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

mile and a half Hadji Murád touched up his white Kabardá horse, which started at an amble that obliged the henchmen and Cossacks to ride at a quick trot to keep up with him.

“Ah, he’s got a fine horse under him,” said Therapóntov. “If only he were still an enemy I’d soon bring him down.”

“Yes, mate. Three hundred rubles were offered for that horse in Tiflis.”

“But I can get ahead of him on mine,” said Nazárov.

“You get ahead? A likely thing!”

Hadji kept increasing his pace.

“Hey, kunák, you mustn’t do that. Steady!” cried Nazárov, starting to overtake Hadji Murád.

Hadji Murád looked round, said nothing, and continued to ride at the same pace.

“Mind, they’re up to something, the devils!” said Ignátov. “See how they are tearing along.”

So they rode for the best part of a mile in the direction of the mountains.

“I tell you it won’t do!” shouted Nazárov.

Hadji Murád did not answer, and did not look round, but only increased his pace to a gallop.

“Humbug! You won’t get away!” shouted Nazárov, stung to the quick. He gave his big roan gelding a cut with his whip, and rising in his stirrups and bending forward, flew full speed in pursuit of Hadji Murád.

The sky was so bright, the air so clear, and life played so joyously in Nazárov’s soul as, becoming one with his fine strong horse, he flew along the smooth road behind Hadji Murád, that the possibility of anything sad or dreadful happening never occurred to him. He rejoiced that with every step he was gaining on Hadji Murád.

Hadji Murád judged by the approaching tramp of the big horse behind him that he would soon be overtaken, and seizing his pistol with his right hand, with his left he began slightly to rein in his Kabardá horse, which was excited by hearing the tramp of hoofs behind it.

“You mustn’t, I tell you!” shouted Nazárov, almost level with Hadji Murád and stretching out his hand to seize the latter’s bridle. But before he reached it a shot was fired.⁠—“What are you doing?” screamed Nazárov, catching hold of his breast. “At them, lads!” and he reeled and fell forward on his saddle bow.

But the mountaineers were beforehand in taking to their weapons, and fired their pistols at the Cossacks and hewed at them with their swords.

Nazárov hung on the neck of his horse, which careered round his comrades. The horse under Ignátov fell, crushing his leg, and two of the mountaineers, without dismounting, drew their swords and hacked at his head and arms. Petrakóv was about to rush to his comrade’s rescue when two shots⁠—one in his back and the other in his side⁠—stung him, and he fell from his horse like a sack.

Míshkin turned round and galloped off towards the fortress. Khanéfi and Bata rushed after him, but he was already too far away and they could not catch him. When they saw that they could not overtake him they returned to the others.

Petrakóv lay on his back, his stomach ripped open, his young face turned to the sky, and while dying he gasped for breath like a fish.

Gamzálo, having finished off Ignátov with his sword, gave a cut to Nazárov too, and threw him from his horse. Bata took their cartridge-pouches from the slain. Khanéfi wished to take Nazárov’s horse, but Hadji Murád called out to him to leave it, and dashed forward along the road. His murids galloped after him, driving away Nazárov’s horse that tried to follow them. They were already among rice fields more than six miles from Nukhá when a shot was fired from the tower of that place to give the alarm.

“Oh, good Lord! Oh, dear me! Dear me! What have they done?” cried the commander of the fort, seizing his head with his hands when he heard of Hadji Murád’s escape. “They’ve done for me! They’ve let him escape, the villains!” cried he, listening to Míshkin’s account.

An alarm was raised everywhere, and not only the Cossacks of the place were sent after the fugitives, but also all the militia that could be mustered from the pro-Russian aouls. A thousand rubles reward was offered for the capture of Hadji Murád alive or dead, and two hours after he and his followers had escaped from the Cossacks more than two hundred mounted men were galloping after the officer in charge to find and capture the runaways.

After riding some miles along the highroad, Hadji Murád checked his panting horse, which, wet with perspiration, had turned from white to grey.

To the right of the road could be seen the sáklyas and minarets of the aoul Benerdzhík, on the left lay some fields, and beyond them the river. Although the way to the mountains lay to the right, Hadji Murád turned in the opposite direction, to the left, assuming that his pursuers would be sure to go to the right; while he, abandoning the road, would cross the Alazán and come out onto the highroad on the other side, where no one would expect him, and would ride along it to the forest, and then, after recrossing the river, would make his way to the mountains.

Having come to this conclusion, he turned to the left. But it proved impossible to reach the river. The rice field which had to be crossed had just been flooded, as is always done in spring, and had become a bog in which the horses’ legs sank above their pasterns. Hadji Murád and his henchmen turned, now to the left, now to the right, hoping to find drier ground; but the field they happened to be in had been equally flooded all over, and was now saturated with water. The horses drew their feet out of the sticky mud into which they sank, with a pop like that of a cork drawn from a bottle, and stopped, panting, after every few steps. They struggled in this way so long that it began to grow