It was breakfast time on Monday morning, May 18, when, in fresh and
superb raiment, Jaffer descended from the train at Tashkent, surveyed the
Russian buildings that surrounded the station, and stepped into the first
vehicle which presented itself. It happened to be a troika—three horses
abreast—and Jaffer started off for the Grand Hotel. There proved to be
nothing very grand about it, but there were trees and peacocks, and a
Bactrian camel was grumbling near the office window.
When he had shown his passport, he ordered the best room in the house,
and made more or less ado about having an excellent meal served at once.
Then he inquired in Persian for letters. There was of course nothing for
the name inscribed in his passport. He casually remarked that the other
members of his party, Dr. Jaffer and Mr. Sereef, had proceeded west from
Charjui.
His Afghan hauteur impressed the clerk, who handed him a letter for each
of the missing men, and asked him to forward them. Jaffer put the letters
in his pocket, and awaited breakfast. After breakfast he ordered another
troika, and set out to see the town.
In the troika he slipped the letter for Saadi into his money-belt.
Then he opened the envelope addressed to himself. He inspected the
telegram—“Cetinje, April 15, 1914—Saadi Sereef—bsvd—Mohammed Beg.” He
learned it by heart. Then he read Dr. Trench’s own words, copied “400a”
on a piece of paper, stopped the troika, shouted “Gospitalnaya,” and
handed the slip of paper to the driver. But the broad avenue on which he
was bowling along was itself the Gospitalnaya, and all the driver had to
do was to proceed a hundred yards farther.
There was a small sign on the house, in Russian letters. Jaffer figured
out that in a decent language it would read “Dr. Yukitch.” He rang the
bell, and was admitted by a turbaned Sart. He was conducted through two
dim rooms into the presence of the physician.
Dr. Yukitch, a prepossessing man of thirty, rose to meet him. Jaffer
introduced himself in French, but Dr. Yukitch asked if he did not speak
Russian or German.
“Sicher, und Gott sei dank!” answered Jaffer. “I am not sick, doctor, but
I have heard of you as the one man who handles filaria without the knife.”
“You flatter me, Dr. Jaffer. You are German-trained?”
“I am fond of the Germans, but I am not German-trained. I am a graduate
of Lister College, in Chicago.”
“Chicago! Extraordinary. And may I venture to inquire why you did not
proceed from Bombay direct?”
“Business, Dr. Yukitch. I am passing through Turkestan on an errand for
my dearest friend—a Chicago physician named Trench.”
“Dr. Isham Trench?” calmly inquired the man, there in the heart of Asia.
“No other,” answered Jaffer, surprised to the tips of his nerves.
“We were classmates at Vienna, Dr. Jaffer. It was a large class, but he
would remember me as the man who frequently asked him about farmlands
in America, for I thought of going there. Or if he has forgotten those
talks, he will hardly have forgotten the dinner we gave him before he
graduated. There were twenty of us, and it was the twenty-third of April,
1907, in the Hotel Union in Alsergrund.”
“A birthday dinner?”
“Yes, and he was much the quietest man at the table.”
Jaffer rose and advanced. “Will you kindly allow me to shake hands with
you?”
The ceremony over, Jaffer proceeded. “Doctor, why don’t you write to your
classmate?”
Yukitch shrugged his shoulders. “There is no occasion.”
“Then let me make one. Can you tell me if there is any customs regulation
to interfere with the sending of uncut gems by registered mail?”
“I know of none, but accidents sometimes happen even to registered mail.”
Jaffer drew from his pocket the two rubies of Malikdin Sayid. “These
represent a fee, and I must share it with Dr. Trench.”
“You surprise me, Dr. Jaffer.”
“There was no bargain,” laughed Jaffer. “It is merely a token of love.
Pray send it for me, and with it a letter saying that I called upon you.
I haven’t the nerve to write before I finish the task he set me.”
Dr. Yukitch examined the stones admiringly. “It could be done—quite
safely.” He gave back one of them, and disappeared into his laboratory.
He returned with a mortar containing a thick paste, and proceeded to
surround the stone with a layer of it. He rolled the bolus deftly between
his palms, measured it with calipers, and again disappeared. When he
returned, the big pill had been dipped and was drying in a pasteboard
box, where it lay on top of a dozen others.
