IMAR'S TALE--LOVE
"Perhaps you have gathered from my words already some idea of the
character of Shamyl. An idea, and not a perception, was all that his
dearest friends could have of him, because he had no dear friends at
all. And yet he was a man of warm nature, and kept nobody at a distance
from him; neither was there any haughtiness, though abundance of
rudeness, about him. Men put up with the latter, and even like it (when
shown to their friends) and talk pleasantly about it, and the little
ruffle passes over, every one expecting that his friend will be the next
to get it. But cold universal arrogance makes the greatest of
mankind--if such can show it--universally detested.
"I believe that Shamyl was by nature kind,--though he did some
abominably brutal things,--and that if he had not taken into his head,
or had it put there by flatterers, that Allah had breathed into him the
breath of Mohammed, he would have been one of the noblest, as well as
the purest perhaps, of patriots. Peace be with him, for he was at least
sincere, which cannot be said of all leading minds, and he understood
other men at a glance, though he may not have looked very much into his
own man.
"I fear that it may be ungrateful on my part not to speak even more
highly of him. For he took a great liking to me in his way, although I
was not of his creed; neither did I pretend to any personal hatred of
the Russians, who are generally very kind of nature,--more so perhaps
than we are,--and only did their duty in shooting us straightforwardly.
Neither did I pretend to any special love of him, but carried out his
orders as a soldier should, unless they were worse than even war
demands, in which case I told him to seek elsewhere. Therefore I was
surprised, as much as any man acquainted with him could be surprised,
when he took me aside one day and said: 'Sûr Imar, I have an important
mission for thee, which I would intrust to no other. Many of my officers
are rough and wild, and have no command over themselves with women. My
son is a prisoner with the Russians; and I have a noble scheme for
recovering him, and perhaps a hundred thousand crowns to boot. But it is
a dangerous enterprise, and must be carried out with proper delicacy to
ladies.'
"This was a very high compliment to me, being still a young man in the
fervour of my days; but the Captain had heard of stern actions of mine,
when some of his men had shown rudeness to those who could not take up
arms to protect themselves.
"'Thou hast the best horse in the army,' he continued, with his deep
eyes fixed upon my glowing cheeks, as the spirit of adventure began to
rise, 'and there is not a stronger man among us, neither one to surpass
thee in activity. All this will be needed, and boldness too, tempered
with skill and discretion. I would go myself, for the work is worthy of
me, but I cannot leave the camp just now. My design is to carry off from
their summer encampment all the ladies of the Russian and the Georgian
Court. Not a hair of their heads shall be harmed, and we will treat them
as princesses, but hold them for the ransom of my dear son, and a good
round sum for the military chest. The Powers of the West have been
stingy to us, when we might have done them excellent service; but we
will make the Russian bear supply a little grease for our bullets; for
the ladies are of the highest rank. But the whole scheme fails, if even
one of them should be ill-treated.'
"This was the only point about which I felt uneasiness; but he gave me
permission, and even clear orders, to shoot on the spot any man who
misbehaved. And when he allowed me to take fifty of my tribe, as well as
fifty chosen men of his, my only anxiety was to start as soon as
arrangements could be made, and before any rumour of our plans should
get abroad. For I knew all those southern stretches of the mountains
well, and that perhaps induced him to appoint me in command.
"He told me that trusty friends near the Georgian capital had informed
him that the early summer heat had made the city in the deep hollow by
the river almost unbearable for ladies of the north; and therefore the
wives and daughters of the principal Russian officers, together with the
noblest of the Georgian women, had been sent to a cooler spot among the
hills in the healthy district of Kahiti, celebrated for its vineyards.
Little expecting any danger there so far from the Lesghian outposts,
they were lodged in a pleasant place under canvas, guarded by a scanty
detachment of Cossacks, most of whom had been invalided from the war.
Pounce upon them suddenly, and what could they do but scream? Even this
they would not do very long, according to Shamyl's opinion, but soon be
happy when they found themselves made much of, and enjoy the romance of
the situation, and the high price put upon them. This prediction, to my
surprise, proved wonderfully correct; for many of the younger ladies
permanently added to the beauty of our country and the quality of its
inhabitants; while those who preferred restoration declared that they
would have no higgling about them,--if their husbands attempted to
cheapen their price, let them even remain among the gallant men who put
them at a higher figure. But this is a later matter, and I only mention
it to show the good feeling we created.
