OSMAN RIONI
Bismillah! there is but one God, and Mohammed is His prophet; and on
earth He is the powerful hand of Him who moveth the stars, who giveth
light to the sun, and throweth darkness on the souls of the Russian
unbelievers.
I am a Circassian, and, consequently, a Mohammedan, being a native of
those districts of the Caucasus which have waged a ceaseless war with
Russia--I mean that portion of our mountains which lies between
Tamrook and the strong fortress of Anapa, whose ramparts are washed
by the waves of the Euxine Sea. We are all soldiers from our birth;
thus, out of a population of three hundred thousand souls, our tribe
can at any time muster fifty thousand warriors, well mounted on fleet
Caucasian horses, and well armed, after our own fashion, in coats of
mail, with musket, bow and pistol, sabre, dagger, and cartridge box;
men, brave and handsome, and stubborn as their native rocks--men to
whom danger is a pastime, and death but the door to Paradise.
Thus the mountaineers of the Caucasus, though mustering only about
two millions of souls, have never stooped before a conqueror; but, in
the face of all the world, have hurled back the legions of the
Russian Empire, and maintained against it a struggle for fifty
years--a struggle which, when our valour and disparity of numbers on
one side are contrasted with the ferocity and overwhelming force on
the other, has no parallel in the history of the modern world. The
Russians name us the Tcherkesses, which means literally "those who
bar the way;" for never did a foreign host leave their cursed
foot-prints, on the summits of the Caucasus.
Our mountains have become the ramparts of Turkey and of Persia, as
our Declaration of Independence asserts; but they will become--unless
we are supported by Western Europe--the avenue to both! We
voluntarily submitted to the khans of the Crimea, and afterwards to
the sultans of Constantinople; but, alas! we have lost the chiefs,
whose banners could have summoned a hundred thousand warriors; yet
now are we all, as one man, united in a deep and undying hatred of
Russia! She has built forts on our territory, but dare her soldiers
venture a foot beyond their cannon? In short, sirs, Circassia is
free and independent; for neither the lying maps of Russia, which are
spread throughout the world, and which mark the Caucasus as her
territory, nor words, nor arts can enslave us. Arms may do it, but
the steel has never yet been forged, nor the cannon cast, that will
make the proud Circassian stoop his crest before the barbarous Russ!
Bismillah! The wild Tcherkesses are still free as the stormy wind
that sweeps from Azov down the Euxine.
My father Mostapha was a chief; the head of one of those princely
houses which are of Kabardian descent; his will was a law to his
people; and the booty he took in his wars with the fierce Tartars and
faithless Muscovites was the reward of their fidelity. We were
Christians once--many ages ago--but it pleased God to open our eyes
to the blessed precepts of Islam, and now we turn our faces to the
Kaaba when we pray. Many nobles followed the banner of my father,
whose territories extended along the base of the mountain steppes,
from Marinskoi to the banks of the Kisselbash River; but one night,
in the year 1807, the Russian General Goudivitch, with ten thousand
cavalry, burst among us; stormed Anapa, and gave our men to the
sword, our roofs to the flames, and our children to the wolf and the
eagle.
My father fought long and nobly; the war was desperate; the Russians
impaled their prisoners, and my father roasted his; but the tide of
battle turned against us. All our possessions became a prey to the
Russ, and our most beautiful damsels were given as wives or
handmaidens to those brutal Cossacks, whom the merciless Goudivitch
had brought from the banks of the Don. Azrael spread his dusky wings
over our beautiful country; all the land was burned up, and black as
night--being waste as a garden whose fruits have been gathered.
Then the new chain of forts was built along the Kuban. These marked
the extended boundary of the Russian territory, and the land of my
father was lost for ever; his bones lay unburied, where he had
fallen, sword in hand, on the threshold of his own door, pierced by
the same bayonets that slew his faithful wife; and their three
children, myself and two brothers, sole heirs to his hopes and his
harvest of vengeance, received the bread of charity from another
Circassian tribe, the friendly Abassians, who dwell between the
mountains and the Euxine.
