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Blackwood\'s Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. by Various

V >> Various >> Blackwood\'s Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII.




I had been offered an apartment in the Countess's house, but preferred
taking up my quarters at an hotel, in order to have liberty to spend my
time in visiting whatever was remarkable at Moscow. On the evening of
the second day I went to call upon the Countess. The ladies were making
another effort to persuade Louise to defer her perilous journey till a
more favourable season. But no arguments, no entreaties, could move her:
she was determined to set off the following morning. I was invited to
breakfast, and to witness her departure.

I had been for some days turning over in my mind a project that I now
resolved to put in execution. I got up early the next morning and bought
a fur coat and cap, thick furred boots, a carbine, and a brace of
pistols, all of which I gave to Ivan, and desired him to place them in
the carriage. I then hastened to the Countess W----'s.

Breakfast over, the carriage drove up to the door. Louise was
alternately clasped in the arms of the Countess and her daughters. My
turn came, and she held out her hand. I made a motion to assist her into
the carriage. "Well," said she, astonished, "don't you bid me farewell?"

"Why should I?"

"I am going to set off."

"So am I."

"You!"

"Certainly. You recollect the Persian fable--the pebble that was not the
rose, but had caught some of its fragrance by living near it."

"Well?"

"Well, I have caught some of your devotedness, and I shall go with you
to Tobolsk. I will deliver you safe and sound to the Count, and then
come back again."

Louise looked me earnestly in the face. "I have no right," said she, "to
prevent your doing a good action--come."

The Countess and her daughters were in tears. "My child! my child!"
cried Louise, who had remained firm up to this moment, but burst into a
passion of weeping as she clasped her infant for the last time in her
arms.

"Adieu! Adieu!" The whip cracked; the wheels rattled over the pavement.
We were off to Siberia. On we went, day and night. Pokrow, Vladimir,
Nijni-Novogorod, Casan. "_Pascare! Pascare!_" Quicker! Quicker! was
Ivan's cry to each new postilion. The snow had not yet begun to fall,
and he was anxious, if possible, to cross the Ural mountains before it
set in. The immense plains between Moscow and Perm were traversed with
tremendous rapidity. On reaching the latter place, Louise was so much
exhausted that I told Ivan we must halt one night. He hesitated a
moment, then looking at the sky, which was dark and lowering, "It will
be as well," said he; "we must soon have snow, and it is better it
should fall before than during our journey." The next morning his
prediction was verified. There were two feet of snow in the streets of
Perm.

Ivan now wished to remain till the cold increased, so that the snow
might become hard, and the rivers frozen. But all his arguments could
only induce Louise to wait two days. On the third morning we set off,
leaving our carriage, and packed into a sort of small vehicle without
springs, called a _telegue_.

On reaching the foot of the Ural mountains, the cold had so much
increased that it became advisable to substitute a sledge for our
wheels. We stopped at a miserable village, composed of a score of
hovels, in order to effect this exchange, and entered a wretched hut,
which did duty both as posting-house and as the only inn in the place.
Eight or nine men, carriers by trade, were crowded round a large fire,
lighted in the centre of the room, and the smoke of which found a vent
through a hole in the roof. They paid no attention to our entrance; but
when I had taken off my cloak, my uniform at once obtained for us the
best place at the hearth. The landlord of this wretched hostelry met my
enquires about supper with a stare of astonishment, and offered me a
huge loaf of hard black bread as the whole contents of his larder. Ivan,
however, presently appeared, having managed to forage out a couple of
fowls, which, in an inconceivably short space of time, were plucked, and
one of them simmering in an iron pot over the fire, while the other hung
suspended by a string in front of the blaze. Supper over, we wrapped
ourselves in our furs, and lay down upon the floor, beds in such a place
being of course out of the question.

Before daybreak, I awoke, and found Ivan and the carriers already afoot,
and in consultation as to the practicability of continuing our journey.
The question was at last decided in favour of the march; the waggoners
hastened to harness their horses, and I went to inspect our carriage,
which the village blacksmith had taken off its wheels and mounted upon a
sledge. Ivan meantime was foraging for provisions, and shortly returned
with a ham, some tolerable bread, and half a dozen bottles of a sort of
reddish brandy, made, I believe, out of the bark of the birch-tree.

