THE ATTACK ON THE CHURCH
Down in the Ukraine that winter when men went about from habitation to
habitation on the little horses that had noses so pointed that they
could poke them through the snow and eat the dry grass of the steppe
beneath, it was known that a great change had come over a certain
Bogdan, called the Terrible along the Dnieper and Volga, and Peter of
the Button Face among the Polish colonists. It was not that he had lost
so much hair that certain ones called him behind his back Bogdan of the
Singed Locks, that made him sad and contemplative instead of boisterous
and ready as he had once been—it was the effect of some failure that
brought on despondency and kept him a recluse for several months. When
he did return at length to men’s sight and began to appear in the
taverns, his hair had grown to its accustomed length and a huge scar
that fire had made was nearly healed over. It was hinted, too, that he
had made a journey clear up to the land of the Muscovites and had had
conference with Ivan, called the Great, but this he did not speak about,
and men dared not question him.
Spring came with the month of March in the year 1462, with peace over
all the Dnieper lands, save where here and there tribes were on the
march, or the Tartars were threatening raids. With spring set out Bogdan
the Terrible, and with him traveled as fine a crowd of cutthroats and
cattle stealers as ever the Ukraine knew. They rode to Rovno, the town
of the Level Plain, and then struck out for Chelm on the border just
beyond the River Bug. They established headquarters in the Lublin Woods
for a time, for the purpose of pillaging, and then hearing that soldiers
had been sent after them, they vanished into the swamp lands to the
north and were not heard of again in those parts.
It seems that Peter had opposed this pillaging from the first, because
he had other work in hand, but they were tribesmen and wild, fond of
robbery and theft and eager for gain.
At Tarnov, having them well in hand again, he organized them into a
caravan of Armenian rug merchants and marched them—carts, horses and
merchants—to Krakow, the great market of the eastern part of Europe. In
Krakow they camped with their wares in the square on the east side of
the Cloth Hall.
Now the saddest man in Krakow at this time was Pan Andrew
Charnetski—sad because he had lost, through no fault of his own, a
treasure which he had intended to present to the King of Poland, and
evidently a treasure of great worth since certain men seemed to envy him
its possession. Jan Kanty sought to comfort him, and his wife and son
and Elzbietka did much to divert his thoughts from the seriousness of
the loss, but on the long nights when he was alone in the tower, moods
of depression would often engulf him.
Joseph, knowing this, took to visiting him in the night vigils when it
was possible, before holy days and vacations when there was no collegium
on the following morning; often he would come with his father at the
tenth hour of the night and remain until morning. Sometimes he would
take the duties of the watchman while his father slept and sound the
Heynals at each hour and inspect the city regularly from each of the
tower windows in order to sound the alarm whenever a red tongue of flame
leaped into the sky. Joseph had progressed each day in playing the
trumpet and could now sound the Heynal as well as his father.
[Illustration: _At the Right Is the Florian Gate, an Entrance to the
City. This Entrance Is Protected by a Barbican, the Building in the
Foreground with the Pointed Towers._]
He was in the tower with Pan Andrew on this same night that Peter and
his caravan of merchants were encamped in their carts in the market
place below the church. The moon was at its full and the shadows of the
church towers fell far across the street and market. Down in front of
the church doors a watchman with lantern and halberd paced to and fro
calling out, as was his custom, the hours as they were sounded from the
tower.
He had already called out the first hour when Peter of the Button Face,
watching from a cart across the square, decided to make his first move.
“Michael,” he called in a loud whisper, “Michael.” And at that a man in
a suit of leather with hat to match and thick sandals slid out of the
next cart. He had already divested himself of the round turban and
blankets that he wore as an Armenian merchant, and his body seemed to
move in a constant succession of quiverings and glidings—in fact he had
always been known in the Ukraine as the Snake—and he stood for a moment
by his chief’s wagon to receive a whispered command in one ear.
Then, true to his name, he wriggled beneath a dozen carts and past the
flank of an outhouse near the church to take refuge behind a tree that
grew at this corner of the Rynek. Doubled up here he waited until the
watchman should pass in front of the church. He had not long to wait.