"Litters, and light carts, and other conveyances were sent in advance of
us over the worst places, with orders to wait in a valley we described;
and with all the best horses we could procure, we set forth at sunrise
one summer morning, so as to traverse the most dangerous part of the
journey in good daylight. We rode very leisurely to keep our horses
fresh, until in the afternoon of the second day, we halted in a hollow
of the lower mountains to make a good meal, and learn more exactly where
the encampment of the ladies was. Here were a hundred of us, all good
horsemen, and accustomed to despise the enemy,--not for want of courage,
but for want of wit. In courage they were quite our equals, for they
never seemed to care much about their lives; but when briskness and
readiness turned the issue, the vigour of the free man could upset the
bulk of serfs. This we had proved a hundred times against the weight of
numbers.
"Being in command of this dainty enterprise, and having to prove that I
was not too young, which always puts a youth upon his very finest
mettle, I took all the precautions of an old commander. Ordering all the
others to keep close, and having only Stepan and the best of our guides
with me, I proceeded very carefully afoot along the course of a stream
from the hills, which had worn a deep channel. We knew where the ladies
ought to be; and though a man must not rely too much on that, sure
enough there they were by the dozen. Their encampment was pitched upon a
very pretty knoll, not more than a long eyeshot from the nearest bend of
the watercourse we crouched in. I put my red plume between my knees, and
watched them, being surprised at the beauty of their dress, and the far
greater beauty of their figures. The proudest radiance of the Russian
Court was there, and the softer charms of Georgia; and I was glad not to
see those lovely faces, which it would be my duty to bedew with tears so
soon.
"Having counted their tents, three of which were royal, and made myself
sure of their position, I left all those beauties at their tea outside,
with the sunset casting their shadows down the slope, and saying to
myself, 'Where will you have your breakfasts, Mesdames?' stole back with
my two comrades, to make ready for this prize. Stepan, who was always
full of strong ideas, and never confined them to himself, did his utmost
to convince me that the wisest plan was to let all these houris go
snugly to bed, and then catch them up as they were in their first
slumber, and whirl them away on our saddles. But I could not bear to
think of this outrage on their modesty; and one figure in a silver pink
dress was in my mind,--the youngest and the loveliest of all I had
descried. Therefore I made ready to descend upon these ladies before
they should begin to retire for the night, which they would not do until
they had supped well and probably played their games of cards.
"We had little fear of sentries, for there were not more than a dozen,
and no sign of any horse-patrol about; and even of the few fellows
lounging round the tents, and ordered to keep at a proper distance from
them, we got rid by the old device of sending a boy on a donkey with a
flagon of vodka on either side. They showed their alacrity by robbing
him of these, and then retiring to their hut, with the officer on duty
to take first pull. When the moon was up, and we rode softly over the
sod of alluvial ground, the only challenge we received was the screech
of a Russian drinking-chorus round the corner of the trees. Without
firing a shot, or disturbing a dog, we surrounded the camp of the fair
ones, and called upon them to surrender. At the same time we entreated
them to prepare in silence for their departure with us, if they valued
the lives of their guardians.
"This exhortation was of no effect. Amazement and terror quite overcame
their natural discretion, and we found it impossible to parley with
them. So great was the outcry that we stood aghast, till those faithful
Cossacks came running, or rather staggering to the rescue, which
restored our power of action. We bound them in couples to convenient
trees with some ropes we had brought for the purpose; and then as the
ladies still declined to join us, we wrapped all the most important of
them in their cloaks, and placed them on our horses. In this they
assisted us to some extent, by kindly disclosing the rank of each other.
Thus we obtained all who were of any value from a financial point of
view, twenty-two of sterling substance; and at their entreaty and
assurance of amendment we took a domestic for each of them, and turned
our horses' heads towards the glen where the vehicles awaited us.
