SANGE MOARTE.[29]
The Patrol-officer and his companion had already been travelling for
half the day across the Batrina moor on their way to Marisel. Clement
kept on asking every living soul he met where the village was, and
always received the same answer--"Further on!"
[Footnote 29: _Sange moarte._ Dead blood (Roumanian).]
From time to time they met a Wallachian peasant reviling the team of
sluggish oxen spanned to his huge wagon, and vainly endeavouring to make
them quicken their pace; then there were ponds to be waded, where
half-naked gipsy bands, in picturesque rags, were washing gold-dust out
of the sand, and stared at the Tartar as if he were a wild beast; here
and there, in the mossy hollow of a wayside tree, stood an icon, the
pale, weather-worn gilding of which being all that remained of its once
gorgeous colouring; in the worm-eaten niche stood the _pomana_,[30] a
pitcher of pure spring water which the traditional piety of the young
Wallachian maidens had placed there for the refreshment of thirsty
travellers.
[Footnote 30: _Pomana_, or _pomena_. An alms, a
voluntary free succour. The etymology is obscure. Some
opine that it is a corruption of _per_ and _manus_.]
The road now went up hill and down dale; for the greater part of the way
they had to lead their horses. All around stood the ever-changing
wilderness; lofty, perpendicular beeches, terebinthine oaks, with an
occasional dark-green pine. At last they reached a point where the road
divided. One branch of it ran right down into the valley, the other
wound obliquely up to the summit of a bald bleak hill, from which a
projecting rock hung down so precipitately that it seemed ready to fall
every moment.
"Well, whither shall we turn now?" asked Clement, hesitating. "I have
never come so far as this before."
"Let us follow the road," returned Zülfikar; "none but a fool would risk
his neck up that steep cliff."
Clement looked about him in great perplexity, and suddenly perceived a
man sitting on the rock which so precipitately overhung the path. It was
a young Wallach with a pale face and long, flowing curls; his sheep-skin
jacket was open at the breast, his cap lay beside him on the ground.
There he sat in a reverie, on the very edge of the lofty rock, with his
feet dangling in empty space, his stony countenance resting on his
hands, and his eyes staring glassily into the remote distance.
"Hi! you up there! _ungye méra ista via?_"[31] cried Clement, in a
jargon which was half Latin and half Wallachian.
[Footnote 31: _Ungye méra ista via?_ "Whither goes this
road?" The first two words are Roumanian.]
The Wallach did not appear to hear the question; he remained in just the
same position, blankly staring and immovable.
"He is either deaf or dead," said Zülfikar, after they had both bawled
themselves hoarse at him in vain. "The best thing we can do is to follow
the beaten track," and off they set at a trot. The Wallach did not so
much as look after them.
Evening was drawing nigh, and the road to Marisel seemed absolutely
endless. It went out of one valley into another, without passing a
single human habitation, and the huge boulders and fierce mountain
torrents, which they came upon at frequent intervals, made it almost
impassable. At last they perceived, somewhere in the wood, a fire
burning, and a monotonous chant struck upon their ears. On approaching
nearer, they saw an immense pyre, made of the trunks of trees, burning
in a forest glade, and shaded by oaks, the foliage of which was singed
red by the long tongues of flame which flickered up to their very
summits.
Not far from the pyre, a band of Wallachs were dancing with savage
gesticulations, striking the ground at the same time with their massive
clubs. Their twirling feet seemed to be writing mystic characters in the
soil, and all the while they brandished their arms and howled forth
metrical curses as if they were exorcising some evil spirit.
Around the men twined a wreath of young girls, holding one another by
the hand, and twirling in a contrary direction. These young and charming
forms, with their black, plaited tresses interwoven with pearls and
ribbons; their flowered petticoats, cambric smocks, and broad, striped
aprons; their tinkling gold spangles, or strings of silver coins about
their round necks and their tiny, high-heeled shoes, formed a pleasant
contrast to the wild, ferocious figures of the men, with their high
sheepskin hats perched upon their shaggy, unkempt hair, their sunburnt,
naked necks, greasy _köduröns_,[32] broad brass buckles, and large
ox-hide sandals.
[Footnote 32: _Ködurön._ A rough, fur jacket.]
Both dance and song were peculiar. The girls, all hand in hand, flew
round the men, singing a plaintive, dreamy sort of dirge, while the men
stamped fiercely on the ground and uttered an intermittent wail. The
fire blazing beside them cast a red glare, intermingled with dark
flitting shadows, on the wild group. Some distance behind, on the stump
of a tree, sat an old bagpiper with his pipes under his arm. The
tortured goatskin's monotonous discord blended with the savage harmony
of the song.
