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THE SLAVES OF THE PADISHAH
[Illustration: Dr. Jokai Mor 1900]
The Slaves of the Padishah
("The Turks in Hungary," being the Sequel to
"'Midst the Wild Carpathians")
_A ROMANCE_
BY MAURUS JOKAI
_Author of "'Midst the Wild Carpathians," "Black Diamonds,"
"Pretty Michal," etc._
TRANSLATED FROM THE SIXTH HUNGARIAN EDITION BY
R. NISBET BAIN
[Illustration: SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE THIRD EDITION]
LONDON
JARROLD & SONS, 10 & 11, WARWICK LANE, E.C.
[_All Rights Reserved_]
1903
AUTHORISED VERSION
_Copyright_
_London: Jarrold & Sons_
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE GOLDEN CAFTAN 9
II. MAIDENS THREE 17
III. THREE MEN 31
IV. AFFAIRS OF STATE 41
V. THE DAY OF GROSSWARDEIN 52
VI. THE MONK OF THE HOLY SPRING 77
VII. THE PANIC OF NAGYENYED 93
VIII. THE SLAVE MARKET AT BUDA-PESTH 102
IX. THE AMAZON BRIGADE 112
X. THE MARGARET ISLAND 118
XI. A STAR IN HELL 125
XII. THE BATTLE OF ST. GOTHARD 134
XIII. THE PERSECUTED WOMAN 154
XIV. OLAJ BEG 169
XV. THE WOMEN'S DEFENCE 179
XVI. A FIGHT FOR HIS OWN HEAD 193
XVII. THE EXTRAVAGANCES OF LOVE 218
XVIII. SPORT WITH A BLIND MAN 233
XIX. THE NIGHT BEFORE DEATH 237
XX. THE VICTIM 261
XXI. OTHER TIMES--OTHER MEN 267
XXII. THE DIVAN 276
XXIII. THE TURKISH DEATH 293
XXIV. THE HOSTAGE 307
XXV. THE HUSBAND 313
XXVI. THE FADING OF FLOWERS 321
XXVII. THE SWORD OF GOD 327
XXVIII. THE MADMAN 340
XXIX. PLEASANT SURPRISES 349
XXX. A MAN ABANDONED BY HIS GUARDIAN-ANGEL 360
XXXI. THE NEWLY DRAWN SWORD 364
XXXII. THE LAST DAY 371
INTRODUCTION.
"Toeroek Vilag Magyarorszagon," now englished for the first time, is a
sequel to "Az Erdely arany kora," already published by Messrs. Jarrold,
under the title of "'Midst the Wild Carpathians." The two tales, though
quite distinct, form together one great historical romance, which
centres round the weakly, good-natured Michael Apafi, the last
independent Prince of Transylvania, his masterful and virtuous consort,
Anna Bornemissza, and his machiavellian Minister, Michael Teleki, a sort
of pocket-Richelieu, whose genius might have made a great and strong
state greater and stronger still, but could not save a little state,
already doomed to destruction as much from its geographical position as
from its inherent weakness. The whole history of Transylvania, indeed,
reads like an old romance of chivalry, cut across by odd episodes out of
"The Thousand and One Nights," and the last phase of that history
(1674-1690), so vividly depicted in the present volume, is fuller of
life, colour, variety, and adventure than any other period of European
history. The little mountain principality, lying between two vast
aggressive empires, the Ottoman and the German, ever striving with each
other for the mastery of central Europe, was throughout this period the
football of both. Viewed from a comfortable armchair at a distance of
two centuries, the whole era is curiously fascinating: to unfortunate
contemporaries it must have been unspeakably terrible. Strange
happenings were bound to be the rule, not the exception, when a Turkish
Pasha ruled the best part of Hungary from the bastions of Buda. Thus it
was quite in the regular order of things for Hungarian gentlemen to join
with notorious robber-chieftains to attack Turkish fortresses; for
bandits, in the disguise of monks, to plunder lonely monasteries; for
simple boors to be snatched from the plough to be set upon a throne; for
Christian girls, from every country under heaven, to be sold by auction
not fifty miles from Vienna, and for Turkish filibusters to plant
fortified harems in the midst of the Carpathians. Jokai, luckier than
Dumas, had no need to invent his episodes, though he frequently presents
them in a romantic environment. He found his facts duly recorded in
contemporary chronicles, and he had no temptation to be unfaithful to
them, because the ordinary, humdrum incidents of every-day life in
seventeenth century Transylvania outstrip the extravagances of the most
unbridled imagination.
