CHAPTER XVII.

THE HUSSARS OF TENGINSKI

How we swept the land of Kisliar, continued the Circassian captain; how we baffled the foe beneath the towers of Dargo; how Schamyl the Immortal did prodigies of valour at Unsorilla and destroyed the army of Count Woronzoff, the Governor of New Russia, one hundred and fifty thousand in number, whose bones yet lie in the forest of Itzkeri; how we fought with desperation, neither asking nor giving quarter, and how we hurled the Russians from the slopes of the Caucasus back upon the shores of the Kuban, where they lay unburied save by the jaws of the wolf and eagle, torn and disembowelled by hungry dogs, all Europe knows full well; and how successive armies, full of barbarous pride and military and religious enthusiasm, horsemen, artillery, and infantry—hussars and Cossacks, Kurds and Tartar hordes, who had stooped their necks to Russia's iron yoke, entered the valleys of Circassia, valleys which seem but dark chasms or fissures where the branches of the Koissons roar and leap from rock to rock in northern Daghestan, and there they perished, too, beneath the bullet and the arrow, the spear and sling of the unconquerable Tcherkesses. It was my brother Selim who slew General Woinoff; it was Karolyi who stormed the redoubts and spiked his cannon: and it was I who hewed off the head of the gallant soldier Passek, and bore it for three days on my spear.

In this year of the Christians, 1840, I commanded that portion of the Circassian troops which besieged the Russians in the fort of Mikhailov. They defended themselves with the blind fury of men who foresaw their doom was death! Selim pressed them with three thousand men on one side; Karolyi, with the same number, pressed them on the other; while I, with a chosen band of four thousand archers, slingers, and musketeers, plied them from every quarter with incessant missiles. Selim cut off the sluices which supplied them with water, and Karolyi stormed their outworks, tore down their stockades, and beheaded every defender whom they caught by the lasso.

But Heaven has put much valour into the hearts of these infidels; hence, though reduced to the verge of starvation (having picked the bones of their last horse, and stewed their boot-tops and leather shakoes), their commander, Ivan Carlovitch, colonel of the Tenginski Hussars, resolved to make one gallant effort to escape, for his soldiers had with them several old standards, which the Russians regard as almost holy.

His garrison was composed of the 37th or Tenginski Grenadiers; the 38th or Novoginski Regiment, which carried the famous banner of St. George, the same that had been with their predecessors at the passage of the Alps, and which waved on the field of Trebbia, where they fought under Suvaroff. He had also two battalions of the Imperial Guard, whose tattered and shot-riven standards had waved on many a bloody plain, and been clenched in the dying grasp of many a gallant man.

Their desire of preserving these trophies was only second to the hope of escape; for the standard is ever the palladium of a regiment, even as the National Insignia are the palladium of a free people, and, as such, should be preserved from degradation.

Perceiving that, fearless of his cannon—those terrors of the simple Circassians, who name them the great pistols of the Czar—I had made every disposition for an assault, which must have been successful, the valiant Ivan Carlovitch led out his shattered garrison among us, sword in hand; and, favoured by a dark and tempestuous night, escaped with a few, but a few only; for by sabre and by musket we made a fearful slaughter among the soldiers of the Novoginski Regiment, and taking their famous banner of St. George, tore it to fragments, and spitting upon these, trampled them to the earth in blood and mire.

Thanks to the Prophet and to my coat of mail, uncounted balls and bayonets touched me without harm. Above the roar of that red musketry which lit the darkness with its streaky gleams; above the howling of the wind, which tore through every mountain gorge; above the cheers of the desperate, and the shrieks of the dying, the wild, shrill, and unearthly war-cry of the Circassians ascended to the throne of Mohammed; and the approach to the breach was like the bridge of hell, as we rushed through the battered gates to take possession of the fortress; but at the moment that the 'enceinte,' or interior wall which surrounded the place, and was composed of bastions faced with brick, was crowded by our flushed and exulting warriors, a tremendous explosion was heard the earth gaped, and rocked, and rent; then it rose beneath our feet; a broad, hot, scorching blaze of fire surrounded me, and blown up by a concealed mine of powder, the whole fort of Mikhailov, with more than two thousand Circassians, was torn from its foundations, and swept on the whirlwind along the mountain slopes.

Struck down by a stone in the moment of victory I became senseless, and remember no more of that night of horrors!

Heaven, I have said, has put great valour into the hearts of these unbelievers.

Archipp Ossepoff, the same grenadier of the Tenginski Regiment whom I had wounded by an arrow and from whom I had rescued Basilia, volunteered to remain behind his comrades; and in order to prevent the fort from being of service to the confederated princes, laid his hands solemnly on the standard of St. George, and promised to Ivan Carlovitch, that he would fire the magazine—a noble act of self-sacrifice and military enthusiasm. This man of course perished with Mikhailov, and with our people; but in order to commemorate this act of valour and devotion, the Emperor Nicholas ordained that his name should be continued on the muster-roll of the Tenginski Grenadiers; that it should be called daily on parade, and that on the sergeant summoning "Archipp Ossepoff," the next grenadier on the list should answer—

"Dead at Mikhailov for the glory of Russia!"

When I recovered, I found myself lying on the hillside, many yards from the fort, the site of which resembled the crater of the volcano; for it seemed as if the powder had rent, torn, and blackened the bosom of the earth, in its efforts to efface the fort for ever. The free soft wind of the Caucasus was passing over the ruins; above me the sky was bright, and blue, and sunny; the birds were twittering among the mangled bodies of the slain; and about those ghastly heaps, or between their piles of arms and limbered field-pieces, the Russian soldiers (whom the flight of our people had left in possession of the locality) were laughing and singing, as they drained their canteens of sour quass, and prepared to cook their breakfasts, and to bury the dead.

Around us, the scenery was beautiful; there were summer woods in all their heavy foliage; the terraced vineyards of lighter green, screened by the dense and wiry pine; little cottages and pretty mosques, with gilded minars shining in the sun; bright streams dancing down the rocks; the sea, blue as the sky and rippling gently in the wind; while in the back-ground of all, rose hills piled up on hills, until their steeps reached Heaven, and every peak was capped with pure white snow, or tipped by a golden gleam.

Close by me a group of Russian officers were seated around one, who, by his dark green uniform, his heavy silver epaulettes and jack-boots; his varnished leather helmet surmounted by an eagle; his enormous mustache and cruel expression of eye, I knew to be Ivan Carlovitch; and I lay still and feigning death, believing that my fate would be sealed, if life was discovered in me.

They were loud in their praises of the Circassian leader—myself—and expressed a great desire to capture me; others added their less friendly hopes that I had perished in the explosion.

"It is fortunate, however," said Carlovitch, "that we have taken his two brothers, Selim and Karolyi; they, at least, have a long march before them towards the north; and, believe me, that among the snows there, with a chain to drag, and the occasional prick of a Cossack lance in the rear, their hot rebellious blood will soon be cooled in Siberia, and rendered mild as commissariat quass."

