THE BURNING OF RANOVICA
There were two beds in the room, and one was occupied already by Louis
de Paleologue, who lay in a heavy stupor, but was not properly asleep.
Faber had slept in such rooms before--in the old wild days when he had
travelled in Western America to sell revolvers to a Christian people,
who were set upon shooting other Christians. This room impressed chiefly
by its omnipresent suggestions of profound filthiness. He feared to
touch anything in it--the chairs, the walls, the very coverlet on the
bed. His own rugs were his armament. He wrapped himself in them from
head to foot, and fell asleep at last, still wondering in his dreams
why, in God's name, he had come to Ranovica.
When he awoke, it was at a touch of the hand of his valet Frank. He felt
heavy and drowsy, and knew that he had missed a good night's
rest--indispensable to men whose brains are dominant. It was already
light, and the curtains were drawn back from the window. He sat up to
listen and became aware of a strange hubbub in the street without.
"Why, what are you saying, Frank; what's that you're telling me?"
The valet was ghastly pale; he walked upon tip-toe as though afraid of
being heard; his voice was hardly more than the whisper of polite
servitude.
"The soldiers are in, sir--it's all up with Ranovica."
"You don't say so! When did they come in?"
"Five minutes ago, sir. Don't you hear that--my God, don't you hear it,
sir?"
There is no mistaking the cry of a man who is being butchered by knives,
and Faber could not mistake it then. He sprang out of bed at a bound and
ran to the window. The street below was full of Turks--the red fez, the
baggy blue breeches were everywhere. Leaning out to get a better view,
he saw a huge Albanian held down by four assassins who had the faces of
the devils in the pictures. Another, like to them, had a broad butcher's
knife in his hand, and was deliberately hacking the prone man's head
from his shoulders. It was clumsily done and the wretch shrieked
horribly at every cut upon the bare flesh. His blood already ran in the
gutters, where it mingled with the blood of fifty others.
A sense of utter helplessness--of a sickness and horror he had not yet
experienced, held Faber to the window for some minutes. He could look at
nothing else but the outstretched figure and the clumsy knife. When head
and body at length were torn apart, and the former held up on the end of
a scimitar, a loud shout of fury escaped him, and he ran across the room
for his revolver. The uproar had awakened Paleologue, who sat bolt
upright watching his friend. When he perceived the revolver in his hand,
he sprang out of bed and caught him in powerful arms.
"What are you doing, boss--what d----d nonsense is this?"
"I tell you they're hacking men to pieces in the street out yonder. Let
me go--by God, I can't stand it."
"Say, don't be a fool. Do you think you can shoot a regiment? Keep that
pistol out of sight, and hold your tongue. We'll have them up here if
you butt in like that! Don't you understand it isn't our business? Why,
you're more d----d nuisance than any woman--and you talk as much. Now,
be quiet, and hear me out. You've got to sit this through and say
nothing. I'll do the talking for myself and the girl. You look on and
remember why you're here. Haven't you sense enough at your age?"
The irony of it stung Faber, and he put the pistol down. The frightened
valet still looked out of the window and howled at intervals, as though
he himself were already in the hands of the Turks. They could hear rifle
shots, sometimes a volley, then a few straggling reports, which spoke of
fugitives, who were making a dash for the mountains. In the street
itself, it seemed that men scurried hither and thither as rats from
their holes. Shouts of triumph were followed by sharp cries of pain,
often by groans and the shrill screams of women. The air came pungent
with the odour of gunpowder. In the room itself there was now silence
save for the servant's bellowing. Paleologue dressed himself without any
fuss whatever, and he did not utter a single word. When he was quite
ready, he went out into the street immediately--Faber at his heels. No
one had asked for Maryska.
