After he had prayed, he went into the other room which served him as a sitting-room and reception room.
The official from Tiflis, a chubby state councilor called Kirillov, conveyed to him that Vorontsov wished him to be in Tiflis by the twelfth for a meeting with Argutinsky.
‘Yakshi,’ said Hadji Murad sharply.
He did not take to this official Kirillov.
‘Have you brought the money?’
‘Yes, I have it,’ said Kirillov.
‘It is for two weeks now,’ said Hadji Murad, holding up ten fingers then four more.
‘Give it to me.’
‘You will have it directly,’ said the official, getting a purse from his traveling bag.
‘What does he want money for?’ he said to the commissioner in Russian, presuming that Hadji Murad would not understand. But Hadji Murad did understand and looked angrily at Kirillov.
As he was taking out the money Kirillov, who wanted to strike up some conversation with Hadji Murad in order to have something to report to Vorontsov on his return, asked him through the interpreter if he found life tedious in Nukha.
Hadji Murad gave a scornful sideways glance at this fat little man in civilian clothes who carried no weapons, and made no answer.
The interpreter repeated the question.
‘Tell him I have nothing to say to him.
Let him just give me the money.’
With this, Hadji Murad again sat down at the table and prepared to count the money.
When Kirillov had produced the gold ten-ruble pieces and laid out seven piles each of ten coins (Hadji Murad received 50 rubles in gold per day), he pushed them across to Hadji Murad.
Hadji Murad dropped the coins into the sleeve of his eherkeska, rose and, as he left the room, quite unexpectedly rapped the state councilor on the top of his bald head.
The state councilor leapt to his feet and commanded the interpreter to say that he had better not treat him like that because he was equivalent in rank to a colonel.
The commissioner agreed.
Hadji Murad merely nodded to indicate that he knew that and left the room.
‘What can you do with him?’ said the commissioner.
‘He will stick his dagger in you, and that’s that.
There’s no coming to terms with these devils.
And he’s getting his blood up, I can see.’
As soon as dusk fell two scouts, hooded to the eyes, came in from the mountains.
The commissioner took them into Hadji Murad_s quarters.
One of the scouts was a dark, portly Tavlistani, the other a skinny old man.
For Hadji Murad the news they brought was cheerless.
Those of his friends who had undertaken to rescue his family were now backing out completely for fear of Shamil, who threatened the most horrifying deaths to any who helped Hadji Murad.
Having heard their account, Hadji Murad put his elbows on his crossed legs, bowed his head (he was wearing his papakha) and for a long time was silent.
He was thinking, thinking positively.
He knew that he was thinking now for the last time, that he must reach a decision.
Hadji Murad raised his head and, taking two gold pieces, gave one to each of the scouts.
‘Go now.’
‘What will be the answer?’
‘The answer will be as God wills.
Go.’
The scouts got up and left. Hadji Murad remained sitting on the rug, his elbows on his knees.
He sat there for a long time.
‘What should I do?
Trust Shamil and go back to him?
He is a fox and would play me false.
And even if he did not, I could still not submit to this ginger-haired double-dealer.
I could not because, now that I have been with the Russians, he will never trust me again,’ thought Hadji Murad.
And he recalled the Tavlistan folk-tale about the falcon which was caught, lived among people and then returned to his home in the mountains.
The falcon returned wearing jesses on his legs and there were bells still on them.
And the falcons spurned him.
‘Fly back to the place where they put silver bells on you,’ they said, ‘we have no bells, nor do we have jesses.’
The falcon did not want to leave his homeland and stayed.