Читать книгу Pretty Michal - Mór Jókai - Страница 7

"What's that?" cried she with a shudder, involuntarily reining up her mule.

But Henry was not there to answer her question. He had ridden on in advance with the students, who had now begun to sing in order to cheer the caravan during its perilous descent into the glen.

"That is the sign-post of the glen," said the driver; "don't look in that direction, my lady!"

Michal turned her head toward the speaker, but she immediately felt that it would have been far better for her to have riveted her sorrowing gaze on that nameless, hideous object, than to have looked into the eyes of him who had just addressed her, for the sight of him filled her with unutterable anguish. Now for the first time she recognized him. The silent, ragged driver was Valentine Kalondai!

"By the five wounds of Christ, it is Valentine!" murmured Michal in a voice stifled with emotion.

"Then you have recognized me at last?"

"What do you want here?"

"To accompany you."

"Wherefore?"

"To serve you if you should need anything, to defend you if you should be in danger, and, finally, to find out whither they are taking you."

"Valentine," said the girl, withdrawing the reins of the mule from the youth's hand, "it is sin to act thus. You will disgrace us both. I am dead to you now. If you have ever loved me, bury me! Bewail me as one who has died in the Lord. Make me not as one of those who will hereafter rise up and accuse you before God! I am now a married woman. I have plighted my troth to another. Not even for your sake will I lose my hope of salvation. I beseech you by the tender mercies of God not to pursue me. Remain here and forget that you ever saw me! Here, in this frightful glen, where I know not what awaits me, though I feel that it is full of horror, I cannot pray to God to protect me from all danger while you are by my side. I would not have the heart to go into those terrible depths if I felt myself laden with sin and perjury. If you love anything which belongs to me, oh, love my soul! If you would preserve me from harm, be jealous of my honor! Remain behind, I say, and follow me no further!"

The young man opened his lips to say something in reply, but not a word came forth, only a long-drawn sigh; a hot breath in the cold autumnal air was it, or, perhaps, a part of his very soul? Then he pulled his hat deeper down over his eyes and remained standing in the way, while Michal on her mule ambled further on.

"Jacky, my boy!" cried a jesting voice in the ear of the startled driver, and at the same time someone tapped him on the shoulder. It was Simplex, the merry trumpeter.

"How far you have dropped behind your mistress!"

"Yes, and I will drop back still further, friend Simplex. She has recognized me. She has driven me away. I have now but one favor to ask of you. If you are really my friend, prove it by doing me a great service. I cannot accompany her further. You do so in my stead. If any evil befall Michal, stand by her and save her. You have your wits about you and know the region thoroughly. Be near her as long as possible. Let me know how it befalls, be it good or evil. You will find me at Kassa, in my mother's house."

Nowadays we should hurl back such a commission at the suggester's head. Nowadays everyone looks after himself, and no one is such a fool as to run after a woman whom a second person loves and a third person has married. But in former days men were different. Besides, they had not so much to do then as they have now, and a social law was then in force which has long since become obsolete, the law of friendship. It was not codified, yet its authority was universally deferred to and folios were written about it. This law of friendship gave a man the right to demand great things from his neighbor, and those who obeyed this law were bound together by stronger ties than any ties of kinship. We shall presently give many examples to show how much in those days the unwritten law of friendship was needed, a law passed by no parliament, sanctioned by no monarch, enforced by no tribunal, yet everywhere valid and effectual.

The trumpeter, contemptuously dubbed Simplex, promised to do all that his friend required of him and gave him his hand upon it, whereupon he hastened to overtake the lady, who was now some distance ahead.

But Valentine Kalondai remained standing on the hillside listening till the clattering of the horses' hoofs had quite died away. Then he turned and walked slowly off, to the great joy of the crows and ravens, who so long as he stood there did not venture to resume their banquet beneath the gallows. Meanwhile Michal was trying to overtake her husband, who was well on in front surrounded by the merry students.

The road became rougher and rougher as it wound down into the valley. The broad, well-wooded mountain-sides confined it within a precipitously shelving glen. The brook zigzagged across it and tore out the rolling stones, so that the very mules had to pick their way cautiously along. At first the way wound among large blocks of stone, but presently it ended abruptly at a yawning chasm among the rocks. Here the mountain stream plunged, roaring and foaming, down into a dizzy depth. Beyond the bridge the path reappeared, but now it was confined more than ever between two steep rocky walls, down the smooth slaty sides of which the moisture trickled continually, diffusing a misty, cavernous sort of smell over the whole of the dark rocky defile, which was overshadowed by nodding pine trees. The mules no longer picked their way among rocks, but among bones. All around lay the skeletons of men and of horses inextricably mixed together.

