His head-quarters were now fixed at Dargo, a village in the heart of the mountains and in the midst of the primeval forest. But the chief had learned a lesson from his late experience. The Circassians were no match for the Russians behind fortifications. He resolved in the future to fight in a manner better suited to the habits of his followers, and to wear out the foe by a guerilla warfare.
Three years passed before the Russians again sought to penetrate the mountains in force. Then General Grabbe, the victor at Akhulgo, attempted to repeat his success at Dargo. But the experience he gained proved to be of a less agreeable type. At the close of the first day's march, when the soldiers had eaten their evening meal and stretched their limbs to rest after a hard day's march, they were suddenly brought to their feet by a rattling volley of musketry from the surrounding woods. All night long the firing continued, no great damage being done in the darkness, but the soldiers being effectually deprived of their rest. When day dawned there was not a Circassian to be seen.
Near noon, as the column wound through a ravine in the forest, the firing sharply recommenced, a murderous volley pouring upon the vanguard from behind the trees. The number of wounded became so great that there were not wagons enough for their transportation. Still General Grab be kept on, despite the advice of his officers, only to be attacked again at night as his weary men lay in a small open meadow among the hills. All night long the whiz of bullets drove away repose, and at every step of the next day's march the woods belched forth the leaden messengers of death.
The goal of the march was near at hand. The little village of Dargo could be seen on a distant hill-top. But it was to be reached only by a path of death, and the Russian commander was at length forced to give the order to retreat. On seeing the column wheel and begin its backward march the Circassians grew wild with excitement and triumph. Slinging their rifles behind their backs, they rushed, sabre in hand, upon the enemy's centre, breaking through it again and again, while a deadly hail of rifle-shots still came from the woods. In the end, of the column of six thousand, two thousand were left dead, the remainder reaching the fortress from which they had set out in sorry plight.
For several years Schamyl made Dargo his head-quarters. Not until 1845 did the Russians succeed in taking it, their army now being ten thousand strong. But it was a village in flames they captured. Schamyl had fired it before leaving, and the Russians were so beset in coming and going that their empty conquest was made at the cost of three thousand of their men.
In the spring of the following year the valiant chief repaid the enemy in part for these invasions of his country. He had now under his command no less than twenty thousand warriors, largely horsemen, and in the leafy month of May, taking advantage of a weakening of the Russian line, he dashed suddenly from the highlands for a raid in the neighboring country of the Kabardians.
Two rivers flowed between the mountain ranges and the Kabardas, and two lines of hostile fortresses guarded the frontier, containing in all no less than seventy thousand men. Between the forts lay Cossack settlements, and beyond them the Kabardians, an armed and warlike race. Schamyl had no artillery, no fortresses, no dépôts of provisions and ammunition. All he could do was to make a quick dash and a hasty return.
Down upon the Cossacks he rode, followed by his thousands of daring riders. Plundering their villages, he halted to take no forts except those that went down in the whirl of his coming. Before the garrisons in the strongholds fairly knew that he was among them he was gone; and while the Kabardians believed that he was lurking in the mountain depths, he suddenly dashed into their midst. Sixty populous Kabardian villages were plundered, and the mountaineers proudly refused to turn till they had watered their horses in the Kuban and even reached the more distant banks of the Laba.
But how were they to return? Thousands of horsemen had gathered in the way. Long battalions of infantry had hurried to cut off the raiders on their retreat. Schamyl knew that he could not get back by the way he had come; but, turning southward, he galloped at headlong speed through the Cossack settlements in that quarter, and, with his cruppers laden with booty and his saddle-bows well furnished with food, evaded his foes and reached the mountains again. May seemed to bloom more richly than ever as the wild riders dashed proudly back to the doors of their homes and heard the glad shouts of joy that greeted their safe return.
The whole story of the exploits of the famous Circassian chief is too extended and too full of stirring incidents to be here given even in epitome. It must suffice to say, in conclusion, that ten years after his escape from Akhulgo that stronghold was again attacked and taken by the Russians, and as before Schamyl mysteriously escaped. Completely baffled, nothing was left for the Russians but to wear out the chief and his people by continued invasions of their mountain land. Again and again their armies were beaten by their indomitable foe, but the continuance of the struggle slowly exhausted the land and its powers of resistance.