Hadji Murád, Leo Tolstoy [romantic books to read txt] 📗

In front of him, lower down, gurgled rapidly running water. Behind him, in the aoul, cocks crowed, answering one another. Above these sounds he heard behind him the approaching tramp of horses and the voices of several men. Hadji Murád touched his horse and rode on at an even pace. Those behind him galloped and soon overtook him. They were some twenty mounted men, inhabitants of the aoul, who had decided to detain Hadji Murád, or a least to make a show of detaining him in order to justify themselves in Shamil’s eyes. When they came near enough to be seen in the darkness, Hadji Murád stopped, let go his bridle, and with an accustomed movement of his left hand unbuttoned the cover of his rifle, which he drew forth with his right. Eldár did the same.

“What do you want?” cried Hadji Murád. “Do you wish to take me?⁠ ⁠… Take me, then!” and he raised his rifle. The men from the aoul stopped, and Hadji Murád, rifle in hand, rode down into the ravine. The mounted men followed him, but did not draw any nearer. When Hadji Murád had crossed to the other side of the ravine, the men shouted to him that he should hear what they had to say. In reply he fired his rifle and put his horse to a gallop. When he reined it in his pursuers were no longer within hearing, and the crowing of the cocks could also no longer be heard; only the murmur of the water in the forest sounded more distinctly, and now and then came the cry of an owl. The black wall of the forest appeared quite close. It was in the forest that his murids awaited him.

On reaching it Hadji Murád paused, and drawing much air into his lungs, he whistled and then listened silently. The next minute he was answered by a similar whistle from the forest. Hadji Murád turned from the road and entered it. When he had gone about a hundred paces, he saw among the trunks of the trees a bonfire, the shadows of some men sitting round it, and, half lit-up by the firelight, a hobbled horse which was saddled. Four men were sitting by the fire.

One of them rose quickly, and coming up to Hadji Murád took hold of his bridle and stirrup. This was Hadji Murád’s sworn brother, who managed his household affairs for him.

“Put out the fire,” said Hadji Murád, dismounting.

The men began scattering the pile and trampling on the burning branches.

“Has Bata been here?” asked Hadji Murád, moving towards a burka that was spread on the ground.

“Yes, he went away long ago, with Khan Mahomá.”

“Which way did they go?”

“That way,” answered Khanéfi, pointing in the opposite direction to that from which Hadji Murád had come.

“All right,” said Hadji Murád, and unslinging his rifle he began to load it. “We must take care⁠—I have been pursued,” he said to a man who was putting out the fire.

This was Gamzálo, a Chechen. Gamzálo approached the burka, took up a rifle that lay on it wrapped in its cover, and without a word went to that side of the glade from which Hadji Murád had come.

Eldár, when he had dismounted, took Hadji Murád’s horse; and having reined up both horses’ heads high, tied them to two trees. Then he shouldered his rifle as Gamzálo had done, and went to the other side of the glade. The bonfire was extinguished, the forest no longer looked as black as before, but in the sky the stars still shone, thought faintly.

Lifting his eyes to the stars, and seeing that the Pleiades had already risen halfway up in the sky, Hadji Murád calculated that it must be long past midnight, and that his nightly prayer was long overdue. He asked Khanéfi for a ewer (they always carried one in their packs), and putting on his burka went to the water.

Having taken off his shoes and performed his ablutions, Hadji Murád stepped onto the burka with bare feet, and then squatted down on his calves, and having first placed his fingers in his ears and closed his eyes, he turned to the south and recited the usual prayer.

When he had finished he returned to the place where the saddlebags lay, and sitting down on the burka he leant his elbows on his knees, and bowed his head and fell into deep thought.

Hadji Murád always had great faith in his own fortune. When planning anything he always felt in advance firmly convinced of success, and fate smiled on him. It had been so, with a few rare exceptions, during the whole course of his stormy military life; and so he hoped it would be now. He pictured to himself how⁠—with the army Vorontsóv would place at his disposal⁠—he would march against Shamil and take him prisoner, and revenge himself on him; and how the Russian Tsar would reward him, and how he would again rule not only over Avaria, but over the whole of Chechnya, which would submit to him. With these thoughts he unwittingly fell asleep.

He dreamt how he and his brave followers rushed at Shamil, with songs and with the cry, “Hadji Murád is coming!” and how they seized him and his wives, and how he heard the wives crying and sobbing. He woke up. The song, “Lya-il-allysha,” and the cry “Hadji Murád is coming!” and the weeping of Shamil’s wives, was the howling, weeping, and laughter of jackals that awoke him. Hadji Murád lifted his head, glanced at the sky which, seen between the trunks of the trees, was already growing light in the east, and inquired after Khan Mahomá of a murid who sat at some distance from him. On hearing that Khan Mahomá had not yet returned, Hadji Murád again bowed his head and at once fell asleep.

He was awakened by the merry