Time rolled on, and from tending the flocks of the Abassians as
shepherd boys, my brothers Selim and Karolyi grew strong and hardy
men. The Abassians told us of our father's fate, and we longed to
avenge it, and to recover our lost patrimony. Day after day we spent
our time in acquiring the perfect use of arms, in talking of our
hopes, our projects, and desires; and often we looked with kindling
eyes towards those mountains, from whose summits the Muscovite
outposts were visible by the waters of the Kuban; for dear as war and
vengeance are the honour of his race and country to the proud and
free Tcherkesse.
We could soon ride the wildest Arab steeds, and gallop them without
bridle or saddle along giddy rocks, and through the untrodden forest.
None surpassed us in the use of the sabre, the poniard, or the
pistol; few equalled Selim in handling the heavy Albanian musket;
while Karolyi was matchless in the use of the Circassian sling; and
in my hands, the bow was as unerring as the best Frankish rifle. I
was older than my brave brothers by a few years, and thus became, in
somewise, their preceptor. We were poor, but ardent and full of
enthusiasm; we worked, begged, and bartered--we were never satisfied
until each of us was possessor of a fleet and active barb, a bright
steel coat of mail; a helmet of tempered iron, such as our warriors
wear, and which covers all the face, except the eyes and nose; a
curved sabre of keen Damascus steel; an Albanian musket; breast cases
to receive our cartridges; a sharp Circassian dagger, and a Tartar
bow: and when thus accoutred, our hearts would swell with fierce
emotion, as we reined up our steeds upon the hills above Anapa, and
shook our lances in defiance at the Russian steamers and frigates in
the Euxine, while we longed for the time when the war-cry of Islam
would ring among the hills, and we should behold the Sangiac Sheerif,
the green banner of our confederated princes, with its three golden
arrows and twelve white stars, unfurled against the barbarous Emperor
Nicholas Romanoff.
We loved each other strongly, dearly, and devotedly, my two brothers
and I, for we were alone in the world, the last of all our race.
Being the eldest, they frequently importuned me to marry, that I
might have children, and perpetuate our family; but I told them to
remember that it was the custom of our people for a prince to wed the
daughter of a prince; a noble to wed the daughter of a noble; a tocar
to wed the daughter of a tocar; and the poor serf to wed the daughter
of a serf. That I was neither prince nor tocar, noble nor serf, and
could not marry, being too poor to wed one in the rank of my father,
and too proud to stoop to a maiden beneath it. "Besides," I told
them, "we have other duties to perform than espousing wives, which
are ever a barrier to freedom of thought in peace, and bravery of
action in war; for the blessed Prophet said, that wives and children
were barriers to the performance of great deeds. God knoweth all
things, and will direct the heart of Osman. I will not marry yet
awhile, my brothers; for it is written that marriage disturbs a man
from his duty--the wedded care for the things of this world, even as
the unwedded care for those of heaven; and so we must watch and pray
for our country, to defend her from the infidel Russians, who, like
accursed locusts, blacken all the shores of the Kuban." Then my
brothers Selim and Karolyi kissed me on both cheeks, applauding my
resolution; and once more we shook our gauntletted hands in fierce
menace towards the ramparts of Anapa.
But ere long there occurred circumstances which altered my
resolution; for before the eyes of a beautiful woman the strongest
heart is weak as water.
One evening I was riding on the mountain slopes that overlook the
waters of the Euxine. The last rays of evening were lingering on
their peaks, and shedding a golden tint upon the waves that rolled
away towards the cliffs of the Crimea. At my feet lay Sundjik Bay,
glittering in the blaze of light that steeped sea, sky, and shore.
The snow-white walls of Anapa, which crown rocks a hundred feet in
height, were gleaming in the yellow sunshine, and grimly the black
iron cannon peered through the stone embrasures, or over the ramparts
of smoothly-shorn grass.
