"You are English?" he observed rapidly, and looking uneasily over his shoulder at the same time. "We do not kill our English prisoners, barbarians as you choose to think us; but to the Turk we give no quarter. Put him on a horse," he added, to my original captor, who kept unpleasantly near: "do not ill-treat him, but bring him safely along with you. If he tries to escape, blow his brains out. As for that rascal," pointing to the Beloochee, "put a lance through him forthwith."
A happy thought struck me. I determined to make an effort for Ali.
"Excellence," I pleaded, "spare him, he is my servant."
The Russian officer paused. "Is he not a Turk?" he asked, sternly.
"No, I swear he is not," I replied. "He is my servant, and an Englishman."
If ever a lie was justifiable, it was on the present occasion: I trust this _white_ one may not be laid to my charge.
"Bring them both on," said the Russian, still glancing anxiously to his rear. "Lieutenant Dolwitz, look to the party. Keep your men together, and move rapidly. This is the devil's own business, and our people are in full retreat." All this, though spoken in Russian, I was able to understand; nor did the hurried manner in which the great man galloped off shake my impression that he still dreaded a vision of Iskender Bey and his band of heroes thundering on his track.
I was placed on a little active Cossack pony. The Beloochee's wrist was tied to mine, and he was forced to walk or rather run by my side; whenever he flagged a poke from the butt-end of a lance admonished him to mend his pace, and a Russian curse fell harmlessly on his ear. Still he preserved his dignity through it all; and so we journeyed onwards into Wallachia, and meditated on the chances of war and the changes that a day may bring forth.
CHAPTER XX
THE BELOOCHEE
The pursuit was fast and furious. After crossing such a river as the Danube, in the teeth of a far superior force and under a heavy fire--after carrying the Russian redoubts with the bayonet, and driving their main body back upon its reserve, the Turkish troops, flushed and wild with victory, were not to be stopped by any soldiers on earth.
Iskender's charge had completely scattered the devoted body that had so gallantly interposed to cover the retreat of their comrades, and a total rout of the Russian forces was the result. The plains of Wallachia were literally strewed with dismounted guns, broken ambulance wagons, tumbrils, ammunition carts, dead and dying, whilst still the fierce Moslem urged his hot pursuit. Straggler after straggler, reeking with haste and all agape with fear, reached the astonished town of Bucharest, and the reports in that pleasure-seeking capital were, as may well be imagined, of the most bewildering and contradictory description.
Many a frightful scene was witnessed by the terrified Wallachian peasant, as fugitive after fugitive was overtaken, struck down and butchered by the dread pursuers. Nay, women and children were not spared in the general slaughter; and the hideous practice of refusing "quarter," which has so long existed between the Turkish and Russian armies, now bore ghastly fruit.
A horse falls exhausted in a cart which contains some Russian wounded, and a woman belonging to their regiment. Its comrade vainly struggles to draw them through the slough in which they are fast. Half-a-dozen Turkish troopers are on their track, urging those game little horses to their speed, and escape is hopeless.
Helpless and mutilated, the poor fellows abandon themselves to their fate. The Turks ride in and make short work of them, the Muscov dying with a stolid grim apathy peculiar to himself and his natural foe. The woman alone shows energy and quickness in her efforts to preserve her child. She covers the baby over with the straw at the bottom of the cart; wounded as she is in the confusion, and with an arm broken, she seeks to divert the attention of her ruthless captors. Satisfied with their butchery, they are about to ride on in search of fresh victims, and the mother's heart leaps to think that she has saved her darling.
But the baby cries in its comfortless nest; quick as thought, a Turkish trooper buries his lance amongst the straw, and withdraws the steel head and gaudy pennon, reeking with innocent blood. The mother's shriek flies straight to Heaven. Shall the curse she invokes on that ruthless brute fall back unheard? Ride on, man of blood--ride on, to burn and ravage and slay; and when the charge hath swept over thee, and the field is lost, and thou art gasping out thy life-blood on the plain, think of that murdered child, and die like a dog in thy despair!
