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HADJI MURAD

CHAPTER XXI

     Life in our advanced forts in the Chechen lines went on as usual.  Since the events last narrated there had been two alarms when the companies were called out and militiamen galloped about; but both times the mountaineers who had caused the excitement got away, and once at Vozdvizhensk they killed a Cossack and succeeded in carrying off eight Cossack horses that were being watered.  there had been no further raids since the one in which the aoul was destroyed, but an expedition on a large scale was expected in consequence of the appointment of a new commander of the left flank, Prince Baryatinsky.  He was an old friend of the Viceroy's and had been in command of the Kabarda Regiment.  On his arrival at Grozny as commander of the whole left flank he at once mustered a detachment to continue to carry out the Tsar's commands as communicated by Chernyshov to Vorontsov. The detachment mustered at Vozdvizhensk left the fort and took up a position towards Kurin, where the troops were encamped and were felling the forest.  Young Vorontsov lived in a splendid cloth tent, and his wife, Marya Vasilevna, often came to the camp and stayed the night.  Baryatinsky's relations with Marya Vasilevna were no secret to anyone, and the officers who were not in the aristocratic set and the soldiers abused her in coarse terms -- for her presence in camp caused them to be told off to lie in ambush at night.  The mountaineers were in the habit of bringing guns with range and firing shells at the camp.  The shells generally missed their aim and therefore at ordinary times no special measures were taken to prevent such firing, but now men were placed in ambush to hinder the mountaineers from injuring or frightening Marya Vasilevna with their cannon.  To have to be always lying in ambush at night to save a lady from being frightened, offended and annoyed them, and therefore the soldiers, as well as the officers not admitted to the higher society, called Marya Vasilevna bad names.

     Having obtained leave of absence from his fort, Butler came to the camp to visit some old mess-mates from the cadet corps and fellow officers of the Kurin regiment who were serving as adjutants and orderly officers.  When he first arrived he had a very good time.  He put up in Poltoratsky's tent and there met many acquaintances who gave him a hearty welcome.  He also called on Vorontsov, whom he knew slightly, having once served in the same regiment with him.  Vorontsov received him very kindly, introduced him to Prince Baryatinsky, and invited him to the farewell dinner he was giving in honor of General Kozlovsky, who until Baryatinsky's arrival had been in command of the left flank.

     The dinner was magnificent.  Special tents were erected in a line, and along the whole length of them a table was spread as for a dinner-party, with dinner services and bottles.  Everything recalled life in the Guards in Petersburg.  Dinner was served at two o-clock.  Kozlovsky sat in the middle on one side.  Baryatinsky on the other.  At Kozlovsky's right and left hand sat the Vorontsovs, husband and wife.  All along the table on both sides sat the officers of the Kabarda and Kurin regiments.  Butler sat next to Poltoratsky and they both chatted merrily and drank with the officers around them.  When the roast was served and the orderlies had gone round and filled the champagne glasses, Poltoratsky said to Butler, with real anxiety:

     "Our Kozlovsky will disgrace himself!"

     "Why?"

     "Why, he'll have to make a speech, and what good is he at that? ... .It's not as easy as capturing entrenchments under fire!  And with a lady beside him too, and these aristocrats!"

     "Really it's painful to look at him," said the officers to one another.  And now the solemn moment had arrived.  Baryatinsky rose and lifting his glass, addressed a short speech to Kozlovsky.  When he had finished, Kozlovsky -- who always had a trick of using the word "how"  superfluously -- rose and stammeringly began:

     "In compliance with the august will of his Majesty I am leaving you -- parting from you, gentlemen," said he.  "But consider me as always remaining among you.  The truth of the proverb, how 'One man in the field is no warrior', is well known to you, gentlemen. ... Therefore, how every reward I have received...how all the benefits showered on me by the great generosity of our sovereign the Emperor...how all my position -- how my good name...how everything decidedly ... how ... " (here his voice trembled) "... how I am indebted to you for it, to you alone, my friends!"  The wrinkled face puckered up still more, he gave a sob and tears came into his eyes.  "How from my heart I offer you my sincerest, heartfelt gratitude!"

     Kozlovsky could not go on but turned round and began to embrace the officers.  The princess hid her face in her handkerchief.  The prince blinked, with his mouth drawn awry.  Many of the officers' eyes grew moist and Butler, who had hardly known Kozlovsky, could also not restrain his tears.  He liked all this very much.

     Then followed other toasts.  Healths were drunk to Baryatinsky, Vorontsov, the officers, and the soldiers, and the visitors left the table intoxicated with wine and with the military elation to which they were always so prone.  The weather was wonderful, sunny and calm, and the air fresh and bracing.  Bonfires crackled and songs resounded on all sides.  It might have been thought that everybody was celebrating some joyful event.  Butler went to Poltoratsky's in the happiest, most emotional mood.  Several officers had gathered there and a card table was set.  An adjutant started a bank with a hundred rubles.  Two or three times Butler left the tent with his hand gripping the purse in his trousers-pocket, but at last he could resist the temptation no longer, and despite the promise he had given to his brother and to himself not to play, he began to do so.  Before an hour was past, very red, perspiring, and soiled with chalk, he was sitting with both elbows on the table and writing on it -- under cards bent for "corners" and "transports -- the figures of his stakes.  He had already lost so much that he was afraid to count up what was scored against him.  But he knew without counting that all the pay he could draw in advance, added to the value of his horse, would not suffice to pay what the adjutant, a stranger to him, had written down against him.  He would still have gone on playing, but the adjutant sternly laid down the cards he held in his large clean hands and added up the chalked figures of the score of Butler's losses.  Butler, in confusion began to make excuses for being unable to pay the whole of his debt at once, and said he would send it from home.  When he said this he noticed that everybody pitied him and that they all -- even Poltoratsky -- avoided meeting his eye.  That was his last evening there.  He reflected that he need only have refrained from playing and gone to the Vorontsovs who had invited him, and all would have been well, but now it was not only not well -- it was terrible.

