A certain gentleman was serving as an officer in the Caucasus. His name
was Zhilín.
One day he received a letter from home. His old mother wrote to him:
"I have grown old, and I should like to see my darling son before my
death. Come to bid me farewell and bury me, and then, with God's aid,
return to the service. I have also found a bride for you: she is bright
and pretty and has property. If you take a liking to her, you can marry
her, and stay here for good."
Zhilín reflected: "Indeed, my old mother has grown feeble; perhaps I
shall never see her again. I must go; and if the bride is a good girl, I
may marry her."
He went to the colonel, got a furlough, bade his companions good-bye,
treated his soldiers to four buckets of vódka, and got himself ready to
go.
At that time there was a war in the Caucasus. Neither in the daytime,
nor at night, was it safe to travel on the roads. The moment a Russian
walked or drove away from a fortress, the Tartars either killed him or
took him as a prisoner to the mountains. It was a rule that a guard of
soldiers should go twice a week from fortress to fortress. In front and
in the rear walked soldiers, and between them were other people.
It was in the summer. The carts gathered at daybreak outside the
fortress, and the soldiers of the convoy came out, and all started.
Zhilín rode on horseback, and his cart with his things went with the
caravan.
They had to travel twenty-five versts. The caravan proceeded slowly; now
the soldiers stopped, and now a wheel came off a cart, or a horse
stopped, and all had to stand still and wait.
The sun had already passed midday, but the caravan had made only half
the distance. It was dusty and hot; the sun just roasted them, and there
was no shelter: it was a barren plain, with neither tree nor bush along
the road.
Zhilín rode out ahead. He stopped and waited for the caravan to catch up
with him. He heard them blow the signal-horn behind: they had stopped
again.
Zhilín thought: "Why can't I ride on, without the soldiers? I have a
good horse under me, and if I run against Tartars, I will gallop away.
Or had I better not go?"
He stopped to think it over. There rode up to him another officer,
Kostylín, with a gun, and said:
"Let us ride by ourselves, Zhilín! I cannot stand it any longer: I am
hungry, and it is so hot. My shirt is dripping wet."
Kostylín was a heavy, stout man, with a red face, and the perspiration
was just rolling down his face. Zhilín thought awhile and said:
"Is your gun loaded?"
"It is."
"Well, then, we will go, but on one condition, that we do not separate."
And so they rode ahead on the highway. They rode through the steppe, and
talked, and looked about them. They could see a long way off.
When the steppe came to an end, the road entered a cleft between two
mountains. So Zhilín said:
"We ought to ride up the mountain to take a look; for here they may
leap out on us from the mountain without our seeing them."
But Kostylín said:
"What is the use of looking? Let us ride on!"
Zhilín paid no attention to him.
"No," he said, "you wait here below, and I will take a look up there."
And he turned his horse to the left, up-hill. The horse under Zhilín was
a thoroughbred (he had paid a hundred roubles for it when it was a colt,
and had himself trained it), and it carried him up the slope as though
on wings. The moment he reached the summit, he saw before him a number
of Tartars on horseback, about eighty fathoms away. There were about
thirty of them. When he saw them, he began to turn back; and the Tartars
saw him, and galloped toward him, and on the ride took their guns out of
the covers. Zhilín urged his horse down-hill as fast as its legs would
carry him, and he shouted to Kostylín:
"Take out the gun!" and he himself thought about his horse: "Darling,
take me away from here! Don't stumble! If you do, I am lost. If I get to
the gun, they shall not catch me."
But Kostylín, instead of waiting, galloped at full speed toward the
fortress, the moment he saw the Tartars. He urged the horse on with the
whip, now on one side, and now on the other. One could see through the
dust only the horse switching her tail.
Zhilín saw that things were bad. The gun had disappeared, and he could
do nothing with a sword. He turned his horse back to the soldiers,
thinking that he might get away. He saw six men crossing his path. He
had a good horse under him, but theirs were better still, and they
crossed his path. He began to check his horse: he wanted to turn around;
but the horse was running at full speed and could not be stopped, and he
flew straight toward them. He saw a red-bearded Tartar on a gray horse,
who was coming near to him. He howled and showed his teeth, and his gun
was against his shoulder.
"Well," thought Zhilín, "I know you devils. When you take one alive, you
put him in a hole and beat him with a whip. I will not fall into your
hands alive----"
Though Zhilín was not tall, he was brave. He drew his sword, turned his
horse straight against the Tartar, and thought:
"Either I will knock his horse off its feet, or I will strike the Tartar
with my sword."
Zhilín got within a horse's length from him, when they shot at him from
behind and hit the horse. The horse dropped on the ground while going at
full speed, and fell on Zhilín's leg.
He wanted to get up, but two stinking Tartars were already astride of
him. He tugged and knocked down the two Tartars, but three more jumped
down from their horses and began to strike him with the butts of their
guns. Things grew dim before his eyes, and he tottered. The Tartars took
hold of him, took from their saddles some reserve straps, twisted his
arms behind his back, tied them with a Tartar knot, and fastened him to
the saddle. They knocked down his hat, pulled off his boots, rummaged
all over him, and took away his money and his watch, and tore all his
clothes.
Zhilín looked back at his horse. The dear animal was lying just as it
had fallen down, and only twitched its legs and did not reach the ground
with them; in its head there was a hole, and from it the black blood
gushed and wet the dust for an ell around.
A Tartar went up to the horse, to pull off the saddle. The horse was
struggling still, and so he took out his dagger and cut its throat. A
whistling sound came from the throat, and the horse twitched, and was
dead.
The Tartars took off the saddle and the trappings. The red-bearded
Tartar mounted his horse, and the others seated Zhilín behind him. To
prevent his falling off, they attached him by a strap to the Tartar's
belt, and they rode off to the mountains.
Zhilín was sitting back of the Tartar, and shaking and striking with his
face against the stinking Tartar's back. All he saw before him was the
mighty back, and the muscular neck, and the livid, shaved nape of his
head underneath his cap. Zhilín's head was bruised, and the blood was
clotted under his eyes. And he could not straighten himself on the
saddle, nor wipe off his blood. His arms were twisted so badly that his
shoulder bones pained him.
They rode for a long time from one mountain to another, and forded a
river, and came out on a path, where they rode through a ravine.
Zhilín wanted to take note of the road on which they were travelling,
but his eyes were smeared with blood, and he could not turn around.
It was getting dark. They crossed another stream and rode up a rocky
mountain. There was an odour of smoke, and the dogs began to bark. They
had come to a native village. The Tartars got down from their horses;
the Tartar children gathered around Zhilín, and screamed, and rejoiced,
and aimed stones at him.
The Tartar drove the boys away, took Zhilín down from his horse, and
called a labourer. There came a Nogay, with large cheek-bones; he wore
nothing but a shirt. The shirt was torn and left his breast bare. The
Tartar gave him a command. The labourer brought the stocks,--two oak
planks drawn through iron rings, and one of these rings with a clasp and
lock.
They untied Zhilín's hands, put the stocks on him, and led him into a
shed: they pushed him in and locked the door. Zhilín fell on the manure
pile. He felt around in the darkness for a soft spot, and lay down
there.
[Illustration: "They rode off to the mountains"
_Photogravure from Painting by A. Kivshénko_]