CHAPTER XLIX
THE EYE OF GOD
"Seven days agone I was seeking in the woods, together with my wife and little ones, with the worst of the winter past behind us, and kind roots shining above the snow (which had smothered all of them for months), and pith of growth as good as corn, to be found by those who are used to it; for the desire of our hearts was only to keep a spark of life in them, until we might get to places where mankind grows corn and grinds it. For I had heard of an ancient friend, the best man I ever knew to fight, when it came to axe or kinjal, though he never could shoot afar like me; and his name was Stepan, the Lesghian. For a number of years he had been away, following his master's fortunes; but lately he was come back, they said, bringing household goods to prepare for him.
"Then in the dark woods, as we crept along, weary and hungry and trying vainly to comfort one another, we beheld a company of well-fed people, riding in the timber-track below, which we had been afraid to occupy. By the white sheep-skins upon their heads, we knew that they were Ossets, men of Queen Marva's bodyguard, whom she had chosen from all the tribe; even as the great Imaum had riders of the Avar race continually faithful to him. At the head of them rode the young Prince Hisar, as wicked a young man as ever drew breath; and behind them came a score of footmen, rejoicing in cruelty, and haters of the Lord.
"'Go you on, my child,' I said to my wife Rhada; 'in the morning I will be with you by the great red pine;' so I left my family in the hands of God, and putting dust upon my head, like an old man seeking alms, I fell in with the rear of that sprawly-jointed troop, and none of them knew that it was Usi. When a man calls for alms in the name of the Lord, his brethren are happy to escape expense by letting him walk with them, as if they heard him not. And so I went on with them till night, for I wanted to know what their wickedness was; and I sang them sweet verses which they could not understand, and they gave me some scraps to keep me quiet. Then from a boy who was pitiful to me, perceiving how much of the world I had seen, when the flesh-pots hung upon the crooks and bubbled, I learned what the meaning of this armed troop was. They were coming with a strong force by order of their Mistress, to make a hearty welcome to her brother and his daughter upon their return to the native land, from the place where the Russian steam-road ends at the Northern plain of the great mountains. All had been settled that Sûr Imar and his daughter should come from Vladikaukaz in a hired troika, and be received by their loving sister and aunt, at a place appointed; and there they must leave the great Dariel road, and be conducted by her to Karthlos, with great rejoicing and affection kindled. But why were all these men thus armed? Not as for travelling only? Why did they carry ropes and chains? Why was there not a Lesghian among them? and why was there no sign of the Princess, eager to embrace her kindred? Loving Sûr Imar as I did, I resolved to go on, and understand these things.
"On the following day, the Ossets drove me from among them with many blows; but I cared not, since I had renewed my strength with plentiful waste victuals, and a warm sound sleep. For I could watch them none the worse for being outside of their wicked troop, and by this time I well knew what they meant. So I followed them to the great Russian road, towards which the forest track whereon I found them led; and there they encamped on either side. There were steep rocks around them, full of black caves and crannies, and without much risk I crawled up into one of these, so that I could see all these warriors and the road beyond them, without any risk of their seeing me.
"Before I had been there very long, a three-horse carriage came up the road, followed by two carts piled with goods; and the young chief rode to meet them, and much salutation might be seen, and the carriage and carts were unloaded and sent back again, so that only Sûr Imar – for I knew his gait and stature even at that distance – with a young lady, and two attendants, a man and a woman, stood in the road. Hisar no doubt had assured them that the Princess was close at hand with vehicles well prepared to conduct them home. But it seemed to me that the Prince and the lady were looking to this side and to that, and gazing at every corner, as if they expected some one who ought to have met them, but was not to be found. And suddenly I thought that they were looking out for Stepan, Imar's milk-brother and most faithful friend. And I wished with all my heart that he were there, or could even be advised of his lord's return.