     Having taken leave of his comrades and acquaintances he rode home and went to bed, and slept for eighteen hours as people usually sleep after losing heavily.  From the fact that he asked her to lend him fifty kopeks to tip the Cossack who had escorted him, and from his sorrowful looks and short answers, Marya Dmitrievna guessed that he had lost at cards and she reproached the major for having given him leave of absence.

     When he woke up at noon next day and remembered the situation he was in he longed again to plunge into the oblivion from which he had just emerged, but it was impossible.  Steps had to be taken to repay the four hundred and seventy rubles he owed to the stranger.  The first step he took was to write to his brother, confessing his sin and imploring him for the last time, to lend him five hundred rubles on the security of the mill they still owned in common.  Then he wrote to a stingy relative asking her to lend him five hundred rubles at whatever rate of interest she liked.  Finally he went to the major, knowing that he -- or rather Marya Dmitrievna -- had some money, and asked him to lend him five hundred rubles.

     "I'd let you have them at once," said the major, "but Masha won't!  These women are so close-fisted -- who the devil can understand them? ... And yet you must get out of it somehow, devil take him! ... Hasn't that brute the canteen-keeper got something?"

     But it was no use trying to borrow from the canteen-keeper, so Butler's salvation could only come from his brother or his stingy relative.

HADJI MURAD

CHAPTER XXII

     Not having attained his aim in Chechnya, Hadji Murad returned to Tiflis and went every day to Vorontsov's, and whenever he could obtain audience he implored the Viceroy to gather together the mountaineer prisoners and exchange them for his family.  He said that unless that were done his hands were tied and he could not serve the Russians and destroy Shamil as he desired to do.  Vorontsov vaguely promised to do what he could, but put it off, saying that he would decide when General Argutinski reached Tiflis and he could talk the matter over with him.

     Then Hadji Murad asked Vorontsov to allow him to go to live for a while in Nukha, a small town in Transcaucasia where he thought he could better carry on negotiations about his family with Shamil and with the people who were attached to himself.  Moreover Nukha, being a Mohammedan town, had a mosque where he could more conveniently perform the rites of prayer demanded by the Mohammedan law.  Vorontsov wrote to Petersburg about it but meanwhile gave Hadji Murad permission to go to Nukha.

     For Vorontsov and the authorities in Petersburg, as well as for most Russians acquainted with Hadji Murad's history, the whole episode presented itself as a lucky turn in the Caucasian war, or simply as an interesting event.  For Hadji Murad it was a terrible crisis in his life -- especially laterally.  He had escaped from the mountains partly to save himself and partly out of hatred of Shamil, and difficult as this flight had been he had attained his object, and for a time was glad of his success and really devised a plan to attack Shamil, but the rescue of his family -- which he had thought would be easy to arrange -- had proved more difficult than he expected.

     Shamil had seized the family and kept them prisoners, threatening to hand the women over to the different aouls and to blind or kill the son.  Now Hadji Murad had gone to Nukha intending to try by the aid of his adherents in Daghestan to rescue his family from Shamil by force or by cunning.  The last spy who had come to see him in Nukha informed him that the Avars, who were devoted to him, were preparing to capture his family and themselves bring them over to the Russians, but that there were not enough of them and they could not risk making the attempt in Vedeno, where the family was at present imprisoned, but could do so only if the family were moved from Vedeno to some other place -- in which case they promised to rescue them on the way.

     Hadji Murad sent word to his friends that he would give three thousand rubles for the liberation of his family.

     At Nukha a small house of five rooms was assigned to Hadji Murad near the mosque and the Khan's palace.  The officers in charge of him, his interpreter, and his henchmen, stayed in the same house.  Hadji Murad's life was spent in the expectation and reception of messengers from the mountains and in rides he was allowed to take in the neighborhood.

     On 24th April, returning from one of these rides, Hadji Murad learnt that during his absence an official sent by Vorontsov had arrived from Tiflis.  In spite of his longing to know what message the official had brought him he went to his bedroom and repeated his noonday prayer before going into the room where the officer in charge and the official were waiting.  This room served him both as drawing room and reception room.  The official who had come from Tiflis, Councillor Kirillov, informed Hadji Murad of Vorontsov's wish that he should come to Tiflis on the 12th to meet General Argutinski.

     "Yakshi!" said Hadji Murad angrily.  The councillor did not please him.  "Have you brought money?"

     "I have," answered Kirillov.

     "For two weeks now," said Hadji Murad, holding up first both hands and then four fingers.  "Give here!"

     "We'll give it you at once," said the official, getting his purse out of his traveling bag.  "What does he want with the money?" he sent on in Russian, thinking that Hadji Murad would not understand.  But Hadji Murad had understood, and glanced angrily at him.  While getting out the money the councillor, wishing to begin a conversation with Hadji Murad in order to have something to tell Prince Vorontsov on his return, asked through the interpreter whether he was not feeling dull there.  Hadji Murad glanced contemptuously out of the corner of his eye at the fat, unarmed little man dressed as a civilian, and did not reply.  The interpreter repeated the question.

