CHAPTER LI
THE ROOT OF EVIL
The amazement of those dogs at sight of me was beyond anything I ever did behold. They had seen so much of the world by this time, including a good deal of England, that they had learned to doubt all the evidence which untravelled dogs wag tail to. They pulled up suddenly, and looked at one another, with the tawny curls of their ears in a tremble, and the hackles of their necks thrown back, and every hair to the tips of their tails quivering with incredulity. Then, like a fool, I pronounced their names, and the word that brings down the avalanche would have been a wiser utterance. They flung their great frames and golden crests in one shock of delight upon my breast, like a harvest-cart dashed against the rickyard post. Luckily I expected it, but even so was glad to be backed up by a rock, and there it was impossible for me to speak, all human emotion being swallowed up in dog.
However, they soon made amends for that, and the roar that rang from crag to crag brought every living being out. Foremost of these was our old friend Stepan, carrying a mighty gun, with Allai peeping through the loop of his elbow, and four or five more, who had been in our valley, staring at us over the packing-cases. I shouted to them with the old salute which they had taught me at St. Winifred's, and they made their salaams, and sang their welcome, while Stepan enfolded me in his capacious arms, and Allai hugged my knees and wept.
"Say nothing till we are inside," I whispered to Strogue, who could speak their language somehow. It was high time to be prudent now, as well as prompt and resolute, for it seemed as if the enemy had in every way outmanœuvred us; and now, if our project should become known, the case would indeed be hopeless. "Not a word to any of these people, until Stepan thinks fit to tell them."
But I need not have been so particular, for they are as true as steel to one another, and above all to their Chieftain. Stepan told them, even before he heard my story out; because swift runners must be sent that very night to other Kheusur villages, for every fighting man within reach to join the muster at the foot of Karthlos. And that muster, to be of any use, must not be later than noon of the morrow, which would be Sunday.
Then I told Stepan our side of the story, with Strogue to make it clear to him; and Usi, without whom we could have done nothing, recounted all that he had seen, but scarcely spoke of his own woes.
At this I wondered for the moment, but knew the reason afterwards. Stepan listened with arms folded, and his great grey head as still as a rock, while his eyes were harder and less expressive – as it chanced to occur to me – than the agate which had saved Usi's life. And I noticed that the wall on which he fixed them was not half so sound and solid, nor the room itself so neat and cheerful as the old stone ruin occupied by Sûr Imar's men in England. "Is that all?" he inquired at last; and Strogue replied, "Yes; and to me it seems enough." The Lesghian dipped his unshorn chin upon the wooded cataract of his breast, and nodded courteously, meaning clearly – "Sir, you have been through us, but not to any purpose among us." And I, as a young slip – in comparison with him, though old enough now to stand up for my growth – marvelled about dry roots, and trunks that are all bark, and so on.
"Hearken to me, and I will use few words," said the loyal Lesghian slowly, with Strogue explaining for my benefit; "I am getting old, and I have my daughters, for the Lord has granted me no son, and the babes whom my daughters have brought forth while I was far away, to dwell upon. I am growing old, and my strength is only in the standing combat now. I cannot leap down from a rock and alight with both feet together, and my arms like willows of steel twined round the enemy. It has been ordained that a man, as his years increase upon him, should increase also in bulk and weight, if permitted by fortune to feed well. All the men of our tribe feed well, because they are just and remain with their wives, who know how to cook the cattle of their neighbours. None of those would we ever take, if we could trust them to leave us ours. For not only are we righteous, but we endeavour to make strangers so, when their wickedness is not good for us.
"For my part I have been in foreign places, and learned much of foreign language, sometimes increasing in wisdom thus. But as yet I have not found a country fit to be placed by the side of ours, not only for the fairness of the land, but the goodness of the inhabitants. But, as a man of truth, I will admit that it is not so with our neighbours. They on the other hand are breakers of the laws of righteousness, seeking only the ways of evil, eager to slay all who set them example not convenient. And now they are in dread of the return of our great Chief, because he brings justice and virtue with him. Their desire is to slay him, and to rob him of his goods, and to rule over us who belong to him.
