THE CAVERN OF LUCSIA
Not so very long ago there was in Transylvania a wide-spreading society
of coiners which, it is now notorious, had carried on its nefarious
business undetected for more than half a century. The science was an
inheritance descending from father to son, people married and were born
into it. Careful parents trained their children to follow it, and a very
lucrative profession it proved to be. That it should have remained
undiscovered for so long a time, that it should have been plied
successfully for more than fifty years under the very noses of the
authorities--all this was capable of a very simple explanation, _these
men coined gold pieces_.
Yes, genuine ducats, of full weight, out of real three-and-twenty carat
gold, without any admixture of baser metal, so that they absolutely
could not be distinguished from the royal ducats of the authorized
minting towns, Körmöcz and Gyulafehervár. If they fell into the hands of
a goldsmith, and he melted them, he found that they did not contain half
a grain more silver than the genuine ones. Indeed the public lost
nothing by their fabrication, though the state treasury suffered
considerably.
The whole region, in fact, from Zalathna to Verespatak abounded in that
precious metal which some fool or other has called "a mere chimera," and
the gold mining was farmed out to private individuals, the yearly output
from the shafts being twelve hundredweights. These private diggers are
bound to deliver the gold they obtain to the minting towns at Abradbanya
or Gyulafehervár and there receive coined money in exchange.
Nevertheless, during some fifty years, only about six hundredweights
were delivered annually at these places; the rest disappeared, though at
first nobody could suspect it. The State pays to the diggers 441 guldens
for every pound of gold dust, which quantity when coined is worth 720
guldens. But it occurred to the mountaineers that they also might
profitably engage in coining and circulate the money so coined. So they
provided themselves with all the necessary implements and machinery
(there were skilled workmen among them) and issued false ducats to their
very great advantage. Their existence was not even suspected except by
the parties interested in the concern, and they had every motive in the
world for preserving the secret.
* * * * *
Travelling from Abradbanya up towards Bucsum, one might have seen two
riders toiling up the mountain along the stream overshadowed by dark
alders; one of them was a grey-haired, gigantic Roumanian, the other a
proud-looking young woman. The old man wore a lambskin mantle, on his
head he carried a tall pointed cap, also of lambs' wool, drawn down over
his eyebrows, his body was carelessly girdled with a golden girdle. His
rich grey locks were plaited into two thick pig-tails which reached down
to his broad shoulders, and his snow-white moustache hung down from his
mouth like two seamew's wings. A coarse sack lay in front of him across
his saddle, both ends of which appeared to be full of something heavy;
across the sack lay his fowling-piece.
The fair cavalier was sitting on a small, wild, shaggy horse, which
constantly evinced a praiseworthy endeavour to overtake the rider in
front of him; his mistress with difficulty held him in. She was one of
those famous Roumanian beauties. Her features, the cut of her lips, her
full chin could have stood as a model beside any antique statue. And
then those sparkling eyes, that vividly red complexion, those coal-black
eyebrows--they made an ideal beauty of her. And the picturesque
Roumanian costume enhanced her charms. Her black hair, twisted into a
double plait, was bound round with a flaming-red scarf, and on her head
she wore a round hat, trimmed with pearls and garnished in front with a
row of gold pieces which reached down to her marble-white forehead.
Moreover, her fine cambric shirt embellished with bright flowers and
gold ornaments fitted so closely as to betray the outlines of her
harmonious figure. Wound ten times round her neck she wore a necklace
of gold coins extending down to her bosom. As she rode along (and she
sat astride her saddle like a man), every now and then one could catch
glimpses beneath her variegated girdle of her red morocco boots and of a
Turkish dagger, with a massive silver handle, gleaming forth from their
shafts. On each side of her holsters peeped forth a double-barrelled
pistol with an ivory handle.
When the old man stopped to water his horse at the spring gushing forth
from the black slate rock, he said to the girl: "Anicza, when did you
speak last with Fatia Negra?"
"Just a month ago. It was at the time of the full moon, like it is now.
He then said that he was going away on a long journey."
"And yet he has already been at home these two days. I saw his sign over
against my window."
"Impossible. It cannot be," cried the girl passionately.
"What cannot be? Do you think I am dreaming or lying?"
"If he were at home, he would have come to see me ere this."
The old man shrugged his shoulders.
"And yet he did not come. But the day before yesterday, about midnight,
I found the three owl-feathers there in the window."