Paleologue was wearing a ridiculous suit of yellow tweed at this time,
and a green Homburg hat with a feather in it. He carried no other
weapons than a cigarette case and a box of matches. The Turks round
about eyed him with amazement not untempered by curiosity; but before
any of them could make a movement he shouted out in their own tongue
that he was an English newspaper correspondent, and their rifles were
lowered. Doffing his cap to a man upon a little grey horse, who appeared
to be their officer, the artist crossed the street and offered him a
cigarette, speaking rapidly in the careless way he could command,
whatever the language. Faber listened open mouthed. He thought that he
was as near to death as ever he had been in his nine and thirty years,
and he made no poor guess.
"What does he say, Frank?" the question was hurled up at the window
where the valet's white face could be seen. He might as well have asked
the fellow a question in Chinese.
"I don't know, sir. I think he is mad."
"I guess we were all mad to come here. My God! what a slaughter-house!"
No truer description of the scene could have been uttered by any man.
The streets of Ravonica had become a shambles. Turks ran in and out of
the distant houses like dogs at a warren. There were twenty headless
bodies within ten yards of the captain in command. From the door of the
inn or guest-house a broad eddy of blood was oozing away to the gutter;
they could hear the troops within looting and ravaging at their
pleasure, while the wretched organ still played some trumpery waltz in
irony most wonderful. So dreadful it was that Faber, who believed that
he knew the whole story of war, staggered back in a revolt of nausea and
would have re-entered the priest's house but for Paleologue's imperative
summons. The artist had never been more at home. He wore his hat
jauntily and smoked with gusto while he talked to the captain.
"Say, boss, come and report yourself. This is Alussein Pasha. He has had
word of you from headquarters; just shake and look as pleased as you
can."
Faber shook hands with the man, while Louis offered him a cigarette and
struck matches for them all. The concomitants of the ghastly scene were
wholly out of place and singularly at variance with the truth. These
three men might have met by accident in this outlandish village and have
been discussing the best road back to civilization. The bloody struggle,
still proceeding in the miserable hovels round about, moved Alussein
Pasha no more than did the howling of dogs in an Eastern street. And
Paleologue was just as indifferent until some of the ruffians fetched
out "old Pop" by the hair of his head and held a scimitar at his throat.
Then, to be fair to him, he woke up to the truth and began to argue
excitedly with the Pasha--at which moment also Maryska appeared at a
window above and spoke to her father in Italian. He answered with a wave
of his hand, bidding her disappear; but not before a Turkish subaltern
had seen her and thrown her a kiss in the Western fashion. This was too
much for Louis, who knocked him down out of hand.
Undoubtedly it was a mad act, and went near to costing the lives of the
party. Alussein Pasha uttered a roar like a stricken bull when his
officer was floored; the Turks about him drew their knives and pressed
upon Faber with fierce shouts. He had as good as given it up, and
thought that this was the end of the business, when a young man at the
Pasha's side said something to his chief in an earnest note and appeared
to bring that savage worthy to his senses. He roared an order to the
hawking pack, and they fell back from the prey they had marked down. An
excited exchange of doubtful compliments between Louis and the grand
Turk was followed by a compromise, Alussein stipulating for an immediate
return to the shelter of the priest's house until the affair was over.
So, in they went, the soldiers half pushing them with the butts of their
rifles and barring the door behind them. "Old Pop" was the only prisoner
now. They had forgotten him in the excitement of that very critical
moment through which they had passed.
"Have a drink?" said Louis, throwing himself into a chair by the window
and his hat into another; he seemed quite unconcerned, even unaware that
there had been an instant of peril. John Faber, on the other hand, was
talking to himself in decided terms. "John, my boy, you're a d----d fool
to be here," he was saying--and that was very true. When he had drunk a
tumbler of white wine and mineral water he found the sweat running off
him like rain.
"Hot weather for the time of year. Where's your girl, Louis?"
"Oh! I guess she's all right--better where she is. Will you pass over
that drawing pad? I can see a picture here."
Faber passed him the pad, and he settled deep in the arm-chair and began
to make a rapid sketch of the crowded street. At the same moment Maryska
entered the room and closed the door firmly behind her.