No greater praise can be awarded to the workmanship of Jokai than to say
that, although written half a century ago (the first edition was
published in 1853), "Toeroek Vilag Magyarorszagon" does not strike one as
in the least old-fashioned or out of date. Romantic it is, no doubt, in
treatment as well as in subject, but a really good romance never grows
old, and Jokai's unfailing humour is always--at least, in his
masterpieces--a sufficient corrective of the excessive sensibility to
which, like all the romanticists, he is, by temperament, sometimes
liable.
Most of the characters which delighted us in "'Midst the Wild
Carpathians" accompany us through the sequel. The Prince, the Princess,
the Minister, Beldi, Kucsuk, Feriz, Azrael, and even such minor
personages as the triple renegade, Zuelfikar, are all here, and remain
true to their original presentment, except Azrael, who is the least
convincing of them all. Of the new personages, the most original are the
saponaceous Olaj Beg, whose unctuous suavity always conveys a menace,
and the heroic figure of the famous Emeric Toekoely, who, but for the
saving sword of Sobieski, might have wrested the crown of St. Stephen
from the House of Hapsburg.
R. NISBET BAIN.
_December, 1902._
The Slaves of the Padishah.
CHAPTER I.
THE GOLDEN CAFTAN.
The S---- family was one of the richest in Wallachia, and consequently
one of the most famous. The head of the family dictated to twelve
boyars, collected hearth-money and tithes from four-and-fifty villages,
lived nine months in the year at Stambul, held the Sultan's bridle when
he mounted his steed in time of war, contributed two thousand
lands-knechts to the host of the Pasha of Macedonia, and had permission
to keep on his slippers when he entered the inner court of the Seraglio.
In the year 1600 and something, George was the name of the first-born of
the S---- family, but with him we shall not have very much concern. We
shall do much better to follow the fortunes of the second born, Michael,
whom his family had sent betimes to Bucharest to be brought up as a
priest in the Seminary there. The youth had, however, a remarkably thick
head, and, so far from making any great progress in the sciences, was
becoming quite an ancient classman, when he suddenly married the
daughter of a sub-deacon, and buried himself in a little village in
Wallachia. There he spent a good many years of his life with scarce
sufficient stipend to clothe him decently, and had he not tilled his
soil with his own hands, he would have been hard put to it to find
maize-cakes enough to live upon.
In the first year of his marriage a little girl was born to him, and for
her the worthy man and his wife spared and scraped so that, in case they
were to die, she might have some little trifle. So they laid aside a few
halfpence out of every shilling in order that when it rose to a good
round sum they might purchase for their little girl--a cow.
A cow! That was their very ultimate desire. If only they could get a
cow, who would be happier than they? Milk and butter would come to their
table in abundance, and they would be able to give some away besides.
Her calf they would rear and sell to the butcher for a good price,
stipulating for a quarter of it against the Easter festival. Then, too,
a cow would give so much pleasure to the whole family. In the morning
they would be giving it drink, rubbing it down, leading it out into the
field, and its little bell would be sounding all day in the pasture. In
the evening it would come into the yard, keeping close to the wall,
where the mulberry-tree stood, and poke its head through the kitchen
door. It would have a star upon its forehead, and would let you scratch
its head and stroke its neck, and would take the piece of maize-cake
that little Mariska held out to it. She would be able to lead the cow
everywhere. This was the Utopia of the family, its every-day desire, and
Papa had already planted a mulberry-tree in the yard in order that
Csako, that was to be the cow's name, might have something to rub his
side against, and little Mariska every day broke off a piece of
maize-cake and hid it under the window-sill. The little calf would have
a fine time of it.
And lo and behold! when the halfpennies and farthings had mounted up to
such a heap that they already began to think of going to the very next
market to bring home the cow; when every day they could talk of nothing
else, and kept wondering what the cow would be like, brindled, or brown,
or white, or spotted; when they had already given it its name
beforehand, and had prepared a leafy bed for it close to the house--it
came to pass that a certain vagabond Turkish Sheikh shot dead the elder
brother, who was living in Stambul, because he accidentally touched the
edge of the holy man's garment in the street. So the poor priest
received one day a long letter from Adrianople, in which he was informed
that he had succeeded his brother as head of the family, and, from that
hour, was the happy possessor of an annual income of 70,000 ducats.
I wonder whether they wept for that cow, which they never brought home
after all?
