but a life of misery, a
wanderer's bread....

Ammalat wished to weep, his eyes burned ... and, like the rich man
tormented in the fire, his heart prayed for one drop, one tear, to
quench his intolerable thirst.... He tried to weep, and could not.
Providence has denied this consolation to the guilty.

* * * * *

And where did the murderer of Verkhoffsky hide himself? Whither did he
drag his wretched existence? No one knew. In Daghestan it was reported
that he wandered among the Tchetchenetzes and Koi-Sou-Boulinetzes,
having lost his beauty, his health, and even his bravery. But who could
say this with certainty? Little by little the rumours about Ammalat died
away, though his villanous treachery is still fresh in the memory of
Russians and Mussulmans who dwell in Daghestan. Even now his name is
never pronounced without a reproach.

CHAPTER XIV.

Anapa, that manufactory of arms for the robbers of the mountains, that
bazar where are sold the tears, the blood, the sweat of Christian
slaves, that torch of rebellion to the Caucasus--Anapa, I say, was, in
1808, invested by the Russian armies, on the sea and on the mountain
side. The gun-boats, the bomb-vessels, and all the ships that could
approach the shore, were thundering against the fortifications. The land
army had passed the river which falls into the Black Sea, under the
northern wall of Anapa, and was posted in swampy ground around the whole
city. Then they constructed wooden trenches, hewing down, for that
purpose, the surrounding forest. Every night new works arose nearer and
nearer to the walls of the town. The interior of the houses flamed from
the effects of the shells; the outer walls fell under the cannon-balls.
But the Turkish garrison, reinforced by the mountaineers, fought
desperately, made fierce sorties, and replied to all proposals for
surrender by the shots of their artillery. Meanwhile the besiegers were
incessantly harassed by the Kabardinetz skirmishers, and the
foot-archers of Abazekhs, Shamsoukhs, Natoukhaitzes, and other wild
mountaineers of the shores of the Black Sea, assembled, like the
jackals, in hope of plunder and blood. Against them it was necessary to
erect redans; and this double work, performed under the fire of cannon
from the fortress and from the forest, on irregular and boggy ground,
delayed long the capture of the town.

At length, on the eve of the taking of Anapa, the Russians opened a
b