Dariel: A Romance of Surrey

CHAPTER XLIV

THE LAND OF PROMETHEUS

There are thousands of people (Englishmen especially, and Germans universally) who would find terrible fault with me – if they ever heard of it – for the absence of calmness and self-command, which I ought to have helped, but couldn't. Taking myself, as it ought to be, and always is in theory, I must have gone out of it, without asking leave, or even knowing that it took leave of me. Others, who have been in the like condition, and perhaps they may be counted by the million, will freely allow for all I did, and all I said – which was a great deal worse. Even Strogue, though acquainted with many languages, and tolerant of all their excesses, admitted at last that there must be a power in our own, beyond all foreign scope.

"You never use a wicked word," he said to me; "or at any rate none that could be scored against you, by any angel that understands our tongue; and yet you contrive to put things in such a way, that I would rather not stand by you in a thunderstorm."

That of course was rubbish; for I spoke most mildly, and if ever I used a strong expression, the sound of my own voice hurt me. I was trying, throughout the long trial, to be of the large mind, which I admired so much whenever to be found for certain, in any human beings within my knowledge; and these being unsatisfactorily scarce, I went back to the many I had read of, in my early days at Winchester, and did my utmost to believe in them, and shape myself accordingly.

But this was of very little help to me. Epaminondas, Timoleon, even the grand Aristides, and the Roman who sacrificed his own son, were nothing but shadows on a cloud, while I was the shivering form inside it. Strogue himself was limp and grim, and could not see how to get out; and it was not in his mouth to talk of angels, unless it was to give them more to do. He might say what he liked, but he tried my temper, a great deal more than I trespassed upon his. Moreover he had made a very serious mistake, and one which would probably prove fatal. If we had only gone straight to Odessa, instead of losing time at Constantinople, we might have been at Kutais a week ago, supposing we had caught the proper steamer. This he could not for a moment deny; and all he could say was, that as I knew so much more about it than he did, although I had scarcely heard of this part of the world before, the best thing would be for me to command the expedition, and conduct it entirely in the English language. But I pointed out to him that my remarks must not be distorted in that manner, and that all of them were intended as compliments, though he had not for the moment perceived it. Upon this he came out of his anger, and said that every allowance must be made for me, and that if he were fool enough to be in love he should have carried on worse than I did.

At the same time he announced, when at length and at last we had got our podoroshno– or something like that, which cost a lot of money at Poti – that from what he was told about the condition of the passes, his plan of the route must be abandoned, and we must go first to Tiflis, though far to the south of our proper course. There we should get into the great Russian road, which cuts the main link of the mountain-chain, and find a course open in almost any weather, and vehicles of some sort to be had for hire. Moreover it was not at all unlikely that our Lesghian travellers might be there, waiting for the spring to tempt them home.

For people in haste and having baggage, any railway (however vile and utterly profane, both in itself and all its consequences) is better than the best carriage-road, or horse-track, likely to be found in the same direction or anywhere near it. So we took to the new line (the wonder of the age, to all Oriental intellects, and made as nature requires by Englishmen), and instead of leaving it, as Strogue had first intended, at Kutais, or further on, we followed its rugged course throughout to the "City of languages," as the world calls Tiflis.

Until the weather becomes too hot this is the usual residence of the Commander-in-Chief of the Caucasus, and Strogue suggested that we should call upon him, so as to start well with the authorities, in case of any violence being done or suffered by us among fierce tribesmen, who might not look at things as we did. For what could two men, even though of English birth, avail among so many? Strogue himself spoke Russian very fairly; and even I could make out a little by this time, after taking much trouble, and undergoing a crick in the hinges of both jaws, for in certain conditions of the human mind nothing seems too arduous.

His Highness Prince L. received us most politely, and at the Captain's request allowed us the privilege of a separate audience; for if it should once get wind among the tribes of the upper Terek that we were coming to meddle with their affairs, they were likely to show us nothing more than loop-holes studded with rifle-muzzles. The Prince, who was a very fine and handsome man, listened attentively to Strogue's account, and then (after telling us that he feared Sûr Imar was already in the net and beyond our reach) he took a course which puzzled us altogether, and made us look rather foolish.

