Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine – Volume 53, No. 332, June, 1843

CHAPTER XII

In the morning, before the departure of the detachment, the captain on duty came to Colonel Verkhóffsky to present his report, and to receive the orders for the day. After the customary exchange of words, he said, with an alarmed countenance: "Colonel, I have to communicate a most important thing: our yesterday's signal-man, a soldier of my company, Hamitóff, heard the conversation of Ammalát Bek with his nurse in Bouináki. He is a Tartar of Kazán, and understands pretty well the dialect of this country. As far as he could hear and understand, the nurse assured the Bek that you, with the Shamkhál, are preparing to send him off to the galleys. Ammalát flew into a passion; said, that he knew all this from the Khan, and swore to kill you with his own hand. Not trusting his ears, however, the soldier determined to tell you nothing, but to watch all his steps. Yesterday evening, he says, Ammalát spoke with a horseman arrived from afar. On taking leave, he said: 'Tell the Khan, that to-morrow, by sunrise, all will be over. Let him be ready: I shall soon see him.'"

"And is this all, Captain?" demanded Verkhóffsky.

"I have nothing else to say; but I am much alarmed. I have passed my life among the Tartars, Colonel, and I am convinced that it is madness to trust the best of them. A born brother is not safe, while resting in the arms of a brother."

"This is envy, Captain. Cain has left it as an eternal heirloom to all men, and particularly to the neighbours of Ararat. Besides, there is no difference between Ammalát and myself. I have done nothing for him but good. I intend nothing but kindness. Be easy, Captain: I believe the zeal of the signal-man, but I distrust his knowledge of the Tartar language. Some similarity of words has led him into error, and when once suspicion was awakened in his mind, every thing seemed an additional proof. Really, I am not so important a person that Khans and Beks should lay plots for my life. I know Ammalát well. He is passionate, but he has a good heart, and could not conceal a bad intention two hours together."

"Take care you be not mistaken, Colonel. Ammalát is, after all, an Asiatic; and that name is always a proof. Here words hide thoughts—the face, the soul. Look at one of them—he seems innocence itself; have any thing to do with him, he is an abyss of meanness, treachery and ferocity."

"You have a full right to think so, my dear Captain, from experience: Sultan Akhmet Khan gave you a memorable proof in Ammalát's house, at Bouináki. But for me, I have no reason to suspect any mischief in Ammalát; and besides, what would he gain by murdering me? On me depends all his hope, all his happiness. He is wild, perhaps, but not a madman. Besides, you see the sun is high; and I am alive and well. I am grateful, Captain, for the interest you have taken in me; but I entreat you, do not suspect Ammalát: and, knowing how much I prize an old friendship, be assured that I shall as highly value a new one. Order them to beat the march."

The captain departed, gloomily shaking his head. The drums rattled, and the detachment, in marching order, moved on from its night-quarters. The morning was fresh and bright; the road lay through the green ramparts of the mountains of the Caucasus, crowned here and there with forests and underwood. The detachment, like a stream of steel, flowed now down the hills, and now crept up the declivities. The mist still rested on the valleys, and Verkhóffsky, riding to the elevated points, looked round frequently to feast his eyes with the ever-changing landscape. Descending the mountain, the detachment seemed to be swallowed up in the steaming river, like the army of Pharaoh, and anon, with a dull sound, the bayonets glittered again from the misty waves. Then appeared heads, shoulders; the men seemed to grow up, and then leaping up the rocks, were lost anew in the fog.

Ammalát, pale and stern, rode next to the sharpshooters. It appeared that he wished to deafen his conscience in the noise of the drums. The colonel called him to his side, and said kindly: "You must be scolded, Ammalát; you have begun to follow too closely the precepts of Hafiz: recollect that wine is a good servant but a bad master: but a headache and the bile expressed in your face, will surely do you more good than a lecture. You have passed a stormy night, Ammalát."

"A stormy, a torturing night, Colonel! God grant that such a night be the last! I dreamed dreadful things."

"Aha, my friend! You see what it is to transgress Mahomet's commandments. The conscience of the true believer torments you like a shadow."

"It is well for him whose conscience quarrels only with wine."

"That depends on what sort of conscience it is. And fortunately it is as much subject to prejudice as reason itself. Every country, every nation, has its own conscience; and the voice of immortal, unchangeable truth is silent before a would-be truth. Thus it is, thus it ever was. What yesterday we counted a mortal sin, to-morrow we adore. What on this bank is just and meritorious, on the other side of a brook leads to the halter."

"I think, however, that treachery was never, and in no place, considered a virtue."

