CHAPTER XV.

THE CIRCASSIAN CAPTAIN.

On board the steamer our attention had been repeatedly attracted, and our interest--mine, at least--excited by a fellow-passenger, whose manner, costume, and bearing were too remarkable to escape notice.

His figure was tall and handsomely formed; his features, pale and like marble, were cast in the most pure and severe model of classic beauty; his nose was long and straight; his black eye-brows nearly met over it in one unbroken line; a fierce mustache stuck out on each side, giving great expression to a mouth, the lips of which were generally compressed, and in expression stern.

Altogether, his face had in it more of pure intellect and pictorial manly beauty than any I had ever seen. His costume was a scarlet forage cap, the tassel of which drooped on his right shoulder, and a loose tunic of dark green cloth, the cuffs, collar, and skirts of which were trimmed with sables; but this peculiar garment, like his long military boots, seemed well worn, or as Jack said, "decidedly shabby."

He remained very much aloof from the passengers, and either sat or walked apart, communing apparently with himself, and smoking a huge pipe, the aspect of which was as foreign as his own.

A figure so melo-dramatic on board of a steamer--even a Spanish one--was too remarkable in the present day to escape notice, and I repeatedly drew Slingsby's attention to him; but honest Jack had not quite recovered the effect of the start given him last night on the hills of Trohniona, and replied briefly,--

"An interesting foreigner, eh! that will sound very well to the ears of a novel-reading miss at home; but such personages excite a very different feeling in me. A seedy sharper! I am sick, Ramble, of your interesting foreigners; they are invariably swindlers, refugees, and all that sort of thing, unless we except the poor monkeys in the Zoological gardens," and so Jack assumed a sulky air of reserve, while our voyager in the furs and long boots smoked his huge meerschaum to leeward, and all unconscious that he was an object of remark or interest to any one.

On visiting our horses in the stalls, we found that our fellow-traveller had also a nag, and that this animal seemed the object of all his cares; for he was by its side almost every half hour, stroking its sleek coat and slender legs; tickling its square nostrils and pointed ears, or wiping its fine liquid eyes with his white handkerchief, and feeding it from the palm of his hands, which were white and muscular, while he spoke caressingly in a barbarous language, which the horse--a noble Arab-steed, with a magnificent head, and limbs as slender as a girl's wrist--seemed to understand. There was something so peculiar in all this, and especially in the man's strong and tender regard for his horse, that Slingsby's John Bullism began to relax, for the proverbial crustiness of his country little became a frank fellow like him; so he ventured a few remarks in English on horses in general, and this fine barb in particular.

The foreigner shook his head, and smiled pleasantly, as he articulated with difficulty that he scarcely knew a word of English; whereupon Jack turned his remarks into very choice Spanish.

Again the stranger smiled and bowed, showing under his close and thick mustache that he had a set of teeth our brightest belles might envy, as he said in the language of our allies,--

"I beg your pardon, sir, but I speak only French with my native language; and it maybe a little--Russ."

"Russ--indeed!" said I, with fresh interest; "are you a Cossack?"

"No," said he, with a sudden air of haughty reserve, "do I look like one?"

"I cannot say," said Jack, "as I never saw one."

He was about to withdraw, as if our notice was displeasing to him, when it chanced that a puff of wind opened my cloak, and below it he perceived the scarlet shell jacket, which was the undress of "Ours." Then his bold dark eye lighted up with new animation, and raising his forage cap, he said, smilingly, in French, which he spoke with great fluency and a good accent,--

"Officers, I perceive, and, better than all, British officers! Would that I had known this sooner, we might have had a pleasant evening together; but now our voyage is nearly half over, as the captain has just told me. I am so glad to meet you, gentlemen, for I, too, have had the honour to wear a sword."

"May I ask in what service?" said Jack.

"The Russian, latterly."

"Indeed!"

"You are surprised," he said, with a sigh.

"Rather."

"It was the result of fate, or rather the fortune of war, that placed me in their ranks. I was taken in battle, and had no alternative but to serve in the imperial cavalry, or drag a chain over the snows of Siberia; and thus I accepted the former, resolving to escape to my own dear mountains on the first opportunity. I am a Circassian, and fought under the heroic Schamyl, though latterly I held the rank of captain in the Tenginski hussars; but tyranny and misfortune drove me from the Russian ranks before a proper opportunity for escape had come; and I have wandered over many lands with no companion save my horse--my dear Zupi," he continued, caressing the Arab, which rubbed its fine head upon his cheek, as if understanding the reference its master had just made; "my beloved Zupi, who has shared with me many a day of peril, and has thrice saved my life from Russian bullets and from drowning; for there is no horse like thee, Zupi, between the Kuban and the Caspian Sea."

"He is quite a Mazeppa, this," said Jack, in English.

"And you are now going to Gibraltar?" I asked.

"Yes, gentlemen; but I merely make a visit there, and at Malta, on my way home through Turkey; as I have a letter of introduction to an officer of your garrison."

"May I ask his name?"

"It is here: John Slingsby, Esq., Lieutenant, H.M. --th Foot--perhaps you know him?"

"The deuce! It is for me; I am Slingsby of the --th," said Jack, in astonishment, for he was puzzled to remember what friends he had among the Tenginski hussars, or on the shores of the Caspian Sea; "devilish odd, sir! I really don't know any one in Circassia, or any one who ever was there, or likely to be so."

