THE BALKAN TRAIL
At Salonika we entered a Europe which was new to me, if an old story
to Nikka, a Europe which was blended with the life and color and form
of the Orient. Tall minarets like fingers of doom pointed skyward
over bulbous domes, and driving to the railroad station through
blocks of shabby houses that had replaced an area ravaged by fire, we
heard the high-pitched, wail-call of the muezzin.
Jews in long, black gaberdines; Albanian Arnauts, Tosks, Ghegs and
Malissori tribesmen, stately and savage; Greek mountaineers in the
dirty, starched fustenella; tall Serb peasants, with the bearing of
nobles and the faces of poets; Bulgars, stolid, imperturbable and
level-eyed; hawk-nosed Ottoman Turks in tasseled fezzes; Armenians,
fawning and humble; lank, hungry Syrians; treacherous-looking Greeks
of the Peninsula; Greeks of the Islands, beautiful as statues by
Phidias; Roumanians, with heavy black brows and the stocky build of
Trajan's legionaries; Tziganes, lean and gaudily dressed; Kurds with
cruel eyes and the bow-legs of a race of horsemen;--all the races of
the Near East swarmed and crowded and cursed and pushed along the
untidy sidewalks.
"This is No Man's Land," said Nikka as our dilapidated automobile
forced a slow progress through the congested traffic. "All races
here hate one another. We are two hundred years behind western
Europe. Here treachery is the rule. Might is right. The strong
hand takes all. Women are inferior beings--save amongst my own race."
His thin face lit with a smile.
"Many things can be said against my people, but we give our women
freedom. Yet over us, as over all the other peoples, still hangs the
shadow of Islam, shutting out the sun, denying culture, restricting
thought."
At the railroad station we fought for places in a first-class
compartment, which had room for six and must accommodate eight. The
second and third-class cars were jammed to the doors. Women wept,
children howled and men swore and struck each other and their women
indiscriminately. In the midst of it all, with one warning
whistle-blast, the train lunged out of the station, shaking off
superfluous passengers as it jolted over the switch on to the main
line.
That was a dreadful journey, not long as regards distance, but
tediously protracted in time. The country grew steadily more
mountainous as we left the coast. The engine panted and heaved; the
cars rattled and shook. At frequent intervals we stopped by some
station, and the scenes of our departure from Salonika were repeated
according to scale. But the engine toiled on, and in the full tide
of hours we crawled over a mountain-ridge and saw the sun rising in
the east beyond the close-packed roofs of Seres.
It was a town that seemed to huddle together as though in fear, and
there were great gashes and gaps in its lines of white-washed
house-walls, relics of three wars, each of which had taken toll of
its citizens. Here and there a church or a mosque, a school or a
government building, rose above the level of two-story dwellings.
But it had none of the teeming squalor and gorgeous conflict of
colors that made Salonika so effective a gateway.
Nikka commandeered a fiacre in the station-square.
"Do you know the house of Kostabidjian the moneylender?" he asked the
driver in Greek that sounded more than passable to me. "Very well,
then, drive us there."
"Who is Kostabidjian?" I inquired as the driver whipped up his small
horses.
A dour, secretive look had settled on Nikka's face in the last two
days. His eyes had narrowed, and their gaze was fixed upon the far
horizon when they were not shrewdly surveying the appearances of
people around him.
"He is the agent of the tribe," he replied shortly. "It was through
him I sent word to my uncle."
I held my peace after that. We drove for half an hour into the
northeastern suburbs, where the houses became little villas, with
courtyards and small gardens, and sometimes orchards behind. At last
we stopped at a gateway overhung by olive-trees, and the driver got
down to pull the bell-wire which protruded from an opening by the
gate. The solemn clangor echoed faintly, and was succeeded by
shuffling foot-steps. A wicket opened, and a dark, bewhiskered face
was revealed. Nikka ejaculated a single sentence in the Gypsy
dialect that Toutou's gang sometimes used, and the gate swung ajar.