     "Tell him that I cannot talk with him!  Let him give me the money!" and having said this, Hadji Murad sat down at the table ready to count it.

     Hadji Murad had an allowance of five gold pieced a day, and when Kirillov had got out the money and arranged it in seven piles of ten gold pieces each and pushed them towards Hadji Murad, the latter poured the gold into the sleeve of his Circassian coat, rose, quite unexpectedly smacked Councillor Kirillov on his bald pate, and turned to go.

     The councillor jumped up and ordered the interpreter to tell Hadji Murad that he must not dare to behave like that to him who held a rank equal to that of colonel!  The officer in charge confirmed this, but Hadji Murad only nodded to signify that he knew, and left the room.

     "What is one to do with him?" said the officer in charge.  "He'll stick his dagger into you, that's all!  One cannot talk with those devils! I see that he is getting exasperated."

     As soon as it began to grow dusk two spies with hoods covering their faces up to their eyes, came to him from the hills.  The officer in charge led them to Hadji Murad's room.  One of them was a fleshy, swarthy Tavlinian, the other a thin old man.  The news they brought was not cheering.  Hadji Murad's friends who had undertaken to rescue his family now definitely refused to do so, being afraid of Shamil, who threatened to punish with most terrible tortures anyone who helped Hadji Murad.  Having heard the messengers he sat with his elbows on his crossed legs, and bowing his turbaned head remained silent a long time. 

     He was thinking and thinking resolutely.  He knew that he was now considering the matter for the last time and that it was necessary to come to a decision.  At last he raised his head, gave each of the messengers a gold piece, and said:  "Go!"

     "What answer will there be?"

     "The answer will be as God pleases. ... Go!"

     The messengers rose and went away, and Hadji Murad continued to sit on the carpet leaning his elbows on his knees.  He sat thus a long time and pondered.

     "What am I to do?  To take Shamil at his word and return to him?" he thought.  "He is a fox and will deceive me.  Even if he did not deceive me it would still be impossible to submit to that red liar.  It is impossible ... because now that I have been with the Russians he will not trust me," thought Hadji Murad; and he remembered a Tavlinian fable about a falcon who had been caught and lived among men and afterwards returned to his own kind in the hills.  He returned, wearing jesses with bells, and the other falcons would not receive him.  "Fly back to where they hung those silver bells on thee!" said they.  "We have no bells and no jesses."  The falcon did not want to leave his home and remained, but the other falcons did not wish to let him stay there and pecked him to death.

     "And they would peck me to death in the same way," thought Hadji Murad.  "Shall I remain here and conquer Caucasia for the Russian Tsar and earn renown, titles, riches?"

     "That could be done," thought he, recalling his interviews with Vorontsov and the flattering things the prince had said; "but I must decide at once, or Shamil will destroy my family."

     That night he remained awake thinking.

HADJI MURAD

CHAPTER XXIII

     By midnight his decision had been formed.  He had decided that he must fly to the mountains, and break into Vedeno with the Avars still devoted to him, and either die or rescue his family.  Whether after rescuing them he would return to the Russians or escape to Khunzakh and fight Shamil, he had not made up his mind.  All he knew was that first of all he must escape from the Russians into the mountains, and he at once began to carry out his plan.

     He drew his black wadded beshmet from under his pillow and went into his henchmen's room.  They lived on the other side of the hall.  As soon as he entered the hall, the outer door of which stood open, he was at once enveloped by the dewy freshness of the moonlit night and his ears were filled by the whistling and trilling of several nightingales in the garden by the house.

     Having crossed the hall he opened the door of his henchmen's room.  There was no light there, but the moon in its first quarter shone in at the window.  A table and two chairs were standing on one side of the room, and four of his henchmen were lying on carpets or on burkas on the floor.  Khanefi slept outside with the horses.  Gamzalo heard the door creak, rose, turned round, and saw him.  On recognizing him he lay down again, but Eldar, who lay beside him, jumped up and began putting on his beshmet, expecting his master's orders.  Khan Mahoma and Bata slept on.  Hadji Murad put down the beshmet he had brought on the table, which it hit with a dull sound, caused by the bold sewn up in it.

     "Sew these in too," said Hadji Murad, handing Eldar the gold pieces he had received that day.  Eldar took them and at once went into the moonlight, drew a small knife from under his dagger and started unstitching the lining of the beshmet.  Gamzalo raised himself and sat up with his legs crossed.

     "And you, Gamzalo, tell the men to examine the rifles and pistols and get the ammunition ready.  Tomorrow we shall go far," said Hadji Murad.

     "We have bullets and powder, everything shall be ready," replied Gamzalo, and roared out something incomprehensible.  He understood why Hadji Murad had ordered the rifles to be loaded.  From the first he had desired only one thing -- to slay and stab as many Russians as possible and to escape to the hills -- and this desire had increased day by day.  Now at last he saw that Hadji Murad also wanted this and he was satisfied.

     When Hadji Murad went away Gamzalo roused his comrades, and all four spent the rest of the night examining their rifles, pistols, flints, and accoutrements; replacing what was damaged, sprinkling fresh powder onto the pans, and stoppering with bullets wrapped in oiled rags, packets filled with the right amount of powder for each charge, sharpening their swords and daggers and greasing the blades with tallow.