"I received this letter in London," said the stranger, with a soft smile; "at a clubhouse of the Guards, for the officers of the Household Brigade were more than kind; being, indeed, as fathers to me, and treating me as if I had been their own son, instead of what I am--a poor waif, floating on the current of events."

"I am the man," said Jack, tearing open the letter which the Circassian produced from his breast-pocket, and delivered; but with the slightest possible shade of anxiety on his fine but saddened face. Poor fellow! he had doubtless been so often deceived and misused, that he was learning to mistrust every one, and his eyes were riveted on the face of Slingsby, who suddenly shook him by the hand, saying,--

"This meeting is most remarkable; your letter of introduction to me and to our mess is from my brother."

"Bismillah, is it possible!"

"From my brother, Sir Harry Slingsby, of the Grenadier Guards. I am most happy to meet you, Captain Rioni, and with my friend, Captain Ramble of "Ours," will do all in my power to assist you."

Jack handed his brother's letter to me. It ran thus:--

MY DEAR JACK,--

Allow me to introduce to you and to your brother officers of the old --th Captain Osman Rioni (late of the--I am sorry to say it--Russian service), who has been for some time in London teaching our Life Guards the lance exercise, and who for the last three months has been the lion of the club-houses. He arrived among us a staid and respectable Mohammedan, very prone to sit cross-legged on the floor, to dip his fingers in the gravy, and to grasp his knife if you gave him a slice of ham with his fowl; but he leaves us much addicted to balls, vingt un, champagne suppers, the polka, and the waltz. In short, in one season, we have polished him up in good style, and completed an education which had been somewhat neglected during his rural life among the Caucasus. You, perhaps, know the history of himself and his horse--for the morning papers get hold of everything. Conyers of the Blues offered him £500 for the nag; but he won't sell it for any known amount of the ready. Look at its legs and chest; I never saw such an animal! The captain has been an honorary member of our mess while in London--a hint this, for your fellows. He is now on his way home to the Kuban (wherever the devil that may be), and so you gentlemen of the Line in Gibraltar must look to the state of his exchequer, and pass him on to the next station, as Conyers has given him letters to some of the Rifles at Malta. I could easily have procured him a troop in our new Turkish contingent; but home he must and shall go, he says, and his own story will best let you know why. To-morrow our battalion will change its quarters, and commence the arduous march from St. John's Wood Barracks to those in Portman-street, and from thence to Trafalgar-square, and I shall follow in my cab; but you may see me ere long, for I am to sail with the next draught of ours for the Crimea, where the shiny splendour will be taken out of our Brahmins in the muddy trenches--ugh! Give my remembrance to Dick Ramble--ask him what his next book is to be about; and so, my dear Jack,

I remain, &c., &c.

The wishes of Sir Henry, and the efforts he and his brother officers of the Grenadier Guards (most of whom will remember the affair I allude to) made it imperative upon "Ours" not to be behind them in kindness to this stranger.

Jack and I promised to leave nothing undone to serve him on our arrival at Gibraltar, and assured him that we would see sufficient funds raised to send him either to Malta, or by steamer straight to Constantinople. His ignorance of English and Spanish had sadly puzzled the brain of our poor Circassian, who had landed with his horse and baggage at San Lucar, believing it to be Gibraltar, and had thus lost several days, and, what was of more consequence, much of his money; so that his mind was full of anxiety as to the future, and how his horse--his Zupi--for they seemed one, like a centaur, were to reach that mighty mountain range that lies between the Euxine and the Cape of Alpcheron; and which, with all its black forests, wild rocks, and snowy peaks was his beloved home; the altar of oriental independence--the barrier of the Eastern world against the encroaching Kuos.

We supped together in the cabin; and while the Spanish passengers were all smoking or asleep on the benches and lockers, we prevailed upon the Circassian, over a bottle of good wine, to inform us how he came to serve in the Russian cavalry, and why he declined Sir Harry's apparently advantageous offer of a Captain's commission in our Turkish contingent--a service for which he seemed so admirably fitted, and in which he might have won honour and distinction; at least such distinction as John Bull awards to those who are not on the staff, and have no ministerial interest.

He shook his head sadly, as I said something to this purpose, and bowing, gave me a pleasant smile.

"When you have heard me, you will understand more fully that the only place for me is my native land--that home which is now so far off, that when I trace upon a map the extent of sea and shore that lie between its hills and me, my heart grows faint and sick; but patience yet awhile, and one day I shall stand again an the black rugged mountains of Kushaa, and see at my feet far down below, the fertile plains of Georgia and Mingrelia. Zupi will snuff the pure air of these Alpine peaks, and toss his proud mane on the wind; strong warriors, in their shirts of mail, will be riding by my side; the Albanian musket and the Tartar bow will be there, as we survey the long dark lines that mark upon the green summer fields, or it may be the winter snow, the columns of the Russian Emperor--columns that advance but to defeat and death; for in thousands, yea, hundreds of thousands, have they come to war against us, and to perish on the Circassian hills, until the very soil has been drenched in their blood, and fattened by the bones of men and horses! But my emotions carry me away, gentlemen, and I am forgetting my own story."

"Ah--yes, the story," said Jack, refilling the stranger's glass, and pushing the decanters towards me, while our new friend began, as nearly as I can remember, in the following words.