I gave the driver of the fiacre a couple of drachmas, and followed
Nikka inside.
The individual with the whiskers, a dried-up, elderly man, quickly
fastened the gate again, with a sidewise look at Nikka, half respect,
half fear. The courtyard was empty, save for some ponies and mules
under a shed at the rear, and the custodian motioned to us to follow
him to the house.
At the door, he stood aside and ushered us into a parlor furnished in
the French style. Off it opened a dining-room. A stout,
smooth-faced, elderly man rose from a desk as we entered. He started
to salaam, thought better of it, and offered his hand, which Nikka
grasped perfunctorily. Then he commenced to speak in the Tzigane
dialect, and Nikka cut him off.
"Speak French," said Nikka curtly. "I have no secrets from my
friend, Mr. Nash." And to me: "This is Monsieur Kostabidjian."
Kostabidjian bowed to me.
"My poor home is honored, indeed, by two such distinguished guests,"
he protested. "Monsieur Zaranko, it is many years now since I had
the pleasure of meeting you, but you will find that I have executed
all your commissions faithfully."
Nikka smiled sarcastically.
"You would not be alive and whole if you had not," he commented.
"Surely, you do not mean that you think I would do anything else,"
cried Kostabidjian.
"I mean I am sure that you do as I command," returned Nikka
impatiently. "Also, that I feel I do not have to rely upon your
honesty in the matter. Now, what news have you for me?"
Kostabidjian--he was an Armenian of uncertain parentage, I afterwards
discovered, with the ingrained servility pounded into that
unfortunate race by centuries of oppression--drew up chairs for us.
"The telegram was forwarded at once to the Chief," he answered. "But
Wasso Mikali sent back word yesterday that he would be delayed in
waiting upon you in consequence of a caravan of cartridges which the
band are running into Albania. It is an affair which has attracted
his attention for the past month, and he dares not trust the work to
another."
"Does he, himself, go to Albania?"
"No, Monsieur Zaranko. But the starting of the caravan, and the
paying of the purchase-price--"
"In advance?"
"Of course."
"Good," said Nikka. "When will he be here?"
"He spoke of to-morrow--"
"Then serve us food, and lead us to a room where we may rest."
The Armenian clapped his hands, and the old man with the
whiskers--who was dumb in consequence of having had his tongue cut
out in one of the Turkish massacres of the red past--returned and
carried word in his own fashion of our wants to the kitchen.
Presently we sat down in the dining room to a hot meal of pilaf, with
chicken, dough cakes and coffee, which Kostabidjian pressed upon us
officiously.
"It has been a hard year for the tribe, Monsieur Zaranko," he purred,
rubbing his hands together. "I don't know what they would have done
without your aid."
"The subject is not for discussion," rapped Nikka.
"Oh, ah! Certainly!"
And he was quiet for a few minutes. Then his loquacity gained the
better of him, and he burst forth:
"It's not as it used to be in the Balkans, gentlemen! The law
doesn't run any stronger. I'll say that. And boundaries are still
vague, for all that the great ones in Paris decided. But people are
poor as Hajji Achmet after he'd been to Mecca. They earn nothing,
and have nothing--and therefore there's nothing to take or to steal.
Hee-hee-hee!"
"You talk nonsense," said Nikka savagely. "Am I to be annoyed by
such as you?"
No prince could have been more arrogant; no lackey could have
succumbed more completely.
"P-p-par-d-dd-don!" The Armenian's teeth rattled.
"You may go. I will summon you if I have need."
The man went like a whipped dog, and cowered over his mysterious
accounts at the desk in the next room.
Nikka sat through the meal with a black frown on his face. He was
plainly out of sorts, and while I could understand his aversion to
Kostabidjian, I was secretly amazed by the constantly growing change
in his manner, for he was normally of a uniformly pleasant
disposition. But it was not until we had been shown to a bedroom on
the upper floor that he unmasked his feelings. I began to undress,
but he paced the floor restlessly from wall to wall. Suddenly he
turned on me:
"Jack, I hope I haven't insulted you in the past twenty-four hours."