"I will not say even that. We live at a time when success alone determines whether the means employed were good or bad; where the most conscientious persons have invented for themselves a very convenient rule—that the end sanctifies the means."

Ammalát, lost in his reflections, repeated these words, because he approved of them. The poison of selfishness began anew to work within him; and the words of Verkhóffsky, which he looked on as treacherous, poured like oil on flame. "Hypocrite!" said he to himself; "your hour is at hand!"

And meanwhile Verkhóffsky, like a victim suspecting nothing, rode side by side with his executioner. At about eight versts from Kieként the Caspian Sea discovered itself to them from a hill; and the thoughts of Verkhóffsky soared above it like a swan. "Mirror of eternity!" said he, sinking into a reverie, "why does not your aspect gladden me to-day? As of old, the sun plays on you; and your bosom breathes, as sublimely as of old, eternal life; but that life is not of this world. You seem to me to-day a mournful waste; not a boat, not a sail, not a sign of man's existence. All is desolate!

"Yes, Ammalát," he added; "I am tired of your ever-angry, lonely sea—of your country peopled with diseases, and with men who are worse than all maladies in the world. I am weary of the war itself, of invisible enemies, of the service shared with unfriendly comrades. It is not enough that they impeded me in my proceedings—they spoiled what I ordered to be done—they found fault with what I intended, and misrepresented what I had effected. I have served my sovereign with truth and fidelity, my country and this region with disinterestedness; I have renounced, a voluntary exile, all the conveniences of life, all the charms of society; have condemned my intellect to torpidity, being deprived of books; have buried my heart in solitude; have abandoned my beloved; and what is my reward? When will that moment arrive, when I throw myself into the arms of my bride; when I, wearied with service, shall repose myself under my native cottage-roof, on the green shore of the Dniéper; when a peaceful villager, and a tender father, surrounded by my relations and my good peasants, I shall fear only the hail of heaven for my harvests; fight only with wild-beasts? My heart yearns for that hour. My leave of absence is in my pocket, my dismission is promised me.... Oh, that I could fly to my bride!… And in five days I shall for certain be in Geórgieffsk. Yet it seems as if the sands of Libya, a sea of ice–as if the eternity of the grave itself, separated us!"

Verkhóffsky was silent. Tears ran down his cheeks; his horse, feeling the slackened rein, quickened his pace—and thus the pair alone, advanced to some distance from the detachment.... It seemed as if destiny itself surrendered the colonel into the hands of the assassin.

But pity penetrated the heart of Ammalát, maddened as he was, and burning with wine—like a sunbeam falling in a robber's cave. He beheld the sorrow, the tears of the man whom he had so long considered as his friend, and hesitated. "No!" he thought, "to such a degree as that it is impossible to dissimulate...."

At this moment Verkhóffsky started from his reverie, lifted up his head, and spoke to Ammalát. "Prepare yourself: you are to go with me!"

Unlucky words! Every thing good, every thing noble, which had arisen anew in Ammalát's breast, was crushed in a moment by them. The thought of treachery—of exile—rushed like a torrent through his whole being "With you!" he replied, with a malicious smile—"with you, and into Russia?—undoubtedly: if you go yourself!" and in a passion of rage he urged his horse into a gallop, in order to have time to prepare his arms; suddenly turned back to meet him; flew by him, and began to ride rapidly in a circle around him. At each stride of his horse, the flame of rage burned more fiercely within him: it seemed as if the wind, as it whistled past him, kept whispering "Kill, kill! he is your enemy. Remember Seltanetta!" He brought his rifle forward from his shoulder, cocked it, and encouraging himself with a cry, he galloped with blood-thirsty decision to his doomed victim. Verkhóffsky, meanwhile, not cherishing the least suspicion, looked quietly at Ammalát as he galloped round, thinking that he was preparing, after the Asiatic manner, for the djigítering (equestrian exercises.)

"Fire at your mark, Ammalát Bek!" he exclaimed to the murderer who was rushing towards him.

"What mark can be better than the breast of a foe?" answered Ammalát Bek, riding up, and at ten paces' distance pulling the trigger!… the gun went off: and slowly, without a groan, the colonel sank out of his saddle. His affrighted horse, with expanded nostrils and streaming mane, smelt at his rider, in whose hands the reins that had so lately guided him began to stiffen: and the steed of Ammalát stopped abruptly before the corpse, setting his legs straight before him. Ammalát leaped from his horse, and, resting his arms on his yet smoking gun, looked for several moments steadfastly in the face of the murdered man; as if endeavouring to prove to himself that he feared not that fixed gaze, those fast-dimming eyes—that fast-freezing blood. It would be difficult to understand—'twere impossible to express the thoughts which rolled like a whirlwind through his breast. Saphir Ali rode up at full gallop; and fell on his knees by the colonel—he laid his ear to the dying man's mouth—he breathed not—he felt his heart—it beat not! "He is dead!" cried Saphir Ali in a tone of despair. "Dead! quite dead!"