At length all was ready, and off we set, our sledge going first,
followed by the carriers' waggons. Our new companions, according to a
custom existing among them, had chosen one of their number as a chief,
whose experience and judgment were to direct the movements of the party,
and whose orders were to be obeyed in all things. Their choice had
fallen on a man named George, whose age I should have guessed to be
fifty, but who, I learned with astonishment, was upwards of seventy
years old. He was a powerful and muscular man, with black piercing eyes,
overhung by thick shaggy eyebrows, which, as well as his long beard,
were of an iron grey. His dress consisted of a woollen shirt and
trousers, a fur cap, and a sheepskin with the wool turned inside. To the
leathern belt round his waist were suspended two or three horse-shoes, a
metal fork and spoon, a long-bladed knife, a small hatchet, and a sort
of wallet, in which he carried pipe, tobacco, flint, steel, nails,
money, and a variety of other things useful or necessary in his mode of
life. The garb and equipment of the other carriers were, with some small
differences, the same.

The first day's journey passed without incident. Our march was slow and
even dangerous, all trace of the road being obliterated, and we were
obliged to feel our way, as it were, by sending men forward with long
pikes to sound the depth of snow before us. At nightfall, however, we
found ourselves in safety on a sort of platform surmounted by a few
pine-trees. Here we established our bivouac. Branches were cut, and a
sort of hut built; and, with the aid of enormous fires, the night passed
in greater comfort than might have been expected on a mountain-side, and
with snow many feet deep around us.

At daybreak we were again in movement. Our difficulties increased as we
ascended the mountain: the snow lay in prodigious masses, and more than
once we were delayed by having to rescue one or other of our advanced
guard from some hole or ravine into which he had fallen. No serious
accident, however, occurred, and we had at length the satisfaction of
finding ourselves descending. We had passed the highest point of the
road.

We had been going downhill for some three hours, the way zig-zaging
among rocks and precipices, when suddenly we were startled by a loud
cracking, followed by a noise that resembled a clap of thunder repeated
by many echoes. At the same moment a sort of whirlwind swept by us, and
the air was darkened by a cloud of snow-dust. "An avalanche!" cried
George, stopping his waggon. Every body halted. In another instant the
noise ceased, the air became clear, and the avalanche continued its
downward course, breaking, as it passed, a couple of gigantic pines that
grew upon a rock, some five hundred feet below us. The carriers gave a
hurra of joy at their escape, nor was it without reason. Had we been
only half a verst further on our road, our journey had been at an end.

The avalanche had not passed, however, without doing us some harm, for,
on reaching the part of the road over which it had swept, we found it
blocked up by a wall of snow thirty feet thick and of great height.
There were several hours' work for all of us to clear it away; but
unfortunately it was already nightfall, and we were obliged to make up
our minds to remain where we were till morning.

No wood was to be had either for hut or fire. The want of the latter was
most unfortunate; for independently of the cold rendering it very
necessary, it was our chief protection against the wolves. Doing the
best we could under such unfavourable circumstances, we drew up the
carts in the form of a half circle, of which the two extremities rested
against the wall of snow it our rear, and within the sort of
fortification thus formed we placed the horses and our sledge. Our
arrangements were scarcely completed when it became perfectly dark.

In the absence of fire Louise's supper and mine consisted of dry bread.
The carriers, however, made a hearty meal on the flesh of a bear they
had killed that morning, and which they seemed to consider as good raw
as cooked.

I was regretting the want of any description of light in case of an
attack from the wolves, when Louise suddenly recollected that Ivan had
put the lanterns belonging to the travelling carriage into our _telegue_
when we changed horses. On searching I found them under the seat, each
furnished with a thick wax taper.

This was, indeed, a treasure. We could not hope to scare away the wolves
by the light of our two candles; but it would enable us to see them
coming, and to give them a proper reception. We tied the lanterns to the
top of two poles fixed firmly in the snow, and saw with pleasure that
they cast their clear pale light nearly fifty yards around our
encampment.

We were ten men in all. Two stood sentry on the carts, while the
remainder set to work to pierce through the obstacle left by the
avalanche. The snow had already become slightly frozen, so that they
were able to cut a passage through it. I joined the working party as
being a warmer occupation than standing sentry. For three or four hours
we toiled incessantly, and the birch-tree brandy, with which I had
provided myself, and which we had carefully economized, was now found
most useful in giving strength and courage to the labourers.

It was about eleven o'clock at night when a long howl was heard, which
sounded so close and startling that with one accord we suspended our
work. At the same moment old George, who was on sentry, called to us. We
ran to the waggons and jumped upon them. A dozen enormous wolves were
prowling about the outside edge of the bright circle thrown by our
lanterns. Fear of the light kept them off; but each moment they were
growing bolder, and it was easy to see that they would not be long
without attacking us.

