For some moments the smoke enveloped the battery in darkness: when it floated away the frightened horse was dragging the blood-stained corpse of his rider, with the foot entangled in the stirrup. "Hit—killed!" was shouted from all the trenches; and the young artillery officer, taking off his cap, piously crossed himself, and with a joyous face jumped down from the battery to seize the prey which he had earned. He soon succeeded in catching by the reins the horse of the slain Tcherkéss, for he was dragging the body sideways on the ground. The unfortunate man had his arm torn off close to the shoulder; but he still breathed, groaned, and struggled. Pity touched the good-natured youth: he called some soldiers, and ordered them to carry the wounded man carefully into the trench, sent for the surgeon, and had the operation performed before his eyes. At night, when all was quiet, the artilleryman sat by the side of his dying prisoner, and watched him with interest by the dim light of the lantern. The serpent-marks of sorrow, graven on his cheek by tears, the wrinkles on his forehead, dug, not by years but passions, and bloody scratches, disfigured his handsome face; and in it was painted something more torturing than pain, more terrible than death. The artilleryman could not restrain an involuntary shudder. The prisoner sighed heavily, and having, with difficulty, raised his hand to his forehead, opened his heavy eyelids, muttering to himself in unintelligible sounds, unconnected words.... "Blood," he cried, examining his hand ... "always blood! why have they put his bloody shirt upon me? Already, without that, I swim in blood.... Why do I not drown in it?... How cold the blood is to-day!... Once it used to scald me, and this is no better! In the world it is stifling, in the gave so cold.... 'Tis dreadful to be a corpse. Fool that I am, I sought death. O, let me live but for one little day—one little hour, to live!..."
"What? Why have I hidden another in the grave, whisperest thou? Learn thyself what it is to die!..." A convulsive paroxysm interrupted his raving, an unspeakably dreadful groan burst from the sufferer, and he fell into a painful lethargy, in which the soul lives only to suffer.
The artilleryman, touched to the very bottom of his heart, raised the head of the miserable being, sprinkled his face with cold water, and rubbed his temples with spirits of wine, in order to bring him to himself. Slowly he opened his eyes, shook his head several times, as if to shake the mist from his eyelashes, and steadfastly directed his gaze on the face of the artilleryman, which was faintly lighted up by the feeble gleam of the candle. Suddenly, with a piercing cry, he lifted himself on his bed, as if by some superhuman force: his hair stood upright, his whole body shook with a fevered trembling, his hand seemed endeavouring to push something from him, an ineffable horror was expressed on his countenance.... "Your name!" he cried at length, addressing the artilleryman. "Who are thou, stranger from the grave?"
"I am Verkhóffsky?" ... answered the young artilleryman. This was a shot that went straight to the heart of the prisoner. The ligature on the principal artery gave way from a rush of blood, which poured through the bandages. Yet a few struggles, yet the throat-rattle, and the leaden hand of death choked the wounded man's last sigh, imprinted on his brow the seal of the last grief; gathering whole years of repentance into one rapid moment, in which the soul, tearing itself from the body, fears equally the tortures of life and of nothingness, feels at once all the gnawing of the past and all the agony of the future. Terrible was it to look on the convulsed face of the dead. "He surely must have been a great sinner," said Verkhóffsky, in a low voice to the general's interpreter, who stood near him, and he shuddered involuntarily.
"A great villain," rejoined the interpreter: "it appears to me he was a Russian deserter. I never met with a mountaineer who spoke Russian so correctly as this prisoner. Let me look at his arms. We may, perhaps, find some marks on them." With these words he unsheathed, with a look of curiosity, the dagger which had been taken from the dead man, and bringing it to the lantern, deciphered and translated the following inscription:—
"Be slow to offend—swift to revenge!"
"Quite a robber's rule," said Verkhóffsky; "my poor brother Evstafli! you fell a victim to such a fanatic principle as this!"
The eyes of the good youth filled with tears.... "Is there not something else?" he asked.
"This is apparently the slain man's name," replied the interpreter.
"It is: Ammalát Bek!"