Wherein are described all manner of robbers and
dangers, wherefrom the righteous are wondrously
delivered.
Henry had made up his mind to take his young wife to Zeb immediately
after the wedding, before settling down at the parsonage of Leta. It
was ten years since he had seen his father, who was naturally full
of wrath and sorrow at the disappearance of his son. But a fair
daughter-in-law would, no doubt, be the best mediator between them.
At any rate, there was no harm in trying, for the old man was very
rich and Henry was his only son. Many a wrinkled brow has been
stroked smooth again ere now by the soft hand of a pretty woman.
The learned Professor Fröhlich himself fully approved of this plan,
for although the books of the philosophers are full of golden maxims
which demonstrate that all earthly treasures are but dross,
nevertheless, in this practical world of ours, where one can get
nothing without money, a little money is ever so much better than
any amount of golden maxims.
Besides, the old gentleman had very little of the good things of
this world to bestow upon his daughter. Alchemy could no more make
gold then than it can now.
It was as much as he could do to dower the bride with new gowns and
underlinen, and here, too, he looked rather to simplicity than to
splendor. Instead of giving his daughter silk and satin robes, he
impressed upon her the wise saw: 'Mulier superbe amicta, in facie
picta, in sermone ficta--non uni vitio est addicta'--The woman who
flaunts in frippery, paints her face, and talks mincingly, is the
slave of more than one vice already. The husband must see to the
rest, and the husband in this case was but a poor, hungry parson,
whose benefice for a whole year to come would be but an empty title.
During all that time he must be content with a curate's pay. After
that, however, he would certainly do very well, especially if his
father helped him with a little ready money to go on with.
Meanwhile a journey had to be undertaken, and a journey in those
days was no joke. The mountain roads could only be crossed on horses
or mules, and the beasts, drivers and all, had to be hired. Then,
for security's sake, you had to wait till a regular caravan had
assembled, for the whole region was blackmailed in those days by
three powerful bands of robbers, whose leaders were called Janko,
Bajus, and Hafran. Janko was famed for his physical strength and
agility, Bajus for his craft and cunning, but Hafran, or Raven, as
the Slovacks called him, for his ferocity. Each of them commanded
from fifty-five to sixty men. Sometimes they all united and fought
regular pitched battles with the soldiers and police sent out to
capture them. It was, therefore, not advisable for single families
or small parties to undertake long journeys like that from Keszmár
to Zeb. One had to make arrangements months beforehand, and wait
till the dealers in cloth, haberdashery, and spices were ready to
set out with their wares for Eperies; these were then usually joined
by a dozen or so of butchers and cattle-dealers from Lower Hungary,
as many cattle-drovers, half a dozen strolling fiddlers, sundry
Slovack linen and oil merchants, and some thirty students traveling
homeward in vacation and provided with stout bludgeons; thereto
were, of course, to be added the drivers of those who had to make
the journey by horse or mule, or pay for the transport of their
goods, so that the whole caravan generally numbered one hundred and
fifty strong, and the robbers would think twice before venturing to
attack so large a party. On this occasion, moreover, Fortune added
to their company a Polish nobleman who had been on a visit to his
kinsmen in Hungary, and was returning home with an escort of forty
men-at-arms. Whoever was disposed to go a two days' journey from
Keszmár might safely commend his soul to God in such a goodly
company.
Now although the good and learned Professor David Fröhlich could not
endow his daughter with much worldly wealth, yet by way of
compensation he gave her richly of what he himself possessed, for
his parting present was a sack-load of wonder-working medicinal
herbs. Among them was the "weapon balsam," which he fully directed
her how to use in case her husband was wounded by the way. In such a
case she was first of all to stick into the wound a piece of wood of
the same shape as the weapon which had inflicted it, and then draw
it out and anoint it with the balsam. The wound would then
infallibly heal--in course of time. In case, however, of a gunshot
wound, when the bullet remained in the body, she was to beat flat
and bind upon the wound a leaden bullet which had previously shot a
wild boar, for it is well known that all such bullets attract and
draw out all other bullets. In one corner of the sack he stuck that
valuable counselor in all the ills of life, the book "Georgica
Curiosa," which was an inventory of all the healing herbs with which
the sack was filled. Nay, his love for his daughter made the worthy
man part with even his most precious talisman--the plague amulet.