Out from the shadows at the base of the church emerged suddenly a man
carrying a lantern that threw a star-shaped light about it. This man
tested the door to the stairs leading to the trumpeter’s tower, found it
securely locked, yawned, and struck the paving stones several times in
front of the door with his long halberd as if he were weary of doing
nothing. The Snake’s eyes sized up this man as his opponent. He was a
man perhaps past middle age, clad in a garment of leather over which was
a very light chain armor, poorly woven; this fell like a skirt with
pointed edges just below the knees. Above the waist the links of armor
were a bit heavier extending over the shoulders and back into long
sleeves clear to the wrist, and up past the neck to a kind of head
covering like a cowl, over which he wore a pointed helmet of rough
metal. Outside the armor he wore a very short leather vest caught with a
belt from which hung a short sword, and across the shoulders just below
the neck another belt with a buckle at the left where the halberd could
be secured and balanced.
He passed from the front of the church to the south side, looked about
carefully to see if there were any signs of life in the street or
square, and, finding none, turned away from the church and entered the
churchyard at the south where the moonlight fell brightly upon the old
gravestones. Squatting down behind one of these, and crossing himself as
if in excuse to the people buried there for disturbing their slumbers,
he laid his halberd on the ground at his right side and the lantern at
the left. Then reaching into a wallet which he wore at his girdle, he
took out a crust of bread and a huge portion of meat. These he began to
eat with no suspicion of any interruption.
In this conduct he was justified, for he had been doing this same thing
over and over again for many years; there had been no serious duties
about the church save perhaps on a holy day when youth on mischief bound
would play some trick upon the watchman, and them he could easily
dispatch about their business. Thieves seldom troubled churches in this
period and the cemetery itself was guard enough against marauders in a
period full of superstition. Up above him the trumpeter kept a much
stricter vigil, and all about the town, the watch tried house doors and
questioned late passers-by.
“Oh-ho-hum!” he yawned. Such a quiet thing was life!
But—flattened against the church wall behind him was one whose
intention might have disturbed those weary thoughts had the watchman
been able to discern it. The Snake had sized up this situation with
rapidity and had taken advantage of the moment that the watchman turned
his back upon the square to dart into the projecting shadow of a
buttress. Edging along the wall, he moved cautiously until he was but a
few yards from the tombstone by which the watchman sat.
Plof! The Snake had pounced like a hawk on a mouse.
There was not even a scuffle, so prepared was the intruder and so taken
by surprise was the victim. Down went the watchman on his back by the
side of the grave and in a second the deft Michael had bound his scarf
tightly about the man’s mouth, so that he could not utter a sound. It
was the work of a moment as well, to secure the hands and feet with
short bits of rope that he carried in his jacket—he was at first minded
to cut the man’s throat with his own sword, but he feared lest he might
make one last dying cry and upset all their plans.
Inside the victim’s leather vest he found a huge brass key. This he cut
loose from the short chain which held it and thrust it into his own
belt.
Then making sure that the bonds were secure, he leaped back into the
shadow of the church and stole back to the wagon of his chief as deftly
as he had come.
“I have bound and gagged the watchman behind yon gravestone,” he
reported, “and here is the key to the tower door.”
A whispered command traveled along the line of carts. Then there was a
general doffing of blankets and turbans and the band of Peter, in
leather jackets and hats, high hose and tall soft boots, stood ready
behind their carts to follow the leader into his excellently planned
enterprise.
It was but a short distance from the carts to the tower, and Peter led
the way, keeping close to the ground in the shadow cast by the tower.
They stood at length, about twenty of them, within the shelter of the
angle which the tower made with the church.
“Keep close behind me,” said the leader, “when we mount the steps, and
watch lest there be loose boards in the stairs beneath your feet. The
boy is here this night in the tower with his father. Mount carefully,
but rush and secure both father and son when I give you word.”
Here he fitted the key which Michael had stolen from the watchman, to
the lock, and swung the small iron door on its hinges. He had to stoop
as he went in.
“Quiet,” he whispered, “follow closely.”
In a very few minutes they were all inside. The last man following
directions closed the iron door so that if a curious passer-by should
inspect it, he would find it shut as it was usually.
“The task is easy,” whispered Peter when they had climbed the narrow
steps that led to the stairs built in the tower scaffolding, “we have
now but to bag our rabbit. But you must see to it that he is not a noisy
rabbit. If he once gets his hand on a bell rope he will awaken the whole
town with his ringing. He must be secured quickly.”