II
"Where is the priest?" she asked them in a strange tone. The men looked
at her together, then at each other.
"Why, isn't he in the house?"
"They are killing him," she said. And then, "What are you doing here?"
Louis put down his pencil, and leaning out of the window, which was on a
level with the street, he watched the scene a little while in silence.
"By God!" he cried at last; "they're singeing the old man's beard.
Listen to that."
They listened and heard a harrowing sound, neither cry nor scream, but
the wail as of a cat mewing. Twenty Turks had "Old Pop" in their midst;
they had torn his clothes from his back and cut off his nose. Now some
of them brought naphtha and poured it on his head, and instantly he
became a vomit of flame.[1] Every feature of the wretched man could be
seen with horrid distinctness, clarified by the fire. The flesh withered
up before their eyes. He stood for a long minute plucking at his own
flesh with hands of which but the bones were left. Then, all his cries
ceased, and he fell forward in a ghastly heap, while the Turks howled
derisively and thrust scimitars into the fire. They had burned many a
priest these latter days, but this fellow was famous, and had fought
many a good fight for Ranovica. His death stimulated a frenzy of lust
and madness, and they rushed away to enter the houses and drive out the
women. All the make-believe of a military occupation had been put aside
by this time. Alussein had led them across the mountains to teach these
Christians a lesson, and they were good masters.
[1] The incident here described is taken almost unchanged from
the recent story of Macedonia.
Maryska heard the priest's cries, but she did not see the manner of his
death. Had it not happened so swiftly and with such dramatic finality,
the men would have made some stir to save him; but, as though guessing
their intention, a group of soldiers with rifles across their arms
pressed about the window, and made it very clear that they would shoot
upon next to no provocation at all. Alussein Pasha had ridden on at this
time to the lower road overlooking Scutari, and would return when the
good work was done. He would declare that the villagers had brought it
all on themselves, and his report would be a model of tearful orthodoxy.
Meanwhile, there were very few of the male inhabitants to bring anything
upon anybody; the women alone remained, and they were dragged from their
houses, some by the hair of their heads, some forced by thrust of
swords, a few going without protest, as though they dreamed. Of the
latter were the younger girls, mere children of fourteen or fifteen
years, who stood in a little group before the priest's house, and looked
at the soldiers, uncertain--nay, ignorant--of their meaning. Maryska saw
these anon; and Louis also. He had been chewing his cigarette very
busily since the priest died, and there were few lines upon the paper.
As for Faber, he merely stood motionless by the window. The scene held
him spellbound with an influence he knew to be evil.
"What have they done with the priest? Why do you not answer me, Mr.
Faber?"
She touched him upon the arm, and he looked down upon a child's face
from which a woman's eyes stared up at him wonderingly. What answer
could he make to her?
"You must just run away and think nothing about it, Maryska," he said
quietly. "We can none of us do anything. I wish to God we could."
"Are you not going to speak for the children, then?"
"The children! Oh, they're all right; they won't hurt the children."
"That is not true," she said, for the instinct of the woman guided her
surely. "Someone must speak for the children. Will not you, father?"
The appeal touched Paleologue, and he threw away the stump of his
cigarette and leaned out of the window. They heard him talking rapidly
with the Turks upon the side-walk, and presently shouting something to
an officer before the guest-house opposite. Whatever he said moved the
soldiers to derision and the children themselves to hope. They knew that
he was their friend, and their round eyes watched his every gesture.
"What's the man saying?" Faber asked. Louis hardly seemed to know.
"I guess it's a bad business, boss, a d----d bad business."
"You don't mean to say----"
"I do every word of it."
"We must see this thing through, Paleologue. I'm going out."
"You can't go out. What's the good of doing stunts? They'll shoot,
sure."
He tried to hold back the impetuous man, appealing and swearing in a
breath. From below, the children watched the scene with a look of
bewilderment and despair. The unknown strangers were quarrelling, then!