"Gentlemen," he said with a pleasant smile, "observe that I do not question the accuracy of your account. In fact I believe every syllable of it, and it confirms my own opinions. But unless you have brought me attested depositions, or are prepared to make them from your own knowledge, and recent presence on the spot, I have no power to do anything. Have you any such evidence to lay before me?"

Strogue shook his head, and I was compelled to do the same. "We did not intend to apply to your Highness," I said in the best form I could muster; "that was only thought of afterwards, lest we should do anything against the law."

"It is fortunate for you that you have applied," he answered not unkindly. "You are doing nothing against our law by entering the country with our passports; but you are defying tribal laws, and outraging all their customs, by interfering with the private affairs of their ruling family. Have you at all considered what the result of that is? Captain Stronger, you have travelled on those mountains. Did you find encouragement to treat the people thus?"

"Your Highness, the conclusion I arrived at was – the further I keep away from all of them, the better."

"It was wise. It shows your great abilities. The same conclusion is mine; and I regret that we have been obliged to embody them. But if we had not done so, it is certain that you would. But for years we must deal very carefully with them. All we endeavour is to keep some sort of order, and encourage them to try to live without much thieving. Work they will not, even for the four months, which is all the time many of them could work, if they tried. Gentlemen, your sympathies are wasted in such quarters."

"Your Highness, I should like to shoot them all; and probably in your position we should have done it." Strogue had not travelled for nothing, and he held up his thumb for me not to contradict him. "You are the great civilizing power, as England begins at last to acknowledge. We did not come here with the audacity to think that your Highness would help us in a private matter which does not concern your authority. But we know that this Lesghian chief, although he was compelled to side with Shamyl in his boyhood, and has paid the just penalty by long exile, is now the warmest friend of your great Empire. The object for which he has returned is this, to bring the barbarians into peaceful ways, and make them good Russian subjects, able, and at the same time glad, to pay good taxes. This gentleman with me, of the highest English family, is an intimate friend of Sûr Imar, and he will confirm every word I have said. Speak up, Sir George, and tell his Highness what you know."

"How many times more am I to be Sir George?" I muttered to myself in English. And then as the Prince's eyes fell upon me, I said very bravely, "It is so, your Highness." For everything was true, except perhaps about the taxes.

"And will the Commander-in-Chief allow," cried Strogue, getting stronger in his eloquence, "a faithful and fervent Russian subject to be murdered by barbarous Ossets, the most cantankerous and anti-Russian tribe remaining in the Caucasus?"

The Captain made a true hit here. The gorgeous decorations rose on the ample bosom of the Prince, and his strong eyes flashed, as if in battle. But a Russian of high rank keeps his head, and he answered rather formally.

"As I said before, I cannot interfere. But in case of any savage tumult, I will give you a letter to the officer on duty in the Kazbek district, which you will not present unless needful. And now, gentlemen, I wish you well. You must bear in mind that you go with your lives in your hands, and we are not responsible. There is a little band of your countrymen on the northern side of Kazbek, who hold our permission to quest for minerals. Two of them were frozen to death last winter, through their own imprudence. But that has not prevented more from coming, in the manner of your country. You may find them of service to you in the matter of supplies. Farewell."

We took our leave with many thanks, not daring to put any further questions, although we concluded that he knew more than he saw fit to tell us. An officer brought us the promised letter, and looked at us very curiously, as if we were even more insane than the English race in general. I wanted Strogue to question him; but he said that it would be a breach of etiquette, and might set the Commander against us. So we made our bows, and went back to our inn, which was one of the queerest places ever seen.

And this reminds me that I may have been expected to say something about the many noble and wonderful sights of our long and tedious journey. But the plain truth is, that they passed me by, without leaving any clear impression, or even creating the interest which at any other time must have swallowed me. I looked upon the grandest scenery of the world, without even thinking of its grandeur, caring for nothing but to leave it behind, as another obstacle gone by. Scarcely would I even lift my eyes to the majesty of giant Tau, or peak that towered in dazzling white (like the hand of God spread on the heavens), or the sombre awe of mountain forest, deep with impenetrable gloom. Yet in after times all these came gliding along the slides of memory, and now and then they stand and hold me, when I want to think of something else.

