"'Commander of the Caucasus,' I said, knowing that he liked that appellation, though he never commanded half of it; 'a revelation such as thine is not to be disregarded. But how is it to be carried out? By many devices, and some fighting, we have made our way to thee. But the foe hath closed in at our heels. Our little band could never hope to pass the Russian lines again. Thrice hast thou come to life again, when the enemy proclaimed thee dead. But this is beyond even thy resources.' "He smiled, with the pleasant smile of a man who feels himself underrated. 'Imar, it is not that I am beaten in the powers of the mind,' he said, 'but never was there mortal born, and filled with the breath of the Lord from birth, who could vanquish the love of gold in men. The son of Manoah could not do it; neither even our Great Prophet. I, who have gifts from Heaven also, suited to a weaker age, am beaten by that accursed Power. It is gold alone that hath vanquished Shamyl.' "Believing that this upon the whole was true, I left him to his sad reflections. But presently he raised his head again, and looked at me with his old grim smile. He spread out his woolly arms, and spoke with a large mouth quivering. "'Knowest thou that I could carry off every man of my four hundred left, and laugh at the Russian beleaguerers? This night I would do it, and let them smell for us in the morning. But to what effect? To kill a Russian is no dinner. All the passes are closed against us, and all our villages occupied. The winter is nigh; we should be no more than hungry wolves upon the mountains. But thou art young, thou hast a home to go to, and art not of our religion. Take thy faithful fifty, and go this night. My son will show thee how. No more.' "That was the last I saw of Shamyl, and this much I will say for him. He never sent any man to face a peril which he himself would shrink from, neither did he fight for his own ambition, or hide in his turban one copek. The Russians behaved very generously and even nobly to him; and in the quiet evening of his days he may have looked back with sorrow upon his barbarities against them.