“You see the proposed method, Dr. Jaffer. A brief note of instructions
will suffice. But you had better probe the new one before it is dry.”
“Friends of Isham Trench,” said Jaffer, “do not probe each other’s pills.”
Dr. Yukitch looked at him, man to man. Then he sat down to his desk and
wrote his note, and handed it to Jaffer to read.
“Charming, doctor! But what is this at the end? This is a reckless
promise—to be of any possible service to me.”
“Hardly reckless. If your business in Turkestan involves any concessions
to Germans, you will find my helpfulness curiously limited.”
Jaffer smiled. “If the medicine is dry enough, will not your servant
start it on its way?”
Dr. Yukitch made a neat package, addressed it according to directions,
summoned his Sart, and despatched both box and letter.
“And now shall we discuss filaria, or—your business in Tashkent?”
“As for filaria, Dr. Yukitch, I am quite content to know that it yields
to your remedies. But I have a natural curiosity to learn how you happen
to be out here at the end of the world.”
Dr. Yukitch spoke rather dryly. “I am selling medicine, but I will add a
subsidiary reason. I am here because of karst.”
“Is he an Austrian?”
“No, he is the bones of certain insignificant animals who did me much
harm. Karst is limestone. It is the material of my country, which is a
land of crags and valleys. It renders agriculture precarious, and it
separates us.”
“You must be an Afghan,” smiled Jaffer.
“I was born in Herzegovina, Dr. Jaffer, and the geography of the Balkan
peninsula is sufficient reason why I am in Tashkent. You observe that I
am blaming nature, not Austria.”
“I observe,” said Jaffer, “that you remind me of Dr. Trench. But if you
prefer to blame Austria, I beg you not to spare my feelings.”
“You are a Moslem, Dr. Jaffer, and the hatred between my people and
yours is not a matter of yesterday. Germany has long been hand and glove
with the Turk.”
“The Turks, my dear Dr. Yukitch, are what an old friend of mine calls
soft Moslems. It is a matter of regret to me that Germany has anything to
do with them.”
“Well, sir, it seems possible for us to speak in an impersonal
way of these things, and I do not mind saying that I came out to
Tashkent because an Orthodox Slav finds it hard to make a living in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. You are of course under the impression that the Dual
Monarchy has civilised my country.”
“Yes.”
“It is a false impression. To be sure, the Monarchy has spent money in
Bosnia. It cost them sixty-five million crowns to build a narrow gauge
from Serajevo to the Servian border, a distance of ninety miles. The
travel on it does not pay for the coal burned.”
“A military road, apparently.”
“Quite apparently. And the Monarchy spends four times as much on the
gendarmerie as on the schools.”
“You must be a dangerous lot.”
“So dangerous, my dear doctor, that two thousand families migrated to
Servia last year to escape starvation. So dangerous that our Moslems are
leaving for Anatolia. So dangerous that our range lands are given to
Austrian settlers. So dangerous that taxes rise till our peasants can pay
neither the begs nor the collector. So dangerous, in short, that none
of us are wanted in the mountains we have inhabited for fifteen hundred
years.”
“Why, it sounds like home,” smiled Jaffer. “I suppose that educated
Bosnians like yourself are the most dangerous of all.”
“Naturally. Suppose we get to Vienna—my own education represents great
sacrifices made by my brothers in order to have one educated man in the
family. On graduation, we find Bosnian commerce in the hands of the
Austrians. We find Bosnian agriculture hopeless. We find eleven Austrians
to one Bosnian teaching in our gymnasia. We find six Austrians to one
Bosnian in our lawcourts. We find public assemblies forbidden, and
journalism gagged.”
“Is the case as bad for physicians?”
“Not quite, if the physician is willing to keep his mouth shut. I tried
it a while, but got into trouble. I belonged to the class of 1907, you
remember. That October we held a great Bosnian popular gathering, and
formulated a programme demanding self-government. The Moslems supported
us. I took a hand, and was locked up for my pains. Our demonstration
merely hastened the Annexation.”
Jaffer mused. “So Moslem and Orthodox stood together. How about the
Catholics?”
“Very little help from that source. The Monarchy has played us off,
Catholic against Orthodox. The Crown Prince would like to convert us
all, you know. He is clerical and Jesuit, and Bosnia is his hobby. He
personally annexed us. Aerenthal was only the hammer with which he
smashed the treaty of Berlin.”