"Me, who am his brother by the mother's breast, and bound to give my life for his and all that I possess, they have deceived and cheated by many lying tricks, and beguiled me, as the mother fox tempts away the dog to discourses of soft affection, while her children prey upon the tender lambs.
"Behold, when I landed from the great smoke-ship, after many weeks of rolling on strange waters, there came a man to meet me with a letter in a stick, which he said was by order of the Prince himself, and I and all my company must obey it. What the tongue says the ear can swallow, and render to the mind for consideration. But that which the hand has shaped, in many forms of crookedness, cannot come into the mind through the passes of the eyes without long teaching, and toiling through a forest full of twists and turns, which can only be endured in childhood. Therefore I went to a learned man, and paid him ten kopeks, and he made it to me the same as if Sûr Imar's voice pronounced it. And thereby I was commanded to stay where I was, with all my companions, and all the goods, for the passes were already blocked with snow, until I should receive another letter, as soon as the spring flung back the gates between the frozen mountains. The winter was very long, but at last another paper came to us, through Officers of the Government, as the letters are sent in England. And I paid another ten kopeks, so expensive is such learning, and was commanded to come on by way of Kutais and hire waggons, and get to this village, which is not my own; but not to go near Karthlos yet, because it was full of workmen. Money was also sent to me in a note for a hundred roubles, and I was ordered to shoot both these dogs, if I had kept them still alive.
"I was sure Sûr Imar had not said that, because his daughter loved them so; and that made me wonder and begin to doubt, and I said to myself, they shall see their master, and plead for their own lives with him. Also I was ordered to remain here, almost as if I were to be in prison, keeping away from my own village, and all my old friends, and obtaining food only from the people close at hand, until I should be sent for. And the reason was that if the Russians heard of all the goods we had, they would send an officer to take toll, or seize them altogether. This I thought might be true enough, until the people here declared that the Russians never do anything like that; and again this made me doubtful.
"We, who are of the true and never to be called in question faith of Christ, even as the English are, do not observe these heathen fasts, and feasts, and rites of superstition, but keep our own most holy seasons as ordained by the Lord himself. Yet so noble are our minds, that we blame not those of smaller knowledge, but rather abstain from meddling with them during the days which they keep holy, although they be not the right ones. For this reason I remained here yet, resolving to set forth on Monday, when their profane days will have returned, and to ask among them the meaning of these things, which I am ordered not to seek among our own tribe.
"But woe is me to have learned it thus, with haste and peril and helplessness! It must be the wicked Prince who has plotted this vile plan, having taken it straight from the fiery lips of the Evil One. It is not by any one to be believed that the sister of Sûr Imar, born at one birth with him, should be as a cauldron of the pitch of hell, while he is in an alabaster box of manna for the food of the faithful in the wilderness. By many generations it has been said that a woman who has not been made of milk and honey must have been fashioned out of gall and venom; and true it may be, yet how should such things descend from the mother of Imar?
"Tell me, then, for now we speak, as I would that we had spoken long ago, in words that pass into the minds of one another, tell me what advantage can the Princess Marva look for, from doing that which none of the women of our tribe would wish to do, or even if she wished it under the influence of the Devil, would dare to keep in her mind as long as a baking-shovel in her hand."
As yet we had not dwelt much on this. The design being manifest, as we believed, the motive did not concern us much; and in all the hardships, perpetual effort, and weariness of travelling – such travel at least as we had to face – the body was always too hard at work for the mind to be very active, except in attending to it. Strogue looked at me, and I at him, and each left the other to answer.
"Friend Stepan knows all the ins and outs of these tribal politics and family arrangements," the Captain opened his mouth at last, "ever so much better of course than I do. No doubt her ladyship expects to suck some benefit out of this murder, – for I don't see what else you can call it, although there may be a mock trial; but even without that, I always understood that the duty of the blood feud would compel her, even if she loved him the best on earth, to hunt him to death with alacrity. You know that, although the law is not in your tribe, or at any rate you are free from it, by marriage she is an Osset, and with them it is most sacred."
