As I feared not death, so my boy will ne’er fear it.’
‘My mother is now in Shamil’s hands,’ he added, ‘and she must be rescued.’
He remembered the fountain below the hill, when holding on to his mother’s sharováry (loose Turkish trousers) he had gone with her for water. He remembered how she had shaved his head for the first time, and how the reflection of his round bluish head in the shining brass vessel that hung on the wall had astonished him. He remembered a lean dog that had licked his face. He remembered the strange smell of the lepéshki (a kind of flat cake) his mother had given him – a smell of smoke and of sour milk. He remembered how his mother had carried him in a basket on her back to visit his grandfather at the farmstead. He remembered his wrinkled grandfather with his grey hairs, and how he had hammered silver with his sinewy hands.
‘Well, so my mother did not go as nurse,’ he said with a jerk of his head, ‘and the Khansha took another nurse but still remained fond of my mother, and my mother used to take us children to the Khansha’s palace, and we played with her children and she was fond of us.
‘There were three young Khans: Abu Nutsal Khan my brother Osman’s foster-brother; Umma Khan my own sworn brother; and Bulách Khan the youngest – whom Shamil threw over the precipice. But that happened later.
‘I was about sixteen when murids began to visit the aouls. They beat the stones with wooden scimitars and cried, “Mussulmans, Ghazavát!” The Chechens all went over to Muridism and the Avars began to go over too. I was then living in the palace like a brother of the Khans. I could do as I liked, and I became rich. I had horses and weapons and money. I lived for pleasure and had no care, and went on like that till the time when Kazi-Mulla, the Imám, was killed and Hamzád succeeded him. Hamzád sent envoys to the Khans to say that if they did not join the Ghazavát he would destroy Khunzákh.
‘This needed consideration. The Khans feared the Russians, but were also afraid to join in the Holy War. The old Khansha sent me with her second son, Umma Khan, to Tiflis to ask the Russian Commander-in-Chief for help against Hamzád. The Commander-in-Chief at Tiflis was Baron Rosen. He did not receive either me or Umma Khan. He sent word that he would help us, but did nothing. Only his officers came riding to us and played cards with Umma Khan. They made him drunk with wine and took him to bad places, and he lost all he had to them at cards. His body was as strong as a bull’s and he was as brave as a lion, but his soul was weak as water. He would have gambled away his last horses and weapons if I had not made him come away.
‘After visiting Tiflis my ideas changed and I advised the old Khansha and the Khans to join the Ghazavát.…’
‘What made you change your mind?’ asked Lóris-Mélikov. ‘Were you not pleased with the Russians?’
Hadji Murád paused.
‘No, I was not pleased,’ he answered decidedly, closing his eyes. ‘And there was also another reason why I wished to join the Ghazavát.’
‘What was that?’
‘Why, near Tselméss the Khan and I encountered three murids, two of whom escaped but the third one I shot with my pistol.
‘He was still alive when I approached to take his weapons. He looked up at me, and said, “Thou hast killed me … I am happy; but thou art a Mussulman, young and strong. Join the Ghazavát! God wills it!’ ”
‘And did you join it?’
‘I did not, but it made me think,’ said Hadji Murád, and he went on with his tale.
‘When Hamzád approached Khunzákh we sent our Elders to him to say that we would agree to join the Ghazavát if the Imám would send a learned man to explain it to us. Hamzád had our Elders’ moustaches shaved off, their nostrils pierced, and cakes hung to their noses, and in that condition he sent them back to us.
‘The Elders brought word that Hamzád was ready to send a sheik to teach us the Ghazavát, but only if the Khansha sent him her youngest son as a hostage. She took him at his word and sent her youngest son, Bulách Khan. Hamzád received him well and sent to invite the two elder brothers also. He sent word that he wished to serve the Khans as his father had served their father.… The Khansha was a weak, stupid, and conceited woman, as all women are when they are not under control. She was afraid to send away both sons and sent only Umma Khan. I went with him. We were met by murids about a mile before we arrived and they sang and shot and caracoled around us, and when we drew near, Hamzád came out of his tent and went up to Umma Khan’s stirrup and received him as a Khan. He said, “I have not done any harm to thy family and do not wish to do any. Only do not kill me and do not prevent my bringing the people over to the Ghazavát, and I will serve you with my whole army as my father served your father! Let me live in your house and I will help you with my advice, and you shall do as you like!”
‘Umma Khan was slow of speech. He did not know how to reply and remained silent. Then I said that if this was so, let Hamzád come to Khunzákh and the Khansha and the Khans would receive him with honour.… But I was not allowed to finish – and here I first encountered Shamil, who was beside the Imám. He said to me, “Thou hast not been asked.… It was the Khan!”
‘I was silent, and Hamzád led Umma Khan into his tent. Afterwards Hamzád called me and ordered me to go to Khunzákh with his envoys. I went. The envoys began persuading the Khansha to send her eldest son also to Hamzád. I saw there was treachery and told her not to send him; but a woman has as much sense in her head as an egg has hair. She ordered her son to go. Abu Nutsal Khan did not wish to. Then she said, “I see thou art afraid!” Like a bee she knew where to sting him most painfully. Abu Nutsal Khan flushed and did not speak to her any more, but ordered his horse to be saddled. I went with him.
‘Hamzád met us with even greater honour than he had shown Umma Khan. He himself rode out two rifle-shot lengths down the hill to meet us. A large party of horsemen with their banners followed him, and they too sang, shot, and caracoled.
‘When we reached the camp, Hamzád led the Khan into his tent and I remained with the horses.…
‘I was some way down the hill when I heard shots fired in Hamzád’s tent. I ran there and saw Umma Khan lying prone in a pool of blood, and Abu Nutsal was fighting the murids. One of his cheeks had been hacked off and hung down. He supported it with one hand and with the other stabbed with his dagger at all who came near him. I saw him strike down Hamzád’s brother and aim a blow at another man, but then the murids fired at him and he fell.’
Hadji Murád stopped and his sunburnt face flushed a dark red and his eyes became bloodshot.
‘I was seized with fear and ran away.’
‘Really?… I thought thou never wast afraid,’ said Lóris-Mélikov.
‘Never after that.… Since then I have always remembered that shame, and when I recalled it I feared nothing!’
XII
‘BUT enough! It is time for me to pray,’ said Hadji Murád drawing from an inner breast-pocket of his Circassian coat Vorontsóv’s repeater watch and carefully pressing the spring. The repeater struck twelve and a quarter. Hadji Murád listened with his head on one side, repressing a childlike smile.
‘Kunák Vorontsóv’s present,’ he said, smiling.
‘It is a good watch,’ said Lóris-Mélikov. ‘Well then, go thou and pray, and I will wait.’
‘Yakshi. Very well,’ said Hadji Murád and went to his bedroom.
Left by himself, Lóris-Mélikov wrote down in his notebook the chief things Hadji Murád had related, and then lighting a cigarette began to pace up and down the room. On reaching the door opposite the bedroom he heard animated voices speaking rapidly in Tartar. He guessed that the speakers were Hadji Murád’s murids, and opening the door he went in to them.