The flat-capped Russian sentinels, muffled in their gray great-coats
walked to and fro upon their posts; and each time they turned I saw
their bayonets flash above the two square towers that guard the great
arched entrance. Over all was the white flag with the Muscovite
cross, but there was no wind to spread its folds upon the evening
sky, and it hung about the staff listlessly and still; not a blade of
grass stirred on the mighty plain of the Kuban, which spread far away
towards the north, silent as a land of the dead. Under my iron
helmet, grimly I surveyed Anapa and the rocks of Taman, and panted
for the time when the standard of the twelve confederated princes of
Circassia would be planted there, and when the black cross of the
God-abandoned Russ would be torn down and steeped in the blood of its
defenders.
My heart was full of fierce and fiery thoughts, when suddenly the cry
of a woman, ringing upon the clear air of the hot summer eve, fell on
my ear, and I reined up my horse--the same winch I have now on board
with me--my noble Zuyi, to listen.
"Yani, Yani!" cried a despairing voice, which in our language means
"mother, mother!"
I spurred Zupi over a hillock, and perceived four Russian soldiers of
the Tenginski infantry, then garrisoning Anapa, dragging along a
Circassian woman, who made no resistance, but cried piteously for
mercy.
Uttering a shout of anger and defiance, I lowered my lance, and
rushed upon them without a moment of hesitation.
They immediately relinquished their prey, who sank senseless on the
ground, while they betook them to their muskets, crying,--
"Death to the Tcherkesse! down with the unbeliever!" and all four
fired upon me at once; but God, the common father of all mankind
(except the Russians) protected me. One bullet tore the plume from
my helmet, another was turned by the fluted pockets which (in lieu of
cartridge boxes) we wear across our breasts, the others whistled
harmlessly past me, and before one of these soldiers could reload or
club his weapon I was upon them. The first two I speared, and hurled
to the earth like ripe pumpkins; a third, I trampled under the hoofs
of Zupi; and afterwards slew at my leisure; the fourth sprung over a
ruined wall and escaped me, but for a few minutes only, as I pinned
him to the earth by an arrow, but he rose and staggered away. This
man was named Archipp Osepoff, of whom more anon.
I now dismounted, and, throwing the bridle over the neck of my docile
Zupi, approached the insensible female I had rescued.
She was attired in the richest fashion of our Circassian damsels. A
robe of costly silk open in front, and confined at her slender waist
by a glittering girdle of silver; trowsers of the finest pink muslin;
and the red slippers on her pretty feet were embroidered with gold; a
turban, composed of the most delicate shawl, fell in graceful folds
over her small and beautiful neck, and a large veil of lace entwined
with silver, enveloped her whole person, and floated like a white
mist about her.
This I dared to draw aside that the air might play upon her face, and
so revive her. Oh, Mahmoud resoul allah! the beauty of our women is
proverbial, and as you know, gentlemen, the world acknowledges it;
but how shall I describe the loveliness of this Circassian damsel,
who proved to be the flower of the Abassian maids? Her complexion
was of the purest white, the result of excessive delicacy, and
perhaps of that seclusion which was necessary to conceal her from the
prying eyes of the Russian soldiers, or of the trading Turks; and
this paleness of skin, when contrasted with the blackness of her
massive braids of hair, was almost startling. Her eyes were also
dark, but beautiful and dove-like in expression, for a languishing
gentleness was in every feature, and over all her form. She was but
a girl; yet so full, round, and tall, that for the house of the
sultan I had seen many thousand piastres paid for an odalisque, who
was unfit to kiss even her slipper. Basilia was among the most
beautiful of our Circassian maids, or, as Schamyl calls them, the
daughters of the rocks and streams.
