The passage of the Alazana was accomplished with great danger, and when they reached the other side the half-naked ladies were wet, chilled, and miserable. Strange to tell, Princess Baratov, a beautiful girl of eighteen, had not lost any article of dress, and was as richly attired as if she had been on her way to a ball. But poor Mdme. Drançay, the French governess, had nothing left but a chemise and a corset. A handful of Georgians attempted a rescue; the Lesghians mistook them for the skirmishers in advance of an army, and fled. Princess Nina Chavchavadze had an infant in her arms, and after riding for some distance she was so wearied that the baby fell and was trampled under the horses' feet. She would have leaped after it, but her captor held her fast, and another man coolly cut the child's throat. Finding the number of prisoners too large, the Lesghians killed sixty of them on the road. All the villages on the way were burned, and their inhabitants butchered. Then they mounted through a thick forest and up among the mountains to Pokhalski, where Shamil was staying with an army of ten thousand men. There they were joined by a new prisoner, Niko Chavchavadze, who, with thirty Georgians, had held a castle for three days against five hundred Lesghians, and only surrendered when he had not a cartridge left. Shamil ordered the princess to write to Tiflis saying that all the prisoners would be handed over to Russia in exchange for his son, Djemal Eddin, and a fair ransom. In the meantime the ladies had to make themselves veils of muslin, and they lived in the harem of Shamil. They were, however, treated honourably, and they always had the highest respect for the great warrior and prophet. Eight months elapsed before the negotiations were concluded, and on the 10th of March, 1855, the exchange took place at Kasafiurte. Djemal Eddin, Shamil's son, had since his early youth been held as a hostage at Petersburg. He was a most amiable man; had become perfectly Russian in his way of life, and spoke Russian, French, and German fluently; he was colonel of a regiment, and aide-de-camp to the Tsar. It was with deep regret that he left civilization to return to the wild life of his native mountains, and in 1858 he died of a broken heart.