"So much the better … My happiness is complete!…" exclaimed Ammalát, as if awakening from a dream.

"Happiness for you—for you, fratricide! If you meet happiness, the world will take to Shaitán instead of Allah."

"Saphir Ali, remember that you are not my judge!" said Ammalát fiercely, as he put his foot into the stirrup: "follow me!"

"May remorse alone accompany you, like your shadow! From this hour I am not your companion."

Pierced to the very bottom of his heart by this reproach from a man to whom he had been from infancy bound by the closest ties, Ammalát uttered not a word, but pointing to his astounded nóukers in the ravine, and perceiving the pursuit begun, dashed into the mountains like an arrow.

The alarm soon spread through the advanced guard of the detachment: the officers, who were in front, and the Don Kazáks, flew to the shot, but they came too late. They could neither prevent the crime nor seize the flying assassin. In five minutes the bloody corpse of the treacherously murdered colonel was surrounded by a crowd of officers and soldiers. Doubt, pity, indignation were written on all their faces. The grenadiers, leaning on their bayonets, shed tears, and sobbed aloud: unflattering drops poured above the brave and much-loved chief.

CHAPTER XIII

For three days and nights did Ammalát wander about the mountains of Daghestán. As a Mussulman, even in the villages subject to the Russian dominion, he was safe from all pursuit among people for whom robbery and murder are virtues. But could he escape from the consciousness of his own crime? Neither his heart nor his reason could find an excuse for his bloody deed; and the image of Verkhóffsky falling from his horse, presented itself unceasingly before his eyes, though closed. This recollection infuriated him yet more, yet more tortured him. The Asiatic, once turned aside from the right road, travels rapidly over the career of villany. The Khan's command, not to appear before him but with the head of Verkhóffsky, rang in his ears. Without daring to communicate such an intention to his nóukers, and still less relying on their bravery, he resolved upon travelling to Derbénd alone. A darksome and gloomy night had already expanded it ebon wings over the mountains of Caucasus which skirt the sea, when Ammalát passed the ravine which lay behind the fortress of Narín-Káli, which served as a citadel to Derbénd. He mounted to the ruined turret, which once formed the limit to the Caucasian war that had extended through the mountains, and tied his horse at the foot of that hill from which Yermóloff had thundered on Derbénd when but a lieutenant of artillery. Knowing where the Russian officers were buried, he came out upon the upper burial-ground. But how to find the new-made grave of Verkhóffsky in the darkness of the night? Not a star glimmered in the sky: the clouds lay stretched on the hills, the mountain-wind, like a night-bird, lashed the forest with its wing: an involuntary shudder crept over Ammalát, in the midst of the region of the dead, whose repose he dared to interrupt. He listens: the sea murmurs hoarsely against the rocks, tumbling back from them into the deep with a sullen sound. The prolonged "slóushai" of the sentinels floated round the walls of the town, and when it was silent there rose the yell of the jackals; and at last all again was still—every sound mingling and losing itself in the rushing of the wind. How often had he not sat awake on such nights with Verkhóffsky—and where is he now! And who plunged him into the grave! And the murderer was now come to behead the corpse of his former friend—to do sacrilege to his remains—like a grave-robber to plunder the tomb—to dispute with the jackal his prey!

"Human feeling!" cried Ammalát, as he wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, "why visitest thou a heart which has torn itself from humanity? Away, away! Is it for me to fear to take off the head of a dead man, whom I have robbed of life! For him 'twill be no loss—to me a treasure. Dust is insensible!"

