Kirdjali was arraigned. He did not attempt to conceal the truth. He owned he was Kirdjali.
"But," he added, "since I crossed the Pruth, I have not touched a hair of property that did not belong to me, nor have I cheated the meanest gipsy. To the Turks, the Moldavians, and the Walachians I am certainly a brigand, but to the Russians a guest. When Sophianos, after exhausting all his cartridges, came over here, he collected buttons from the uniforms, nails, watch-chains, and nobs from the daggers for the final discharge, and I myself handed him twenty beshléks to fire off, leaving myself without money. God is my witness that I, Kirdjali, lived by charity. Why then do the Russians now hand me over to my enemies?"
After that Kirdjali was silent, and quietly awaited his fate. It was soon announced to him. The authorities, not thinking themselves hound to look upon brigandage from its romantic side, and admitting the justice of the Turkish demand, ordered Kirdjali to be given up that he might be sent to Jassy.
A man of brains and feeling, at that time young and unknown, but now occupying an important post, gave me a graphic description of Kirdjali's departure.
"At the gates of the prison," he said, "stood a hired karutsa. Perhaps you don't know what a karutsa is? It is a low basket-carriage, to which quite recently used to be harnessed six or eight miserable screws. A Moldavian, with a moustache and a sheepskin hat, sitting astride one of the horses, cried out and cracked his whip every moment, and his wretched little beasts went on at a sharp trot. If one of them began to lag, then he unharnessed it with terrific cursing and left it on the road, not caring what became of it. On the return journey he was sure to find them in the same place, calmly grazing on the steppes. Frequently a traveller starting from a station with eight horses would arrive at the next with a pair only. It was so about fifteen years ago. Now in Russianized Bessarabia, Russian harness and Russian telegas (carts) have been adopted.
"Such a karutsa as I have described stood at the gate of the jail in 1821, towards the end of September. Jewesses with their sleeves hanging down and with flapping slippers, Arnouts in ragged but picturesque costumes, stately Moldavian women with black-eyed children in their arms, surrounded the harutsa. The men maintained silence. The women were excited, as if expecting something to happen.
"The gates opened, and several police officers stepped into the street, followed by two soldiers leading Kirdjali in chains.
"He looked about thirty. The features of his dark face were regular and austere. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and seemed to possess great physical strength. He wore a variegated turban on the side of his head, and a broad sash round his slender waist. A dolman of thick, dark blue cloth, the wide plaits of his over-shirt falling just above the knees, and a pair of handsome slippers completed his dress. His bearing was calm and haughty.
"One of the officials, a red-faced old man in a faded uniform, with three buttons hanging loose, a pair of lead spectacles which pinched a crimson knob doing duty for a nose, unrolled a paper, and stooping, began to read in the Moldavian tongue. From time to time he glanced haughtily at the handcuffed Kirdjali, to whom apparently the document referred. Kirdjali listened attentively. The official finished his reading, folded the paper, and called out sternly to the people, ordering them to make way for the karutsa to drive up. Then Kirdjali, turning towards him, said a few words in Moldavian; his voice trembled, his countenance changed, he burst into tears, and fell at the feet of the police officer, with a clanking of his chains. The police officer, in alarm, started back; the soldiers were going to raise Kirdjali, but he got up of his own accord, gathered up his chains, and stepping into the harutsa, cried egaida!'
"The gens d'armes got in by his side, the Moldavian cracked his whip, and the karutsa rolled away.