"My instructions were to leave no room for doubt as to our possession of
six Princesses, whose names I will not give, because most of them, I
trust, are still alive, and none the worse for their captivity. Enough
that they were of exalted rank, and in command--as the Russian ladies
contrive to be--of the Commanders of the army opposed to us. Therefore,
before we started, I stood upon the terrace in front of the tents, with
our horses pawing the turf, which was almost a novel treat to them, and
the white moon making a picture of us. And there with great deference
and courtesy, I called over from the list provided me the names of their
incomparable Highnesses, the Princess O----, and the Princess D----,
&c.; and each of them made answer according to temperament, and sense of
resignation to the will of Heaven. Then I gave the word to start, and
remained the last, to bring up the rear as in duty I was bound.
"But suddenly a slender and timid figure came gliding, as if in the
haste of despair, from the shadow of a tent, and stood close to me. It
was the lovely maiden in the silver-pink attire, and she drew her veil
partly aside, and glanced in the clear moonlight at my face, and then
dropped her dark eyes, and then lifted them again with quivering tears
like a suppliant--'Oh, Captain, am I to be left behind?'
"'Lady, have no fear,' I said very gently, and half afraid to look again
at her; 'you shall not be left unguarded. But tell me who you are, the
fairest and the youngest of so many.'
"'Alas, sir, I am not worth money now,' she answered with her white
hands clasped together; 'there is none of my race to pay ransom now.
There is not even a wealthy friend, to help, or to shelter Oria.'
"'The Princess Oria, the lily-bud of Kajori, the last of the Royal House
of Georgia, to which the race of Rurik is a mushroom! Princess Oria, I
do you homage.'
"As I made her a low salute, which I would not have offered to the Czar
himself, she turned away as if she would not see it, and a soft sob made
me feel afraid. This was not one of your haughty mesdames, who let the
men fancy that they carry them by storm, while they laugh in their own
proud breasts, with knowledge that they are the Masters, as soon as they
like. I could hear the Princess D. in the distance, rating the man who
carried her on the cushion provided in front of him, and I knew that he
had a bad time of it.
"'What are the commands of your Royal Highness?' I asked, with an
emphasis on the title, which she alone of the proud bevy could claim.
'Behold, I am proud to be your slave.'
"She rose to the remembrance of her childhood, when she had been made
much of, as the last descendant of Queen Tamara; and then her pride
melted into a flood of tears, and the sense of helpless maidenhood. She
tried to say something, but it only came to sobs.
"'Trust yourself to me,' I said, 'I cannot leave you here at the mercy
of drunken Cossacks. I am Sûr Imar of the Lesghians, not a Moslem, but a
Christian. By the body of Christ, none shall harm you, while I live.'
"There was no time for further adjurations. She bowed her beautiful
head, and drew down her long veil, and in a moment the love of my life
was in my arms, and on the soft pillow in front of me, with my horse at
full gallop, in the broad stretch of the moon. Like an image of marble
she lay before me, and I touched her as if she were an image of glass.
The troopers were astonished when we overtook them, but they knew better
than to say a word, or down they would have gone, Russian Princess and
all. For I was not in the cue to stand insolence. Having given my orders
I kept in the rear, grudging even the moon between the bars of shadow a
glimpse at the figure in my precious trust. But no man can think of such
things, and then tell them. For, they only come once in the nightmare of
life.
"Shamyl was delighted, when we brought him his fair prisoners, and he
did his very best in his peasant style to be courteous and polite to
them. As the leader of the expedition I had the privilege of introducing
them; and it was really a fine thing to see how they behaved to him, and
he to them. He gave himself airs which made me smile; and before so much
rank and beauty--infidel though it might be--he forgot for the moment
that he was the Prophet of the Lord. And as for the ladies, although
they were bound in consistency to abhor him, not only did they forego
the attempt, but all who had rank to make such a claim decent, insisted
upon having a lock of his hair.
"In a word, the Princesses were all so happy, when by means of a flag of
truce they had received from their friends a large supply of raiment and
other luxuries, that the hope of getting a first-rate figure for them
was endangered. Instead of frantic adjurations, and despairing
outcries, their letters now were full of bright descriptions and gay
narratives; and proud as we were of their good opinions, we could not
afford them to that extent. It became needful on this behalf to send the
fair captives to a duller place, to some desolate spot, where even a
woman could not contrive to see much of the world. Darghi, in the depths
of Daghestan, and far away even from the echoes, was a place of so lofty
a character that the fashions of the Ark were as valid as the latest
announced from Paris; and thither I was ordered to conduct these ladies,
for the creation of discontent among them, the scenery being beautiful,
but sparsely populated. And if the love of Nature were by any means as
potent in the Russian breast as the English ladies now declare it to
have grown in theirs, perfect happiness should have been the lot of
these fair Princesses. There was nothing to disturb them, beauty reigned
on every side; and beauty should have reigned within.
