[Illustration: A PRISONER.
_To face page_ 82.]
fellow-officers, gave his men four bucketfuls of vodka as a farewell
treat, and got ready to go.
There was a war in the Caucasus at the time. The roads were not safe by
day or by night. If a Russian ventured away from his fort, the Tartars
either killed him or took him off to the hills. So it had been arranged
that a body of soldiers should march from fortress to fortress to convoy
any person who wanted to travel. The soldiers marched in front and
behind; the travellers in between them.
It was summer. At daybreak the baggage-train was loaded behind the fort;
the convoy came out and started along the road. Jilin was on horseback;
his things were on a cart with the baggage-train.
They had about twenty miles to go. The baggage-train moved along slowly;
now the soldiers would stop, now a wheel came off a cart, now a horse
would refuse to go on, and then everybody had to wait.
It was already past noon and they had not covered half the distance. It
was hot, dusty, the sun scorching and no shade at all--bare steppe,
with not a tree or a bush the whole way.
Jilin rode on ahead and stopped to wait until the baggage-train should
catch him up. He heard the signal-horn sounded; the company had stopped
again. Jilin thought, “Why shouldn’t I go on alone without the soldiers?
I have a good horse, and if I come across any Tartars I can easily
gallop away. I wonder if it would be safe?”
As he stood there thinking it over, another officer, by the name of
Kostilin, rode up with a rifle and said, “Let us go on alone, Jilin. I’m
dreadfully hungry, and the heat’s unbearable. My shirt is wringing wet.”
Kostilin was a big man and stout; his face was burning red, and the
perspiration poured from his brow.
Jilin deliberated for a moment and said, “Is your rifle loaded?”
“It is.”
“Very well; come along. Only the condition is to be that we don’t
part.”
And they set off down the road alone. They were riding along the steppe
talking together and keeping a sharp look-out from side to side. They
could see a long way round them. When they left the steppe they came to
a road running down a valley between two hills. And Jilin said, “Let’s
go up on that hill and look about; some Tartars might easily spring out
from the hills and we shouldn’t see them.”
“What’s the use?” Kostilin said. “We’d better go on.”
Jilin paid no heed to him.
“You wait down here,” he said, “and I’ll just go up and have a look.”
And he turned his horse to the left up the hill. Jilin’s horse was a
hunter and carried him up the hill as though it had wings. He had bought
it for a hundred roubles as a colt, and broken it in himself. When he
reached the top of the hill he saw some thirty Tartars a few paces ahead
of him. He turned hastily, but the Tartars had seen him and gave chase
down the hill, getting their rifles out as they went. Jilin bounded
down as fast as the horse’s legs would carry him, crying out to
Kostilin, “Get your rifle ready!” And in thought he said to his horse,
“Get me out of this, my beauty; don’t stumble, or I’m lost. Once I reach
the rifle, they shan’t take me alive!”
But Kostilin, instead of waiting when he saw the Tartars, set off full
gallop in the direction of the fortress, lashing his horse now on one
side, now on the other, and the horse’s switching tail was all that
could be seen of him in the clouds of dust.
Jilin saw that it was all up with him. The rifle was gone; with a sword
alone he could do nothing. He turned his horse in the direction of the
convoy, hoping to escape, but six Tartars rushed ahead to cut him off.
His horse was a good one, but theirs were better, and they were trying
to cross his path. He wanted to turn in another direction, but his horse
could not pull up and dashed on straight towards the Tartars. A
red-bearded Tartar on a grey horse caught Jilin’s eyes. He was yelling
and showing his teeth and pointing his rifle at him.
“I know what devils you are!” Jilin thought. “If you take me alive,
you’ll put me in a pit and have me flogged. I’ll not be taken alive!”
Though Jilin was a little man, he was brave. He drew his sword and
dashed at the red-bearded Tartar, thinking, “I’ll either ride him down
or kill him with my sword.”
But he had no time to reach the Tartar; he was fired at from behind and
his horse was hit. It fell to the ground full weight, pinning Jilin’s
leg. He attempted to rise, but two evil-smelling Tartars were already
sitting on him, twisting his arms behind him. He struggled, flung the
Tartars off, but three others leapt from their horses and fell on him,
beating him on the head with the butt ends of their rifles. A mist rose
before his eyes and he staggered. The Tartars seized him, and taking
spare girths from their saddles twisted his hands behind him and tied
them with a Tartar knot and dragged him to the saddle. They knocked off
his cap, pulled off his boots, searched him all over, took his money and
watch and tore his clothes. Jilin looked round at his horse. The poor
creature lay on its side just as it had fallen, struggling with its legs
in the air and unable to get them to the ground. There was a hole in its
head from which the dark blood was oozing, laying the dust for a yard
around.
One of the Tartars approached it and took off the saddle. As it was
still struggling, he drew a dagger and cut its windpipe. A whistling
sound came from its throat; the horse gave a shudder and died.
The Tartars took off the saddle and strappings. The red-bearded Tartar
mounted his horse, the others lifted Jilin into the saddle behind him,
and, to prevent his falling off, they strapped him to the Tartar’s
girdle, and took him off to the hills.
Jilin sat behind the Tartar, rocking from side to side, his face
touching the evil-smelling Tartar’s back. All he could see was the
man’s broad back and sinewy neck, the closely-shaven bluish nape peeping
out from beneath his cap. Jilin had a wound in his head, from which the
blood poured and congealed over his eyes, but he could not shift his
position on the saddle, nor wipe off the blood. His arms were twisted so
far behind his back that his collar-bones ached. They rode over the
hills for some time, then they came to a river which they forded and got
out on to a road running down a valley. Jilin wanted to see where they
were going, but his eyes were matted with blood and he could not move.
It began to get dark; they forded another river and rode up a rocky
hill; there was a smell of smoke and a barking of dogs. They had reached
a Tartar village. The Tartars got off their horses; the Tartar children
gathered round Jilin, yelling and throwing stones at him. A Tartar drove
them away, took Jilin off the horse and called his servant. A man with
high cheek-bones came up, clad in nothing but a shirt, and that so torn
that his breast was bare. The Tartar gave him some order. The man
brought some shackles, two blocks of oak with iron rings attached, and a
clasp and lock was fixed to one of the rings.
They untied Jilin’s arms, put on the shackles, took him to a shed,
pushed him in and locked the door. Jilin fell on to a dung heap. He
groped about in the darkness to find a softer place and lay down.