This was a little blue silk cushion filled with the leaves of herbs
beneficial against the plague, and inscribed with the following
charm in letters of gold: "Longe, tarde cede, recede, redi!" which
is really a very good charm, for it means that one should hasten
away as far and as soon as possible from the place where the plague
prevails, and not return for a long time after it is all over. This
amulet the learned man had worn, fastened by a silken cord round his
neck, night and day for years. Now, however, he said good-by to it,
and the tears came into his eyes as he tied it round his daughter's
white neck, and whispered tenderly:
"Never take it off, my dear, never take it off! It was your
mother's."
Then the great scholar, after carefully observing the aspects of the
seven planets, was very particular to calculate beforehand a day
which, owing to a propitious conjunction, would be a very favorable
day for traveling, for warfare, for the donning of new clothes, for
courtships, and for making visits and purchases.
He took leave of his son-in-law and his daughter on the previous
evening, for the caravan was to depart before sunrise, while Orion
was in the ascendant, at which time the learned man would already
have surrendered his limbs to repose. Now, all the world knows that
whoever is involuntarily aroused from his slumbers at such a time
will wake up every day at the self-same hour for a whole year
afterward and not be able to go to sleep again: such a contingency
therefore was to be guarded against at any cost.
Pretty Michal wept long and sore when the time came to say good-by.
She wept for her good, affectionate father, for her flowers, her
serving-maids, her little room which looked out upon the garden,
her kitchen, bright with burnished copper vessels; but the
ungrateful little thing did not weep very much for the learned books
she left behind her, though, indeed, she could never cease to think
of those with whom she had had her daily conversation for years.
Nay, she so managed as to leave behind her the whole sack-load of
medicinal herbs collected with such wisdom, "Georgica Curiosa" to
boot. Instead of that she took with her one of her fan-tailed
pigeons, which she dexterously smuggled into her long pocket.
The amulet fastened round her neck she held in high honor, not
because it was a febrifuge, but because it was the solitary memento
of her mother which she possessed.
Her husband, also, was motherless. He, too, had never known a
mother's love.
Perhaps, too, she shed a few tears as she threw behind the fire a
certain carefully folded up bundle of papers. They were the
billets-doux which had reached her through the aërial post. She held
them tightly in her hand till the mules jangling their bells stood
before the door. Longer than that she could not hold them. She
fancied she had destroyed them when she had burnt them, but, alas!
the burning of those letters was only so much labor lost.
But joy always follows after sorrow.
Michal was going on a journey for the first time in her life. For
the first time in her life she was to see field and forest beneath
the open sky. Set in a frame of the most beautiful landscape, even
her husband looked better than he had ever looked before. Never had
she thought him so agreeable, and he cut quite a stately figure on
horseback; indeed, she scarcely recognized him as the same being who
used to trip so humbly after the professor with his books under his
arm, for he could sing cheerily among the students who walked along
by his side, and his merry laugh was heard from one end of the
caravan to the other.
The city walls of Keszmár and the well-known mountains had long ago
been left far behind, and Michal kept thinking to herself that she
was now her own mistress, and that she had a master who was at the
same time her slave. The house that she would henceforth call her
home would have a very different appearance from the one she had
just left. There would be no one to supervise or keep her in order;
she would have no other monitor but her own conjugal virtue. She
would be a model of a wife, upon whom all eyes should be fixed, and
of whom people would say: "Try and be like that God-fearing lady,
learn from her sobriety, decency, piety, frugality, and domestic
economy; learn from her how to speak sensibly in four languages, and
still more sensibly to keep silence." Thus she tried to discern,
through the enigmatical gloom of the future, the joys and delights
that her soul longed for, so as the better to accommodate herself to
her new position.
She was the only woman in the whole company.
A driver had been assigned to her, who was to lead her mule by the
bridle whenever the path went through a brook or over a stone, and
stimulate it whenever it had to clamber up the steep mountain-side.
He was an enigmatical Slovack lad, with bast shoes and a hat with a
brim drawn deep down over his eyes. "Gee!" and "Whoa!" were the only
sounds he ever uttered, and these were naturally addressed to the
mule.
The character of the region had suddenly and completely changed.
Mountains, pine forests, and roaring waterfalls succeeded one
another in rapid succession.
The numerous company sat them down on the fresh grass at the foot of
a shady tree by the side of a purling brook, and everyone produced
his knapsack, his wallet, or his flask. The wealthier of them shared
their good fare with the students, who expressed their thankfulness
by singing merry songs. There was one student who particularly
distinguished himself by his facetiousness, and whom everyone called
Simplex. He, too, introduces himself under that very name in his
contemporary memoirs, from which we have borrowed many of the data
of this our veracious history. He was an itinerant student, drummer,
and trumpeter, and a wag and good fellow to boot. He soon succeeded
in gaining Henry's goodwill, and he also favored the young bride
with his company from time to time, taking the whip out of the hands
of the sleepy driver and rating him soundly in Polish, which the
other endured without a murmur.