When the pyre had nearly burnt itself out, the dancers suddenly
dispersed, dragged forward a female effigy stuffed with straw and
clothed in rags, placed it on two poles, and with loud cries of "Marcze
Záre! Marcze Záre!"[33] held it over the fire; then, exclaiming in
chorus--"Burn to ashes, accursed Wednesday-evening witch!" they threw it
into the glowing embers. The girls then danced round the fire with cries
of joy till the witch was burned, when the men, with a wild yell, rushed
among the embers and trod them out.
[Footnote 33: _Marcze Záre_ = Wednesday witch, hags
possessing peculiar power on Wednesday evenings,
according to the Wallachs.]
"Who are ye, and what are you doing here?" cried Clement the Clerk to
the Wallachs, who hitherto had not taken the slightest notice of him.
"We are they of Marisel who have burned Marcze Záre," answered the
peasants unanimously, with the grave faces of men who had just done
something uncommonly wise.
"Well, be quick about it, and then come back to the village, for I am
here by command of the Prince, my master, to put the usual questions to
you."
"And I," put in Zülfikar, "am here by command of the mighty Ali Pasha of
Grosswardein to levy a new tax."
The Wallachs watched the Patrol-officer till he was quite out of sight
without uttering a word; but they shook their fists after him and
exclaimed--"May Marcze Záre take him!"
Then, with the bagpiper in front, they formed into a long procession and
marched, loudly singing, down towards the distant village.
* * * * *
It was a long, straggling, Wallachian hamlet at which the patrollers now
arrived--one house exactly like another; low clay huts with lofty roofs
and projecting eaves, surrounded by quick-set hedges, the doors so low
that one had to stoop in order to enter. Every house consisted of a
single room, in which the whole family, parents and children, goats and
poultry, lived together. At the entrance of the village stood a gigantic
triumphal arch made of marble blocks; over the principal portal was the
torso of a Minerva; on the façade were battle-pieces in high relief, and
beneath them this Latin inscription in large Roman letters--"This town
has been built by the unconquerable Trajan as a memorial of his
triumph!" And behind the arch a heap of wretched clay huts!
On the capitol of a fallen Corinthian column, in front of the village
dead-house, sits the _prefika_, the oldest old woman in the place,
lamenting with meretricious tears over the dead young maiden who lies
within. On the side of a grass-grown hill close at hand one sees a round
stone building, raised once upon a time, no doubt, in memory of some
Roman hero; but the Wallachian population has turned it into a church,
covered it with a pointed roof, and daubed the interior with hideous
paintings.
The Patrol-officer called the people together into the church, which was
the only public building in the place. The crowd stood around him, the
old men leaning on their crutches. The blood-red rays of sunset pierced
through the round window-panes, giving a peculiar appearance to the
interior of the venerable edifice, whose walls were daubed all over with
figures of grotesque saints, whom the monstrous fancy of the rustic
artist had provided with scarlet mantles and spurred jack-boots. Amongst
so many pictures of the marvellous, that well-known allegory which
represents Death as a skeleton, dragging off with him a king, a beggar,
and a priest, was not lacking, and scattered among the icons were a few
bandy-legged fiends derisively stretching out their tongues at poor
damned sinners whom they clutched tightly by the hair.
Behind the iconastasis the priest and the Patrol-officer took their
stand, surrounded by gilded icons and consecrated candles. When Clement
had read his credentials to the people, he called to the village elder,
a tall man with large projecting teeth, to come in front of the
altar-rail, and addressed the following questions to him--
"Are there amongst you any sorcerers and magicians who can summon the
devil to their aid?"
The crowd received this question with an awful whisper, and after a long
pause the magistrate replied--
"There was one last year, your worship, a godless villain with blotches
on his neck and body, which were patches stitched on to him by the
devil, for even when we singed them with red-hot irons he did not feel
it. We sent him to the Sanhedrim at Fehervár, where, failing to stand
the water test, he was burnt alive."
"Are there among you any hags or vampires which injure other people's
children, make knots in men's bowels, ride through the air, colour milk
red, hatch serpents' eggs, or seek for grasses which can make them
invisible, and open barred and bolted doors?"
This question called forth a hundred different answers. Every one tried
to communicate his own personal experiences to the interrogator; the
younger women in particular pressed upon the Patrol-officer with furious
importunity.
"One at a time, please," cried Clement, with great dignity. "Let the
magistrate say what he knows."
