When the Russian infantry forced their way into the place with the bayonet, a portion of the garrison shut themselves up in a fortified house, and made it good against overwhelming numbers, singing passages from the Koran amidst a storm of bombs and grapeshot. At last the building took fire, and its undaunted defenders, the sacred verses still upon their lips, found death in the flames. In an equally desperate defence of the fortified village of Himri, Chasi-Mollah met his death, falling in the very breach, bleeding from many wounds. The chief who succeeded him was less venerated and less energetic, and for a few years the Tshetshens remained tolerably quiet, but without a thought of submission. Nevertheless the Russians flattered themselves that the worst was past; that the death of the mad dervish was an irreparable loss to the mountaineers. They were mistaken. Out of his most ardent adherents Chasi-Mollah had formed a sort of sacred band, whom he called Murides, gloomy fanatics, half warriors, half priests. They composed his body-guard, were unwearied in preaching up the fight for the Prophet's faith, and in battle devoted themselves to death with a heroism that has never been surpassed. From these, within a short time of their first leader's death, Chamyl, the present renowned chief of the Tshetshens, soon stood forth pre-eminent, and the Murides followed him to the field with the same enthusiasm and valour they had shown under his predecessor. He did not prove less worthy of guiding them; and the Russians were compelled to confess, that it was easier for the Tshetshens to find an able leader than for them to find a general able to beat him. And victories over the restless and enterprising Caucasians were of little profit, even when obtained. For the most part, they only served to fill the Russian hospitals, and to procure the officers those ribbons and distinctions they so greedily covet, and which, in that service, are so liberally bestowed.[2] Thus, in 1845, Count Woronzoff made a most daring expedition into the heart of Daghestan. He found the villages empty and in flames, lost three thousand men, amongst them many brave and valuable officers, and marched back again, strewing the path with wounded, for whom the means of transport (the horses of the Cossack cavalry) were quite insufficient. With great difficulty, and protected by a column that went out to meet them, the Russians regained their lines, harassed to the last by the fierce Caucasians. This affair was called a victory, and Count Woronzoff was made a prince. Two more such victories would have reduced his expeditionary column to a single battalion. Chamyl, who had cannonaded the Russians with their own artillery, captured in former actions, possibly considered himself equally entitled to triumph, as he slowly retreated, after following up the foe nearly to the gates of their fortresses, into the recesses of his native valleys.