"That is, if you had taken it into your head to refuse him, he would have had your ears cropped; but you will not work for me, in the hope that I would not dare to do the same. Very well, my friend! I certainly will not crop your ears, but be assured that I will warm that orthodox back of yours with two hundred pretty stinging nogaikas (lashes with a whip) if you won't leave off your nonsense—do you hear?"

"I hear—and I answer as I did before: I will not shoe the horse—for I am a good Mussulman."

"And I will make you shoe him, because I am a good soldier. As you have worked at the will of your Bek, you shall work for the need of a Russian officer—without this I cannot proceed. Corporals, forward!"

In the mean time a circle of gazers had been extending round the obstinate blacksmith, like a ring made in the water by casting a stone into it. Some in the crowd were disputing the best places, hardly knowing what they were running to see; and at last more cries were heard: "It is not fair—it cannot be: to-day is a holiday: to-day it is a sin to work!" Some of the boldest, trusting to their numbers, pulled their caps over their eyes, and felt at the hilts of their daggers, pressing close up to the Captain, and crying "Don't shoe him, Alékper! Do nothing for him: here's news, my masters! What new prophets for us are these unwashed Russians?" The Captain was a brave man, and thoroughly understood the Asiatics. "Away, ye rascals!" he cried in a rage, laying his hand on the butt of his pistol. "Be silent, or the first that dares to let an insult pass his teeth, shall have them closed with a leaden seal!"

This threat, enforced by the bayonets of some of the soldiers, succeeded immediately: they who were timid took to their heels—the bolder held their tongues. Even the orthodox blacksmith, seeing that the affair was becoming serious, looked round on all sides, and muttered "Nedjelaim?" (What can I do?) tucked up his sleeves, pulled out from his bag the hammer and pincers, and began to shoe the Russian's horse, grumbling between his teeth, "Vala billa beetmi eddeem, (I will not do it, by God!)" It must be remarked that all this took place out of Ammalát's presence. He had hardly looked at the Russians, when, in order to avoid a disagreeable rencontre, he mounted the horse which had just been shod, and galloped off to Bouináki, where his house was situated.

While this was taking place at one end of the exercising ground, a horseman rode up to the front of the reposing soldiers. He was of middling stature, but of athletic frame, and was clothed in a shirt of linked mail, his head protected by a helmet, and in full warlike equipment, and followed by five noúkers. By their dusty dress, and the foam which covered their horses, it might be seen that they had ridden far and fast. The first horseman, fixing his eye on the soldiers, advanced slowly along the piles of muskets, upsetting the two pyramids of fire-arms. The noúkers, following the steps of their master, far from turning aside, coolly rode over the scattered weapons. The sentry, who had challenged them while they were yet at some distance, and warned them not to approach, seized the bit of the steed bestridden by the mail-coated horseman, while the rest of the soldiers, enraged at such an insult from a Mussulman, assailed the party with abuse. "Hold hard! Who are you?" was the challenge and question of the sentinel. "Thou must be a raw recruit if thou knowest not Sultan Akhmet Khan of Avár,"²⁷ coolly answered the man in mail, shaking off the hand of the sentry from his reins. "I think last year I left the Russians a keepsake at Báshli. Translate that for him," he said to one of his noúkers. The Aváretz repeated his words in pretty intelligible Russian.

"'Tis Akhmet Khan! Akhmet Khan!" shouted the soldiers. "Seize him! hold him fast! down with him! pay him for the affair of Báshli²⁸—the villains cut our wounded to pieces."

"Away, brute!" cried Sultan Akhmet Khan to the soldier who had again seized the bridle of his horse—"I am a Russian general."

"A Russian traitor!" roared a multitude of voices; "bring him to the Captain: drag him to Derbend, to Colonel Verkhóffsky."

"'Tis only to hell I would go with such guides!" said Akhmet, with a contemptuous smile, and making his horse rear, he turned him to the right and left; then, with a blow of the nogaik,²⁹ he made him leap into the air, and disappeared. The noúkers kept their eye on the movements of their chief, and uttering their warcry, followed his steps, and overthrowing several of the soldiers, cleared a way for themselves into the road. After galloping off to a distance of scarce a hundred paces, the Khan rode away at a slow walk, with an expression of the greatest sang-froid, not deigning to look back, and coolly playing with his bridle. The crowd of Tartars assembled round the blacksmith attracted his attention. "What are you quarrelling about, friends?" asked Akhmet Khan of the nearest, reining in his horse.