     Before daybreak Hadji Murad again came out into the hall to get water for his ablutions.  The songs of the nightingales that had burst into ecstasy at dawn were now even louder and more incessant, while from his henchmen's room, where the daggers were being sharpened, came the regular screech and rasp of iron against stone.

     Hadji Murad got himself some water from a tub, and was already at his own door when above the sound of the grinding he heard from his murids' room the high tones of Khanefi's voice singing a familiar song.  He stopped to listen.  The song told of how a dzhigit, Hamzad, with his brave followers captured a herd of white horses from the Russians, and how a Russian prince followed him beyond the Terek and surrounded him with an army as large as a forest; and then the song went on to tell how Hamzad killed the horses, entrenched his men behind this gory bulwark, and fought the Russians as long as they had bullets in their rifles, daggers in their belts, and blood in their veins.  But before he died Hamzad saw some birds flying in the sky and cried to them: 

     Fly on, ye winged ones, fly to our homes!

     Tell ye our mothers, tell ye our sisters,

     Tell the white maidens, that fighting we died

     For Ghazavat!  Tell them our bodies

     Never will lie and rest in a tomb!

     Wolves will devour and tear them to pieces,

     Ravens and vultures will pluck out our eyes.

     With that the song ended, and at the last words, sung to a mournful air, the merry Bata's vigorous voice joined in with a loud shout of "Lya-il-lyakha-il Allakh!" finishing with shrill shriek.  Then all was quiet again, except for the tchuk, tchuk, tchuk, tchuk and whistling of the nightingales from the garden and from behind the door the even grinding, and now and then the whiz, of iron sliding quickly along the whetstone.

     Hadji Murad was so full of thought that he did not notice how he tilted his jug till the water began to pour out.  He shook his head at himself and re-entered his room.  After performing his morning ablutions he examined his weapons and sat down on his bed.  There was nothing more for him to do.  To be allowed to ride out he would have to get permission from the officer in charge, but it was not yet daylight and the officer was still asleep.

     Khanefi's song reminded him of the song his mother had composed just after he was born -- the song addressed to his father that Hadji Murad had repeated to Loris-Melikov.

     And he seemed to see his mother before him -- not wrinkled and grey-haired, with gaps between her teeth, as he had lately left her, but young and handsome, and strong enough to carry him in a basket on her back across the mountains to her father's when he was a heavy five-year-old boy.

     And the recollection of himself as a little child reminded him of his beloved son, Yusuf, whose head he himself had shaved for the first time; and now this Yusuf was a handsome young dzhigit.  He pictured him as he was when last he saw him on the day he left Tselmess.  Yusuf had brought him his horse and asked to be allowed to accompany him.  He was ready dressed and armed, and led his own horse by the bridle, and his rosy handsome young face and the whole of his tall slender figure (he was taller than his father) breathed of daring, youth, and the joy of life.  The breadth of his shoulders, though he was so young, the very side youthful hips, the long slender waist, the strength of his long arms, and the power, flexibility, and agility of all his movements had always rejoiced Hadji Murad, who admired his son.

     "Thou hadst better stay.  Thou wilt e alone at home now.  Take care of thy mother and thy grandmother," said Hadji Murad.  And he remembered the spirited and proud look and the flush of pleasure with which Yusuf had replied that as long as he lived no one should injure his mother or grandmother.  All the same, Yusuf had mounted and accompanied his father as far as the stream.  There he turned back, and since then Hadji Murad had not seen his wife, his mother, or his son.  And it was this son whose eyes Shamil threatened to put out!  Of what would be done to his wife Hadji Murad did not wish to think.

     These thoughts so excited him that he could not sit still any longer.  He jumped up and went limping quickly to the door, opened it, and called Eldar.  The sun had not yet risen, but it was already quite light.  The nightingales were still singing.

     "Go and tell the officer that I want to go out riding, and saddle the horses," said he.

HADJI MURAD

CHAPTER XXIV 

     Butler's only consolation all this time was the poetry of warfare, to which he gave himself up not only during his hours of service but also in private life. Dressed in his Circassian costume, he rode and swaggered about, and twice went into ambush with Bogdanovich, though neither time did they discover or kill anyone.  This closeness to and friendship with Bogdanovich, famed for his courage, seemed pleasant and warlike to Butler.  He had paid his debt, having borrowed the money of a Jew at an enormous rate of interest -- that is to say, he had postponed his difficulties but had not solved them.  He tried not to think of his position, and to find oblivion not only in the poetry of warfare but also in wine.  He drank more and more every day, and day by day grew morally weaker.  He was now no longer the chaste Joseph he had been towards marya Dmitrievna, but on the contrary began courting her grossly, meeting to his surprise with a strong and decided repulse which put him to shame.

     At the end of April there arrived at the fort a detachment with which Baryatinsky intended to effect an advance right through Chechnya, which had till then been considered impassable.  In that detachment were two companies of the Kabarda regiment, and according to Caucasian custom these were treated as guests by the Kurin companies.  The soldiers were lodged in the barracks, and were treated not only to supper, consisting of buckwheat porridge and beef, but also to vodka.  The officers shared the quarters of the Kurin officers, and as usual those in residence gave the new-comers a dinner at which the regimental singers performed and which ended up with a drinking bout.  Major Petrov, very drunk and no longer red but ash pale, sat astride a chair and, drawing his sword, hacked at imaginary foes, alternately swearing and laughing, now embracing someone and now dancing to the tune of his favorite song.