The jests of Simplex put the company in high good-humor. Even Michal
caught the contagion of the general merriment. The spicy, fresh air
seemed to relieve her mind of sorrow.
Suddenly, on reaching the summit of a lofty mountain, another
panorama unfolded itself before their eyes. The steep mountain wall
was succeeded by a deep glen, and the tops of the huge pine trees
massed together below seemed to the naked eye to be a meadow of a
wonderful green perpetually in motion. In the distance arose lofty
rocks, piled one above the other and split up by chasms full of ice
and snow. The path wound steeply down into this glen, where it was
already night, and by the side of the path ran a mountain stream,
which, pouring forth from the crevices of the granite rocks, plunged
downward in a hundred glistening columns like a crystal organ.
But it was not this splendid sight, but another, very strange and
very terrible, on the other side of the way, which riveted pretty
Michal's attention.
In the crevice of a projecting rock a lofty stake had been firmly
planted; on the top of the stake was a wheel, and on the wheel lay
something distantly resembling the shape of a man. The hands and
feet hung loosely down; the neck and skull were thrown backward and
reclined half over the tire of the wheel. Large black birds swept
slowly round and round, and though startled by the approaching
hub-bub were not scared away.
It never so much as entered into pretty Michal's mind what this
strange object could be, she had absolutely no name for it.
"What's that?" cried she with a shudder, involuntarily reining up
her mule.
But Henry was not there to answer her question. He had ridden on in
advance with the students, who had now begun to sing in order to
cheer the caravan during its perilous descent into the glen.
"That is the sign-post of the glen," said the driver; "don't look in
that direction, my lady!"
Michal turned her head toward the speaker, but she immediately felt
that it would have been far better for her to have riveted her
sorrowing gaze on that nameless, hideous object, than to have looked
into the eyes of him who had just addressed her, for the sight of
him filled her with unutterable anguish. Now for the first time she
recognized him. The silent, ragged driver was Valentine Kalondai!
"By the five wounds of Christ, it is Valentine!" murmured Michal in
a voice stifled with emotion.
"Then you have recognized me at last?"
"What do you want here?"
"To accompany you."
"Wherefore?"
"To serve you if you should need anything, to defend you if you
should be in danger, and, finally, to find out whither they are
taking you."
"Valentine," said the girl, withdrawing the reins of the mule from
the youth's hand, "it is sin to act thus. You will disgrace us both.
I am dead to you now. If you have ever loved me, bury me! Bewail me
as one who has died in the Lord. Make me not as one of those who
will hereafter rise up and accuse you before God! I am now a married
woman. I have plighted my troth to another. Not even for your sake
will I lose my hope of salvation. I beseech you by the tender
mercies of God not to pursue me. Remain here and forget that you
ever saw me! Here, in this frightful glen, where I know not what
awaits me, though I feel that it is full of horror, I cannot pray to
God to protect me from all danger while you are by my side. I would
not have the heart to go into those terrible depths if I felt myself
laden with sin and perjury. If you love anything which belongs to
me, oh, love my soul! If you would preserve me from harm, be jealous
of my honor! Remain behind, I say, and follow me no further!"
The young man opened his lips to say something in reply, but not a
word came forth, only a long-drawn sigh; a hot breath in the cold
autumnal air was it, or, perhaps, a part of his very soul? Then he
pulled his hat deeper down over his eyes and remained standing in
the way, while Michal on her mule ambled further on.
"Jacky, my boy!" cried a jesting voice in the ear of the startled
driver, and at the same time someone tapped him on the shoulder. It
was Simplex, the merry trumpeter.
"How far you have dropped behind your mistress!"
"Yes, and I will drop back still further, friend Simplex. She has
recognized me. She has driven me away. I have now but one favor to
ask of you. If you are really my friend, prove it by doing me a
great service. I cannot accompany her further. You do so in my
stead. If any evil befall Michal, stand by her and save her. You
have your wits about you and know the region thoroughly. Be near her
as long as possible. Let me know how it befalls, be it good or evil.
You will find me at Kassa, in my mother's house."