"Yes, there used to be an old witch here, worshipful sir," said the
village elder obsequiously. "We called her Dainitsa.[34] She had long
molested mankind, for her eyes were red. She could, when she chose,
bring down such storms upon the village that the wind would take off the
roofs of the houses. Once she brought a hailstorm upon us, and God's
thunderbolt smote the village in three places. Thereupon the women here
grew furious, seized her, and threw her into the pond. But even there
the witch railed upon them and said--'Take heed! You will live to beg of
me the water which you now give me to drink!' Then the women fished up
her dead body from the bottom of the pond, thrust a dart through her
heart, buried her in the valley, and rolled a large stone over her
grave. But the very next year the witch's curse came upon us. Throughout
the summer not a drop of rain fell in our district. Everything was
withered up, and our cattle carried off by the murrain. Dainitsa had
drunk up all the rain and dew. So we went to her grave, bored a large
hole therein, and filled the grave with water till it ran over, shouting
at the same time--'Drink thy fill, accursed hag! but lap not up all our
rain and dew!' And so at last the great drought came to an end."
[Footnote 34: _Dainitsa._ She who sings in a low voice,
_i. e._ she who mutters spells. From Roumanian _daina_,
which is derived from the Hungarian _danolni_, to
sing.]
The priest gravely vouched for the accuracy of this narrative, and
Clement made a note of it in his parchment roll.
Now came the third question.
"Are there any among you who dare to smoke tobacco, either by cutting up
the leaves into small fragments and putting them in his pipe, or by
roasting them on the fire and inhaling the ascending steam?"
"There are none, sir!" returned the elder. "We do not know that dish."
"And do not try to, for whoever is caught in the act will, in accordance
with the law of the land, have the stem of his pipe thrust through his
nose, and be led in that guise all round the market-place."
The fourth question was this--
"Do any of the peasants wear cloth coats, marten-skin kalpags, or
morocco shoes?"
"Pshaw!" cried the village elder. "Why, our poverty is such that we
never look beyond sheep-skin jackets and leather sandals. What do we
want with coloured cloth and morocco shoes?"
"Nor must you, for the Estates of the Realm have forbidden the peasantry
to wear the clothes of the gentry."
Now came the fifth question.
"Which of you not only acted contrary to the decree of the Diet, that
the peasants should extirpate the sparrows, but even mocked the officers
charged to collect sparrows' heads?"
The magistrate humbly approached the Patrol-officer.
"Believe me, worshipful sir; by reason of the great drought and the bad
season, the sparrows have all departed from our district. Tell his
Highness that we have been unable to lay our hands upon a single one all
through the summer."
"That's a lie!" cried Clement the Clerk fiercely.
"I speak the truth," persisted the magistrate, seizing Clement by the
hand, and dexterously insinuating two silver marias into his clenched
fist.
"Well, it is not impossible," said the Patrol-officer, somewhat
mollified.
Last of all came the question--
"Has any among you seen foreign beasts of prey, or other strange
animals, straying about in these regions?"
"Of a truth, sir, we have seen lots of them."
"And what sort of beasts were they?" asked Clement, with joyful
curiosity.
"Well, dog-headed Tartars!"
"You fool, I don't mean that sort of beast. I want to know whether any
one, in strolling through these woods, has come upon a four-footed beast
of prey, a creature with a spotted skin? You know very well you have
left no hole or corner unexplored, for even now you are hunting after
the hidden treasures of Decebalus."
The magistrate shook his head incredulously, glanced at the crowd, and
said, with a shrug of his shoulders--
"We have seen no such wondrous beast; but haply Sange Moarte has seen
it, for he in his mad moods roams incessantly through woods and
hollows."
"And where then is this Sange Moarte? You must call him hither."
"Alas! sir, he is difficult to catch; he seldom comes to the village.
But perhaps his mother is here."
"Here she is! here she is!" cried several peasants at once, pushing
forward an old woman with sunken cheeks, whose head was wrapped round in
a white cloth.
"What mad name is this you have given to your son?" cried the
Patrol-officer; "whoever heard of calling a man 'Dead blood'!"
"'Twas not I, sir, who gave him this name," said the old Wallachian
woman with a broken voice. "The villagers call him so because he is
never seen to laugh or speak to any one, or answer when he is spoken to.
He did not even weep for his father when he died; nor has he ever
visited the girls in the spinning-rooms, but wanders about incessantly
in the woods."
"All right, all right, old lady; but that has nothing to do with me."
"I know it, sir, I know that it does not concern you; but I must tell
you that the pretty Floriza, the belle of the village, was in love with
my son. There was not a lovelier maiden in all Wallachia. Such black
eyes, such locks reaching down to her feet, such rosy cheeks, such a
slim waist were not to be found anywhere else. And then she was so
diligent, and she loved my son so dearly! In her chest she had sixteen
embroidered chemises which she herself had woven and spun, and round her
neck she wore a string of two hundred silver and twenty gold pieces.