     Shamil, he began to riot

     In the days gone by;

     Try, ry, rataty,

     In the years gone by!

     Butler was there too.  He tried to see the poetry of warfare in this also, but in the depth of his soul he was sorry for the major.  To stop him, however, was quite impossible; and Butler, feeling that the fumes were mounting to his own head, quietly left the room and went home.

     The moon lit up the white houses and the stones on the road.  It was so light that every pebble, every straw, every little heap of dust was visible.  As he approached the house he met Marya Dmitrievna with a shawl over her head and neck.  After the rebuff she had given him Butler had avoided her, feeling rather ashamed, but now in the moonlight and after the wine he had drunk he was pleased to meet her and wished to make up to her again.

     "Where are you off to?" he asked.

     "Why, to see after my old man," she answered pleasantly.  Her rejection of Butler's advances was quite sincere and decided, but she did not like his avoiding her as he had done lately.

     "Why bother about him?  He'll soon come back."

     "But will he?"

     "If he doesn't they'll bring him."

     "Just so. ... That's not right, you know! ... But you think I'd better not go?"

     "Yes, I do.  We'd better go home."

     Marya Dmitrievna turned back and walked beside him.  The moon shone so brightly that a halo seemed to move along the road round the shadows of their heads.  Butler was looking at this halo and making up his mind to tell her that he liked her as much as ever, but he did not know how to begin.  She waited for him to speak, and they walked on in silence almost to the house, when some horsemen appeared from round the corner.  These were an officer with an escort.

     "Who's that coming now?" said marya Dmitrievna, stepping aside.  The moon was behind the rider so that she did not recognize him until he had almost come up to them.  It was Peter Nikolaevich Kamenev, an officer who had formerly served with the major and whom Marya Dmitrievna therefore knew.

     "Is it you, Peter Nikolaevich?" said she, addressing him.

     "It's me," said Kamenev.  "ah, Butler, how d'you do? ... Not asleep yet?  Having a walk with Marya Dmitrievna!  You'd better look out or the major will give it you. ... Where is he?"

     "why, there. ... Listen!" replied Marya Dmitrievna pointing in the direction whence came the sounds of a tulumbas and songs.  "They're on the spree."

     "Why?  Are your people having a spree on their own?"

     "No; some officers have come from Hasav-Yurt, and they are being entertained."

     "Ah, that's good!  I shall be in time. ... I just want the major for a moment."

     "On business?" asked Butler.

     "Yes, just a little business matter."

     "Good or bad?"

     "It all depends. ... Good for us but bad for some people," and Kamenev laughed.

     By this time they had reached the major's house.

     "Chikhirev," shouted Kamenev to one of his Cossacks, "come here!"

     A Don Cossack rode up from among the others.  He was dressed in the ordinary Don Cossack uniform with high boots and a mantle, and carried saddle-bags behind.

     "Well, take the thing out," said Kamenev, dismounting.

     The Cossack also dismounted, and took a sack out of his saddle bag.  Kamenev took the sack from him and inserted his hand.

     "Well, shall I show you a novelty?  You won't be frightened, Marya Dmitrievna?"

     "Why should I be frightened?" she replied.

     "Here it is!" said Kamenev taking out a man's head and holding it up in the light of the moon.  "Do you recognize it?"

     It was a shaven head with salient brows, black short-cut beard and mustaches, one eye open and the other half-closed.  The shaven skull was cleft, but not right through, and there was congealed blood in the nose.  The neck was wrapped in a blood- stained towel.  Notwithstanding the many wounds on the head, the blue lips still bore a kindly childlike expression.

     Marya Dmitrievna looked at it, and without a word turned away and went quickly into the house.

     butler could not tear his eyes from the terrible head.  It was the head of that very Hadji Murad with whom he had so recently spent his evenings in such friendly intercourse.

     "What does this mean?  Who has killed him?" he asked.

     "He wanted to give us the slip, but was caught," said Kamenev, and he gave the head back to the Cossack and went into the house with butler.

     "He died like a hero," he added.

     "But however did it all happen?"

     "Just wait a bit.  When the major comes I'll tell you all about it.  That's what I am sent for.  I take it round to all the forts and aouls and show it."

     The major was sent for, and came back accompanied by two other officers as drunk as himself, and began embracing Kamenev.

     "And I have brought you Hadji Murad's head," said Kamenev.

     "No? ... Killed?"

     "Yes; wanted to escape."

     "I always said he would bamboozle them! ... and where is it?  The head, I mean. ... Let's see it."

     The Cossack was called, and brought in the bag with the head.  It was taken out and the major looked long at it with drunken eyes.

     "All the same, he was a fine fellow," said he.  "Let me kiss him!"

     "Yes, it's true.  It was a valiant head," said one of the officers.

     When they had all looked at it, it was returned to the Cossack who put it in his bag, trying to let it bump against the floor as gently as possible.

     "I say, Kamenev, what speech do you make when you show the head?" asked an officer.

     "No! ... Let me kiss him.  He gave me a sword!" shouted the major.

     Butler went out into the porch.

     Marya Dmitrievna was sitting on the second step.  She looked round at Butler and at once turned angrily away again.

     "What's the matter, marya Dmitrievna?" asked he.