She soon recovered on perceiving that she was free and that the
protecting arm of a Circassian was around her; but she tremblingly
drew the veil over her face, as I led her by the hand from the spot
where her late capturers lay dead on the sward, with their blood
congealing beneath them.
"It pleased the Prophet to send me to your aid, fair damsel," said I;
"are there any other means by which I can serve you?"
For a time she could only reply by incoherencies and with profuse
thanks, for her mind was bewildered by terror and agitation.
"Fear nothing, maiden," said I, "for a strong hand and a stout heart
are at your service. I am Osman, whose people dwelt by the
Kisselbash River; you have heard of me, perhaps?"
"Yes, Aga----"
"Alas! no Aga am I; but a poor outcast, whose sword and bow are his
sole inheritance; yet you have heard of me?"
"Yes, and of your two brothers, Selim and Karolyi, for to them and to
you the people look as leaders when war is made on the Muscovites."
"As soon it must be, maiden; and then I hope to see the ramparts of
yonder fortress of Anapa flung into the Euxine. But may I ask your
name?"
"Basilia," she replied, in a low voice, and drew her veil yet closer.
"Basilia, the daughter of Abdallah ibn Obba, the rich merchant of
Soudjack Kaleh, who is said to be making pyramids of gold by trading
with Tartars of the Crimea, and exporting from Sampsoon the copper of
Tocat, and the silks and fruit of Amasia?"
"I am the daughter of Abdallah, and, rich though he is, I assure you
he is yet poor in his own idea; for neither the Prophet nor the
santons can bound my father's idea of wealth; but convey me to him,
and for the good deed of to-day, he will reward you, noble Osman, by
the most gorgeous suit of armour, the richest weapons, and the
noblest horse a Tcherkesse warrior ever possessed."
"I seek no reward; let the horse and armour be given to some poor
patriot who is without them; I seek no reward, Basilia," I continued,
with enthusiasm, "beyond your own approbation and the memory that I
have this day done a kind, and, it may be, a gallant deed, in
rescuing you from the fate which those sons of the devil had in store
for you; but how came you into their hands?"
"We had gone on a pilgrimage to the tomb of the Santon Seozeres among
the mountains, when we fell in with these marauders; my father's aged
hands were unable to protect me; he was struck to the earth; his
reverend beard was spat on, and his turban torn off and flung in his
face, while I was dragged from the arms of my terrified attendants;
but see, Osman Rioni, they are now approaching us, and behold my
father."
She uttered a cry of joy, and rushed to meet the old merchant
Abdallah ibn Obba, who now came forward on horseback, with rage,
alarm, and grief in his eyes, and his great turban awry. He
corroborated her story, saying, that having a large ship, which had
long been delayed on her voyage from Stamboul, he had paid a
propitiatory visit to the tomb of Seozeres, the most famous and
powerful of Circassian Santons, and the object of especial reverence
by all merchants, seamen, and dwellers on the coast; for the waves
and winds are reputed to be under his subjection, and the storm and
the thunderbolt are alike at his disposal; thus we celebrate his
festival in the early days of spring, and when on this mission had
Abdallah and his daughter fallen among the Russians.
He gave me innumerable promises of remembrance and regard (which he
took especial care to forget), and made his horse curvet several
times over the dead Russians, which seemed to console him mightily,
and smoothing his ruffled beard, he muttered,--
"Death to them! death to them! the unbelievers, the dogs, the
infidels! They shall be destroyed like the wicked people of Noah and
of Lot, and like the army of Abraha, lord of the Elephant; and their
false gods and pretended saints of brass and of silver shall perish
with them! Unless a fear of the Russ prevent thee, Osman Rioni, I
shall be glad to see thee in Soudjack Kaleh, where a carpet and pipe,
with a cup of such coffee as Basilia alone can prepare, will be at
the service of her preserver; and so, God and Merissa take thee into
their holy keeping."
