We spent that evening in consultation, receiving many hints from our young friend, who would have been glad to join us, if the state of his work had allowed it. But his mate, as he called him, was away, and so he could not well leave the diggings; moreover, there would have been some danger that he might be recognised, which would prove fatal to our case at once. Yet he promised to help us with all his force, in any great emergency, if we could only give him notice in good time, and this was of no less value to us than a troop of Cossacks. Meanwhile he would send to make inquiry at Vladikaukaz, the chief town on the north, which travellers from Russia would be almost sure to pass, whether our friends had been heard of there. And so, with many thanks, we left him for the present, and spent a day at Kazbek village, preparing for our visit to the Princess Marva.
Against so fierce an enemy, and with so good an object, our stratagem for obtaining an audience was fair enough; but to use the German professor's card seemed to me far beyond the most elastic stretch of honesty; so I threw it into the fire, to save argument, for Strogue took a different view of the case. "You may take the lead, and you may call yourself a German," I told him resolutely; "I am a silent partner, and it does not matter who I am. The lady speaks better French perhaps than you do, and certainly much better than I do. You do all the talking, and I nod my head. Cator is drawing up the rough agreement, which we submit for her consideration. The beauty of it is, that if in her greed she even gives a nibble at the bait, we can dangle it ever so long before her, and are sure to find out something of what we want to know. Cator must put it as vaguely as he can, and leave the royalty blank for us to fight about."
Cator was one of Jack Nickols' men, a sharp and well-educated youth, who had been in a lawyer's office, but found a lack of bracing qualities in the air, and left his stool in search of them. And now we gave him a double fee to prepare a document and enact the lawyer's clerk at our interview, for men of law were almost as rare as men of medicine in these parts. A formidable deed it was, with half-a-dozen seals to it, and we wrapped it round a straight black horn from some sheep or goat of the mountains.
The roads were bad, being over-metalled by the melting of the snow. For the roads are the river-courses, and when nature lays too much water on, it is not easy to get along them, even the right way of the grain. And our course now was against the grain, towards the head springs, or mother glaciers of the river Terek; which would have conducted us, when in a proper mood, but now knocked us back again, with a gruff and grey adversity. Neither was there anything for the eyes to spread their rims at, and make light of all the discontent of legs and back. All was dry rock, except where it was wet with dribble, or dirty with reek of thaw; and there was scarcely a tree to wipe the air, or show what way the wind came.
Nevertheless we strove along, following our guide, who cared much more about putting his own feet right than ours. For these men are not like the Alpine guides, whose loyalty is more to them than money. At length, on the third afternoon, we stood before a strange place, which I cannot describe, nor even give a rough idea of it, unless I may compare it with a great pile of big dominoes, set at any angle, some on end, and some on edge, on the top of a black pillow bolt-upright. And this was the fortress of the Osset Queen.
We sounded a trumpet, but received no answer. And then we made a rub-a-dub on a goat-skin drum, which was hanging on a stump for visitors. And when we left off, we heard a screech of metal going rustily and heavily upon its hinges. Then a muzzle, as big as a small church bell, came out, and we thought it was all up with us.
But Strogue, like a brave man, waved a white handkerchief on the screw of his ramrod, and we pushed the interpreter foremost, though it required three men to do it. What he said was beyond me altogether, though crowded with illustrious but anxious words. And if words were ever known to afford relief, it is fair to acknowledge that they did so then. The great muzzle which commanded all our bodies, so that to fly was hopeless, sank upon its pivot—or whatever it might be—and a ladder, which had been out of sight behind a buttress, came sliding down the base to meet us. "One man first" was the order from the loop-hole; and every one of us quite admitted his friend's claim to precedence. "Can die but once," cried Strogue; "here goes." Upon which I felt my cheeks burn, and said, "Let me." But he answered, "No, you shall come next, my son."
The Captain went up heavily, with the scroll upon his back, and the four-chambered "bull-dog" in his left breast-pocket; and we saw two men receive him on a narrow parapet, and he waved his hand to us to indicate all right. Then he vanished round a corner, and we waited for some minutes, having found a little shelter where it would take some time to shoot us. We assured one another very strongly that if anything happened to Captain Strogue, we would not be satisfied with avenging him, but would have the whole place down, and a British fleet in a position to rake all the Caucasus, when to our great relief he appeared again at the head of the ladder and shouted, "Three more fellows may come up now." This time, I was the foremost to run up. Not that I was really afraid before; only that I waited to know what the others thought, as a man of modesty and deliberation does, when the circumstances are unusual. Cator followed readily, and so did another of Jack Nickols' men; but the interpreter said that we should find him more useful at the bottom of the ladder. "She is a stunner, and she has got a stunning place," Strogue whispered to me, as he led us through a dark passage into a long low room; "she beats the Begum all to fits."
What Begum he meant I could not tell, having heard him speak of several whose hearts he had broken in his early days. But if he meant some regal-looking woman, he was not beyond the mark in his comparison. For I had never beheld one so stately and grand as the lady who now received us with a slight inclination, reflected by the polish of the black walnut table before her. She was sitting in a chair of purple velvet with a leopard's skin thrown over it, and her dress was of soft maroon brocade, with white fur trimmings at the neck and wrist, and a gold chain flowing upon her full broad bosom. There was not a wrinkle or a spot to mar the shapely column of her neck, or the firm sleek comeliness of her face; and her eyes, if there had only been some sweetness in them, would have been as lovely as they were splendid. Her complexion was darker than Sûr Imar's, and the lineaments more delicate, so that her face excelled his in perfection of form, as the feminine face should do. But as to expression, the gentler element was by no means in its duty there; for the aspect was of one who scorns, mistrusts, and repels all fellow-creatures, and sees the evil in them only.
"These, then, are the members of your company, Herr Steinhart,"—she addressed herself to Strogue, after one flashing glance at each of us, as we entered, and her French pronunciation was a little too good for me to follow all of it, though she did not infuse much nasal twang; "and it is your opinion that I am deluded by those who are working my mines at present?" My mines indeed, how grand! I thought; what would the Russians have to say to that?