"'Alas, sir, I am not worth money now,' she answered with her white hands clasped together; 'there is none of my race to pay ransom now. There is not even a wealthy friend, to help, or to shelter Oria.'
"'The Princess Oria, the lily-bud of Kajori, the last of the Royal House of Georgia, to which the race of Rurik is a mushroom! Princess Oria, I do you homage.'
"As I made her a low salute, which I would not have offered to the Czar himself, she turned away as if she would not see it, and a soft sob made me feel afraid. This was not one of your haughty mesdames, who let the men fancy that they carry them by storm, while they laugh in their own proud breasts, with knowledge that they are the Masters, as soon as they like. I could hear the Princess D. in the distance, rating the man who carried her on the cushion provided in front of him, and I knew that he had a bad time of it.
"'What are the commands of your Royal Highness?' I asked, with an emphasis on the title, which she alone of the proud bevy could claim. 'Behold, I am proud to be your slave.'
"She rose to the remembrance of her childhood, when she had been made much of, as the last descendant of Queen Tamara; and then her pride melted into a flood of tears, and the sense of helpless maidenhood. She tried to say something, but it only came to sobs.
"'Trust yourself to me,' I said, 'I cannot leave you here at the mercy of drunken Cossacks. I am Sûr Imar of the Lesghians, not a Moslem, but a Christian. By the body of Christ, none shall harm you, while I live.'
"There was no time for further adjurations. She bowed her beautiful head, and drew down her long veil, and in a moment the love of my life was in my arms, and on the soft pillow in front of me, with my horse at full gallop, in the broad stretch of the moon. Like an image of marble she lay before me, and I touched her as if she were an image of glass. The troopers were astonished when we overtook them, but they knew better than to say a word, or down they would have gone, Russian Princess and all. For I was not in the cue to stand insolence. Having given my orders I kept in the rear, grudging even the moon between the bars of shadow a glimpse at the figure in my precious trust. But no man can think of such things, and then tell them. For, they only come once in the nightmare of life.
"Shamyl was delighted, when we brought him his fair prisoners, and he did his very best in his peasant style to be courteous and polite to them. As the leader of the expedition I had the privilege of introducing them; and it was really a fine thing to see how they behaved to him, and he to them. He gave himself airs which made me smile; and before so much rank and beauty—infidel though it might be—he forgot for the moment that he was the Prophet of the Lord. And as for the ladies, although they were bound in consistency to abhor him, not only did they forego the attempt, but all who had rank to make such a claim decent, insisted upon having a lock of his hair.
"In a word, the Princesses were all so happy, when by means of a flag of truce they had received from their friends a large supply of raiment and other luxuries, that the hope of getting a first-rate figure for them was endangered. Instead of frantic adjurations, and despairing outcries, their letters now were full of bright descriptions and gay narratives; and proud as we were of their good opinions, we could not afford them to that extent. It became needful on this behalf to send the fair captives to a duller place, to some desolate spot, where even a woman could not contrive to see much of the world. Darghi, in the depths of Daghestan, and far away even from the echoes, was a place of so lofty a character that the fashions of the Ark were as valid as the latest announced from Paris; and thither I was ordered to conduct these ladies, for the creation of discontent among them, the scenery being beautiful, but sparsely populated. And if the love of Nature were by any means as potent in the Russian breast as the English ladies now declare it to have grown in theirs, perfect happiness should have been the lot of these fair Princesses. There was nothing to disturb them, beauty reigned on every side; and beauty should have reigned within.