by Leo Tolstoy
‘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 Ghazavát! 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 a 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 Murád 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.
Khanéfi’s song reminded him of the song his mother had composed just after he was born – the song addressed to his father that Hadji Murád had repeated to Lóris-Mélikov.
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, Yusúf, whose head he himself had shaved for the first time; and now this Yusúf was a handsome young dzhigít. He pictured him as he was when last he saw him on the day he left Tselméss. Yusúf 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 wide 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 Murád, who admired his son.
‘Thou hadst better stay. Thou wilt be alone at home now. Take care of thy mother and thy grandmother,’ said Hadji Murád. And he remembered the spirited and proud look and the flush of pleasure with which Yusúf had replied that as long as he lived no one should injure his mother or grandmother. All the same, Yusúf had mounted and accompanied his father as far as the stream. There he turned back, and since then Hadji Murád 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 Murád 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 Eldár. 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.
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 Bogdanóvich, though neither time did they discover or kill anyone. This closeness to and friendship with Bogdanóvich, famed for his courage, seemed pleasant and warlike to Butler. He had paid his debt, having borrowed the money off 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 Márya Dmítrievna, 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 Baryátinsky intended to effect an advance right through Chechnya, which had till then been considered impassable. In that detachment were two companies of the Kabardá regiment, and according to Caucasian custom these were treated as guests by the Kurín 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 Kurín 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 Petróv, very drunk and no longer red but ashy 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 favourite 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 Márya Dmítrievna 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.’
Márya Dmítrievna 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 Márya Dmítrievna, 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 Nikoláevich Kámenev, an officer who had formerly served with the major and whom Márya Dmítrievna therefore knew.
‘Is that you, Peter Nikoláevich?’ said she, addressing him.
‘It’s me,’ said Kámenev. ‘Ah, Butler, how d’you do?… Not asleep yet? Having a walk with Márya Dmítrievna! You’d better look out or the major will give it you.… Where is he?’
‘Why, there.… Listen!’ replied Márya Dmítrievna pointing in the direction whence came the sounds of a tulumbas28 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 Ká
menev laughed.
By this time they had reached the major’s house.
‘Chikhirév,’ shouted Kámenev 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 Kámenev, dismounting.
The Cossack also dismounted, and took a sack out of his saddle-bag. Kámenev took the sack from him and inserted his hand.
‘Well, shall I show you a novelty? You won’t be frightened, Márya Dmítrievna?’
‘Why should I be frightened?’ she replied.
‘Here it is!’ said Kámenev 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 moustaches, 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.
Márya Dmítrievna 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 Murád 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 Kámenev, 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 Kámenev.
‘And I have brought you Hadji Murád’s head,’ said Kámenev.
‘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, Kámenev, 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.
Márya Dmítrievna was sitting on the second step. She looked round at Butler and at once turned angrily away again.
‘What’s the matter, Márya Dmítrievna?’ 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 Kámenev to tell them in detail how the thing had happened.
And Kámenev told them.
This is what had happened.
XXV
HADJI MURÁD was allowed to go out riding in the neighbourhood of the town, but never without a convoy of Cossacks. There was only half a troop of them altogether in Nukhá, ten of whom were employed by the officers, so that if ten were sent out with Hadji Murád (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 Murád was asked not to 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 Murád pretended not to hear, touched his horse, and the commander did not insist.
With the Cossacks rode a non-commissioned officer, Nazárov, 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, Nazárov, keep close to him!’ shouted the commander.
‘All right, your honour!’ answered Nazárov, 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: Ferapóntov, tall and thin, a regular thief and plunderer (it was he who had sold gunpowder to Gamzálo); Ignátov, a sturdy peasant who boasted of his strength, though he was no longer young and had nearly completed his service; Míshkin, a weakly lad at whom everybody laughed; and the young fair-haired Petrakóv, 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 Murád 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 Murád touched up his white Kabardá 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 Ferapóntov. ‘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 Nazárov.
‘You get ahead? A likely thing!’
Hadji Murád kept increasing his pace.
‘Hey, kunák, you mustn’t do that. Steady!’ cried Nazárov, starting to overtake Hadji Murád.
Hadji Murád looked round, said nothing, and continued to ride at the same pace.
‘Mind, they’re up to something, the devils!’ said Ignátov. ‘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 Nazárov.
Hadji Murád did not answer or look round, but only increased his pace to a gallop.
‘Humbug! You won’t get away!’ shouted Nazárov, 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 Murád.
The sky was so bright, the air so clear, and life played so joyously in Nazárov’s soul as, becoming one with his fine strong horse, he flew along the smooth road behind Hadji Murád, that the possibility of anything sad or dreadful happening never occurred to him. He rejoiced that with every step he was gaining on Hadji Murád.
Hadji Murád 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 Kabardá horse which was excited by hearing the tramp of hoofs behind it.
‘You mustn’t, I tell you!’ shouted Nazárov, almost level with Hadji Murád 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.
Nazárov hung on the neck of his horse, which careered round his comrades. The horse under Ignátov fell, crushing his leg, and two of the mountaineers, without dismounting, drew their swords and hacked at his head and arms. Petrakóv 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.
Míshkin turned round and galloped off towards the fortress. Khanéfi 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.
Petrakóv 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.
Gamzálo having finished off Ignátov with his sword, gave a cut to Nazárov too and threw him from his horse. Bata took their cartridge-pouches from the slain. Khanéfi wished to take Nazárov’s horse, but Hadji Murád called out to him to leave it, and dashed forward along the road. His murids galloped after him, driving away Nazárov’s horse that tried to follow them. They were already among rice-fields more than six miles from Nukhá 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 Murád’s escape. ‘They’ve done for me! They’ve let him escape, the villains!’ cried he, listening to Míshkin’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 Murád 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.