We were now with that portion of the Russian army which had fallen back from the Circassian Mountains to recruit and reform after their defeats by Schamyl; and which, after recrossing the Don, was cantoned principally in the Ukraine. The division to which we belonged occupied Poltava, one of the richest and best parts of the adjoining province for pasturing cavalry horses.
On the very day after we halted at Poltava, a grand parade was formed before Prince Menschikoff, and as I had marched with the baggage guard, I saw Carlovitch for the first time since these atrocities had cast a horror on my soul. The Prophet alone knows what were my emotions at the sight of him. The voices of Basilia and of Selim were rising from their graves—they were ever in my ears whispering "vengeance," and I rode amid the troops like one in a stupor. The parade was a magnificent one.
There were present the Imperial Guard, under General Ouchterlony, a Scotsman, and his three sons, all colonels of battalions; these men were the flower of the Russian army; the six Grenadier battalions of Prince Frederick of Hesse Phillipesthal; the veteran regiment of Moscow, commanded by Prince Frederick of Mecklenburg; the Cuirassiers of the Grand Duchess Olga, and the gorgeous Hussars of the Princess Maria Paulowna (sister of the Emperor), whose trappings far eclipsed those of the two Tenginski corps of Hussars and Infantry. But Karolyi and I laughed at the splendour of these idolaters, and scorn grew with hatred in our hearts; for it is of these, and such as these—eaters of hogs'-flesh and drinkers of brandy—that our Prophet spoke, when he said, "lo! they are like no other than brute cattle," and they shall perish like the people of Irem, of Thamud, and those who, as the Koran tells us, dwelt in al Rass.
The review passed before me like a dream, for my mind was full of other thoughts, and I saw only the mangled and bleeding body of Selim bound to the field-piece, and the poor remains of Basilia asleep in that uncouth grave where the Russian pioneers had buried her, when suddenly my name resounded along the glittering ranks; Carlovitch summoned me to the front, when all the cavalry were formed in line to deliver a general salute.
Something had gone wrong. I know not what, but I had neglected my troop when deploying from close column into line, and Carlovitch, usually so grave and impassible, was choking with passion. He called me "a dog of a Tcherkesse," and smote me on the face with his rattan.
The blow went straight to my heart!
For a moment I felt as if a thunderbolt had struck me; but transported with fury, I uttered the yell-like war cry of Circassia, and buried my sharp sabre—the noble steel of far-away Damascus—in his dastard heart!
Again I thrust it to the hilt, as tottering he drooped upon his holsters, dying and gushing of blood, and then I spurned the corpse with my feet as it fell. I slew him on the spot, in the face of fifty thousand men! May the curse of mankind fall upon the turf which wraps the dog who begot him!
I brandished my sabre, and shouted wildly to Karolyi,—
"To the hills—away, away! Tcherkesse! Tcherkesse!"