I looked to the priming of my carbine and pistols. Ivan was similarly
armed; but the carriers had only their pikes, hatchets, and knives. With
these weapons, however, they boldly awaited the attack.

Half an hour passed in this state of suspense, the wolves occasionally
advancing a pace or two into the circle of light, but always retreating
again. At length one of them approached so near that I asked George if
it would not be advisable to reward his temerity with a bullet.

"Yes," was the answer, "if you are certain of hitting him."

"Why must I be certain?"

"Because if you kill him his companions will amuse themselves with
eating him; to be sure," added he to himself, "if once they taste blood
they will be mad for more."

"The mark is so good," said I, "I can hardly miss him."

"Fire, then, in God's name!" returned George; "all this must have an end
one way or the other."

Before the words were out of his mouth I fired, and the wolf writhed in
agony on the snow. In an instant half a dozen wolves darted forward,
and, seizing their comrade, carried him off into the darkness.

The howlings now increased, and it was evident more wolves were
arriving. At length there was a moment's silence.

"Do you hear the horses," said George, "how they neigh, and paw? It is a
signal for us to be prepared."

"I thought the wolves were gone," replied I; "they have left off
howling.

"No, they have finished their repast, and are preparing for an attack.
Here they come."

And that moment eight or ten wolves, that in the imperfect flickering
light looked as big as jackasses, rushed forward, and instead of
endeavouring to pass under the waggons, bounded boldly upon them. By
some chance, however, none of them attacked the waggon on which I was
posted.

The cart on my right, defended by George, was escaladed by three wolves,
one of which was immediately disabled by a thrust of the vigorous old
man's pike. A ball from my carbine settled another, and seeing George's
hatchet raised over the head of the third I knew he wanted no further
aid, and looked to see what was going on to my left. Two wolves had
attacked the waggon which was defended by one of George's sons, who
received the first of his foes with a lance thrust. But apparently no
vital part was touched, and the wolf had broken the pike with his teeth;
so that for a moment the man opposed to him had nothing but the pole
wherewith to defend himself. The second wolf was scrambling along the
cart, and on the point of attacking him, when I sprang from one waggon
to another, and fired one of my pistols into the animal's ear. He fell
dead beside his companion, who was rolling in the snow, and making
violent efforts to tear the broken lance from his wound.

Meantime Ivan was hard at work, and I heard a carbine or two pistol
shots, which told me that our adversaries were as warmly received on the
left as on the right of the line. An instant later four wolves again
crossed the circle of light, but this time in full retreat; and at the
same moment, to our no small astonishment, three others, that we had
thought dead or mortally wounded, raised themselves up and followed
their companions, leaving large tracks of blood behind them. Three
carcasses remained upon the field of battle.

"Load again, and quickly," cried George. "I know their ways; they will
be back directly." And the old man pointed with his finger into the
darkness. I listened, and heard distant howlings replying to the nearer
ones. What we had as yet had was a mere skirmish. The general engagement
was to come.

"Look behind you!" cried a voice. I turned and saw two fiery eyes
gleaming on the top of the snow wall in our rear. Before I could draw a
trigger the wolf gave a leap, and falling upon one of the horses struck
his fangs into its throat. Three men left their waggons.

"There is but one wolf," cried George, "and one man is enough. Let the
others remain at their posts."

Two of the men resumed their places. The third crept upon his hands and
knees among the horses who, in their terror, were kicking and plunging
violently, and throwing themselves against the carts by which they were
surrounded. The next instant I saw the gleam of a knife blade, and the
wolf let go the horse, which reared up on its hind-legs, the blood
streaming from its throat. A dark mass was rolling and struggling on the
ground. It was the man and the wolf.

At the end of a few seconds the man stood up. "David," said he to one of
his comrades, "come and help me to carry away this carrion. The horses
wont be quiet while it lies here."

They dragged the wolf towards George's waggon, and then raising it up
from the ground, the old man took it by the hind-legs, as though it had
been a hare, and threw it outside the line of carts.

"Well, Nicholas," said George to the successful combatant, "don't you
take your place again."

"No," replied the other; "I have enough as it is."

"Are you wounded?" cried Louise, opening the door of the _telegue_.

"I believe I have killed my last wolf," answered the poor fellow in a
faint voice.