Mr. Michael immediately left his old dwelling, travelled with his family
all the way to Bucharest in a carriage (it was the first time in his
life he had ever enjoyed that dignity), went through the family
archives, and entered into possession of his immense domain, of whose
extent he had had no idea before.
The old family mansion was near Rumnik, whither Mr. Michael also
repaired. The house was dilapidated and neglected, its former possessors
having lived constantly abroad, only popping in occasionally to see how
things were going on. Nevertheless, it was a palace to the new heir,
who, after the experience of his narrow hovel, could hardly accommodate
himself to the large, barrack-like rooms, and finally contented himself
with one half of it, leaving the other wing quite empty, as he didn't
know what to do with it.
Having been accustomed throughout the prime of his life to deprivation
and the hardest of hard work, that state of things had become such a
second nature to him, that, when he became a millionaire, he had not
much taste for anything better than maize-cakes, and it was high
festival with him when _puliszka_[1] was put upon the table.
[Footnote 1: A sort of maize pottage.]
On the death of his wife, he sent his daughter on foot to the
neighbouring village to learn her alphabet from the cantor, and two
heydukes accompanied her lest the dogs should worry her on the way.
When his daughter grew up, he entrusted her with the housekeeping and
the care of the kitchen. Very often some young and flighty boyar would
pass through the place from the neighbouring village, and very much
would he have liked to have taken the girl off with him, if only her
father would give her away. And all this time Mr. Michael's capital
began to increase so outrageously that he himself began to be afraid of
it. It had come to this, that he could not spend even a thousandth part
of his annual income, and, puzzle his head as he might, he could not
turn it over quickly enough. He had now whole herds of cows, he bought
pigs by the thousand, but everything he touched turned to money, and the
capital that he invested came back to him in the course of the year with
compound interest. The worthy man was downright desperate when he
thought upon his treasure-heaps multiplying beyond all his expectations.
How to enjoy them he knew not, and yet he did not wish to pitch them
away.
He would have liked to have played the grand seignior, if only thereby
to get rid of some of his money, but the role did not suit him at all.
If, for instance, he wanted to build a palace, there was so much
calculating how, in what manner, and by whom it could be built most
cheaply, that it scarce cost him anything at all, but then it never
turned out a palace. Or if he wanted to give a feast, it was easy enough
to select the handsomest of the boyars for his guests. Whatever was
necessary for the feast--wine, meat, bread, honey, and sack-pipers--was
supplied in such abundance from his own magazines and villages, that he
absolutely despaired to think how it was that his ancestors had not only
devoured their immense estates, but had even piled up debts upon them.
To him this remained an insoluble problem, and after bothering his head
for a long time as to what he should do with his eternally accumulating
capital, he at last hit upon a good idea. The spacious garden
surrounding his crazy castle had, by his especial command, been planted
with all sorts of rare and pleasant plants--like basil, lavender, wild
saffron, hops, and gourds--over whom a tenant had been promoted as
gardener to look after them. One year the garden produced such gigantic
gourds, that each one was as big as a pitcher. The astonished neighbours
came in crowds to gaze at them, and the promoted ex-boyar swore a
hundred times that such gourds as these the Turkish Sultan himself had
not seen all his life long.
This gave Master Michael an idea. He made up his mind that he would send
one of these gourds to the Sultan as a present. So he selected the
finest and roundest of them, of a beautiful flesh-coloured rind,
encircled by dark-green stripes, with a turban-shaped cap at the top of
it, and, boring a little hole through it, drew out the pulp and filled
it instead with good solid ducats of the finest stamp, and placing it on
his best six-oxened wagon, he selected his wisest tenant, and, dinning
well into his head where to go, what to say, and to whom to say it, sent
him off with the great gourd to the Sublime Porte at Stambul.
It took the cart three weeks to get to Constantinople.
The good, worthy farmer, upon declaring that he brought gifts for the
Grand Seignior, was readily admitted into the presence, and after
kissing the hem of the Padishah's robe, drew the bright cloth away from
the presented pumpkin and deposited it in front of the Divan.
The Sultan flew into a violent rage at the sight of the gift.
"Dost thou take me for a swine, thou unbelieving dog, that thou bringest
me a gourd?" cried he.
And straightway he commanded the Kiaja Beg to remove both the gourd and
the man. The gourd he was to dash to pieces on the ground, the bringer
of the gourd was to have dealt unto him a hundred stripes on the soles
of his feet, but the sender of the gourd was to lose his head.
