But ere long there occurred circumstances which altered my resolution; for before the eyes of a beautiful woman the strongest heart is weak as water. One evening I was riding on the mountain slopes that overlook the waters of the Euxine. The last rays of evening were lingering on their peaks, and shedding a golden tint upon the waves that rolled away towards the cliffs of the Crimea. At my feet lay Sundjik Bay, glittering in the blaze of light that steeped sea, sky, and shore. The snow-white walls of Anapa, which crown rocks a hundred feet in height, were gleaming in the yellow sunshine, and grimly the black iron cannon peered through the stone embrasures, or over the ramparts of smoothly-shorn grass. The flat-capped Russian sentinels, muffled in their gray great-coats walked to and fro upon their posts; and each time they turned I saw their bayonets flash above the two square towers that guard the great arched entrance. Over all was the white flag with the Muscovite cross, but there was no wind to spread its folds upon the evening sky, and it hung about the staff listlessly and still; not a blade of grass stirred on the mighty plain of the Kuban, which spread far away towards the north, silent as a land of the dead. Under my iron helmet, grimly I surveyed Anapa and the rocks of Taman, and panted for the time when the standard of the twelve confederated princes of Circassia would be planted there, and when the black cross of the God-abandoned Russ would be torn down and steeped in the blood of its defenders. My heart was full of fierce and fiery thoughts, when suddenly the cry of a woman, ringing upon the clear air of the hot summer eve, fell on my ear, and I reined up my horse--the same winch I have now on board with me--my noble Zuyi, to listen. "Yani, Yani!" cried a despairing voice, which in our language means "mother, mother!" I spurred Zupi over a hillock, and perceived four Russian soldiers of the Tenginski infantry, then garrisoning Anapa, dragging along a Circassian woman, who made no resistance, but cried piteously for mercy. Uttering a shout of anger and defiance, I lowered my lance, and rushed upon them without a moment of hesitation. They immediately relinquished their prey, who sank senseless on the ground, while they betook them to their muskets, crying,--