“And so you decided to take to the woods, as they say in America.”
“It was a choice between coming here and really taking to the woods, as
our haiduks did in years past. But a rifle shot is never heard in Bosnia.
Our houses are carefully searched for arms.”
“You might have gone to America.”
“Perhaps, Dr. Jaffer, but chance brought me the discovery of my remedy.
Besides, you have too many Hungarians. A million have left in the last
eighteen months. The Dual Tyranny has had to forbid emigration.”
Jaffer mused. “May I smoke?”
“A thousand pardons!” Dr. Yukitch clapped his hands for his Sart, and
then, recollecting that Iskander had gone to the postoffice, arose.
“I’ll roll one myself,” said Jaffer.
“But you won’t refuse coffee!”
“Never. Three things I never refuse—a cigarette, a sip of coffee, and a
morsel of something sweet.”
“Three typical Moslem failings,” smiled his new friend. “Should you
happen to visit my country, go to the Café Bendbashi in Serajevo, and you
will find all three in perfection.”
Dr. Yukitch excused himself for five minutes, at the end of which time
he returned with cold water, little cups, and an iron ladle of café
Turc—thick, brown, beaded with tiny bubbles. Jaffer took a swallow of the
cold water, to harden his throat against the hot sweet that followed.
“I shall think of you at the Café Bendbashi. It can hardly prepare better
Mocha than this.”
“Think rather of me and my young legal friend Bogdan Zerajitch sitting
there. It was on a May day in 1910, shortly before our new Sabor opened.
We were speculating as to how representative that assembly might be made.
My friend was gloomy and hopeless, because the Governor, Vareshanin, had
crushed our little rebellion at Rakovitcha. But he did not tell me what
he intended to do. He fired at Vareshanin, missed him five times, and
then shot himself. ‘Die Woche’ had a picture of the governor and Franz
Joseph standing before the cathedral a few days before the shooting; but
it had no word about the shooting. Prussians despise such marksmanship.”
“Ah! Perhaps other such attempts have been made.”
“Yes. Croatia has tried hard to shake off Hungarian tyrants. I could tell
you the details of three recent episodes. All at Agram. Pretty place,
Agram, but it has nothing to hope for.”
“Haven’t I heard of dreams of a United States of Balkany?”
“Yes, Dr. Jaffer, and I am a Serb before I am a Bosnian. But there is no
use in talking about it. It is perfectly useless to dream of a political
union of the Serbian people. I see nothing for my people but starvation
and emigration. Your admirable Germans will inherit the karst, and
cultivate it with chemicals.”
“Bismillah! You take it tamely.”
“It is the only way to take it. From the earliest days, Southern Slavs
have been village folk, naïve, impulsive individualists. Naturally, any
neighbour capable of impersonal co-operation has enslaved us. We are in
all the dictionaries as ‘slaves.’ We have been sold in every market in
Europe. And now what can I do for you and Dr. Trench?”
“You can tell me where Mr. Saadi Sereef is.”
Dr. Yukitch jumped, perceptibly. “I haven’t the remotest idea where he
is. Has he been in America?”
“Yes. He has been living in Dr. Trench’s house with several other
oriental students.”
“Is it possible! I did not suppose that Trench had the slightest interest
in us. But I can see why we might gather around him. He is an impartial
fellow.”
“Dr. Yukitch, where do you guess this young Mr. Sereef to be?”
“France or England. Probably England.”
“I wish to see him. Do you advise me to go to England?”
“Not without an address.”
Jaffer smoked in silence. “It will be a great disappointment to Dr.
Trench. I don’t feel quite free to say why. It is a purely personal
matter between them.”
“Does Trench know that I know Saadi?”
Jaffer shook his head. “Mr. Sereef gave your street and number to a
Chinese student. I have to thank Mr. Wu’s excellent memory for the
pleasure of this meeting. I take it that Mr. Sereef is a great joker. He
passed himself off as a prince of Bokhara—son of the former Vizier.”
“What—that old devil Astanakoul?”
Jaffer nodded, grinning.
Dr. Yukitch let his amusement effervesce. “Kolossol! Did he have you also
gebumfidelt?”
