Untitled

THE ASCENT OF TETNULD 2(;!)
Soon after the Priestav arrived, and the villagers were summoned
before him. The two men who had demanded money of us were
first :
questioned
' What do you mean by asking money from my
'
Their
guests — honourable persons who are escorted by Cossacks ?
side - arms were taken away, and their hands tied behind their
backs. Then came the turn of the fifteen heads of families.
that the robber must
They protested that the village was innocent ;
'
That cannot be,' said the Priestav ;
have been a chance traveller.
'you know perfectly
well that
there is no road, and there are
no travellers in your valley.'
They were given two hours to
produce the property. Nothing
being forthcoming,
their side-
arras were, after some pretence
of resistance on the part of one
or two, taken from them, and
they were ordered to remain
in custody at Betsho until the
goods
were retui-ned.
'
I am
anxious,' said the Priestav, '
to
show Mr. Freshfield, as an
Englishman,
that we can act
witli vigour in case of need.'
And certainly no English officer
could have come to the help
of his countrymen with more
vigour, good judgment, and (as the event proved) success, than
M. Aetovsky, the excellent Priestav, came to ours. In the end
M. de Dechy's effects were recovered— with the exception of the
revolver—and sent back to him months afterw^ards at Odessa.
Had we been content to take the Tuiber Pass (11,815 feet),
the ordinary route from Suanetia to the Tartar valleys east of
the Baksan, crossed two years before by my companion, there
would have been comparatively little
A SCANETIAN IIUXTEK
difficulty in
procuring
porters. We were calling on the villagers to reopen a pass