"I have not forgotten that," our host replied, looking doubtful as became him when even near the verge of argument; "but even if that tribe kept up its wrath at the death of its chief so many years, the lady, as I have heard even in England, can do as she pleases among them now. It is not right, it is not just, it is not as the Lord intended. The woman should never rule the man; but she will do it gladly, if they lift her upon the stool, instead of keeping her to the oven. But when she gets tired of salutes, and praises, and humble words, which ought to be like ripe figs to her, what she begins to yearn after is money; and life will be short for those who have it, when she thinks it should be hers."
"My good friend, my great friend Stepan," cried Strogue, with the stem of his pipe in the air, as if he never cared whether he sucked it again; "you have hit the mark better about those blessed females, than I should have ever dared to try to do. At the London Rock it is just the same – Landlady, or Barmaid, makes no difference, or the little girl that wipes the glasses. All eager to go for a celebrated man; but won't put a tear in the corner of their eyes, till they've peeped into his pockets on the hook inside the door. That is why none of them can catch me. A man who has been round the world three times finds the black women truest to their colour."
To me this was such hateful doctrine, so low, so coarse, so cannibal, that I jumped up with a strong desire to send the Captain down among the packing-cases. But he gave me a sly wink, meaning clearly – "The object of this is to fetch that fellow out."
And Stepan came out, with a dignity scarcely to be expected from him. Some of his words were beyond my knowledge; but upon the whole he spoke like this —
"I have not been round the world three times; and that man is the wisest traveller who goes through his own self the most. But in all the countries that I have seen, the women are better than the men, according to the gifts of nature. Of money they are not half so greedy, and they have more compassion. Usi, the Svân, will tell you what the father does to the female babies, when he has too many of them, in the country of men and women. Straight-pipe, what does the father do then in the noble country of the Svâns?"
"He places the little one on her back," the Bear-slayer told us, looking at the floor, as if he were watching the domestic process; "and he makes the fire burn brightly. Then when the little one opens her mouth for the nourishment of nature, he takes the spoon from his bowl of soup, and fills it with red-hot embers, and pours them into the infant's mouth, and lo that child calls for no more food!"
"Hast thou ever beholden a mother who would feed her infant thus?" Stepan asked the Captain, who looked as if his pipe had grown too hot for him; and the Captain knocked out his ash, and said, "Give me some cold whiskey."
"Lo, the moon is shining on the white peaks now, and the light will soon flow along the valleys. It is time for me to go," said Stepan, "and Allai will come with me. I have told the head-man what to do; but the men here are as nothing. Gentlemen, you are weary. The Lord give you good rest to-night, for to-morrow we must travel fast. I will bring every faithful son of the tribe, and meet you by noon at Karthlos."
CHAPTER LII
STILL IN THE DARK
At midnight we stood by the door of the hut, and watched the broad bulk of Stepan, and the slender slip of Allai, sliding away into white breath among the black jaws of the mountains.
I thought that I had never seen so fair a night, so lovely, soft, and kindly, offering guidance of bright stars among the pale blandishments of the moon, opening avenues of lofty hope, compassionate to mortals. With such glory full in view, and the grandeur of unknown realms beyond, how could any of those, who have so short a time to dwell below, spend it, or spare a moment of it, in the trivial worm-casts of rank and money, which cannot even slime the scythe of death?
If Farmer Ticknor had been with us – that Ticknor, I mean, who had proved himself so trenchant a Micaiah to the Official Zedekiah – perhaps we might not have entered into this rapturous view of the heavens. Or perhaps it was that we required a lesson. But whatever the explanation is, the fact came far in front of it. When we tried to get up in the morning, there was nothing to get up by except time, who sheds no light, but spends the better part of himself in quenching it. Laden as we were with sleep, whose freight we had not yet discharged, we said to one another that a special relief was granted us. It was manifest that human skill in the record of time had been overruled; the Powers that govern day and night could not be set at nought by watchmakers. We blew out the matches we had struck, and rolled on our backs for another snooze, submissive to the will of Heaven.