Sange Moarte never so much as looked at the girl. Vainly did Floriza
make him posies, he would not put them in his hat; vainly did she give
him kerchiefs, he would not wear them in his breast. Whenever he passed
by, the girl would sing such beautiful songs as she sat by the hearth;
but Sange Moarte for all that did not linger at her threshold, and yet
she loved him so dearly. Often she said to him, when they met together
in the lane--'Thou dost never come to see me; perchance thou wouldst not
even look at me if I were dead?' Sange Moarte replied--'Then indeed I
would look at thee.'--'Then I will soon die,' said the maiden
sorrowfully. 'And then will I also visit thee,' said Sange Moarte, and
went his way. Does all this weary you, good sir? I shall soon have done.
Pretty Floriza lies dead. Her heart broke for grief. There she lies on
her bier; the funereal _armindenu_[35] stands in front of the house.
When Sange Moarte sees it he will know that Floriza is dead, and will
come forth from the woods to look upon his dead sweetheart, as he
promised her, for he always keeps his word. Then you can speak with
him."
[Footnote 35: _Armindenu._ A green branch placed in
front of houses on the 1st of May and at funerals.
Compare Latin _Alimentale_.]
"Very well, old lady," said Clement, who had suddenly become serious,
and was almost angry to find something very like poetry among rude
peasants, who had certainly never read Horace's _Ars Poetica_. "You must
watch for the lad's return, and let me know."
"'Twere better you went yourself, sir," said the old woman, "for I
scarcely think he will answer a single question put to him by any one
else."
"Be it so! Lead me thither!" cried the Patrol-officer; and the whole
assembly proceeded towards the mortuary, which stood at the extreme end
of the village.
This end of Marisel is so far distant from the church, that night had
fallen before the crowd had reached it.
The moon came from behind the mountains. Round about the house stood
pine trees, through the sombre foliage of which the evening star
shimmered faintly. In the distance sounded the melancholy notes of some
pastoral flute. In front of the little white house the hired mourner was
sobbing loudly. The wind agitated the crape-hung branches of the
_armindenu_. Inside the house lay the corpse of the beautiful young
maiden awaiting her truant lover. The moonbeams fell upon her pale
countenance.
* * * * *
The mob surrounded the mortuary, crept stealthily on tip-toe into the
courtyard, peeped through the window, and whispered--
"Look! There he is! there he is!"
The Patrol-officer, the priest, the magistrate, and Sange Moarte's
mother entered the room.
Right across the threshold lay the girl's father dead drunk; he got so
tipsy yesterday from sheer sorrow that he will need all to-day and all
to-morrow to sleep it off. In the middle of the room stood the pine-wood
coffin, bedaubed with glaring roses fresh from the brush of a rural
artist; within it lay the girl (she was only sixteen), her beautiful
forehead encircled by a funereal wreath. A wax taper had been placed in
one of her hands, in the other she held a small coin. At the head of the
coffin burned two handsome wax candles stuck into a jar containing
gingerbreads; at the foot of the coffin, in a gaudily-painted,
high-backed chair, staring blankly at the girl's face, sat Sange Moarte.
The pious superstition of the priest and the magistrate would not let
them cross the threshold; but Clement stepped up to the lad, and
immediately recognized in him the man on the rock who would not tell him
the way.
"Hi, young man! So you are he who has the bad habit of never replying to
people when they address you, eh?"
The person thus addressed justified the question by not answering it.
"Now hearken and answer my question. I am the Patrol-officer. D'ye
hear?"
Sange Moarte remained speechless, with his eyes fixed all the time on
Floriza. He was as motionless as the corpse itself, and scarcely seemed
to breathe. His good old mother tenderly took him by the hand and called
him by his proper name.
"Jova, my son! answer the gentleman. Look at me, I am your mother."
"In the name of my master, the Prince, I command you to answer me!"
cried the Patrol-officer, raising his voice.
The Wallach still remained silent.
"I ask you if, in the course of your sylvan ramblings, you have seen any
sort of foreign wild beast, to wit a yellow, speckled monster, which the
learned call a panther?"
Sange Moarte gave a start, as if suddenly aroused out of a deep sleep.
His glassy eyes flashed and sparkled as he looked at his interrogator, a
feverish scarlet flushed his cheeks, and he stammered tremulously--
"I have seen it, seen it, seen it."
And with that he covered his eyes, so as not to look upon the dead body.
"Where have you seen it?" asked the Patrol-officer.
"Far, far away," whispered the Wallach; then he became dumb once more
and buried his forehead in his hands.
"Name the place. Where is it?"
The Wallach looked timidly around. A cold shudder ran through him, and
with fearful, rolling eyes he whispered to the Patrol-officer--
"In the Gradina Dracului."[36]
[Footnote 36: _Gradina Dracului_. Garden of the Devil
(Roumanian).]
The priest and the magistrate immediately crossed themselves thrice, and
the latter gazed devoutly on a mural St. Peter, as if to invoke his help
on this occasion.
