DON FUM’S MYSTERIOUS DIRECTIONS.—BULGER AND I SET OUT FOR
PETERSBURG, AND THENCE PROCEED TO ARCHANGEL.—THE STORY OF OUR
JOURNEY AS FAR AS ILITCH ON THE ILITCH.—IVAN THE TEAMSTER.—HOW WE
MADE OUR WAY NORTHWARD IN SEARCH OF THE PORTALS TO THE WORLD
WITHIN A WORLD.—IVAN’S THREAT.—BULGER’S DISTRUST OF THE MAN AND
OTHER THINGS.
According to the learned Don Fum’s manuscript, the portals to the World
within a World were situated somewhere in Northern Russia, possibly, so
he thought, from all indications, somewhere on the westerly slope of the
upper Urals. But the great thinker could not locate them with any
accuracy. “The people will tell thee” was the mysterious phrase that
occurred again and again on the mildewed pages of this wonderful
writing. “The people will tell thee.” Ah, but what people will be
learned enough to tell me that? was the brain-racking question which I
asked myself, sleeping and waking, at sunrise, at high noon, and at
sunset; at the crowing of the cock, and in the silent hours of the
night.
“The people will tell thee,” said learned Don Fum.
“Ah, but what people will tell me where to find the portals to the World
within a World?”
Hitherto on my travels I had made choice of a semi-Oriental garb, both
on account of its picturesqueness and its lightness and warmth, but now
as I was about to pass quite across Russia for a number of months, I
resolved to don the Russian national costume; for speaking Russian
fluently, as I did a score or more of languages living and dead, I would
thus be enabled to come and go without everlastingly displaying my
passport, or having my trains of thought constantly disturbed by
inquisitive travelling companions—a very important thing to me, for my
mind possessed the extraordinary power of working out automatically any
task assigned to it by me, provided it was not suddenly thrown off its
track by some ridiculous interruption. For instance, I was upon the very
point one day of discovering perpetual motion, when the gracious
baroness suddenly opened the door and asked me whether I had pared the
nails of my great toes lately, as she had observed that I had worn holes
in several pairs of my best stockings.
It was about the middle of February when I set out from the Castle
Trump, and I journeyed night and day in order to reach Petersburg by the
first of March, for I knew that the government trains would leave that
city for the White Sea during the first week of that month. Bulger and I
were both in the best of health and spirits, and the fatigue of the
journey didn’t tell upon us in the least. The moment I arrived at the
Russian capital I applied to the emperor for permission to join one of
the government trains, which was most graciously accorded. Our route lay
almost directly to the northward for several days, at the end of which
time we reached the shores of Lake Ladoga. This we crossed on the ice
with our sledges, as a few days later we did Lake Onega. Thence by land
again, we kept on our way until Onega Bay had been reached, crossing it,
too, on the ice, and so reaching the station of the same name, where we
halted for a day to give our horses a well-deserved rest. From this
point we proceeded in a straight line over the snow fields to Archangel,
an important trading-post on the White Sea.
As this was the destination of the government train, I parted with its
commandant after a few days’ pleasant sojourn at the government house,
and set out, attended only by my faithful Bulger and two servants, who
had been assigned to me by the imperial commissioner.
[Illustration: DEPARTURE FROM CASTLE TRUMP.]
My course now carried me up the River Dwina as far as Solvitchegodsk;
thence I proceeded on my way over the frozen waters of the Witchegda
River until we had reached the government post of Yarensk, and from here
on we headed due East until our hardy little horses had dragged us into
the picturesque village of Ilitch on the Ilitch. Here we were obliged to
abandon our sledges, for the snows had disappeared like magic,
uncovering long vistas of green fields, which in a few days the May sun
dotted with flowers and sweet shrubs. At Ilitch I was obliged to
relinquish from my service the two faithful government retainers who had
accompanied me from Archangel, for they had now reached the most
westerly point which they had been commissioned to visit. I had become
very much attached to them, and so had Bulger, and after their departure
we both felt as if we were now, for the first time, among strangers in a
strange land; but I succeeded in engaging, as I thought, a trustworthy
teamster, Ivan by name, who made a contract with me for a goodly wage to
carry me a hundred miles farther north.
“But not another step farther, little baron!” said the fellow doggedly.
I was now really at the foot hills of the Northern Urals, for the rocky
crests and snow-clad peaks were in full sight.
I turned many a wistful look up toward the wild regions shut in by their
sheer walls and parapets, shaggy and bristling with black pines, for a
low, mysterious voice came a-whispering in my inward ear that somewhere,
ah, somewhere in that awful wilderness, I should one day come upon the
portals of the World within a World! In spite of all I could do Bulger
took a violent dislike to Ivan and Ivan to him; and if the bargain had
not been made and the money paid over, I should have looked about me for
another teamster. And yet it would have been a foolish thing to do, for
Ivan had two excellent horses, as I saw at a glance, and, what’s more,
he took the best of care of them, at every post rubbing them until they
were quite dry, and never thinking of his own supper until they had been
watered and fed.