How far we might have prolonged our snores, we never grew wide enough awake to say. But the soft folds of darkness fell around us still, and we closed our eyes beneath them, as a child submits to the kisses of his mother. Then a mighty bellow, and a cackle, and a stamping, and a shovelful of cold slush thrown into our faces made all of us jump up, and stare about, and splutter, and every one swear, except, as I heartily hope, myself.
It was the old village Starchina, or Starost, or whatever his dignity may have been, in a state of mind so furious that it was true bliss to be no linguist. Strogue made out some of his compound curses, but was too wise to interpret them, or even to accept his own version; until that most venerable and profane of men saw little advantage in cursing himself. He flung down the shutter that served as a window, and poured about a sackful of snow down our necks.
This might be the manner of the country; but we resented it all the more for that, and spoke harshly of the place, and of all born near it, until Strogue sat up on his very hard board, and stared, with his eyes as close as burning glasses, at the old silver watch, "which a man could work a ship by," and exclaimed – "By Jove, he is done for now, George! We ought to have been at Karthlos by this time. However he is safe to go to Heaven, according to your account of him."
Even cowardice is sometimes less contemptible than flippancy. But I made no answer. My rage with myself was too deep to fly off into sparks against others. What could it matter to Strogue, or Starost, or even to Stepan himself, compared with me, with me, the snorer? If the noble man who had treated me as his equal – clumsy clodhopper as I was – and his daughter (the model of all love and grace) were butchered by savages to-morrow, upon whose head would their blood lie?
Upon mine – for my accursed laziness, self-indulgence, wicked gladness to believe the thing that I desired.
Then I went out, and looked for the sky which had been so blue, and the earth which had been so green, wherever it was not brown rockiness. Behold – there was nothing to behold – as Usi the Svân might have said of it – but grey thickness, fleecy softness, multitudinous whirl above, and vast whiteness, promiscuous glare, and slur of dazzle around us and below. Not what the puzzled world is wont to call a blizzard, and fly shuddering – for that only comes with a bitter blast, and is a mass of pointed particles – but a genuine downright heavy snowfall (such as we get in March sometimes, when we are sowing the pea-drill), big flakes, thick flakes, like a shower of daisies, flinging their tufts in feathery piles, and smothering one another. "It can't go on very long like this," says a man who has lost in half-a-minute the pattern of his coat and trousers.
Certainly it could not in Surrey or in Kent; but here in the Caucasus it proved that it could go on, long enough at any rate to bury all the trackways, and turn jagged rocks into treacherous white rollers. If we began (in our credulous greed for rest) with failing to know the time of day, we went on with losing the way; and what was worse, if possible, we lost the better part of our strength, through sprains, and strains, and stumbles in the drift. Mishaps of the like sort had befallen the party recruited by Stepan, although they had not overslept themselves as we did; and instead of prompt muster to start together at noon from the foot of Karthlos, we found that it was almost four o'clock before every one was ready.
"To do any good, we must travel all night," said Stepan, as he swung his heavy pack upon his rifle. "To travel all night on a turnpike road is all very well," Strogue answered; "but who could do it here, my friend? And sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If the snow stops us, it will stop the other fellows."
I had indulged in this hope too; but the Lesghian's words were against it. "No man can say, till his eyes give proof. But the storm came from the east, and they seldom travel far in the summer-time. Like enough there was not a flake on the western side of the Russian road. Ha! Kobaduk, art thou coming too? Thy old limbs will tire, we shall have to leave thee, even though thou hast that colt."
We had not climbed the steep to the tower, because time was so short, and the old steward could not be of any service to us. Therefore it was a great surprise when he slipped among us from a snowy corner, leading a rough unsaddled colt, with a strap buckled over his loins to which a sword was attached on one side, and a rusty old musket on the other. An English crowd would have gibed, I fear, at the menacing aspect of this feeble ancient, and even Strogue made no attempt to hide a grin; but the Lesghians glanced at him kindly, and made room for him among them, and he plodded on resolutely without a word, like a fatalist come to look fate in the face.
