[25] This cushion is embroidered with jewels, and is invaluable.
... I have loaded my rifle. What a fine round barrel--what admirable ornaments! The rifle I received from my father--my father got it from my grandfather. I have heard of many celebrated shots made with it--and not one, not one was fired by stealth.... Always in battle--always before the whole army, it sent death; but wrong, but treachery, but you, Seltanetta!... My hand will not tremble to level a shot at him, whose name it is afraid even to write. One loading, one fire, and all is over!...
One loading! How light, but how heavy will be each grain of powder in the scales of Allah! How far--how immeasurably will this load bear a man's soul? Accursed thou, the inventor of the grey dust, which delivers a hero into the hand of the vilest craven, which kills from afar the foe, who, with a glance, could have disarmed the hand raised against him! So, this shot will tear asunder all my former ties, but it will clear a road to new ones. In the cool Caucasus--on the bosom of Seltanetta, will my faded heart be refreshed. Like a swallow will I build myself a nest in a stranger land--like a swallow, the spring shall be my country. I will cast from me old sorrows, as the bird sheds its feathers.... But the reproaches of conscience, can they fade?... The meanest Lézghin, when he sees in battle the man with whom he has shared bread and salt, turns aside his horse, and fires his gun in the air. It is true he deceives me; but have I been the less happy? Oh, if with these tears I could weep away my grief--drown with them the thirst for vengeance--buy with them Seltenetta! Why comes on the dawn of day so slowly? Let it come! I will look, without blushing, at the sun--without turning pale, into the eyes of Verkhóffsky. My heart is like iron--it is locked against mercy; treachery calls for treachery ... I am resolved ... Quick, quick!
Thus incoherently, thus wildly wrote Ammalát, in order to cheat time and to divert his soul. Thus he tried to cheat himself, rousing himself to revenge, whilst the real cause of his bloody intentions, viz. the desire of possessing Seltanetta, broke through every word.
In order to embolden himself for his crime, he drank deeply of wine, and maddened, threw himself, with his gun, into the Colonel's tent; but perceiving sentinels at the door, he changed his intention. The natural feeling of self-preservation did not abandon him, even in his madness. Ammalát put off till the morning the consummation of the murder; but he could neither sleep nor distract his thoughts ... and re-entering his tent, he seized Saphir Ali by the throat, who was lying fast asleep, and shaking him roughly: "Get up, sleepy rascal!"; he cried to him, "it is already dawn."