"The wind carried them thither."
"The wind did not carry them thither for they were stuck fast in putty.
And only we three know what that means. Fatia Negra would speak with us
and we are going to meet him in the Lucsia cavern."
"It cannot, cannot be--three days at home and never to come to me--to
_me_!"
"Who knows?" said the old man coolly, tightening his saddle girth, "a
whole month is a long while, long enough for the moon herself to change
four times. There are many pretty wenches on the other side of the
mountain."
"O no! such a one as I am he will not find there," said the girl
proudly, glancing into the tremulous water-mirror which threw back a
distorted likeness of her defiant face--"and besides he knows very well
that I should murder him were such a woman to mock me."
"Ah, ah!" mocked the old man, "so Fatia Negra is afraid of you,
eh?"--and with that he swung himself back into his saddle with
youth-like agility. "Black Face fears nobody, I tell you. He is not even
afraid of the commandant of Gyulafehervár, nor of the lord-lieutenant of
Krasna, and they have no end of soldiers and heydukes. Nay, he fears not
the devil himself."
And with that he urged on his horse which ambled forward meditatively,
whilst the girl's little nag whinnied in the rear.
"He may not fear the great gentlemen, he may not fear the devil, but I
tell you that he would be afraid of the girl he made to love him, if he
proved false to her."
"So you really think he loves you violently?" said the old man casting a
backward glance at her.
"He swore he did."
"To whom? the priest?"
"Go along with you! No, to me!"
At this the old man chuckled--"little fool!" said he.
"And if he breaks his oath now, the devil shall have him. I'll murder
him."
"Very well, I suppose you know him. Yet you have never seen his face. If
he were to tear the black velvet mask from his face you would never
recognize him."
"But that he cannot do as to that mask he owes all his power."
"Well, you are a comical wench--to be enamoured of a man whose face you
have never seen!"
"I recognize him by his voice, by the beating of his heart."
"Well, if I were a girl and had a lover, I would insist on seeing his
face. He should not come to me in a mask anyhow."
"He cannot put off his mask, I tell you. His oath forbids him to. The
moment he removes his mask from his face his power is gone, and neither
the devil nor the good angels will obey him any longer."
"That is true," returned the old man solemnly. "When he likes he can
make himself invisible. I know it. He has always escaped pursuit even
when the whole country was out after him, and when they thought they had
him fast he always disappeared in the earth or in the air. Yet, for all
that, if I were his love, see his face I would."
"He told me I should die of fright if I beheld it."
"Then I _would_ die of fright--but I would see it."
"His eyes are very fine,--they glow like coals."
"Like coals? Perhaps he is the Dracu[16] himself. Have you ever tried to
make him kiss the amulet on which is the image of St. George and the
Dragon?"
[Footnote 16: Dracu-dragon, _i.e._, devil.]
"Yes he has kissed it and was none the worse."
"Have you tried to get him to lay his three fingers on a copper
crucifix?"
"He laid his fingers thereon and yet they were not burnt."
"Can he say the prayer of condemnation without trembling?"
"He has said it hundreds of times."
"Nevertheless, I maintain he is no mortal man."
"If he should love another woman, I swear that he will very soon find
out that he _is_ mortal."
Talking thus the riders had descended into the depths of the valley, and
when the mountain stream again crossed their path they quitted the usual
footpath and followed the bed of the stream. And a very good road it is
for such as do not wish to leave foot-marks behind them. The rapid
current swiftly fills the traces of the horses' hoofs with leaves and
pebbles.
The ravine grew ever deeper and narrower, and the stream at intervals
formed small cataracts which the horses, who had been trained thereto,
had to cross. Finally, at a sudden declivity, the water took an
unexpected leap of four yards, and when the riders reined up at this
very spot, it was plain that here a mill had been built into the
hillside, whose wheel it was which drove the swiftly plunging water
along.
If a stranger saw this mill he would certainly say: "What foolish man
the miller must be who has built his mill here," (----) and that for
three reasons. Firstly, because it was so concealed beneath the thick
alders that even if one sees it one cannot get at it. Secondly, because
it is built exactly under the water-fall which drives the wheel as
rapidly as a spindle, so that the millstone must needs be red hot
beneath it. Thirdly, because the way to this mill is so peculiar,
passing right through the mountain torrent and then winding down to the
door by way of a foot-path hewn in the naked rock, and inaccessible to
horses. Well, such a miller will surely get but little grain to grind!
