She could find him nowhere. At last she mounted the staircase to the mouldering rampart. Generally
the Tartar guards kept watch there constantly, but to-night the whole
place seemed somehow utterly deserted. She groped her way along till she
reached the far corner by a patch of ground which Niaz had told her was
the Tartar burial-place. There she came suddenly upon a great crowd of men below on the plain,
running about and shouting wildly, with links and torches. Niaz stood in
the midst, erect and military, with his Russian uniform gleaming
fitfully in the flickering torchlight. In front of him six Turcoman
merchants, with their hands bound behind their backs, knelt upon the
ground, and beside him two Tartars held by either arm a man in European
dress, whom Olga recognized at once as the English traveller from India
by way of the Himalayas. Her heart stood still within her with terror,
and she hung there, mute and unseen, upon the rampart above, wondering
what in Heaven's name this extraordinary scene was going to end in. What
could it mean? What could Niaz be doing in it? Great God, it was too
horrible! A Tartar came forward quietly from the crowd with a curved sword. At a
word from Niaz he raised the sword aloft in the air. One second it
glanced bright in the torchlight; the next second a Turcoman's head lay
rolling in the dust, and a little torrent of blood spurted suddenly from
the still kneeling corpse. Olga opened her mouth to scream at the horrid
sight, but happily her voice at once forsook her as in a dream, and she
stood fixed to the spot in a perfect fascination of awe and terror. Then the Tartar moved on, obedient to a word and a nod from Niaz, and
raised his sword again above the second Turcoman. In a moment, the
second head too rolled down quietly beside the other. Without a
minute's delay, as though it formed part of his everyday business, the
practised headsman went on quietly to the next in order, and did not
stop till all six heads lay grim and ghastly scattered about unheeded in
the dust together. Olga shut her eyes, sickening, but still could not
scream for very horror. Next, Niaz turned to the English traveller, and said something to him in
his politest manner. Olga couldn't catch the words themselves because of
the distance, but she saw from his gestures that he was apologizing to
the Englishman for his rough treatment. The Englishman in reply drew out
and handed to Niaz a small canvas bag, a purse, and a watch. Niaz took
them, bowing politely. "Hands off," he cried to the Tartars in Russian,
and they loosed their prisoner. Then he made a sign, and the Englishman
knelt. In a minute more his head lay rolling in the dust below, and
Niaz, with a placid smile upon his handsome face, turned to give orders
to the surrounding Tartars. Olga could stand it no more. She dared not scream or let herself be
seen; but she turned round, sick at heart, and groped her way, half
paralyzed by fear, along the mouldering rampart, and then turned in at
last to her own bedroom, where she flung herself upon the bed in her
clothes, and lay, tearless but terrified, the whole night through in
blinding misery. She did not need to have it all explained to her. Niaz was nothing more,
after all, than a savage Buriat robber chieftain. IV. What a terribly long hypocrisy and suspense those six weeks of dreary
waiting, before an answer to her letter could come from Tobolsk, and the
Governor could send a detachment of the military to rescue her from this
nest of murderous banditti! How Olga hated herself for still pretending to keep on terms with Niaz! How she loathed and detested the man with whom she must yet live as wife
for that endless time till the day of her delivery! And Niaz couldn't help seeing that her manner was changed towards him,
though he flattered himself that she had as yet only a bare suspicion,
and no real knowledge of the horrible truth. What a sad thing that she
should ever even have suspected it! What a pity if he could not keep her
here to soothe and lighten his winter solitude!--for he loved her: yes,
he really loved her, and he needed sympathy and companionship in all the
best and highest instincts of his inner nature. These Buriats, what were
they? a miserable set of brutal savages: mere hard-working robbers and
murderers, good enough for the practical rough work of everyday life
(such as knocking Turcoman merchants on the head), but utterly incapable
of appreciating or sympathizing with the better tastes of civilized
humanity. It was a hard calling, that of chieftain to these Tartar
wretches, especially for a man of musical culture brought up in Paris;
and he had hoped that Olga might have helped him through with it by her
friendly companionship. Not, of course, that he ever expected to be able
to tell her the whole truth: women will be women; and coming to a rough
country, they can't understand the necessities laid upon one for rough
dealing. No, he could never have expected her to relish the full details
of a borderer's profession, but he was vexed that she should already
begin to suspect its nature on so very short an acquaintance. He had
told her he was like a Highland chieftain of the old times: did she
suppose that the Rob Roys and Roderick Dhus of real life used to treat
their Lowland captives with rose-water and chivalry? After all, women
have really no idea of how things must be managed in the stern realities
of actual existence. So the six weeks passed slowly away, and Olga waited and watched, with
smiles on her lips, in mute terror. At last, one day, in broad daylight, without a moment's warning, or a
single premonitory symptom, Olga saw the courtyard suddenly filled with
men in Russian uniforms, and a friend of hers, a major of infantry at
Tobolsk, rushing in at the head of his soldiers upon the Tartar barrack. In one second, as if by magic, the courtyard had changed into a roaring
battlefield, the Cossacks were firing at the Tartars, and the Tartars
were firing at the Cossacks. There was a din of guns and a smoke of
gunpowder; and high above all, in the Buriat language, she heard the
voice of Niaz, frantically encouraging his men to action, and shouting
to them with wild energy in incomprehensible gutturals. The surprise had been so complete that almost before Olga realized the
situation the firing began to die away. The fort was carried, and Niaz
and his men stood, disarmed and sullen, with bleeding faces, in the
midst of a hastily formed square of stout Cossacks, among the dead and
dying strewn upon the ground. Handsome as ever, but how she hated him! His arm was wounded; and the Russian surgeon led him aside to bind it
up. To Olga's amazement, while the surgeon was actually engaged in
binding it, Niaz turned upon him like a savage dog, and bit his arm till
the teeth met fiercely in the very middle. She shut her eyes, and half
fainted with disgust and horror.