"You seem to me a plucky lad, to venture to approach the Devil's
Garden," said the Patrol-officer. "Will you guide me thither?"
The Wallach nodded, with a joyful look.
"In the name of St. Michael and all the Archangels I implore you, sir,
not to go," interrupted the priest. "Of all who have visited the Devil's
Garden, not one has ever been known to come back. A truly devout person
would turn his back upon it. It is only this man's sinfulness that has
led him thither."
Clement scratched his head.
"I don't go there for the pleasure of the thing," said he. "Not that I
fear the name of the place, but because I object to scaling mountains.
In my official capacity, however, I have no choice."
"Then at least stick a consecrated willow-twig in your cap," urged the
anxious pastor, "or take with you a picture of St. Michael, that the
devil may not come near you."
"Thank you, my brothers; but it would be much more to the point if you
provided me with a pair of sandals, for I cannot go clambering over the
mountains in these spurred boots. I regret too that your amulets are
thrown away upon me, for I am a Unitarian."
The priest crossed himself once more, and said with a sigh--
"I fancied you were orthodox, because you were so zealous about the hags
and witches."
"I only did that officially. Send my Turk hither."
As he went out the priest murmured to himself--
"Birds of a feather! A nice pair of heretics!"
"Comrade Zülfikar," cried Clement to the Turk, as he tied on his
sandals, "you can find the rest of your way by yourself, for I must take
a side spring into the mountains."
"If you spring, I will spring too," replied the distrustful renegade.
"Whithersoever you go, thither will I go also."
"My dear fellow, there is nothing to be pocketed on the road that I am
about to take, except perhaps the devil, for man has never set his foot
there."
"What do I care! My orders are to go along with you till I return to the
point from whence I started."
"So much the better, then; I shall have the pleasure of your company.
But pray help me to draw my sword, so that I may be able to defend
myself in case of need."
"So you carry a sword which requires two men to draw it! Well, let's
look at it," and with that the two men planted their legs one against
the other, grasped the sword with both hands, and tugged away at it for
a long time, till at last it flew out of its sheath so suddenly that
Clement the Clerk nearly fell sprawling.
Clement then called for a jar of honey, rubbed the rusty blade all over
with the viscid stuff, and stuck it back into its sheath.
"And now let us be off, young man," said he to the Wallach, who hastily
took his cap and a small axe from the ground, and went out without once
looking behind him.
His mother seized him by the hand--
"Wilt thou not first kiss thy dead sweetheart?"
Sange Moarte did not even turn his head round, but drew his hand out of
his mother's and went with the two strange men towards the darkening
woods.
All that night the adventurers were traversing a deep dell. Gigantic
perpendicular rocks rose up on each side of them, only above their heads
shimmered a narrow streak of starry sky.
Towards morning they found themselves among the Carpathian Alps.
It was a dazzling spectacle. In the distance diamond-peaked crystal
mountains covered with white snow-fields, striped here and there by
dark-green lines of pine forest. Close beside them is a basalt rock,
consisting of angular columns as large as towers, standing side by side
like the pipes of a gigantic organ, with their summits crowned by
wreaths of round trees. A white, semi-transparent cloud floats across
this rock, hiding all but its summit and its base. From time to time a
lightning-flash darts from this cloud, and the reverberated echoes of
the thunder-peals resound like long-drawn-out chords from this majestic
organ of Nature's own workmanship.
Over yonder, a mountain chasm suddenly comes into view, where two rocky
fragments, whose rugged surfaces seem to exactly correspond, stand face
to face. Through this rocky chasm, many hundred feet below, rushes a
stray branch of the icy Szamos, disappearing among the thick oak woods
which cover its banks.
In one place the rocks form a flight of steps, steps never fashioned for
the foot of man, for each of them is as high as a tower; in another
place the rocky boulders are piled one on the top of the other, in such
a way that if the undermost block were disturbed, the whole of the
enormous mass would fall into a differently-shaped group.
Everything indicates that here the dominion of the world and of man
ends. Not a single human habitation is visible from the dizzy heights;
even vegetation is rare and scanty; on every side bald rocks and gaping
chasms, among which the mountain torrents toss and tumble; only the wild
goat is there to be seen leaping from crag to crag.
"Which is the way now?" asked Clement of his guide, casting an anxious
glance at his surroundings, in which the possibility of hopelessly
losing oneself was more than probable.
"Trust only to me," said Sange Moarte, and he guided them through the
uninhabited wilderness with the unerring precision of instinct. In
places where it seemed impossible to go a step further, he always found
a path. He recollected every root or shrub which could serve as a
support to clamberers down the mountain side; every fallen tree which
spanned the abyss, every narrow ledge which could only be passed by
bending forward over the precipice and holding fast behind to the
fissures of the rock, was familiar to him; in short he seemed quite at
home in this interminable labyrinth.