"Is this a burial-ground?" asked Michal of her Henry, not without a shudder.

But Henry had no answer ready. He said that he had never been that way before; he had gone to Keszmár by another road over the mountain ridge, a road which you could only pass on foot. But Simplex was at hand and he explained the mystery of the bones strewing the way, as he had heard it during his wanderings in the mountains from the lips of his guides.

Many years ago, the troops of the Prince of Transylvania, with some Turkish auxiliaries, had blockaded a regiment of Imperial cavalry in this defile, and after breaking down the bridge leading to the glen had massacred the whole lot without mercy. There was no place to bury the dead, and so they had lain there ever since. The students, from sheer mischief, now picked up two or three of the skulls and trundled them along the road. No doubt they were not the first who had amused themselves by playing bowls with dead men's bones.

"If Hafran were to catch you here, he and his merry men would play at bowls with your heads also," cried Simplex, without however either spoiling their good-humor or putting Michal in a better humor.

In the evening twilight they came to the kopanitscha, where it was advisable to stay the night. It consisted of a group of houses formed of the trunks of trees, surrounded by a palisade of sharp stakes, with loopholes at regular intervals. A low door, made of heavy beams, led into the palisade, where, as the neighing of horses promptly testified, other travelers had already arrived.

The door was opened to their knocking, and the first arrivals, among whom were the students and the young married couple, were admitted. Far behind toiled the merchants and drivers with their cattle and heavily laden wagons, and last of all came the Polish nobleman and his armed retainers.

There were enough barns and out-houses to accommodate them all. Hay for fodder and straw for bedding were also to be had in abundance. The host was cooking flesh in a large caldron on an open hearth. One wing of the house was already occupied by a company of Polish merchants, bringing cloth and spices to the Eperies market, and accompanied by an escort of twelve hired soldiers, in helmets and coats of mail, armed with swords and blunderbusses.

The wife of the kopanitschar, or host, a good-looking young person, immediately took charge of the pastor's wife, whom she led into her own private room, that she might not have to listen to the loose talk which would certainly flow from the unwashen mouths of so many men.

"For no one will close an eye here the whole night through," remarked the worthy woman confidentially. "Here in the mountains lurk Janko, Hafran, and Bajus, all three of them!"

Michal asked who these three worthies were.

The hostess told her they were three robber chiefs, each more terrible than the other. Hafran was cruel, Bajus a crafty rogue, but Janko a true hero who knew not fear.

How the eyes of the woman sparkled when she mentioned Janko!

Michal asked her whether she was not afraid to live in so lonely a place with so many robbers about.

"Oh! Janko will do us no harm," said the young hostess, smiling; and Michal was still such a child that she gave no heed to the woman's sparkling eyes and smiling lips.

The hostess then began to tell her how powerful the robbers were. People were forever hanging, beheading, and breaking them on the wheel, and yet they never seemed to grow less. The militia of three counties combined with the Imperial troops were not strong enough to root them out of the mountains. And then she kept Michal awake till long after midnight by telling her of the adventures and exploits of the robbers, and the terrible fate which awaited them at the hands of the vihodar of Zeb.

"Who is he?" asked Michal.

What! not hear of the vihodar! He was the headsman of Zeb, a man famed far and wide. They call him the vihodar. Every child knows of him; but bandits, witches, and painted damsels know him best of all. Michal's idea of these last three species of mankind was very vague; she had never even heard tell of them before. She, too, told the hostess whence she came, whither she was going, and how she had only been married the day before, and this was the first night that she and her husband had ever slept under the same roof.

About midnight Henry Catsrider came to his wife, and told her that the region was not safe. The mountain path over which they had to go was occupied by a band of robbers, and the number of the robbers was great. It is true the caravan was also numerous, but the members of it could not agree among themselves as to what was the best thing to be done. The Polish nobleman, who had many musketeers with him, said that he had not come all that distance to be shot down like a dog. He would send to Janko and offer him a ransom if he would let him pass through the glen unmolested. He was also willing to pay a ransom for all who cared to join him. But the merchants and the drovers would not agree to this, asserting that however willing the robbers might be to negotiate when they had to do with armed noblemen or poor ambulant students, they certainly would not allow wealthy merchants and fat drovers to escape scot free. Not to defend themselves, therefore, would be to lose everything. The fact is they had been over-persuaded by the Polish merchants, who had brought with them twelve Imperial soldiers, and were firmly persuaded that they could keep the robbers at bay. All they wanted was rainy weather.

"Why do they want rainy weather?" asked Michal.

