Kamenev called one of the Cossacks: ‘Chikhirev!
Here!’
A Don Cossack moved forward from the rest and came up to them.
He was in the ordinary Don Cossack uniform, wearing knee-boots and greatcoat, and had saddle-bags slung at the back of his saddle.
‘Get it out,’ said Kamenev, dismounting.
The Cossack also got off his horse and from one of the saddle-bags drew out a sack with something in it.
Kamenev took the sack from the Cossack and put his hand in it.
‘Shall I show you the latest, then?
You won’t be frightened?’ he said, turning to Marya Dmitrievna.
‘What is there to be afraid of?’ said Marya Dmitrievna.
‘There you are then,’ said Kamenev and he pulled out a man’s head and held it up in the moonlight.
‘Do you recognize him?’
It was a shaven head, with prominent bulges of the skull over the eyes, trimmed black beard and clipped mustache; one eye was open, the other half-closed; the shaven skull was split and hacked about and the nose covered with black clotted blood.
The neck was wrapped in a bloody towel.
Despite all the wounds on the head, there was in the set of the now blue lips a childish, good-natured expression.
Marya Dmitrievna took one look and without a word turned and went quickly into the house.
Butler could not take his eyes off the terrible head.
It was the head of that same Hadji Murad with whom he had recently spent his evenings having such friendly chats.
‘How did it happen?
Who killed him?
Where?’ he asked.
‘He tried to make a break for it and they caught him,’ said Kamenev, and handing the head back to the Cossack he went into the house with Butler.
‘He died like a real man,’ said Kamenev.
‘But how did it all happen?’
‘Hang on a minute. When Ivan Matveevich comes I’ll give you all the details.
That’s what I’ve been sent for.
I have got to go round all the forts and villages showing them.’
Ivan Matveevich had been sent for and came back to the house drunk, with two other officers also much the worse for drink, and began embracing Kamenev.
‘I have come to see you,’ said Kamenev.
‘I have brought you the head of Hadji Murad.’
‘Go on with you!
Has he been killed?’
‘Yes, he tried to escape.’
‘I always said he would do us down.
Where is it then?
His lead — let’s see it.’
The Cossack was called and came in with the sack containing the head.
The head was taken out, and for a long time Ivan Matveevich gazed at it with his drunken eyes.
‘He was a fine fellow just the same,’ he said.
‘Let me kiss him.’
‘He was a daredevil chap, that’s a fact,’ said one of the officers.
When they had all inspected the head they gave it back to the Cossack.
The Cossack replaced it in the sack, dropping it carefully so as not to bump it too hard on the floor.
‘What do you do, Kamenev — do you say something when you show it round?’ asked one of the officers.
‘But I want to kiss him,’ shouted Ivan Matveevich.
‘He gave me a sword.’
Butler went out on to the porch.
Marya Dmitrievna was sitting on the second step. she looked round at Butler and at once turned angrily away.
‘What’s the matter, Marya Dmitrievna?’ Butler asked.
‘You are just a lot of butchers.