When the two riders reached this spot they sprang from their horses, led
them into a little dry islet formed by the alders and tied them by
their halters to the branches. Then the old man lifted the sack from
the saddle.
"Give me a lift up, Anicza!" said he.
One would hardly have supposed that an old fellow of such a colossal
build would have required any help at all in order to get this sack
across his shoulders, nor would one have supposed from the size of the
sack that it would have been so heavy to lift or that it would have
weighed so heavily on the old man's shoulders that he had to plant his
hand firmly on his hip in order to carry the load.
Then the girl drew both pistols forth from her holsters, stuck them into
her girdle, threw the long fowling-piece across her shoulder and
springing fearlessly across the stream from boulder to boulder followed
behind the stooping old man along the narrow foot-path which led to the
mill. In the doorway of the mill stood a youth clad in the usual coarse
cloth "_guba_" and half concealed by the door post. In one hand he held
a double-barrelled musket, an implement not absolutely necessary for a
miller. The old man addressed him while still a good way off:
"_Che timpu?_"[17]
[Footnote 17: What sort of weather?]
"_Luna plina._"[18]
[Footnote 18: Full moon.]
A strange sort of greeting, more like an exchange of pass-words.
Then both the new arrivals entered the mill in the midst of which a
dilapidated grinding machine was revolving, the central wheel was minus
a couple of teeth.
"Plenty of grinding going on, Paul?" asked the old man.
"Quite enough."
"Help me down with this sack."
"It is heavy certainly," said the other, panting beneath the strain,
"how much does it hold?"
"A hundredweight and eighty pounds."
"No mere Turkish maize, eh?"
"Stop the wheel!"
The young man at once obeyed by driving an iron beam clean through the
wheel which brought the machinery to a standstill. Then he raised the
central revolving disc which was in connection with the millstone, hung
in the hook of the millstone an iron chain which was wound round the
beam and this done, laid the sack and its contents on the bolting-hutch.
Then the old man himself, sat down on the hutch and extended his hand to
the girl. "Jump on Anicza." And the girl jumped on without help for she
was as agile as a chamois.
"Paul," said the old man to the young journeyman, "was not Fatia Negra
here before us?"
"He has not been through here either to-day or yesterday. It has been my
turn to watch these last two days."
"I am right you see; he is not here," said the girl.
"He _is_ here, I tell you."
"Come Onucz," said the youth, "can Black Face make himself invisible
then? He could not pass here without my knowing it!"
"What do you know about it?" answered the old man, adjusting himself on
the bolting-hutch. "Let the mill go!"
As now the revolving disc or platform began to move, the machinery stood
still, yet the millstone together with the bolting-hutch began slowly to
sink downwards together with those sitting upon it, and after some
moments, disappeared entirely into a dark gulf, the chain unwinding and
rattling after it. Suddenly from the depths below resounded the old
man's voice: "Halt!" Then Paul stopped the mill, hung the chain in an
iron ring and the machinery once more set in motion, raised the
millstone up, Paul fastened the revolving disc to it and it began to
rattle round again so furiously that sparks flew out of it. Now whoever
had any meal to grind might come, he was quite ready for them.
It was a huge subterraneous cavern into which Onucz and Anicza had
descended. At the bottom of this hollow flowed a branch of the mountain
stream which turned the mill and indeed was diverted thither by means of
wooden pipes. Here, however, it flowed in its regular bed, glistening
here and there in the light of two oil lamps which burnt on both sides
of a small iron bridge that traversed the stream.
In the background of this hollow stood a peculiar, roofless, stone
building, whose two round little windows, like the eternally watchful
eyes of some underground worm, shone with a red glare which dazzled the
eyes, while the slate-covered chimney belched forth a thick smoke filled
with sparks into the subterranean midnight.
From the interior of the building resounded heavy thuds and the din of
grinding as of machinery in perpetual motion which made the very
foundations of the rocks quiver. On the bridge stood another armed man
with whom the new arrivals exchanged watchwords and the same thing was
done at the door of the stone building where the old man made the girl
stop.
"Now Anicza," said he, "while I go in, you sit down on that stone bench
and wait for me."
"Why cannot I go into the house as well?" enquired the girl,
impatiently.
