out, mentally rather than physically, by the strain of the campaign, for in spite of the public declaration that he had been victorious he knew very well that his campaign had been unsuccessful, that many Chechen aouls had been burnt down and ruined, and that the unstable and fickle Chechens were wavering and those nearest the border line were ready to go over to the Russians.

     All this had to be dealt with, and it oppressed him, for at that moment he did not wish to think at all.   He only desired one thing:  rest and the delights of family life, and the caresses of his favorite wife, the black-eyed quick-footed eighteen-year-old Aminal, who at that very moment was close at hand behind the fence that divided the inner court and separated the men's from the women's quarters (Shamil felt sure she was there with his other wives, looking through a chink in the fence while he dismounted).  but not only was it impossible for him to go to her, he could not even lie down on his feather cushions and rest from his fatigue; he had first of all to perform the midday rites for which he had just then not the least inclination, but which as the religious leader of the people he could not omit, and which moreover were as necessary to him himself as his daily food.  So he performed his ablutions and said his prayers and summoned those who were waiting for him.

     The first to enter was Jemal Eddin, his father-in-law and teacher, a tall grey-haired good-looking old man with a beard white as snow and a rosy red face.  He said a prayer and began questioning Shamil about the incidents of the campaign and telling him what had happened in the mountains during his absence.

     Among events of many kinds -- murders connected with blood- feuds, cattle stealing, people accused of disobeying the Tarikat (smoking and drinking wine) -- Jemal Eddin related how Hadji Murad had sent men to bring his family over to the Russians, but that this had been detected and the family had been brought to Vedeno where they were kept under guard and awaited the Imam's decision.  In the next room, the guest-chamber, the Elders were assembled to discuss all these affairs, and Jemal Eddin advised Shamil to finish with them and let them go that same day, as they had already been waiting three days for him.

     After eating his dinner -- served to him in his room by Zeidat, a dark, sharp-nosed, disagreeable-looking woman whom he did not love but who was his eldest wife -- Shamil passed into the guest chamber.

     The six old men who made up his council -- white, grey, or red-bearded, with tall caps on their heads, some with turbans and some without, wearing new beshmets and Circassian coats girdled with straps on which their daggers were suspended -- rose to greet him on his entrance.  Shamil towered a head above them all.  On entering the room he, as well as all the others, lifted his hands, palms upwards, closed his eyes and recited a prayer, and then stroked his face downwards with both hands, uniting them at the end of his beard.  Having done this they all sat down, Shamil on a larger cushion than the others, and discussed the various cases before them.

     In the case of the criminals the decisions were given according to the Shariat:  two were sentenced to have a hand cut off for stealing, one man to be beheaded for murder, and three were pardoned.  Then they came to the principal business:  how to stop the Chechens from going over to the Russians.  To counteract that tendency Jemal Eddin drew up the following proclamation:

     "I wish you eternal peace with God the Almighty!

     "I hear that the Russians flatter you and invite you to surrender to them.  Do not believe what they say, and do not surrender but endure.  If ye be not rewarded for it in this life ye shall receive your reward in the life to come.  Remember what happened before when they took your arms from you!  If God had not brought you to reason then, in 1840, ye would now be soldiers, and your wives would be dishonored and would no longer wear trousers. 

     "Judge of the future by the past.  It is better to die in enmity with the Russians than to live with the Unbelievers.  Endure for a little while and I will come with the Koran and the sword and will lead you against the enemy.  But now I strictly command you not only to entertain no intention, but not even a thought, of submitting to the Russians!"

     Shamil approved this proclamation, signed it, and had it sent out.

     After this business they considered Hadji Murad's case.  This was of the utmost importance to Shamil.  Although he did not wish to admit it, he knew that if Hadji Murad with his agility, boldness, and courage, had been with him, what had now happened in Chechnya would not have occurred.  It would therefore be well to make it up with Hadji Murad and have the benefit of his services again.  But as this was possible it would never do to allow him to help the Russians, and therefore he must enticed back and killed.  They might accomplish this either by sending a man to Tiflis who would kill him there, or by inducing him to come back and then killing him.  The only means of doing the latter was by making use of his family and especially his son, whom Shamil knew he loved passionately.  Therefore they must act through the son.

     When the councilors had talked all this over, Shamil closed his eyes and sat silent.