"I'm not aware of it, if you have," I returned cheerfully.
"I'm having a hell of a time," he groaned. "The two selfs in me are
wrenching at my soul. There's Nikka, the Gypsy freebooter, who has
been dead for years, and against him fights Nikka, the artist and man
of the town. Neither of them owns me. Until the other day--except
now and then when the old self reared its head temporarily--I thought
I had thrust the Gypsy behind me. But I was a fool to think so,
Jack. God, what a fool! Why, the music in me always was Gypsy!
"But I thought I had submerged it, drowned it. I thought I was like
you and Hugh. I know better now. Since we started east I have felt
these half-dead instincts rising up in me, clutching at my soul,
tormenting my intelligence. The hunger for the open road, contempt
for order and law, the mastery of my own will, all these things call
to me. And yet, Jack, I feel ashamed! I feel ashamed to bring you
here, to have you meet the fellow downstairs, who, when all is said
and done, is the agent through whom my people dispose of what they
steal and smuggle.
"For that's the truth, Jack! My people are not like Toutou's gang.
But they are Gypsies. They live by their own hands, and every man's
hand is against them. They make their own laws, and abide by their
own customs. They take what they need, and consider it their due.
Kostabidjian spoke of my uncle's running cartridges to Albania. I
know what it means. After the War there were vast stocks of
ammunition scattered all over the Balkans, treasure trove to such
wild peoples. The Allies ruled that it should be surrendered or
destroyed. But do you suppose it was? Never!
"It was stolen, hidden and smuggled. I would swear that my tribe
have sold it to Kemal Bey, to the Russian Soviets. Now, the Greeks
and the Serbs are pressing down on the Albanians, and my uncle sells
to the Albanians. If he can, too, he will sell to the Greeks and the
Serbs; and he will take--steal, if you like--whatever of value he can
get from all three of them.
"I tell you all this, because I don't want to fly false colors with
you. I lived that life when I was a boy. But I should like to make
you understand that in some way, by some esoteric, involved,
well-nigh impenetrable process of psychology, it is not stealing in
the sense that Toutou steals. My people have been outcasts for
centuries; they have been bred up in this way of life. It is as
natural for them to take what they need, and thrive on other people's
needs, as it is for the Arabs to practice the same methods in
battling the hardships of the desert.
"It isn't wrong in their eyes. Put it that way. And I--I can see it
both ways, Jack. I can see how wrong it is, and I can see how right
it seems to them."
I dropped my hand on his shoulder.
"You don't need to say all this to me," I told him. "Why, Nikka,
it's--it's--"
"It's what? Hard to understand!"
"Easy to understand," I corrected. "Hard to phrase. But I know you
too well to worry about you. As for the wrench, I'm beginning to
feel it myself."
Nikka resumed his restless pacing.
"I don't mind anything so much as that oily Armenian downstairs," he
insisted. "He--he is dishonest. And we make him dishonest. Not
that I've used him so, Jack. Most of what I earn goes to my people,
who need it, poor souls, especially since the War laid its blight on
all south-eastern Europe. Kostabidjian is one of the agents I employ
to distribute my funds. I use him because of his connection with my
uncle's tribe."
"Most of us have to use dishonest helpers occasionally," I said.
"I'd hate to have to guarantee every business associate of mine. But
can we trust this man, Nikka? If he's all you indicate him, isn't he
likely to sell us out?"
"He'd sell us out in a minute, if he dared," rejoined Nikka, with a
tight-lipped smile. "But he knows that if he did he would get a
knife in him. It would be only a question of time."
"Nice company you've dragged me into," I grumbled. "Well, let's
catch up on our sleep."