     "You're all cut-throats! ... I hate it!  You're cut-throats, really," and she got up.

     "It might happen to anyone," remarked Butler, not knowing what to say.  "That's war."

     "War?  War, indeed! ... Cut-throats and nothing else.  A dead body should be given back to the earth, and they're grinning at it there! ... Cut-throats, really," she repeated, as she descended the steps and entered the house by the back door.

     Butler returned to the room and asked Kamenev to tell them in detail how the thing had happened.

     And Kamenev told them

     This is what had happened.

HADJI MURAD

CHAPTER XXV

     Hadji Murad was allowed to go out riding in the neighborhood of the town, but never without a convoy of Cossacks.  There was only half a troop of them altogether in Nukha, ten of whom were employed by the officers, so that if ten were sent out with Hadji Murad (according to the orders received) the same men would have had to go every other day.  Therefore after ten had been sent out the first day, it was decided to send only five in future and Hadji Murad was asked not take all his henchmen with him.  But on April the 25th he rode out with all five.  When he mounted, the commander, noticing that all five henchmen were going with him, told him that he was forbidden to take them all, but Hadji Murad pretended not to hear, touched his horse, and the commander did not insist.

     With the Cossacks rode a non-commissioned officer, Nazarov, who had received the Cross of St. George for bravery.  He was a young, healthy, brown-haired lad, as fresh as a rose.  He was the eldest of a poor family belonging to the sect of Old Believers, had grown up without a father, and had maintained his old mother, three sisters, and two brothers.

     "Mind, Nazarov, keep close to him!" shouted the commander.

     "All right, your honor!" answered Nazarov, and rising in his stirrups and adjusting the rifle that hung at his back he started his fine large roan gelding at a trot.  Four Cossacks followed him:  Ferapontov, tall and thin, a regular thief and plunderer (it was he who had sold gunpowder to Gamzalo); Ignatov, a sturdy peasant who boasted of his strength, though he was no longer young and had nearly completed his service; Mishkin, a weakly lad at whom everybody laughed; and the young fair-haired Petrakov, his mother's only son, always amiable and jolly.

     The morning had been misty, but it cleared up later on and the opening foliage, the young virgin grass, the sprouting corn, and the ripples of the rapid river just visible to the left of the road, all glittered in the sunshine.

     Hadji Murad rode slowly along followed by the Cossacks and by his henchmen.  They rode out along the road beyond the fort at a walk.  They met women carrying baskets on their heads, soldiers driving carts, and creaking wagons drawn by buffaloes.  When he had gone about a mile and a half Hadji Murad touched up his white Kabarda horse, which started at an amble that obliged the henchmen and Cossacks to ride at a quick trot to keep up with him.

     "Ah, he's got a fine horse under him," said Ferapontov.  "If only he were still an enemy I'd soon bring him down."

     "Yes, mate.  Three hundred rubles were offered for that horse in Tiflis."

     "But I can get ahead of him on mine," said Nazarov.

     "You get ahead?  A likely thing!"

     Hadji kept increasing his pace.

     "Hey, kunak, you mustn't do that.  Steady!" cried Nazarov, starting to overtake Hadji Murad.

     Hadji Murad looked round, said nothing, and continued to ride at the same pace.

     "Mind, they're up to something, the devils!" said Ignatov.  "See how they are tearing along."

     So they rode for the best part of a mile in the direction of the mountains.

     "I tell you it won't do!" shouted Nazarov.

     Hadji Murad did not answer or look round, but only increased his pace to a gallop.

     "Humbug!  You won't get away!" shouted Nazarov, stung to the quick.  He gave his big roan gelding a cut with his whip and, rising in his stirrups and bending forward, flew full speed in pursuit of Hadji Murad.

     The sky was so bright, the air so clear, and life played so joyously in Nazarov's soul as, becoming one with his fine strong horse, he flew along the smooth road behind Hadji Murad, that the possibility of any thing sad or dreadful happening never occurred to him.  He rejoiced that with every step he was gaining on Hadji Murad.

     Hadji Murad judged by the approaching tramp of the big horse behind him that he would soon be overtaken, and seizing his pistol with his right hand, with his left he began slightly to rein in his Kabarda horse which was excited by hearing the tramp of hoofs behind it.

     "You mustn't, I tell you!" shouted Nazarov, almost level with Hadji Murad and stretching out his hand to seize the latter's bridle.  But before he reached it a shot was fired.  "What are you doing?" he screamed, clutching at his breast.  "At them, lads!" and he reeled and fell forward on his saddle bow.

     but the mountaineers were beforehand in taking to their weapons, and fired their pistols at the Cossacks and hewed at them with their swords.

     Nazarov hung on the neck of his horse, which careered round his comrades.  the horse under Ignatov ell, crushing his leg, and two of the mountaineers, without dismounting, drew their swords and hacked at his head and arms.  Petrakov was about to rush to his comrade's rescue when two shots -- one in his back and the other in his side -- stung him, and he fell from his horse like a sack.

     Mishkin turned round and galloped off towards the fortress.  Khanefi and Bata rushed after him, but he was already too far away and they could not catch him.  When they saw that they could not overtake him they returned to the others.

     Petrakov lay on his back, his stomach ripped open, his young face turned to the sky, and while dying he gasped for breath like a fish.