"Sir, and honourable gentlemen, I will not deceive you by speaking as if I had seen the shameful things that happened, almost before one could think of them, to the great Chief and his daughter. For they were led very politely into a dark narrow valley that slopes from the road, and cannot be discerned at all from it. And a torrent, that rushes along the lower end, goes by with such an uproar that an army with drums might scarcely be heard at the mouth of it. They were led there perhaps on pretence of a hospitable meal such as I would with joy pursue. But in sad truth it was to overthrow them by means of ropes, and loops, and trees, for Sûr Imar was known to be the strongest man in all the great army of Shamyl; and although he might now be unarmed and defenceless, it would be easier to master him by fraud than force. And although I saw not the doing of it, the old head sees more than young eyes sometimes; according to an ancient tag of ours, 'The grey bush looks round the corner.'
"They came not back into the wide strong road, for fear of Cossacks or other gapes; but went along the forest ways of rock and slough and waterfall; and through my old experience in the turn of war – for Shamyl was fox, wolf, and lion in one – it was easy enough for me to keep in their track, without giving them any smell of me. They had my old commander strapped on poles across two horses, which must have been great pain for him, and would have torn a loose man in two; but I never heard him speak a groan, although they passed through hollow places, where the misery of a man sounds loud. The fair damsel had not her senses with her, being of softer substance; and cruel as they were, they bore her gently upon a litter of slender wood, not desiring to hurt her yet, and having perhaps later occasion for her. Some of them jested about her beauty, till the violent young man rode back, and sent their loose mouths sprawling on the rocks. He means to keep her for himself, I trow.
"When the sun was getting low, and but for my memory of honest warfare, and the love of an old soldier for a kindly leader, I must have dropped away through weariness, the feet of their horses struck on softer ground, and behold they were entering a fair green valley, on the northern breast of Kazbek, where the sun strikes not from on high, but twinkles along the rocky passages, when the slope of the earth invites him, in the morning and in the evening time, like a low flight of arrows, such as I have seen when the Svâns were mighty bowmen. Wherefore this valley is never parched up, as they are on the south of the mountains, but is covered with moss, like the breath of night, and soft with trickling moisture. And the learned men say that an ancient race, who had come through the gates of Caucasus, having conquered the whole world all around, set up their last pillars here, and desired to go no further. And the masonry of giants is there to prove it, such as no man can make when the world grows old.
"Here that troop of brigands – for such a name is almost too good for them – opened a narrow door in the cliff, which cannot be seen from every place, because dark rocks encompass it. What they did there I cannot tell, for I durst not set foot down the valley, and there was no getting near it in time from above, so as to look down over them. I could only discover that some went in, stepping as if with burdens, while others were left on guard outside. By and by, I heard a clanking like the swing of an iron door, and presently all, or as I thought all, the riders came back, and with laughter and singing, and the young chief Hisar at their head, made off by the track which leads home to their village.
"Then I did a very foolish thing, which has all but cost me my life, without being of any use to Sûr Imar. If I had counted the men on horseback, which I might have contrived perhaps to do, though it would not have been very easy, I should have learned that they were not all gone, but that two were left on guard. Descrying no horses tethered in the valley, and knowing that the prisoners could not escape, I concluded rashly that all the Ossets were gone, at least for the present, and that I might safely spy all around, and perhaps even try to let Sûr Imar know that I would do my best to save him. So I hastened with some care, but still too boldly, along the foot of the cliff which rims the valley, so as to endeavour to approach the door. For the shadows were wiping out the shapes and colours of a man, or a bush, or a rock standing still; while the soft moss and herbage took away the fear of sound.
"Looking out winkingly in all directions, like a man of the chase who has espied the Tûr, at the end of the valley in the clouding of the dusk, I beheld a company of little rocks, jutting from the soft land, and standing in jags, like an old man's teeth, across the butt-end, where the dungeon began. In and out of these I crept, going very stealthily, as if I were dealing with a Cossack outpost; but the mischief of it was that I had no gun, only the dagger that everybody has; and this one was more like lead than steel, having come to me cheap in my distress from some city in the west called Brummerum. By breathing upon it many times, I was doubtful of its temper, but never thought how much it would betray me.