Ammalát struck a light with a trembling hand, blew up into a flame some dry bourián, (a dry grass of South Russia,) and went with it to search for the new-made grave. The loosened earth, and a large cross, pointed out the last habitation of the colonel. He tore up the cross, and began to dig up the mound with it; he broke through the arch of brickwork, which had not yet become hardened, and finally tore the lead from the coffin. The bourián, flaring up, threw an uncertain bloody-bluish tinge on all around. Leaning over the dead, the murderer, paler than the corpse itself, gazed unmovingly on his work; he forgot why he had come—he turned away his head from the reek of rottenness—his gorge rose within him when he saw the bloody-headed worms that crawled from under the clothes. Interrupted in their loathsome work, they, scared by the light, crept into a mass, and hid themselves beneath each other. At length, steeling himself to the deed, he brandished his dagger, and each time his erring hand missed its aim. Nor revenge, nor ambition, nor love—in a word, not one of those passions which had urged him to the frenzied crime, now encouraged him to the nameless horror. Turning away his head, in a sort of insensibility he began to hew at the neck of Verkhóffsky—at the fifth blow the head parted from the trunk. Shuddering with disgust, he threw it into a bag which he had prepared, and hastened from the grave. Hitherto he had remained master of himself; but when, with his dreadful treasure, he was scrambling up, when the stones crumbling noisily under his feet, and he, covered with sand, fell backwards on Verkhóffsky's corpse, then presence of mind left the sacrilegious. It seemed as if a flame had seized him, and spirits of hell, dancing and grinning, had surrounded him. With a heavy groan he tore himself away, crawled half senseless out of the suffocating grave, and hurried off, dreading to look back. Leaping on his horse, he urged it on, over rocks and ravines, and each bush that caught his dress seemed to him the hand of a corpse; the cracking of every branch, the shriek of every jackal, sounded like the cry of his twice-murdered friend.

Wherever Ammalát passed, he encountered armed bands of Akoushlínetzes and Avarétzes, Tchetchenétzes just arrived, and robbers of the Tartar villages subject to Russia. They were all hurrying to the trysting-place near the border-limits; while the Beks, Ouzdéns, and petty princes, were assembling at Khourzákh, for a council with Akhmet Khan, under the leading, and by the invitation of whom, they were preparing to fall upon Tárki. The present was the most favourable moment for their purpose: there was abundance of corn in the ambárs, (magazines,) hay in the stacks, and the Russians, having taken hostages, had established themselves in full security in winter-quarters. The news of Verkhóffsky's murder had flown over all the hills, and powerfully encouraged the mountaineers. Merrily they poured together from all sides; every where were heard their songs of future battles and plunder; and he for whom they were going to fight rode through them like a runaway and a culprit, hiding from the light of the sun, and not daring to look any one in the face. Every thing that happened, every thing that he saw, now seemed like a suffocating dream—he dared not doubt, he dared not believe it. On the evening of the third day he reached Khounzákh.

Trembling with impatience, he leaped from his horse, worn out with fatigue, and took from his saddle-straps the fatal bag. The front chambers were filled with warriors; cavaliers in armour were walking up and down, or lay on the carpets along the walls, conversing in whispers; but their eyebrows were knit and cast down—their stern faces proved that bad news had reached Khounzákh. Nóukers ran hurriedly backwards and forwards, and none questioned, none accompanied Ammalát, none paid any attention to him. At the door of the Khan's bed-chamber sate Zoúrkhai-Khan-Djingká, the natural son of Sultan Akhmet, weeping bitterly. "What means this?" uneasily demanded Ammalát. "You, from whom even in childhood tears could not be drawn—you weep?"

Zoúrkhai silently pointed to the door, and Ammalát, perplexed, crossed the threshold. A heart-rending spectacle was presented before the new-comer's eyes. In the middle of the room, on a bed, lay the Khan, disfigured by a fierce illness; death invisible, but inevitable, hovered over him, and his fading glance met it with dread. His breast heaved high, and then sank heavily; his breath rattled in his throat, the veins of his hands swelled, and then shrank again. In him was taking place the last struggle of life with annihilation; the mainspring of existence had already burst, but the wheels still moved with an uneven motion, catching and entangling in each other. The spark of memory hardly glimmered in him, but fitfully flashed like falling stars through the darkness of night, which thickened over his soul, and reflected themselves in his dying face. His wife and daughter were sobbing on their knees by his bed-side; his eldest son, Noútsal, in silent despair leaned at his feet, resting his head on his clenched fists. Several women and nóukers wept silently at a distance.

All this, however, neither astounded Ammalát nor recalled him to himself, occupied as he was with one idea: he approached the Khan with a firm step, and said to him aloud—"Hail, Khan! I have brought you a present which will restore a dead man to life. Prepare the bridal. Here is my purchase-money for Seltanetta; here is the head of Verkhóffsky!" With these words he threw it at the Khan's feet.