Nowadays we should hurl back such a commission at the suggester's
head. Nowadays everyone looks after himself, and no one is such a
fool as to run after a woman whom a second person loves and a third
person has married. But in former days men were different. Besides,
they had not so much to do then as they have now, and a social law
was then in force which has long since become obsolete, the law of
friendship. It was not codified, yet its authority was universally
deferred to and folios were written about it. This law of friendship
gave a man the right to demand great things from his neighbor, and
those who obeyed this law were bound together by stronger ties than
any ties of kinship. We shall presently give many examples to show
how much in those days the unwritten law of friendship was needed, a
law passed by no parliament, sanctioned by no monarch, enforced by
no tribunal, yet everywhere valid and effectual.
The trumpeter, contemptuously dubbed Simplex, promised to do all
that his friend required of him and gave him his hand upon it,
whereupon he hastened to overtake the lady, who was now some
distance ahead.
But Valentine Kalondai remained standing on the hillside listening
till the clattering of the horses' hoofs had quite died away. Then
he turned and walked slowly off, to the great joy of the crows and
ravens, who so long as he stood there did not venture to resume
their banquet beneath the gallows. Meanwhile Michal was trying to
overtake her husband, who was well on in front surrounded by the
merry students.
The road became rougher and rougher as it wound down into the
valley. The broad, well-wooded mountain-sides confined it within a
precipitously shelving glen. The brook zigzagged across it and tore
out the rolling stones, so that the very mules had to pick their way
cautiously along. At first the way wound among large blocks of
stone, but presently it ended abruptly at a yawning chasm among the
rocks. Here the mountain stream plunged, roaring and foaming, down
into a dizzy depth. Beyond the bridge the path reappeared, but now
it was confined more than ever between two steep rocky walls, down
the smooth slaty sides of which the moisture trickled continually,
diffusing a misty, cavernous sort of smell over the whole of the
dark rocky defile, which was overshadowed by nodding pine trees. The
mules no longer picked their way among rocks, but among bones. All
around lay the skeletons of men and of horses inextricably mixed
together.
"Is this a burial-ground?" asked Michal of her Henry, not without a
shudder.
But Henry had no answer ready. He said that he had never been that
way before; he had gone to Keszmár by another road over the mountain
ridge, a road which you could only pass on foot. But Simplex was at
hand and he explained the mystery of the bones strewing the way, as
he had heard it during his wanderings in the mountains from the lips
of his guides.
Many years ago, the troops of the Prince of Transylvania, with some
Turkish auxiliaries, had blockaded a regiment of Imperial cavalry in
this defile, and after breaking down the bridge leading to the glen
had massacred the whole lot without mercy. There was no place to
bury the dead, and so they had lain there ever since. The students,
from sheer mischief, now picked up two or three of the skulls and
trundled them along the road. No doubt they were not the first who
had amused themselves by playing bowls with dead men's bones.
"If Hafran were to catch you here, he and his merry men would play
at bowls with your heads also," cried Simplex, without however
either spoiling their good-humor or putting Michal in a better
humor.
In the evening twilight they came to the kopanitscha, where it was
advisable to stay the night. It consisted of a group of houses
formed of the trunks of trees, surrounded by a palisade of sharp
stakes, with loopholes at regular intervals. A low door, made of
heavy beams, led into the palisade, where, as the neighing of horses
promptly testified, other travelers had already arrived.
The door was opened to their knocking, and the first arrivals, among
whom were the students and the young married couple, were admitted.
Far behind toiled the merchants and drivers with their cattle and
heavily laden wagons, and last of all came the Polish nobleman and
his armed retainers.
There were enough barns and out-houses to accommodate them all. Hay
for fodder and straw for bedding were also to be had in abundance.
The host was cooking flesh in a large caldron on an open hearth.
One wing of the house was already occupied by a company of Polish
merchants, bringing cloth and spices to the Eperies market, and
accompanied by an escort of twelve hired soldiers, in helmets and
coats of mail, armed with swords and blunderbusses.
The wife of the kopanitschar, or host, a good-looking young person,
immediately took charge of the pastor's wife, whom she led into her
own private room, that she might not have to listen to the loose
talk which would certainly flow from the unwashen mouths of so many
men.
"For no one will close an eye here the whole night through,"
remarked the worthy woman confidentially. "Here in the mountains
lurk Janko, Hafran, and Bajus, all three of them!"
Michal asked who these three worthies were.
The hostess told her they were three robber chiefs, each more
terrible than the other. Hafran was cruel, Bajus a crafty rogue, but
Janko a true hero who knew not fear.
How the eyes of the woman sparkled when she mentioned Janko!
Michal asked her whether she was not afraid to live in so lonely a
place with so many robbers about.
"Oh! Janko will do us no harm," said the young hostess, smiling; and
Michal was still such a child that she gave no heed to the woman's
sparkling eyes and smiling lips.
