ON DUTY.
After carefully loading his pistols, and scrutinising closely the
trappings of his horse, a fine, fleet and active animal, Cecil bade
adieu to the army of Tchernaeiff, and took his way westward on his
lonely mission.
But for his forfeited position (forfeited, as he had always felt, by
no fault of his own) and lost love--the lost life as it seemed--how
exciting and joyous, to a young and ardent spirit, such a task as
that he had in hand, with such adventures as it promised in wild
Servia, would have been; for Servia, though nearly half the size of
Scotland, is yet a kind of _terra incognita_ to the world of Europe
generally.
'What will be the end of it all for me?' he thought, as he looked
around him on the strange land to which he had come to begin life
anew--the world again.
Yet his spirit began to rise in spite of himself, as he proceeded at
a hand gallop in the pure morning breeze, and he felt that life was
not without some zest after all.
Here and there great forests bordered the way, with little valleys
opening between, wherein, as being warm and sheltered, the
tobacco-plant is cultivated. The country seemed lonely generally;
more than once, however, groups of wild-looking and well-armed
peasantry and workers from the salt and copper-mines, passed him; but
during this part of his journey he met with nothing exciting, save at
the little town of Tjuprga, for so it figured on his map, though he
utterly failed to pronounce it, and into which he rode just as the
sun, a great round globe of fire, was sinking behind the hills.
On repairing to the only _cafane_ or hotel in the place, he found a
Russian dragoon officer taking his departure therefrom, and prior to
doing so, about to lash with his heavy whip a pretty little waitress,
whom he accused of cheating him out of two copper piastres.
This was more than Cecil could endure; he drew a pistol from his
holsters and called to the Russian to face him; but, muttering
something about 'an island cur,' the gallant Ruski spat at his feet
in token of detestation, and galloped away.
'And I am the comrade of wretches such as this!' thought Cecil, as he
dismounted and found that he had accomplished thirty-five miles of
his journey.
After a repast of hashed duck and caviare (having, as usual there, to
use his own clasp-knife and pocket-fork), and after a bumper or two
of strong red wine with the natural soda-water, which comes from many
springs in Servia, Cecil lit a cigar, and, divested of his arms and
tunic, gave himself up to reflection--and, sooth to say, he had as
usual plenty to ponder over--while watching the sunlight fading out
in the little street of one-storeyed houses, mere huts built of
white-washed clay, and which he knew were too probably without beds,
tables, or chairs, and furnished with little more than an iron pot,
in which the inhabitants cooked, and out of which they ate everything.
Carefully securing his door against intrusion when night fell, he
slept on a divan with his rug and cloak over him and his sword and
pistols under his head for a pillow; and next morning, after settling
his bill for a few copper piastres (one hundred and twenty-eight of
which go to one British sovereign), he was again in the saddle and
pursuing the road to Bratisna.
The next day saw him without any incident--somewhat to his
disappointment, certainly to his surprise, at least. After passing
through Kolar, and then Semendria, as his horse was breaking down, he
was compelled to halt there for the night, within twenty-four miles
of his destination. But the halt was not without interest, as there
for the first time he saw that river so famed in history, the
magnificent and dark-blue Danube, the waves of which 'have witnessed
the march of Attila, of Charlemagne, of the Lion of the North, and
the armies of imperial France; and whose shores have echoed to the
blast of the Roman trumpet, the hymn of the pilgrims of the Cross,
the wild halloo of the sons of Islam, and whose name is equally dear
to history and to fable.'
Reining up his horse upon a slope, he watched the river for a time,
flowing there between mountains clothed with forest trees, its blue
waters in the vista washing in some places beaches of yellow sand,
with pretty, toy-like hamlets sleeping in the sunshine, and then rode
in to Semendria, which occupies a low peninsula in the river and is
overlooked by a quaint old castle, in remote ages the abode of the
kings of Servia, and which has since been taken and retaken, battered
and bombarded by Turks and Hungarians in turn.