"We are near," he cried suddenly, after clambering up a steep rocky wall
and surveying the horizon; then he held out his hands to his companions
and drew them up after him.
A new spectacle then presented itself.
The opposite slope of the rocky ridge which they had just ascended was
perfectly smooth and shiny, and encompassed the whole region in a
semi-circle, forming a sort of basin, at the very bottom of which--and
it was six hundred feet deep--lay a little mountain lake, the dark-green
waters of which perpetually boiled and bubbled, though not a breath of
air was stirring: perhaps it felt the ebb and flow of ocean. The
opposite side of the rocky basin was formed by a gigantic chain of
mountains, fringed only at its base by fir trees, and at the point where
the two mountain systems met, a small stream in a deep bed trickled into
the little mountain lake. The masses of ice which had fallen into the
valley formed a crystal vault over this stream.
"Whither are we going?" asked Clement, aghast.
"To the source of that brook," returned Sange Moarte. "It has dug its
way through the ice, and by following its course we shall come to the
place we seek."
"But how are we to get there? This rocky slope is as smooth as a mirror;
if a man begins sliding down it there is no stopping till he plumps into
the lake."
"You have only to take care. We must lie on our backs and glide down
sideways. Here and there you will find a tuft of Alpine roses to cling
on to. But you've nothing to fear if you slide down barefoot. Do as I
do."
A hair-bristling pastime truly!
Taking off their sandals they held on by their hands and feet to the
smooth, shelving, stony wall, at the foot of which lay the
darkly-gleaming, fathomless lake.
They had already slided half-way down the incline, when from the
mountain opposite arose a muffled, mysterious roar. They felt the cliff
on which they lay quaking beneath them.
"Ha! stay where you are," cried Sange Moarte, looking back at them. "An
avalanche from the mountain opposite is approaching."
And at the very next moment they could see a white ball descending from
the immeasurably distant heights, plunging with mad haste down the
mountain slope, tearing away with it whole masses of rock and uprooted
pines, swelling every moment into a more tremendous bulk, and dashing
down the decline in leaps of two hundred feet at a time into the valley
below.
"Heaven defend us!" cried the terrified Clement, clutching his guide
with one hand and holding on to the rock with the other. "It is coming
this way, and will overwhelm us all."
"Keep still," cried Sange Moarte, seeing them inclined to clamber up
again and thus expose themselves to the danger of a fall. "The avalanche
will take the direction of that block of rock standing in its way, and
will there either stop or disperse."
And indeed they could see that the snow-slip, now grown colossal, was
making for a projecting point of rock which was dwarf-like in
comparison. Every other sound was lost in the thunder of the avalanche.
And now the huge snow-ball bounded upon the obstructive rock, and fell
prone across it with a terrific thud, which shook the whole mountain to
its very base.
For a moment the whole region was enveloped in a cloud of steam-like
snow-spray, and after the final crash the thunder of the avalanche
ceased. But immediately afterwards it began again with a frightful
crackling; the weight of the snowy mass had uprooted the obstructing
rock, and whirling down with it in dizzy rotations, plunged
perpendicularly into the lake below.
The agitated lake, lashed out of its basin on both sides, rose in an
enormous wave, three hundred feet high, up to the very spot where the
bold climbers were clinging to the naked rock, and after poising in the
air for a second, like a huge transparent green column, broke and fell
back into the lake, which very slowly subsided.
"Now we will go on our way," said Sange Moarte. "The rock is moist now,
and the descent will be all the easier."
After the lapse of half-an-hour, the wanderers found themselves at the
mouth of a stream.
A wondrous corridor lay open before them. The brook sprang from a hot
spring, which, after racing down the deep valleys, buried itself beneath
icebergs and snowdrifts. But the hot water had bored a passage through
the ice, constantly melting the frozen mass around it with its warm
stream, so that only the thick outermost layer remained, which,
constantly renewed by the cold air without, and as constantly dissolved
by the hot stream within, grew into a sort of transparent crystal arcade
with huge dependent glittering stalactites above the stream.
Through this channel Sange Moarte now led his companions.
Clement could not but call to mind the fabulous fairy palace where
spellbound mortals only see the light of day through transparent waters.
Wading thus in the bed of the stream, they reached a point where the
bright arcade began to grow dark. Its transparent roof grew thicker and
thicker, passing gradually into an ever deeper blue, till at last it
became quite black, and the murmuring of the stream was the wanderers'
only guide. As they advanced, with their hose tucked up to their knees,
into the ever-darkening darkness, they felt the water getting hotter and
hotter, till at last they heard a hissing sound and saw once more the
daylight streaming through the rocky chasm, through which the brook
rushed down into its subterraneous cave.