With these words we separated; the old merchant and his daughter
remounted on her own horse, rode slowly away until they disappeared
in the deepening shades of evening; while I remained motionless, and
watching them, with a wild, sad beating in my heart, for the face of
Basilia seemed yet before me, and her voice was lingering in my ear.
She was gone, but my soul went with her.
Full, round, and red as a Tartar shield, the moon rose above the Isle
of Taman to light the waters of the Euxine; the mountains flung their
black shadows upon each other; the lurid glow-worm glittered on the
dewy grass, and the snakes began to hiss among the long reeds; while
the fierce vultures hovered in the starry sky, with their keen eyes
fixed on the grim banquet I had made for them; and I heard their
hoarse croak of impatience, for I lingered long on the spot where
Abdallah and his daughter had left me.
Several days passed away. Men spoke much of the coming struggle with
the Russians; my brave brothers were as usual training their horses,
tempering their weapons, casting bullets, and pointing arrows; I
alone was silent, and full of soft, sad thoughts--melancholy, happy,
and anxious by turns; for my whole breast was filled by the image of
Basilia.
I visited her father by stealth, for this old man was one who had
temporised with the Russians, and paid them a tribute that he might
dwell in peace under the cannon of Soudjack; but I found him gloomy,
thoughtful, and discontented; his ship had been stranded on the Isle
of Serpents, in the Black Sea, and sunk with all her crew, and what
was of more importance to Abdallah, with her rich bales of Indian
silks, of cashmere shawls, of amber pipes, and other valuables with
which she was freighted. This isle, the only one in the Euxine, is
infested by serpents of enormous size, say our voyagers. These guard
its boundless treasures and devour all who attempt to land; thus
Abdallah ibn Obba abandoned in grief all hope of recovering a vestige
of his property.
He received me morosely, and after smoking a pipe and drinking with
him a cup of coffee, which we received from the white, gentle hands
of Basilia, who was enveloped as before in her veil of lace, I
departed, happy that I had seen but the tips of her dear fingers once
again; happy that I had been under the roof of her father, and happy
that for one brief hour I had shared a corner of his carpet, and
breathed the same atmosphere with one so beautiful and so
well-beloved as she.
Again and again I came to visit Abdallah; for alas! I no longer
sighed for the unfurling of our green standard against the Russ; I
only counted the days and hours till again I should visit the house
of the merchant at Soudjack.
Secluded as the old man kept Basilia--for he deemed her his last and
most valuable estate--a piece of property on which he could at any
time realise a thousand piastres in the Stamboul market--we had
nightly interviews; for what are the difficulties that love cannot
surmount? I had discovered that her chamber window opened into old
Abdallah's garden; its wall was easily crossed, and then three notes
on my lute were the signal which brought Basilia to me; but she was
beyond arm's length, and I never dared to climb, though, had the
wealth of Ormuz been mine, I had given it all to have kissed but once
her hand. Yet, until she was bestowed upon me by her father, what
hope had I of ever doing so?
In the wild and half-civilised countries of the East, a lover invests
his mistress with a thousand imaginary attributes, such as a lover of
Europe or the West can never do. The seclusion in which we keep our
women, the danger and risk of approaching or even speaking of them to
their nearest relations, all enhance the charm, the secresy, and the
romance of an Oriental love; and thus, with such a heart as mine, it
became an all-absorbing and engrossing passion, in which to be
without hope was to be without life. Hourly I exclaimed to myself,--
"Bismillah! oh, Osman, happy thou to win a heart like hers!" for
Basilia responded as warmly as she dared, or as I could have desired.
Nightly we conversed in whispers, and had our interchange of
love-letters; not that poor Basilia wrote, or that I then could
write; alas, no! Our letters were simply flowers, tied together with
a ribband, and in this symbolical language we conferred. It is a
language lovers easily learn, and the Circassian sooner than all. I
ransacked the bazaars of the Armenians and Muscovites for gaudy
trinkets and perfumes, as presents for Basilia; and fearless of the
Russ, I daily caracoled my horse--my Zupi--before her father's house,
that she might see me attired in the glittering arms and splendid
costume of a Circassian cavalier; and happy was I--oh, how happy! if
but once I saw the muslin-veiled form of my beautiful Basilia. At
her feet I laid the shawls of Cashmere and the beads of Bokhara. She
gave me a waist-belt embroidered by herself, and a morocco
breast-pocket to hold my cartridges, in return.