"No more of that. Once a year we come here and every time you ask again
if you can come in, and every time I tell you that cannot be. And now I
tell you once more: _it cannot be_--and there's an end on't."
"But why may others go in and I not?"
"Why--why! because you are a girl, of course. Leave me in peace. Women
have no business in there, they are always so inquisitive, want to know
everything and then blab it all out--it is their nature so."
"I'm not like that."
"And then whoever enters here has to swear a frightful oath that he
will divulge nothing that he sees. I myself shudder all over when I have
to repeat it; it is not fit for the mouth of a woman."
"As if _I_ were afraid of any oath!" cried the girl defiantly. "I would
say any thing that a man might say."
"Don't be a fool, Anicza. A girl cannot come in here, because everyone
has to strip himself stark naked before he goes out, before the
watchman, and then dress himself again. So you see it won't do."
This difficulty appeared insuperable even to the iron will of Anicza. It
was a test even she could not submit to. She stamped her foot with rage
and uttered again and again the word Dracu, which in Roumanian means
nothing less than his highness the devil himself.
Old Onucz and the watchman thereupon laughed heartily, and the same
instant the iron door of the building opened and the girl exclaimed
joyfully: "Fatia Negra!"
Onucz and the watchman immediately tore their caps from their heads. It
was, indeed, Fatia Negra.
How could he get hither invisibly through all the ambushes set for him?
Who could tell? Who had the courage to ask him? Not even Anicza. All she
thought of at that moment was to rush forward, fall upon the neck of her
mysterious lover and cover his eyes and mouth, which the mask left
exposed, with kisses.
"Let Anicza come in!" said the black-masked man, "I'll answer for her,
and she shall, like myself, be exempted from undressing."
"It is well, Domnule,"[19] said the watchman, "but let her at least take
the oath which everyone here must swear."
[Footnote 19: Master.]
"I am ready," cried the girl boldly.
"No, Anicza," replied Black Mask, "you shall swear to me a stronger oath
even than that, you shall swear--by our eternal love."
The proud maiden, trembling with joy, fell at the feet of Fatia Negra at
these words, and pressing one of her hands to her heart, raised the
other aloft, and, raising her lovely eyes--which reflected the infernal
glare of the windows--aloft, towards the smoking canopy above her head,
she swore by her eternal love to her beloved that she would never, not
even on the rack itself, betray a word, a syllable of what she was about
to learn.
But old Onucz scratched his poll.
"Domnule, it is not wise of you to let women swear on such useless
things. It is just as if one of us were to hold a penny in his hand and
swear by that. It binds nobody."
"It is enough for me," replied the Mask, "and my head is no cheaper than
yours. Let him who trusts me not keep away from here."
And holding the girl in his arms, he carried her with him into the
building while old Onucz had to dress himself from head to foot in other
clothes and leave those he had brought with him outside. He would have
on his return to put on his own again and leave these others behind.
Thus smuggling was impossible.
The first room was for the smelting.
Here there was nothing to be seen of the blazing fire which illuminated
the dark hollow through the windows, in one corner of the room was a
simple cylinder shaped iron furnace which radiated a burning heat, on
the top of which stood a round graphite crucible covered in at the top
and provided with a lateral pipe.
"Here the gold is remelted after it has come out of the purifying oven,"
said Fatia Negra to the girl who pressed close up to him. "Heretofore it
required a whole apparatus of boilers and loads and loads of wood to
bring it to smelting heat, but since I got that cylinder-stove, ten
hundredweights of metal can be melted in ten minutes."
"But where does the fire come from?" enquired the girl.
"From the earth, my beloved."
The girl shrank back with horror, and yet Fatia Negra did not mean hell
but that furnace whose powerful bellows drove the melting heat into the
double cylinder.
He looked at his watch, the moment had come. At a single whistle a
couple of workmen appeared, each of them stripped to the waist on
account of the great heat; they held in their hands large iron moulds
and stood facing each other opposite the crucible. Then by means of an
iron tap Fatia Negra turned the pipe of the crucible and immediately a
pale glare began to spread through the room--the liquid gold ran in a
thin jet out of the crucible and that was the cause of the light.
Actually genuine pure gold made liquid in the fire like wine in a glass
and emitting on every side of it a glowing white radiance! Each of the
two workmen held his mould beneath it and the girl surveyed the scene
with bated breath.
