Note (return) — Chapter I

"Traitor, say you?" he cried. "Say rather, that I refused to betray him to whom I was bound by promise. The Russian padishah gave me rank, the sardar35 caressed me—and I was faithful so long as they demanded of me nothing impossible or humiliating. But, all of a sudden, they wished me to admit troops into Avár—to permit fortresses to be built there; and what name should I have deserved, if I had sold the blood and sweat of the Aváretzes, my brethren! If I had attempted this, think ye that I could have done it? A thousand free daggers, a thousand unhired bullets, would have flown to the heart of the betrayer. The very rocks would have fallen on the son who could betray his father. I refused the friendship of the Russians; but I was not their enemy—and what was the reward of my just intentions, my honest counsels? I was deeply, personally insulted by the letter of one of your generals, whom I had warned. That insolence cost him dear at Báshli ... I shed a river of blood for some few drops of insulting ink, and that river divides us for ever."