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Accordingly Pachu Biké, who here bore rule under the title of Khaness, prayed Khasi-Mollah not to enter the Avarian territory; but he persisting, she called together her warriors to resist him. They, however, fearing at first to face the determined band of murids, she seized a sword and cried out, "Go home, ye men of Chunsach, and gird on your wives the swords ye are unworthy to bear yourselves!"
The murids, however, having devised a plan for preserving the life of their chief by the loss of their own, constructed from materials previously collected in the cave, a raft of sufficient size to carry several persons, and letting it down at night into the river below, then followed themselves.
Several hundred prisoners also were taken, consisting of women and children; for of men there were none left. With the blood of these the Koissu was already red, and their bodies were thrown in afterwards. But Schamyl, who had often been seen during the final conflict surrounded by his white turbaned murids, was nowhere to be found.
In the affray which took place on this occasion, there perished with him many of the fanatic Murids, who had become odious as instruments of the cruelties of their Imam. On his death, Schamyl was raised to the dignity, but it was some time before the mischief done by his predecessor was so far repaired as to allow him to act with energy as the prophet of the new doctrine.
The mountains were filled with his murids, who went from aoul to aoul preaching the new doctrine of the second prophet of Allah, and summoning all the warriors to rally around the chieftain commissioned by heaven to deliver the land from the threatened bondage to Russia. These missionaries in arms having friends and relatives in all the tribes, obtained everywhere a hearing and a foothold.
If hard pushed the murids retreated; wherever opportunity offered they struck a blow and suddenly retired; those tribes who wavered in their allegiance found themselves unexpectedly visited with retribution; and when the Tchetchenians, aggrieved by Schamyl's apparent neglect of their interests, took advantage of a wound received by him to send messengers to Tiflis to sue for peace, immediately he appeared in their midst, terrifying rather than winning them back to the cause of the patriots.
When, then, the active and sagacious governor heard that Mahomet-Mollah was preaching in Jarach a holy war against the Muscovites, and that he had erected in his house an altar before which the murids who came in from all the neighboring parts hourly prayed and said, "Moslem war against the infidel! war against the infidel! death to the Giaour!" he sent a request to Arslan, khan of the Kasi-Kumucks, in whose territory was Jarach, that he should seize upon the person of the mollah.
He passes a sentence of death with the same composure with which he distributes "the sabre of honor" to his bravest Murids, after a bloody encounter. With traitors or criminals whom he has resolved to destroy, he will converse without betraying the least sign of anger or vengeance.
In one of these was Schamyl with a few of his murids. Attacked by the enemy, this one held out longer than the others; but the rock being guarded on all sides, escape was thought impossible.
After that, also, there would remain the natural barrier of the swiftly flowing Koissu; and finally Akhulgo itself, beyond which no further retreat was thought of, as there he and all his murids would either conquer or die.
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