His outburst had eased Nikka's nervous tension, and he soon dozed
off. For a while I watched the afternoon sunlight outside the
windows, then the weariness of our travels overcame me, and I, too,
slept.... I woke abruptly, feeling a light blazing in my eyes. My
first thought was of Toutou and Hélène de Cespedes, and I dived under
the pillow for my automatic and sat up at the same time.
A man was standing in the doorway of the room, with a kerosene lamp
in his hand, a tall man, with the proud face of an eagle. Wisps of
silver-white hair escaped from the varicolored turban that wrapped
his brows, but he held himself with the erect poise of youth. He was
dressed in tight breeches of brown cloth, and a blue shirt and short
red jacket. Flat sandals of bull's-hide, sewed to a point at the
toes, were laced over his bare feet by straps that wound across his
insteps and above his ankles. Around his waist was twisted a heavy
sash, bristling with knives and pistols.
As I prodded Nikka awake, he closed the door behind him and set the
lamp on a table, calmly ignoring my pistol. Nikka, rubbing the sleep
from his eyes, took one look at the apparition and jumped from the
bed.
"Wasso!" he cried.
The stranger raised fingers to lips and breast in a graceful salaam,
and replied in the Gypsy patois, a cadenced, musical speech when used
by those to whom it was a mother-tongue. Nikka grasped his hand, and
exchanged a rapid-fire of question and answer, then called to me:
"This is my uncle. He arrived sooner than he expected. He guessed
my need was great, and traveled without respite. Come and meet him."
Wasso Mikali rendered me a salaam and a handshake. His bright eyes
surveyed my face, and he made a comment which drew a laugh from Nikka.
"My uncle thinks you have the look of one who likes to know how many
cartridges his enemy carries," Nikka translated.
The old Gypsy sank to his haunches on the bare floor, with a sweeping
gesture of invitation to both of us to join him.
"No, no," exclaimed Nikka as I started for a chair. "He has never
sat on a chair in his life. Do as he does or he will think you are
trying to demonstrate how different you are."
So I crouched cross-legged beside them--it seemed to be easy enough
for Nikka to resume the ways of his boyhood--and concealed my
discomfort as stoically as I could. It was close to midnight when we
were awakened, and the talk with Wasso Mikali lasted for several
hours. First, Nikka explained to him the circumstances of our trip
to Constantinople, and the old man's eyes glistened at the mention of
the treasure. He interrupted with a liquid flow of polysyllables.
"He says," Nikka interpreted, when he had finished, "that he has
heard about it. It is just as I told you and Hugh, the tradition is
known all through the Balkans. He says that the treasure is
concealed in an ancient palace in Stamboul which has been inhabited
longer than men can remember by a tribe of Gypsies whose chief is one
Beran Tokalji. He says that this Tokalji is a great thief--" Nikka
grinned ruefully--"that comes well from my uncle, Jack, and that
there is a rumor amongst the tribes that he, Tokalji, is an ally of a
group of Frank thieves. There is a tradition in Tokalji's tribe that
their forefathers believed the treasure ultimately would go to them."
"Will he help us?" I asked eagerly.
Nikka gave me an odd look.
"His tribe are mine. My wish is their wish. How can they refuse?"
"Yes," I insisted, "but how much will they want? Is it safe to tell
him all this?"
Nikka's face flushed purple. For a moment I thought he would strike
me. Then he turned, and shot a question at the old Gypsy, who
replied with an amused grin.
"I did not repeat your second question," said Nikka coldly. "He
would not have taken it in good grace even from me. But I did tell
him your first. Do you want to know just what his answer was?"
"Yes," I said, "and I say, Nikka, don't be uppish because I don't
know the ropes about your damned family. Man dear, this is all new
to me!"
Nikka relented at once.
"My fault," he apologized, slightly shamefaced. "This Gypsy complex
I told you about plays funny tricks with me. But--" and his grin
duplicated Wasso Mikali's--"My uncle's precise answer to your first
question was that he would consider 'the spittle of his sister's son
ample payment for whatever he could do.' He meant it, too."