Next day Jaffer found himself in the hands of an expert. There was
no time wasted. Ned’s friend, a pale Bosnian youth and born scholar,
taught him exactly what he would need at Fotcha, and in the gorges
and tablelands beyond. What was wanted was not the ordinary guidebook
stuff, but Servian for such odd phrases as this: “I am called Jaffer, my
lord, and I come asking a boon,” or “I am a friend of Saadi, my lord,
and I bring news.” Day after day the teacher came before Jaffer was
really awake, heard his recitations, assigned new tasks, and left, only
to reappear at seven o’clock in the evening. Of the three friends who
haunted the Green Wreath he had little to say. He knew that Trifko’s home
was a few miles east of Serajevo, that Gavrilo came from the extreme west
of Herzegovina, and that Ned was a big fellow who had a heart of gold,
but who had been driven out of Serajevo for rash radical talk.
On the evening of Saturday, the thirtieth of May, a card was brought up.
It bore a German name, but Jaffer declared himself not at home. He showed
the card to his teacher, who seemed pleased when it was torn up and cast
into the wastebasket. The lesson went on, and thereafter Jaffer received
no more cards.
Each June day as he stood by the window conning his verbs, he studied
the street to see if he was watched, and if so by what nation. But no
sign of any spy, romantic or commonplace, appeared. Nor at meal times did
any stranger pick an acquaintance with him, much less a quarrel. Belgrad
might be the hotbed of intrigue, but it showed no signs of raising any
poisonous plant for him. So Jaffer took walks, ran out to Topschider, and
got well rested after his long hard trip.
On Wednesday, the seventeenth of June, he parted with the pale Bosnian,
having paid him double the price asked, and given him some good medical
advice into the bargain. It was a bit lordly to be handing out Trench’s
money so freely, but he had never seen a man whom the little more would
benefit so much.
Next morning at seven he took the train for the south, and vastly enjoyed
the trip. He saw signs that the two Balkan wars had inflicted grievous
hardships, but it pleased his democratic soul to mark the nature of
Servian resources. These marvellous hills and vales might be famous
chiefly for swine, but they would raise anything.
Jaffer tried his newly acquired talk on an Orthodox priest, or pope, who
sat beside him in the train, and soon learned that his carefully spoken
sentences could evoke more discourse than he could understand. But he
gathered that few Servian farmers own more than ten acres, and he was
assured on the honour of a priest that all Hungary is owned by forty men.
Jaffer changed the conversation, saying that he was a Moslem—it was one
of the first sentences he had learned—but that he had many dear friends
among the Christians. No—he was not from Stamboul, but from the Far East,
where Islam, he ventured to think, was purer. Whether because distance
lends enchantment even to Islam, or whether Serbian priests are rather
rationalistic, the bearded pope was pleased. He declared that it was not
wise to be too national in religion—recognising only a Servian god in a
Servian heaven, with Servian angels playing Servian music to him. There
were Russian angels, he doubted not, and very likely angels from the Far
East. The great thing in war or religion was to have brotherly love.
He took his New Testament from his travelling bag and showed Jaffer the
passage in Old Slavonic—“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man
lay down his life for his brother.” The pope nudged him. “His brother—you
understand—his pobratim!”
The westward carriage trip was lonely, but it led through a magical
valley beside a wonderful river, and Jaffer drank his fill of beauty. Nor
did the beauty fade when, on Saturday, he found himself in Bosnia. Every
type of surface, from Alp to meadow, and every type of verdure, from
shadowy pines to bannered fields of maize. Vista faded into vista ever
more tenderly as he made his way through lawny hills toward Fotcha.
Here, pursuing instructions, he found a Moslem who agreed to carry him
farther, to the castle of Kadri Beg Tshengitch—a relative of Stepan by
marriage—and at noon on Sunday, the twenty-first, he found himself gazing
at that rather weak stronghold. His driver left him there, standing on
the bank of a small stream, and drove off.
Not knowing how else to manage, Jaffer took off his shoes and stockings,
put them in his valise, and waded across. The temperature of the water
made him hope that he should find nothing deeper. As he dried his feet by
atmospheric means, he observed the tower—the “Kula”—above him. It ended
in a pointed roof, apparently shingled. It was a good sixty feet high,
square, with a few narrow windows on each side, arranged for purposes of
defence.
Jaffer put on his shoes, climbed the hill, presented himself at the gate
of the great square enclosure, and demanded to see Kadri Beg. The aged
Kadri Beg came, turban on head and cigarette in hand, and Jaffer bowed
low, touching with finger-tips his breast, lips, and forehead. The aged
Kadri Beg sent a man to warn the women of the village that a visitor
approached. The aged Kadri Beg invited Jaffer in, and took him to his
own quarters in a shingled cottage.
Hardly a word was spoken. Jaffer was offered water to wash in, and then
was seated on the floor beside a very low table, with Kadri Beg opposite
him. Food was brought, and Jaffer ate with particularity, using only his
right hand. He was evidently under inspection, and he imitated his host
with great care. There were no knives or forks or cups or glasses. Jaffer
had a spoon for his thick soup, but he managed everything else with his
fingers, even the sticky “sukburet,” a sort of ragout. The vermicelli
cooked in honey was stickier, but entirely to his taste. Kadri Beg had
not said a word, nor had Jaffer, when at last another basin of water
was brought, and soap! The servant presented them to Jaffer first, and
Kadri Beg watched him. Jaffer went the whole length. He soaped out his
mouth thoroughly, and though his gorge rose, his stock went up. Then
came delicious coffee, and Jaffer found himself puffing at a tchibouk.