"Among those jags of rock I stood, watching the face of the cliff beyond, and the deep withdrawal of the iron door set in the granite masonry of some nation as old as Noah. And I said to myself that with a good ash-trunk, and Stepan, and myself, and a score of strong men to charge at it like a battering-ram, stout as it was it would perhaps give in. There were loop-holes also on either side, to give air and a little light sometimes, and I ventured a low breath of whistle in a soft and friendly tone, to ask whether anybody might look forth, though there was no width for a fox to squeeze through. But the whole of my wisdom only proved what a fool an old soldier is sometimes.
"For a loop was thrown over my head from behind, and then two strong men had hold of me. I managed to twist with one arm free, and struck with my dagger at one of them. But instead of making any hole in him, it came back on my wrist like an osier, having met with his metal cartridge-belt; and then they pulled me off my feet, and I lay like a sheep with his legs tied. I thought they would have cut my throat outright, for my head fell back the right way of it, and one of them whipped out his knife to do it; but the other cried out about the holy season, and then put his arm across. So they satisfied themselves with binding me with cords that cut into my flesh; and they carried me through the night, shaken up with pain; and I knew not where I was, till I came back to myself through necessity of lying to Queen Marva.
"But as my evil fortune fell, there happened to be among the Ossets, another old soldier of Shamyl, and one who had never served under Sûr Imar. This man knew me, and told the Queen who I was; and but for the holy time she would have crucified me then and there. 'Religion forbids us to slay the wretch,' said Marva, with a glance of blackness, 'but doth not forbid to make wolf's meat of him.'
"Three days ago I was fastened to a rock with the big rope round my body, and my wrists and ankles corded, so that if any wolves came by they should have no trouble with me. But the Lord commanded only one wolf to come, and he was overtaken with great wonder at the sight; and I had the courage to keep silence, and gaze at him, as if demanding what he meant by being there. Seeing me naked and so hairy, he could not understand such an animal; for I could no longer stand upright. Then, as I never flinched nor moved, he sheathed his teeth, and turned his eyes, and his tail began to quiver. I kept my eyes fixed on him steadily, and my face as firm as the crag behind; until with a little whine of doubt he drew in his nostrils, and dropped his tail, and trotted off to consult his friends, and perhaps he has taken his family to look for me this evening. A monstrous wolf he was in truth, and as hungry perhaps as I could be.
"For two days I had been numbed, and parched, and struck by the sun and the moon so much, that instead of any brave time of thought, I had only leaped and raved and yelled, and dashed myself about in vain, tearing my skin in strips, and cutting gashes into my purple flesh, and making holes all over me.
"But the moment that wolf was out of sight, I was seized with a cold and shivering dread, so that I could see the naked hairs of all my body quivering. Death I knew that I must have; and death had seemed a reasonable thing, when I gave it to another man who was trying to do the same to me. But to see myself being crunched alive, to feel those yellow fangs pulling my strings out, and that long tongue lapping up my blood – let me die before he came again. Surely I must have strength enough left to burst the veins of my neck and die. Were there any rocks within my reach so rugged and sharp that I might fling one of my leading blood-pipes down, again and again, till it should burst? I flung out my legs, and strained my length, like a chained dog clawing for a bone out of reach, in search of some blade of flint keen enough to saw my gullet or windpipe through.
"But what did I descry wedged firmly in a little cleft among them? A long brown eye, which I could see into, curdled with coils of different colours, as regular as a bulb cross-cut, centred with vaporous waves, and hooped with rings of white, as the rind encloses some dark wood. Then a spring of hope like the sparkle of a star flashed into the clouding of my mind, for this is the stone1 which we call the 'Eye of God.' It is stronger and keener of edge than any flint, luckier to man than mother's milk, and harder than steel of the Genoese.
"Instead of straining, twisting, and wriggling, to release my corded wrists, which were lashed to the rope at my waist so tight that I could not fetch teeth nigh them, I began to saw the cord below the clench of my thumbs upon the stone of God. The agony of it was terrible; but at last I rent my hands apart, and as soon as the blood returned to them, with teeth and flint I contrived to sever the rope that strung me to the rock, and to hobble to a brook to drink. The rest you know; three days have I borne of agony, starvation, and the stars and sun. The Lord God – if there be One in heaven to look down upon His own wicked works – spit my blood into that woman's throat!"