When the operation was finished Black Face turned to the girl again and
embraced her saying: "So you see, darling, that is how gold is melted."
The girl smiled back at him; what a pity the Black Mask could not smile
in return. And now old Onucz came up with his sack for the purifying
furnace.
"How much have you in your sack?" asked Fatia Negra.
"A hundredweight and eighty pounds."
"Now we'll see into how much pure gold it will work out."
"The dross mixed with it is only a few pounds in weight."
"Of what quality is it?"
"Well, they purify it very incompletely you know. It is only
two-and-twenty carat gold."
"It doesn't matter: we will coin Prussian ducats out of it."
"But where's the mould?"
"I brought it with me, to-day; we'll adjust that also to the machine.
We shall gain a hundred florins in every thousand."
Old Onucz kissed Fatia Negra's hand. "Domnule," said he, "you are a man
indeed. Domnule, since you became our chief our gains have doubled and
the ducats are so good that one cannot distinguish them from the
Imperial ones."
Meanwhile the girl felt her head going round to hear them talk of
nothing but money, gold, gain!
"Come Onucz, let us look at the new machinery," said the Mask.
"When did you bring the new machinery here?"
"A long time ago; we have coined a great deal of money since it first
came. The work is all the quicker and we need fewer men to work it."
They went into the next room through a low door, all three of them
having to bow their heads as they entered, and there they saw a gigantic
machine at work between whose revolving cylinders depended the long gold
ingots which were gradually reduced to the proper thinness for making
gold coins.
"Don't you see, Onucz? Hitherto we wasted too much time and labour in
cutting the gold plates thin enough and the edges were always too thick
to our great loss. Now the machine rolls them all out uniformly. It only
cost 10,000 ducats."
"Very cheap indeed!" cried the old man, who was wearing a ragged
sheepskin and yet considered ten thousand ducats a moderate price for a
rolling mill.
The Mask took up one of the little glistening plates.
"Do you know, my friend, the name of this?" said he.
"No."
"Its name is Zain. In order that you may not forget it I will wind it
round your arm." And as if it were merely hard paper he lightly bent the
gold plate round the girl's wrist and then pressed the ends of this
improvised bracelet together with his steel-like fingers. "Don't forget
that this is called Zain and that you got it from me."
The girl looked doubtfully at him as if she would have said: "Is it
lawful for you to give away everything here as if it were your own."
But the old man could not look on at this in silence. "Alas! alas!
Domnule, give not away uncoined gold. Rather squander coined gold in
heaps. The other is of itself a witness against us and thereby we shall
furnish a clue to our enemies."
"It is in a good place," replied Fatia Negra; "it is on Anicza's arm and
there it will keep silence."
Anicza replied to this apology with ten kisses. And she calculated
rightly. This necklace weighed exactly ten double ducats--but the kisses
also were double ones.
Then Fatia Negra led them to another machine which cut round gold
pieces out of the rolled out "Zain." He showed the girl how every
clipper, how every screw beneath the impulsion of the piston did its
proper share of the work, and how the whole process was set going by
steam power from without and could therefore be directed and controlled
by one man with another man to relieve him at intervals.
"Dumnezu!"[20] sighed old Onucz, "when I think that fifty years ago we
did all this with only our hammers and chisels! We sweated two whole
days over a piece of work which this marvel can do in an hour. And how
many hands we employed too!"
[Footnote 20: My master.]
Then they went to another machine. This was a small table whose steel
wheels notched the ducats before they passed beneath the stamping
machine. Perpetually moving elastic springs pushed the gold pieces
forward one after the other, turned them round and jerked them away. You
saw no other motive power but a large wheel revolving under a broad
strap; the strap disappeared through the floor, it was underneath there
that the man who set it in motion lived.
Old Onucz sighed aloud. "What things they do invent now-a-days," said
he.
But Anicza, full of superstitious fear, clung silently to the arm of
Fatia Negra whom all these speechless marvels served and obeyed.
Finally, descending six stone steps they entered the actual minting
room.
A gigantic screw press stood in the midst of the low vaulted chamber.
