Karolyi made a gesture of impatience.
"Circassia," said he, "has maidens enough and to spare; but for every warrior on her hills, she requires at least a hundred. This is no time for wedding or acting the lover, for twangling on the lute and kneeling on the verge of a pretty maid's carpet."
"These were my own words, Karolyi, when urged by you and Selim to wed ere Schamyl rose in arms."
"True, brother, true," replied Karolyi, "and in truth, this little maiden is a miracle of beauty. My soul and sword are at her service, command them; but in the name of Merissa think not of escape to-night. Another and perhaps more favourable opportunity may soon occur."
The night passed quickly away. I watched Basilia while she slept in my mantle. I was sleepless, but silent and happy, for my mind was full of love and her.
Next day I placed her on Zupi, and we set out for head-quarters amid the maledictions of the ten rescued slaves, who saw all their anticipated delights of a seraglio life suddenly cut short, and who knew that fate would now consign them to high-cheeked Kalmucks, or the rough, greasy Cossacks, in lieu of the wealthy Osmanlis, the luxurious Pashas, and turbaned Agas, whom they had hoped to have as masters; and they consoled themselves by reviling me as a renegade, and invoking on my head all the ills that fell on the God-abandoned Thamudites, and on the offspring of Saba, the son of Yarab.
On arriving at head-quarters, I presented my prisoners, and the right ears of fifteen Turks to Colonel Carlovitch. The ears he flung to his dogs, and the ten girls, not finding favour in the sight of the officers who crowded about them, were given to Cossacks, to make wives or whatever they pleased of them, for such is the law of the Russian military colonies on the Kuban; and to himself, despite my prior claim by love and capture; despite my rage and grief, my entreaties and ill-smothered threatenings—to himself—this accursed Muscovite assigned Basilia as a hand-maiden!
* * * * *
(Here the Circassian, who had related this part of his narrative in short and broken sentences, paused, and ground his teeth, while the veins of his fine pale forehead swelled like rigid cords, and his keen dark eyes became glazed with the ferocity, fire, and grief that filled them.)