Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories Part 18

My companion ran up to me, and the peasants gathered around me. They looked at my wounds, and washed them with snow. I had entirely forgotten about the wounds, and only asked, "Where is the bear? Where has he gone?"

Suddenly we heard, "Here he is! Here he is!" We saw the bear running once more against us. We grasped our guns, but before we fired he ran past us. The bear was mad: he wanted to bite me again, but when he saw so many people he became frightened. We saw by the track that the bear was bleeding from the head. We wanted to follow him up, but my head hurt me, and so we drove to town to see a doctor.

The doctor sewed up my wounds with silk, and they began to heal.

A month later we went out again to hunt that bear; but I did not get the chance to kill him. The bear would not leave the cover, and kept walking around and around and roaring terribly. Demyan killed him. My shot had crushed his lower jaw and knocked out a tooth.

This bear was very large, and he had beautiful black fur. I had the skin stuffed, and it is lying now in my room. The wounds on my head have healed, so that one can scarcely see where they were.

A PRISONER OF THE CAUCASUS

I.

A certain gentleman was serving as an officer in the Caucasus. His name was Zhilin.

One day he received a letter from home. His old mother wrote to him:

"I have grown old, and I should like to see my darling son before my death. Come to bid me farewell and bury me, and then, with G.o.d's aid, return to the service. I have also found a bride for you: she is bright and pretty and has property. If you take a liking to her, you can marry her, and stay here for good."

Zhilin reflected: "Indeed, my old mother has grown feeble; perhaps I shall never see her again. I must go; and if the bride is a good girl, I may marry her."

He went to the colonel, got a furlough, bade his companions good-bye, treated his soldiers to four buckets of vodka, and got himself ready to go.

At that time there was a war in the Caucasus. Neither in the daytime, nor at night, was it safe to travel on the roads. The moment a Russian walked or drove away from a fortress, the Tartars either killed him or took him as a prisoner to the mountains. It was a rule that a guard of soldiers should go twice a week from fortress to fortress. In front and in the rear walked soldiers, and between them were other people.

It was in the summer. The carts gathered at daybreak outside the fortress, and the soldiers of the convoy came out, and all started.

Zhilin rode on horseback, and his cart with his things went with the caravan.

They had to travel twenty-five versts. The caravan proceeded slowly; now the soldiers stopped, and now a wheel came off a cart, or a horse stopped, and all had to stand still and wait.

The sun had already pa.s.sed midday, but the caravan had made only half the distance. It was dusty and hot; the sun just roasted them, and there was no shelter: it was a barren plain, with neither tree nor bush along the road.

Zhilin rode out ahead. He stopped and waited for the caravan to catch up with him. He heard them blow the signal-horn behind: they had stopped again.

Zhilin thought: "Why can't I ride on, without the soldiers? I have a good horse under me, and if I run against Tartars, I will gallop away.

Or had I better not go?"

He stopped to think it over. There rode up to him another officer, Kostylin, with a gun, and said:

"Let us ride by ourselves, Zhilin! I cannot stand it any longer: I am hungry, and it is so hot. My s.h.i.+rt is dripping wet."

Kostylin was a heavy, stout man, with a red face, and the perspiration was just rolling down his face. Zhilin thought awhile and said:

"Is your gun loaded?"

"It is."

"Well, then, we will go, but on one condition, that we do not separate."

And so they rode ahead on the highway. They rode through the steppe, and talked, and looked about them. They could see a long way off.

When the steppe came to an end, the road entered a cleft between two mountains. So Zhilin said:

"We ought to ride up the mountain to take a look; for here they may leap out on us from the mountain without our seeing them."

But Kostylin said:

"What is the use of looking? Let us ride on!"

Zhilin paid no attention to him.

"No," he said, "you wait here below, and I will take a look up there."

And he turned his horse to the left, up-hill. The horse under Zhilin was a thoroughbred (he had paid a hundred roubles for it when it was a colt, and had himself trained it), and it carried him up the slope as though on wings. The moment he reached the summit, he saw before him a number of Tartars on horseback, about eighty fathoms away. There were about thirty of them. When he saw them, he began to turn back; and the Tartars saw him, and galloped toward him, and on the ride took their guns out of the covers. Zhilin urged his horse down-hill as fast as its legs would carry him, and he shouted to Kostylin:

"Take out the gun!" and he himself thought about his horse: "Darling, take me away from here! Don't stumble! If you do, I am lost. If I get to the gun, they shall not catch me."

But Kostylin, instead of waiting, galloped at full speed toward the fortress, the moment he saw the Tartars. He urged the horse on with the whip, now on one side, and now on the other. One could see through the dust only the horse switching her tail.

Zhilin saw that things were bad. The gun had disappeared, and he could do nothing with a sword. He turned his horse back to the soldiers, thinking that he might get away. He saw six men crossing his path. He had a good horse under him, but theirs were better still, and they crossed his path. He began to check his horse: he wanted to turn around; but the horse was running at full speed and could not be stopped, and he flew straight toward them. He saw a red-bearded Tartar on a gray horse, who was coming near to him. He howled and showed his teeth, and his gun was against his shoulder.

"Well," thought Zhilin, "I know you devils. When you take one alive, you put him in a hole and beat him with a whip. I will not fall into your hands alive----"

Though Zhilin was not tall, he was brave. He drew his sword, turned his horse straight against the Tartar, and thought:

"Either I will knock his horse off its feet, or I will strike the Tartar with my sword."

Zhilin got within a horse's length from him, when they shot at him from behind and hit the horse. The horse dropped on the ground while going at full speed, and fell on Zhilin's leg.

He wanted to get up, but two stinking Tartars were already astride of him. He tugged and knocked down the two Tartars, but three more jumped down from their horses and began to strike him with the b.u.t.ts of their guns. Things grew dim before his eyes, and he tottered. The Tartars took hold of him, took from their saddles some reserve straps, twisted his arms behind his back, tied them with a Tartar knot, and fastened him to the saddle. They knocked down his hat, pulled off his boots, rummaged all over him, and took away his money and his watch, and tore all his clothes.

Zhilin looked back at his horse. The dear animal was lying just as it had fallen down, and only twitched its legs and did not reach the ground with them; in its head there was a hole, and from it the black blood gushed and wet the dust for an ell around.

A Tartar went up to the horse, to pull off the saddle. The horse was struggling still, and so he took out his dagger and cut its throat. A whistling sound came from the throat, and the horse twitched, and was dead.

The Tartars took off the saddle and the trappings. The red-bearded Tartar mounted his horse, and the others seated Zhilin behind him. To prevent his falling off, they attached him by a strap to the Tartar's belt, and they rode off to the mountains.

Zhilin was sitting back of the Tartar, and shaking and striking with his face against the stinking Tartar's back. All he saw before him was the mighty back, and the muscular neck, and the livid, shaved nape of his head underneath his cap. Zhilin's head was bruised, and the blood was clotted under his eyes. And he could not straighten himself on the saddle, nor wipe off his blood. His arms were twisted so badly that his shoulder bones pained him.

They rode for a long time from one mountain to another, and forded a river, and came out on a path, where they rode through a ravine.

Zhilin wanted to take note of the road on which they were travelling, but his eyes were smeared with blood, and he could not turn around.

It was getting dark. They crossed another stream and rode up a rocky mountain. There was an odour of smoke, and the dogs began to bark. They had come to a native village. The Tartars got down from their horses; the Tartar children gathered around Zhilin, and screamed, and rejoiced, and aimed stones at him.