“Until yesterday,” admitted Jaffer. “I had it straight from the present
Vasi’s lips that I was being grossly and cruelly deceived. Also he
decided against me in my appeal for a just price for my tea.”
The Bosnian’s eyes twinkled. “He would take a personal interest in
you—even to a third of your load, if he dared. Bokhara is almost as
Asiatic as Austria; not quite, for the Emir keeps out of these affairs,
but Franz Joseph makes everything a personal matter.”
The fling at Austria made Jaffer more direct.
“Could Saadi be in Bosnia?”
“No! And now I think that I have fulfilled my promise to Trench. Have you
seen the town? I shall be delighted to show you Tashkent and Troitsky. Or
shall we run down to Samarkand? If you were in Bokhara only yesterday,
you did not stop to see the tomb of Tamerlane.”
The nostrils of Jaffer’s eagle nose dilated, and his diplomacy vanished.
“Tamerlane be damned. I want facts.”
Yukitch looked grave. “It is a long time since I quarrelled with anybody,
Dr. Jaffer. Do you imply that I have not given you facts?”
“What you have given me are facts—I make no doubt of it. But they are
useless facts.”
“Certainly. If Trench’s relations with Saadi are personal, so are mine.”
“Would you advise me to go to Cetinje?”
“By all means, if you happen to be in Europe next winter. The climate is
perfect, and I can recommend the Grand.”
“You will not give me a note to Mohammed Beg?”
Dr. Yukitch drew in the corners of his mouth, so that his moustache
appeared to bristle. “I know no Mohammed Beg who lives in Cetinje. You
must remember that I have not been in Europe in four years. And I have
had no word from Saadi in many months. Why, pray, are you suppressing
your later information?”
“This,” said Jaffer, “is all I know about Cetinje.” He held out the cable
message.
Dr. Yukitch took it and read it. At once he said, “Have you any idea what
this means?”
“Not the slightest. I want your advice.”
Dr. Yukitch continued to study the message. At last he handed it back,
but his byzantine eyes were narrowed and impenetrable. “I advise you,” he
said, “to burn it.”
Jaffer ignited the paper, and tossed it out of the window. “Now
confidence for confidence, Dr. Yukitch.”
Dr. Yukitch arose and went to the window and stood looking out. He must
have stood there five minutes. Jaffer smoked calmly, and without turning
his head, but he heard a sound as if fingers were being intertwined and
twisted behind somebody’s back. At length Dr. Yukitch returned.
“Saadi,” he said, “was born in 1888. He has a family name which is
Slavonic, but he has not seen fit to confide this name to Dr. Trench, and
you will not ask me for it.”
“Certainly not,” said Jaffer. “Is Saadi a real name?”
“Yes, and an old one, though I know of no other Saadi in Bosnia. Our
nobles usually combined a Turkish name with the Slavonic. You have
mentioned ‘Mohammed Beg.’ That is typical.”
“And that is probably only a first name?”
“Very probably, Dr. Jaffer. Well, Saadi’s father is Stepan of Starigrad,
and he is the most humane of all the Bosnian begs. Like most of them, he
is of Christian ancestry.”
“Slavonic converts?”
“Yes, by force of circumstances. One of Stepan’s remote ancestors found
himself driven out of Servia into Bosnia, on account of his Protestant
opinions—especially his scorn of the marriage ceremony and so on. We call
those old families the Bogumils. But after the Turkish conquest they
found themselves forced to choose between keeping their lands and keeping
their religion, and accordingly they became Moslems.”
“Extraordinary,” murmured Jaffer.
“Stepan is the most humane landlord in my country. He alone has solved
the problem of keeping his Christian peasants content and the Austrian
tax-collectors satisfied. He is what the Japanese call an intensive
farmer. Stepan is respected alike by Nikolas of Montenegro and by Franz
Joseph, and it would be hard to name another Bosnian of whom the same
thing can be said.
“Saadi was a brilliant child—very daring, very impulsive, very
affectionate, and a born mimic. He was passionately devoted to his little
sister Stepanie, and he swore eternal brotherhood with a certain boy.
The relations of brother and sister, and brother and brother, are by far
the strongest relations among us, Dr. Jaffer. At the call of brother
or sister a man will leave his own wife. I do not say it is rational—I
merely say that it is a fact. Adopted brothers, or pobratims, seal the
bond with their blood, and I have never known it to be broken.”
