AT POABJA.
For an hour and more I was left to gnash my teeth in rage as I tore and
struggled fruitlessly to loosen the cords that bound me. In that hour I
endured the torments such as even hell itself could not have surpassed.
My violent struggles inflamed the hurt to my head until it throbbed as
if it would split; but all mere physical pain was lost and deadened in
the surpassing agony of mind.
The thought of that sweet, pure girl in the power of these crazy,
superstitious fanatics was unendurable; and had the torture continued
longer it would have driven me mad. Death threatened her every minute
she was in the hands of frenzied fools such as they were; and a hundred
possible ways in which they might murder her occurred to me, each
stimulating the passion of my fear and anguish.
At length the door of my room was opened and Petrov and another man
entered. The sight of him so maddened me that I strove to rise, bound
though I was, to wreak my fury upon him.
“No harm is meant to you, Burgwan,” he said.
My answer was a volley of curses and threats so vehement and furious
that he started back in alarm.
“No harm is meant to you,” he repeated.
“Loose these cords then, to prove it,” I cried.
His companion made as if to approach me when Petrov held him back.
“Not yet,” he said, turning pale with fear.
“It doesn’t matter when you do it. You know me, Petrov, and now mark
this. If I find that the least harm is done to Mademoiselle, I’ll make
you pay the price. And the price shall be your life. I’ll hunt you
down, if it costs me all I have in the world, and when I find you, God
have mercy on you, I won’t. That I swear.”
“She is a witch,” he said, doggedly.
“You lie, you treacherous snake. And if you value your dirty skin, see
that no harm comes to her.” It seemed to afford me some kind of relief
to abuse the beast.
“You told me so yourself,” he declared sullenly.
“Loose these cords and say that again, and I’ll tear your lying tongue
out by the roots.” I must have been beside myself to talk in this
strain; but it had its effect on him.
“She has come to no harm,” he said then.
“You may thank your God for that--if it’s true.”
“It is true,” declared the other man. “We came here to set you free.”
“Do it then.”
“Not while he threatens me,” put in Petrov, quickly.
“I know nothing about that. It’s the priest’s orders.”
I pricked up my ears at that and the great crushing weight of my fears
began to lighten.
“Say that again. And tell me what it means,” I cried.
“She’ll only be taken to Maglai,” said Petrov.
“Say that again,” I repeated to his companion.
“I don’t know what it means. I was told she had confessed to being a
witch and asked for the priest, that she might repent and be shriven;
and then we were told to come to unbind you.”
“Why the devil didn’t you say so then, when you came in, and do it at
once?”
“You’re too violent.”
“If all’s well with her, you can go to hell your own way.” The relief
from the strain was so intense I felt almost hysterical with sudden
joy, and I lay back and laughed aloud. The two men stood staring at me
wonderingly.
“What shall we do?” asked Petrov’s companion.
“If you disobey the priest, my good fellow,” I interposed, “you’ll see
what he says to you, and I’ll take care that he knows of it.”
Instead of replying, they left the room and fastened the door behind
them. I didn’t care now what they did. All was well in the matter that
had troubled me. Mademoiselle was unharmed and they might do with me as
they pleased. I could trust myself to get out of any trouble when once
I was in communication with my agents in Vienna.
All was well with her and the world was once more a place to smile in.
Then I began to piece things together and to figure out how such a
change could have been effected. Mademoiselle herself had found the
means of doing it all. I recalled her phrase about charming away the
anger of the people at Poabja, and the way in which she had cantered on
fearlessly when Karasch and I had counselled the other route to avoid
passing through the town. She must have had a strong reason for her
confidence. Brave as she certainly was, she would not have faced such a
risk voluntarily unless she had had good grounds to know she would pass
the ordeal successfully.
Who was she? What influence was she, a Serb of Belgrade, likely to have
in that out-of-the-way Bosnian village? On whom was that influence
exercised? The man said she had confessed to her witchcraft and asked
for the priest that she might repent and be shriven. The priest it
was who had ordered my release, and the priest it must be, therefore,
through whom she had been able to clear herself.
How? It was an easy inference that he knew her and that she had made
the pretended confession so as to get face to face with him. But why
had she told me nothing about him? “I have nothing to fear in Poabja,”
she had said; but not a word of the priest. And then I thought I could
see the reason. She did not wish him to tell me who she was.
Had I known of him she knew I should have sought him out first, or have
sent for him, and the secret would have been out before she could have
cautioned him to say nothing. Rather than that, she had risked entering
the place and facing the crowd. Yet she had offered once to tell me
about herself. At that point the apparent inconsistency beat me; and
the only guess I could make was that she had anticipated getting to the
priest without any such trouble as that which had befallen us.