The hostess then began to tell her how powerful the robbers were.
People were forever hanging, beheading, and breaking them on the
wheel, and yet they never seemed to grow less. The militia of three
counties combined with the Imperial troops were not strong enough
to root them out of the mountains. And then she kept Michal awake
till long after midnight by telling her of the adventures and
exploits of the robbers, and the terrible fate which awaited them at
the hands of the vihodar of Zeb.
"Who is he?" asked Michal.
What! not hear of the vihodar! He was the headsman of Zeb, a man
famed far and wide. They call him the vihodar. Every child knows of
him; but bandits, witches, and painted damsels know him best of all.
Michal's idea of these last three species of mankind was very vague;
she had never even heard tell of them before. She, too, told the
hostess whence she came, whither she was going, and how she had only
been married the day before, and this was the first night that she
and her husband had ever slept under the same roof.
About midnight Henry Catsrider came to his wife, and told her that
the region was not safe. The mountain path over which they had to go
was occupied by a band of robbers, and the number of the robbers was
great. It is true the caravan was also numerous, but the members of
it could not agree among themselves as to what was the best thing to
be done. The Polish nobleman, who had many musketeers with him, said
that he had not come all that distance to be shot down like a dog.
He would send to Janko and offer him a ransom if he would let him
pass through the glen unmolested. He was also willing to pay a
ransom for all who cared to join him. But the merchants and the
drovers would not agree to this, asserting that however willing the
robbers might be to negotiate when they had to do with armed
noblemen or poor ambulant students, they certainly would not allow
wealthy merchants and fat drovers to escape scot free. Not to defend
themselves, therefore, would be to lose everything. The fact is
they had been over-persuaded by the Polish merchants, who had
brought with them twelve Imperial soldiers, and were firmly
persuaded that they could keep the robbers at bay. All they wanted
was rainy weather.
"Why do they want rainy weather?" asked Michal.
"I'll tell you," whispered the kopanitschar's wife. "When it rains
the robbers cannot fire, because their lunts won't burn and the
powder gets moist. These twelve soldiers, however, have new-fangled
muskets, which are fired, not with a lunt, but by a flint; the flint
strikes upon a piece of steel, the steel gives out a spark, and the
spark fires the powder. They say that these cunning firearms come
from France. The soldiers would like to try them against the
robbers, and they only want rainy weather in order that the robbers
may not be able to fire upon them in return."
"But," remarked Henry, "the question is which party we ought to
join, the Polish nobleman's, who trusts in the clemency of the
robbers and will pay them a ransom, or the merchants', who rely upon
their firearms?"
"Join neither," said the hostess. "An idea occurs to me. I am sorry
for that pretty young creature. She was only married yesterday. I'll
be bound to say she has not kissed her husband yet. You must not go
with the merchants, for the danger will be very great. I know Janko.
When he is attacked he is like a bear with a sore head. He cares not
a fig for muskets, and does not value his life at a boot-lace. It
would not be becoming for you to be mixed up in a skirmish. It is
not a clergyman's business to fight. But neither must you join the
Polish nobleman and trust to the clemency of the robbers. I know
Janko. The sight of a pretty woman makes him like the very devil.
He would rather leave a sack of gold untouched than a pretty woman.
I should not like you to fall into his hands. But I have a third
plan ready. It would not do at all for a large company, but two or
three people might very well try it. My husband will lead you over
the mountain ridge, but let the horse, the mule, the drivers, and
the baggage go on with the Polish nobleman; and when they pass over
the bridge where Janko bars the way, and when the blackmail has been
levied, the drivers can halt at the Praszkinocz csarda with the
beasts and the baggage. Meanwhile my husband will guide you so
securely to the csarda that not a hair of your head shall be
rumpled."
Michal thought the advice good. It was the best way of escaping two
great dangers.
They put together in all secrecy what they needed most, entrusting
the remainder of the baggage to one of the drivers (the other had
evidently run away, for Henry could find him nowhere); the host
brought alpenstocks, bast shoes with nails in the soles, which they
put on forthwith, and they all set out in the gloom of twilight.
Suddenly they remarked that they were four. Simplex, the trumpeter,
was trotting on behind them. He said that as he was not inclined to
send his flesh to market he preferred scaling the mountains with
them to accompanying the merchants or the magnate.
Michal had no objection. It was only one familiar face the more, and
he had quite won her heart by his gayety and good-humor. Besides
that, he could help her to talk to the guide, who was a native Pole
and therefore unintelligible without an interpreter, for Simplex
could patter Polish very well.