Even in a small lot such as we were, and consisting chiefly of hardy fellows, there must be – according to the varicose vein which runs through all humanity – three or four at least of softer pith, or eruptions that arise to the occasion, or some thing or other that goes amiss. And not having one leg too many among us, or I might say less than half the legs we wanted, our hard fortune was that the briskest shank among us – which was not my own, though I did my best, and in Surrey would have challenged any of them – was obliged to stick fast, when it got too far ahead, and disguise its own gratitude for a thrill of rest, by turning on its heel disdainfully. In a word, nearly all our most excellent men, brave and zealous, and brought up from childhood to a good stroke of speed after other people's cattle, had lost the best part of their training, by compulsion – under Russian tyranny – to attend to their own flocks and herds, instead of lifting their neighbour's.
Thus it was that we came at last to an elbow of the great Russian road, which is a noble work, but not by any means such as we should make, if we had the opportunity; and there we found a sample of what human nature is. Having surmounted, by wonderful endurance and perpetual rivalry with one another, obstacles that seemed insuperable, surely we should have gone on with double spirit, when we came upon a Christian highway. Instead of that, every blessed man sat down, and thanked Heaven – or in truer truth thanked himself – for having got along so famously. It was dark, as dark as one could ever wish to see it, down in this gorge of magnificence, with the river roaring sleepy thunder, and the snow-clouds spent, and the stars looking faint. I thought – as an Englishman thinks by instinct – that men of our own race would not have stopped (at any rate if there was money in it) and shut up in this sudden style.
However there was more excuse than help for it; and Stepan and myself, the two who cared most deeply about the issue, tried to cheer each other, so far as our mutual misunderstandings reached.
Then by a lucky chance the gallant miners (whom we should have missed perhaps, if we had gone on at once) came into our camp, with light hearts and merry songs, delighted at the prospect of a lively brush; for so they all regarded it. Jack Nickols himself had been unable to resist the fierce temptation, and gloomy would be the outlook for any foe who crossed his sky-line, though I cannot recollect just now his celebrated score at the "running deer."
It was terrible to me to find these fellows taking things so easily, not through any callous inhumanity or indifference, but simply because their own private interests were not immediately involved. For instance, the way in which Nickols, and Cator, and Strogue discussed the situation was enough to sponge out of my heart a great lump of that affection for the human race without which a man becomes miserable. Weary as they were, they found it needful to hold some little council, while they smoked their pipes after supper, having settled that all should take four hours of sleep if they could get it, and start again when the moon arose. I sat in a corner and listened to them, refraining from all interruption, though a great part of what they said was new to me; for if I had spoken, some heat might have followed my words, and done mischief to all of us.
Strogue. "I have always had the credit of seeing as far into a hayrick as any man that ever sucked a coral. But this fiend of a woman beats me hollow. I can't make out what her little game is."
Nickols. "Well, I can't see any difficulty about it. She wants her brother's property, and to be the lady of the other tribe too, which she would be as Dadian's daughter, if her brother Imar were done away with. She will have him tried for the death of her husband, or get him shot without trial. Then she has discharged her duty according to the rules of the blood-feud, and she steps into poor Imar's shoes. To me it is plainer than a pikestaff."
Cator. "All that looks straight enough, but it won't hold water. You forget the pretty girl. Imar has a lovely daughter, and she would be the head of the tribe, not Marva, when his goose is cooked."
Nickols. "That's true enough. But a woman with such a strong mind wouldn't make much bones of that. Or rather she'd make bones of her in no time. I am very sorry for that pretty girl. She is booked for a share of her father's grave."
Strogue. "Naturally I look deeper into things than you young fellows can. The real difficulty has escaped you both. The woman is bad enough for anything. I know things of her that I won't tell, at any rate for the present.
"But as for making away with her niece, there are two good reasons against it. In the first place, the Russians would be almost certain to punish Madam heavily, though perhaps they would not interfere, if Imar alone were tried and condemned according to the usage of the country. And then again, even if they let it pass, the Lesghians, who are a very loyal race, would never accept Marva's rule, when she had slain their Chief and his daughter. You have got the wrong story altogether, according to my view of it. Her game is not quite so clumsy, though it is a very bold one."