     Gamzalo having finished off Ignatov with his sword, gave a cut to Nazarov too and threw him from his horse.  Bata took their cartridge-pouches from the slain.  Khanefi wished to take Nazarov's horse, but Hadji Murad called out to him to leave it, and dashed forward along the road.  His murids galloped after him, driving away Nazarov's horse that tried to follow them.  they were already among rice-fields more than six miles from Nukha when a shot was fired from the tower of that place to give the alarm.

                              * * *

     "O good Lord!  O God! my God!  What have they done?" cried the commander of the fort seizing his head with his hands when he heard of Hadji Murad's escape.  "They've done for me!  They've let him escape, the villains!" cried he, listening to Mishkin's account.

     An alarm was raised everywhere and not only the Cossacks of the place were sent after the fugitives but also all the militia that could be mustered from the pro-Russian aouls.  A thousand rubles reward was offered for the capture of Hadji Murad alive or dead, and two hours after he and his followers had escaped from the Cossacks more than two hundred mounted men were following the officer in charge at a gallop to find and capture the runaways.

     After riding some miles along the high road Hadji Murad checked his panting horse, which, wet with sweat, had turned from white to grey.

     To the right of the road could be seen the saklyas and minarets of the aoul Benerdzhik, on the left lay some fields, and beyond them the river.  Although the way to the mountains lay to the right, Hadji Murad turned to the left, in the opposite direction, assuming that his pursuers would be sure to go to the right, while he, abandoning the road, would cross the Alazan and come out onto the high road on the other side, where no one would expect him -- ride along it to the forest, and then after recrossing the river make his way to the mountains.

     Having come to this conclusion he turned to the left; but it proved impossible to reach the river.  The rice-field which had to be crossed had just been flooded, as is always done in spring, and had become a bog in which the horses's legs sank above their pasterns.  Hadji Murad and his henchmen rode now to the left, now to the right, hoping to find drier ground; but the field they were in had been equally flooded all over and was now saturated with water.  The horses drew their feet out of the sticky mud into which they sank, with a pop like that of a cork drawn from a bottle, and stopped, panting, after every few steps.  They struggled in this way so long that it began to grow dusk and they had still not reached the river.  To their left lay a patch of higher ground overgrown with shrubs and Hadji Murad decided to ride in among these clumps and remain there till night to rest their exhausted horses and let them graze.  The men themselves at some bread and cheese they had brought with them.  At last night came on and the moon that had been shining at first, hid behind the hill and it became dark.  There were a great many nightingales in that neighborhood and there were two of them in these shrubs.  As long as Hadji Murad and his men were making a noise among the bushes the nightingales had been silent, but when they became still the birds again began to call to one another and to sing.

     Hadji Murad, awake to all the sounds of night, listened to them involuntarily, and their trills reminded him of the song about Hamzad which he had heard the night before when he went to  get water.  He might now at any moment find himself in the position in which Hamzad had been.  He fancied that it would be so, and suddenly his soul became serious.  He spread out his burka and performed his ablutions, and scarcely had he finished before a sound was heard approaching their shelter.  It was the sound of many horses' feet splashing through the bog.

     The keen-sighted Bata ran out to one edge of the clump, and peering through the darkness saw black shadows, which were men on foot and on horseback.  Khanefi discerned a similar crowd on the other side.  It was Karganov, the military commander of the district, with his militia.

     "Well, then, we shall fight like Hamzad," thought Hadji Murad.

     When the alarm was given, Karganov with a troop of militiamen and Cossacks had rushed off in pursuit of Hadji Murad, but had been unable to find any trace of him.  He had already lost hope and was returning home when, towards evening, he met an old man and asked him if he had seen any horsemen about.  The old man replied that he had.  He had seen six horsemen floundering in the rice-field, and then had seen them enter the clump where he himself was getting wood.  Karganov turned back, taking the old man with him, and seeing the hobbled horses he made sure that Hadji Murad was there.  In the night he surrounded the clump and waited till morning to take Hadji Murad alive or dead.

     Having understood that he was surrounded, and having discovered an old ditch among the shrubs, Hadji Murad decided to entrench himself in it and to resist as long as strength and ammunition lasted.  He told his comrades this, and ordered them to throw up a bank in front of the ditch, and his henchmen at once se to work to cut down branches, dig up the earth with their daggers, and make an entrenchment.  Hadji Murad himself worked with them.

     As soon as it began to grow light the commander of the militia troop rode up to a clump and shouted:

     "Hey!  Hadji Murad, surrender!  We are many and you are few!"

     In reply came the report of a rifle, a cloudlet of smoke rose from the ditch and a bullet hit the militiaman's horse, which staggered under him and began to fall.  The rifles of the militiamen who stood at the outskirts of the clump of shrubs began cracking in their turn, and their bullets whistled and hummed, cutting off leaves and twigs and striking the embankment, but not the men entrenched behind it.  Only Gamzalo's horse, that had strayed from the others, was hit in the head by a bullet.  It did not fall, but breaking its hobbles and rushing among the bushes it ran to the other horses, pressing close to them and watering the young grass with its blood.  Hadji Murad and his men fired only when any of the militiamen came forward, and rarely missed their aim.  Three militiamen were wounded, and the others, far from making up their minds to rush the entrenchment, retreated farther and farther back, only firing from a distance and at random.

