[1] Probably the Agate.
CHAPTER L TWO OLD FRIENDS
The Svâns are a strange and peculiar race, declared indeed by the few outsiders who have ever seen them and come back, to be the most original of mankind. And Usi proved at least that much, by showing some rudiments of gratitude.
Although he had managed to tell his tale, with failure of words, and gasps for breath, and rolling of his eyes when the agony came back, poor Wolfsmeat was not fit for much, except to be laid in a soft and shady place, consoled with tobacco and cordials, and continually asked how he felt now. We soon understood what he wished to say, even without the interpreter, for he had picked up small pieces of divers tongues, by being so long among the mountain troops. More than once we feared that he would never bear up from the pains and privations he had undergone; but he said that he should be unworthy of the name of a Shamylid, or son of Shamyl, unless he could starve for a week, without showing immoderate signs of hunger. If the signs Usi had manifested, after only three days, were moderate, no wonder that the big wolf turned and fled from a countenance so expressive.
Strogue, and Cator, and myself, who might now be called the three leaders, sat late into that night, discussing the story of this patient sufferer. What chance had we of being in time, even if we could raise force enough to prevent the murder in cold blood appointed for next Monday? All the fighting men of this tribe of Ossets in the Upper Terek, and the Ardon valleys, would probably be mustered there to carry out the execution. Cator had often heard of the place so clearly described by the injured Svân, and he told us that these wild folk called it the "Valley of Retribution." From Usi's account, it was plain that Marva was making a tribal revenge of it. Her brother would be tried and condemned by the tribe, in expiation of the death of their former chief, Prince Rakhan. Him she had hated and scorned perhaps; for she was not of the sweet kind of women, who look at their wrongs with dewy eyes; but according to the Osset creed her duty was—blood for blood, and soul for soul. Strong in her own dominion now, she might drop all that, if she saw fit, and cry, "Bygones be bygones." Every man of the tribe (being in his heart most loyally afraid of her) would have joined all his cousins in lamenting, that the days were not as they had been; that nobody had the courage now to keep up good old customs; and yet, however right one's own mind was, what could one do, but as the others did? And then to sigh, and cast a glance at Heaven (that forbears to fall upon us) and light another pipe with some remorse, but plenty of sentiment to make it draw.
This was not for us to do, in a state of things beyond all understanding of any man not in the thick of them; and a thousandfold worse for him, if he is there. Nothing is more pleasing than to hear a man tell the story of some touch-and-go adventure he has been through. If he is an Englishman, he is sure to be self-ashamed about it, and describe himself as much more frightened than his slow system gave him time to be. But whoever he is, you may depend upon it that he will put into the narrative a lot of things which never occurred—till afterwards. And I am afraid that I shall do this, when I try to tell how we went on, though I mean to tell everything word for word, which ought to be the same as fact for fact.
But lo, at the very outstart, indignation cripples one! We know that it is sure to go too far, and to put things into darker colours than clear truth has cast into them. In dread of this, a truthful man draws back, and takes too weak a brush.
All of us were put upon that sense of wrong which stirs us up to think less of our own poor lives, and more of that great power which the Lord has planted in us (though He has not always worked it out), to show that we are something more than the brute creation round us. The sense of justice, and good will, and love to those of our own kind, and hate of all that wrong them. Even if Sûr Imar had not been the man he was, and Dariel's father, I would gladly have risked my life—if time were allowed me to know what I was about—rather than let such inhumanity triumph among human beings. Strogue and Cator were of the same mind, and the rest of the miners found that a little excitement would not be amiss. The worst of it was that they were inclined to underrate the enemy. To them it seemed sound argument that a dozen Englishmen could larrup, almost with their neckties, thirty or forty of such fellows as they were like to meet with. Even if there had been truth in that, and it would be most ungrateful on my part to disparage them, what would they do if they had to encounter perhaps a hundred men all well armed? Therefore we must increase our force, and that without loss of a minute. To call for Russian interference would be vain, for they had no brigade—even if they would have used it—that could be brought up in three days' time. We must act for ourselves; as the rule is laid down generally for poor Englishmen, because they are so few, yet always called upon to meet so many.