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 outmanoeuvred 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."