"When my eyes had grown more familiarised with the objects about me, I perceived that the crowd was gathered round the ruins of a house that seemed to have been very recently burned down. Though ignorant of what had happened, I felt certain that the burning was connected with some deed of violence and bloodshed, for I had long known these mountaineers, whose violent passions are kept in constant excitement by the false position in which they are placed both as to the Russians, whom they detest while they submit to their power, and with regard to the free tribes, who cannot forgive them for their compulsory submission. On inspecting the various groups more narrowly, I saw a Kabardian lying on the ground, with his cloak drawn over his face, while every one gazed on him with a respectful pity. Puzzled still more to know what this meant, and not seeing any reason why I might not make myself known, I was about to put some questions to the person next me, when the sound of approaching hoofs called off the attention of the crowd in another direction. It was my party, who had become uneasy about me, and had quickened their march. The mountaineers all clustered round my soldiers, but without any such hostile demonstrations as we had encountered in the other aouls. Every body seemed under the influence of some unusual feeling, that made him forget for the while the hatred which the mere sight of a Cossack awakens among these people.
"I issued the necessary orders for the encampment of my party, and when all was made safe for the night, I returned to the spot where my curiosity had been so strongly excited; and there lay the mountaineer still stretched on the ground, looking like a corpse under the black bourka that covered him. Several women sat round him, and one of them, who was very young, and seemed less distressed than the others, at last satisfied my impatience, and told me a tale which was confirmed by the whole population of the village.
"The person I saw stretched on the ground before the ashes of his own house, was the chief of the aoul, and belonged to a princely family, living independently amidst their own mountains. At the age of twenty he unfortunately became his elder brother's rival, and in order to possess the wife of his choice, he had carried her off, and settled under the protection of Russia. This latter act, the most infamous of which a mountaineer can be guilty when he commits it of his own accord, remained a long while unpunished during the wars between Russia and the tribes. For fifteen years nothing occurred to make the refugee suppose that his brother thought of him at all. The wife had died a few years after the elopement, leaving him a daughter, who grew up so beautiful, that the whole tribe called her the Rose of the Mountain.
"Now on the day before my arrival in the aoul, four independent mountaineers had visited the chief as friends, and told him that his brother was dead, and that he might now return home without any fear of danger. The strangers spent the night under his roof, and did all they could to persuade him to accompany them; but next day, finding they could make no impression on his mind, they set fire to his house, stabbed him in several places, and seizing his daughter, galloped away before any one was prepared to pursue them. Most of the inhabitants were a-field at the time, and when I came up at dusk it was too late to think of overtaking the assassins. Although I was assured that the man was dead, I had him carried to a house, where every possible care was bestowed upon him. In about an hour he became conscious, and there appeared some hope of saving him. Our acquaintance, which began in so dramatic a manner, afterwards became as intimate as it could be between a Russian general and a Caucasian chief.
"But for a long while my influence over the mind of the unfortunate father was totally unable to overcome the despair and thirst of vengeance occasioned by the abduction of his daughter. At the head of the most determined men of his aoul and of some Cossacks, he thrice endeavoured to force his way into that part of the mountain where his kindred resided; but these attempts led to nothing but desperate conflicts and fierce reprisals. He was about making a fourth attempt about two months ago, when we were informed by a spy that the Rose of the Mountain had been sent to Trebisond, to become the ornament of some harem in Constantinople.
"From that time a gradual change took place in the savage temper of the Kabardian; the idea that his daughter was no longer in the hated mountains, was balm to his wounds. He attached himself to the society of the officers of the garrison, who had become warmly interested in his history. At his own request I have solicited an appointment for him in his majesty's imperial guard, and I hope he will soon be far away from scenes that remind him of such terrible disasters."