I was more than content to lie there thinking in this way. It pleased
me to let my fancy run at random about her. I cared nothing who she
was. To me she was just Mademoiselle; and I wanted to know no more.
She had come into my life to stay; and nothing that she could be, and
nothing she could ever do, would alter that all-supreme fact for me.
Two days before I had never seen her. Forty-eight hours! But they had
been forty-eight hours of comradeship; and forty-eight years could
not blot out all that those hours had held for me, when I had been
in succession the peasant Burgwan, the brigand, and then the trusted
comrade and friend.
What had they held for her? I would have given much to know. Daring,
imperious, rebellious, yielding, solicitous, and at last utterly
content to trust as she had been in turn; what feelings lay beneath the
surface? How was I to read that conversation on the hillside? Why was
she so resolute that our parting was to spell permanent separation;
that I must not go to Belgrade, and must never seek to see her again?
I had not given the promise sought, of course. I would not give it.
What would she say if I told her that my visit to Belgrade, in my
character as financier was already arranged and that my hand had
already been felt in that unrestful little centre of Balkan policy.
Probably she knew nothing and cared little about Balkan politics or
finance; and I was indulging in half a hundred conjectures of her
reason for my keeping away from Belgrade when the two men entered my
room and brought me a note.
“From the priest,” said one of them.
But it was not. It was from her.
“All my troubles are over and you may be quite at rest about me. Give
your word not to hurt the man Petrov. I ask this. I ask, too, that
you will consent to remain where you are for two hours longer. Will
you do this--a last favour? For all you have done for me I cannot
thank you; I can only remember. Do you think me graceless and a churl
if I say our comradeship is over and if I go without seeing you? I
can only say in excuse, I must. To Burgwan from
“Mademoiselle.”
“I am taking Chris. You said I should alter my mind. I have. I will
treat him as what he has been--one of the comrades.”
I read the letter two or three times. At first with feelings in which
chilling despair, a sense of ineffable loss, and intensely bitter
regret overpowered me. It stung me like a blow in the face that she
could go like this, without even a touch of hands, or a parting glance.
She was safe, and I was nothing, or less than nothing to her. But at
the second and third reading very different thoughts were stirred. A
hope sprang to life in my heart great and wild enough to dazzle and
bewilder me.
Could it be, not that she cared nothing for me but that she feared for
herself in the hour of parting? Dared I hope that? Did she fear that
feelings, which she was all unwilling to shew, would force themselves
out in despite of her efforts in the moment of parting? Was it from
that part of herself, from her heart, that she was thus running away,
and not only from me? I prayed that it might be so.
Then a colder mood followed, cold enough to freeze that hope, at the
prompting of judgment. She knew nothing of me. To her I was just
Burgwan; at first peasant, then, on my own admission, an American
in such sordid surroundings as might well make her deem me a mere
adventurer. With that belief in her mind, she might well be at a loss
how to part from me--what to say and do, and whether she ought not to
make me some reward for what I had done.
The thought bit like a live acid with its intolerable sting; and yet
my judgment found reason after reason in support of it. I alternated
between a hot desire to rush out there and then and seek her, and a
stolid, dogged resolve to let her go and to live down the mad desire to
see her and explain all.
“You are to give us some answer,” said the man who had brought the
letter. The two had been watching me in silence during those few
distraction-filled minutes. “An answer concerning Petrov here.”
“You are safe from me, Petrov,” I replied. “I will let you go, but keep
out of my way for the future.”
“I meant no harm, Burgwan, on my soul none to you. I did what I did
for you,” he said, and stooped to cut the cords that bound my feet. “I
did wrong and am sorry.”
He was an idiot, but he couldn’t help that; and I let him free my hands.
“Get me some paper,” I said, and he hurried away and returned with it.
My hands were too numbed from the cords and the efforts I had made to
release myself for me to be able to do more than scratch senseless
hieroglyphics on the paper. I could scarcely hold the pencil, indeed,
and he and the other man chafed them until the blood was set in
circulation.
Even after some minutes of this I could only write in large, uncouth
letters--a sort of illiterate scrawl which was no more than a
caricature of my handwriting. But time was pressing. Mademoiselle might
be gone before my letter could reach her, so I wrote as best I could.
“I agree on condition that you see me. Burgwan.”
I spelt my name as she had been accustomed to pronounce it; and having
sent Petrov to deliver it, I ordered the other man to get me some food
and milk.
I had no appetite; but I had eaten nothing for many hours and knew I
must keep up my strength; so I forced myself to take it. The milk was
grateful enough, for I was feverish and consumed with thirst. But all
the time I was waiting impatiently for Petrov’s return with the answer
to my letter; and as soon as I had finished the meal I paced up and
down the low, narrow room feeling like a caged beast.