In sign of respect and reverence, they all applied their hands to their foreheads when they saw the Khan. The timid or peaceably disposed among them, dreading the consequences, either from the Russians or the Khan, to which this rencontre might expose them, exhibited much discomfiture at the question; but the idle, the ruffian, and the desperate—for all beheld with hatred the Russian domination—crowded turbulently round him with delight. They hurriedly told him what was the matter.

"And you stand, like buffaloes, stupidly looking on, while they force your brother to work like a brute under the yoke!" exclaimed the Khan, gloomily, to the bystanders; "while they laugh in your face at your customs, and trample your faith under their feet! and ye whine like old women, instead of revenging yourselves like men! Cowards! cowards!"

"What can we do?" cried a multitude of voices together; "the Russians have cannon—they have bayonets!"

"And ye, have ye not guns? have ye not daggers? It is not the Russians that are brave, but ye that are cowards! Shame of Mussulmans! The sword of Daghestán trembles before the Russian whip. Ye are afraid of the roll of the cannon; but ye fear not the reproach of cowardice. The fermán of a Russian prístav³⁰ is holier to you than a chapter of the Koran. Siberia frightens you more than hell. Did your forefathers act, did your forefathers think thus? They counted not their enemies, they calculated not. Outnumbered or not, they met them, bravely fought them, and gloriously died! And what fear ye? Have the Russians ribs of iron? Have their cannon no breach? Is it not by the tail that you seize the scorpion?" This address stirred the crowd. The Tartar vanity was touched to the quick. "What do we care for them? Why do we let them lord it over us here?" was heard around. "Let us liberate the blacksmith from his work—let us liberate him!" they roared, as they narrowed their circle round the Russian soldiers, amidst whom Alékper was shoeing the captain's horse. The confusion increased. Satisfied with the tumult he had created, Sultan Akhmet Khan, not wishing to mix himself up in an insignificant brawl, rode out of the crowd, leaving two noúkers to keep alive the violent spirit among the Tartars, while, accompanied by the remainder, he rode rapidly to the ootakh³¹ of Ammalát.

"Mayest thou be victorious," said Sultan Akhmet Khan to Ammalát Bek, who received him at the threshold. This ordinary salutation, in the Circassian language, was pronounced with so marked an emphasis, that Ammalát as he kissed him, asked, "Is that a jest or a prophecy, my fair guest?"

"That depends on thee," replied the Sultan. "It is upon the right heir of the Shamkhalát³² that it depends to draw the sword from the scabbard."

"To sheath it no more, Khan? An unenviable destiny. Methinks it is better to reign in Bouináki, than for an empty title to be obliged to hide in the mountains like a jackal."

"To bound from the mountains like a lion, Ammalát; and to repose, after your glorious toils, in the palace of your ancestors."

"To repose? Is it not better not to be awakened at all?

"Would you behold but in a dream what you ought to possess in reality? The Russians are giving you the poppy, and will lull you with tales, while another plucks the golden flowers of the garden."³³

"What can I do with my force?"

"Force—that is in thy soul, Ammalát!... Despise dangers and they bend before you.... Dost thou hear that?" added Sultan Akhmet Khan, as the sound of firing reached them from the town. "It is the voice of victory!"

Saphir-Ali rushed into the chamber with an agitated face.

"Bouináki is in revolt," he hurriedly began; "a crowd of rioters has overpowered the detachment, and they have begun to fire from the rocks."³⁴

"Rascals!" cried Ammalát, as he threw his gun over his shoulder. "How dared they to rise without me! Run, Saphir-Ali, threaten them with my name; kill the first who disobeys."

"I have done all I could to restrain them," said Saphir-Ali, "but none would listen to me, for the noúkers of Sultan Akhmet Khan were urging them on, saying that he had ordered them to slay the Russians."

"Indeed! did my noúkers say that?" asked the Khan.

"They did not say so much, but they set the example," said Saphir-Ali.

"In that case they have done well," replied Sultan Akhmet Khan: "this is brave!"

"What hast thou done, Khan!" cried Ammalát, angrily.

"What you might have done long ago!"

"How can I justify myself to the Russians?"

"With lead and steel.... The firing is begun.... Fate works for you ... the sword is drawn ... let us go seek the Russians!"