Through the head of the screw was driven a long moving bar, with leaden
bullets at both ends and two strong fellows were pushing this bar
backwards and forwards; the weight of the machine, as it turned, forced
the screw sharply down and in a second it pressed the two round gold
pieces laid in the steel matrix into the stamping dies, on one of which
was the image of the Mother of God and on the other the cuirassed
likeness of the reigning monarch. Immediately after the two matrices
recoiled again of their own accord and the two powerful men repeated the
pressure. Then a little steel ring shifted suddenly, flinging aside the
coined ducat, and a fresh gold piece took its place. The coined ducats
already lay in a heap in front of the machine and the workmen, now and
then, kicked them away with their feet.
There was something impressive in the spectacle. Here were two poor men,
working hard perhaps for their daily bread with little hillocks of
seductive gold piled up all around them, gold of which everyone is
enamoured in the earth above them, gold for which so many men gladly
give up everything, even to their hope in Heaven!
Now and again a third man comes in and pitches the gold into a linen
sack with a wooden shovel.
"Let us stamp a few ducats ourselves by way of souvenirs," said Fatia
Negra. Anicza assenting, the workmen stepped aside, and Fatia Negra and
the girl placed themselves on either side of the leaden bullets on the
turning bar.
The Mask bade his sweetheart be careful to avoid the recoil of the
machine for should the handle hit her the blow might prove fatal,
whereupon the girl, burning to show off her great strength, did not wait
for the end of the bar to recover its normal position, but seizing the
iron rod when it was only half way round, tore it back again, with the
result that the steel clapper did not cast the gold piece between the
matrices in the usual way and it thus received a double impression,
being stamped with a two-fold figure of the Mother of God on one side
and a two-fold figure of the royal profile on the other.
Old Onucz rushed towards Anicza and angrily tore her away:
"You little fool, be off!" cried he, "you will spoil the machine, it is
not for the likes of you."
But Fatia Negra now picked up the ducat which had fallen to the ground
and showed it with a smile to Anicza: "Look," said he, "there is now a
double picture on it."
The girl turned it curiously between her fingers.
"And what will happen to it now?"
"It will go into the smelting furnace again."
"Ah, don't destroy it, give it to me!"
At this the old man fairly lost his temper.
"Are you out of your mind to ask for such a thing? What! a ducat with a
flaw in it, which, if seen in your hands would saddle us with the
vengeance of the whole government! Domnule, be not so mad as to let her
have that ducat! If she has no sense, you at least be sensible. You
might ruin the whole lot of us with it."
"Well, Anicza will not wear it on her head, I suppose, or even on her
neckerchief, but will fasten it to a little bit of thread and wear it
next her heart, there nobody will find it but myself."
Onucz would very much have liked to say: "Neither have you any right to
look there, Domnule, for you have not yet spoken to the priest about
it"--but this was the one thing he durst not say.
But Anicza gratefully kissed Fatia Negra's hand like a child who has
received a gift, not indeed for the ducat, but for the boundless
confidence he had shown in giving it to her, which was the surest token
of his love. Then she drew forth a little Turkish dagger, bored a hole
with it through the ducat and fastened it to a little piece of thin
black cord by the side of her little crucifix which she wore upon her
bosom--and hid both of them away again.
"Well Domnule," remarked Onucz sulkily, "since we have placed our heads
in the girl's hands we must beware of ever offending her."
But now the assayer came up, bringing with him a nice elaborate
calculation on a black slate, showing exactly how much pure gold Onucz
had handed in to the coining department, how much it would be worth when
coined and deducting three per cent for expenses, how much he was to
receive in cash by way of exchange.
"And now go and let the cashier pay you what is due to you, Onucz," said
Fatia Negra.
And so while he remained behind for the purpose of settling his account
Anicza and Fatia Negra retired to a little adjoining chamber. There
would be plenty of time for two lovers to talk over their love affairs
while so many gold coins were being counted out.
"Where have you been? it's a whole month since I saw you?" asked Anicza
sitting on the adventurer's knee. "Do you know how long a month is to
me? First quarter, new moon, full moon, last quarter, all this have I
watched through and never saw you once, where have you been?"
"I have been abroad for those new machines. That is a business one
cannot entrust to another."
"Are there pretty girls abroad?--Might you not fall in love with them?"
"Hush! Those are not the questions that men should be asked."
"Why not?"
"Because men are not in the habit of answering them."
"But suppose a girl wants to know?"
