Ammalát struck a light with a trembling hand, blew up into a flame some dry bourián, (a dry grass of South Russia,) and went with it to search for the new-made grave. The loosened earth, and a large cross, pointed out the last habitation of the colonel. He tore up the cross, and began to dig up the mound with it; he broke through the arch of brickwork, which had not yet become hardened, and finally tore the lead from the coffin. The bourián, flaring up, threw an uncertain bloody-bluish tinge on all around. Leaning over the dead, the murderer, paler than the corpse itself, gazed unmovingly on his work; he forgot why he had come—he turned away his head from the reek of rottenness—his gorge rose within him when he saw the bloody-headed worms that crawled from under the clothes. Interrupted in their loathsome work, they, scared by the light, crept into a mass, and hid themselves beneath each other. At length, steeling himself to the deed, he brandished his dagger, and each time his erring hand missed its aim. Nor revenge, nor ambition, nor love—in a word, not one of those passions which had urged him to the frenzied crime, now encouraged him to the nameless horror. Turning away his head, in a sort of insensibility he began to hew at the neck of Verkhóffsky—at the fifth blow the head parted from the trunk. Shuddering with disgust, he threw it into a bag which he had prepared, and hastened from the grave. Hitherto he had remained master of himself; but when, with his dreadful treasure, he was scrambling up, when the stones crumbling noisily under his feet, and he, covered with sand, fell backwards on Verkhóffsky's corpse, then presence of mind left the sacrilegious. It seemed as if a flame had seized him, and spirits of hell, dancing and grinning, had surrounded him. With a heavy groan he tore himself away, crawled half senseless out of the suffocating grave, and hurried off, dreading to look back. Leaping on his horse, he urged it on, over rocks and ravines, and each bush that caught his dress seemed to him the hand of a corpse; the cracking of every branch, the shriek of every jackal, sounded like the cry of his twice-murdered friend.
Wherever Ammalát passed, he encountered armed bands of Akoushlínetzes and Avarétzes, Tchetchenétzes just arrived, and robbers of the Tartar villages subject to Russia. They were all hurrying to the trysting-place near the border-limits; while the Beks, Ouzdéns, and petty princes, were assembling at Khourzákh, for a council with Akhmet Khan, under the leading, and by the invitation of whom, they were preparing to fall upon Tárki. The present was the most favourable moment for their purpose: there was abundance of corn in the ambárs, (magazines,) hay in the stacks, and the Russians, having taken hostages, had established themselves in full security in winter-quarters. The news of Verkhóffsky's murder had flown over all the hills, and powerfully encouraged the mountaineers. Merrily they poured together from all sides; every where were heard their songs of future battles and plunder; and he for whom they were going to fight rode through them like a runaway and a culprit, hiding from the light of the sun, and not daring to look any one in the face. Every thing that happened, every thing that he saw, now seemed like a suffocating dream—he dared not doubt, he dared not believe it. On the evening of the third day he reached Khounzákh.
Trembling with impatience, he leaped from his horse, worn out with fatigue, and took from his saddle-straps the fatal bag. The front chambers were filled with warriors; cavaliers in armour were walking up and down, or lay on the carpets along the walls, conversing in whispers; but their eyebrows were knit and cast down—their stern faces proved that bad news had reached Khounzákh. Nóukers ran hurriedly backwards and forwards, and none questioned, none accompanied Ammalát, none paid any attention to him. At the door of the Khan's bed-chamber sate Zoúrkhai-Khan-Djingká, the natural son of Sultan Akhmet, weeping bitterly. "What means this?" uneasily demanded Ammalát. "You, from whom even in childhood tears could not be drawn—you weep?"
Zoúrkhai silently pointed to the door, and Ammalát, perplexed, crossed the threshold. A heart-rending spectacle was presented before the new-comer's eyes. In the middle of the room, on a bed, lay the Khan, disfigured by a fierce illness; death invisible, but inevitable, hovered over him, and his fading glance met it with dread. His breast heaved high, and then sank heavily; his breath rattled in his throat, the veins of his hands swelled, and then shrank again. In him was taking place the last struggle of life with annihilation; the mainspring of existence had already burst, but the wheels still moved with an uneven motion, catching and entangling in each other. The spark of memory hardly glimmered in him, but fitfully flashed like falling stars through the darkness of night, which thickened over his soul, and reflected themselves in his dying face. His wife and daughter were sobbing on their knees by his bed-side; his eldest son, Noútsal, in silent despair leaned at his feet, resting his head on his clenched fists. Several women and nóukers wept silently at a distance.
All this, however, neither astounded Ammalát nor recalled him to himself, occupied as he was with one idea: he approached the Khan with a firm step, and said to him aloud—"Hail, Khan! I have brought you a present which will restore a dead man to life. Prepare the bridal. Here is my purchase-money for Seltanetta; here is the head of Verkhóffsky!" With these words he threw it at the Khan's feet.
The well-known voice aroused Sultan Akhmet from his last sleep: he raised his head with difficulty to look at the present, and a shudder ran like a wave over his body when he beheld the lifeless head. "May he eat his own heart who treats a dying man with such dreadful food!" he murmured, scarce intelligibly. "I must make my peace with my enemies, and not——Ah, I burn, I burn! Give me water, water! Why have you made me drink scalding naphtha? Ammalát, I curse you!" This effort exhausted the last drops of life in the Khan; he fell a senseless corpse on the pillow. The Khansha had looked with horror on the bloody and untimely present of Ammalát; but when she saw that this had hastened her husband's death, all her grief broke out in a torrent of anger. "Messenger of hell!" she exclaimed, her eyes flashing, "rejoice; these are your exploits; but for you, my husband would never have thought of raising Avár against the Russians, and would have now been sitting in health and quiet at home; but for you, visiting the Ouzdens, he fell from a rock and was disabled; and you, blood-drinker!—instead of consoling the sick with mild words, instead of making his peace with Allah by prayers and alms—bring, as if to a cannibal, a dead man's head; and whose head? Thy benefactor's, thy protector's, thy friend's!"
"Such was the Khan's will," in his turn replied Ammalát.
"Do not slander the dead; defile not his memory with superfluous blood!" screamed the Khansha: "not content with having treacherously murdered a man, you come with his head to woo my daughter at the deathbed of her father, and you hoped to receive a recompense from man, when you deserved the vengeance of God. Godless, soulless being! No! by the graves of my ancestors, by the swords of my sons, I swear you shall never be my son-in-law, my acquaintance, my guest! Away from my house, traitor! I have sons, and you may murder while embracing them. I have a daughter, whom you may bewitch and poison with your serpent looks. Go, wander in the ravines of the mountains; teach the tigers to tear each other; and dispute with the wolves for carcasses. Go, and know that my door opens not to a fratricide!"
Ammalát stood like one struck by lightning: all that his conscience had indistinctly whispered to him had been spoken out to him at once, and so unexpectedly, so cruelly. He knew not where to turn his eyes: there lay the head of Verkhóffsky with its accusing blood—there was the threatening face of the Khan, printed with the seal of a death of torture—there he met the stern glance of the Khansha.... The tearful eyes of Seltanetta alone appeared like stars of joy through a rainy cloud. To her he resolved to approach, saying timidly, "Seltanetta, for you have I committed that for which I lose you. Destiny wills it: be it so! One thing tell me—is it possible that you, too, have ceased to love me—that you, too, hate me?"