Ammalát 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 Verkhóffsky hide himself? Whither did he drag his wretched existence? No one knew. In Daghestán it was reported that he wandered among the Tchetchenétzes and Koi-Sou-Boulinétzes, having lost his beauty, his health, and even his bravery. But who could say this with certainty? Little by little the rumours about Ammalát died away, though his villanous treachery is still fresh in the memory of Russians and Mussulmans who dwell in Daghestán. Even now his name is never pronounced without a reproach.
Anápa, 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--Anápa, 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 Anápa, 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 Kabardinétz skirmishers, and the foot-archers of Abazékhs, Shamsóukhs, Natoukháitzes, 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.