“That may throw light on the telegram,” murmured Jaffer.
“I have not said so, Dr. Jaffer, and I beg you to remember that I have
not said so. In 1905 Saadi graduated from a certain gymnasium and entered
the University, at Vienna, to study medicine. He may easily have seen
Trench there in 1906 or 1907, without knowing him. In 1908 occurred the
annexation, and Bosnia-Herzegovina was filled with Austrian troops.
Late in the autumn a terrible thing occurred near Starigrad. Stepanie’s
body—with a stone around the neck—was taken from the river, and certain
peasants had seen it when it was thrown there by three or four drunken
soldiers.
“When that news reached Saadi, he disappeared from Vienna. The commander
near Starigrad had done his best to fasten the guilt upon the guilty
men, and had failed. From that minute Saadi became an enemy of the
Monarchy. He went through Herzegovina, disguised, working on the minds of
the students in the gymnasia, and on the minds of the more intelligent
peasants. The beggar on Mostar bridge might be Saadi. The travelling
friar from Croatia might be Saadi. The Moslem pilgrim might be Saadi.
Once, at the end of a year of this sort of thing, he actually figured
as a lecturer from Vienna, sent out by the government. But this last
disguise was a little too bold, and he was caught. That was late in 1909.
In view of his just provocation and of his father’s excellent standing
with the government, he was merely banished. He went to Belgrad.
“In 1910, June 15, my friend Zerajitch made his attack on Vareshanin. It
was a complete surprise to me, but I had had one taste of prison, and did
not care for another. I left on horseback within an hour. I found Saadi
at a certain coffee-house—the Zeleni Vienaz—in Belgrad. My plans for
coming out here were already matured, and Saadi begged to come along. He
came, and stayed for six months, in this very house. Here he plunged into
Persian, of which he already knew the rudiments. From here he wandered
to Bokhara, and was taken up by the crown prince. From there he went to
Eshkabad. From Eshkabad he returned boldly to Vienna, and was promptly
arrested. But Saadi has a way with him. He demanded audience with Franz
Joseph. He told the old man that he was tired of being an exile, and
wished to go to jail or else to resume the study of medicine. He would
make no promises to be good. But Franz Joseph has more sense than the
men about him, and he instructed Saadi to go ahead and study ‘as if he
were one of only six to a professor,’ remarking that professors were an
expensive thing.”
“Good old Franz,” murmured Jaffer.
“The last time I heard from Saadi,” continued Yukitch, as if drawing to a
close, “was a year ago last Christmas. He had just returned from hospital
service in Old Servia, and was trying to catch up with his fifth year
work. He had got a nasty cut in the neck, _vom hinten_, while he was
bending over a wounded Turk.”
“You have told me a good deal, Dr. Yukitch. I am profoundly grateful. But
may you not have overlooked one or two things?”
Yukitch smiled. “I have told you enough to show you that you are not
likely to find your man.”
“You have given me clues.”
“They are worthless. I do not believe that Stepan knows where his son is.
Of course, if you go to Vienna and ask the secret police—”
“I shall not do that.”
“Then take my advice. Come with me to Samarkand. Then return and
proceed in leisurely fashion to Moscow, and see the Kremlin. Then go to
Petersbourg.”
“But I don’t care to see either place.”
“Very good; proceed to Frankfurt and prepare a report on Ehrlich’s
laboratory for Trench’s benefit. Linger in the realms of your beloved
Siegfried Meyer.”
“Siegfried Meyer?”
“Assuredly. It is not safe in Berlin to say Seine Majestät.”
Jaffer laughed. “Don’t think me ungrateful, Dr. Yukitch, but tell me when
the next train leaves for Moscow.”
“You are no Moslem, my dear doctor. Moslems never hurry.”
“I have lived in Chicago, Dr. Yukitch. When does the train leave?”
“Eight o’clock to-morrow morning, Petersbourg time.”
“It is too long to wait,” said Jaffer. “How soon can I start back for
Samarkand?”
“Nine forty-five this evening.”
“Is it longer to Vienna via Samarkand and the Caucasus than via Moscow?”
“No. But think of what you miss, Dr. Jaffer. You must see the sunrise
turn the Kremlin into flaming emeralds and gold of paradise.”
