STILL IN THE DARK
At midnight we stood by the door of the hut, and watched the broad bulk
of Stepan, and the slender slip of Allai, sliding away into white breath
among the black jaws of the mountains.
I thought that I had never seen so fair a night, so lovely, soft, and
kindly, offering guidance of bright stars among the pale blandishments
of the moon, opening avenues of lofty hope, compassionate to mortals.
With such glory full in view, and the grandeur of unknown realms beyond,
how could any of those, who have so short a time to dwell below, spend
it, or spare a moment of it, in the trivial worm-casts of rank and
money, which cannot even slime the scythe of death?
If Farmer Ticknor had been with us--that Ticknor, I mean, who had proved
himself so trenchant a Micaiah to the Official Zedekiah--perhaps we
might not have entered into this rapturous view of the heavens. Or
perhaps it was that we required a lesson. But whatever the explanation
is, the fact came far in front of it. When we tried to get up in the
morning, there was nothing to get up by except time, who sheds no light,
but spends the better part of himself in quenching it. Laden as we were
with sleep, whose freight we had not yet discharged, we said to one
another that a special relief was granted us. It was manifest that human
skill in the record of time had been overruled; the Powers that govern
day and night could not be set at nought by watchmakers. We blew out the
matches we had struck, and rolled on our backs for another snooze,
submissive to the will of Heaven.
How far we might have prolonged our snores, we never grew wide enough
awake to say. But the soft folds of darkness fell around us still, and
we closed our eyes beneath them, as a child submits to the kisses of his
mother. Then a mighty bellow, and a cackle, and a stamping, and a
shovelful of cold slush thrown into our faces made all of us jump up,
and stare about, and splutter, and every one swear, except, as I
heartily hope, myself.
It was the old village Starchina, or Starost, or whatever his dignity
may have been, in a state of mind so furious that it was true bliss to
be no linguist. Strogue made out some of his compound curses, but was
too wise to interpret them, or even to accept his own version; until
that most venerable and profane of men saw little advantage in cursing
himself. He flung down the shutter that served as a window, and poured
about a sackful of snow down our necks.
This might be the manner of the country; but we resented it all the more
for that, and spoke harshly of the place, and of all born near it, until
Strogue sat up on his very hard board, and stared, with his eyes as
close as burning glasses, at the old silver watch, "which a man could
work a ship by," and exclaimed--"By Jove, he is done for now, George! We
ought to have been at Karthlos by this time. However he is safe to go to
Heaven, according to your account of him."
Even cowardice is sometimes less contemptible than flippancy. But I made
no answer. My rage with myself was too deep to fly off into sparks
against others. What could it matter to Strogue, or Starost, or even to
Stepan himself, compared with me, with me, the snorer? If the noble man
who had treated me as his equal--clumsy clodhopper as I was--and his
daughter (the model of all love and grace) were butchered by savages
to-morrow, upon whose head would their blood lie?
Upon mine--for my accursed laziness, self-indulgence, wicked gladness to
believe the thing that I desired.
Then I went out, and looked for the sky which had been so blue, and the
earth which had been so green, wherever it was not brown rockiness.
Behold--there was nothing to behold--as Usi the Svân might have said of
it--but grey thickness, fleecy softness, multitudinous whirl above, and
vast whiteness, promiscuous glare, and slur of dazzle around us and
below. Not what the puzzled world is wont to call a _blizzard_, and fly
shuddering--for that only comes with a bitter blast, and is a mass of
pointed particles--but a genuine downright heavy snowfall (such as we
get in March sometimes, when we are sowing the pea-drill), big flakes,
thick flakes, like a shower of daisies, flinging their tufts in feathery
piles, and smothering one another. "It can't go on very long like this,"
says a man who has lost in half-a-minute the pattern of his coat and
trousers.
Certainly it could not in Surrey or in Kent; but here in the Caucasus it
proved that it could go on, long enough at any rate to bury all the
trackways, and turn jagged rocks into treacherous white rollers. If we
began (in our credulous greed for rest) with failing to know the time of
day, we went on with losing the way; and what was worse, if possible, we
lost the better part of our strength, through sprains, and strains, and
stumbles in the drift. Mishaps of the like sort had befallen the party
recruited by Stepan, although they had not overslept themselves as we
did; and instead of prompt muster to start together at noon from the
foot of Karthlos, we found that it was almost four o'clock before every
one was ready.
"To do any good, we must travel all night," said Stepan, as he swung his
heavy pack upon his rifle. "To travel all night on a turnpike road is
all very well," Strogue answered; "but who could do it here, my friend?
And sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If the snow stops us,
it will stop the other fellows."
I had indulged in this hope too; but the Lesghian's words were against
it. "No man can say, till his eyes give proof. But the storm came from
the east, and they seldom travel far in the summer-time. Like enough
there was not a flake on the western side of the Russian road. Ha!
Kobaduk, art thou coming too? Thy old limbs will tire, we shall have to
leave thee, even though thou hast that colt."
