"'Young Imar, the son of Dadian. The Russians have slain thy father in cold blood. Thou art now the Chief of the Kheusurs. Thou art not of Islam; but if thou hast any blood in thy body, come without delay, and have thy just revenge upon the accursed heathen. Shamyl, the Imaum.'
"What youth of spirit and health and strength could hesitate for an hour? I had many Russian friends at Tiflis, and all of the higher rank made light of the barbarian tumult, as they called it, among the distant mountains. They begged me at least to wait until the truth of the Muridist outlaw's words could be properly established; for they said that he could outlie a Greek, or even an Armenian. But I broke from them all, bade farewell to Marva, and in shorter time than space required, presented myself to Shamyl.
"That Hannibal of the East was now at the acme of his fame and power. Though not of great stature, or winning aspect, or even exemplary cleanliness, he possessed and exercised that gift of forcing the wills of others into the channel of his own, which makes a man's course historical. He had piercing eyes, deeply set and overhung, and a swarthy complexion, and strong harsh features, enlivened sometimes with a smile conveying a boyish and rudimental sense of humour. But let any one rouse his temper, and the Demon of the Mountains, who haunts the crags of Kazbek, could not rave more furiously. It was this, and not cold inhumanity—as strangers to our race imagined—which drove him into those brutal acts which disgraced the name of Avar. Whether he believed in his Divine Mission to restore the glory of Islam, and extirpate the infidel, or whether he laughed in his sleeve at that most useful delusion, I never could decide. As a Christian, and a well educated youth, I thoroughly disdained such stuff; but while contemning the Muridist and the Imaum, I fell more than behoved me perhaps under the influence of the patriot. For I was but eighteen years of age, and as yet quite a child among men of action, though foremost of the students in philology at Tiflis, and even in bodily strength and activity equal to the best of them.
"My presence at first was of service to the cause, only as securing the assistance of my tribe, who had no share in Islam, and would have deserted very promptly without my presence among them. But before long I proved myself a valuable recruit, and was advanced to a command among the scouts; upon whom in that war of surprises and sudden encounters much depended. Although I hated and scorned the religion of our Chief, I shared his patriotism, and admired his valour and genius, while often wondering at the forbearance he showed to an 'unbeliever.' This I owed to his sense of honour, as I learned long afterwards, inasmuch as he had promised my father, his old companion in arms, that he would never make any attempt to convert me, if I were allowed to join him. Then suddenly he fell in my esteem, for I found out that he had lied to me.
"So zealous had I been in military matters, and so eager to qualify myself for command, that for two years I never went home to Karthlos Tower, the proper abode of our race. I never cared for form and fuss, and the earthly division of God's children into two creations—the high-born and the low-born half—for perhaps there are more who knew their Father in humility, than in proud estate.
"In my youth I never thought of such things, to which convention drives us, but simply divided the men around me into hearties who would fight, and poltroons who ran away; and of the latter there were but few. The Steward at the Tower had supplied me with all that I wanted in those rugged times; and in the hot vein of my patriotism, a crust and an icicle seemed enough for a soldier to subsist upon. But now I was compelled to return to Karthlos by a strange thing which had come to pass, while I was intent upon war alone.
"Marva, twin-sister of mine, and in childhood dearer than my little self to me, had defied all authority; and when that did not avail, had outwitted it, and vanished from the Convent-school at Tiflis. And my first news of it was a strong demand for her portion of the patrimony, from the man who had run away with her. This was the Chief of an Osset tribe, who had never joined in the war, but waited for the final issue; in which even we who kept it up could have little confidence, unless the great Powers in the West, now at enmity with Russia, would send us speedy and effectual help. And I knew that this Osset Chief had been a hereditary foe to my father.
"His name was Rakhan, which is, I believe, of Tartar origin; and he showed signs in character and in features too of kinship to that widespread race. But his father had been of pure Ossetian blood, and now he was acknowledged Chief of a certain wild, and semi-Christian tribe. We had never had much to do with them, although their villages lay near us on the West; for the Russians kept a fortified post between us, where their main road crosses the mountain-chain, and we scarcely regarded them as brother Christians, though that did not prevent us from having plenty of private feuds with them. And now this man of an inferior race, and a poor one too—for they throve principally upon goats—had dared to make up to my twin-sister, and marry her, and demand her heritage!
"And this was not the worst of it, for as soon as I entered Karthlos, my good Steward, Kobaduk, a very faithful servant, told me that beyond any doubt Rakhan, the Osset, had compassed and probably with his own hand committed the murder of my father, Sûr Dadian. I replied that the Imaum himself had assured me that the Russians were guilty of that crime, and this had impelled me to quit all friends and hurry without going home to Bodlith. But he spat on the ground, as our peasants do, when they hear of a black deception, and soon proved to me that the Czar's troops were guiltless; and not only so, but that Shamyl the Tartar—as he was frequently called in contempt—knew as well as Kobaduk did, that there was not a Russian within miles of Karthlos, when that cowardly shot was fired. Moreover, the foremost of my father's men who had spurred along the defile, made oath that he saw a white globe whirl away where the crags broke apart in the distance, and he put his jaded horse to the utmost speed, all in vain among darkness and precipices. Now every one knows that no Russian soldier, and the Ossets alone in our part of the range can be found with that hideous head-gear flapping, a sheep-skin puffed out into a ball at the top, like a great white onion at the end of a stick. And there was other evidence as well as this.