"On the following day, the Ossets drove me from among them with many blows; but I cared not, since I had renewed my strength with plentiful waste victuals, and a warm sound sleep. For I could watch them none the worse for being outside of their wicked troop, and by this time I well knew what they meant. So I followed them to the great Russian road, towards which the forest track whereon I found them led; and there they encamped on either side. There were steep rocks around them, full of black caves and crannies, and without much risk I crawled up into one of these, so that I could see all these warriors and the road beyond them, without any risk of their seeing me.
"Before I had been there very long, a three-horse carriage came up the road, followed by two carts piled with goods; and the young chief rode to meet them, and much salutation might be seen, and the carriage and carts were unloaded and sent back again, so that only Sûr Imar—for I knew his gait and stature even at that distance—with a young lady, and two attendants, a man and a woman, stood in the road. Hisar no doubt had assured them that the Princess was close at hand with vehicles well prepared to conduct them home. But it seemed to me that the Prince and the lady were looking to this side and to that, and gazing at every corner, as if they expected some one who ought to have met them, but was not to be found. And suddenly I thought that they were looking out for Stepan, Imar's milk-brother and most faithful friend. And I wished with all my heart that he were there, or could even be advised of his lord's return.
"Sir, and honourable gentlemen, I will not deceive you by speaking as if I had seen the shameful things that happened, almost before one could think of them, to the great Chief and his daughter. For they were led very politely into a dark narrow valley that slopes from the road, and cannot be discerned at all from it. And a torrent, that rushes along the lower end, goes by with such an uproar that an army with drums might scarcely be heard at the mouth of it. They were led there perhaps on pretence of a hospitable meal such as I would with joy pursue. But in sad truth it was to overthrow them by means of ropes, and loops, and trees, for Sûr Imar was known to be the strongest man in all the great army of Shamyl; and although he might now be unarmed and defenceless, it would be easier to master him by fraud than force. And although I saw not the doing of it, the old head sees more than young eyes sometimes; according to an ancient tag of ours, 'The grey bush looks round the corner.'
"They came not back into the wide strong road, for fear of Cossacks or other gapes; but went along the forest ways of rock and slough and waterfall; and through my old experience in the turn of war—for Shamyl was fox, wolf, and lion in one—it was easy enough for me to keep in their track, without giving them any smell of me. They had my old commander strapped on poles across two horses, which must have been great pain for him, and would have torn a loose man in two; but I never heard him speak a groan, although they passed through hollow places, where the misery of a man sounds loud. The fair damsel had not her senses with her, being of softer substance; and cruel as they were, they bore her gently upon a litter of slender wood, not desiring to hurt her yet, and having perhaps later occasion for her. Some of them jested about her beauty, till the violent young man rode back, and sent their loose mouths sprawling on the rocks. He means to keep her for himself, I trow.
"When the sun was getting low, and but for my memory of honest warfare, and the love of an old soldier for a kindly leader, I must have dropped away through weariness, the feet of their horses struck on softer ground, and behold they were entering a fair green valley, on the northern breast of Kazbek, where the sun strikes not from on high, but twinkles along the rocky passages, when the slope of the earth invites him, in the morning and in the evening time, like a low flight of arrows, such as I have seen when the Svâns were mighty bowmen. Wherefore this valley is never parched up, as they are on the south of the mountains, but is covered with moss, like the breath of night, and soft with trickling moisture. And the learned men say that an ancient race, who had come through the gates of Caucasus, having conquered the whole world all around, set up their last pillars here, and desired to go no further. And the masonry of giants is there to prove it, such as no man can make when the world grows old.
"Here that troop of brigands—for such a name is almost too good for them—opened a narrow door in the cliff, which cannot be seen from every place, because dark rocks encompass it. What they did there I cannot tell, for I durst not set foot down the valley, and there was no getting near it in time from above, so as to look down over them. I could only discover that some went in, stepping as if with burdens, while others were left on guard outside. By and by, I heard a clanking like the swing of an iron door, and presently all, or as I thought all, the riders came back, and with laughter and singing, and the young chief Hisar at their head, made off by the track which leads home to their village.
"Then I did a very foolish thing, which has all but cost me my life, without being of any use to Sûr Imar. If I had counted the men on horseback, which I might have contrived perhaps to do, though it would not have been very easy, I should have learned that they were not all gone, but that two were left on guard. Descrying no horses tethered in the valley, and knowing that the prisoners could not escape, I concluded rashly that all the Ossets were gone, at least for the present, and that I might safely spy all around, and perhaps even try to let Sûr Imar know that I would do my best to save him. So I hastened with some care, but still too boldly, along the foot of the cliff which rims the valley, so as to endeavour to approach the door. For the shadows were wiping out the shapes and colours of a man, or a bush, or a rock standing still; while the soft moss and herbage took away the fear of sound.
"Looking out winkingly in all directions, like a man of the chase who has espied the Tûr, at the end of the valley in the clouding of the dusk, I beheld a company of little rocks, jutting from the soft land, and standing in jags, like an old man's teeth, across the butt-end, where the dungeon began. In and out of these I crept, going very stealthily, as if I were dealing with a Cossack outpost; but the mischief of it was that I had no gun, only the dagger that everybody has; and this one was more like lead than steel, having come to me cheap in my distress from some city in the west called Brummerum. By breathing upon it many times, I was doubtful of its temper, but never thought how much it would betray me.
"Among those jags of rock I stood, watching the face of the cliff beyond, and the deep withdrawal of the iron door set in the granite masonry of some nation as old as Noah. And I said to myself that with a good ash-trunk, and Stepan, and myself, and a score of strong men to charge at it like a battering-ram, stout as it was it would perhaps give in. There were loop-holes also on either side, to give air and a little light sometimes, and I ventured a low breath of whistle in a soft and friendly tone, to ask whether anybody might look forth, though there was no width for a fox to squeeze through. But the whole of my wisdom only proved what a fool an old soldier is sometimes.