But what we had to think of now was to get along the roadless roads from Tiflis into the black abysses and white steeps of the mountain range. Many of the passes still were blocked, although the strong sun scorched our skin, and the road was swamp or flood, whenever it was not crag or boulder. Strogue, being accustomed to such doings, took them with grim philosophy; and I cared little what they were, except for the delay they caused. The Prince most kindly sent a couple of Cossacks for our escort, and we had four men with their hired ponies, as well as an interpreter, for Strogue might often be at fault even with the Lesghian tongue, and we might visit places where that and Russian were of small avail.

So bad was the season, and the ways so roundabout and rugged, that not until the 3d of May did we enter the deep defile which leads to the foot of the crag of Karthlos. We threaded the narrow pass, and looked up at the fearful heights, from which those playful children fell, when frisking on their little legs among the treacherous snow-drift. And then we saw the rocky elbow of the dark ravine where Imar's father Dadian fell to the stealthy shot of Rakhan. The lonely gorge, where a man felt half afraid to provoke an echo, seemed to be formed by nature for the darkest deeds her sons can do. While the pale slant of declining sunshine, webbed with quivering vapour, here and there came partway down the walls of rent and jagged rock, but nowhere reached the bottom. There was not a sound to make us think of life in this unfathomable grave; even the Cossacks shuddered mutely under the gloomy chill of awe.

"Thank God!" cried Strogue, when one of our horses, less romantic than the rest, or lulled by power of contrast into a dream of clover, set up a lively neigh, which rang like a peal of bells along the chasm; "my son, thou shalt taste oats for that. This old hole never used to frighten me. The 'London Rock' must have spoiled my nerves for rocks that have got no chimneys. Here we are, George; let me see if I can blow. I used to know how. Or you try, if you like. You are more of a huntsman."

We had stopped at a place where a steep, narrow channel cut the north wall of the gorge at right angles, and a battered old horn of great size hung from a staple at the rocky corner. I made a sign to him to blow, and blow he did, to such effect that the tattered grass, hanging here and there on either side of the chasm, shook as a matted cobweb shakes when a stag-beetle tumbles into it. In the midst of the solemn desolation, and my own profound anxiety, I could not help laughing at the Captain's face, as his great cheeks puffed with the rush from the lungs, and his fat chin went into plough-lines, and his grizzled eyebrows into gables over his wet projecting eyes.

"Laugh at me?" he said; "then do it better." But I could not do it half as well; and we all looked vainly up the steep ascent, whose winding hid the house from us – no one came, neither any answer, nor sign that we had moved the air. Suddenly it occurred to me, how poor Sûr Imar had stood where we were standing, and blown that very same horn in vain, with the flush of bright hope, and the glow of home, on the day that broke his life in twain. Some men are content to accept the tricks of others and of fortune; not from their own want of power, but because of their contempt of it.

Strogue, who was not by any means of this too lofty order, glared and stamped, and shook his fist at all the void magnificence from which he could get no response. "Up we go," he said at last, "if the mountain won't come down to us – but keep your revolver ready."

One of the Cossacks came with us, according to his orders; the other stayed with the horses and their owners in the trackway. The ascent was easy enough for any one not encumbered with four legs, though the rope that skirted the worst places was cut away, or worn out by time. And then we mounted some big steps, with a slush of snow upon them, and struck a heavy ring of brass upon a great gate of some dark wood. The mansion, or tower, or whatever it should be called, rose large and lofty before us, gazing with a dull and ancient aspect down a wilderness of craggy clefts. For about a third part of the year the scene must be all majesty, and for the rest all melancholy, even with life inside it. But now it appeared as if it did not care for any outlook; winter or summer, good or bad, could not matter much to it.

"Nobody at home. They don't keep bailiffs in this part of the world," said Strogue, "or I should think some of those lovely fellows were having their steak in the kitchen. Down, George, down behind the parapet, or you'll never wear a hat again!"