Under their shaggy beards the officers laughed at this poor joke, which made my heart almost die within me, for it acquainted me, that my two brothers, Selim and Karolyi, were captives, and that Siberia would be their doom.

A soldier now approached to announce that the body of Archipp Ossepoff had been found, shattered, scorched, and sorely mangled, but still recognisable by the medals which he had won in the Polish war.

"Then let him be buried apart from all the rest," said Carlovitch, "with all honour, and let a cross mark the spot; but first, let us put all these fellows who are lying about here under ground, before the sun attains its noon-day heat."

While lying there, receiving an occasional kick from the passing soldiers, who had long since stripped me of my splendid arms, armour, and ornaments, how terrible were my thoughts when the fierce, rough, and merciless Cossacks proceeded to open a trench beside me, and dug it deep to receive the dead. I endeavoured to stifle reflection, believing that my last hour had come; and after praying—for prayer is the pillar of religion, even as the sword is the true key of paradise—I bent my thoughts upon Basilia, who was far away at Soudjack Kaleh, and seated then perhaps in her rose garden, fanning herself with feathers, and weeping for the poor Osman she would never again behold on earth.

At last the grave was finished, and one by one the dead were flung therein, and laid in rows head and foot alternately; how heavily they fell, with their lifeless limbs and clanking accoutrements! Suddenly I felt myself seized by the neck and heels, and before I could utter a sound, they flung me into that ghastly trench on the gashed and bloody heap below, and then the shovelled earth flew fast over me.

"Stop—halt!" cried Ivan Carlovitch, who was sitting on the sward close by, smoking a magnificent pipe; "by St. George, that uppermost Tcherkesse is alive yet!"

"A matter easily repaired, my colonel!" said a Russian, raising his shovel like a battle-axe to cleave my head.

"Beware, I say!" thundered Carlovitch, and at his voice the bearded soldiers cowered like slaves before a king; "fling him out, lay him on the sward, and bring here a canteen of quass."

This sharp, bitter draught revived me, and my native pride coming to my aid, I stood erect, and boldly confronted the imperialist.

"Who the devil are you?" he asked

I replied, proudly,—

"Osman Rioni, the son of Mostapha. I might have concealed my rank, but I scorn to lie, even unto a race of liars."

Joy flashed in the cruel and cunning eyes of Carlovitch at this announcement; his surprise and satisfaction at the importance of his third prisoner were too great to leave space for anger at my speech. He smiled, and said,—

"Tcherkesse, your wants and your wounds, if you have any, shall be faithfully and kindly attended to; when in better humour I shall see you again, having a little message to you from the emperor. Take him away."

I was conducted to an ancient tomb, under the dome of which I found a Cossack guard, surrounding my two brothers Selim and Karolyi, with several other Circassians, who were all suffering more or less from wounds or scorches ha the explosion. All were dejected, and my appearance among them increased their unhappiness. We communed in whispers, and formed our plans for flight on the first opportunity.

All that night we remained in the cold and dreary tomb, which before morning some of our poor companions exchanged for an actual grave, for they died of their undressed wounds; but about sunrise, we were drawn out by the Cossacks, who truncheoned us with their lances, driving us like a herd of cattle; and then their pioneers proceeded to dig a grave under the dome, which was the resting-place of an ancient king, a proceeding which we beheld with horror, for every strict Mussulman deems sacred for ever the little spot of earth which forms the last resting-place of a departed being.

Then the sound of muffled drums rolled upon the wind and the wail of the Muscovite dead march, as the funeral of Archipp Ossepoff approached; the solemnity of the scene impressed us deeply, and we forgot that it was by the mingled treachery and stern devotion of this determined soldier we had lost Mikhailov and our liberty together.

Six grenadiers of the Tenginski Regiment bore on their shoulders the coffin, the lid of which was off; a veil of fine linen covered the body, which was dressed in uniform, with cross-belts, boots, gloves, epaulettes of red worsted and copper medals. The head was borne forward, not the feet, as in other countries. Then came four soldiers, bearing the coffin lid, on which lay the leather helmet, the musket, and knapsack of the deceased; then followed the regiment of Tenginski Grenadiers, marching with their arms reversed, and preceded by a grand military band of brass trumpets and muffled drums. In front of all marched a priest of the Russian Greek Church, attired in magnificent vestments of muslin, gold, and embroidery. His aspect was venerable; his white beard was full and flowing; he chaunted as he went, and sprinkled frankincense upon the path.

A prayer, a roll upon the drums, and a flourish of instruments with three volleys closed the ceremony, and there lies Archipp Ossepoff in the tomb of a Circassian prince; but his memory as a brave grenadier is still cherished, as I have related, by the orders of the emperor, and in the traditions of his comrades. God rest that gallant spirit; he died for his country, even as I would have died for mine.

Pining for freedom and for the presence of Basilia, dreading I scarcely knew what—but banishment to Siberia more than anything else, for that had been but a living death and a separation for ever from my country and my love—three dreary months rolled over me, and with my two brothers I still found myself a prisoner with the Russian army of the Caucasus, which marched along the left bank of the Kuban towards the Sea of Azov, and consequently nearer to my home.

One day Colonel Carlovitch sent for me, and again his face wore that deep and cunning smile which so closely resembled a leer; for his eyes were cold and snaky, even as his heart was stern and cruel.

"I have sent for you, my valiant Tcherkesse," said he, politely, "to make you a tempting offer from our beneficent father the emperor. It is this. If you will enter the Russian service, all your father's possessions from Marinskoi to the mouth of the Kisselbash River will be restored to you, with the title of prince—neither of which can you ever hope to regain by the impious sword you have drawn against the house of Romanoff and the cause of Holy Russia."

I rejected the offer with the scorn it merited, and reminded the tempter, in the words of our "Declaration of Independence," how many of our children had been stolen; how many of our princes had thus been lured away; how many sons of nobles taken as hostages, and then butchered in cold blood; how many noble houses had been reduced and crushed by Russian treason and by Russian treachery; and lifting up my hands, while I turned my face towards Mecca, I was about to take a solemn vow, when interrupting me, he said, with an icy smile,—

"Enough, Osman Rioni—swear not—'t is needless! To-morrow you and your brothers will commence the long, long march to Siberia."

At these words my soul trembled, and my head fell upon my breast. The Russian officer still smiled and continued to polish the eagle on his helmet, with his leather glove, while whistling the popular waltz of the Duchess Olga.

Siberia!

With that name, hope, love, liberty, my country and her cause sank, and snow-covered wastes, with chains and stripes, despair and death, rose up before me.