They went up and up, mounting quietly the stairs that wound about the
heavy scaffolding, and treading ever carefully so that not a single
board should squeak. At last the leader stopped.
“The light is just ahead,” he whispered.
Through the opened door of the tower room came suddenly the voice of
Joseph, “You can sleep for the rest of the night, father,” he said. “I
will sound the Heynal at every hour; the hourglass is plain to read and
I shall make no error.”
“It was lucky to hit upon a night when they were together,” thought
Peter. “We can bind the old one and make the young one show us the way
to the prize.”
Joseph had just spread a manuscript before him on the table in the tower
room and had moved a taper close to it to begin reading, when he heard a
sudden noise just outside the door. Turning about sharply, he was just
in time to see the door thrown violently open, and then three men rushed
toward him before he could even assume a defensive attitude; he was
absolutely powerless. One man held his arms as closely gripped as in a
vise, while the two others leaped upon Pan Andrew as he rose, dazed with
astonishment, from the little bed.
A fourth man stood in the doorway. His hands were at his hips and he
laughed merrily. “Ho—ho—my merry singing birds,” he said. “We meet
again high up above the noisy world where none can come to disturb us.”
Then his brows darkened and he asked, “Do you know why I am here?”
Joseph shuddered. This man was the same that had met his father on the
first day that he had seen Krakow—this was the man that had incited the
crowd in the Rynek to stone his people—this was the voice that he had
heard while he lay bound hand and foot in the small room of his
lodgings. But at the same time he wondered what had brought the man back
to the city. He had already obtained the prize, Joseph thought, after
the risk and danger of the first trial. Was it, perhaps, that he wished
to avenge himself upon his father for the incident of the cart?
Joseph made a motion as if to cross himself at thought of this, for here
they were high up in the air above the city, and nothing would be easier
than to hurl a man from the summit into the graveyard below and none
would know of it until morning came and they found the lifeless victim.
Pan Andrew, however, looked at the intruder steadily. “No,” he said,
very deliberately, “I do not know why you are here. But I do know you
now, Peter of the Button Face, sometimes called Bogdan—it is strange
that I did not recognize you that morning when you threatened me.”
Peter took notice in no way of Pan Andrew’s latter statement. He heard
only the negative answer. Apparently he had not expected it.
“You do not? You lie! . . . Do you think that I do not know everything?”
He pushed his way in and held the candle close to the prisoner’s face.
“I say to you that I have come all this way to get what I want; I have
the means for doing it, too, and I have men in this company that would
rather see a dog like you dead than alive. Now come—if you value your
skin. Where have you hidden the Great Tarnov Crystal?”
Joseph leaped with a thrill. This, then, was the prize that they had
brought from the Ukraine—a crystal, the “Great Tarnov Crystal,” whose
loss the father had not ceased to mourn. But, after all, was a crystal
something that men valued so highly? If it were a diamond or a precious
stone there might be some reason for so much covetousness, but a mere
crystal—why, he himself knew caves in the Ukraine where one might knock
rock crystals from the walls. But perhaps this had a certain
significance.
“You know as well as I,” returned Pan Andrew, “that it disappeared on
that same night that you attacked my lodgings. If you have it not, I
know not where it is to be found.”
“It disappeared!” Peter was at first shocked, then incredulous. “You
lie!” he shrieked, “you lie! You have it still. I will find a way. . . .
Come here!” he called to Michael the Snake, “take this boy to the house
where he lives and keep always your knife at his throat. I will stay
with the old one here and if you do not return in a quarter of an hour
we will put this Pole out of all trouble in this world. . . . No,” he
continued, as if changing his mind, “I will go with the brat myself.
While we look the house over you keep your sword close to the old fox’s
throat. If the boy leads me the wrong way I’ll slit his throat, likewise
if he tries to betray me. But if we do not return with the crystal in a
reasonable time do as I have told you.”
That Pan Andrew would gladly give up the crystal to save not only his
own life but that of the boy, the Cossack had believed firmly. Therefore
his denial of the possession of the crystal was unlooked for and
baffling. However, he dismissed the matter from his mind promptly.
