When he was Imam the people were quite different.
He used to ride through the aouls and the people used to come out and kiss the him of his coat and confess their sins and vow to do no evil.
Then all the people — so the old men say — lived like saints: not drinking, nor smoking, nor neglecting their prayers, and forgiving one another their sins even when blood had been spilt.
If anyone then found money or anything, he tied it to a stake and set it up by the roadside.
In those days God gave the people success in everything — not as now.”
“In the mountains they don’s smoke or drink now,” said Gamzalo.
“Your Shamil is a lamorey,” said Khan Mahoma, winking at Loris-Melikov. (Lamorey was a contemptuous term for a mountaineer.)
“Yes, lamorey means mountaineer,” replied Gamzalo.
“It is in the mountains that the eagles dwell.”
“Smart fellow!
Well hit!” said Khan Mahoma with a grin, pleased at his adversary’s apt retort.
Seeing the silver cigarette-case in Loris Melikov’s hand, Khan Mahoma asked for a cigarette, and when Loris=Melikov remarked that they were forbidden to smoke, he winded with one eye and jerking his head in the direction of Hadji Murad’s bedroom replied that they could do it as long as they were not seen.
He at once began smoking — not inhaling — and pouting his red lips awkwardly as he blew out the smoke.
“That is wrong!” said Gamzalo severely, and left the room.
Khan Mahoma winked in his direction, and while smoking asked Loris-Melikov where he could best buy a silk beshmet and a white cap.
“Why, has thou so much money?”
“I have enough,” replied Khan Mahoma with a wink.
“Ask him where he got the money,” said Eldar, turning his handsome smiling face towards Loris-Melikov.
“Oh, I won it!” said Khan Mahoma quickly, and related how while walking in Tiflis the day before he had come upon a group of men — Russians and Armenians — playing at orlyanka (a kind of heads-and-tails). the stake was a large one: three gold;pieces and much silver.
Khan Mahoma at once saw what the game consisted in, and jingling the coppers he had in his pocket he went up to the players and said he would stake the whole amount.
“How couldst thou do it?
Hadst thou so much?” asked Loris- Melikov.
“I had only twelve kopecks,” said Khan Mahoma, grinning.
“But if thou hadst lost?”
“Why, this!” said Khan Mahoma pointing to his pistol.
“Wouldst thou have given that?”
“Give it indeed!
I should have run away, and if anyone had tried to stop me I should have killed him — that’s all!”
“Well, and didst thou win?”
“Aye, I won it all and went away!”
Loris-Melikov quite understood what sort of men Khan Mahoma and Eldar were.
Khan Mahoma was a merry fellow, careless and ready for any spree. He did not know what to do with his superfluous vitality. He was always gay and reckless, and played with his own and other people’s lives. For the sake of that sport with life he had now come over to the Russians, and for the same sport he might go back to Shamil tomorrow.
Eldar was also quite easy to understand. He was a man entirely devoted to his Murshid; calm, strong, and firm.
The red-haired Gamzalo was the only one Loris-Melikov did not understand.
He saw that that man was not only loyal to Shamil but felt an insuperable aversion, contempt, repugnance, and hatred for all Russians, and Loris-Melikov could therefore not understand why he had come over to them.
It occurred to him that, as some of the higher officials suspected, Hadji Murad’s surrender and his tales of hatred of Shamil might be false, and that perhaps he had surrendered only to spy out the Russians’ weak spots that, after escaping back to the mountains, he might be able to direct his forces accordingly.
Gamzalo’s whole person strengthened this suspicion.
“The others, and Hadji Murad himself, know how to hid their intentions, but this one betrays them by his open hatred,” thought he.
Loris-Melikov tried to speak to him.
He asked whether he did not feel dull.
“No, I don’t!” he growled hoarsely without stopping his work, and glancing at his questioner out of the corner of his one eye.
He replied to all Loris-Melikov’s other questions in a similar manner.
While Loris-Melikov was in the room Hadji Murad’s fourth murid came in, the Avar Khanefi; a man with a hairy face and neck and an arched chest as rough as if it were overgrown with moss.
He was strong and a hard worker, always engrossed in his duties, and like Eldar unquestioningly obedient to his master.
When he entered the room to fetch some rice, Loris-Melikov stopped him and asked where he came from and how long he had been with Hadji Murad.
“Five years,” replied Khanefi.
“I come from the same aoul as he.
My father killed his uncle and they wished to kill me.” he said calmly, looking from under his joined eyebrows straight into Loris-Melikov’s face.
“Then I asked them to adopt me as a brother.”
“What do you mean by ‘adopt as a brother’?”