We arrived at Nuzal in the afternoon and there a comedy enacted itself. The Ataman refused to receive me or to have anything to do with me, declaring he had no authority to arrest me. “What shall I do?” asked the carter. “That’s nothing to do with me,” answered the Ataman. “Do you hear?” said the carter to me. “The Ataman won’t take you; go and beg him to take you, or else you’ll have to go back to Lisri.”
“I shan’t go a single step back upon the road,” said I.
“You will be forced,” said he.
“Then I shall be forced,” I replied. “They’ll have to carry me.”
“But what shall I do?” asked the carter. “I’m going to Ardon on business. I can’t take you back.”
No one would have anything to do with the poor man. A Russian visiting doctor came up and talked to me, and when he heard of the dilemma he was like to die of laughter. The idea that the Ataman of a remote village should have arrested a European tourist tickled him immensely. He promised to write my story in the Russian newspapers. “Let him go,” said he; “and as for that,” pointing to the letter, “throw it away.”
“I must have a receipt,” said the carter.
“I’ll give you one,” said I.
The upshot was, however, that I agreed to go a stage further, to Misure, where there is a silver factory and a telephone to Vladikavkaz. It was a Belgian factory, and M. Devet was a very nice man. I agreed to that, but at Misure the telephone was out of order, and beyond drinking a bottle of wine between us we gained no comfort there. I counted myself free really, for certainly the carter was without authority, but it was interesting to see what would happen next, and I forebore to escape. The man cursed his stars for having taken me, but he was obsessed by a sense of duty. He would take me on to Alagir and hand me over to the Pristav there. To Alagir we went accordingly. En route, however, we slept in a little shop by the wayside, and it was not till next morning that we passed through the gorge of Ardon with its hot sulphur springs, and came to the large settlement on the steppes known as Alagir.
At the Pristav’s office we had to wait five hours, and I was assured I should be liberated, but then I found they dared not release me. I had to go to Ardon, fifteen miles distant.