Next morning saw him approaching his destination, the stately city of
Belgrade. Towering over its picturesque masses, over the spires and
domes of more than a hundred Greek churches and Moslem mosques,
steeped in the blaze of the morning sun on one side, and with deep
shadows on the other, rose its citadel on the summit of a precipitous
rock, surrounded by a lofty wall with flanking towers, a triple
fosse, and a magnificent esplanade, four hundred yards in breadth.
On the summit waved the Servian tricolour, pale-blue and red
together, with the white outside.
Around on every side spread lovely gardens. As he approached this
famous frontier city, the scene of so many bloody sieges, Cecil could
not but smile, in these our days of vast projectiles, at remembering
how great a feat it was thought of the Scoto-Austrian Marshal Loudon,
when in 1789 he opened his first parallel there, at one hundred yards
from the glacis. That stately citadel was the scene of many awful
atrocities perpetrated upon Christians, and Cecil ere he left it was
shown the place where Rhigos the Greek was sawn asunder limb by limb;
and so lately as 1815, thirty-six unhappy Servians, among them the
grandfather of Count Palenka, were impaled alive, in violation of a
pledge given for their safety.
Anxious to return and to be rid of his despatches, Cecil certainly
did not loiter, and in a few minutes he found himself traversing the
streets of timber-built houses, and those lines of open wooden stalls
which compose the shops, the barber and coffee vendor alone having
glazed fronts, and where the nationalities are so distinctly marked
in the motley population, the laughing shopkeeper in his tiny Servian
bonnet, the suave insinuating Greek banker or merchant in his red
skullcap, and the haughty, sallow and bearded armourer, blacksmith,
or baker, always Turks, as their white turbans show.
His national uniform, the time and the cause--news of battle--a great
victory over the 'Turkish dogs' by the Morava, spread like wildfire,
and Cecil had no difficulty in finding his way to the palace of the
prince, or, as he was then universally named, King Milano, which is
simply a handsome house with back and front gardens, near the War
Office, on the boulevard leading to the Semendria road, which is
bordered by double rows of trees.
As Cecil approached this edifice, important though his mission, some
delay occurred in his presentation, as a Circassian Prince with six
hundred horsemen--all wild-looking and picturesque Tcherkesses, had
just come in to join the standard of King Milano. He was a very
handsome young fellow, wearing a busby of black Astracan fur, with a
coat of the same material (worn over a shirt of the finest linked
mail), with a row of cartridge tubes across the breast of it; his
sabre blazed with precious stones, and he wore a pair of white kid
gloves that would have done credit to Regent Street.
Then came Cecil's turn, and by officers of the staff, wearing blue
coats and red trousers, and French kepis with waving plumes, he was
ushered into a stately apartment, and was graciously received by
Milano, who gave him his hand to kiss, and read the despatches aloud
to the group around him, with considerable emphasis and the most
intense satisfaction.
Photographs have made all so familiar with pictures of the Servian
King, that no description of him is necessary. Suffice it, that he
was all the more warm in his reception of Cecil on discovering that
he was a Briton, and learning the services he had performed in the
recent battle. Milano was then in his twenty-second year, having
been born at Jassy in 1854. He spoke French with fluency, having
been educated at Paris, where his studies were interrupted by the
assassination of Michail Obrenovitch in 1868, after which he was
proclaimed Prince of Servia by the Council of Regency.
Replies to the despatches would be given Cecil forthwith, and
meantime an aide-de-camp was desired to conduct him to the Krone
Hotel. There, weak and weary with his long and rapid journey, Cecil
gladly flung himself upon a divan, and after a repast, made terrible
by the inordinate seasoning of red pepper and red capsicums, or
_paprikas_, with a bottle of Negotin claret, made from grapes that
always grow on stony soil, he began to enjoy himself at an open
window which faced the Gardens of Belgrade, which are certainly very
beautiful.
Servian officers and Servian ladies were promenading there, or eating
sweetmeats at marble tables, and reading the Servian _Istok_, while
the band of the Royal Guard played in the gardens, and now and then
the national air of 'La Belle Serbe' was called for and greeted with
applause.