If once I reached Siberia, I should live the life of the hopeless, and die the death of the despairing; and my brothers—my poor brothers! The alternative was terrible, but in the Russian service we should daily have chances of escape to our native mountains; so I accepted his offer in the name of myself, Selim, and Karolyi.

"I knew that you would think better of it," said Carlovitch, sitting down in his tent, and writing a memorandum; "thenceforward from this day, you are a captain in the Tenginski Hussars, and your brothers shall be the lieutenants of your troop. Allow me to present you with a horse which was taken at Mikhailov. You shall fight against the Tartars, not your own people; but to-morrow I have a piece of service to propose to you. Come here after morning parade or at noon, and I shall tell you all about it—meantime adieu."

With a heart full of bitterness I left him, and careless of the Cossacks, who still watched me, I took up a handful of gravel and flung it towards his painted tent, spying, as Mohammed did at Bedr,—

"A curse upon thee, Muscovite—and a curse be on every hair of the cur that begot thee! May thy face be confounded for ever!"

Whichever way I turned, his cold smile seemed before me; but when I reached the tent in which my brothers were confined, great was my pleasure to find my favourite charger Zupi led up to the door by a hussar, and I kissed and embraced my old friend, for we Mussulmen deem the horse as the noblest of animals next to man; and the Koran says, that the beasts which traverse earth and air are creatures like ourselves—they are all written in the Book, and shall appear at the last day; so when I die, I hope to take my faithful Zupi with me to paradise, even as Ezra took his ass, after she had ceased to bray for a hundred years.

Like myself, at the first proposition of taking service under the abhorred emperor, my brothers were full of fierce scorn; but when I had calmly placed my views before them, showing that we had no alternative but military service, with its chances of escape on one hand, and perpetual slavery, with its stripes on the other, they condescended to accept the lieutenantcies of my troop; and the next day—oh, may it be accursed!—saw us attired in the green uniform of the Tenginski Hussars, and on parade with Menschikoff's division of the Caucasian army.

In camp around us were bivouacked thousands of the Russian infantry in their long great-coats and flat round caps; the Cossacks of the Don with their fleet, rough, and active horses, and all armed with long lances; the horse regiments of Tchernemorski glittering with jewels and embroidery, and the Imperial Guard in their magnificent uniform. Around us rang the clank of the armourer's anvil, the springing of ramrods and fixing of flints; the limbering of artillery and powder-waggons; the galloping of aides-de-camp; the hewing down of palisades, and the plaiting up of fascines, all of which told us of preparations making for the subjugation of our country, and we were amid it all, attired in the Russian uniform!

At noon I sought the tent of Carlovitch.

"My colonel," said I, veiling my boiling hatred under a calm exterior, as with a solemn salaam I raised a hand to the front of my fur hussar cap; "you had a duty to propose to me?"

"Yes, my stubborn Tcherkesse; I am glad to find that you have so easily learned the task of obedience, as without it an army sinks into a rabble. Well, the duty is this. There is an old fellow at Soudjack Kaleh, who for some time past has traded with the Tartars in various ways, and latterly with Turks in salted fish and pretty women, both of which commodities he exports largely to Stamboul, to the ancient city of Trebizonde, and to Sinope."

My heart began to leap at these words.

"You mean Abdallah ibn Obba."

"The same; but you start—do you know him?"

"Intimately," said I; "and your purpose, O son of a slave!" I had almost added.

"Well, Captain Rioni, this respectable old Tcherkesse is now bargaining for the sale of a cargo of slave girls for the Turkish market, and a small Stambouli craft, which has long baffled the pursuit of our steam corvettes and the row-boats of our Kreposts, is now concealed in some creek near Mezip. Unfortunately all our vessels are over on the Crimean side, otherwise they would soon have found those Turkish swine, who come to steal the subjects of our father the emperor."

Carlovitch gave another of his cold smiles, for he perceived how my hot Circassian blood revolted on hearing my people called the subjects of his emperor I asked haughtily,—

"Your orders, Colonel Carlovitch?"

"You will select fifty of the Tenginski Hussars, and as you and your brothers must know the country well, search every creek and cranny of the coast until the Turkish ship is found. She will be safely beached somewhere, and when discovered, burn her; cut the throats of the Turks, and bring the cargo of girls here. You shall have a couple of the prettiest for your trouble. The daughter of old Abdallah is among them—Basilia, commonly known as the flower of the Abassians. Archipp Ozepoff nearly brought me that girl once before, but some rascal pierced him by an arrow. Take especial care of her, for I am resolved that no great bison of a Turk shall ever call her slave. No, no, her bright eyes will sparkle all the brighter among the green uniforms and silver epaulettes of our Tenginski Hussars. See to all this; you march in an hour, and till you return, farewell."

Taking up a pen he resumed a dispatch which my arrival had interrupted; and after standing for some time, overwhelmed by confusion and the misery of my own thoughts, I withdrew to the foot of a tree, and sat down to reflect on the strange duty I had to perform, and the startling tidings I had just heard.

The image of my beautiful Basilia—for I assure you, gentlemen, that the Circassian maid is the most perfect and lovely creation of God—a prisoner, a slave on board of a slave ship, and consigned a helpless victim of the lust of the licentious Osmanli filled my soul with a horror so great that I forgot my present situation in my anxiety to discover this secret ship, to free her, and to put to the edge of the sword all who were concerned in a transaction so infamous. I saw the whole affair now. The loss of the rich argosy on the Isle of Serpents had brought the difficulties of Abdallah to a crisis, and to retrieve his broken fortune he had sold his only daughter to the Turks! I invoked the curse of the Prophet, and of the twelve Imaums on his avarice; and now my only fear was great that the Turks might launch their boat and escape me: thus it was that with an ardour such as I never thought to feel at the head of Russian troops, I rode from the camp at the head of fifty hussars, with my two brothers by my side; and we galloped along the sea-shore, with all our brilliant appointments glittering in the splendour of the setting sun of Asia.

"Basilia, my pure, my beautiful! this night may make thee mine," thought I; "one stroke of a sabre may give what thy father would not have sold to me, perhaps, for a million of piastres."

