Kugaul took the saddle and bridle off the horse; he began to roll afresh; and when he had regained strength he raised his head, took a deep breath with his powerful nostrils. He bounded, changed into a bird, and flew up into the air. He flew three days, without, however, discovering anything, and was already on the point of returning, when, on the opposite side, he discovered the aouls of the Khan. Hither he directed his course; flew over the tents and flocks, and saw everything. No one guessed that the bird was Kugaul's horse, only the wife of the hero (Batyr) had a presentiment that some one was coming to her, and nigh at hand, which idea she communicated to her sister. The bird returned to Kugaul, related what he had seen, that the Khan had carried off his wife and sister, taken his flocks, compelled his father to collect tezek (a fuel made of manure), his mother to tend the sheep. The horse began to weep afresh. Kugaul prayed God to come to his assistance, so that he might punish his insulting foe. He then commanded the horse to convey him forthwith to his mother. He departed, and soon found her in the steppe, occupied in tending the sheep. He threw himself into her arms. "Why dost thou thus embrace me?" said the good old woman; "can it be that thou art my son?" "If I am not thy son, am I not worth as much as he?" "Oh, no; none in the steppe is worth as much as my son." "Have you no news of him?" "I do not know where he is. The Khan has despatched him against a hostile people; since that time I have never heard talk of him. Only, to-day it appears to me that I heard the noise of his horse's wings; but I do not know whether it was reality or a trick of Satan." "And is it long since thy Kugaul departed?" "Yes, yes; a long, long, very long time." "But I am Kugaul himself. Dost thou not recognise me?" The old woman looked at him more attentively, and she did not recognise him, and said: "No, thou art not Kugaul; but if thou art his companion, or if thou knowest anything of him, then speak. But do not deceive me—do not torment me." "I am Kugaul," cried the son. "It was my horse that flew over thy head this day." But the old woman was still incredulous. He asked her if Kugaul had no birth-mark, and she replied, that he had a black spot on his shoulder, big as a hand. He then asked his mother to rub his shoulder (a common habit among the Kirghis). "But," the old woman replied, "the sheep will run about in all directions, and the Khan will beat me; for he often beats me. Go, then, and let me manage my flocks." But he insisted and pressed, and said, that if they wished to beat her, he would protect her. At last the old woman consented. She took off the khalat (upper garment) and the shirt, and proceeded to rub his shoulders. She perceived the black spot large as a man's hand, threw herself on the neck of the young man, and cried out, "Thou art Kugaul, thou art my Kugaul;" and she wept for joy. "Did you not, then, recognise me, mother?" said Kugaul. "Is it, then, so long a time that I have been? And you, my poor dear mother, how altered you are! You have grown old and grey, and your eyes are red with tears." And he embraced her, weeping. "I knew not my child," replied his mother; "how long you have been absent! But the Khan has attacked our aoul, carried off thy wife and sister, and all our effects, and reduced thy father and myself to be his slaves. I have been constantly expecting thee; but I have lost all memory: I cannot tell how long a time has passed. I know only that it is a long time, a very long time, that thou hast left us." "Be tranquil, mother," said Kugaul; "the evil days are terminating, and all begins anew to go right. God will aid me. Return to the aoul; hasten to get in thy sheep, without paying attention that it is yet early. If any one inquires about me, say that I am not far off; but not a word more." He took leave of her, and went his way. The old woman returned to the aoul, but she did not walk as usual,—she ran; she, who could hardly before catch a lamb, now chased three or four at once,—so much had her strength improved. The Khan remarked it, and said to those around him: "That old wife of Buruzgay must have received intelligence of her son." He approached her, and questioned her about her son. "He is here,—he is come," replied the old mother. "You will not be able henceforth to make me suffer any more." She spoke boldly; for her