     So it continued for more than an hour.  The sun had risen to about half the height of the trees, and Hadji Murad was already thinking of leaping on his horse and trying to make his way to the river, when the shouts were heard of many men who had just arrived.  These were Hadji Aga of Mekhtuli with his followers.  There were about two hundred of them.  Hadji Aga had once been Hadji Murad's kunak and had lived with him in the mountains, but he had afterwards gone over to the Russians.  With him was Akhmet Khan, the son of Hadji Murad's old enemy.

     Like Karganov, Hadji Aga began by calling to Hadji Murad to surrender, and Hadji Murad answered as before with a shot.

     "Swords out, my men!" cried Hadji Aga, drawing his own; and a hundred voices were raised by men who rushed shrieking in among the shrubs.

     The militiamen ran in among the shrubs, but from behind the entrenchment came the crack of one shot after another.  Some three men fell, and the attackers stopped at the outskirts to the clump and also began firing.  As they fired they gradually approached the entrenchment, running across from behind one shrub to another.  Some succeeded in getting across, others fell under the bullets of Hadji Murad or of his men.  Hadji Murad fired without missing; Gamzalo too rarely wasted a shot, and shrieked with joy every time he saw that his bullet had hit its aim.  Khan Mahoma sat at the edge of the ditch singing "Il lyakha il Allakh!" and fired leisurely, but often missed.  Eldar's whole body trembled with impatience to rush dagger in hand at the enemy, and he fired often and at random, constantly looking round at Hadji Murad and stretching out beyond the entrenchment.  The shaggy Khanefi, with his sleeves rolled up, did the duty of a servant even here.  He loaded the guns which Hadji Murad and Khan Mahoma passed to him, carefully driving home with a ramrod the bullets wrapped in greasy rags, and pouring dry powder out of the powder flask onto the pans.  Bata did not remain in the ditch as the others did, but kept running to the horses, driving them away to a safer place and shrieking incessantly, fired without using a prop for his gun.  He was the first to be wounded.  A bullet entered his neck and he sat down spitting blood and swearing.  Then Hadji Murad was wounded, the bullet piercing his shoulder.  He tore some cotton wool from the lining of his beshmet, plugged the wound with it, and went on firing.

     "Let us fly at them with our swords!" said Eldar for the third time, and he looked out from behind the bank of earth ready to rush at the enemy; but at that instant a bullet struck him and he reeled and fell backwards onto Hadji Murad's leg.  Hadji Murad glanced at him.  His eyes, beautiful like those of a ram, gazed intently and seriously at Hadji Murad.  His mouth, the upper lip pouting like a child's, twitched without opening.  Hadji Murad drew his leg away from under him and continued firing.

     Khanefi bent over the dead Eldar and began taking the unused ammunition out of the cartridge cases of his coat.

     Khan Mahoma meanwhile continued to sing, loading leisurely and firing.  The enemy ran from shrub to shrub, hallooing and shrieking and drawing ever nearer and nearer.

     Another bullet hit Hadji Murad in the left side.  He lay down in the ditch and again pulled some cotton wool out of his beshmet and plugged the wound.  This wound in the side was fatal and he felt that he was dying.  Memories and pictures succeeded one another with extraordinary rapidity in his imagination.  now he saw the powerful Abu Nutsal Khan, dagger in hand and holding up his severed cheek as he rushed at his foe; then he saw the weak, bloodless old Vorontsov with his cunning white face, and heard his soft voice; then he saw his son Yusuf, his wife Sofiat, and then the pale, red-bearded face of his enemy Shamil with its half-closed eyes.  All these images passed through his mind without evoking any feeling within him -- neither pity nor anger nor any kind of desire:  everything seemed so insignificant in comparison with what was beginning, or had already begun, within him.

     Yet his strong body continued the thing that he had commenced.  Gathering together his last strength he rose from behind the bank, fired his pistol at a man who was just running towards him, and hit him.  The man fell.  Then Hadji Murad got quite out of the ditch, and limping heavily went dagger in hand straight at the foe.

     Some shots cracked and he reeled and fell.  Several militiamen with triumphant shrieks rushed towards the fallen body.  But the body that seemed to be dead suddenly moved.  First the uncovered, bleeding, shaven head rose; then the body with hands holding to the trunk of a tree.  He seemed so terrible, that those who were running towards him stopped short.  But suddenly a shudder passed through him, he staggered away from the tree and fell on his face, stretched out at full length like a thistle that had been mown down, and he moved no more.

     He did not move, but still he felt.

     When Hadji Aga, who was the first to reach him, struck him on the head with a large dagger, it seemed to Hadji Murad that someone was striking him with a hammer and he could not understand who was doing it or why.  That was his last consciousness of any connection with his body.  He felt nothing more and his enemies kicked and hacked at what had no longer anything in common with him.

     Hadji Aga placed his foot on the back of the corpse and with two blows cut off the head, and carefully -- not to soil his shoes with blood -- rolled it away with his foot.  Crimson blood spurted from the arteries of the neck, and black blood flowed from the head, soaking the grass.

     Karganov and Hadji Aga and Akhmet Khan and all the militiamen gathered together -- like sportsmen round a slaughtered animal -- near the bodies of Hadji Murad and his men (Khanefi, Khan Mahoma, and Gamzalo they bound), and amid the powder-smoke which hung over the bushes they triumphed in their victory.

     the nightingales, that had hushed their songs while the firing lasted, now started their trills once more:  first one quite close, then others in the distance.

                             * * *

     It was of this death that I was reminded by the crushed thistle in the midst of the ploughed field.

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