I am ashamed to own that our Circassian beauties too often exchange with joy the penury of their fathers' cottages and the hardships of their frugal mountain homes, for the luxury and delight of the Stambouli Kiosks and seraglios. From early childhood their ears are filled, and their warm imaginations fired, with ideas of the riches and pleasure of these places, and by the stories of their mothers, or more generally their aunts, who have returned (when their Osmanli lords grew weary of their faded charms) loaded with magnificent jewels, with purses of sequins, and wardrobes of the richest stuffs the world can produce, and with many a tale to tell of the distinguished part they had played by their native superiority of intellect over the ponderous and dreamy Asiatic. To purchase our girls the Turkish vessels row by night along the shore, and seek some wooded creek where they lie concealed from the steamers and cruisers of the Russian Black Sea fleet, and from the squadrons of Cossack row-boats attached to the Kreposts; then the bargain is concluded, and the girls, who are always the most beautiful daughters of serfs and freemen, are embarked, after a month, perhaps, has been spent in bartering and chaffering between the merchants on one hand, and their parents on the other.*

* It is calculated that one vessel out of six is taken. In the winter of 1843-4, twenty-eight ships left the coast of Asia Minor for Circassia, to purchase girls; twenty-three returned safely; three only were burned by the Russians, and two were swallowed by the waves.—WAGNER

As the distance increased between us and the Russian camp my brothers looked with longing eyes towards our native hills, between whose misty peaks a flood of golden light was falling on the waving woods and on the rolling sea; and now they began to whisper and exchange glances of intelligence. Their minds were full of the pledge we had lately made to ourselves, that we would fly the hated yoke of Russia on the first opportunity; but this was no easy task, believe me, watched as we were by our own suspicious soldiers. At this time my whole soul was full of Basilia, and in the hope of freeing, of winning, and of loving her, even Circassia and her wrongs were forgotten for a time—God of the Prophet, but only for a time!

By a telescope I could see afar off the wild woods in which I had wandered when a boy, and the familiar mountain peaks up which I had clambered when fighting with the Muscovite riflemen, or hunting the boar and jerboa. I could see the bright gleam of steel and the flashing of chain armour between the shady oaks; for there armed bands were hovering, and there the Tartar bow, the Albanian gun, the Circassian lance, and the crooked sabre, awaited the Muscovite invader; and there the holy banner of the twelve stars waved above the tent of the glorious Schamyl. Watched as we were by the very men we led, flight, as I have said, was hopeless; but then I had no thought of flight even when within a cannon-shot of armed Circassian bands which we could see with their camels laden with women, children, and household goods, clambering up the hills to avoid the Kalmuck scouts and Cossack foragers.

As the night darkened we saw lurid flames shooting up between the mountain clefts; and while our fierce hussars muttered in guttural Russ and laughed under their matted beards, the hearts of my brothers and myself grew sad, for we knew that the Tchernemorski lances were spreading woe and desolation in the homes of our people.

We searched every little bay, inlet, and river as we passed along the beautiful coast from Anapa to Soudjack Kaleh, a fortress which was then half in ruins, as General Williamoff had left it after storming its defences at the head of fifteen thousand men. It seemed now so lonely and so silent that no one could imagine the roar of war had once awoke its echoes, for the flowers of the arbutus, the rhododendron, and many other plants, most of them aromatic, filled the air with perfume as they grew in luxuriance on its battered walls, or twining round the old cannon's mouth as it lay half sunk among the stones and grass, or wreathing the bare skulls and white ribs of the dead on whose unburied bones, bleached by the sunshine and the storm, devouring dogs and mountain wolves had battened.

Evening had closed when we bivouacked near the beach, unbitted our horses, lighted our pipes, and sent round our cups of quass to wash down the black ration, bread and salt beef broiled among the embers till it was encrusted with ashes and brine; and we were just composing ourselves for the night, when my sergeant, a cunning and active Cossack, who had crept a mile or two along the shore alone, announced to me that he had seen some suspicious lights in a little creek of the bay of Koutloutzi. "Mount and march," was the order, and favoured by a brilliant moon, beneath whose light the Euxine rolled like a flood of silver at the base of the steep Circassian hills, we rode round the margin of this circular bay, and ascended the beautiful vale of Mezip, towards where my sergeant asserted he had seen the lights.

Halting our party he and I dismounted, and, taking only our swords and pistols, crept cautiously through a thicket towards where a river entered the bay, and such a place we knew would be the most probable rendezvous of the Turks with the slave merchant. The foliage was dense and dark overhead, for in this district the sturdy oak, the beech, and the chestnut grew to the water's edge, and the cherry-tree, the fig, and the wild olive were all in full bloom. It was a savage place. Toads croaked among the reeds, and rearing serpents hissed among the sedges of the river, which brawled over a ledge of rocks and fell into the bay, while the yellow-coated and weasel-like suroke whistled on the branches of the pine, and the fleet jerboa fled before us from its lair like an evil spirit.

Suddenly we saw a gleam of light, and heard the sound of voices. A few paces more brought us to the brow of a wooded bank, at the base of which we saw a number of Turkish sailors seated round a fire, smoking, drinking raki, and making merry, while one of their number, a little humpbacked fellow, with a hooked nose and enormous beard, sang to them, and twangled on a lute. They were sixteen in number (I counted them carefully), and all fierce-looking fellows, with enormous noses and mustachoes. Large trowsers, dirty red tarbooshes, and red shawl-girdles stuck full of daggers and pistols. Most of them had cuts and scars or patches on their dusky faces, and all had a savage and sinister aspect, as the red gleams of the pinewood fire fell on them. The captain was particularly happy; as he believed, that if the Sultan Abdul-Medjid did but once see Basilia, the fortunes of all who had a share in bringing such loveliness to gladden his sublime eyes would be made for ever.

In the back-ground, and drawn far up on the beach, lay their vessel, with its large angular sail stowed on deck; the yard struck, and the mast and rigging covered by green pine branches, the better to elude the observation of scouts, and to blend its outline with the surrounding trees, while heaps of branches, with dry leaves spread over all, were piled against the sides. But over the gunnel we saw several Circassian girls sitting very quietly, gazing at those rough and noisy guardians, who were to convey them to that brilliant Stamboul, which they had been taught to believe was an earthly paradise.

On that little deck, and apart from all the rest, sat one who did not seem to share the placidity of her companions, or to share their joyous anticipations. Her form was enveloped in her veil, and her head was bowed upon her hands, her eyes were sad, and fixed on vacancy. My breath came thick and fast. There was a swelling in my throat, as if my heart was there, for I knew that lonely weeper was Basilia.

As thirty or forty girls are usually deemed a good cargo and only ten were visible, it was evident to us that the Turks had no intention of putting to sea for some days; thus my sergeant, who had frequently been on expeditions of this kind, politely suggested—as we had ridden a long way—the expedience of sleeping quietly for that night, and slaughtering the Turks at our leisure in the morning; but my impatience would brook of no delay.

Again we mounted: I divided my party into two troops, and ascending the valley of Mezip for a mile or so, descended from different points towards the head of the Bay.

"Spur and sabre!" was the cry.

There was a brief but sharp discharge of pistols, a gleaming of knives and flashing of sabres, and in five minutes the surrounded Turks were all trampled under hoof, shot and headless beside the fire which had lit the scene of their jollity, not one of them escaping save their deformed messmate, who dashed his lute at the head of Selim, sprung into the sea, and disappeared. The captain I sabred with my own hand; but not before he gave me this wound by a pistol shot, which grazed my left cheek like a hot iron.

