*CHAPTER XLV.*
It was at length the same to me,
Fettered or fetterless to be,
I learned to love despair.
And thus when they appeared at last,
And all my bonds aside were cast,
Those heavy walls to me had grown
A heritage--and all my own!
BYRON.
Situated on a rocky slope, under the shadow of the hills of Karaba
Yaila, stand the town and castle of Kourouk.
Built by the Genoese upon the ruins of a fortress erected by a khan of
the house of Zingis (under whom the Crimea became an independent
monarchy in 1441), the castle had been in its glory in the days when
Genoa the superb was mistress of the coasts of Asia, and the islands of
Cyprus, Lesbos, and Scio; but when Mohammed II. conquered
Constantinople, he destroyed all the colonies of the Genoese republic
upon the shores of the Euxine.
The defenders of the Castle of Kourouk, under a Scottish soldier of
fortune, made a gallant resistance; but were all put to the sword, and
their skulls are now built into a portion of the rampart which faces
Mecca. The rocks of red and white marble on which it stands have been
excavated, like those of its contemporary, the old Genoese Castle of
Balaclava, into magazines and stately chambers, the sides of which are
covered with coloured designs in stucco.
The two old round towers of the Genoese days were crowned by Russian
cupolas--one striped like a melon, the other cut into facets, like a
pineapple, all red and yellow alternately, and each surmounted by a
glittering cross. These, with the great white banner of St. Andrew,
with its blue saltire over all, made Kourouk look gay at a distance.
Within all was grim and sombre enough.
The garrison consisted of a four-company battalion of Russian infantry,
under a _chef-de-bataillon_, named Vladimir Dahl, a tall,
grisly-moustached old soldier, who wore on his breast the embroidered
representation of a Turkish standard, which he had taken from the
Infidels, in the days of Navarino. Each of his companies consisted of
two hundred men, and belonged to a regiment three thousand strong. Such
corps are the usual Russian formation, and are commanded by a
_pulkovnick_, or colonel.
These troops wore long, loose, dirty-grey capotes, reaching to their
ankles. On their shoulders, and in front of their flat cloth caps, was
sewn a piece of green stuff, with the regimental number, 45; and this
was all their finery.
They were on parade in line as Corporal Pugacheff conducted me into the
fortress; and I thought them a strange array of sorry-looking wretches,
so stolid in aspect, that I was reminded of the traveller, who, on
seeing a Russian and a British regiment under arms in the same square at
Naples, exclaimed--
"There is but one face in that whole regiment, while in this" (pointing
to the British) "every soldier has a face of his own."
I was treated with the greatest respect and kindness by old Vladimir
Dahl and the officers of the 45th, or Tambrov Infantry, for the outrages
of the French at Kertch, and the infamous massacre of our seamen at
Hango, had not yet occurred to impart a bitterness to the war.
Neither he nor I knew the other's language; his _capitans_,
_fiarooschicks_, and _praperchicks_ (_i.e._, lieutenants and ensigns)
were in the same condition. Thus we had no means of communication, save
by clinking our glasses, and exchanging cigarettes, nods, winks, and
grins.
An old _Times_ newspaper was given to me. It was dated months back, and
detailed the battle of Oltenitza; but its columns had been carefully
purged by the censor of everything political--an ingenious process
achieved by gutta-percha and ground glass.
The reader has, perhaps, heard of how a farrier-sergeant of the Emperor
Alexander's Dragoon Guards predicted the destruction of the grand army
of Napoleon I., on being shown a horseshoe dropped by the retreating
cavalry of France.
"What! not frosted yet," he exclaimed, professionally, "and the snow to
fall to-morrow! Holy St. Sergius! these fellows don't know Russia!"
Vladimir Dahl was the son of the farrier-sergeant who thus predicted the
downfall of the enemies of Russia; and he was more proud of his father
than if he had been, like the best of the Muscovite nobles, descended
from Ruric the Norman.
The days passed slowly away. I might as well have been dumb, having no
one to converse with. I could not pass the castle gates, as every
avenue, angle, and outlet was guarded by snub-nosed Muscovites, in grey
capotes, with loaded rifles and fixed bayonets.
Hope of escape as yet I had none!
On the morning of the fourth day, a mounted Paulowna hussar delivered at
Kourouk a letter, with a shred of the feather of the quill with which it
had been written inserted among the wax of the seal--a Russian mode of
signifying speed.
It announced the arrival of General Baur, with all his staff. Baur had
been wounded in the encounter with our troops at Khutor-Mackenzie; and I
was very well pleased when the evening of the same day saw him ride into
Kourouk, of which I was heartily weary; and I was not without hopes that
the general, on remembering how we had released him after the Alma,
might do something for me in the way of exchanging or paroling me; and
in his aide-de-camp, the gay young Captain Anitchoff, of the Maria
Paulowna Hussars, I was glad to see a face that I knew, and to meet one
with whom I could converse.
The general had been wounded by a musket shot in the bridle arm. It was
severely inflamed. Ease had been recommended, so he had come to spend a
week or so at Kourouk, which was in his own military district; and on
the very evening of his arrival, Anitchoff brought me an invitation to
dine with him.
Anitchoff was eminently a handsome Russian. His eyes were dark, and had
a latent fire in them that showed some Tartar blood; the lids were full
and white, the lashes long and dark. His nose was straight and thin,
and his ponderous moustache was as black as his close-shaven hair, or
the wolf's fur that trimmed his light blue uniform.
My costume was of the most sorry description; but a few discrepancies
were made up by Vladimir Dahl, who, among other things, presented me
with a full uniform, silver epaulettes and all, of the Tambrov infantry.
French is not so much spoken in Russia as people in Britain suppose;
yet, luckily for me, General Baur and Anitchoff could speak it fluently.