Summoning up courage, I one day put on my most splendid habiliments;
my coat of mail, which shone like water in the sun; a helmet of
steel, damascened by my own hands; and I armed myself with weapons
which, like every Tcherkesse warrior, I had tempered and ornamented
with silver and precious stones, all by my own skill. Bathed,
perfumed, and anointed, I rode up to the door of Abdallah ibn Obba;
and while my heart trembled and died away within me, and my colour
came and went like that of a woman under the bowstring, I asked his
daughter in marriage. He heard me in ominous silence.
"May God be with thee, Abdallah," said I.
"With thee be God," said he, and paused again, on which I timidly
rehearsed all I had said.
The old merchant, who was seated on a rich carpet, with his legs
folded under him, and a split reed, ink-horn, and piles of papers and
accounts on one side of him, and his fragrant narguillah on the
other, heard me without moving a muscle of his solemn visage; and
after smoking for some time, drew the yellow mouthpiece from his
mustachioed lips, and shaking his bushy beard, replied to me,
slowly,--
"May you be saluted, O Osman Rioni! No--no, Osman, this cannot be!
The son of a prince weds a prince's daughter, even as a slave weds
the daughter of a slave. Thus, the rich give their children in
marriage only to the rich, and thou, Osman, art very poor. Remember,
that this daughter may yet be a mine of wealth to me."
I knew what the old wretch meant by these words--the market of
Stamboul--and my blood ran cold.
"Her beauty," he resumed, "is a miracle, and her birth was also a
miracle; hence sho was born for great purposes, and may yet be a
source of delight to him who wears the sword of Omar, our Lord the
Sultan Abdul Medjid--who can tell? She was born of my first wife,
Tsha; when she was old, stricken in years, and hopelessly barren, on
seeing a hen feed her chickens one day, her heart was moved; she wept
and prayed the holy Prophet to give her a little child in her old
age, whereupon she had Basilia in the fulness of time; so thus I tell
thee, she was born for great things. Enough, enough, Osman Rioni, go
thy ways, for thou art very poor."
"True, father," said I, while my heart became chilled with despair;
"I am poor, and my brothers Selim and Karolyi are also poor, for we
have no inheritance but the name of our father, and what we can
wrench in combat from the enemies of our country, and for every meal
of food we have to fight the convoys of the Russ on the mountain, or
the wild beasts in the forest; but a time is at hand when I shall
have all my father's patrimony again, when the forts of the Kuban
shall lie in ruins by its shore, while the wolf shall batten on the
bones of their defenders. A time shall come when I may ride from the
grassy steppes of Marinskoi to the reedy flow of the Kisselbash
River, lord of all the land my father bequeathed to me, with this
sword, when the Russian bayonets were clashing in his heart!"
"God is great," replied the merchant, calmly; "when that time comes
return, and seek my daughter, but not till then."
He replaced the amber tube of the narguillah in his mouth, waved his
hand to indicate that he wished to hear no more on the subject, and
dismissed me, with a heart swollen by grief and mortification. I
felt how low the son of Mostapha was fallen when a miserable trader
despised his alliance! God of Mohammed, had we come to this?
As I rode slowly back to the poor village where with my brothers I
dwelt on the hills above Anapa, I revolved a thousand schemes of
daring and conquest; for Basilia was now to me a light--a star--a
guide; but between us I saw the dark battalions and the strong
ramparts of the abhorred Russians, and worse than all, the cunning
and the avarice of her selfish father. Could I repel one, or bound
the other?