Inspired anew by love and triumph I sprang up the side of the vessel, and sought the lonely figure—it was as my heart divined—Basilia. I knelt before her, and took her hand in mine, trembling as I did so, for never until that moment had I touched even the hem of her garment. My soul was in my tongue, and weighed it down with words of love and joy, but one alone found utterance,—

"Basilia!"

She gave a cry of wonder, and as she gazed at me, her large black eyes dilated and flashed with anger.

"Basilia," said I, "do you not remember me?"

"No," replied she, while trembling; "who are you?"

"Osman, the son of Mostapha, your own Osman, who saved you at Anapa."

"It is false," she answered, with eyes full of anger and sorrow; "Osman was a brave Circassian warrior, and I loved him; oh! how dearly and how well; but he fell in battle at Mikhailov. Thou art either a base Muscovite, or some fiend in the shape of Osman; a ghoul it may be, a son of Ifrit; begone, and leave me."

I could have wept at these stinging words, which sank like poisoned arrows in my heart, and I feared that grief had disordered her intellects; but I did injustice to Basilia, for her language was the first prompting of honest grief and indignation to find me in the uniform of the Tenginski Hussars, and false, as she deemed, to my country and to her. For so she told me, when more composed, and when she heard my story, as we sat side by side under a broad chesnut tree with the plunder of the Turkish ship around us, and the flames of its burning timbers to light our little bivouac. When we fired it, with all the branches and withered leaves that were piled over it, the flames burned bravely, and shot above the copse-wood, as they licked the mast and its well-tarred cordage.

I sat at the feet of Basilia, my heart teemed with joy, half the objects of existence seemed accomplished now, and I could no longer believe that fortune had greater favours in store for me.

In the language of our own beloved country, we formed innumerable projects of happiness, or whispered plans of escape from the toils of the Russians, and I had resolved in the night, if possible, to elude my own sentinels, to mount Basilia on Zupi, and to depart by the vale of Mezip towards the wilderness of mount Shapsucka, when my sergeant, with a dark and singular expression in his eye, came to inform me that my brother "the Lieutenant Selim was nowhere to be found."

Karolyi, who was sitting beside us, looked up, and gave a deep smile as the Cossack spoke.

In short, after seeing the last Turk cut down, Selim, while our dismounted hussars were overhauling the ship, had turned his horse's head towards the mountains and escaped.

I rejoiced at this for a time.

"But brother Osman," said Karolyi, "Selim has done us a wrong in this; we should all have fled together, for thou and I will now be watched with double suspicion, and have our simplest actions subjected to the severest scrutiny."

"Remember, there is the maiden, whom I cannot leave behind; so let us rejoice that Circassia has one brave warrior more."

Karolyi made a gesture of impatience.

"Circassia," said he, "has maidens enough and to spare; but for every warrior on her hills, she requires at least a hundred. This is no time for wedding or acting the lover, for twangling on the lute and kneeling on the verge of a pretty maid's carpet."

"These were my own words, Karolyi, when urged by you and Selim to wed ere Schamyl rose in arms."

"True, brother, true," replied Karolyi, "and in truth, this little maiden is a miracle of beauty. My soul and sword are at her service, command them; but in the name of Merissa think not of escape to-night. Another and perhaps more favourable opportunity may soon occur."

The night passed quickly away. I watched Basilia while she slept in my mantle. I was sleepless, but silent and happy, for my mind was full of love and her.

Next day I placed her on Zupi, and we set out for head-quarters amid the maledictions of the ten rescued slaves, who saw all their anticipated delights of a seraglio life suddenly cut short, and who knew that fate would now consign them to high-cheeked Kalmucks, or the rough, greasy Cossacks, in lieu of the wealthy Osmanlis, the luxurious Pashas, and turbaned Agas, whom they had hoped to have as masters; and they consoled themselves by reviling me as a renegade, and invoking on my head all the ills that fell on the God-abandoned Thamudites, and on the offspring of Saba, the son of Yarab.

On arriving at head-quarters, I presented my prisoners, and the right ears of fifteen Turks to Colonel Carlovitch. The ears he flung to his dogs, and the ten girls, not finding favour in the sight of the officers who crowded about them, were given to Cossacks, to make wives or whatever they pleased of them, for such is the law of the Russian military colonies on the Kuban; and to himself, despite my prior claim by love and capture; despite my rage and grief, my entreaties and ill-smothered threatenings—to himself—this accursed Muscovite assigned Basilia as a hand-maiden!

* * * * *

(Here the Circassian, who had related this part of his narrative in short and broken sentences, paused, and ground his teeth, while the veins of his fine pale forehead swelled like rigid cords, and his keen dark eyes became glazed with the ferocity, fire, and grief that filled them.)

CHAPTER XVIII.

ZUPI.

Ivan Carlovitch, he resumed, was a soldier insensible alike to pity and to danger. His cold and rigid sternness had first brought him under the notice of his imperial master, who raised him from the humblest rank in the army. He had a strict and almost absurd idea of the implicit obedience which should be rendered by the soldier to his superior; and wild as I was then with passion and grief on finding that I had only saved Basilia from one degrading condition to deliver her over to one still more cruel and terrible—to be the mistress, the plaything of a wretched Russian—I had sufficient tact to see that resistance would only serve to destroy my own hopes of a dreadful vengeance, and of achieving her freedom. On the first symptom of disobedience, Carlovitch would have brought me before a general court-martial. From this tribunal in Russia, the way to the knout or the grave is short and rapid, especially to a poor Pole, or a captive Tcherkesse warrior.

It is related that early in life, Ivan Carlovitch, the son of Carl, a porter of Moscow, was a soldier in General Ouchterlony's battalion of the Imperial Guard, and was one day a sentinel on the private gate of the palace at St. Petersburg, when a sudden inundation of the Neva spread terror among the inmates of the edifice, and forced them to retreat to the upper stories.

The Empress Alexandrina was surveying the rising waters from a balcony, when she perceived Carlovitch standing at his post motionless, and mid leg in the water. In great alarm she desired him to retire within doors. He "presented arms" when Her Majesty addressed him, but respectfully declined. The flood increased. Trees were swept away, railings and balustrades, vases of flowers, dead cattle, boats, and logs of wood were surged and dashed against the palace walls; again and again the Empress and her ladies called in great agitation to the sentinel, desiring him to abandon a post so perilous; but with admirable coolness he replied, that he "dared not until properly relieved or withdrawn by an order from the captain of the guard." That officer had by this time clambered to the roof of the guard-house, from whence he sent the corporal, a good swimmer, to bring off this obstinate sentinel, who was now up to his neck in water.

For this act of bravado or insensibility to danger, Carlovitch was appointed a captain in the Infantry Regiment of Tenginski, and marched with it against the Circassians. In due time he was appointed colonel of the Tenginski Hussars (for there are two corps, one of horse and the other of foot, so named), and as such I found him when misfortune cast me in his way.

