gger, and each
time his erring hand missed its aim. Nor revenge, nor ambition, nor
love--in a word, not one of those passions which had urged him to the
frenzied crime, now encouraged him to the nameless horror. Turning away
his head, in a sort of insensibility he began to hew at the neck of
Verkhoffsky--at the fifth blow the head parted from the trunk.
Shuddering with disgust, he threw it into a bag which he had prepared,
and hastened from the grave. Hitherto he had remained master of himself;
but when, with his dreadful treasure, he was scrambling up, when the
stones crumbling noisily under his feet, and he, covered with sand, fell
backwards on Verkhoffsky's corpse, then presence of mind left the
sacrilegious. It seemed as if a flame had seized him, and spirits of
hell, dancing and grinning, had surrounded him. With a heavy groan he
tore himself away, crawled half senseless out of the suffocating grave,
and hurried off, dreading to look back. Leaping on his horse, he urged
it on, over rocks and ravines, and each bush that caught his dress
seemed to him the hand of a corpse; the cracking of every branch, the
shriek of every jackal, sounded like the cry of his twice-murdered
friend.

* * * * *

Wherever Ammalat passed, he encountered armed bands of Akoushlinetzes
and Avaretzes, Tchetchenetzes just arrived, and robbers of the Tartar
villages subject to Russia. They were all hurrying to the trysting-place
near the border-limits; while the Beks, Ouzdens, and petty princes, were
assembling at Khourzakh, for a council with Akhmet Khan, under the
leading, and by the invitation of whom, they were preparing to fall upon
Tarki. The present was the most favourable moment for their purpose:
there was abundance of corn in the ambars, (magazines,) hay in the
stacks, and the Russians, having taken hostages, had established
themselves in full security in winter-quarters. The news of
Verkhoffsky's murder had flown over all the hills, and powerfully
encouraged the mountaineers. Merrily they poured together from all
sides; every where were heard their songs of future battles and plunder;
and he for whom they were going to fight rode through them like a
runaway and a culprit, hiding from the light of the sun, and not daring
to look any one in the face. Every thing that happened, every thing that
he saw, now seemed like a suffocating dream--he dared not doubt, he
dared not believe it. On the evening of the