A GREAT FIRE RAGES
Since earliest times Krakow was divided into four sections—the Castle
Quarter, the Potters’ Quarter, the Butchers’ Quarter, and the Slavkov.
At the head of each of these districts was a quartermaster who was
responsible for everything that went on in his district, the fighting of
fires being one of his chief concerns. Therefore the watchman from one
of the streets that lay in the districts threatened by the fire went
pounding at the gate of the quartermaster’s house, shouting “Fire” at
the top of his lungs in order to send the servants flying to the master.
In a short time the quartermaster was up and dressed, and had sent
summons to the water master who had charge of the town reservoir and
aqueducts.
The bell meanwhile began to sound clamorously from the tower of the
Church of Our Lady Mary, for the watchman there had caught sight of the
flames. Cries of “fire” were now being echoed from all sections of the
city, and in the red glare which was beginning to illumine all the grim
Gothic buildings and churches, a very tumult of confusion was arising.
The water master had already set his machinery in motion and drummers
were pounding away at their drums in all the city streets in order to
awaken the merchants and their apprentices upon whom fell the burden of
fighting the flames. All the town guilds were assembling, companies of
servants from the palaces were filling buckets of water and taking
positions on the roofs of their own houses, and all citizens were busily
getting down from the wall, hooks and axes and pails such as the law
required them to keep for such emergencies.
A fire of any size in Krakow was a serious thing in those days, for
there were hundreds upon hundreds of wooden and part-wooden houses
clustered together in the thickly populated streets. In the section
about the old university the majority of dwellings were very ancient,
dry, and cobwebbed everywhere, and a single spark upon their roofs was
enough to turn them in exceedingly rapid fashion into belching furnaces
of flame and smoke. As the fire raced through these streets, the
inhabitants poured out in panic-stricken confusion; each building was
literally teeming with life, and the whole scene, viewed from above,
would have resembled a huge ant hill suddenly destroyed or burned out by
a careful gardener.
Women and children came out rushing and shrieking. Black-robed students
dashed through the streets with manuscripts and parchments in their
hands; others came carrying glass tubes or astrolabes or metal dividers;
frantic domestics ran here and there with no definite refuge in view
save only to escape the heat and terror of the ever-spreading flames.
The streets were rapidly filling with furniture, clothing, beds, and
personal possessions of every variety, hurled out of casements by
desperate owners—and some of this material in the streets had already
caught fire from the sparks which were descending like rain in a spring
thunderstorm, making the lot of the fugitives even more unendurable.
Inside some of the courts those who had preserved presence of mind were
combating the fire with much vigor; tubs of water and pails were being
pressed into action, and burning walls were already being hauled down.
The water master had marshaled a line of water carts which extended from
the burning buildings to the aqueduct; these water carts were usually
drawn by horses, and some of them were on this night, but there had been
difficulty in getting enough horses quickly, and men and boys were
harnessed into the shafts. At the aqueduct men were busy filling the
carts with water; as each cart was filled it moved on some little
distance to the fire, and there being emptied, swung about into another
street and returned to the aqueduct for another filling. The nearest
section of the aqueduct was about an eighth of a mile from the point
where the fire started.
Forces of men armed with hooks and axes were sent out by the water
master to surround the district where the flames were reaching, for the
rapid spread of the fire had made it apparent at an early stage that
very little could be saved in the university area. These men were under
orders to demolish any building that seemed to offer a chance for a
further spread of the blaze, whether the fire had already reached it or
not. One detachment formed a line in front of the Church of the
Franciscans, another on St. Ann’s Street, and another on Bracka. All
these detachments were forced to retreat, however, as the fire ate its
way out of the district where it had started. The Rynek was the scene of
a turbulent mob which had struggled from the burning section in the
Street of the Pigeons, and every open space was quickly filled with
rescued goods. Two families had even taken possession of the platform
where the town pillory stood and children were being put to sleep there
by mothers thankful to find a place of rest.