     The councilors knew that this meant that he was listening to the voice of the Prophet, who spoke to him and told him what to do.

     After five minutes of solemn silence Shamil opened his eyes, and narrowing them more than usual, said:

     "Bring Hadji Murad's son to me."

     "He is here," replied Jemal Eddin, and in fact Yusuf, Hadji Murad's son, thin, pale, tattered, and evil-smelling, but still handsome in face and figure, with black eyes that burnt like his grandmother Patimat's, was already standing by the gate of the outside court waiting to be called in.

     Yusuf did not share his father's feelings towards Shamil.  He did not know all that had happened in the past, or if he knew it, not having lived through it he still did not understand why his father was so obstinately hostile to Shamil.  To him who wanted only one thing -- to continue living the easy life that, as the naib's son, he had led in Kuhzakh -- it seemed quite unnecessary to be at enmity with Shamil.  Out of defiance and a spirit of contradiction to his father he particularly admired Shamil, and shared the ecstatic adoration with which he was regarded in the mountains.  With a peculiar feeling of tremulous veneration for the Imam he now entered the guest chamber.  As he stopped by the door he met the steady gaze of Shamil's half- closed eyes.  He paused for a moment, and then approached Shamil and kissed his large, long-fingered hand.

     "Thou are Hadji Murad's son?"

     "I am, Imam."

     "Thou knowest what he has done?"

     "I know, Imam, and deplore it."

     "Canst thou write?"

     "I was preparing myself to be a Mullah -- "

     "then write to thy father that if he will return to me now, before the Feast of Bairam, I will forgive him and everything shall be as it was before; but if not, and if he remains with the Russians" -- and Shamil frowned sternly -- "I will give thy grandmother, thy mother, and the rest to the different aouls, and thee I will behead!"

     Not a muscle of Yusuf's face stirred, and he bowed his head to show that he understood Shamil's words.

     "Write that and give it to my messenger."

     Shamil ceased speaking, and looked at Yusuf for a long time in silence.

     "Write that I have had pity on thee and will not kill thee, but will put out thine eyes as I do to all traitors! ... Go!"

     While in Shamil's presence Yusuf appeared calm, but when he had been led out of the guest chamber he rushed at his attendant, snatched the man's dagger from its sheath and tried to stab himself, but he was seized by the arms, bound, and led back to the pit.

     That evening at dusk after he had finished his evening prayers, Shamil put on a white fur-lined cloak and passed out to the other side of the fence where his wives lived, and went straight to Aminal's room, but he did not find her there.  She was with the older wives.  Then Shamil, trying to remain unseen, hid behind the door and stood waiting for her.  But Aminal was angry with him because he had given some silk stuff to Zeidat and not to her.  She saw him come out and go into her room looking for her, and she purposely kept away.  She stood a long time at the door of Zeidat's room, laughing softly at Shamil's white figure that kept going in and out of her room.

     Having waited for her in vain, Shamil returned to his own apartments when it was already time for the midnight prayers.

HADJI MURAD

CHAPTER XX

     Hadji Murad had been a week in the major's house at the fort.  Although Marya Dmitrievna quarrelled with the shaggy Khanefi (Hadji Murad had only brought two of his murids, Khanefi and Eldar, with him) and had turned him out of her kitchen -- for which he nearly killed her -- she evidently felt a particular respect and sympathy for Hadji Murad.  She now no longer served him his dinner, having handed that duty over to Eldar, but she seized every opportunity of seeing him and rendering him service.  She always took the liveliest interest in the negotiations about his family, knew how many wives and children he had, and their ages, and each time a spy came to see him she inquired as best she could into the results of the negotiations.

     Butler during that week had become quite friendly with Hadji Murad.  Sometimes the latter came to Butler's room, sometimes Butler went to Hadji Murad's:  sometimes they conversed by the help of the interpreter, and sometimes they got on as best they could with signs and especially with smiles.

     Hadji Murad had evidently taken a fancy to Butler, as could be gathered from Eldar's relations with the latter.  When Butler entered Hadji Murad's room Eldar met him with a pleased smile showing his glittering teeth, and hurried to put down a cushion for him to sit on and to relieve him of his sword if he was wearing one.