"But alas that human nature never, at least in its feminine state and
form, finds satisfaction in the outward type! Among the rugged
mountains, and with frequent shift, and much discomfort, these fair
creatures had been bright, and cheerful, and perilously amiable. A flag
on a rock, or a drum at the corner, or the flash of a helmet in the
hollow, was enough to send their active minds into fifty pleasant
flutters. But here they had no stir of war, no delightful dreads to
rouse them, only the depths of lonely peace, and the repose, for which
they had so often sighed. For a day or two, they tried to enjoy it, and
spoke of the pleasures of their childhood, and roved about in cotton
jackets as if they were longing to be peasants. Our duty was to defend
them only, and never interfere with them, so long as they kept within
certain bounds; and we gave them no cause to complain of us; but
endeavoured to do our duty well, as sentries of so many money-bags.
"Strange as it must appear, there was nothing that irritated them more
than this. They could not bear to be regarded in that light, and being
too proud to come out of it themselves, what did they do but send their
maids--they may not have meant it, but so it came to pass--to produce a
flirtation among my men. Precautions had been taken (as we thought)
against any process of that sort, by detailing for this custody only
grizzled veterans, who had wives at home, and could not understand a
single word of Russian. But this, though a step in the right direction,
did not go quite far enough; and several of our villagers beyond the
prime of life behaved in a manner more appropriate to their sons. So
that I found myself compelled, in the proper discharge of my office, to
use increasing diligence from day to day. For one of the Russian ladies,
being the mother of two little girls, had obtained permission to bring
her favourite French governess, as lively a girl as ever lived, and
acquainted with half-a-dozen languages. This Mademoiselle de J----,--for
I will show her the same consideration as her wealthier comrades,--was
perpetually forming little plots of the wildest and most romantic kind,
for the escape of all the captive band. With a view to that, she took
upon herself to inspect me closely, every time I came to a little gate,
newly put across the pass, by my special orders, which had created much
offence inside. There was no other way, by which these ladies, who now
placed every confidence in me, could manage to get away at all, without
perpendicular motion; unless it were the narrow winding passage leading
into a sombre wood, and there I had 'Wolves!' painted up in great
Russian capitals, so that few feminine eyes had the courage even to look
at the signboard. And this is how it should be with them. For we do not
wish them to be like us.
"I was trying to get out of that condition of the mind, into which I had
been cast by a very few words, and still fewer glances from that lovely
Princess Oria, whom I remembered as a very little maiden leading some
procession, when I was a lad at Tiflis. If ever any boy has any heart to
lose, when it ought to be gone upon play and mischief, mine had taken a
sally out of me at sight of that young darling, trying to walk in a
stately manner as she had been instructed, and resolute to bring her
soft innocent self to the stiffness of the great occasion. How I had
longed to lift her up among them and shout--'This is your Queen, if you
had a spark of courage. Behold the pink eagle on her shoulder!'
"But now it was a very different thing. The duty of an officer in trust
was laid upon me, and if the men of Georgia would not stand up for their
race, what had any outer tribe to do with it? The main point before me
was to conquer foolish yearnings, and behave as a figure made of steel
and leather. And without the interference of that glittering little
governess, the rapture and the anguish of my life would not have been.
"I came down the narrow pass one evening towards dusk, to see to the
posting of the sentinels, and to receive any message from the ladies,
concerning their welfare and their general ideas; for they were
beginning to write very craving letters and entreaties that would move a
heart of stone, to husbands and fathers who were made of money, to
rescue them from this seclusion. All these we forwarded, and Shamyl
calculated that every letter would be worth to us a thousand roubles on
the average. But money was not in my thoughts at all, and even the sense
of duty fled, when I saw through the bars not the French woman only, but
a figure very closely veiled, and endeavouring not to be seen in the
twilight of a rock.