What hope of mercy had they if this went on? This must have been in
their minds when Maryska, climbing nimbly as a cat, slipped by her
father and leaped down among the Turks. She was kissing and hugging some
of the children and telling them in a tongue they understood that all
would be well with them; doing this, and defying the snarling troopers
before a man could have counted ten. Then the men at the window lost
sight of her, the throng closing about her as water filling the vortex
of a falling stone.
"Good God, man, aren't you going now?"
Paleologue licked his lips, a little astonished, perhaps, not to find a
cigarette between them. He caught up a great planter's hat and clapped
it on the side of his head; then, without a word, he clambered over the
casement and pushed his way among the soldiers. Of course, Faber was
upon his heels, treading so close on his tracks that they stumbled into
the press together and were instantly swallowed up by it. Instructed to
deal patiently with the strangers, none of the sentries fired upon them,
but all swarmed about them and tried to pull them back. The village
itself had by this time become a Golgotha, from whose wretched houses
came the groans of butchered men and the screams of women in an agony of
fear and shame. Their terrible cries were echoed up and down the streets
from many a group which stooped about an infamy; while at the far end
near the church, flames spurted from an isolated house, and the wood
burned with a detonation heard closely upon the still air. The outposts
of the legions of hell had begun their work; they would do it thoroughly
enough before their chief returned to call them off.
"Where's my daughter? What have you done with her?" Paleologue's voice
rose to a shrill pitch as he pushed and fought his way into the crowd
and was thrust forward and still forward by the wiry American at his
heels. Faber had never imagined such a scene as this, nor could he have
believed it possible. The heat and clamour of the street, the sweat of
the fighting men; here and there a girl caught in a man's arms and held
firmly as a wild beast holds its prey; smoke of the burning house coming
down upon the wind--the crazy organ still rolling out its dirge-like
waltzes. All this and the fierce oaths of the maladroitly butchered--the
horrid, gashed corpses in the gutters--the rearing, terrified horses of
Alussein's lieutenants; and, above it all, the serene sky and the
desolate mountains lifting their scarred summits in savage menace. What
an inferno, what a hell of human creation! And into this the girl
Maryska had plunged, headlong as a bold swimmer into a raging sea which
has engulfed a child.
He found himself imitating Paleologue by and by, and calling her name
aloud. The attempts of the sentries to get the pair of them back to the
house were met by thrust upon thrust; a good square push from the
shoulder here and a dive into an opening there. Gradually they won their
way up the street, but could not find her; and upon that a sense of
desperation drove them to some imprudence, and they began to deal in
blows. Such madness might have brought a swift penalty but for the fire
which the priest's death had kindled. The God of Ranovica, designing
that these people should perish to bear witness to their faith, willed
also that Ranovica should fall with them, and that the priest should be
the instrument. From his body the flames had run to the crazy house;
from the house to the church, and thence to the narrow street, which
instantly became aglow. Faber found himself pressing forward amid
showers of sparks, and still crying "Maryska--Maryska!" as though the
child's voice could be heard amid the din. Turks pressed about him
shielding their faces with sun-browned arms and cursing the "spawn of
dogs" by which the visitation had come upon them. He was driven in and
out of courtyards, tossed hither and thither by the human wave, whose
crest was the whirling scimitars of the destroyers. In the end he found
himself out upon the hillside, flaming Ravonica below him, and the still
air alive with the cries of its people. Paleologue had disappeared;
there was no trace of Maryska, and he himself had hardly a rag upon his
back.
He sat down upon a great boulder, and presently heard a familiar voice.
It was that of his valet, Frank.
"Mr. Faber, is that you, sir?"
"I guess it is, Frank."
"Thank God for that, sir! Our baggage is done for, sure and certain. The
house is afire from top to bottom, sir."
"Never mind the baggage, Frank. Have you seen Mr. Paleologue?"
"He was down among the soldiers five minutes ago, sir."
"And the young lady?"