     Butler also got to know, and became friendly with, the shaggy Khanefi, Hadji Murad's sworn brother.  Khanefi knew many mountain songs and sang them well, and to please Butler, Hadji Murad often made Khanefi sing, choosing the songs he considered best.  Khanefi had a high tenor voice and sang with extraordinary clearness and expression.  One of the songs Hadji Murad specially liked impressed Butler by its solemnly mournful tone and he asked the interpreter to translate it.

     The subject of the song was the very blood-feud that had existed between Khanefi and Hadji Murad.  It ran as follows:

     The earth will dry on my grave,

          Mother, my Mother!

       And thou wilt forget me!

     And over me rank grass will wave,

          Father, my Father!

       Nor wilt thou regret me

     When tears cease thy dark eyes to lave,

          Sister, dear Sister

       No more will grief fret thee!

     But thou, my Brother the elder, wilt never forget,

          With vengeance denied me!

     And thou, my Brother the younger, wilt ever regret,

          Till thou liest beside me!

     Hotly thou camest, O death-bearing ball that I spurned,

          For thou wast my slave!

     And thou, black earth, that battle-steed trampled and        churned

       Wilt cover my grave!

     Cold art Thou, O Death, yet I was thy Lord and thy Master!

     My body sinks fast to the earth, my soul to Heaven flies

          faster.       

     Hadji Murad always listened to this song with closed eyes and when it ended on a long gradually dying note he always remarked in Russian --

     "Good song!  Wise song!"

     After Hadji Murad's arrival and his intimacy with him and his murids, the poetry of the stirring mountain life took a still stronger hold on Butler.  He procured for himself a beshmet and a Circassian coat and leggings, and imagined himself a mountaineer living the life those people lived.

     On the day of Hadji Murad's departure the major invited several officers to see him off.  They were sitting, some at the table where Marya Dmitrievna was pouring out tea, some at another table on which stood vodka, chekhir, and light refreshments, when Hadji Murad dressed for the journey came limping into the room with soft, rapid footsteps.

     They all rose and shook hands with him.  the major offered him a seat on the divan, but Hadji Murad thanked him and sat down on a chair by the window.

     The silence that followed his entrance did not at all abash him.  He looked attentively at all the faces and fixed an indifferent gaze on the tea-table with the samovar and refreshments.  Petrovsky, a lively officer who now met Hadji Murad for the first time, asked him through the interpreter whether he liked Tiflis.

     "Alya!" he replied.

     "He says 'Yes'," translated the interpreter.

     "What did he like there?"

     Hadji Murad said something in reply.

     "He liked the theater best of all."

     "And how did he like the ball at the house of the commander- in-chief?"

     Hadji Murad frowned.  "Every nation has its own customs!  Our women do not dress in such a way," said he, glancing at Marya Dmitrievna.

     "Well, didn't he like it?"

     "We have a proverb," said Hadji Murad to the interpreter, "'The dog gave meat to the ass and the ass gave hay to the dog, and both went hungry,'" and he smiled.  "Its own customs seem good to each nation."

     the conversation went no farther.  Some of the officers took tea, some other refreshments.  Hadji Murad accepted the tumbler of tea offered him and put it down before him.

     "Won't you have cream and a bun?" asked Marya Dmitrievna, offering them to him.

     Hadji Murad bowed his head.

     "Well, I suppose it is good-bye!" said Butler, touching his knee.  "When shall we meet again?"

     "Good-bye, good-bye!" said Hadji Murad, in Russian, with a smile.  "Kunak bulug.  Strong kunak to thee!  Time -- ayda -- go!" and he jerked his head in the direction in which he had to go.

     Eldar appeared in the doorway carrying something large and white across his shoulder and a sword in his hand.  Hadji Murad beckoned to him and he crossed the room with big strides and handed him a white burka and the sword.  Hadji Murad rose, took the burka, threw it over his arm, and saying something to the interpreter handed it to Marya Dmitrievna.

     "He says thou has praised the burka, so accept it," said the interpreter.

     "Oh, why?" said Marya Dmitrievna blushing.

     "It is necessary.  Like Adam," said Hadji Murad.

     "Well, thank you," said Marya Dmitrievna, taking the burka.  "God grant that you rescue your son," she added.  "Ulan yakshi.  Tell him that I wish him success in releasing his son."

     Hadji Murad glanced at Marya Dmitrievna and nodded his head approvingly.  Then he took the sword from Eldar and handed it to the major.  The major took it and said to the interpreter,  "Tell him to take my chestnut gelding.  I have nothing else to give him."