The wish of the Polish merchants was gratified: it began to rain.
Scarcely was the little group half an hour's journey from the
kopanitscha, scarcely had it begun to ascend the footpath, when it
was enveloped in so dense a mist that only the experience of its
guide saved it from being lost in the wilderness.
The experienced mountaineer comforted them with the assurance that
the mist would not be long in their way, for it was nothing but a
descending cloud. They would soon be able to look down upon it with
a clear sky over their heads. By sunrise they would be among heights
never visited by clouds.
Simplex, on this occasion, approved himself a highly useful
traveling companion. To prevent the young wife from growing weary on
the slippery way, he hewed down with his hanger two young pine trees
and made a litter out of them, on which weary Michal was made to
sit, while he and the guide bore her between them over the most
difficult parts of the way.
The kopanitschar spoke Polish with the trumpeter in order that the
lady might not understand what they were talking about. He said to
him that if either of them were to slip, litter-bearers, lady, and
all would infallibly plunge headlong into the abyss, the bottom of
which could not be seen for the mists, though they could hear the
murmuring of the mountain stream far below them. Or if they lost
themselves in the thick mists and strayed into a chasm or a
snowdrift, whence not even a chamois could force his way out again;
or if they met the man-eating bear which haunted the forests; or if
they fell foul of the robbers' camp, then God have mercy on their
souls!
And while the young bride was thus sitting between them on her
litter, she took the fan-tailed pigeon from her pocket, and fed it
out of her hand and gave it drink from her lips, unconscious of the
thousand deadly perils which surrounded her, and whispered
caressingly: "My dovey, my darling little dovey!"
The young morning was now beginning to dawn, for the mist was
growing lighter and snow fell instead of rain; they had already
reached the Alpine regions.
"We are on the right road," murmured the kopanitschar; "there goes
the track of the bear through the juniper tree, and yonder is the
place by which the hares, the wild goats, and the buffaloes go up
every morning to drink out of the mountain tarn. We are close upon
the Devil's Castle."
But surely he must have been mistaken! How can that be the right way
which leads to the Devil's Castle?
"What is that shimmering in the bushes?" inquired Simplex anxiously.
"The eyes of a lynx," growled the guide; "he is on the lookout for
young chamois."
But a lynx has two eyes, and there was only a single bright point
shimmering there. It was the lunt of a musket, which someone was
hiding beneath his mantle to prevent it from going out.
"Halt!" cried a voice from the bushes, and at a distance of only ten
paces a wild shape sprang up, resting its heavy firearm on an iron
fork fastened in the ground. The robber did not aim at the two
rustically clad shapes who were carrying the litter, but at the
gentleman who was following a considerable distance behind.
"Jesus, Maria!" cried Michal, "he is shooting at my husband!"
"Don't shoot at him, Hanack!" cried Stevey to the robber, "don't you
see that he's a clergyman?"
The challenge was of use, the freebooter lowered his lunt. Possibly,
too, he was somewhat taken back at finding himself face to face with
three men, one of whom was armed with an ax and another with a
hanger; besides, he was not quite certain whether his powder was wet
or dry. He therefore used clemency and answered amicably:
"Oh! 'tis you, Stevey, eh? Whom are you leading?"
"A clergyman and his wife."
"Then it is a Lutheran! A lucky thing for him! Had he been a Papist,
I should have chucked him down that hole. But when you get to where
Hamis is keeping watch, tell him that you are guiding a Romish
priest and his sister, for he is ready to flay a Lutheran alive."
"Don't be afraid," said the kopanitschar kindly to the lady, "a
single robber will not think of attacking three men. This is the
outermost picket, the camp is down in that deep hollow yonder."
They hastened onward, and now Michal begged her husband not to lag
so far behind her.
The guide had calculated rightly that by ascending the steep upward
path through the bear's track they would reach the mountain's summit
before sunrise, by which time the clouds would lie below them. The
mists over their heads now began to clear away. As the rays of the
sun dissipated the snow clouds, it was as if millions of crystal
needles were shimmering in the air, till a gust of wind suddenly
swept them all away and revealed the clear blue sky. Then the sun
came forth amidst the Alpine summits. At first, however, they did
not see the sunrise to advantage, for their way led through a dense
grove of young pine trees growing up among the charred stumps of a
burnt forest. The litter was here of no use. They had to creep
through the young undergrowth on all fours.
