"For a loop was thrown over my head from behind, and then two strong men had hold of me. I managed to twist with one arm free, and struck with my dagger at one of them. But instead of making any hole in him, it came back on my wrist like an osier, having met with his metal cartridge-belt; and then they pulled me off my feet, and I lay like a sheep with his legs tied. I thought they would have cut my throat outright, for my head fell back the right way of it, and one of them whipped out his knife to do it; but the other cried out about the holy season, and then put his arm across. So they satisfied themselves with binding me with cords that cut into my flesh; and they carried me through the night, shaken up with pain; and I knew not where I was, till I came back to myself through necessity of lying to Queen Marva.
"But as my evil fortune fell, there happened to be among the Ossets, another old soldier of Shamyl, and one who had never served under Sûr Imar. This man knew me, and told the Queen who I was; and but for the holy time she would have crucified me then and there. 'Religion forbids us to slay the wretch,' said Marva, with a glance of blackness, 'but doth not forbid to make wolf's meat of him.'
"Three days ago I was fastened to a rock with the big rope round my body, and my wrists and ankles corded, so that if any wolves came by they should have no trouble with me. But the Lord commanded only one wolf to come, and he was overtaken with great wonder at the sight; and I had the courage to keep silence, and gaze at him, as if demanding what he meant by being there. Seeing me naked and so hairy, he could not understand such an animal; for I could no longer stand upright. Then, as I never flinched nor moved, he sheathed his teeth, and turned his eyes, and his tail began to quiver. I kept my eyes fixed on him steadily, and my face as firm as the crag behind; until with a little whine of doubt he drew in his nostrils, and dropped his tail, and trotted off to consult his friends, and perhaps he has taken his family to look for me this evening. A monstrous wolf he was in truth, and as hungry perhaps as I could be.
"For two days I had been numbed, and parched, and struck by the sun and the moon so much, that instead of any brave time of thought, I had only leaped and raved and yelled, and dashed myself about in vain, tearing my skin in strips, and cutting gashes into my purple flesh, and making holes all over me.
"But the moment that wolf was out of sight, I was seized with a cold and shivering dread, so that I could see the naked hairs of all my body quivering. Death I knew that I must have; and death had seemed a reasonable thing, when I gave it to another man who was trying to do the same to me. But to see myself being crunched alive, to feel those yellow fangs pulling my strings out, and that long tongue lapping up my blood—let me die before he came again. Surely I must have strength enough left to burst the veins of my neck and die. Were there any rocks within my reach so rugged and sharp that I might fling one of my leading blood-pipes down, again and again, till it should burst? I flung out my legs, and strained my length, like a chained dog clawing for a bone out of reach, in search of some blade of flint keen enough to saw my gullet or windpipe through.
"But what did I descry wedged firmly in a little cleft among them? A long brown eye, which I could see into, curdled with coils of different colours, as regular as a bulb cross-cut, centred with vaporous waves, and hooped with rings of white, as the rind encloses some dark wood. Then a spring of hope like the sparkle of a star flashed into the clouding of my mind, for this is the stone[1] which we call the 'Eye of God.' It is stronger and keener of edge than any flint, luckier to man than mother's milk, and harder than steel of the Genoese.
"Instead of straining, twisting, and wriggling, to release my corded wrists, which were lashed to the rope at my waist so tight that I could not fetch teeth nigh them, I began to saw the cord below the clench of my thumbs upon the stone of God. The agony of it was terrible; but at last I rent my hands apart, and as soon as the blood returned to them, with teeth and flint I contrived to sever the rope that strung me to the rock, and to hobble to a brook to drink. The rest you know; three days have I borne of agony, starvation, and the stars and sun. The Lord God—if there be One in heaven to look down upon His own wicked works—spit my blood into that woman's throat!"