interview with her son had filled her heart with joy and hope. The Khan turned pale with fright, and soon he perceived Kugaul, who, mounted on his celebrated steed, advanced to him. Kugaul stopped at some distance, then spoke, without descending from his horse. "You have deceived me, you wished to get rid of me, to carry off my wife and sister. I thought that you acted loyally with me, and went out at thy bidding as a true man. But thou art only a hound, a perjured miscreant, a robber. We must reckon. But what shall I gain by thy solitary death. They would say, that Kugaul, the Batyr, has only killed the Khan. Gather, then, thy army together." And the Khan begged of him to grant him three days to assemble his people. Kugaul consented, and departed. The Khan sent his orders into all the aouls of his horde, and drew together a large armament of his people around him. Kugaul prayed meanwhile to God. At the day appointed he came, and said: "You are my Khan; I will not shoot first at you,—you begin." The Khan shot: missed his aim. "I will not yet shoot at thee," said Kugaul; "gather together thy best marksmen, and command them to shoot against me; if they do not hit me, then I will shoot." The best marksmen of the Khan stepped out of the ranks, and shot. Each shot an arrow at Kugaul, but his horse transformed himself into an eagle, then into a lark; protected him against all the shots, by raising himself up in the clouds—and against all the arrows, by crouching down in the grass of the steppe. They could not hit him. Three days Kugaul permitted them thus to shoot against him. On the fourth, he said to the Khan: "Well, since you are my master, you have shot against me,—you and your servants, for three days. Now comes my turn." "Do what you like," said the Khan. Kugaul placed the best hunter, and then two archers, and the Khan himself in a line behind them. He placed himself opposite to them, and, turning to his horse, said: "My true steed, rest firm now, and change not thy position, in order that I may, with a single arrow, kill all four." The horse stayed still as a stone. Kugaul drew the string with all his might: the arrow went through huntsman, archers, and the Khan himself. When the people saw that the Khan was dead, they ran away on all sides. Kugaul followed them. He reached, on horseback, now this one, then that one, from the height of the clouds; and all that he struck, died. At last he gave over his work of extermination. He returned to his aoul, found there his parents, his wife, and sister, and seized on the possessions of the Khan. Among the women and children that the servants brought in, there was the daughter of the Khan. Kugaul took her for his second wife. He married his sister, Khanisbek, to a very rich Khan of a neighbouring tribe, and he himself became also Khan.
So ends the story. The old people say (added Mourzakay) that all this is the exact truth, and that all the events happened in the steppes. I did not see them; but we must believe what the old people tell us.
CHAPTER XIX.
RIVALRY BETWEEN RUSSIA AND ENGLAND IN CENTRAL ASIA.
It is three years ago since, in the closing chapter of my Travels in Central Asia, I expressed my surprise and dissatisfaction at the indifference of Englishmen towards Russian progress in those regions. I then indicated not only the exact course of Russian procedure on the Yaxartes, but also its steadily approaching influence on British India. Abstaining purposely from all far-reaching political reflections, I was as brief and concise as possible, and could hardly have believed that the unassuming remarks of a European, just returned home from Asia, would be found worthy of closer consideration. Nevertheless, these few lines were discussed and dwelt upon by almost every organ of the English and Indian press, from the Times to the Bengal Hirkáru. Only a very small proportion of those various journals attached itself in any measure to my ideas; the most of them, on the contrary, rejected my good counsel; and without directly ridiculing my judgment, raised from all sides a loud-sounding Hosannah over the happy change in English politicians, who, being less short-sighted now than they were thirty years back, discovered in the advance of the Russians only a disagreeable event; nay, would even regard it with pleasure, and cry success to their march southward over the snow-capped peaks of the Hindu-Kush and the Himalayas.