     Hadji Murad waved his hand in front of his face to show that he did not want anything and would not accept it.  Then, pointing first to the mountains and then to his heart, he went out.

     All the household followed him as far as the door, while the officers who remained inside the room drew the sword from its scabbard, examined its blade, and decided that it was a real Gurda.

     Butler accompanied Hadji Murad to the porch, and then came a very unexpected incident which might have ended fatally for Hadji Murad had it not been for his quick observation, determination, and agility.

     the inhabitants of the Kumukh aoul, Tash-Kichu, which was friendly to the Russians, respected Hadji Murad greatly and had often come to the fort merely to look at the famous naib.  They had sent messengers to him three days previously to ask him to visit their mosque on the Friday.  But the Kumukh princes who lived in Tash-Kichu hated Hadji Murad because there was a blood- feud between them, and on hearing of this invitation they announced to the people that they would not allow him to enter the mosque.  The people became excited and a fight occurred between them and the princes' supporters.  The Russian authorities pacified the mountaineers and sent word to Hadji Murad not to go to the mosque.

     Hadji Murad did not go and everyone supposed that the matter was settled.

     But at the very moment of his departure, when he came out into the porch before which the horses stood waiting, Arslan Khan, one of the Kumukh princes and an acquaintance of Butler and the major, rode up to the house.

     When he saw Hadji Murad he snatched a pistol from his belt and took aim, but before he could fire, Hadji Murad in spite of his lameness rushed down from the porch like a cat towards Arslan Khan who missed him.

     Seizing Arslan Khan's horse by the bridle with one hand, Hadji Murad drew his dagger with the other and shouted something to him in Tartar.

     Butler and Eldar both ran at once towards the enemies and caught them by the arms.  The major, who had heard the shot, also came out.

     "What do you mean by it, Arslan -- starting such a nasty business on my premises?" said he, when he heard what had happened.  "It's not right, friend!  'To the foe in the field you need not yield!' -- but to start this kind of slaughter in front of my house -- '

     Arslan Khan, a little man with black mustaches, got off his horse pale and trembling, looked angrily at Hadji Murad, and went into the house with the major.  Hadji Murad, breathing heavily and smiling, returned to the horses.

     "Why did he want to kill him?" Butler asked the interpreter.

     "He says it is a law of theirs," the interpreter translated Hadji Murad's reply.  "Arslan must avenge a relation's blood and so he tried to kill him."

     "and supposing he overtakes him on the road?" asked Butler.

     Hadji Murad smiled.

     "Well, if he kills me it will prove that such is Allah's will. ... Good-bye," he said again in Russian, taking his horse by the withers.  Glancing round at everybody who had come out to see him off, his eyes rested kindly on Marya Dmitrievna.

     "Good-bye, my lass," said he to her.  "I thank you."

     "God help you -- Gold help you to rescue your family!" repeated Marya Dmitrievna.

     He did not understand her words, but felt her sympathy for him and nodded to her.

     "Mind, don't forget your kunak," said Butler.

     "Tell him I am his true friend and will never forget him," answered Hadji Murad to the interpreter, and in spite of his short leg he swung himself lightly and quickly into the high saddle, barely touching the stirrup, and automatically feeling for his dagger and adjusting his sword.  Then, with that peculiarly proud look with which only a Caucasian hill-man sits his horse -- as though he were one with it -- he rode away from the major's house.  Khanefi and Eldar also mounted and having taken a friendly leave of their hosts and of the officers, rode off at a trot, following their murshid.

     As usual after a departure, those who remained behind began to discuss those who had left.

     "Plucky fellow!  He rushed at Arslan Khan like a wolf!  His face quite changed!"

     "But he'll be up to tricks -- he's a terrible rogue, I should say," remarked Petrovsky.

     "It's a pity there aren't more Russian rogues of such a kind!" suddenly put in Marya Dmitrievna with vexation.  "He has lived a week with us and we have seen nothing but good from him.  He is courteous, wise, and just," she added.

     "How did you find that out?"

     "No matter, I did find it out!"

     "She's quite smitten, and that's a fact!" said the major, who had just entered the room.

     "Well, and if I am smitten?  What's that to you?  Why run him down if he's a good man?  Though he's a Tartar he's still a good man!"

     "Quite true, Marya Dmitrievna," said Butler, "and you're quite right to take his part!"

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