He was a man without mercy, and often brought his bravest soldiers to the knout for the most trivial fault; but he never broke into gusts of passion, and though constantly using among the soldiers, the serfs, and prisoners a heavy rattan, every blow of which brought away a stripe of flesh, he always addressed them with a cold and cruel smile, which filled those who knew him with fear and repugnance.

Oh, how I loathe his memory and the recollection of that fiendish leer, which I can picture so distinctly at this moment!

But what of Basilia, you would ask me?

Fain would I draw a veil over her fate; but a few words will relate it.

The insulting advances, the bold declarations of a love the most repugnant to a heart so pure, the caresses and the presents of Carlovitch she received with disdain. For three days and three nights tears were her only protection; entreaties for mercy her only weapon; but at last even they failed her. One night Carlovitch, flushed with wine and fury on leaving a banquet given by Prince Merischikoff, assailed her in his own tent, and to escape him, the miserable Basilia pierced her throat with a poniard, and died at his feet!

Her pure, fair, beautiful form was wrapped in a horse-rug, and buried by the rough hands of Cossack pioneers, at the foot of a rock on the left bank of the Kuban.

The grave of my love lay but a pistol shot distant from the tent of her destroyer; yet his iron heart never smote him, and never reproached him with his cruelty; he smoked, he drank the wine of the Tcherkesses, and played at cards and chess, and with his brother officers sang as merrily as ever, and no more regarded the death he had caused and the misery he had wrought, than the ashes of his last cigar.

Where then was I?

Forced to lead my troop against my own people, and watched by a chosen few of my own soldiers, I had been sent towards Azov in pursuit of fugitive Circassians. One whom we had tracked the livelong day, riding over steep mountains, through pathless forests and deep rivers, was taken at nightfall by his horse falling under him. He was brought in, exhausted with fatigue and faint with hunger, covered with blood, with scars, brambles, and heavily fettered. The poor fugitive we had pursued so long, and taken at last, proved to be my brother Selim, who had failed to reach the camp of our confederated princes, and had wandered long on the Russian side of Mount Shapsucka.

I was filled with new dismay. It seemed that I required but this to complete my misery. I rent my beard, and threw myself on the ground; I cursed myself and Ivan Carlovitch in the same breath, and daringly upbraided the Prophet with injustice to a Mussulman so devout as I.

Poor Selim heard my words with terror. He raised me from the ground; he kissed me on both cheeks, and besought me to be composed, and then we were separated. I had to continue my march towards the shores of the sea of Azov, while Selim, the miserable Selim, was dragged before Carlovitch, who tried him as a deserter, had him degraded, and his sword and commission trodden under foot; after which he was sentenced to die—to die under the knout—"a terror to other Tcherkesses who trifled with the service of their beneficent lord and father the emperor."

Three weeks afterwards I heard of his fate, and to nerve my soul for the coming vengeance, I drank in the terrible description of the poor boy's dying scene. I was told by my sergeant how the troops were formed in a hollow square—ten thousand Russian slaves, misnamed as soldiers, with bayonets fixed and colours flying; I was told how the noble prisoner stood amid them, with the kingly air of a true Circassian cavalier, though stripped of every article of attire, save a pair of tattered drawers; how he was bound by the wrists, the neck, and ancles, to a large gun-carriage, and how the executioner, a gigantic Kalmuck, stood six feet distant to give his infernal weapon a swing more full and heavy. I was told how Selim—for he was the youngest of us—screamed in agony as each successive blow fell on his bare and quivering shoulders, from which the flesh was torn in pieces by every lash of the dreadful whip; how between every stroke this giant Kalmuck dipped its bloody ends in brimstone, and how the victim sank beneath the strokes, until at last their sound came dull and dead, for poor Selim had expired with four words on his lips; they were, "My brothers—my brothers."

I did not shed a tear for him; a fiend seemed to possess me; a devilish joy swelled within me, as I lay that night in the bivouac beside the feet of Zupi, rolled in my mantle, with my sword and pistols at my side.

"Woe to thee, whining cur of the Czar, woe!" I repeated again and again; "to-morrow I will see thee, Carlovitch—to-morrow shall thy soul answer to heaven and to hell for these atrocities; and to-morrow Mostapha's son shall cease to be the serf of this dog Emperor, Nicholas Paulovitch!"

The sunny morrow came, and loud and shrill rang the trumpets which summoned the Hussars and Grenadiers of Tenginski to a general parade. I examined my saddle girths, my bridle, and my arms, with scrupulous exactness, for this would be the last parade I was ever to attend. I threw away everything that might serve to encumber my motions or overload my horse, and by my advice Karolyi did the same.

We were now with that portion of the Russian army which had fallen back from the Circassian Mountains to recruit and reform after their defeats by Schamyl; and which, after recrossing the Don, was cantoned principally in the Ukraine. The division to which we belonged occupied Poltava, one of the richest and best parts of the adjoining province for pasturing cavalry horses.

On the very day after we halted at Poltava, a grand parade was formed before Prince Menschikoff, and as I had marched with the baggage guard, I saw Carlovitch for the first time since these atrocities had cast a horror on my soul. The Prophet alone knows what were my emotions at the sight of him. The voices of Basilia and of Selim were rising from their graves—they were ever in my ears whispering "vengeance," and I rode amid the troops like one in a stupor. The parade was a magnificent one.

There were present the Imperial Guard, under General Ouchterlony, a Scotsman, and his three sons, all colonels of battalions; these men were the flower of the Russian army; the six Grenadier battalions of Prince Frederick of Hesse Phillipesthal; the veteran regiment of Moscow, commanded by Prince Frederick of Mecklenburg; the Cuirassiers of the Grand Duchess Olga, and the gorgeous Hussars of the Princess Maria Paulowna (sister of the Emperor), whose trappings far eclipsed those of the two Tenginski corps of Hussars and Infantry. But Karolyi and I laughed at the splendour of these idolaters, and scorn grew with hatred in our hearts; for it is of these, and such as these—eaters of hogs'-flesh and drinkers of brandy—that our Prophet spoke, when he said, "lo! they are like no other than brute cattle," and they shall perish like the people of Irem, of Thamud, and those who, as the Koran tells us, dwelt in al Rass.

The review passed before me like a dream, for my mind was full of other thoughts, and I saw only the mangled and bleeding body of Selim bound to the field-piece, and the poor remains of Basilia asleep in that uncouth grave where the Russian pioneers had buried her, when suddenly my name resounded along the glittering ranks; Carlovitch summoned me to the front, when all the cavalry were formed in line to deliver a general salute.

Something had gone wrong. I know not what, but I had neglected my troop when deploying from close column into line, and Carlovitch, usually so grave and impassible, was choking with passion. He called me "a dog of a Tcherkesse," and smote me on the face with his rattan.

The blow went straight to my heart!