Here, with the help of some dangling shrubs, they scaled the hillside to
avoid the onslaught of the boiling spring, and after a brief exertion
found themselves on the other side of the mountain, in a deep, well-like
valley.
This is the _Gradina Dracului_.
It is a perfectly round dell, shut in on every side by a wall of
perpendicular cliffs more than six hundred feet high. Whoever wishes to
look down from above, must approach the edge of the rock lying on his
stomach, and even then must have a good head not to be seized by
vertigo. At the bottom of this dell the flowers have an amaranthine
bloom. When the snow is falling thickly all around, and the ice is
sparkling everywhere else, here in the depths of the hardest winter may
then be seen those dark-green flowers with broad, indented petals, and
those little round-leaved trees the like of which are to be met with
nowhere else in this district. Just at this time too the leather-leaved
_Nymphaea_ opens its light-yellow calices here; the grass, both summer
and winter, is of the brightest green; and the wild laurel climbs high
up into the crevices of the rocks, and casts its red berries down into
the valley, when Nature all around is cold and dead.
Throughout the winter this dell is clothed with the rarest flowers.
Therefore the Wallach calls it "the Devil's Garden," and fears to
approach it.
But the whole wonder has quite a natural cause.
In the depth of the dell a hot mineral spring bubbles up in a cave,
never coming to light, but soaking all the circumambient soil through
and through, and it is because these warm waters possess a flora of
their own that these unknown shrubs and flowers are for ever blooming in
the neighbourhood of the vivifying element. The whole thing is a
splendid open-air orangery in the midst of snowstorms and icebergs.
Sange Moarte beckoned to his comrades to follow him. A feverish
impatience possessed him, and when he had advanced a few steps into the
cavern, he pointed with trembling hand at a dark recess, in which an
iron door was visible.
"What is it?" cried Clement, clutching his sabre. "Does anybody dwell
here?"
"Yes," rejoined Sange Moarte (his blood at that moment seemed to be on
fire, and the veins of his temples stood out like cords). "There, in
that water-basin, she is wont to bathe. There have I watched her, from
day to day, without ever daring to approach her," stammered he, in a
whisper that was scarcely audible, but full of the most passionate
ardour.
"Who?" asked the Patrol-officer, much amazed.
"Oh! the fairy," stammered the Wallach, with trembling lips, and he
buried his glowing head in his hands.
"What's all this about?" said Clement, turning to Zülfikar. "'Tis not a
fairy that I'm after but a panther!"
"Pst! a key is turning in the lock," cried Zülfikar. "Away back into the
dark cave!"
The two men had to drag Sange Moarte away from the iron gate, which a
moment afterwards opened noiselessly, and a girlish form stepped forth
leading a panther by a golden chain.
Sange Moarte was right in calling her a fairy.
Before them stood a dazzlingly beautiful woman in oriental _déshabillé_.
Her locks were enveloped in a red fez, the long gold tassels of which
fell across her white turban over her pale face; her ivory-smooth
shoulders gleamed forth from the sleeves of her short,
ermine-embroidered kaftan; her eyes sparkled in the dark; every movement
of her lithe body was serpentine, fascinating, maddening.
The three men held their breath. The girl passed by without observing
them.
"Ah, that is she," whispered Zülfikar in amazement, when she had gone.
"Who? Do you know her?" asked Clement.
"It is Azrael, Corsar Beg's former favourite."
"What a place for her to be in!"
"Pst! she'll hear us."
Meanwhile the girl had reached the basin where the subterraneous waters
poured their mingled flood, sat down on a stone bench, and commenced to
unwind her turban. Her jasper-black hair fell down over her shoulders.
Sange Moarte's hot panting resounded through the darkness.
The panther lay quietly at his mistress's feet, his shrewd head resting
on his front paws.
Azrael now removed her bright Persian shawl from her slim waist, and
next prepared to slip off her light kaftan, taking a couple of steps
towards a projecting rocky buttress which hid her from the eyes of the
watchers.
Sange Moarte was about to rush after her. It was all the two men could
do to hold him back.
"Are you mad?" growled Zülfikar in his ear. "Would you betray us with
your infernal curiosity?"
"The poor devil is in love with the girl!" whispered Clement.
At that moment there came the sound of a splash, as of some one leaping
into the water and playing with its waves.
Sange Moarte frantically tore himself loose from his companions' arms,
and with a furious yell rushed towards the basin.
At this yell Azrael, in all the maddening witchery of her charms, sprang
out of her watery mirror, looked at the presumptuous wretch with
flashing eyes, and cried savagely--
"Oglan! Seize him!"