CHAPTER L
TWO OLD FRIENDS
The Svâns are a strange and peculiar race, declared indeed by the few outsiders who have ever seen them and come back, to be the most original of mankind. And Usi proved at least that much, by showing some rudiments of gratitude.
Although he had managed to tell his tale, with failure of words, and gasps for breath, and rolling of his eyes when the agony came back, poor Wolfsmeat was not fit for much, except to be laid in a soft and shady place, consoled with tobacco and cordials, and continually asked how he felt now. We soon understood what he wished to say, even without the interpreter, for he had picked up small pieces of divers tongues, by being so long among the mountain troops. More than once we feared that he would never bear up from the pains and privations he had undergone; but he said that he should be unworthy of the name of a Shamylid, or son of Shamyl, unless he could starve for a week, without showing immoderate signs of hunger. If the signs Usi had manifested, after only three days, were moderate, no wonder that the big wolf turned and fled from a countenance so expressive.
Strogue, and Cator, and myself, who might now be called the three leaders, sat late into that night, discussing the story of this patient sufferer. What chance had we of being in time, even if we could raise force enough to prevent the murder in cold blood appointed for next Monday? All the fighting men of this tribe of Ossets in the Upper Terek, and the Ardon valleys, would probably be mustered there to carry out the execution. Cator had often heard of the place so clearly described by the injured Svân, and he told us that these wild folk called it the "Valley of Retribution." From Usi's account, it was plain that Marva was making a tribal revenge of it. Her brother would be tried and condemned by the tribe, in expiation of the death of their former chief, Prince Rakhan. Him she had hated and scorned perhaps; for she was not of the sweet kind of women, who look at their wrongs with dewy eyes; but according to the Osset creed her duty was – blood for blood, and soul for soul. Strong in her own dominion now, she might drop all that, if she saw fit, and cry, "Bygones be bygones." Every man of the tribe (being in his heart most loyally afraid of her) would have joined all his cousins in lamenting, that the days were not as they had been; that nobody had the courage now to keep up good old customs; and yet, however right one's own mind was, what could one do, but as the others did? And then to sigh, and cast a glance at Heaven (that forbears to fall upon us) and light another pipe with some remorse, but plenty of sentiment to make it draw.
This was not for us to do, in a state of things beyond all understanding of any man not in the thick of them; and a thousandfold worse for him, if he is there. Nothing is more pleasing than to hear a man tell the story of some touch-and-go adventure he has been through. If he is an Englishman, he is sure to be self-ashamed about it, and describe himself as much more frightened than his slow system gave him time to be. But whoever he is, you may depend upon it that he will put into the narrative a lot of things which never occurred – till afterwards. And I am afraid that I shall do this, when I try to tell how we went on, though I mean to tell everything word for word, which ought to be the same as fact for fact.
But lo, at the very outstart, indignation cripples one! We know that it is sure to go too far, and to put things into darker colours than clear truth has cast into them. In dread of this, a truthful man draws back, and takes too weak a brush.
All of us were put upon that sense of wrong which stirs us up to think less of our own poor lives, and more of that great power which the Lord has planted in us (though He has not always worked it out), to show that we are something more than the brute creation round us. The sense of justice, and good will, and love to those of our own kind, and hate of all that wrong them. Even if Sûr Imar had not been the man he was, and Dariel's father, I would gladly have risked my life – if time were allowed me to know what I was about – rather than let such inhumanity triumph among human beings. Strogue and Cator were of the same mind, and the rest of the miners found that a little excitement would not be amiss. The worst of it was that they were inclined to underrate the enemy. To them it seemed sound argument that a dozen Englishmen could larrup, almost with their neckties, thirty or forty of such fellows as they were like to meet with. Even if there had been truth in that, and it would be most ungrateful on my part to disparage them, what would they do if they had to encounter perhaps a hundred men all well armed? Therefore we must increase our force, and that without loss of a minute. To call for Russian interference would be vain, for they had no brigade – even if they would have used it – that could be brought up in three days' time. We must act for ourselves; as the rule is laid down generally for poor Englishmen, because they are so few, yet always called upon to meet so many.