Amid all this uproar, an elderly woman, a boy, a girl, and a dog were
fighting their way through the Street of the Pigeons amidst the débris
of furniture and personal belongings that had been thrown from windows.
They had all been sleeping when the fire broke out, and not having been
roused until the flames were all about them, had been able to rescue
nothing but themselves and the clothes which they wore. The boy was
Joseph, the girl, Elzbietka, and the woman the wife of Pan Andrew. Wolf,
cut loose by Joseph, was the most terror-stricken of the group, but he
followed after them, submissive and obedient, not knowing exactly what
he was expected to do.
Each of them was busy with separate thoughts as they fought their way
through the disorder. Joseph was ever figuring the quickest route out of
the burning district, and this was no easy task, since the fire was
playing so many tricks. It was not marching ahead in a straight wall of
flame but was whirling about, leaping here and there, skipping this
house and fastening upon that, advancing, retreating, spreading to the
flanks, all with terrific speed and unexpected vivacity. Sometimes the
two roofs just above the heads of the fugitives would shoot up in
flames—passing these with great peril, they would find that the fire
was now behind them and rejoice at the breath of air that fell upon
them; then suddenly without warning the roof of a building just ahead
would belch forth smoke and flame as if the fire demon were working
invisibly, and this new peril must be passed.
At length they reached the place where the Street of the Pigeons is cut
by a cross lane, known to-day as Wislna Street, but this lane was
already full of smoking beams and fallen timbers; escape that way was
impossible. There was nothing to do but to push on through the Street of
the Pigeons where it curves to meet Bracka.
Elzbietka was wondering most of all about her uncle; there had been no
answer to their hurried calls when they left the doomed house, and,
besides, the loft was glowing in red and purple flames of such intensity
that no person alive could have been there at that time. Joseph’s mother
was thinking of the father, wondering if he had left his post at the
church to come to his family’s aid, and wondering, too, if they could
reach him at the tower before he began to suffer too much from anxiety
concerning them.
The houses were a little higher in this portion of the street and there
was therefore more cool air, in the lower reaches. The fire was still
whirling along here but was not taking hold quite so fast as it had done
down below, and consequently the fugitives made better progress. The
only difficulty was the ever-increasing crowd that now swept in from
three directions, making it hard for the three to keep together. Finally
they locked arms and literally fought their way through the crowd. All
about them the scenes were heart-rending, men and women fleeing with but
few possessions from the only homes they had ever known, children lost
in the mad scramble who set up shrill cries and tried to keep their feet
as the crowd pushed ahead. Sick persons were brought into that raging
torrent of humanity, carried on the shoulders of their relatives or
perhaps stretched upon cots. Here was one old man who sat astride a
young fellow’s neck like Anchises on the back of Æneas fleeing from the
burning city of Ilium.
At length they stood where the fire had not reached, much more fortunate
in that than many other people that night. Joseph waited only until they
caught their breath, though he, too, felt like throwing himself down
upon the ground and resting, and then started forward again through
Bracka in the direction of the Rynek. In his heart he hoped that when he
had settled Elzbietka and his mother in the tower where his father was
on duty, he might come back with the apprentices and help fight the
fire, for there is that in a youth which draws him into such fighting.
As they went along Bracka he heard the sound of horses’ hoofs from the
direction of the Wawel.
“Wait,” he said, drawing the women back on a footpath, “here come
soldiers from the castle to preserve order.”
He spoke truly, for the next moment a great troop of cavalry wearing
mail armor and carrying spears rode into Bracka Street from below and
began to deploy in lines that marked the district immediately threatened
by fire. A few minutes later foot soldiers and artisans began to appear
and, joining with the watch, pulled down buildings at the edge of the
fire. Siege machinery was also drawn up into Bracka and the buildings
just outside the reach of the fire began to crumble under its pounding.
“This will prevent the spread of the flames,” thought Joseph.
They went ahead again toward the church, but while they were still in
the Rynek they saw a company of soldiers dragging forward a prisoner
whom they had taken in the burning district.