In these three years, however, a great change has taken place. Far though I be from wishing as an ex-dervish to exult over the fulfilment of my prophecies, still I cannot help referring to the lines in which I happened to proclaim the progress of the Russian arms. While I was in Central Asia the furthest out-posts of the Cossacks lay at Kale-Rehim, thirty-two miles from Tashkend. Forts 1, 2, and 3, on the Yaxartes, if actually conquered, were not yet wholly in safe keeping. On the north of Khokand, too,—on the west of the Issikköl and the Narin, the Court of St. Petersburg could show but few tokens of success. The Kirghis were embittered and hostile to the strange intruders, and the Œzbeg tribes on the northern frontier of Khokand would then have deemed a Russian occupation equivalent to the destruction of the world; so much did they hate and scout the Unbelievers. Three years have passed, and what has happened in that time? Not only has Khodja-Ahmed-Yesevi, that holiest patron of the Kirghis, become a Russian subject in Hazreti-Turkestan; not only has Tashkend, the most important trading town, the great mart of Central-Asiatic and Chinese trade with Russia, been absorbed into the northern Colossus; not only does the Russian flag wave from the citadel of Khodjend, the second town of importance in Khokand; it may now be also seen on the small fortress of Zamin, Oratepa, and Djissag. The dreaded Russ has set himself up as lord-protector in the eastern Khanat of Turkestan: the Hazret, the Khan, as also the Hazret or High Priest of Namengan, strive for the favour of one who, but a year before, would have filled their very dreams with mortal terror. Nay, not Khokand only, but the Tadjik population also throughout Bokhara and Khiva, the great number of freedmen and slaves in service, and even the wealthier merchants from Mooltan and other parts of India, who once trembled before the Œzbeg power, now whisper delightedly into each other's ears that the Russians are slowly drawing nearer, and that Œzbeg lordship and Œzbeg absolutism are coming to an end.
For three years have these metamorphoses in the oasis-countries of Turkestan been carried on with sure and steady hand from the banks of the Neva. As an erewhile traveller, for whom those spots had been full of interest from my youth up, I had already kept, albeit from a distance, a watchful eye on all that went on amidst the plains of the Yaxartes. I devoured alike the newspaper reports and the scanty notices which my fellow pilgrims from Turkestan communicated to me through their westward journeying brethren. That I took a hearty interest in everything will surprise no one, little as the utterances of the English press and the writings of British Indian diplomatists during these occurrences claimed my full attention. To the prophecies of the Dervish neither the one party nor the other gave a thought. The note of satisfaction struck three years before was kept up without a break. People were no longer content with the bare assertion, that Russian progress in Central Asia was a thing to welcome, but tried their utmost to show convincing grounds for that assertion, in order to represent the success of the Muscovite arms as tending more and more profitably for English interests.
To solve this problem the more happily, to convince all thoughtful Englishmen the more unanswerably of the profit to be gained from Russian successes, the question was debated by a light which was sure to be equally welcome to all the different classes. The scientific world was informed by the learned President of the Royal Geographical Society touching the excellent service rendered to science at large by the trigonometrical, geographical, and geological societies of Russia. Russian voyages of discovery were exalted above everything; Russian scholars were deified; nay, it was only lately that even Vice-Admiral Butakoff was presented with the large gold medal for his discoveries on the Sea of Aral. Social Reformers, on the contrary, were taught to compare Tartar savagery with Russian civilisation. The picture which I myself drew of Central Asia was contrasted with the young Russia of to-day: the emancipation of slaves, the Russian endeavours after national enlightenment, the great change in manners, the mighty strides by which Russia was approaching England in civilised ideas, were all brought into the foreground; and in every thread of this tissue was expression given to the great usefulness of Russian supremacy in Asia. The trading world was shown the advantage which must accrue from safe means of communication, now that Russian arms are on the point of smoothing a way through the inhospitable steppes of Turkestan towards India. Some journals, indeed, were carried so far away by their zeal as to point out to the honest workmen of Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester, &c., that only English wares and English capital would travel to and fro along the new Russian commercial road to Central Asia. Even the military class had a friendly word whispered into its ear. To the sons of Mars it was needful to represent a Russian invasion of India as a ridiculous bugbear. From every stand-point, moral, physical, strategical, was such an attempt proved to be an impossibility. How, indeed, could Russia overcome the enormous difficulties of those parched steppes that stretched week after week before her; how master the warlike Afghans, or win through the dreaded Khyber Pass? And even if she succeeded in that also, how roughly would she not be handled by the British Lion, who would lie waiting leisurely for her in his luxurious palankeen? Nay, even to the Church, that mightiest of English levers, should a lullaby be chanted forth. People hinted at a happy union between the Orthodox Church of Russia and that of England. Dr. Norman Macleod is an authority; and his cry, "The Greek Church is not yet lost," has aroused the hopes of many; and very learned church dignitaries have looked forward with blissful smiles to the moment when the three-fold Greek Cross shall rise from the Neva up to the proud dome of St. Paul's in London, for the kiss of brotherhood, and the two united churches shall become a powerful weapon against Papal ideas.