Nickols. "Captain, you are one of those men who get the right tip always. Don't be shy, – that would scarcely become you. But tell us exactly what you think; although it may be hard to square it with the higher moralities."
Strogue. "You speak like a fool, as all boys do. But there is no time to board-school you; and you are getting too old for that rot even. Now listen to what I have to say, though beyond the present range of your intellect. I have not dwelt among this mixed lot of savages; I have simply passed through them in my usual course. You might live among them till your hair grew white, and know less than you did when it was green. Why? You are sharp enough in your way, and if you had started with a humble mind, and kept it open, you might win knowledge. But that is not fine enough for you. You start with your poor wits already ingrained and case-hardened with the grease and suet of self-conceit, and nothing ever sticks to you."
Nickols, and Cator, and I, in the corner, with unanimous surprise: "Captain Strogue is the humblest of mankind, and therefore the most omniscient!"
Strogue. "It is true, my friends; a great home-truth, and you shall gather the fruits of it. I have penetrated this lady's scheme, and deeply regret that so fine a woman, one of the handsomest I have ever seen, should not behave with equal beauty. Having sent her brother to a better world, she will bring his daughter to the altar as the bride of her noble son – noble indeed to look at, but unable as yet to say Boh to a goose. He will be the master nominally of all Imar's fair dominions, which are as lovely as any in the world, when the snow allows a sight of them. The real master, of course, will be a certain lady-friend of ours; for you can see that from his cradle upwards she has cowed that uncommonly fine young fellow, so that he dare not call his soul his own. Upon my word I should not be surprised, when she has united these central tribes, if she threw off the yoke of Russia, and proclaimed herself Queen of the Caucasus, like a modern Tamara. All that is clear enough, but the one thing I can't make out for the very life of me is, why the dickens did she send us that scamp, whose real name is Hisar, under the name of Hafer? She would not send the true Hafer of course, lest when he had been away for months, and seen the ways of the polished world, and how absolutely the children rule their parents, he might be seized with emulation, and resolve to be master of his own domains, if not of his own mother – though I am sorry for anybody who tries that. Now tell me, ye who flatter yourselves that you can see further into a milestone than Strogue who has beheld so many, what induced this artful schemer to send Hisar to England in the name of Hafer, when for all that we can see he might just as well have gone in his own name?"
Nickols. "I was never any hand at crooked dealing, though there is plenty of it in our own line of business, but none with tip-toppers like my uncle and me. We have a high character to sustain. Even supposing we would stoop – "
Cator. "Stow that, Jack, we know it all by heart. But I can tell the Captain one good reason why the lady's ambassador should be called Hafer. Sûr Imar was bound to receive his own nephew, when he might have refused to see a stranger. And to take him into their confidence, and let him know their plans, and so on. All of which has enabled them to make fools of his faithful retainers, and prisoners of himself and his daughter."
Strogue. "With half an eye open, I saw every bit of that. But it does not touch the real difficulty. Dariel is to marry the true Hafer. Very well, let her, if she likes. He's a young man of grand appearance; and that reconciles the women to a lot of disadvantages. But if she was meant to belong to him, why let another fellow get the start with her? Though women of decent age know better, a girl is sure to be romantic. She piles wonders of imagination upon the first good-looking young fellow who suggests how lovely, how lofty, how divine she is.
"She keeps him at a blushing distance, and looks as if she had not the least idea where he is, and would turn her head away if he came up. Bless their hearts, I know them all; though I never let them see it. I could have had fifty Mrs. Strogues, – for they love a man who knows the world, – some of them too with cash and houses. But none of that for me, till I want nursing. Half-a-dozen Miss Strogues here and there, some white, some black, and some the colour of an orange, or a good Mocha berry that you can't get now – and they behave all the better to you when they know that you can do without them. Simple truth, gentlemen. I am not romantic."