“A thief,” said the boy.
“Bless us,” exclaimed the mother. “It is not possible that men could be
so cruel as to steal from poor folk driven mad with terror.”
As the company came near and the torches fell upon the face of the
prisoner, Joseph let out a cry of amazement.
“Why, mother, that is Peter of the Button Face, the leader of the men
that attacked our house. That is the man who met us on the first day we
were in Krakow. He it was who tried to make us prisoners in the church
tower. . . . See how he struggles—but they are holding him tight for
all that. And mother, it is not the city watch that has taken him. It is
the King’s own guard. Do you not see the royal crown on their helmets,
do you not notice the richness of their clothing? I wonder what it can
be about.”
Joseph spoke truly. Peter had at last fallen into the hands of guardians
of the law, and this time it was the King’s own men that held him. It
was evident, too, from the way they held him that they thought they had
a prize. They did not stop at the Town House where offenders against
municipal law were kept but marched straight along Castle Street in the
direction of the royal castle on Wawel Hill.
At the church they found Pan Andrew in a very sweat of anxiety and fear
lest something of harm had befallen them. He caressed them all one after
another and then said to Joseph earnestly:
“I want you to remain here and sound the Heynals for the rest of the
night. There is much work to be done in the quarter where the fire is,
and every man’s hand is needed to stay the flames. . . . I see that Pan
Kreutz is not with you. He stayed, too, I presume, to work with the rest
of the men?”
“Indeed, father, I know not. We called many times, but his loft was a
mass of flames like to a roaring furnace, when we were driven down the
stairs.”
“I must see, then, if I can find aught of him. He has been on a previous
occasion our very great benefactor and it would but suit us ill not to
seek at least his body in the ruins. Should he not have perished, as I
pray God he has not, then we can offer him shelter here until such time
as he can find a roof again.”
But when Joseph told him of the capture of Peter he looked very serious
and said that if such people were in the city then he had better not
leave his wife and the young people. On second thought, however, it
seemed right for him to go, for the city was now lighted by flames and
it would be easy to summon aid if they were attacked.
And so he, with thousands of other valiant men, fought the fire in
Krakow that night. They formed in a ring about the conflagration and
tore down all the buildings across which it might run. The Collegium
Minus was the last building to catch on the side toward the city wall,
and then the fighters tore down the houses near the old Jew Gate and
stopped the fire there. The flames swept around the other buildings of
the university, destroyed one or two, though not all, and were finally
halted on the second street above St. Ann’s. Sweeping in the other
direction, the fire had early in its progress destroyed the monastery
and adjoining houses of the Church of the Franciscans, and had crossed
over to Castle Street where it burned flat a whole line of buildings.
On these and the other edges of the district a wide belt of destruction
was created by the fighters. This belt, the tradesmen, running to and
fro with water wagons filled constantly at the aqueduct, wet down and
soaked until it was almost a water wall. So furiously had they worked
that the main progress of the fire was checked in seven or eight hours,
and although certain buildings and ruins smoked and even blazed for
several days afterward, yet the great danger passed when this
well-soaked belt of destruction was completed.
When Pan Andrew returned to the tower in the full blaze of the morning
sun, nearly one third of the city of Krakow lay in ruins. Fortunately it
was not the better portion of the city, and many of the old wooden-built
hovels had been there since before the days of Kazimir the Great; that
monarch had successfully converted about one half the city of Krakow
from wood to stone more than one hundred years before; had he not done
so it is probable that the fire of 1462 might have utterly consumed it.
Elzbietka and Joseph’s mother were asleep on the trumpeter’s bed clasped
in each other’s arms. Joseph sat outside the compartment with the
hourglass before him on a beam, gazing out over the smoking ruins of the
university quarter.
“Is the city saved?” was the first question he asked his father.
“It is not now in danger,” answered Pan Andrew. “But there are many
homeless souls in the city this day.”
“Did you see the alchemist?”