By a route nearly parallel with the line of flight, but wandering through an unfrequented district with which the Cossacks seem well acquainted, the Beloochee and myself proceed towards our captivity. We have ample leisure to examine our guards, these far-famed Cossacks of whom warriors hear so much and see so little--the best scouts and foragers known, hardy, rapid, and enduring, the very eyes and ears of an army, and for every purpose except fighting unrivalled by any light cavalry in the world. My original captor, who still clings to me with a most unwelcome fondness, is no bad specimen of his class. He is mounted on a shaggy pony, that at first sight seems completely buried even under the middle-sized man it carries, but with a lean, good head, and wiry limbs that denote speed and endurance, when put to the test. In a snaffle bridle, and with its head up, the little animal goes with a jerking, springing motion, not the least impaired by its day's work, and the fact that it has now been without food for nearly twenty-four hours.
Its master, the same who keeps his small bright eye so constantly fastened upon his prisoners, is a man of middle height, spare, strong, and sinewy, with a bushy red beard and huge moustache. His dress consists of enormously loose trousers, a tight-fitting jacket, and high leathern shako; and he sits with his knees up to his chin. His arms are a short sabre, very blunt, and useless, and a long lance, with which he delights to do effective service against a fallen foe. He has placed the Beloochee between himself and me; it seems that he somewhat mistrusts my companion, but considers myself, a wounded man on one of their own horses, safe from any attempt at escape. The Beloochee, notwithstanding that every word calls down a thwack upon his pate (wounded as it is by the sabre-cut which stunned him) from the shaft of a lance, hazards an observation, every now and then, in Turkish. It is satisfactory to find that our guardians are totally ignorant of that language. I remark, too, that Ali listens anxiously at every halt, and apparently satisfied with what he hears, though I for my own part can discern nothing, walks on in a cheerful frame of mind, which I attribute entirely to the Moslem stoicism. His conversation towards dusk consists entirely of curses upon his captors; and these worthies, judging of its tenor by the sound, and sympathising doubtless with the relief thus afforded, cease to belabour him for his remarks.
At nightfall the rain came on again as in the morning; and at length it grew pitch dark, just as we entered a defile, on one side of which was a steep bank covered with short brushwood, and on the other a wood of young oaks nearly impenetrable.
I felt the Beloochee's wrist press mine with an energy that must mean something.
"Are you in pain?" he whispered in Turkish, adding a loud and voluble curse upon the Giaour, much out of unison with his British character, but which was doubtless mistaken for a round English oath.
"Not much," I replied in the same language; "but sick and faint at times."
"Can you roll off your horse, and down the bank on your left?" he added, hurriedly. "If you can, I can save you."
"Save yourself," I replied; "how can I move a step with a ball in my ankle-bone?"
"Silence!" interposed the Cossack, with a bang over the Beloochee's shoulders.
"Both or none," whispered the latter after a few seconds' interval, "do exactly as I tell you."
"Agreed," I replied, and waited anxiously for the result.
Our Cossack was getting wet through. To his hardy frame such a soaking could scarcely be called an inconvenience; nevertheless, it created a longing for a pipe, and the tobacco-bag he had taken from Ali was fortunately not half emptied. As he stopped to fill and light his short silver-mounted meerschaum, the spoil of some fallen foe, the troopers in our rear passed on. We were left some ten paces behind the rest, and the night was as dark as pitch.
Ali handed me a small knife: he had concealed that and one other tiny weapon in the folds of his sash when they searched him on the field of battle. I knew what he meant, and cut the cord that bound our wrists together; his other hand, meanwhile, to lull suspicion, caressed the Cossack's horse. That incautious individual blew upon his match, which refused to strike a good light.
In a twinkling Ali's shawl was unwound from his body and thrown apparently over the Cossack's saddle-bow. The smothered report of a pocket-pistol smote on my ear, but the sound could not penetrate through those close Cashmere folds to the party in front, and they rode unconsciously forward. The Beloochee's hand, too, was on his adversary's throat; and one or two gasps, as they rolled together to the ground, made me doubt whether he had been slain by the ball from that little though effective weapon, or choked in the nervous gripe of the Asiatic.
I had fortunately presence of mind to restrain my own horse, and catch the Cossack's by the bridle; the party in front still rode on.
Ali rose from the ground. "The knife," he whispered hoarsely, "the knife!"
Once, twice, he passed it through that prostrate body. "Throw yourself off," he exclaimed; "let the horses go. Roll down that bank, and we are saved!"