The Kiaja Beg did as he was commanded. He banged the gourd down in the
courtyard outside, and behold! a stream of shining ducats gushed out of
it instead of the pulp. Nevertheless, faithful above all things to his
orders, he had the poor farmer flung down on his face, and gave him such
a sound hundred stripes on the soles of his feet that he had no wish for
any more.
Immediately afterwards he hastened to inform the Sultan that the gourd
had been dashed to the ground, the hundred blows with the stick duly
paid, the silken cord ready packed, but that the gourd was full of
ducats.
At these words the countenance of the Grand Seignior grew serene once
more, like the smiling summer sky, and after ordering that the silken
cord should be put back in its place, he commanded that the most
magnificent of caftans should be distributed both to the bastinadoed
farmer and to the boyar who had sent the gift, and that they should both
be assured of the gracious favour of the Padishah.
The former had sufficient sense when he arrived at Bucharest to sell the
gay garment he had received to a huckster in the bazaar, but his
master's present he carefully brought home, and, after informing him of
the unpleasant incident concerning himself, delivered to him his
present, together with a gracious letter from the Sultan.
Master Michael was delighted with the return gift. He put on the long
caftan, which reached to his heels, and was made of fine dark-red
Thibetan stuff, embroidered with gold and silken flowers. Gold lace and
galloon, as broad as your hand, were piled up on the sleeves, shoulder,
and back, to such an extent that the original cloth was scarcely
visible, and the hem of the caftan was most wondrously embroidered with
splendid tulips, green, blue, and lilac roses, and all sorts of tinsel
and precious stones.
Master Michael felt himself quite another man in this caftan. The Sultan
had sent him a letter. The Sultan had plainly written to him that he
was to wear this caftan. This, therefore, was a command, and it was
possible that the Sultan might turn up to-morrow or the next day to see
whether he was wearing this caftan, and would be angry if he hadn't got
it on. He must needs therefore wear it continually.
But this golden caftan did not go at all well with his coarse fur
jacket, nor with his wooden sandals and lambskin cap. He was therefore
obliged to send to Tergoviste for a tailor who should make him a silk
dolman, vest, and embroidered stockings to match the golden caftan. He
also sent to Kronstadt for a tasselled girdle, to Braila for shoes and
morocco slippers, and to Tekas for an ermine kalpag with a heron's plume
in it.
Of course, now that he was so handsomely dressed, it was quite out of
the question for him to sit in a ramshackle old carriage, or to bestride
a fifty-thaler nag. He therefore ordered splendid chargers to be sent to
him from Bessarabia, and had a gilded coach made for him in
Transylvania; and when the carriage and the horses were there, he could
not put them into the muddy wagon-shed and the sparrow-frequented,
rush-thatched stable, but had to make good stone coach-houses and
stables expressly for them. Now, it would have looked very singular,
and, in fact, disgusting, if the stable and coach-house had been better
than the castle, whose shingle roof was a mass of variegated patches and
gaping holes where the mortar had fallen out and left the bricks bare;
so there was nothing for it but to pull down the old castle, and to
order his steward to build up a new one in its place, and make it as
beautiful and splendid as his fancy could suggest.
Thus the whole order of the world he lived in was transformed by a
golden caftan.
The steward embellished the castle with golden lattices, turrets,
ornamental porches and winding staircases; put conservatories in the
garden, planted projecting rondelles and soaring belvederes at the
corners of the castle and a regular tower in the middle of it, and
painted all the walls and ceilings inside with green forests and
crooked-beaked birds.
Of course, he couldn't put inside such a place as this the old rustic
furniture and frippery, so he had to purchase the large, high, shining
hump-backed arm-chairs, the gold-stamped leather sofas, and the
lion-legged marble tables which were then at the height of fashion.
Of course, Turkey carpets had to be laid on the floor, and silver
candelabra and beakers placed upon the magnificent tables; and in order
that these same Turkey carpets might not be soiled by the muddy boots of
farmyard hinds, a whole series of new servants had to be invented, such
as footmen to stand behind the new carriage, cooks for the kitchen, and
a special gardener for the conservatories, who, instead of looking after
the honest, straightforward citron-trees and pumpkins, had gingerly to
plant out cactuses and Egyptian thistles like dry stalks, in pots,
whence, also, it came about that as there was now a regular gardener and
a regular cook, pretty Mariska had no longer any occasion to concern
herself either with garden or kitchen, nor did she go any more to the
village rector to learn reading or writing, but they had to get her a
French governess from whom she learnt good taste, elegant manners,
embroidery, and harp-strumming.
And all these things were the work of the golden caftan!