I gave George my carbine, and hastened to the wounded man. A part of his
jaw was torn away, and the blood flowed abundantly from a large wound in
his neck. I for a moment feared that the carotid artery was opened, and
scarcely knowing whether I did right or wrong, I seized a handful of
snow and applied it to the wound. The sufferer uttered a cry and fainted
away.

"O God!" cried Louise, "have mercy upon him!"

"To your posts," shouted George in a stentorian voice; "the wolves are
upon us."

I left the wounded man in Louise's care, and jumped upon the cart.

I can give no details of the combat that followed. I had too much
occupation myself to attend to what my companions were doing. We were
attacked by at least twenty wolves at once. After discharging my two
pistols, I armed myself with an axe that George gave me. The fight
lasted nearly a quarter of an hour, and certainly the scene was one of
the most terrible it is possible to imagine. At length, and just as I
was splitting the skull of a wolf that hung on to one of the wheels of
my waggon, a shout of victory resounded along our line, and again our
enemies fled, but this time it was for good.

Three of our men were wounded, besides Nicholas, who was still alive,
but in a desperate state. We were obliged to shoot the horse that had
been torn by the wolf.

By daybreak, a passage was opened through the wall of snow, and we
resumed our journey. The evening of the same day we reached a small
village, where we found an inn, that, under any other circumstances,
would have been pronounced abominable, but which appeared a palace after
three such days as we had passed. The following morning we parted from
our friends the carriers, leaving George five hundred rubles to divide
among them.

All now went well. Thanks to the imperial order with which we were
provided, the best horses were always for us, and, when necessary,
escorts of ten or twelve men galloped on either side of our sledge. The
country was flat and the pace good, and exactly a week after leaving the
Ural mountains we entered Tobolsk.

We were dreadfully fatigued, but yet Louise would only remain long
enough to take a bath; and at two in the morning we set out for the
little town of Koslowo, which had been selected as the abode of twenty
of the exiles, among whom was Alexis. On arriving, we hastened to the
officer commanding there, and showing him the Emperor's order, which
produced its usual effect, enquired after the Count. He was well, was
the answer, and still at Koslowo.

It had been agreed between Louise and myself that I should go and see
him first, and inform him of her arrival. I asked the governor for a
pass, which he gave me without hesitation, and a Cossack conducted me to
a part of the town composed of some twenty houses enclosed within high
palisades, and guarded by sentries. We stopped before a door, and my
guide knocked. "Come in!" said a voice which I recognized as that of
Alexis.

When I opened the door, he was lying on his bed, dressed, and with a
book on the floor near him. I stopped upon the threshold. He stared at
me without speaking, and seemed hardly to believe his eyes.

"Well," said I, "have you forgotten me?"

At the sound of my voice, he sprang from his bed and threw his arms
round me. But the next instant he started back. "Good heavens!"
exclaimed he, "you are exiled, and I am probably the cause."

"No, indeed," I replied, "I come here as an amateur." He smiled
bitterly.

"As an amateur! Into the heart of Siberia! Explain your meaning. But
first--Louise--what of her?"

"I have just now left her."

"Just now? A month ago, you mean?"

"Five minutes ago."

"Good God! what do you mean?" cried Alexis, growing very pale.

"That Louise has accompanied me, and is now here."

"Oh woman! woman! Thy heart is ever the same," murmured Alexis, while
tear after tear rolled down his cheek. He was then silent for a time,
but his lips moved, and I doubt not in thanksgiving to God for such
happiness.

"Where is she?" he at length exclaimed.

"At the governor's house."

He rushed towards the door. "I am mad," said he, pausing, "I forget that
I cannot leave my cage without permission. My dearest friend, bring her
here, I beseech you! Or stay, this man will go." He spoke in Russian to
the Cossack, who went out.

In a few minutes, and before I could answer a tithe of the numerous
questions Alexis asked me, the man returned, but alone.

"Well?" said the Count, changing countenance.

"The governor says you must be aware that the prisoners are not allowed
to receive visits from women."

The Count struck his forehead with his clenched hand, and fell back upon
a chair. His features were almost convulsed by the violence of his
emotions. At last he turned to the Cossack.

"Beg the sergeant to come here." The soldier left the room.

"Can any thing be more horrible?" cried Alexis. "She has come nine
hundred leagues to see me; she is not a hundred yards from me, and we
are forbidden to meet!"

"There must surely be some blunder," said I; "an order misunderstood, or
something of the kind."

Alexis shook his head doubtingly. There was a wild look of despair in
his large dark eyes that alarmed me. At this moment, the sergeant who
had charge of the prisoners entered.