When riding slowly on I saw a raven in my path, and shuddering at the
bird of ill omen, turned aside, for I knew it was a sign of coming
evil; because there is an old tradition in the countries of the East,
that Cain, after committing fratricide, became sorely troubled in
mind, and bore about with him for many days the dead body of his
brother, until Heaven taught him how to bury it, by the example of a
raven, which after killing another in his presence dug a little pit
for it by beak and talon; and so scraping a hole with his hands, Cain
interred his brother at the foot of a palm, whose branches heretofore
erect drooped mournfully for ever after. Then the murderous raven
which had perched itself on a branch thereof flew away to Adam, and
croaked huskily in his ear that his youngest born was now slain and
buried, and from that hour the raven has been a bird of evil augury
to all the world. And now my heart became a prey to a thousand dark
and gloomy forebodings. The bird had not come to me for nought.
I prayed Merissa, the mother of God, to take Basilia under her
protection, for, like the Christians, we believe in the intercession
of a woman, though, perhaps, her name is but a remnant of the faith
that was first preached to the Circassians before the banner of the
blessed Prophet swept the gods of error from the shores of the
Caspian Sea.
Night was closing as I ascended the mountain, when suddenly from a
gorge there rose that wild and terrible yell which is the war-cry of
Circassia; and led by Schamyl, the conquering, the holy Murid
Schamyl, a host of mounted warriors, all clad in shirts of shining
steel and round helmets, armed with lance and musket, bow and sabre,
each with a bag of millet and bottle of skhou slung at his saddle for
service, dashed their fleet horses through the narrow way, and above
their heads waved the green standard of the confederated princes with
its three golden arrows and twelve white stars--the Sangiac
Sheerif--the sacred banner of our people, for green is the colour of
the Prophet.
Selim and Karolyi were among them, and they sprang to my side with
joy and ardour.
A vast Russian army of horse, foot, and artillery, they told me, had
just passed the shores of the Kuban, and entered among the mountains;
Schamyl, the holy murids who devote themselves to death, and all our
confederated princes, had summoned the land to battle, and every man
between the straits of Yenikale and the Mingrelian frontier was in
arms for Circassia Thus opened the Christian year 1840, so memorable
to us by the capture of all the frontier forts of the Russians by our
arms, but chiefly those of Mikhailov and Nikhailovska.
The excitement, the glory, and the splendour of our mountain host
equipped for war, with the hopes of conquest and of triumph, filled
my soul with such ardour and exultation that my emotion nearly
overcame me. The hope of winning back in this war, if it was
successful, the land, the home, and the grave of my forefathers, and
with these the flower of the Abassian maids for my bride, made me
pant for the hour of battle with such ardour as never bridegroom
awaited the unveiling of his new-made wife.
The great Dervish Mohammed Mansoor, from the misty land of Daghestan,
had foretold our triumph when he died at Anapa, and we never doubted
we should be victorious.
Over my father's fugitive people a command was assigned me by the
confederated princes; my brothers, Selim and Karolyi, rode by my
side; all who followed us shared our ardour, and we were brave even
to ferocity: thus, pouring down from the snow-capped Alps of the
Caucasus towards the hosts of the Russ, then blackening and
desolating the banks of the Kuban, while their fleets of three
deckers and steamers scared the golden dolphins from our shores, we
commenced the desperate war of 1840.
I was full of delicious hope, and the last words of Basilia, for I
had visited her in secret before we marched, were ever in my ears,--
"Hope for everything from Heaven, O Osman. The angels of Mohammed
will deliver you from the swords of the Russians, and like all, my
beloved, who fight against the spirit, they shall wither and perish!"
Her prophetic words inspired me with new ardour.
"Farewell, Basilia," I exclaimed, as I grasped the mane of Zupi; "we
go to teach those Muscovite liars who mark our country in their maps
that the Circassians have no masters save God and the Prophet."