For a moment I felt as if a thunderbolt had struck me; but transported with fury, I uttered the yell-like war cry of Circassia, and buried my sharp sabre—the noble steel of far-away Damascus—in his dastard heart!

Again I thrust it to the hilt, as tottering he drooped upon his holsters, dying and gushing of blood, and then I spurned the corpse with my feet as it fell. I slew him on the spot, in the face of fifty thousand men! May the curse of mankind fall upon the turf which wraps the dog who begot him!

I brandished my sabre, and shouted wildly to Karolyi,—

"To the hills—away, away! Tcherkesse! Tcherkesse!"

Goring his horse with the spurs, he sprang from the ranks, as the roar of a thousand voices ascended from them, on witnessing this act of justice; together we dashed at a furious pace towards the nearest mountains, and had already placed a deep and rapid torrent between us and the Russians, before they had recovered from their astonishment, or made proper arrangements for a pursuit.

The most accomplished rider in Europe is acknowledged to sit his horse like a clown when contrasted with a Circassian cavalier; and fortunate it was for Karolyi and me, that we—both men and horses—were bred and reared on the slopes of the Caucasus; as we were hotly and fiercely pursued by relays of mounted men despatched fresh and lightly accoutred from the innumerable military posts we passed. The wild Tchernemorski Cossacks, with their long lances, and wiry little horses; the Tenginski and Paulowna Hussars, and even the heavy, helmeted, breast-plated and jack-booted Olga cuirassiers spurred after us; but among the deep rocky gorges, the tangled brakes, the shifting mosses, and the fordless rivers, we soon rid ourselves of the latter, and most of the others, save the Cossacks, who followed us like spirits of evil, unrelenting and unwearying, for many a day and many a night.

In desperate hope to reach the Prussian frontier, we had already crossed the Dnieper, and traversed the palatinate of Minsk, where for days we rode over a flat country, of which we were ignorant, and where, in despair, we were frequently about to abandon the hope of escape, when we found ourselves involved in the mazes of a wild forest and dreary morass that lie on the banks of its rivers. But our native hardihood preserved us; for a cleft in a rock, or the branch of a tree with a sword for a pillow, is home enough at any time for a Tcherkesse warrior.

However, we now began to experience a serious difficulty in procuring a knowledge of the route to be pursued. We knew little of the language; our aspect was jaded, wan, and terrible; our uniform hung about us in rags; our horses were sinking, and that we were deserters was evident to every observer. And now the people of Lithuania joined in the pursuit, and one evening, just as we were about to cross a river named the Swislocz, our Tchernemorski Cossacks came upon us, and their wild shout of joy at the termination of that flight, which to them had been a long and exciting chase, rang in the air above us, as they reined up their horses on the rocks that overhung the stream, and brandished their spears.

We were about to plunge in, when one more bold or more freshly mounted than his comrades, wounded Karolyi by a lance thrust.

"May demons defile thy beard, and their plagues fall on thee and thine!" exclaimed my brother in a gust of fury; but now he had dropped or broken every weapon save his dagger, so with that quickness which is peculiar to the Circassian, he dismounted, rushed upon the Cossack's horse, drove the weapon into its breast, and bearing it back at the same time by the bridle, he hurled the snorting steed over upon its rider, and crushed him to death in an instant.

Vaulting again into his own well-worn saddle, he plunged with me into the stream, and gallantly we breasted it—while the carbines of the Tchememorski Cossacks—the only soldiers in the Russian service who can at all compete with our people—rang on every side, as they commenced a simultaneous discharge upon us, and their bullets flattened on the rocks, or raised incessant water-spouts around us.

Suddenly I heard a low cry and a choking gurgle that filled my heart with misery. I looked back; Karolyi, struck by a bullet, had sunk from his saddle, and a spurred boot alone was visible, as horse and rider was swept over a cataract, and borne away towards the Dnieper.

So perished my second brother!

Forcing Zupi up a bank where the reeds grew at least twelve feet high, I still rode recklessly on; but brave as they were, not one of the Cossacks dared to cross that foaming torrent in pursuit. Night came down to shroud my flight; there was no moon. I reached a wood, and flung myself down exhausted in mind and body. I was now dead to the fear of discovery, and I cared not for wolves, or other wild animals.

The presence of Karolyi, his companionship and our brotherly love, had alone sustained me thus far; now he was gone, and I was alone in the world; but there was at least one consolation: he had died the death of a warrior, with one hand on his bridle, and the other on his weapon; he had fallen, like his father's son, in battle with the enemies of his country, but he had found a tomb far from his father's grave, and far from the banks of the Kisselbash River.

Three days I lay without food, save a little wild honey, and without repose in that Lithuanian forest, and careless whether I lived or died; for want, misery, privation and mental agony had broken my spirit, and destroyed alike every purpose, hope, and reflection. There I prayed to the only Prophet of God, and remembered with growing trust that in the blessed Koran, he enjoins us to seek aid with perseverance; and I implored him to deliver me, even as the Lord divided the sea of Kolzom with his hand to let his people pass, and thereafter drowned the Egyptian host; and the Prophet heard me; for even while I prayed with my bare head in the dust, there chanced to pass that way a poor Tartar who dwelt on the skirts of the forest, and who had come hither to cut wood.

He heard me address the Prophet, and remembering the faith of his fathers, felt his heart moved within him; so he had compassion upon me, and took me to his hut, which, like all the Tartar dwellings, was little better than a rabbit-hole, burrowed on the face of a hill, with a rude verandah in front. Fortunately it lay in a wild and secluded place; so I dwelt for some days in safety with this good man, who guided me across the plains of Grodno, until I passed the Prussian frontier, when I knelt with my face to the east, and gave thanks to Heaven—thanks that I was safe from Russia, although eight hundred miles lay between me and the hills of my beloved Circassia.

Zupi, my horse, the noble animal which had borne me this incredible distance, was my first care, and to procure new garments in lieu of the tattered uniform of the Tenginski Hussars was the second; and intent only on reaching Britain, which was about to declare war against Russia, I travelled through part of Prussia by railway, a mode of locomotion, which I there saw for the first time, and which filled me with wonder and awe.

On reaching that kingdom, I thought my troubles were at an end; but there, alas! I found myself accused of a murder, stripped of the little sum I had about me, separated from Zupi, cast into prison, and in danger of being hanged; or what was worse, sent back to the Russian General Todleben, who commanded at Grodno. It happened thus.

I travelled towards Dantzig in a second-class carriage, in which the only other passenger was a pale and careworn young man, whose profusion of beard, braided coat, and small cap, with its square peak, gave him somewhat the aspect of a student. Taciturn and thoughtful, and being full of astonishment at the speed with which we swept over plain and valley, across rivers and under mountains—travelling as it were on the skirts of a whirlwind—I did not address my companion, who after smoking a large pipe for some time, covered his head with his cloak, and threw himself at full length along the seat, where he lay, long, as I thought, asleep. A jolt of the train threw him on the floor, and perceiving that he lay motionless and still, I hastened to lift him; but how great was my emotion, to find my hands covered with blood—for this silent fellow-passenger was a suicide, who had cut his throat from ear to ear, by a knife, which he grasped in his now rigid hand.