"Then it will go badly with her. Besides, what do you want me to tell
you? Would you like to know that I'm such a block, a clod, that no
other eye but yours takes any pleasure in looking at me? Or would you
like to hear that I am a sort of hermit who has wandered in disguise
through seven kingdoms and casts down his eyes whenever he encounters a
petticoat? Or that I cross myself and turn away whenever a woman looks
at me? Or shall I tell you: in such and such a place I nipped the white
cheeks of a pretty blonde, and in such and such a place the coquettrie
of a pair of blue eyes made me forget myself, and in such another place
I bedded my intoxicated head in the arms of a brunette?--and that after
wandering through seven kingdoms I have found no lovelier girl than my
own enchanting Anicza?"
The girl could neither reply nor scold, for her mouth was closed fast
with kisses.
"You know I am very jealous," she said at last, when she was able to
tear herself free. "I do not love as others love. I can only think of
you and your love. I am neither hungry nor thirsty but only--in love. I
am never weary, I scarcely know that I am working, for love makes me
sing and sing all day. I dream only of you. I care not what is going on
in the whole world so long as I only know what is happening to you. I
know that you love me and that you are mine so long as you are here. But
how often you are far away! How often I do not see you for weeks, for
months at a time! Then I get nearly mad. I am determined to find out
where you are and what you are doing, with whom you are speaking and
then I say, I feel quite mad."
"Indeed! Then let me tell you, my dear girl, that it would do you no
good to know where I am, for I am much more exposed to the fire of
pointed rifles than to the fire of pretty eyes."
"Are you then a robber chieftain, a mountain smuggler?"
"I am a lot of things."
"Then take me with you into your band"--she spoke with heaving bosom.
But Fatia Negra stamped his foot.
"It cannot be, Anicza," said he; "think no more of it! I will never take
you with me."
"Why not?" asked the girl and her eyes flashed like a wild cat's.
"Because then I should become jealous of you and that would be bad for
us both. Remain in your father's house; there you are safe."
The girl drew from her bosom the defaced ducat she had just received
together with the crucifix.
"Hearken, Fatia Negra! my father says that this badly coined piece of
gold places your life in my hand. And know, besides, Fatia Negra, that I
have sworn on this Crucified One here that if ever you betray me I will
kill you in my fury without thinking twice about the how or where. It is
not well that two such dangerous objects should repose on my heart.
Look! I give them both to you."
"Wherefore, Anicza?"
"Take the things, I say, and keep them, for my guardian angel knows, I
have told him, that with me they are not in a safe place. You do not
know me yet."
The girl burst out crying, and Fatia Negra could no longer soothe her
with kisses, and then old Onucz poked his gray shaggy head through the
doorway and said: "I have been paid already, Domnule, have you?"
Fatia Negra stroked the girl's hair and face and whispered her not to
take on so.
The stitches of the old Roumanian's patience now, at last, gave way
altogether. "Domnule," said he, "would you not, if I earnestly besought
you to do so, begin to think of the day on which you intend to become my
daughter's husband?"
For a moment Fatia Negra seemed thunderstruck; then he recovered himself
and replied in a calm but menacing voice: "If ever it occurs to you to
put the question to me again, your head will reach home an hour earlier
than yourself."
The old man made no reply, but he seized the girl by the hand and led
her away with him, returning to the mill with her by the same way that
he had come. They found their horses by the alder trees and remounted.
It was a fine clear night, and Onucz told his daughter to ride in front.
They had now divided the coined gold into two portions. When they had
once more reached the ridge of the mountain the old man pronounced
Anicza's name in a low tone. The girl looked, backwards and perceived
that the old man's long-barrelled rifle was pointed directly at the back
of her head. In her terror she covered her face with her hands. "What
would you do?" cried she.
"Fear nothing, I only want that piece of gold which Fatia Negra gave
you. I'll not stake _my_ head on _your_ whimsies!"
The girl had anticipated something much worse than this, so she quietly
answered: "You can spare yourself the trouble, I have already returned
it to Fatia Negra. I would not carry it about with me any longer."
"You have acted wisely," said the old man, lowering his musket. "Now you
can ride on."
The early dawn was breaking as they reached home. When Anicza entered
her room she found hanging up beneath the ikon that gleamed and shone
over her bed both the damaged ducat and the little cross which she had
given to Fatia Negra two hours before. He must indeed be in league with
the devil--else how could he have got there, invisibly, so long before
them?
Anicza said not a word about it to anybody, but she hid both the amulets
safely away in her bosom again--and now she was right proud of her Fatia
Negra!