The time had come for carefully chosen speech—Servian, helped out with
Persian words.
“I am called Jaffer, my lord, and I come asking a boon.”
“It is granted.”
“I seek guidance to the Kula of Stepan Beg.”
“That is no mastery. Five hours on a pony, four hours on a Turkish horse.”
“Allah will reward my lord. I have heard of the fame of Tshengitch.”—The
remark was true enough, for the muezzin at Fotcha had told him, that
morning.
“Naturally, but you do not speak Turkish.”
“No, my lord, I come from the Far East. But I have heard. Tshengeri in
Anatolia is the cradle of a family great these five centuries.”
“Thirty pashas and viziers,” said Kadri Beg, succinctly. “And to me all
that is left is the village within these walls. Nevertheless, the Day
will come.”
Jaffer knew well enough the dreams of Pan-Islam, and he despised them
as he despised this rank pipe he was trying to manage. “Stepan Beg,” he
said, at a venture, “cannot boast thirty pashas and viziers.”
Kadri Beg smiled, much as a bitter-hearted, blear-eyed old eagle might.
“In the oldest of the Medina suras there is a line that was meant for
Stepan: ‘War is prescribed to you, but ye shrink.’ There is royal blood
in Stepan, and had the courage of a flea, Moslem and Christian might
rally to him now, as they will not rally to Nikolas or Peter. But you
will find no royalty at Starigrad. You will find a farmer, a tanner, a
bosom-companion of Christian kmets.”
Jaffer set aside the tchibouk, and searched for a cigarette. As usual, he
first found the box of Stepanies, which he would neither smoke nor throw
away, but presently he rummaged out another brand.
Kadri Beg spoke in a less scornful tone. “A strange man is Stepan—a
strange man, who would not join his youth to my age when we fought the
Christian three and thirty years ago. Therefore it was his kismet to
fight me, and my brother Dervish Beg, likewise my brother Omar.”
“How then, O Kadri Beg, comes it to pass that the strange man still
lives?”
“Again it was kismet. We ravaged his fields, we shut him up in his Kula.
But who can storm the walls of Starigrad? And he had much grain stored.
But that was not our kismet. Some Vila of the Zagorje, who comes by night
to steal the hearts of maidens, fastened upon our Ila the love of young
Stepan. Thus was the Vila revenged on all the Tshengitch, in that we had
taken the better part of her name for the child. And now Ila is dead.
Last summer she died, when scarcely Ramazan had passed. And her little
daughter is dead these many years, and her son is a wanderer.”
There was silence. “You will not think me like a beggar of Stamboul, my
lord, if I set out this very hour? For I have news of the son to carry to
the father.”
“You shall go in peace. Horse and guide shall be ready on the minute,
if not for the prophet’s sake, then for Saadi’s. There is a Tshengitch,
proud and desperate, though from his father he learned to laugh. May
Allah keep him long content in the East.”
A question sprang to Jaffer’s tongue, but did not pass the barrier of his
teeth. Kadri Beg resumed.
“Will Jaffer again see Saadi in the East?”
“Such may be the will of Allah, my lord.”
“Say to him that Kadri Beg sent this message: _The son of the Haiduk is
grown, and Haidar has forgotten how to shoot._”
Jaffer repeated the message, and hoped to thunder that it was the last
piece of mystery he should have to remember. But the words set up a new
anxiety within him, and it was worse than his anxiety about Saadi’s
character.
It was evening, and the sun had set, when Jaffer and his escort drew rein
at Starigrad. It had been a hard ride, over country very different from
the smiling valleys near the Servian border. The karst had begun; the
pastures and fields were infrequent. The bridle paths had seemed to lead
up and down, not ahead.
A little bridge of stone, beautifully arched. Beneath it the narrow,
curving river, with three feet of water swift as a millrace. To the
left, shut in by mountains, a polje or hollow of many acres, seemingly
the bottom of an ancient lake, richly cultivated. To the right, across
the stream, a solid cliff of karst a hundred feet high, though, had the
light been better, Jaffer might have seen that the topmost ten feet were
masonry. The short sharp curve of the river more than half surrounded
the castle above, where the great kula struck into the red evening like a
javelin.
They crossed the little bridge, and Jaffer noted that the defile ahead
of it was cleared of every rock which might serve as a hiding place.
They mounted by a circuitous route to the tableland above. To the left
now appeared the high stone wall and moat which, going straight across
from cliff to cliff, isolated the castle on the impregnable promontory.
In the centre of the wall was a great square gate-structure rising above
it, and the doors of the Turkish arch were closed. But the draw-bridge
was down—and evidently no longer used to be drawn up. They dismounted,
and the guide pulled the bell-rope. It was five minutes before the guard
appeared, recognised a friend, and let them in.
A few words of rapid speech and Jaffer was conducted to the master’s
house near the tower. Lights were burning in the upper story of it, as if
the master were going to bed. But when the guard had disappeared within,
like a butler carrying a card, Stepan Beg returned with him.