Short Fiction by Xavier de Maistre (digital e reader txt) 📕

knew how to make palatable to his host sundry other refinements of the culinary art, as it is practised in the camps and at bivouacs.

To give more zest to these delicacies, he played the buffoon, and devised every day some new jest or trick or gambol to amuse his host. Old Ibrahim never had enough of the Cossack dance, and when any villager visited him, he loosened Ivan, to enable him to repeat his jigs and pranks, and the cunning soldier never failed to add some skips and grotesque gambols. Conversant with the Tartar language, he acquired so much the more easily the dialect of the Tchetchengs. By these means, he became so far a favourite amongst them, that he was, by unanimous consent, permitted to walk through the village, and had always at his heels a troop of little urchins, who followed the jester with shouts of applause and merriment.

The Major was often obliged to accompany on his guitar, the songs of his Denchick. When first his wild companions began to take pleasure in hearing him, they took off his handcuffs; but the termagant woman having remarked that he played sometimes for his own amusement, even when shackled, the favour which had been extended to him was again withheld; and the unfortunate prisoner repented more than once, having ever shown his musical skill. He did not foresee that his guitar would, one day, be the means of procuring him his liberty.

The prisoners devised many schemes for their escape, none of which, upon further reflection, appeared practicable. Since their arrival at the village, they had had every night, besides their gaolers, a watch from among the inhabitants, who performed that office by turns. Insensibly this additional precaution was less regularly observed; but when the appointed night-guard failed to come, Ibrahim laid himself close by the prisoners, while the woman and her boy slept in the next room; and keeping in his pocket the key of the locks attached to the shackels, he always awoke at the slightest noise.

The Major having received no reply to his solicitations, long after an answer might be expected, the Tchetchengs increased their severity towards the captives, and often added the most provoking insults and cruel menaces. Kascambo was put again upon short allowance, and was one day doomed to see poor little Mamet whipped, for having brought him a few medlars.

Strange as it may seem, it is however certain, that Kascambo had inspired these people with esteem and confidence; and while they heaped insults and injuries upon him, they consulted him on their concerns, and submitted their disputes to his arbitration. He was once thus called to settle a quarrel, the details of which will serve to throw some light on the character of these banditti.

A banknote of five roubles had been entrusted, by one of them, to an acquaintance who was departing for a neighbouring valley, with directions to deliver it to a third person. The traveller’s horse having died on the road, he pretended that he had a right to the five roubles, as an indemnity for his loss. Such an inference, though very conformable to the ideas of right and wrong among these robbers, was not very satisfactory to the party concerned, and there was a great stir, and a good deal of talk and argument about it, in the village. Both parties had friends and relations, ready to fight for their respective cause, and a bloody strife might have ensued, if the eldest of the horde, after having in vain endeavoured to procure a reconciliation, had not prevailed upon them to make the Major umpire of the quarrel. All the villagers having assembled, before Kascambo’s prison, he was placed upon the terrace of the house.

Most of the houses, in the valleys of Caucasus, are partly under ground, and rise only three or four feet above it. The horizontal roof consists of a layer of beaten potter’s earth. Men and women, but principally the latter, loiter on their terraces after sunset, and often sleep on them during the summer.

As soon as Kascambo appeared on the platform, all became silent. It was indeed a strange scene. Infuriated litigants, armed with daggers and pistols, acknowledged as an arbiter, a prisoner whom they kept in irons, and whom they had starved almost to death⁠—an arbiter from whose decisions there was, according to their usages, no appeal.

In this state of embittered feelings, the Major saw the necessity of strengthening his authority, by bringing all the villagers into better humour. He therefore sent for the defendant, and asked him the following question: “If, instead of giving thee five roubles, with a direction to deliver them to his creditor, thy friend had only told thee to make him his compliments, would thy horse have been saved?”

“Perhaps so,” replied the defendant.

“And what wouldst thou have done with the compliments?” asked again the judge: “wouldst thou not have been obliged to keep them as thy only indemnity? Well then; return the five roubles, and thy friend will present thee as many compliments as thou canst desire.”

The interpreter had scarcely finished the translation of that sentence, when the assembled multitude expressed, by peals of laughter, their approbation of the wisdom of the new Solomon. The condemned party endeavoured to speak, but was obliged to acquiesce in the Major’s decision, and the only revenge he took, was to say in a grumbling tone, while he delivered up the banknote, “I was sure of losing my cause, if that Christian dog was called to decide upon it.”

Kascambo had written three letters, without receiving a reply, and had now been detained for a year. Deprived of every comfort, and almost reduced to nakedness, his health became impaired, and his spirits sank. His servant, who had been ill for some days, was, to the astonishment of his master, freed from his irons, and permitted to enjoy his personal liberty. The Major enquiring of him the reason of this change, he replied: “Master, for