"They are here!" cried the Captain, who, followed by two men, had broken through the disorderly ranks of the Tartars, and dashed into the house of their chief. Confounded by the unexpected outbreak in which he was certain to be considered a party, Ammalát saluted his enraged guest—"Come in peace!" he said to him in Tartar.

"I care not whether I come in peace or no," answered the Captain, "but I find no peaceful reception in Bouináki. Thy Tartars, Ammalát, have dared to fire upon a soldier of mine, of yours, a subject of our Tsar."

"In very deed, 'twas absurd to fire on a Russian," said the Khan, contemptuously stretching himself on the cushions of the divan, "when they might have cut his throat."

"Here is the cause of all the mischief, Ammalát!" said the Captain, angrily, pointing to the Khan; "but for this insolent rebel not a trigger would have been pulled in Bouináki! But you have done well, Ammalát Bek, to invite Russians as friends, and to receive their foe as a guest, to shelter him as a comrade, to honour him as a friend! Ammalát Bek, this man is named in the order of the commander-in-chief; give him up."

"Captain," answered Ammalát, "with us a guest is sacred. To give him up would be a sin upon my soul, an ineffaceable shame upon my head; respect my entreaty; respect our customs."

"I will tell you, in your turn—respect the Russian laws. Remember your duty. You have sworn allegiance to the Tsar, and your oath obliges you not to spare your own brother if he is a criminal."

"Rather would I give up my brother than my guest, Sir Captain! It is not for you to judge my promises and obligations. My tribunal is Allah and the padishah! In the field, let fortune take care of the Khan; but within my threshold, beneath my roof, I am bound to be his protector, and I will be!"

"And you shall be answerable for this traitor!"

The Khan had lain in haughty silence during this dispute, breathing the smoke from his pipe: but at the word "traitor," his blood was fired, he started up, and rushed indignantly to the Captain.

"Traitor, say you?" he cried. "Say rather, that I refused to betray him to whom I was bound by promise. The Russian padishah gave me rank, the sardar³⁵ caressed me—and I was faithful so long as they demanded of me nothing impossible or humiliating. But, all of a sudden, they wished me to admit troops into Avár—to permit fortresses to be built there; and what name should I have deserved, if I had sold the blood and sweat of the Aváretzes, my brethren! If I had attempted this, think ye that I could have done it? A thousand free daggers, a thousand unhired bullets, would have flown to the heart of the betrayer. The very rocks would have fallen on the son who could betray his father. I refused the friendship of the Russians; but I was not their enemy—and what was the reward of my just intentions, my honest counsels? I was deeply, personally insulted by the letter of one of your generals, whom I had warned. That insolence cost him dear at Báshli ... I shed a river of blood for some few drops of insulting ink, and that river divides us for ever."

"That blood cries for vengeance!" replied the enraged Captain. "Thou shalt not escape it, robber!"

"Nor thou from me!" shouted the infuriated Khan, plunging his dagger into the body of the Captain, as he lifted his hand to seize him by the collar. Severely wounded, the officer fell groaning on the carpet.

"Thou hast undone me!" cried Ammalát, wringing his hands. "He is a Russian, and my guest!"

"There are insults which a roof cannot cover," sullenly replied the Khan. "The die is cast: it is no time to hesitate. Shut your gate, call your people, and let us attack the enemy."

"An hour ago I had no enemy ... there are no means now for repulsing them ... I have neither powder nor ball ... The people are dispersed."

"They have fled!" cried Saphir-Ali in despair. "The Russians are advancing at full march over the hill. They are close at hand!"

"If so, go with me, Ammalát!" said the Khan. "I rode to Tchetchná yesterday, to raise the revolt along the line ... What will be the end, God knows; but there is bread in the mountains. Do you consent?"

"Let us go!" ... replied Ammalát, resolvedly.... "When our only safety is in flight, it is no time for disputes and reproaches."

"Ho! horses, and six noúkers with me!"

"And am I to go with you?" said Saphir-Ali, with tears in his eyes—"with you for weal or woe!"

"No, my good Saphir-Ali, no. Remain you here to govern the household, that our people and the strangers may not seize every thing. Give my greeting to my wife, and take her to my father-in-law, the Shamkhál. Forget me not, and farewell!"

They had barely time to escape at full gallop by one gate, when the Russians dashed in at the other.