I endeavoured to lower the windows, but I knew not the way; so I dashed one to pieces, and cried aloud to the guards or drivers—I know not which you name them; but I was unheeded, and still this apparently infernal vehicle, in which I was enclosed with the bloody corpse, swept on, screaming, whistling, jarring, clanking, smoking, and whirling over wood and plain, over the roofs of towns, past the weathercocks of churches, and the tops of lofty trees, with a speed and din that would have carried terror and dismay to the hearts of a Circassian host, and would have swept Kurds and Kalmucks to the furthest confines of Asia.

At Dantzig the train arrived in due time, and the doors were opened by the conductors. I was found with "the murdered man;" my recent cries were attributed to him; the broken windows to his dying struggle, for my hands were cut and covered with blood! The Prussian gallows threatened me on one hand and the Russian knout upon the other. I was a poor unfriended foreigner, in a land of spies, suspicion, and police agents; and in my own defence had not one word to urge, for I was ignorant of the language. But fortunately next day, a letter was found on the person of the deceased, who proved to be a French artist, announcing his intention of destroying himself, and adding, that "when he had no longer a sou, it was thus a Frenchman should die—Vive la France! Vive le diable!"

This relieved me, and explained the whole affair; but the Prussian gens-d'armes kept my purse, as they said, to pay "all contingencies;" and had not the captain of a large French ship taken pity upon me, and brought me and my horse to London—the capital of Europe—I must have begged for bread in the streets of Dantzig, and had to sell my beloved Zupi to save the noble animal from starvation.

Finding myself in the great city of London, I was likely to be in greater distress than when in the vast forest of Lithuania; for in London the whole population live in an atmosphere of snares, suspicion, and mistrust, every man viewing his neighbour as one who has a design upon him. Again I was starving, for the little sum with which the French captain supplied me was spent upon Zupi, by whose side I always slept at night in an old cart-shed. But remembering that by birth and habit I was a soldier, I applied to the officers of the Household Brigade; some of these smiled, and shook their heads doubtfully, until Sir Henry Slingsby laid before them my commission in the Tenginski Hussars; it was fringed with silver, and signed by the Emperor Nicholas Paulovitch. Then they had a fellow feeling for me, and treated me with a kindness, the memory of which fills my soul with gratitude; for never, to the last hour of my life, shall I forget it, or omit to pray for the good and brave Ingleez.

CHAPTER XIX

WE REACH HEAD-QUARTERS.

Such was the story of the Circassian captain, and it occupied the greater part of the time during which the San Lucar packet steamed along the south-west coast of Andalusia, passing Cape Plata, and entering the Straits of Gibraltar, had rounded the promontory which is crowned by towers and ramparts of Tarifa, after which a run of seventeen miles brought us into the harbour of the great rock, where the babble of Spaniards, Moors, Italians, French, and Gitanas was ringing in our ears again, as we landed with our horses on the quay.

Taking our new friend with us—for we could not but have a lively interest in a brother patriot of the valiant Schamyl—the Washington of the Caucasus, the Wallace of Circassia, we repaired at once to headquarters, and related the success of our visit to Seville, reserving future relations until we went to mess in the evening.

We introduced Captain Osman Rioni to Morton, our colonel, who immediately spoke to him of service in the Turkish Contingent, urging it upon him the more vehemently, as there were then in the harbour six transports full of French and British troops en route to Sebastopol. But Osman thanked the good colonel, and shook his head, saying,—

"Mohammed was the first Prophet of God, and the holy Murid Schamyl is the second! Our destiny is written on our foreheads; may it be mine to die in the ranks of war! Every man hath his part in life allotted to him; may it be mine to fight for my country, and fight again I shall! Is not her blood red on the Russian bayonets? I will carry a lance under no flag but the green Sangiac Sheerif of Circassia. Would to heaven I saw it now with the twelve stars of the confederated tribes, for then I should see the Abassian peaks and the wilds of Daghestan, the warriors in their mail of links, and the linden trees that shade those cottage doors from which our women bless us, and we ride to war against the Buss. Yes, yes; I will return to Circassia on her shore alone to fight with Schamyl against the foes of God, and to see once more the snowy rocks of Elbrus, where the ark of Noah first rested before it lay on Ararat."

His story, his peculiar language and bearing, his horse Zupi, and his love for that gallant animal made him quite a seven days' wonder with "Ours," and he was the lion of the mess table. Every one who had any pretension to be a connoisseur in horse-flesh had visited, criticised, and caressed Zupi, which was a long-bodied, wiry, and, to our taste, somewhat short-legged nag, with small ears, a noble head, full chest and flanks, compact and close.

"A hundred times and more he has stood still as a stone wall, and allowed me to fire my long Albanian gun between his ears, using his head as a rest," said Osman; "courage, brave Zupi—courage! Ere long thou shalt snuff the air in woody Daghestan, and drink of the foaming Koissons."

We raised a handsome subscription for him in one night at our mess table, and procured him a passage in a French cavalry transport; so he left us, with lips that quivered as he said "farewell," and a heart that yearned with gratitude. He said that one day we should hear of him when Schamyl and his host marched towards the shores of the Sea of Azov.

Whether Osman reached his own wild and war-like country we have yet to learn; for since the day on which the "Napoleon III." steamed away past the New Mole fort, with her deck crowded by Zouaves, and our Circassian among them waving his red cap in adieu to us, we have heard no more of him; for the tidings of the Caucasian strife that reach Europe are meagre, doubtful, and vague, as those that came from the Holy Land of old.

Slingsby and I were complimented in garrison orders for the manner in which we had accomplished our little diplomatic trip to Seville, and were praised for the dangers we had encountered and escaped.

Our adventures, with those of Osman Rioni, infected the mess with a desire to "spin yarns," and the result was, that from being the most matter-of-fact fellows in the world, every one of "Ours" had a romantic story to tell.

"Now, gentlemen," said the colonel, one evening when I had brought my narrative down to the happy epoch of our embarkation on board the steamer at San Lucar de Barameda, "how much more pleasant and entertaining has all this been to us than the usual absurd chit-chat which reigns supreme at a mess table; the everlasting quiz about the curl of Ramble's mustachios; the banter about Bob's whiskers, or Slingsby's bay mare, and how Shafton craned at the hedge in the steeple-chase; the odds on the Derby; the last new singer; the latest ballet importation, with the shape of her ancles, and so forth; the last novel or polka, or belle, or piece of humbug; now is it not so?"