The panther had hitherto remained motionless; but the moment his
mistress called him to battle, he sprang up with a roar, seized the
young Wallach, and threw him with a single jerk to the ground.
Sange Moarte did not think of defending himself against the savage
beast, but stretched out his hands imploringly towards the odalisk;
drank in her loveliness with thirsty looks; writhed closer to her, and,
weeping and groaning, fell down at her feet, while Azrael stared wildly
at him, threw her mantle hastily around her, and watched her darling
panther tear to pieces the youth who had never loved any one in his life
in order that he might love her to the death.
"I'll go and help him!" cried Clement, mad with horror, and drawing his
sword.
"Softly! Don't be a fool! Besides, we have something better to do. The
iron gate remains open; let us creep in while the lady is otherwise
engaged, and find out what there is here; that will interest our masters
very much, especially mine."
With that the two men crept through the iron door, groped their way
along the narrow passage which seemed to have been cut out of the naked
rock, and discovered at the end of it, by the light of a lamp hanging
from the roof, several small doors to the right and left. They opened
one door after the other, but only found empty rooms with no further
outlets. At length a glimpse of the outer world reached them through one
of the windows. They hastened forward in that direction, and coming upon
a second iron door passed through it, and found themselves in a large
courtyard surrounded by high walls, one of which they scaled, and beheld
from the top of it the valley of the cold Szamos stretching far and wide
before their eyes. Soon after they discovered a footpath which led them
from the wall to the woodlands below, and off they set running, and
never drew breath till they had safely reached the bottom. It was only
then that the two men ventured to stop and look each other in the face.
Clement fancied he still heard the wildly musical voice of the fair
demoniac, the roaring of the panther, and the death-shrieks of the young
Wallach.
"We may as well go on now," remarked Zülfikar, "for to return the way we
came without a guide is impossible, and we are bound to come out
somewhere."
And, indeed, they soon came upon two wood-cutters, who were fastening
their raft to the river's bank.
"What is that castle yonder?" asked Clement.
The men stared at him.
"Where? What castle?"
Clement looked behind to show it to them, and behold! nowhere was
anything to be seen with the remotest resemblance to a castle, nothing
but rocks, each the counterpart of the other. The Wallachs laughed
aloud.
"It were better not to mention it to them," said Zülfikar. "They look
as if they do not know what is going on under their very noses. But
we'll mark the place. Nothing but rocks are visible from the outside,
the brushwood conceals the very opening through which we got into the
open air."
So the wanderers inquired their way; returned to Marisel, where they
naturally did not stop to be questioned about Sange Moarte, but mounted
their steeds and rode off.
Zülfikar wanted Clement to go on with him to Banfi-Hunyad. The
Patrol-officer, however, declined to trespass on Denis Banfi's domains,
so the Turk went on alone to levy the new tax, though Clement prophesied
that he would receive more kicks than halfpence.
* * * * *
Clement duly informed Ladislaus Csaky of what he had seen, and received
one hundred ducats for his discovery, to say nothing of the green
top-boots.
Zülfikar fared much more strangely.
On arriving at Grosswardein, he gave the tribute-money to Ali Pasha,
informing him at the same time of all that he had found out about
Azrael.
This girl, when only thirteen years old, had been carried off from Ali
Pasha's harem by Corsar Beg. Ali, her original possessor, had promised a
reward of two hundred ducats to whomsoever should discover the
whereabouts of his favourite.
Zülfikar on quitting the Pasha had in his hand a purse of two hundred
ducats. This came to the ears of the Aga, Zülfikar's superior officer,
who straightway picked a quarrel with the renegade, and condemned him to
one hundred strokes of the bastinado, unless he preferred redeeming each
stroke with a ducat.
"I won't do that," returned Zülfikar, "but I'll hand over to you the
gift which Denis Banfi sent to Ali Pasha when I told him he was to pay
the new tax. Give it to the Pasha, and I'll wager he'll so reward you
that you'll remember it all your life."
The Aga greedily caught at the offer, took charge of the
carefully-sealed casket which Zülfikar himself ought to have handed to
the Pasha, and presented it to his Excellency with the following
respectful salutation--
"Behold, most gracious Pasha, I bring you that princely gift which Lord
Denis Banfi has sent you in lieu of taxes."
Ali Pasha seized the casket, cut through the silken cords, broke the
seal, and took off the cover, when lo! a horrible, shrivelled pig's
tail fell out of it on to his kaftan--the direst, most abominable
outrage which can befall a Mussulman!
Ali Pasha in his fury sprang almost up to the ceiling, and throwing his
turban to the ground, immediately ordered that the Aga, who stood rooted
to the spot with horror, should be impaled outside the camp.
But Zülfikar went gaily on his way with the two hundred ducats in his
pocket.