Frank could not answer.
"She went away with some of the young women--I think toward the church,
sir."
"Was that long ago?"
"About five minutes before they fired it; I'm sure it wasn't more."
"Well, look at the church now, anyway. This is an awful business,
Frank."
"I suppose in their way it's what they call war, sir. But it's a
terrible business."
"Ah!" said Faber. "I suppose it would be. You don't happen to have a
cigar on you, Frank?"
"I've got a few cigarettes, sir."
"Then pass one up. We'll go and look for Mr. Paleologue presently; I
guess he's taken the lower road. We should find both of them there."
"I hope we shall do so, sir."
He passed the cigarettes and the matches, and his master lighted one and
sat and smoked in silence. It may be that he asked himself what he, John
Faber, was doing out there upon this bleak hillside when he might have
been on board his yacht in the harbour of Antivari. Such reflections had
occurred to him on several occasions when some absurd venture had
brought him very near to that haven where millions are the poorest
credentials; but they were unduly ironical to-day, and not a little
persistent. Why had he come to Ranovica? Because that little wide-eyed
woman, who made such a curious appeal to him, had insisted upon his
coming. It was very true, and he would not fence with it. He might lose
his life for Maryska even yet; and that would be a grotesque finale
enough. Meanwhile, a certain doubt about her remained and troubled him
with a graver thought. Why had he not discovered her in the village? No
man could venture into that inferno now, for the whole place was just a
flame upon the hillside; but he had been up and down the street with
Paleologue, and they had seen nothing of her. He thought it curious if
nothing more. They should have discovered her immediately when the fire
broke out.
Alussein Pasha rode up presently and his little staff with him. He had
treated Faber with some deference from the beginning, and now that the
fury of the sack was over he became almost grotesquely polite, gabbling
in appalling German and expressing as well as he could his regret for
the state in which he discovered the stranger. In return, Faber asked
him of his friend--gesture serving where names failed--and the matter
being understood, the Pasha told off a lieutenant and two men who
invited the "infidel" to follow them. Ranovica had burned itself to a
cinder by this time, and if it was not possible to pass down the narrow
street, at least the precincts of the houses might be searched. Faber
trudged after the men and came to the ruined church, now but a shell and
a few blackened beams. A young Turkish soldier walked to and fro here;
but the gulley of the road before the church was blocked by corpses, and
near by them lay the figure of Louis de Paleologue. He had been shot
through the head just as he reached the porch, and he lay face
downwards, an unlighted cigarette between his lips and his kindly eyes
wide open.
Faber knelt and turned the dead man over. He felt his pulse, and even
laid his head upon his chest to listen for the beating of his heart.
There had been horrors enough in Ranovica this day; but they had to do
with a strange and savage people, of whom he knew nothing. He remembered
that this man had taken his mother to America when she had no other
friend in the world. Had he not come to Europe to reward him for what he
had done as few have been rewarded, whatever the service? And this was
the end of it--this prone figure, still and fearful--this, and the Turks
who looked down upon the scene with Oriental indifference--this, and the
sentry who leered behind their backs and made no attempt to hide his
satisfaction. Faber caught the fellow grinning, and recognized him for
one of the men who had turned on him earlier in the day when Paleologue
floored the officer. The rifle in his hand had come from the arsenal at
Charleston. Surely destiny spoke loudly enough here.
He borrowed a burned and tattered cloak from one of the dead in the
gutter, and covered his friend's face reverently. Where to go, what to
do next, he knew not; nor in what manner he should seek Maryska. The
truth had gripped him with fingers of iron.
This was war--and of war was he not the disciple?