“A pretty phrase, Dr. Yukitch. But I have seen the sunrise turn the Taj
Mahal into a pearl of paradise without convincing me that there is a
paradise. And by the southern route I shall see Tiflis, which is a more
interesting place.”
“Jivio! You are right. Sulphur baths, seventy languages, two men to every
woman, and the noblest mountain pass in Europe.”
It struck Jaffer that this sudden enthusiasm was not of the right breed.
“Dr. Yukitch, is it possible to save time by omitting Tiflis?”
The Bosnian’s face fell. “I suppose so—a mere trifle—a single day. I
believe there is a train from Baku which makes Vienna in five nights and
four days.”
“Ah, thank you. I start back to Samarkand this evening. Promise to dine
with me at the alleged Grand and see me off.”
“If you will stay here for tiffin. Iskander is not a bad cook. Ah, here
he comes with the postal receipt. You shall keep it.”
Jaffer stayed, and discussed medicine, and Chicago, and the possibility
that Iskander was a descendant of Alexander of Macedon. In the afternoon
Jaffer sent Umar Khel a draft. Then the two doctors took a long drive
about town, past luxuriant gardens where no leaf stirred in the
breathless air, past irrigation ditches and quaint water mills.
At four o’clock Yukitch left Jaffer at the Grand, promising to be back
for dinner at seven.
Jaffer threw himself on the bed and tried to think. He realised that he
had put up a good deal of bluff, and was about to enter upon a wilder and
more dangerous goose-chase than he had dreamed of. For the first time
since he had left Peshawar, depression seized him. What earthly sense
was there in risking his life again to inform an adventurer of what the
adventurer was only too damnably well aware? He would give the whole
thing up, as Yukitch so strongly advised. And with a sense of relief he
drowsed off.
Half an hour later he was awakened by the screaming of peacocks. In his
irritation he muttered a Persian proverb: “When the peacock looks at his
feet, pride fails.”
The utterance of the words stirred something within him. Had he himself
been looking at his feet? Had his pride failed? Was he going to be
beaten? Some magic charm in the word “pride” seemed to pull him. He knew
that Dr. Trench took pride in him, and he knew that Dr. Trench would
think less of him if he fell by the way now. Of course the doctor would
be nice about it, and tell him he had done right to quit, but the doctor
himself was no quitter. Jaffer got up. He wouldn’t go back on the doctor.
At seven Yukitch appeared, and they dined, and afterwards smoked in the
garden, where the peacocks had gone to roost.
As they waited at the station for the train to Samarkand, Dr. Yukitch put
one question. “Shall you go to Frankfurt?”
“No. To Belgrad.”
“It is as I feared. You will land in the old fortress.”
“If Allah wills, Dr. Yukitch. But I shall get out.”
“_Od roba ikad, iz groba nikad._ That is to say—out of prison, yes; out
of a grave, never. It is our Serbian adage.”
“Well,” said Jaffer, “it is our American adage that ‘never’ is a long
day. Here comes the train.”
The train pulled in from the north, and the passengers piled out for
glasses of hot tea. Jaffer selected his second class apartment, and held
out his hand. Dr. Yukitch took it and was slow to release it. “Do not
hurry, my friend. Do not reach Belgrad worn out. Spend all of June in the
Caucasus, for you may never have another chance.”
Jaffer shook his head, listening to the nervous pant of the locomotive,
which seemed to be summoning him like a Turkish horse.
“Very well,” said Yukitch gravely. “Here is a parcel which I have
ventured to bring along. It contains a French work on Slavonic origins,
and a manuscript of my own about filaria. The manuscript is written in
Servian, and has my name on it. You will not be able to read it, and I
shall be glad to have it back at your leisure. But it would flatter my
vanity if you would keep it on the table in your hotel while you stay in
Belgrad.”
“Sir, you are a good friend. If I can’t read it, maybe the chambermaid
can.”
“Exactly, Dr. Jaffer. Or she may show it to the clerk. I do not desire to
boast of my acquaintance with the maids, but the clerks in Belgrad will
not think the less of you for knowing me. Excuse my conceit, and may we
meet again—Ako Bog da—if God grant it.”
“Inshallah!” echoed Jaffer, and quite unconsciously thanked Allah that he
had got away with undissuaded heart.