ZEBULON'S BRIGHT IDEA.
Three thousand six hundred feet above the sea-level, on a height of
the Carpathian mountain range, a convivial party, consisting mostly of
army officers, was enjoying itself with wine and music. A splendid
view lay spread out before the merrymakers,--a wide-reaching landscape
lighted by the slanting beams of the western sun as it sank in golden
radiance beneath the horizon.
"Look there," RideghvAiry was saying, as he named, one after another,
the cities and villages that lay before them; "yonder lies the way to
Constantinople."
His words were greeted with a shout: "Hurrah! Long live the Czar!"
Glasses clinked, and the company struck up the Russian national
anthem. RideghvAiry joined in, and all uncovered during the singing.
"Don't you sing with us, Zebulon?" asked RideghvAiry, turning to his
friend, who sat silent and melancholy.
"No more voice than a peacock," was Zebulon's curt reply.
The crags about them gave back the tuneful notes, while far below the
long line of Russian cavalry regiments, on their march from the north,
caught up the song.
"See there!" cried RideghvAiry to Zebulon, pointing to the troops as
they wound their way southward toward the heart of Hungary; "now comes
our triumph; now we shall tread our foes under our feet. No power on
earth can withstand our might." His face beamed with exultation as he
spoke.
Zebulon TallA(C)rossy was out of humour. His present part had pleased him
so long as he had nothing to do but travel about with his patron, make
the acquaintance of foreign celebrities, and receive honours and
attentions wherever he went. That, he thought, was the fitting
occupation of a great statesman, and he had looked to this same kind
of statesmanship to bring everything to a quiet and orderly
conclusion. But when he saw that matters were not destined to flow on
so harmoniously much longer, he fell out of conceit with his rA'le of
statesman.
Returning with RideghvAiry to the town that lay beneath them in the
valley, he gave his friend and patron a hint of his dissatisfaction.
"Yes," said he, "she is a mighty power,--Russia; I don't know who
could withstand her. But what will be the fate of the conquered?"
"_VA| victis_--woe to the vanquished!" returned the other
sententiously.
"Well then," continued honest Zebulon, "let us suppose a case: what
about such a man as A-dAśn Baradlay, whom we and all his countrymen
esteem and love, and who, if his zeal has led him a little too far,
has yet been influenced by none but the loftiest motives,--what will
be done to him? A good man, fine talents, sure to be a credit to his
country--he ought to be spared."
"_Mitgefangen, mitgehangen_,"[6] quoted RideghvAiry briefly.
[Footnote 6: Caught with the rest, hung with the rest.]
For the rest of the drive Zebulon was silent.
In the evening, as RideghvAiry was looking over the passport blanks
which he kept in one of the pigeonholes of his desk, he missed the
very one to which he attached the greatest value. It was an English
passport with the official signature and stamp of the ambassadors of
all the intervening countries, the name and description of the bearer
being alone left blank. Such forms were commonly held in readiness for
secret missions. No one could have taken the missing paper except
Zebulon; and when he had reached this conclusion, RideghvAiry smiled.
In his comings and goings, the great man always took his friend with
him. But how explain the friendship which he manifested for him?
Easily enough. RideghvAiry was not a master of the common people's
language, and it was the common people that he wished to reach.
Zebulon was their oracle, their favourite orator. One needed but to
give him a theme, and he could hold his simple auditors spellbound by
the hour. In his expeditions, therefore, RideghvAiry knew that his
honest friend would be indispensable to him when it came to persuading
the good people that the invading hosts which passed through their
villages were not enemies, but friends, allies, and brothers. That,
then, was to be Zebulon's mission, and he already suspected as much;
but he had no heart for the task before him. RideghvAiry, in his
concern lest he should lose his spokesman, hardly let him go out of
his sight, and even shared the same room with him at night; otherwise
he might have found himself some morning without his mouthpiece.
Zebulon racked his brains for a plan of escape from his illustrious
patron, but all in vain. The patron was too fond of him. He had even
tried to pick a quarrel with RideghvAiry; but the other would not so
much as lose his temper. Since their last talk, however, Zebulon was
more than ever determined to shake off his affectionate friend.
"If you won't let me run away from you," said he to himself, "I will
make you run away from me."
He had been pondering a scheme of his own ever since he chanced to see
a Cossack eating raw cucumbers on an empty stomach. The Cossack
plucked the cucumbers in a garden, and munched them with the greatest
apparent relish. The plan was further developed as he watched the
preparation of a dainty dish for the epicures of the Russian camp.
Turnips and beets were cut up together, mixed with bran, and then
boiled in an immense kettle, the finishing touch being added by
dipping a pound of tallow candles into the steaming mixture. The
candles came out thinner, to be sure, but were still serviceable for
illumination, while the stew was rendered perfect.
Zebulon's scheme attained to full development when the cholera broke
out so fiercely in the Russian army that even a disastrous battle
could hardly have wrought greater havoc. RideghvAiry was mortally
afraid of the cholera, carried in his bosom a little bag of camphor,
wore flannel over his abdomen, shook flowers of sulphur into his
boots, always disinfected his room with chloride of lime, drank red
wine in the evening and arrack in the morning, and chewed juniper
berries during the day.
On this weakness of the illustrious man Zebulon counted largely for
the success of his scheme. Entering a druggist's shop one evening, he
asked for an ounce of tartar emetic. The apothecary was disinclined
to furnish the drug without a physician's order, but Zebulon cut his
objection short.
"Doctor's prescription not necessary," said he sharply. "I prescribe
for myself--exceptional case. If I say I must have it, that's enough."
And he received his _tartarus emeticus_, divided into small doses.
In the night, while RideghvAiry was asleep, Zebulon took two doses of
his emetic. Honour to whom honour is due! Every man has his own
peculiar kind of heroism. In Zebulon it was an heroic deed to bring on
himself an artificial attack of cholera at a critical time like that.
But his scheme worked admirably. The audible results of the double
dose of tartar emetic awakened RideghvAiry from his slumbers. With one
leap from his bed, he landed in the middle of the room, and ran into
the passageway, shouting: "The cholera is here! the cholera is here!"
He left his clothes lying in the room, and procured fresh ones to put
on. Whatever luggage and papers of his were in the bedchamber, he
ordered to be fumigated before he would touch them. Then, calling for
his carriage, he drove out of the town in all haste.
Meanwhile, Zebulon, after the drug had done its work, went to sleep
again and snored till broad daylight. With this _salto mortale_ he
disappeared from public life.