Like an accomplished traveller, the Captain ducked his head out of shot. But I was too slow and stupid, and had caught the despondency of the place. "Fire away," I said, "if you can strike a light; I don't believe that you can hit me."

Want of faith is infectious, and the silver mop behind the rail, on which was resting a long brown barrel, arose very slowly, and behold, it was the uncovered head of a very ancient man! Long white hair flowed down his shoulders and over his breast, and I heard a hollow sigh. "Blow me, if it isn't old Kobaduk!" cried Strogue, who was taking a cautious peep; "don't be in a funk, George; he knows me. Hold hard, old fellow, and keep your powder dry."

The old gentleman seemed to be in doubt about his eyes, till the Captain went down a flight of steps and round towards the kitchen-entrance where the ancient watchman stood. Then a few words of Lesghian passed, and Kobaduk leaned his gun against the rail, and flung his wrinkled arms round the thick form of Strogue.

"Is he coming? Will he never come again?" That much I could make out among his many trembling words. "Is old Kobaduk to die without seeing him? without ever hearing his voice again?"

Then he tottered to the corner of the steps, and spread his hand over his brows, where the sunset struck through the glare of snow, and he leaned on the ramrod which he had picked up, and gazed, with his wrinkled eyes casting forth a bushy sparkle, down the lonely passage from the road below. "Take it easy, old chap," shouted Strogue; and he answered, "I am too old to take it easy."

Thereupon his long beard fell lower on his breast, and his lips, which were far out of sight behind it, mumbled some sadness which we could not understand, and he shuffled his feet to be sure that they were there, and made off for the kitchen-door, without another sign to us.

"Hospitable I call that," said Strogue; "the poor old beggar doesn't know what he is about. But we must put up here, willy, nilly, for the night. We will make him rout up a bit of grub, and stir the dregs of his ancient brain."

CHAPTER XLV

AMONG THE GEMS

The Cossacks had discharged their duty now, after seeing us into friendly hands, and in the morning they rode off to rejoin the detachment at Tiflis. We sent a letter of thanks by them to the Russian Prince, for although we had not been molested, we owed our exemption in all probability to the presence of the uniform. We had passed through a district especially delightful, even among their many happy hunting-grounds, to the heart of the only men among these mountains [unless it be the foreign gunsmiths, and a few of the timber-dealers] who have a profession and practise it with any decent diligence – I mean the gallant brigands. But they must not be quoted as a real exception to the rule of sovereign indolence; because they are not true Caucasians, otherwise they could never get through half of the robberies they accomplish.

The rest of us spent a whole day and two nights at the poor deserted tower, partly to refresh our horses, which were sent to the post-house down below, and partly to consider our plans, after receiving from the ancient steward the feeble light he could contribute. Although he had recognised Strogue so suddenly and with such affection, he forgot him entirely, and with equal speed, until we began to talk in English, and then he broke forth with the declaration that our language was sweeter to his ears than the murmur of a hive of bees breathing their last among their honey, or the first music of the waterfall that has broken the chains of winter.

When Strogue translated this to me, I felt some gratifying surprise; for our language is not so wonderfully mellifluous, or melodious; though our voices are not such a cackle as theirs. But the old gentleman soon revoked his claim upon my gratitude by explaining, as interpreted by Strogue, that the words indeed were strange and hideous, like the sound of a saw on a flinty rock; nevertheless, he loved them always, because they brought to his mind the years that had unrolled day after day, as bright as the rising of the sun, and as smooth as a lake at the foot of the mountains, where no wind comes blowing.

I could not quite see what his wits were driving at; but Strogue, who had very little reverence for anything, from seeing too much of all things, sang out, "Signor Nicolo?" and Kobaduk took it to his heart (which works much longer than the brain does), and came up to us, and touched both of us, with a shrivelled finger, upon either chest. "It is the name of the happy time; the time of the beautiful lady, and the noble lord, and the lovely babes; and nothing to do but to laugh and eat."

"And sleep," I suggested in his own language; and that completed his round of perfection, for he sent up the roots of his beard in a grin, and said, "Thou hast hit the mark." And then he sat down upon a swab to do it.