CHAPTER XIX
WE REACH HEAD-QUARTERS.
Such was the story of the Circassian captain, and it occupied the greater part of the time during which the San Lucar packet steamed along the south-west coast of Andalusia, passing Cape Plata, and entering the Straits of Gibraltar, had rounded the promontory which is crowned by towers and ramparts of Tarifa, after which a run of seventeen miles brought us into the harbour of the great rock, where the babble of Spaniards, Moors, Italians, French, and Gitanas was ringing in our ears again, as we landed with our horses on the quay.
Taking our new friend with us—for we could not but have a lively interest in a brother patriot of the valiant Schamyl—the Washington of the Caucasus, the Wallace of Circassia, we repaired at once to headquarters, and related the success of our visit to Seville, reserving future relations until we went to mess in the evening.
We introduced Captain Osman Rioni to Morton, our colonel, who immediately spoke to him of service in the Turkish Contingent, urging it upon him the more vehemently, as there were then in the harbour six transports full of French and British troops en route to Sebastopol. But Osman thanked the good colonel, and shook his head, saying,—
"Mohammed was the first Prophet of God, and the holy Murid Schamyl is the second! Our destiny is written on our foreheads; may it be mine to die in the ranks of war! Every man hath his part in life allotted to him; may it be mine to fight for my country, and fight again I shall! Is not her blood red on the Russian bayonets? I will carry a lance under no flag but the green Sangiac Sheerif of Circassia. Would to heaven I saw it now with the twelve stars of the confederated tribes, for then I should see the Abassian peaks and the wilds of Daghestan, the warriors in their mail of links, and the linden trees that shade those cottage doors from which our women bless us, and we ride to war against the Buss. Yes, yes; I will return to Circassia on her shore alone to fight with Schamyl against the foes of God, and to see once more the snowy rocks of Elbrus, where the ark of Noah first rested before it lay on Ararat."
His story, his peculiar language and bearing, his horse Zupi, and his love for that gallant animal made him quite a seven days' wonder with "Ours," and he was the lion of the mess table. Every one who had any pretension to be a connoisseur in horse-flesh had visited, criticised, and caressed Zupi, which was a long-bodied, wiry, and, to our taste, somewhat short-legged nag, with small ears, a noble head, full chest and flanks, compact and close.
"A hundred times and more he has stood still as a stone wall, and allowed me to fire my long Albanian gun between his ears, using his head as a rest," said Osman; "courage, brave Zupi—courage! Ere long thou shalt snuff the air in woody Daghestan, and drink of the foaming Koissons."
We raised a handsome subscription for him in one night at our mess table, and procured him a passage in a French cavalry transport; so he left us, with lips that quivered as he said "farewell," and a heart that yearned with gratitude. He said that one day we should hear of him when Schamyl and his host marched towards the shores of the Sea of Azov.
Whether Osman reached his own wild and war-like country we have yet to learn; for since the day on which the "Napoleon III." steamed away past the New Mole fort, with her deck crowded by Zouaves, and our Circassian among them waving his red cap in adieu to us, we have heard no more of him; for the tidings of the Caucasian strife that reach Europe are meagre, doubtful, and vague, as those that came from the Holy Land of old.