The guide now told the travelers to remain where they were; he would
go ahead and look about to see if it was all right. With that he
crept cautiously forward among the thick bushes, taking great care
not to disturb the rustling leaves in the silent woods. In a little
time he came back very crestfallen. It was not safe. The robbers
were encamped close by the Devil's Castle.
Then Simplex also crept close to the extreme edge of the wood, and
there saw with his own eyes, at the foot of the old tower rising
above the steep precipices, forty men armed with muskets and axes
lying on the grass round a fire, on which a substantial breakfast
was broiling.
There are some insanely audacious ideas which only the extremity of
despair can suggest, and Simplex was just the sort of man to whom
such mad ideas would naturally occur. So now, too, he hit upon an
expedient which none but a devil-may-care ex-student with a taste
for adventure would ever have thought of.
"Listen, Stevey!" said he suddenly to the guide, "I'll scare away
all the robbers!"
"Stop!" cried the terrified guide; "are you mad?"
But the deed was already done. Simplex took the trumpet from his
shoulder and blew a mighty alarum that re-echoed far and wide
through forest and dale, and then he cried aloud: "Run! the soldiers
are coming!"
The robbers no sooner heard it than they sprang to their feet in
terror. Many of them even took the precaution to discharge their
firearms in the direction of the forest, so as to give the alarm to
their remaining companions who were encamped all about. A general
stampede ensued. Simplex kept on blowing his trumpet with all the
strength of his lungs; the guide threw himself with his face to the
ground, praying three different prayers simultaneously, and tossing
his arms and legs about like an epileptic; while Henry Catsrider,
in his agony, hastily climbed up a tree.
Now when pretty Michal saw the panic-stricken robbers scattering in
all directions, the guide in convulsions, Simplex trumpeting with
all his might and main, and her clerical husband hastily clambering
up the nearest tree, she could not refrain from bursting into a
hearty peal of laughter. If die she must, she might just as well
have one more good laugh before she did die. It could make not the
slightest difference.
But no sooner had the threatened peril been so marvelously averted
than the laughter of the pretty lady infected the trumpeter to such
a degree that he let his instrument fall to the ground; then the
kopanitschar also rose from the ground and burst into a hoarse
guffaw, and at last Henry Catsrider himself descended from his perch
and also burst out laughing.
The young lady thought how funny it is when man and wife laugh in
unison. It is perhaps a wife's greatest bliss to be able to laugh
when her husband laughs, and weep when he weeps.
But the kopanitschar gave the trumpeter a violent blow on the back
and said, half in jest and half in anger: "I'll never be your guide
again as long as I live! May the vihodar of Zeb get hold of you!"
Michal thought to herself how strange it is when a husband suddenly
breaks off in the middle of a peal of laughter as if he had had a
cold douche. Must not a wife in such a case also cease laughing?
"But now we must pack off as quietly as possible while the road is
clear," continued the kopanitschar. "We must not stop a minute till
we get to Praszkinocz!"
So they all took to their heels and tried to reach the Devil's
Castle as quickly as they could, where the fires were still
burning, and hacked and bloody pieces of bone, and half-roasted
hunks of flesh on huge wooden spits, were scattered all about. The
spring bubbling forth from the plateau formed, deep down in the
valley below, a small lake covered with water lilies and the broad
red flowers of the water clover. Hither came the wild beasts of the
forest to slake their thirst.
From the foot of the ruin the valley sinks abruptly down toward the
northwest, where it has quite a winterly aspect. The whole declivity
is covered by a layer of snow, which the rays of the sun are never
able to entirely melt. The sun only shows his face there for an hour
at noon every day, and what is then melted quickly hardens into a
coating of ice of a mirror-like smoothness. While on the
southeastern side of the mountain snow and rain are always falling
and clouds obscure the landscape, a bright sky smiles on the other
side and you can see as far as Poland. In the valley beneath, at
least two miles distant from the ruins of the Devil's Castle, lies
the little village of Praszkinocz. A serpentine path winds down the
slippery sides of the mountains into the village below, but few
people ever use it, save an occasional charcoal-burner or
wood-cutter.
"Alas, Stevey!" cried Simplex, shuddering at the sight of this
perilous descent, "we shall never get off with a whole skin that
way. 'Tis like the glass mountain of Prince Argyrus, and he, at all
events, had an enchanted horse to fall back upon. If we creep down
on all fours we shan't get there in two days, and what's to become
of this delicate creature?"
"Have no fear, trumpeter," said the guide calmly, and he set to work
felling a pine with his ax.