We had not climbed the steep to the tower, because time was so short,
and the old steward could not be of any service to us. Therefore it was
a great surprise when he slipped among us from a snowy corner, leading
a rough unsaddled colt, with a strap buckled over his loins to which a
sword was attached on one side, and a rusty old musket on the other. An
English crowd would have gibed, I fear, at the menacing aspect of this
feeble ancient, and even Strogue made no attempt to hide a grin; but the
Lesghians glanced at him kindly, and made room for him among them, and
he plodded on resolutely without a word, like a fatalist come to look
fate in the face.
Even in a small lot such as we were, and consisting chiefly of hardy
fellows, there must be--according to the varicose vein which runs
through all humanity--three or four at least of softer pith, or
eruptions that arise to the occasion, or some thing or other that goes
amiss. And not having one leg too many among us, or I might say less
than half the legs we wanted, our hard fortune was that the briskest
shank among us--which was not my own, though I did my best, and in
Surrey would have challenged any of them--was obliged to stick fast,
when it got too far ahead, and disguise its own gratitude for a thrill
of rest, by turning on its heel disdainfully. In a word, nearly all our
most excellent men, brave and zealous, and brought up from childhood to
a good stroke of speed after other people's cattle, had lost the best
part of their training, by compulsion--under Russian tyranny--to attend
to their own flocks and herds, instead of lifting their neighbour's.
Thus it was that we came at last to an elbow of the great Russian road,
which is a noble work, but not by any means such as we should make, if
we had the opportunity; and there we found a sample of what human nature
is. Having surmounted, by wonderful endurance and perpetual rivalry with
one another, obstacles that seemed insuperable, surely we should have
gone on with double spirit, when we came upon a Christian highway.
Instead of that, every blessed man sat down, and thanked Heaven--or in
truer truth thanked himself--for having got along so famously. It was
dark, as dark as one could ever wish to see it, down in this gorge of
magnificence, with the river roaring sleepy thunder, and the snow-clouds
spent, and the stars looking faint. I thought--as an Englishman thinks
by instinct--that men of our own race would not have stopped (at any
rate if there was money in it) and shut up in this sudden style.
However there was more excuse than help for it; and Stepan and myself,
the two who cared most deeply about the issue, tried to cheer each
other, so far as our mutual misunderstandings reached.
Then by a lucky chance the gallant miners (whom we should have missed
perhaps, if we had gone on at once) came into our camp, with light
hearts and merry songs, delighted at the prospect of a lively brush; for
so they all regarded it. Jack Nickols himself had been unable to resist
the fierce temptation, and gloomy would be the outlook for any foe who
crossed his sky-line, though I cannot recollect just now his celebrated
score at the "running deer."
It was terrible to me to find these fellows taking things so easily, not
through any callous inhumanity or indifference, but simply because their
own private interests were not immediately involved. For instance, the
way in which Nickols, and Cator, and Strogue discussed the situation was
enough to sponge out of my heart a great lump of that affection for the
human race without which a man becomes miserable. Weary as they were,
they found it needful to hold some little council, while they smoked
their pipes after supper, having settled that all should take four hours
of sleep if they could get it, and start again when the moon arose. I
sat in a corner and listened to them, refraining from all interruption,
though a great part of what they said was new to me; for if I had
spoken, some heat might have followed my words, and done mischief to all
of us.
_Strogue._ "I have always had the credit of seeing as far into a hayrick
as any man that ever sucked a coral. But this fiend of a woman beats me
hollow. I can't make out what her little game is."
_Nickols._ "Well, I can't see any difficulty about it. She wants her
brother's property, and to be the lady of the other tribe too, which she
would be as Dadian's daughter, if her brother Imar were done away with.
She will have him tried for the death of her husband, or get him shot
without trial. Then she has discharged her duty according to the rules
of the blood-feud, and she steps into poor Imar's shoes. To me it is
plainer than a pikestaff."
_Cator._ "All that looks straight enough, but it won't hold water. You
forget the pretty girl. Imar has a lovely daughter, and she would be the
head of the tribe, not Marva, when his goose is cooked."
_Nickols._ "That's true enough. But a woman with such a strong mind
wouldn't make much bones of that. Or rather she'd make bones of her in
no time. I am very sorry for that pretty girl. She is booked for a share
of her father's grave."
_Strogue._ "Naturally I look deeper into things than you young fellows
can. The real difficulty has escaped you both. The woman is bad enough
for anything. I know things of her that I won't tell, at any rate for
the present.
"But as for making away with her niece, there are two good reasons
against it. In the first place, the Russians would be almost certain to
punish Madam heavily, though perhaps they would not interfere, if Imar
alone were tried and condemned according to the usage of the country.
And then again, even if they let it pass, the Lesghians, who are a very
loyal race, would never accept Marva's rule, when she had slain their
Chief and his daughter. You have got the wrong story altogether,
according to my view of it. Her game is not quite so clumsy, though it
is a very bold one."
_Nickols._ "Captain, you are one of those men who get the right tip
always. Don't be shy,--that would scarcely become you. But tell us
exactly what you think; although it may be hard to square it with the
higher moralities."
