"Say nothing till we are inside," I whispered to Strogue, who could speak their language somehow. It was high time to be prudent now, as well as prompt and resolute, for it seemed as if the enemy had in every way outmanœuvred us; and now, if our project should become known, the case would indeed be hopeless. "Not a word to any of these people, until Stepan thinks fit to tell them."
But I need not have been so particular, for they are as true as steel to one another, and above all to their Chieftain. Stepan told them, even before he heard my story out; because swift runners must be sent that very night to other Kheusur villages, for every fighting man within reach to join the muster at the foot of Karthlos. And that muster, to be of any use, must not be later than noon of the morrow, which would be Sunday.
Then I told Stepan our side of the story, with Strogue to make it clear to him; and Usi, without whom we could have done nothing, recounted all that he had seen, but scarcely spoke of his own woes.
At this I wondered for the moment, but knew the reason afterwards. Stepan listened with arms folded, and his great grey head as still as a rock, while his eyes were harder and less expressive—as it chanced to occur to me—than the agate which had saved Usi's life. And I noticed that the wall on which he fixed them was not half so sound and solid, nor the room itself so neat and cheerful as the old stone ruin occupied by Sûr Imar's men in England. "Is that all?" he inquired at last; and Strogue replied, "Yes; and to me it seems enough." The Lesghian dipped his unshorn chin upon the wooded cataract of his breast, and nodded courteously, meaning clearly—"Sir, you have been through us, but not to any purpose among us." And I, as a young slip—in comparison with him, though old enough now to stand up for my growth—marvelled about dry roots, and trunks that are all bark, and so on.
"Hearken to me, and I will use few words," said the loyal Lesghian slowly, with Strogue explaining for my benefit; "I am getting old, and I have my daughters, for the Lord has granted me no son, and the babes whom my daughters have brought forth while I was far away, to dwell upon. I am growing old, and my strength is only in the standing combat now. I cannot leap down from a rock and alight with both feet together, and my arms like willows of steel twined round the enemy. It has been ordained that a man, as his years increase upon him, should increase also in bulk and weight, if permitted by fortune to feed well. All the men of our tribe feed well, because they are just and remain with their wives, who know how to cook the cattle of their neighbours. None of those would we ever take, if we could trust them to leave us ours. For not only are we righteous, but we endeavour to make strangers so, when their wickedness is not good for us.
"For my part I have been in foreign places, and learned much of foreign language, sometimes increasing in wisdom thus. But as yet I have not found a country fit to be placed by the side of ours, not only for the fairness of the land, but the goodness of the inhabitants. But, as a man of truth, I will admit that it is not so with our neighbours. They on the other hand are breakers of the laws of righteousness, seeking only the ways of evil, eager to slay all who set them example not convenient. And now they are in dread of the return of our great Chief, because he brings justice and virtue with him. Their desire is to slay him, and to rob him of his goods, and to rule over us who belong to him.
"Me, who am his brother by the mother's breast, and bound to give my life for his and all that I possess, they have deceived and cheated by many lying tricks, and beguiled me, as the mother fox tempts away the dog to discourses of soft affection, while her children prey upon the tender lambs.
"Behold, when I landed from the great smoke-ship, after many weeks of rolling on strange waters, there came a man to meet me with a letter in a stick, which he said was by order of the Prince himself, and I and all my company must obey it. What the tongue says the ear can swallow, and render to the mind for consideration. But that which the hand has shaped, in many forms of crookedness, cannot come into the mind through the passes of the eyes without long teaching, and toiling through a forest full of twists and turns, which can only be endured in childhood. Therefore I went to a learned man, and paid him ten kopeks, and he made it to me the same as if Sûr Imar's voice pronounced it. And thereby I was commanded to stay where I was, with all my companions, and all the goods, for the passes were already blocked with snow, until I should receive another letter, as soon as the spring flung back the gates between the frozen mountains. The winter was very long, but at last another paper came to us, through Officers of the Government, as the letters are sent in England. And I paid another ten kopeks, so expensive is such learning, and was commanded to come on by way of Kutais and hire waggons, and get to this village, which is not my own; but not to go near Karthlos yet, because it was full of workmen. Money was also sent to me in a note for a hundred roubles, and I was ordered to shoot both these dogs, if I had kept them still alive.
"I was sure Sûr Imar had not said that, because his daughter loved them so; and that made me wonder and begin to doubt, and I said to myself, they shall see their master, and plead for their own lives with him. Also I was ordered to remain here, almost as if I were to be in prison, keeping away from my own village, and all my old friends, and obtaining food only from the people close at hand, until I should be sent for. And the reason was that if the Russians heard of all the goods we had, they would send an officer to take toll, or seize them altogether. This I thought might be true enough, until the people here declared that the Russians never do anything like that; and again this made me doubtful.
"We, who are of the true and never to be called in question faith of Christ, even as the English are, do not observe these heathen fasts, and feasts, and rites of superstition, but keep our own most holy seasons as ordained by the Lord himself. Yet so noble are our minds, that we blame not those of smaller knowledge, but rather abstain from meddling with them during the days which they keep holy, although they be not the right ones. For this reason I remained here yet, resolving to set forth on Monday, when their profane days will have returned, and to ask among them the meaning of these things, which I am ordered not to seek among our own tribe.