Strogue struck the proper note. Of savage people I knew nothing, save of Income-tax Commissioners, who charged us twice upon our land, – once for our crime in owning it, and once for the profit which they alone were able to make out of it. But the Captain said: "These men will fight. And they fight quite as bravely as we do, only with more passion in it. To beat them, we must have man for man, or something very near it. The only plan is to find your friend Stepan, and all the fellows he can bring. That poor beggar who is groaning in his sleep seems to know where to find him. He will not be able to walk for days; but he can tell us where to go."
We had searched in vain, as I may have said, for any sign of Stepan near Karthlos. That was one of the things which made us sure that treachery was at work; for if he had travelled with the heavy goods, straightway home, as his orders were, he ought to have been at Karthlos long ago, in spite of the terrible winter. But no one seemed to know where to find him, although a rumour was spread abroad that his master was returning. There was, however, every prospect now of discovering him and those other retainers who had been with the Chief in his exile, for Usi could not have been so long the forester or huntsman of that district without knowing where to find all the principal members of his adopted tribe. What could be finer justice than that a fiendish plot of fratricide should be discomfited chiefly through the brutality of its conceiver? If that tortured victim could but recover the use of his swollen limbs, we might push along towards the Lesghian valleys in time to rouse the tribe on the Saturday night. But to carry poor Usi was a sad, slow drag, and to go without him would be useless, even if humanity allowed it.
"Bear's grease!" was his perpetual moan; "Oh, that men valued the precious bear's grease! If the good Lord would send me only half a pound of bear's grease, I would leap like the Ibex, and dance like the Tûr."
Then, as if to show that Heaven itself had taken a turn in our favour, a most unusual thing came to pass, although at the time I was very far from being at all surprised at it. But those who knew the country said that such a thing scarcely ever happened, and all of our little company might live to be ninety, and keep eyes like twenty, without ever seeing such a thing again. However, I can answer for it, and was not at all disturbed by it.
We came, walking heavily yet tenderly, and like men who (if they were in England) would go to their chemist and ask him whether he had tried his "Celandine" on his own feet, – we came about the middle of that day – Friday it was and a critical time – to a corner where two torrents ran into one another's arms, with as much noise as two Frenchmen make. There were no trees, not a leaf to break the sun; everything was either hard or wet; and the light itself seemed to come in gurgles, as if it were almost giddy with the shining of the water, and the staring of the rocks. In the loose spread of it, below the rush of the two streams into one another, – both being buxom with snow on the melt, which affords them a thickness of suet, – there I saw a great sprawling thing – sprawling at least it appeared to be, and at the same time splashing. I happened to be foremost of the file, yet for the life of me, I could not make out what it was; till Cator spoke over my shoulder thus —
"Motherly she-bear, carrying her cub! Economical father wants to kill it – they always do at this time of year – mother takes a different view. She will land in a second. Aim behind the shoulder. The kid is fine eating. If you feel like missing, let me do it for you."
"Get away!" I answered; "I came first – what have you got to do with it?" I put up my rifle, but when she landed with wonderful care not to hurt a hair of the baby in her clumsy mouth, and then looked at it so proudly – though it was but an ugly little lump – and began to lick the holy trickle from its newly opened eyes, such a touch of nature went into my heart, that I would rather have shot myself almost. "Fire, you stupid!" keen Cator cried. And fire I did, but not at her. For paterfamilias came down raging, with his coat thrown back on his body, and his little eyes rolling, and his hairy chin poked out in fury at his wife's self-assertion. My bullet behind his open shoulder told him that there might be two opinions about paternal duty, and he rolled like a log into the swirling torrent, and was washed up on our side a hundred yards below. Then Usi, the Svân, in a glory of excitement rose from his litter, and told us what to do; and we cut him out the fat that lies along the kidney part, and he scrabbled it into his stringy legs, and fell back again, and smiled at them. In less than half an hour he could walk, and we had all we could do to keep up with him.