_Strogue._ "You speak like a fool, as all boys do. But there is no time
to board-school you; and you are getting too old for that rot even. Now
listen to what I have to say, though beyond the present range of your
intellect. I have not dwelt among this mixed lot of savages; I have
simply passed through them in my usual course. You might live among them
till your hair grew white, and know less than you did when it was green.
Why? You are sharp enough in your way, and if you had started with a
humble mind, and kept it open, you might win knowledge. But that is not
fine enough for you. You start with your poor wits already ingrained and
case-hardened with the grease and suet of self-conceit, and nothing ever
sticks to you."
_Nickols_, and _Cator_, and _I_, in the corner, with unanimous
surprise: "Captain Strogue is the humblest of mankind, and therefore the
most omniscient!"
_Strogue._ "It is true, my friends; a great home-truth, and you shall
gather the fruits of it. I have penetrated this lady's scheme, and
deeply regret that so fine a woman, one of the handsomest I have ever
seen, should not behave with equal beauty. Having sent her brother to a
better world, she will bring his daughter to the altar as the bride of
her noble son--noble indeed to look at, but unable as yet to say Boh to
a goose. He will be the master nominally of all Imar's fair dominions,
which are as lovely as any in the world, when the snow allows a sight of
them. The real master, of course, will be a certain lady-friend of ours;
for you can see that from his cradle upwards she has cowed that
uncommonly fine young fellow, so that he dare not call his soul his own.
Upon my word I should not be surprised, when she has united these
central tribes, if she threw off the yoke of Russia, and proclaimed
herself Queen of the Caucasus, like a modern Tamara. All that is clear
enough, but the one thing I can't make out for the very life of me is,
why the dickens did she send us that scamp, whose real name is Hisar,
under the name of Hafer? She would not send the true Hafer of course,
lest when he had been away for months, and seen the ways of the polished
world, and how absolutely the children rule their parents, he might be
seized with emulation, and resolve to be master of his own domains, if
not of his own mother--though I am sorry for anybody who tries that. Now
tell me, ye who flatter yourselves that you can see further into a
milestone than Strogue who has beheld so many, what induced this artful
schemer to send Hisar to England in the name of Hafer, when for all that
we can see he might just as well have gone in his own name?"
_Nickols._ "I was never any hand at crooked dealing, though there is
plenty of it in our own line of business, but none with tip-toppers like
my uncle and me. We have a high character to sustain. Even supposing we
would stoop----"
_Cator._ "Stow that, Jack, we know it all by heart. But I can tell the
Captain one good reason why the lady's ambassador should be called
_Hafer_. Sûr Imar was bound to receive his own nephew, when he might
have refused to see a stranger. And to take him into their confidence,
and let him know their plans, and so on. All of which has enabled them
to make fools of his faithful retainers, and prisoners of himself and
his daughter."
_Strogue._ "With half an eye open, I saw every bit of that. But it does
not touch the real difficulty. Dariel is to marry the true Hafer. Very
well, let her, if she likes. He's a young man of grand appearance; and
that reconciles the women to a lot of disadvantages. But if she was
meant to belong to him, why let another fellow get the start with her?
Though women of decent age know better, a girl is sure to be romantic.
She piles wonders of imagination upon the first good-looking young
fellow who suggests how lovely, how lofty, how divine she is.
"She keeps him at a blushing distance, and looks as if she had not the
least idea where he is, and would turn her head away if he came up.
Bless their hearts, I know them all; though I never let them see it. I
could have had fifty Mrs. Strogues,--for they love a man who knows the
world,--some of them too with cash and houses. But none of that for me,
till I want nursing. Half-a-dozen Miss Strogues here and there, some
white, some black, and some the colour of an orange, or a good Mocha
berry that you can't get now--and they behave all the better to you when
they know that you can do without them. Simple truth, gentlemen. I am
not romantic."
This was too much for Jack Nickols, who was truly in love with his Rosa.
Too much even for Cator, though he had no love as yet to hold him. Young
Englishmen know right from wrong, though they do the wrong very often.
But they cannot bear to hear it boasted of. But to me, with Dariel in my
heart, purifying and ennobling it, bad as the time was for a row, I
should have deserved no better time, if I had been afraid of it. So I
marched up, and laid my hand upon him.
"Sir," I said, without a sign of anger,--for such stuff was not worth
it,--"what you deserve, both of men and women, is to die in a workhouse,
with Mrs. Gamp and Betsy Prig to close your eyes. Bad women there must
be, as well as bad men; but tell me which has made the other? I know you
better than to believe that you really think such wicked nonsense as you
talk, for the sake of seeming clever. Bartholomew Strogue is a better
man than that."
"I should not be much surprised if he was," the Captain answered
pleasantly; "and he can allow for babes and sucklings, who are the
happiest people after all. But come, my friends, I hear the sounds of
sleep, the grinding of the mill of slumber. How those gallant Lesghians
snore! If the Caucasus is the true cradle of our race, sleep must have
lost its silence before language was invented."