"'Tis Akhmet Khan! Akhmet Khan!" shouted the soldiers. "Seize him! hold him fast! down with him! pay him for the affair of Báshli28—the villains cut our wounded to pieces."
"Away, brute!" cried Sultan Akhmet Khan to the soldier who had again seized the bridle of his horse—"I am a Russian general."
"A Russian traitor!" roared a multitude of voices; "bring him to the Captain: drag him to Derbend, to Colonel Verkhóffsky."
"'Tis only to hell I would go with such guides!" said Akhmet, with a contemptuous smile, and making his horse rear, he turned him to the right and left; then, with a blow of the nogaik,29 he made him leap into the air, and disappeared. The noúkers kept their eye on the movements of their chief, and uttering their warcry, followed his steps, and overthrowing several of the soldiers, cleared a way for themselves into the road. After galloping off to a distance of scarce a hundred paces, the Khan rode away at a slow walk, with an expression of the greatest sang-froid, not deigning to look back, and coolly playing with his bridle. The crowd of Tartars assembled round the blacksmith attracted his attention. "What are you quarrelling about, friends?" asked Akhmet Khan of the nearest, reining in his horse.
In sign of respect and reverence, they all applied their hands to their foreheads when they saw the Khan. The timid or peaceably disposed among them, dreading the consequences, either from the Russians or the Khan, to which this rencontre might expose them, exhibited much discomfiture at the question; but the idle, the ruffian, and the desperate—for all beheld with hatred the Russian domination—crowded turbulently round him with delight. They hurriedly told him what was the matter.
"And you stand, like buffaloes, stupidly looking on, while they force your brother to work like a brute under the yoke!" exclaimed the Khan, gloomily, to the bystanders; "while they laugh in your face at your customs, and trample your faith under their feet! and ye whine like old women, instead of revenging yourselves like men! Cowards! cowards!"
"What can we do?" cried a multitude of voices together; "the Russians have cannon—they have bayonets!"
"And ye, have ye not guns? have ye not daggers? It is not the Russians that are brave, but ye that are cowards! Shame of Mussulmans! The sword of Daghestán trembles before the Russian whip. Ye are afraid of the roll of the cannon; but ye fear not the reproach of cowardice. The fermán of a Russian prístav30 is holier to you than a chapter of the Koran. Siberia frightens you more than hell. Did your forefathers act, did your forefathers think thus? They counted not their enemies, they calculated not. Outnumbered or not, they met them, bravely fought them, and gloriously died! And what fear ye? Have the Russians ribs of iron? Have their cannon no breach? Is it not by the tail that you seize the scorpion?" This address stirred the crowd. The Tartar vanity was touched to the quick. "What do we care for them? Why do we let them lord it over us here?" was heard around. "Let us liberate the blacksmith from his work—let us liberate him!" they roared, as they narrowed their circle round the Russian soldiers, amidst whom Alékper was shoeing the captain's horse. The confusion increased. Satisfied with the tumult he had created, Sultan Akhmet Khan, not wishing to mix himself up in an insignificant brawl, rode out of the crowd, leaving two noúkers to keep alive the violent spirit among the Tartars, while, accompanied by the remainder, he rode rapidly to the ootakh31 of Ammalát.
"Mayest thou be victorious," said Sultan Akhmet Khan to Ammalát Bek, who received him at the threshold. This ordinary salutation, in the Circassian language, was pronounced with so marked an emphasis, that Ammalát as he kissed him, asked, "Is that a jest or a prophecy, my fair guest?"
"That depends on thee," replied the Sultan. "It is upon the right heir of the Shamkhalát32 that it depends to draw the sword from the scabbard."
"To sheath it no more, Khan? An unenviable destiny. Methinks it is better to reign in Bouináki, than for an empty title to be obliged to hide in the mountains like a jackal."
"To bound from the mountains like a lion, Ammalát; and to repose, after your glorious toils, in the palace of your ancestors."
"To repose? Is it not better not to be awakened at all?
"Would you behold but in a dream what you ought to possess in reality? The Russians are giving you the poppy, and will lull you with tales, while another plucks the golden flowers of the garden."33
"What can I do with my force?"
"Force—that is in thy soul, Ammalát!... Despise dangers and they bend before you.... Dost thou hear that?" added Sultan Akhmet Khan, as the sound of firing reached them from the town. "It is the voice of victory!"
Saphir-Ali rushed into the chamber with an agitated face.
"Bouináki is in revolt," he hurriedly began; "a crowd of rioters has overpowered the detachment, and they have begun to fire from the rocks."34
"Rascals!" cried Ammalát, as he threw his gun over his shoulder. "How dared they to rise without me! Run, Saphir-Ali, threaten them with my name; kill the first who disobeys."
"I have done all I could to restrain them," said Saphir-Ali, "but none would listen to me, for the noúkers of Sultan Akhmet Khan were urging them on, saying that he had ordered them to slay the Russians."
"Indeed! did my noúkers say that?" asked the Khan.
"They did not say so much, but they set the example," said Saphir-Ali.
"In that case they have done well," replied Sultan Akhmet Khan: "this is brave!"
"What hast thou done, Khan!" cried Ammalát, angrily.
"What you might have done long ago!"
"How can I justify myself to the Russians?"
"With lead and steel.... The firing is begun.... Fate works for you ... the sword is drawn ... let us go seek the Russians!"
"They are here!" cried the Captain, who, followed by two men, had broken through the disorderly ranks of the Tartars, and dashed into the house of their chief. Confounded by the unexpected outbreak in which he was certain to be considered a party, Ammalát saluted his enraged guest—"Come in peace!" he said to him in Tartar.
"I care not whether I come in peace or no," answered the Captain, "but I find no peaceful reception in Bouináki. Thy Tartars, Ammalát, have dared to fire upon a soldier of mine, of yours, a subject of our Tsar."
"In very deed, 'twas absurd to fire on a Russian," said the Khan, contemptuously stretching himself on the cushions of the divan, "when they might have cut his throat."
"Here is the cause of all the mischief, Ammalát!" said the Captain, angrily, pointing to the Khan; "but for this insolent rebel not a trigger would have been pulled in Bouináki! But you have done well, Ammalát Bek, to invite Russians as friends, and to receive their foe as a guest, to shelter him as a comrade, to honour him as a friend! Ammalát Bek, this man is named in the order of the commander-in-chief; give him up."
"Captain," answered Ammalát, "with us a guest is sacred. To give him up would be a sin upon my soul, an ineffaceable shame upon my head; respect my entreaty; respect our customs."
"I will tell you, in your turn—respect the Russian laws. Remember your duty. You have sworn allegiance to the Tsar, and your oath obliges you not to spare your own brother if he is a criminal."
"Rather would I give up my brother than my guest, Sir Captain! It is not for you to judge my promises and obligations. My tribunal is Allah and the padishah! In the field, let fortune take care of the Khan; but within my threshold, beneath my roof, I am bound to be his protector, and I will be!"
"And you shall