"And your share in these adventures, Signor? You must have carried your life in your hands. It seems as if there can be no danger in the world, without some brave Englishman being in the thick of it."
Jemmy Nickols threw his blouse open and showed a fine broad chest, which he patted. "You are right there," he said, "it generally happens so. Ah, I was an active fellow in those days, and afraid of nobody but the Devil. And you may be sure, there was plenty of Him there. Ah, yes, our nation is always on about its sailors; but to my mind the landsmen are every bit as good. However, it was business that took me there, and not any pleasure in hardship.
"I had to make my own way in the world, and was tired of sitting on a stool in London. So I got a commission from the firm to Amsterdam, my father being one of the partners, and there I heard of something which sent me across Europe to meet a Russian merchant at Odessa. I found him quite a young man and very enterprising, which was not very often the case with them in those days. We became good friends, and he told me that he had heard from a brother of his, a Russian officer then serving against Shamyl, of a wonderful discovery of emeralds they had made among the mountains of Daghestan. My knowledge of jewels was greater than his, and he made me an offer which I could not resist, to pay all expenses, and give me all benefit of Russian protection, if I would join him in the search for this treasure; and if we found it, 25 per cent of all net proceeds.
"This was a wild-goose chase, you will say, but what young man of spirit is not a wild goose? We had a rough time of it and repented every day of our folly, but still went on with it. The Russians had an enormous army, spread far and wide, and whenever we could keep near them we got on well enough, but where we had to trust ourselves to native guides, with the help of some interpreter, it was scarcely ever safe to close our eyes. Let me see, it must have been in 1858, towards the close of Shamyl's long defence. It has often been said that the allies should have landed a large force in Western Caucasus, to help him during our Russian war. But it would not have done a bit of good. He was far away in the Eastern chain, and it would have been a stiffish march to get near him, I can tell you, and when we were there, we could have done no good. People talk of Caucasia as if it were a nation. I cannot tell you how many tribes there are; but for the most part they hate one another, and they speak about seventy languages, and cannot write any one of their own. How could you ever make a Nation of them? Russia might have conquered them a century ago, if she had been in earnest about it; and it is the best thing that could possibly happen to them now. Some little law and honesty, without any real oppression, is ever so much better than a lot of murderous freedom. And pretty freedom! Why, in many of the tribes, the women have to do all the work, while the men lounge about, or rob their neighbours. My opinion is, Mr. Cranleigh, that we talk a lot of rot about civilization. Nature won't have it everywhere; and she shows what she means, by the way she marks the places. And the worse they are in all common sense, the closer the natives stick to them.
"Well, we got a taste of the country, and the people that therein do dwell. My poor friend did not live to tell of it, neither should I, but for Prince Imar. It was in a rocky hole where you said to yourself, 'Never shall I get out of this, and it must have been the Devil that got me into it,'—when suddenly a score or two of thundering savages jumped out from the solid crag almost, and blocked all the horrible place both ways. I am not at all sure that they meant to hurt us; and I dare say they would have been satisfied to strip us, and rob us of our arms and money, and send our guides to the right about. But unluckily my Russian friend lost his head, and sent a bullet into the crowd in front. I cannot tell you, any more than he could now, what happened in the rush that was made on us. Only that my dear friend lay dead upon his back, with his eyes upon the little blink of sky above the chasm, and that I like a fool fell upon him to protect him, when nobody could harm him any more, and a big fellow was going to give me my quietus when another man twice his size sent him spinning. All the others fell away, for he had come among them suddenly, and I heard them muttering 'Sûr Imar.'
"'No Englishman shall come to harm, when I can help it. This gentleman looks like an Englishman,' he said, and I never was more ready in my life to acknowledge that. The rest of the lot could not make out what he meant, but they put down their weapons and looked at him. To cut a long story short, he took me to his own mountain-castle, and treated me as if I had been an invited guest, and I never knew such hospitality in all my life. I stayed there a long time, for it was not safe to travel; and there I saw the most beautiful lady that ever trod this earth. Her daughter is very beautiful; but you should have seen the Princess Oria, if you want to know the utmost that the Lord can do in the construction of the human race."
"Don't talk to me," I said, for I could not quite stand this; "you are like the rest who always talk of the past as superior to the present. But I beg your pardon, pray go on."
"I have seen a great deal of the world. Ah, yes!" continued my new friend Nicolo; "and I have come to this conclusion, from all the instances within my knowledge—no very beautiful woman ever lives a life of happiness. I don't mean pretty girls of course, and all the fair women of ordinary charms. I mean the exceptional, the wonderful creatures, of perfect and enthralling loveliness, of whom there are not six in a century. They are as rare as a brilliant of three hundred carats; as yet I have only seen one, and that one was the Princess Oria."
"Then how can you argue about them all?" I enquired very reasonably. "You mean from history, and all that, I suppose. But what became of that wonder of the world?"