To Cecil, the people seemed pleasing in aspect; their eyes were blue
or hazel, with chestnut hair and oval faces that were generally
smiling. The men, tall, robust, and handsome; the women, slender,
delicate, and all wearing graceful head-dresses.
Lovers were loitering there, and flirtations were in progress, as
they are everywhere all over the world, and many were there who
seemed happy as the yellow-throated bird that sung in a mulberry tree
close by where Cecil lingered over a cup of coffee and a cigarette,
and thought of the newness of his surroundings, and the strangeness
of his fate, and his purpose in being there--if he had a purpose at
all!
It was strange--passing strange! In that field by the Morava he set
no store upon his life--not even for Mary's sake, as she was lost to
him as completely as if she were dead--yet how many who had circles
of relations and friends to deplore them, and who doubtless set all
necessary store upon their own lives, had perished there, falling 'as
the leaves fall when forests are rended.'
Was he the same Cecil Falconer, who, but four months before, had been
marching to the drums of the Cameronians?
An end was put to his reverie by the appearance of the aide-de-camp,
who brought him the king's despatches, and that evening he quitted
Belgrade. As he gave a last glance at the wayfarers who loitered
about the streets and at the doors of the cafes, cigarette in mouth,
with their richly inlaid swords and long pistols stuck in their showy
scarves, and with muskets slung behind them, looking very
picturesque--he thought they would, at the same time, be unpleasant
fellows to meet in some lonely place in a land where police are
scarcely known.
He took a farewell glance of the Danube, studded with tiny villages,
their churches and minarets, with Servians on one side fishing in
curious little boats, Hungarians on the other tending their flocks,
with vast mountains towering in the distance, and then rode quickly
on what was now his homeward way.
Continuing his journey along the left bank of the Morava, the close
of the second day found him, as he supposed, within thirty miles of
Deligrad (from which General Tchernaieff had moved to fight his
victorious battle), when it became painfully certain to Cecil that he
had too evidently taken a wrong path and lost his way, in a very
lonely district, where few persons were to be seen, and where neither
his German nor Italian availed in making inquiries.
Of the Roman road he had been pursuing--a road old as the days of
Trajan--all traces had disappeared, and he found himself in a narrow
forest path, overshadowed by huge pines, where he would be certain of
not finding a guide, as such places are avoided at night, as being
the haunt or abode of the _vilas_, evil spirits who can assume all
shapes, but especially that of the cuckoo, according to Servian
superstition.
Hence it was, perhaps, that two wood-cutters whom he saw, fled at the
approach of a mounted figure, looming tall in the forest--and these
were the men who pocketed the Austrian ducats of Pelham and Stanley.
Fires glowed redly here and there upon the distant hills--doubtless
from copper and iron mines; but twice, isolated rockets described
their fiery arcs athwart the darkening sky; what this might indicate,
he knew not; but urged his horse onward by the narrow path, which
descended abruptly now.
He thought he could hear the murmur of a great current--the flow of a
river; but could discern nothing then, between the stems of the
trees, or in the starless sky overhead--for in Servia the
twilight--the gloaming, as the Scots call it--is very brief, and when
the sun goes down, utter darkness, with amazing rapidity, envelops
all the scenery.
Now an involuntary cry escaped him, as his horse, though at a walk,
toppled heavily forward, and before he could respire a second time,
he and it were both immersed in the current of a dark and rapid
stream, too evidently the Morava.
The bank over which they had fallen was too steep to make the least
attempt to return that way possible. He took his feet from his
stirrups, held up his horse's head, and guiding it gently with the
stream and towards the other side, uttered an exclamation of joy, as
he felt its feet touching the ground. But ere he left the stream,
the trunk of a tree that came surging past, struck him from the
saddle; yet he clutched his reins, and stumbled ashore, bringing the
horse with him.
He was safe, but, after a brave man's natural emotion of gratitude to
God for that safety, a cry of dismay escaped him, on finding that his
sword-arm hung powerless by his side.
It had been dislocated by the force with which the tree had struck
him. In a wild and unknown place, he was now helpless as a child,
and something very much akin to consternation fell upon him.