"'Poor little soul! She will die, she will die;' said the lady from
Paris, with a very light sigh, as if with the thought that we must all
do that. 'Those fat Princesses, what is it then? They are punishing her
to the death. Poor little one! But why do I speak to Monsieur the
Commander? Monsieur the Commander will rejoice in that occurrence,
because the poor little one is not endowed with gold. Alas, it is so
everywhere, except in France!'
"'Young lady, allow me to enter. It is my place to see to the safety of
you all. I have not entered after sundown hitherto. But stand aside,
lady, or you may be harmed.'
"She saw that I would break the gate open at a thrust,--for we allowed
them to lock themselves in at night. 'Monsieur the Commander, how
imperious he is!' she exclaimed with a wicked smile, as she turned the
key. I thanked her, and then put my arm across the passage as the other
young lady seemed about to fly. 'Pardon, fair Princess, but I cannot
have it thus,' I said, with an attempt to look official; 'I am not your
warder only, but your guardian. You trusted yourself to my care that
night. A thousand Shamyls shall not take you from me. Can you not trust
yourself to me again? Have I given you reason to regret it? I have
longed to be with you every moment; but have I ever dared to approach
you?' I spoke in her native language, which was very delightful to her
ears after so much Russian.
"'Speak then with good courage, thou silly child. Tell the brave
Commander all the insults piled upon thee by the proud and fat
Princesses. Alas, good Heaven, there they are calling me again! Who
would not think that I was born to be their slave? Brave Commander, the
time is now for thee.' With these words away ran Mademoiselle de J----.
"Then Oria spoke, without shrinking from me, and her voice was as clear
as the melody of a river when the Winter has released it, and the Spring
is on its banks.
"'Sûr Imar, thou hast been very good to me. If I placed no confidence in
such a kind defender, never could I hope to be defended any more. But
now I am safe among all these great ladies; I am not one of those who
shriek at every shadow.'
"'To that I can bear witness,' I answered very softly, to remind her of
the night when she lay upon my horse; 'but what can I do, if the
Princess will not trust me?'
"At this gentle reproach all her generous nature sprang forth, like the
sun in a tempest. She threw aside her veil, and came close to me, and
was not afraid to fix her eyes on mine. 'Sûr Imar, is that faith
enough?' she asked, as she gave me her soft hand long enough to last for
many an hour of dreaming. 'It is all I can ask for the present,' I
replied, and she turned away her face, but not her form.
[Illustration: "_She turned away her face._"]
"Fearing to bring her into contumely among her proud companions, whose
voices we could hear not far away, I retired from the gate with the
proper martial tread; but not before I had obtained her promise to meet
me on the morrow at the foot of the winding passage into the black wood;
but she was not to venture up the path, until she saw me there; for
truly there had been a wolf prowling near it, according to the children
of the peasants. Therefore I had taken care to keep our golden ladies
from risking ten thousand good crowns perhaps apiece to the cause of
freedom (which they were ready to embrace, as soon as they knew both
sides of it), by venturing into those gaunt and lonely shadows, where no
man could hear them while being devoured.
"In this assurance I had every hope of treating confidentially the
position of the Princess Oria; and if that desirable wolf would only
form number three at the interview, who could say what might come of it?
But even his youngest cub, if he had any, might have regarded me with
contempt, if he had seen the condition I was in, while waiting for the
footstep of my love; for they look at such matters in a less submissive
way.
"Unworthy as I was of the joy I then attained, even the pleasure of
remembering it would be justly taken from me, if I lowered it by any
ordinary words. For any one else it seems enough to know that after some
talk of affairs in general, and trifles we pretended to be full of, my
beauty, my darling, my gift from Heaven, my own and my only love
confessed--that I was as much to her as she could be to me."
* * * * *
At this point, the Lesghian Prince became unable to proceed with his
narrative. I felt that I should have been ten times worse, if I had won
and then lost his daughter. So I grasped his strong hand, which was
trembling not a little, and hoping that soft memories might subside to
gentle sympathies, departed with my love for him increased, and my
reverence not diminished. When I saw him next, he had gathered up his
courage, and was a little ashamed of his own breakdown. And he tried to
tell the rest of his sad story, as if it were the sorrow of a cousin or
a comrade.