But my resolve was fixed. She should not go without my seeing her; and
when minute after minute passed and Petrov did not return, I could
barely keep within the house, and was seized with a fierce longing to
rush off to the priest’s house and find her.
At length the suspense and restraint passed endurance, and I went to
the door and shouted for someone. The man who had been with Petrov came
in response.
“Who is the priest who gave you your orders?”
“Father Michel.”
“Where does he live?”
“By the side of his church at the end of the long street.”
“How far is it? How long should it take to go there and return?”
“The man should have been back before now. I suppose they have kept him
while an answer was written.”
“Who are you?”
“This is my house. I keep the inn next door.”
“Where is my horse?”
“Your companion has them all. Karasch is his name, isn’t it?”
I had forgotten all about Karasch in my anxiety.
“Where is he and the horses?”
“They have been fed in my stables. There’s a bill to pay,” he added, as
though that was the most important feature in the whole case. I suppose
it was to him. I gave him a gold piece and told him to keep the change,
and so made a friend.
“Can you lead me to the priest’s house?”
“Of course I can, at need. But I was told you were going to remain here
a couple of hours. It is nothing to me.”
“See if Petrov is coming,” I said next. His words had recalled
Mademoiselle’s letter; and I was still anxious to do what she had asked.
He went out and after a minute or two, returned.
“He is coming down the hill now,” he announced.
“You can go then.”
“I shall be at hand if you want me,” he answered, and shut the door
behind him.
Petrov came a minute later and had a letter.
I tore it open with trembling fingers.
“Will you wait for me? Mademoiselle.”
I breathed a sigh of intense relief, and looking up, caught Petrov’s
eyes bent upon me. As he met my look he lowered his face.
“You can go,” I said, curtly.
“I want to serve you still, Burgwan.”
“I have no need for you. Go.”
“There is money due to me.”
“How much?”
He named a sum and I gave it him, saying that rightfully he had
forfeited it by his disobedience. He counted it slowly as if to make
sure it was right.
“I want to serve you still, Burgwan,” he repeated.
“I tell you I have no need for you.”
“About that Austrian Government officer, Burgwan, Captain Hanske?” It
was said with sly suggestiveness.
“Well?”
“Where is he? He stayed with you and has not been seen again. No one
but me knows you saw him last.”
I laughed.
“Are you threatening me?”
“No. I want to serve you. Is he dead?”
“You insolent dog. No.”
“What did you do with him? I’ve kept my lips closed.”
“Closed or open it’s all one to me. Say what you like to whom you like.
But get away from here.”
“I want to serve you, Burgwan. You can pay. Not only about him, but
about that, too;” and he pointed to the letter.
“What the devil do you mean?”
“I was a long time gone, wasn’t I?”
“Well?” His manner and tone were full of suggestion.
“I can serve you. I can help you to get those three thousand gulden!”
“Three thousand gulden!” I exclaimed, utterly at a loss for his meaning.
“Yes, the three thousand waiting to be paid at Maglai.”
Then I understood and burst into a laugh.
“I think you’re making a pretty considerable ass of yourself, Petrov;
but I’ll listen to you.”
“You meant to take her to Maglai, you and Karasch. You knew she was no
witch and meant to earn the reward. Well, I can help you now, if you’ll
give me my share.”
My first impulse was to kick him out of the room and I started angrily
to obey it; but then a very different thought stopped me. He knew
something that I ought to know. He took me for a scoundrel enough
to betray Mademoiselle in this way and thought he could sell this
knowledge of his at the price of a share in the reward.
“Why were you so long away?” I asked, seizing on the vital point.
“What share am I to have?”
“Half the reward when I receive it.”
“You swear that?” he asked slowly.
“Tell me what you know,” I cried, sternly.
“Does she say she’ll come here?” he asked, pointing again at the note
in my hand.
“Yes.”
“Ah. She’s gone and if we’re to get her into our possession again we
shall have to be quick.”
“Gone? Where?” I exclaimed, aghast at the check.
He threw up his hands.
“To Samac. But you haven’t taken that oath about my share.”
“You infernal villain. Do you think I mean to harm her? Out of the
way;” and dashing him aside, I called for the other man and told him I
must have my horse at once.
Then I turned back to Petrov.
“How long has she been gone?” I asked.
“I shan’t say. I’ve lied to you, Burgwan.”
“Here;” and I took out some gold pieces. “These are yours if you tell
the truth.”
“She’s gone on the road to Samac, Burgwan, in a carriage which the
priest found for her, and has about half an hour’s start. They kept me
from coming back to you.”
Karasch came up then with his horse and mine, and in a moment I was in
the saddle dashing in hot haste up the winding street.