His tarantass, too, was quite new and solidly built and well furnished
with soft blankets, all in all as comfortable as you can make a wagon
which has no other springs than the two long wooden supports that reach
from axle to axle. True, they were somewhat elastic; but I could notice
that Bulger was not overfond of riding in this curious vehicle with its
rattlety-bang gait up and down these mountain roads, and often asked
permission to leap out and follow on foot.
At length Ivan reported everything in readiness for the start; and
although I would have fain taken my departure from Ilitch on the Ilitch
in as quiet a manner as possible, yet the whole village turned out to
see us off—Ivan’s family, father, mother, sisters, and brothers, wife
and children, uncles and aunts and cousins by dozens alone making up
people enough to stock a small town. They cheered and waved their
kerchiefs, Bulger barked, and I smiled and raised my cap with all the
dignity of a Trump. And so we got away at last from Ilitch on the
Ilitch, Ivan on the box, and Bulger and I at the back, sitting close
together like two brothers that we were—two breasts with but a single
heart-beat and two brains busy with the same thought—that come perils or
come sudden attacks, come covert danger or bold and open-faced
onslaught, we should stand together and fall together! Many and many a
time as Ivan’s horses went crawling up the long stretches of mountain
road and I lay stretched upon the broad-cushioned seat of the tarantass
with a blanket rolled up for a pillow, I would find myself unconsciously
repeating those mysterious words of Don Fum:—
“The people will tell thee! The people will tell thee!”
So steep were the roads that some days we would not make more than five
miles, and on others a halt of several hours would have to be made to
enable Ivan to tighten his horses’ shoes, grease the axles, or do some
needful thing in or about his wagon. It was slow work, ay, it was very
slow and tedious, but what matters it how many or great the
difficulties, to a man who has made up his mind to accomplish a certain
task? Do the storks or the wild geese stop to count the thousands of
miles between them and their far-away homes when the time comes to turn
their heads southward? Do the brown ants pause to count the hundreds of
thousands of grains of sand which they must carry through their long
corridors and winding passages before they have burrowed deep enough to
escape the frost of midwinter?
There had been many Trumps, but never one that had thrown up his arms
and cried, “I surrender!” and should I be the first to do it? “Never!
Not even if it meant never to see dear old Castle Trump again!”
One morning as we went zigzagging up a particularly nasty bit of
mountain road, Ivan suddenly wheeled about and without even taking off
his hat, cried out,—
“Little baron, I cover the last mile of the hundred to-day. If thou
wouldst go any farther north thou must hire thee another teamster; dost
hear?”
“Silence!” said I sternly, for the fellow had broken in upon a very
important train of thought.
Bulger, too, resented the man’s insolence, and growled and showed his
teeth.
“But, little baron, listen to reason,” he continued in a more respectful
tone, removing his cap: “my people will expect me back. I promised my
father—I’m a dutiful son—I—”
“Nay, nay, Ivan,” I interrupted sharply, “curb that tongue of thine lest
it harm thy soul. Know, then, that I spoke with thy father, and he
promised me that thou shouldst go a second hundred miles with me if need
were, but on condition that I give thee double pay. It shall be done,
and on top of that a goodly present for your _golubtchika_ (darling).”
“Little baron, thou art a hard master,” whimpered the man. “If the whim
took thee thou wouldst bid me leap into the Giants’ Well just to see
whether it has a bottom or not. St. Nicholas, save me!”
“Nay, Ivan,” said I kindly, “I know no such word as cruelty although I
do confess that right seems harsh at times, but thou wert born to serve
and I to command. Providence hath made thee poor and me rich. We need
each other. Do thou thy duty, and thou wilt find me just and
considerate. Disobey me, and thou wilt find that this short arm may be
stretched from Ilitch to Petersburg.”
Ivan turned pale at this hidden threat of mine; but I deemed it
necessary to make it, for I as well as Bulger had scented treachery and
rebellion about this boorish fellow, whose good trait was his love of
his horses, and it has always been my rule in life to open my eyes wide
to the good that there is in a man, and close them to his faults. But,
in spite of kind words and kind treatment, Ivan grew surlier and moodier
the moment we had passed the hundredth milestone.
Bulger watched him with a gaze so steady and thoughtful that the man
fairly quailed before it. Hour by hour he became more and more restive,
and upon leaving a roadside tavern, for the very first time since we had
left Ilitch on the Ilitch, I noticed that the fellow had been drinking
too much _kwass_. He let loose his tongue, and raised his hand against
his horses, which until that moment he had been wont to load down with
caresses and pet names.
“Look out for that driver of thine, little baron,” whispered the
tavern-keeper. “He’s in a reckless mood. He’d not pull up if the Giants’
Well were gaping in front of him. St. Nicholas have thee in his safe
keeping!”