I obeyed him with the energy of a man who knows he has but _one_ chance.
I scarcely felt the pain as I rolled down amongst the brushwood. I landed in a water-course full of pebbles, but the underwood had served to break my fall; and though sorely bruised and with a broken ankle, I was still alive. The Beloochee, agile as a cat, was by my side.
"Listen," said he; "they are riding back to look for us. No horse on earth but _one_ can creep down that precipice; lie still. If the moon does not come out, we are saved."
Moments of dreadful suspense followed. We could hear the Cossacks shouting to each other above, and their savage yell when they discovered their slain comrade smote wildly on our ears. Again I urged the Beloochee to fly--why should he wait to die with me? I could scarcely scrawl, and a cold sickness came on at intervals that unnerved me totally.
To all my entreaties he made but one reply, "Bakaloum" (We shall see), "it is our destiny. There is but one Allah!"
The Cossacks' shouts became fainter and fainter. They seemed to have divided in search of their late prey. The moon, too, struggled out fitfully. It was a wild scene.
The Beloochee whistled--a low, peculiar whistle, like the cry of a night-hawk. He listened attentively; again he repeated that prolonged, wailing note. A faint neigh answered it from the darkness, and we heard the tread of a horse's hoofs approaching at a trot.
"It is Zuleika," he observed, quietly; "there is but one Allah!"
A loose horse, with saddle and bridle, trotted up to my companion, and laid its head against his bosom. Stern as he was, he caressed it as a mother fondles a child. It was his famous bay mare, "the treasure of his heart," "the corner of his liver,"--for by such endearing epithets he addressed her,--and now he felt indeed that he was saved.
"Mount," he said, "in the name of the Prophet. I know exactly where we are. Zuleika has the wings of the wind; she laughs to scorn the heavy steeds of the Giaour; they swallow the dust thrown up by her hoofs, and Zuleika bounds from them like the gazelle. Oh, _jhanum_!--oh, my soul!"
Once more he caressed her, and the mare seemed well worthy of his affection; she returned it by rubbing her head against him with a low neigh.
I was soon in the saddle, with the Beloochee walking by my side. His iron frame seemed to acknowledge no fatigue. Once I suggested that the mare should carry double, and hazarded an opinion that by reducing the pace we might fairly increase the burden. The remark well-nigh cost me the loss of my preserver's friendship.
"Zuleika," he exclaimed, with cold dignity, "Zuleika requires no such consideration. She is not like the gross horse of the Frank, who sinks and snorts, and struggles and fails, under his heavy burden. She would step lightly as a deer under three such men as we are. No, light of my eyes," he added, smoothing down the thin silky mane of his favourite, "I will walk by thee and caress thee, and feast my eyes on thy star-like beauty. Should the Giaour be on our track, I will mount thee with the Tergyman, and we will show him the mettle of a real daughter of the desert--my rose, my precious one!"
She was, indeed, a high-bred-looking animal, although from her great strength in small compass she appeared less speedy than she really was.
Her colour was a rich dark bay, without a single white hair. Her crest was high and firm as that of a horse; and her lean, long head and expressive countenance showed the ancestry by which her doting master set such store. Though the skin that covered those iron muscles so loosely was soft and supple as satin, she carried no flesh, and her deep ribs might almost be counted by the eye. Long in her quarters, with legs of iron and immense power in her back and loins, she walked with an elastic, springy gait, such as even my own Injour could not have emulated. She was of the highest breed in the desert, and as superior to other horses as the deer is to the donkey. I wondered how my friend had obtained possession of her; and as we plodded on, the Beloochee, who had recovered his good-humour, walking by my side, condescended to inform me of the process by which the invaluable Zuleika had become his own.
"Tergyman!" said he, "I have journeyed through many lands, and with the exception of your country--the island of storms and snows--I have seen the whole world.[#] In my own land the mountains are high and rugged, the winters cold and boisterous; it rears _men_ brave and powerful as _Rustam_, but we must look elsewhere for _horses_. Zuleika, you perceive, is from the desert: 'The nearer the sun, the nobler the steed.' She was bred in the tent of a scheik, and as a foal she carried on her back only such children as had a chief's blood in their veins."
[#] This is a common idea amongst Orientals when they have done Mecca and seen a greater part of Asia Minor.