That night we slept in Kazbek village, which is on the great Russian road; and we laid our plans for the morrow. Cator was to make rush for the mine, which he could reach before nightfall, and implore Jack Nickols to spare us every son of a gun who could handle a rifle; while Strogue, and Usi, and myself, and others, made every hour of daylight tell for our race in quest of Stepan. We feared that those vile Ossets had a short cut across the western mountain, from their village to the "Valley of Retribution," which would bring them in front of any speed of ours; and unhappily so it proved indeed. And they must have carried Usi by that track, when they caught him spying in their valley; although they gave him small chance of knowing what was time, or where was road. For the mighty mass of Kazbek lay betwixt the Osset villages, and the vale which had been for ages hallowed to their horrible revenge.
At daybreak on Saturday we set forth, in the midst of a miserable drizzle, which would have made the way as hard to find as it was bad when found, except for the knowledge of the land which Usi showed. That son of Shamyl, as he loved to be called, was of infinite service to our cause. Very seldom did he care to speak, unless he was consulted; and the bronze cast of his rugged face beneath that hairy thicket showed no more life than the juniper scrub which we saw on the cheeks of the mountain. But the quick blue flash of his eyes, whenever we caught them unexpectedly, was like the point blank spark that comes, when the lightning is over one's own lawn. Let me not be in that man's black-books – was the first thought of even the boldest mind, as Strogue said more than once to me.
Presently this "Bear-slayer" showed us that he deserved the name of "Straight-pipe," which he had received from Shamyl. For while we were halting in a glen to feed, Gator's rifle stood against a rock. We grudged every moment, and were eating against time, when one of those great black eagles, which are the grandest of European birds, came soaring above us at a mighty height, searching the earth for lamb, or kid, or perhaps a nice babe fast asleep beneath a rock. With Cator's leave, Usi raised his gun, and he must have been as quick as light, for the crack of the rifle and the heavy flop of the dead bird on the track before us, were the first I knew of the matter, although I was standing within a few yards of him. "That's a grand shot; I couldn't have done that, although I am not a bad hand," said Strogue. But the Svân was not satisfied with his work. "I struck him too far behind," he said, "my own pipe would have done it better. I must get time to search for it among the ashes." But we could not spare him yet; for he alone could show us the men we wanted.
How it may be in the winter I know not, and perhaps no one would care to know much about it then, but to me, who was used to very reasonable weather (sometimes dull and sometimes fickle, but scarcely ever furious, and generally comprehensible), the style of this Caucasian sun, whether as he asked his way among a crowd of pinnacles, or whether as he mounted high, strong, and hot above them, or even when he meant to be compassionate and genial in looking back at his long day's work – all I can say is, that to a man of Surrey, who lives out of doors nearly all day long, and can tell you the time within half an hour, whether it be cloudy or whether it be clear, the climate was incongruous. At home, you could look up at the sky, and after making wise allowances for the way of the wind, and the manner of the clouds, and the inclination of the quicksilver, you could generally say something, which could be explained away when a little incorrect. But here the only wisdom was to shake your head, and say the developments are complicated, pressure variable and conflicting, local showers not improbable, thunder not impossible. As our Scientific Staff begins to waver, after predicting rain every day, in a drought of three months' duration.
That Saturday evening the sun went down (so far as we could get a straight look at him through such ins and outs), genial, bountiful, a great globe of good will, squandering gold upon a maiden world of snow, which it blushed to accept, and yet spread upon its breast.
"The weather at any rate is on our side," was my cheerful remark to Captain Strogue; "if we can only find those fellows, we shall be all right."
"Don't you be too sure," he said, "there may be a hurricane to-morrow."
Travelling eastward all that day, we had passed the foot of Karthlos long ago, under Usi's guidance; for to climb the steep would be waste of time, as there was no strength of men there now. Then we descended into another valley, and Usi blew upon a horn, and listened. We heard no reply, but he heard something, and led us, as the yellow light turned grey, into a hollow place with huts around it, and out rushed two enormous dogs, and behold they were Kuban and Orla!