Undoubtedly Pan Andrew had lied to him, and unless something unforeseen
happened it would be but a matter of a few minutes’ time before the
crystal was in his own hands. It was true that Joseph might not know the
exact hiding place of the crystal; what he did know was that the men in
the tower would kill his father if he did not return at once with the
prize, and he and the mother would make a quick search of the house in
order to find it and redeem the father. It did occur to Peter that
perhaps Pan Andrew had deposited it elsewhere, but if the house did not
give up its prize, then they would return and try to torture the
information out of the father.
“Stay,” he said suddenly, just as Joseph’s captor delivered the boy into
his hands, “the hourglass there on the table shows that the sand has
fallen to the second hour. It is time that the trumpet was sounded from
this place, otherwise some one may suspect that something is wrong and
come up here to see. . . . You, boy—you trumpet sometimes, I know.
Surprises you, does it? Peter has eyes and ears everywhere. So, before
we set out to get this precious stone, take down that trumpet from the
wall. . . . No, leave it there a moment, and come here.”
He led him to the bell rope outside and stood over him.
“Ring twice upon the bell, then get your trumpet and play your Heynal
from the four windows.”
He watched the boy carefully, with his knife gleaming in his hands, as
Joseph tugged twice at the cord that moved the hammer against the bell.
“Do as you always do, and play no tricks.”
As Joseph went back to the little room and took up the trumpet he was
thinking of another young trumpeter who, standing in the old tower over
this same spot, had fallen pierced by an arrow while performing his
duty. And it seemed curious that he too was called upon to show his
mettle in much the same way. In his heart much of the first tumult of
fear had died out. There had come to him that gift of everlasting
stanchness which had been one of the most characteristic qualities of
the Polish people. It was perhaps the inspiration which the thought of
that other trumpeter had brought, for immediately afterward and at the
minute that he had thrust the trumpet through the tower opening on the
west, his mind flew back to his conversation one day with Elzbietka. He
had spoken in jest that day about the Heynal, but she had taken it as a
childish secret—bless her!—he was sure that she would remember.
This hope increased instantly. He knew that Elzbietka was awake at the
second hour; she had known that it would be at that hour that he would
take his father’s place, and if the Heynal was played straight through
and two or three notes were added at the end where usually the music
broke off on the broken note, she would know that something was wrong.
What would she do? Her uncle, lost in his experiments, would only laugh
at her fancy, as he would call it. Would she dare in the night to go to
Jan Kanty? If she did, it was possible that Kanty could summon the watch
quickly enough to save his father’s life, for he felt in his heart that
Peter meant to kill Pan Andrew after the crystal was found.
It all depended on this. Did Peter know the story of the Tartar invasion
and the broken note at the end of the Heynal? God must be trusted that
he did not. This prayer was on Joseph’s lips as Peter said, “Now for
your music.”
Up went the trumpet.
Then it seemed to Joseph that he had once done this very thing before.
The whole world changed beneath him. The great stone city had become
wood, and it was everywhere in flames. Men of short stature and ugly
faces were riding about furiously on little horses. Close at hand a man
had descended from his horse and had drawn a bow from his shoulders and
an iron-tipped arrow from a quiver. The bow bent, the arrow was notched.
He played.
Peter nodded. The Heynal was not new to him, and he knew that the boy
was playing as usual—that is, he knew up to a certain point. Joseph
hesitated at the place where the music ordinarily breaks off—this time
he added three notes of his own which definitely finished the Heynal. It
took courage to play those notes, for he knew not but that at any moment
he might feel the Cossack’s dagger in his throat. At length he let the
trumpet fall and looked about.
The blood surged into his head with a rush. The Cossack was nodding
approval! He did not know, then!
He went to the windows at south, east, and north, successively, and
played as he had already played.
“Now hurry for your lodgings!”
Peter gripped the boy’s arm and pushed him ahead all the way down the
stairs, after giving final orders to the men who guarded Pan Andrew.
They found no one in the square below and slunk along in the shadows
toward the university district. The Cossack was exulting again that his
plans were working, and as he went along he looked about him for a quiet
corner where he could finish Joseph with his dagger once he had the
crystal in his hands and was on the way back to the tower. Then they
would settle with the father and there would be no one left to give
information concerning them. A company of Armenian merchants would leave
the city unhindered in the course of the following day.