“I did not. He has disappeared as if he had flown away on the clouds of
smoke that covered the city.”
“Poor Elzbietka,” exclaimed Joseph.
The girl inside the compartment moaned slightly as her name was spoken,
although she was deep in a heavy slumber.
“I wonder if he was caught in the loft?” mused Pan Andrew. “It was in
the very center of the burned district.”
The answer to his question came with sudden unexpectedness. There was a
sound of footsteps on the stairs and Jan Kanty’s head appeared from
below. The scholar was leading another man by the arm, a man who had
been in the fire—his charred clothes and blackened face showed it;
around his shoulders and falling to his waist was all that remained of
what had once been a black robe. He kept his hands beneath this robe.
“Pan Andrew,” whispered Jan Kanty softly, “I have found in the
street—Pan Kreutz.” And, checking the other’s startled exclamation, he
explained, “He is not in his right senses. Something has affected his
brain. But he has here something of interest to us all.”
Pan Andrew turned toward Kreutz—he never would have recognized him had
not Jan Kanty identified him; Joseph felt his eyes glued with strange
eagerness upon the eerie, blackened figure and the mysterious folded
hands beneath the robe; it had been a scholar’s robe once.
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed the alchemist suddenly, “up to heaven goes
everything in fire and yet no gold is found anywhere. Johann Tring!” he
looked about anxiously. “Where is Johann Tring? He answers me not. He is
lost in the flames, the flames that came so red and purple when niter
mixed with charcoal. Oho, Johann Tring! Come, Johann Tring, and see what
I have carried this whole long night for you.”
Throwing back the black robe, he held up the object that he had been
concealing there, and at the same moment the sun, streaming in through
the little window on the east side, fell full upon that object; fell
upon it and made it sparkle like the myriad of dew diamonds shining upon
a morning lawn new-mowed; sparkled like the thousand chandeliers in the
King’s great hall in the palace on the Wawel Hill; sparkled like the
rubies and emeralds that gleam in the Queen’s crown; sparkled like the
wondrous thing that it was, all touched by the red rays of the morning
sun—the Great Tarnov Crystal!
“Now whence has that come?” shouted Pan Andrew so loudly that the
sleepers in the next room awoke. “Where by all that is good and holy in
the world have you found the gem which has been in my family for years
and years, which all my ancestors and I have sworn to guard forever and
to surrender to no person except to the King of Poland? How has it come
into your hands after it was stolen from me, and my heart was nearly
broken? Did you get it perhaps from that ruffian who has been captured
by the King’s guards? Did you find it perhaps in the ruins of the town?
Did you perchance——” The truth suddenly flashed upon him and he was
speechless.
[Illustration: _The Royal Palace of the Kings, Wawel Hill._]
“It is an accursed thing,” cried out the alchemist suddenly, reeling in
Jan Kanty’s arms as if he were gone faint. “There is blood upon it, and
fire! It has lured princes and kings to their destruction! It has made
men’s brains mad with lust for want of it! It has caused good men to
steal, and evil men to kill. I will have none of it. I will have none of
it, I say.” He was growing almost boisterous, yet there was something in
this attack of madness that had much of reason and determination in it.
“I will have no more of it,” he repeated, “and no more of Johann Tring.”
At that he fell fainting to the floor.
Jan Kanty raised him, and Elzbietka who had run out from the trumpeter’s
room rushed to him and kissed and fondled his blackened hands.
Pan Andrew picked up the Great Tarnov Crystal and held it at arm’s
length with a smile.
“Now may peace come upon us all,” he said, “for I may fulfill the oath
that my family has taken and deliver this to the King. While the secret
of its hiding place remained with me I might keep the crystal as long as
I chose, but now that the secret is out, there is but one place where it
may be guarded safely and that is in the palace of the King. Pan Kreutz
is right. This jewel has already done too much harm in the world.”
“Then you may rid yourself of it at once,” broke in Jan Kanty. “The King
returned to Krakow two days ago, and we may find him at the castle this
very morning.”