The well-known voice aroused Sultan Akhmet from his last sleep: he raised his head with difficulty to look at the present, and a shudder ran like a wave over his body when he beheld the lifeless head. "May he eat his own heart who treats a dying man with such dreadful food!" he murmured, scarce intelligibly. "I must make my peace with my enemies, and not–Ah, I burn, I burn! Give me water, water! Why have you made me drink scalding naphtha? Ammalát, I curse you!" This effort exhausted the last drops of life in the Khan; he fell a senseless corpse on the pillow. The Khansha had looked with horror on the bloody and untimely present of Ammalát; but when she saw that this had hastened her husband's death, all her grief broke out in a torrent of anger. "Messenger of hell!" she exclaimed, her eyes flashing, "rejoice; these are your exploits; but for you, my husband would never have thought of raising Avár against the Russians, and would have now been sitting in health and quiet at home; but for you, visiting the Ouzdens, he fell from a rock and was disabled; and you, blood-drinker!—instead of consoling the sick with mild words, instead of making his peace with Allah by prayers and alms—bring, as if to a cannibal, a dead man's head; and whose head? Thy benefactor's, thy protector's, thy friend's!"

"Such was the Khan's will," in his turn replied Ammalát.

"Do not slander the dead; defile not his memory with superfluous blood!" screamed the Khansha: "not content with having treacherously murdered a man, you come with his head to woo my daughter at the deathbed of her father, and you hoped to receive a recompense from man, when you deserved the vengeance of God. Godless, soulless being! No! by the graves of my ancestors, by the swords of my sons, I swear you shall never be my son-in-law, my acquaintance, my guest! Away from my house, traitor! I have sons, and you may murder while embracing them. I have a daughter, whom you may bewitch and poison with your serpent looks. Go, wander in the ravines of the mountains; teach the tigers to tear each other; and dispute with the wolves for carcasses. Go, and know that my door opens not to a fratricide!"

Ammalát stood like one struck by lightning: all that his conscience had indistinctly whispered to him had been spoken out to him at once, and so unexpectedly, so cruelly. He knew not where to turn his eyes: there lay the head of Verkhóffsky with its accusing blood—there was the threatening face of the Khan, printed with the seal of a death of torture—there he met the stern glance of the Khansha.... The tearful eyes of Seltanetta alone appeared like stars of joy through a rainy cloud. To her he resolved to approach, saying timidly, "Seltanetta, for you have I committed that for which I lose you. Destiny wills it: be it so! One thing tell me—is it possible that you, too, have ceased to love me—that you, too, hate me?"

The well-remembered voice of the beloved pierced her heart: Seltanetta raised her eyes glistening with tears—eyes full of woe; but on seeing Ammalát's dreadful face, spotted with blood, she covered them again with her hand. She pointed with her finger at her father's corpse, at the head of Verkhóffsky, and said, with firmness, "Farewell, Ammalát! I pity thee; but I cannot be thine!" With these words she fell senseless on her father's body.

All his native pride, all his blood, rushed to Ammalát's heart; his soul fired with fury. "Is it thus I am received?" casting a scornful glance at both the women; "is it thus that promises are fulfilled here? I am glad that my eyes are opened. I was too simple when I prized the light love of a fickle girl—too patient when I hearkened to the ravings of an old woman. I see, that with Sultan Akhmet Khan have died the honour and hospitality of his house!"

He left the room with a haughty step. He proudly gazed in the face of the Ouzdens, grasping the hilt of his dagger as if challenging them to combat. All, however, made way for him, but seemingly rather to avoid him than from respect. No one saluted him, either by word or sign. He went forth into the court-yard, called his nóukers together, silently mounted into the saddle, and slowly rode through the empty streets of Khounzákh.

From the road he looked back for the last time upon the Khan's house, which was blackening in the darkness, while the grated door shone with lights. His heart was full of blood; his offended pride fixed in its iron talons, while the useless crime, and the love henceforth despised and hopeless, poured venom on the wounds. Grief, anger, and remorse mingled in the glance which he threw on the harem where he first saw, and where he lost, all earthly joy. "And you, and you, Seltanetta!" he could utter no more. A mountain of lead lay on his breast; his conscience already felt that dreadful hand which was stretched forth against it. The past terrified him; the future made him tremble. Where will he rest that head on which a price is set? What earth will give repose to the bones of a traitor? Nor love, nor friendship, nor happiness, will ever again be his care; but a life of misery, a wanderer's bread....

Ammalát wished to weep, his eyes burned … and, like the rich man tormented in the fire, his heart prayed for one drop, one tear, to quench his intolerable thirst.... He tried to weep, and could not. Providence has denied this consolation to the guilty.

And where did the murderer of Verkhóffsky hide himself? Whither did he drag his wretched existence? No one knew. In Daghestán it was reported that he wandered among the Tchetchenétzes and Koi-Sou-Boulinétzes, having lost his beauty, his health, and even his bravery. But who could say this with certainty? Little by little the rumours about Ammalát died away, though his villanous treachery is still fresh in the memory of Russians and Mussulmans who dwell in Daghestán. Even now his name is never pronounced without a reproach.