Meanwhile Simplex explored every hole and corner of the ruins to see
if he could discover any hidden treasure which the robbers might
have left behind, while Michal searched in the grass, which had been
protected from the snow by the overhanging pine branches, for
gentian and wood angelica, and great was her joy when she discovered
some specimens of those wonder-working herbs.
But Henry stood aloof, holding his forehead with his hands as if his
head ached.
As the pine branch fell to the last stroke of the ax, the roll of
musketry suddenly began to resound from behind the mountains. The
sharp volleys at once put an end to the composure of the party.
"Listen!" cried the guide; "the robbers have come to blows with the
soldiers over there," and with that he dragged the fallen pine trunk
to the edge of the declivity and poised it over the serpentine path,
with the hewn-off end pointing downward.
"And now to horse, to horse! You, trumpeter, get up behind. His
reverence must sit in the middle with his lady behind him, who must
clip him tightly round the waist. Each one of us must hold fast to
the branches on both sides, and draw up his legs so as not to get
entangled in the wayside shrubs and briars. I'll sit in front and be
coachman and pilot."
After thus assigning to everyone his place, the guide sat astraddle
on the thick end of the trunk, and the three men jogged the
dangerous vehicle along like a six-footed dragon till it toppled
over the edge of the slope.
"Forward, dragon! in Heaven's name, forward!"
The pine trunk, once set in motion, glided down the smooth,
mirror-like incline like a dart. The guide, spreading out his long
legs, steered it right and left, and when it flew down a little too
quickly, he sharply planted both his heels against the ground to
slacken speed, and cried:
"Wo-ah, dragon, wo-ah!"
No gondolier, no coachman, could have steered or driven more
skillfully. A single false shove, a single obstacle in the path, and
all four of them would have been hurled into the abyss below and
dashed to pieces.
But no footless serpent could have writhed more deftly down than the
pine trunk. It was a sight worth seeing, this lightning-like flight
down a mountain of glass.
"Holloah! hie! fly away, thou devil's steed!"
Silly Simplex, in a transport of delight, took the trumpet from his
shoulder, and catching the mane of the pine tree firmly by one hand,
blew a postilion-march with all his might.
"Holloah, ho! holloah, ho! This is the way the devil brings home his
bride."
Michal, too, loosed her arm from her husband's neck and began to
clap her hands for joy. What a rapture to fly down so swiftly! She
feared nothing, she delighted in the very danger. Her heart was
innocent. No sin oppressed her conscience. Well for her that she had
had sense enough to shut her ears against the tempter. If only the
shadow of a sin had now darkened her soul she would not have been so
blithe in the midst of danger, but would have looked down with a
shudder at the awful abyss which seemed both Death and Hell.
"Put your arms round me again or I shall fall off!" cried the man in
front of her. His face was as pale as wax. A vertigo had seized him.
And Michal had to hug him tightly lest he should lose his
equilibrium, and she clasped him to her breast till they got to the
bottom of the glen. The flight along the icy slope had lasted half
an hour, on foot it would have taken them half a day at least to
traverse it.
So they all thanked God that they had come off with a whole skin.
And it was not long before they had to thank God for much more than
that. At midday they were rejoined by their fellow travelers who had
come through the valley, and fearful tales they had to tell of the
dangers which they had encountered.
Janko, to whom a mounted messenger had been sent on beforehand to
negotiate with the robbers, had granted the travelers a free passage
thorough the defile, and the Polish nobleman paid for all those who
accompanied him, students included, the ransom demanded. But in the
meantime Hafran's robbers (it was these whom Simplex had scared away
with his trumpet from the Devil's Castle) fell upon the Keszmár
merchants who were marching far behind in the rear, cut down the
drivers, tortured the merchants, and carried off the mules and
pack-horses. But while they were thus making free with the booty,
the twelve soldiers, armed with their new-fangled muskets which
could be fired off even in rainy weather, fell upon the robbers, who
could not shoot because of the wet. About forty of the freebooters
bit the dust. Hafran, with the remainder, escaped by the skin of his
teeth among the rocks, contriving to carry the whole of the spoil
along with him, including the baggage of the young married people,
who now had nothing left but what they were actually wearing. All
the beautiful embroidery, lace, and fine linen which pretty Michal
had worked and woven with her own hands, an inestimable treasure,
had become the booty of these vagabonds.
"May the vihodar of Zeb break every one of them on the wheel!" cried
the kopanitschar.
At these words Henry's face became fiery red.
But Michal threw her arms round his neck and consoled him.
"Let us thank God," said she, "for so marvelously delivering us from
so great a peril."
She knew now what a great danger she had escaped, but she had no
idea of the still greater danger that she was about to encounter.