III
The Turks left the village about three in the after-noon. It was
understood that they had other work of the kind, but more to the
northward, and removed from the observant eye of their neighbours, the
Montenegrins, who would surely avenge this day. Before they left, they
were able to restore to Faber the mules which had brought his party to
Ranovica. The beasts had been taken up the hillside during the
conflagration, and would have been led much further afield but for the
Pasha's desire to curry favour with the American. He knew that this was
the man who made the rifles with which the infidel dogs must be
destroyed; urgent messages from Constantinople had warned him to show
deference to so useful an ally, and he obeyed his instructions with a
display of manners quite pleasing. It was otherwise when the dead artist
and his daughter were mentioned. Constantinople had said nothing about
them, and it really seemed to Faber that the flat-faced, good-humoured
Alussein could be a genius of understanding or the dullest blockhead at
his pleasure.
So away the Turk went, just when the sun was beginning to dip down over
the Adriatic and all the wilderness to glow beneath the shimmer of its
deepening rays. A hillside, normally grey and cold, shone rose-pink and
purple in the waxing splendour of the hour. The burned village became
but the blacker for the gift, a charred log lying in a cup of the
burnished rocks. Out of it, when every ruin had been twice searched,
every heap of ashes turned for possible plunder, out of it went the
baggy breeches and the little white horses and the fierce and bristling
men, as cool and laconic as though this were but an episode and
to-morrow would furnish another. Romancers' tales of troops drunk with
lust and slaughter could not be told of them. All that passed, women's
fearful struggles to escape their embraces, the shrieks of men whose
hearts were being torn out, the gasps of the dying and the livid faces
of the dead--all this was already forgotten, and would hardly be
remembered when a week had gone. Had not the Prophet commanded them so
to do, and was not he a discerning person withal?
Faber had taken a meal with Alussein upon the hillside about midday, and
after that he had patrolled the village with Frank at his side, waiting
and hoping for the coming of Maryska. To return to Ragusa without her
would have been an infamy he could not contemplate; and yet he feared to
meet her or to tell her the truth which must be told. When at last he
did discover her, some hours had passed, and it was quite dark. The
hillside with its savage boulders had given up the most part of the
refugees then, and they had come down to the village to wander amid the
ruins of their poor homes and to fill the street with their wailing. It
was at this time also that another band of Albanians came up the valley
to their comrades' rescue; alas, so many hours too late, but yet in time
to help the desperate refugees and to bring them food and succour. Fires
were now lighted by the valley road, and the women and children grouped
about them. The most timid crept down from the rocks above; girls
dishevelled and weeping, men who had fled with gashed limbs to the
harbourage of caves, children whose parents lay dead beneath the
ashes--all came at the summons of the shrill goat's horn. Meanwhile,
none thought of burying the dead--none except Faber, who would not leave
the body of Louis de Paleologue where it was, and returned with two
lusty Albanians at his heels to do what could be done in the matter.
It was then that he found Maryska.
One of the Albanians carried a lantern, and the rays of it discovered
her, kneeling against the broken railings of the church porch, but with
face averted from the dead. She did not appear to have been weeping. Her
eyes were big and round; her head bare, her hair dishevelled. What she
had suffered at the soldiers' hands might not be imagined; but its
memories had been obliterated by this sudden realization of the greater
loss. All that humanity had been to her lay still and ghastly in that
fearsome gutter. Father, brother, friend--he who had gone hand in hand
with her through the wild wilderness of the world, he would lead her no
more. The night had dropped a black curtain between her and the eternal
hope of youth. Womanhood had revealed itself, its secrets thrust upon
her by the bloody hands of monsters; but the drugged soul of the child
could find no place in her mind for that. He was dead. Why, then, did
she live?
She shrank from the light, but did not cover her eyes. Discerning Faber,
she leaped toward him as an animal unchained, and bared her breast with
frenzied fingers. "Shoot me, stranger--shoot me through the heart!" she
cried. He caught her outstretched hand, and she fell almost lifeless
into his arms. Oblivion, the greater mercy, saved her reason in the
critical hour. She was in a delirium when they made a rude palanquin and
carried her down to Antivari. She awoke therefrom upon the afternoon of
the second day after in a cabin upon Faber's yacht; and then, for the
first time, they believed that she would live.