"Sir," cried the Count with vehemence, "the woman I love has left St
Petersburg to join me, and after a thousand dangers and hardships has
arrived here. I am now told that I shall not be allowed to see her. It
is doubtless a mistake?"

"No, sir," replied the sergeant coolly. "You know very well that the
prisoners are not permitted to see women."

"But Prince Troubetskoy has that permission. Is it because he is a
prince?"

"No, sir, it is because the princess is his wife."

"And if Louise were my wife, should I be allowed to see her?"

"Undoubtedly, sir!"

"Ha!" ejaculated the Count, as though a weight were removed from off his
heart. "I should like to speak with the priest," said he to the
sergeant, after a moment's pause.

"He shall be sent for immediately," was the reply.

"And now my friend," said Alexis, turning to me, and taking my hands in
his, "you have been Louise's guardian and defender, will you for once
act as her father?"

The following morning at ten o'clock, Louise, accompanied by the
governor and myself, and Alexis by Prince Troubetskoy and the other
exiles, entered the little church of Koslowa by two different doors.
Their first meeting was at the altar, and the first word they exchanged
was the _yes_ that united them for ever.

The Emperor by a private letter to the governor, of which Ivan was the
bearer, had ordered that the Count should only be allowed to see Louise
as his wife. It has been seen how willingly my friend obeyed, I should
rather say anticipated, the Emperor's commands. And rich was his reward
for thus promptly acknowledging the just claims of this devoted and very
admirable woman. She was one of "nature's own nobility"--refined and
graceful, intelligent and high-minded--and would have graced higher rank
than that to which she was raised by the gratitude of Count Alexis
W----.

* * * * *




AMMALAT BEK.

A TRUE TALE OF THE CAUCASUS. FROM THE RUSSIAN OF MARLINSKI.

CHAPTER X.


"Will you hold your tongue, little serpent?" said an old Tartar woman to
her grandson, who, having awakened before daylight, was crying for want
of something better to do. "Be quiet, or I will kick you into the
street."

This old woman was Ammalat's nurse: the hut in which she lived stood
close to the tents of the Begs, and had been given to her by her
foster-son, Ammalat. It was composed of two clean whitewashed rooms, the
floor of both was strewed with coarse mats, (ghasil;) in niches close to
each other, for the room was without windows, stood boxes bound with
iron, and on them were arranged a feather-bed, blankets, and all the
utensils. On the cornices, at half the height of the wall, were ranged
porcelain cups for pillau, having tin covers in the form of helmets, and
little plates hanging side by side on wires: the holes with which they
were pierced showing that they served not for use, but for ornament. The
face of the old woman was covered with wrinkles, and expressed a sort of
malicious sorrow: the usual consequence of the lonely pleasureless life
of a Mussulman woman. As a worthy representative of persons of her age
and country, she never for a moment ceased scolding her grandson from
under her blanket, and to grumble to herself. "Kess," (be quiet,) she
cried at length, yet more angrily, "or I will give you to the ghaouls,
(devils!) Do you hear how they are scratching at the roof, and knocking
at the door for you?"

It was a stormy night; a thick rain pattering on the flat roof which
served as a ceiling, and the roaring of the wind in the chimney,
answered to her hoarse voice. The boy became quiet, and straining his
eyes, hearkened in a fright. It really seemed as if some one was
knocking at the door. The old woman became frightened in her turn: her
inseparable companion, a dirty dog, lifted up his head from sleep, and
began to bark in a most pitiful voice. But meanwhile the knocking at the
door became louder, and an unknown voice cried sternly from without,
"Atch kapini, akhirin akhirici!" (open the door for the end of ends.)
The old woman turned pale. "Allah bismallah!" she exclaimed, now
addressing heaven, then threatening the dog, and then quieting the
crying child. "Sh, accursed beast! Hold your tongue, I say, kharamzada,
(good-for-nothing son of shame!) Who is there? What honest man will
enter, when it is neither day nor dawn, into the house of a poor old
woman? If you are Shaitan, go to neighbour Kitchkina. It has been long
time to show her the road to hell! If you are a tchaouth,
(tax-gatherer,) who, to say the truth, is rather worse than Shaitan,
then go about your business. My son-in-law is not at home; he serves as
nouker at Ammalat Bek's; and the Bek has long ago freed me from taxes;
and as for treating idle travellers, don't expect from me even an egg,
much less a duck. Is it in vain, then, that I suckled Ammalat?"