"I'll tell you," whispered the kopanitschar's wife. "When it rains the robbers cannot fire, because their lunts won't burn and the powder gets moist. These twelve soldiers, however, have new-fangled muskets, which are fired, not with a lunt, but by a flint; the flint strikes upon a piece of steel, the steel gives out a spark, and the spark fires the powder. They say that these cunning firearms come from France. The soldiers would like to try them against the robbers, and they only want rainy weather in order that the robbers may not be able to fire upon them in return."

"But," remarked Henry, "the question is which party we ought to join, the Polish nobleman's, who trusts in the clemency of the robbers and will pay them a ransom, or the merchants', who rely upon their firearms?"

"Join neither," said the hostess. "An idea occurs to me. I am sorry for that pretty young creature. She was only married yesterday. I'll be bound to say she has not kissed her husband yet. You must not go with the merchants, for the danger will be very great. I know Janko. When he is attacked he is like a bear with a sore head. He cares not a fig for muskets, and does not value his life at a boot-lace. It would not be becoming for you to be mixed up in a skirmish. It is not a clergyman's business to fight. But neither must you join the Polish nobleman and trust to the clemency of the robbers. I know Janko. The sight of a pretty woman makes him like the very devil. He would rather leave a sack of gold untouched than a pretty woman. I should not like you to fall into his hands. But I have a third plan ready. It would not do at all for a large company, but two or three people might very well try it. My husband will lead you over the mountain ridge, but let the horse, the mule, the drivers, and the baggage go on with the Polish nobleman; and when they pass over the bridge where Janko bars the way, and when the blackmail has been levied, the drivers can halt at the Praszkinocz csarda with the beasts and the baggage. Meanwhile my husband will guide you so securely to the csarda that not a hair of your head shall be rumpled."

Michal thought the advice good. It was the best way of escaping two great dangers.

They put together in all secrecy what they needed most, entrusting the remainder of the baggage to one of the drivers (the other had evidently run away, for Henry could find him nowhere); the host brought alpenstocks, bast shoes with nails in the soles, which they put on forthwith, and they all set out in the gloom of twilight.

Suddenly they remarked that they were four. Simplex, the trumpeter, was trotting on behind them. He said that as he was not inclined to send his flesh to market he preferred scaling the mountains with them to accompanying the merchants or the magnate.

Michal had no objection. It was only one familiar face the more, and he had quite won her heart by his gayety and good-humor. Besides that, he could help her to talk to the guide, who was a native Pole and therefore unintelligible without an interpreter, for Simplex could patter Polish very well.

The wish of the Polish merchants was gratified: it began to rain. Scarcely was the little group half an hour's journey from the kopanitscha, scarcely had it begun to ascend the footpath, when it was enveloped in so dense a mist that only the experience of its guide saved it from being lost in the wilderness.

The experienced mountaineer comforted them with the assurance that the mist would not be long in their way, for it was nothing but a descending cloud. They would soon be able to look down upon it with a clear sky over their heads. By sunrise they would be among heights never visited by clouds.

Simplex, on this occasion, approved himself a highly useful traveling companion. To prevent the young wife from growing weary on the slippery way, he hewed down with his hanger two young pine trees and made a litter out of them, on which weary Michal was made to sit, while he and the guide bore her between them over the most difficult parts of the way.

The kopanitschar spoke Polish with the trumpeter in order that the lady might not understand what they were talking about. He said to him that if either of them were to slip, litter-bearers, lady, and all would infallibly plunge headlong into the abyss, the bottom of which could not be seen for the mists, though they could hear the murmuring of the mountain stream far below them. Or if they lost themselves in the thick mists and strayed into a chasm or a snowdrift, whence not even a chamois could force his way out again; or if they met the man-eating bear which haunted the forests; or if they fell foul of the robbers' camp, then God have mercy on their souls!

And while the young bride was thus sitting between them on her litter, she took the fan-tailed pigeon from her pocket, and fed it out of her hand and gave it drink from her lips, unconscious of the thousand deadly perils which surrounded her, and whispered caressingly: "My dovey, my darling little dovey!"

The young morning was now beginning to dawn, for the mist was growing lighter and snow fell instead of rain; they had already reached the Alpine regions.

"We are on the right road," murmured the kopanitschar; "there goes the track of the bear through the juniper tree, and yonder is the place by which the hares, the wild goats, and the buffaloes go up every morning to drink out of the mountain tarn. We are close upon the Devil's Castle."

But surely he must have been mistaken! How can that be the right way which leads to the Devil's Castle?

"What is that shimmering in the bushes?" inquired Simplex anxiously.

"The eyes of a lynx," growled the guide; "he is on the lookout for young chamois."

But a lynx has two eyes, and there was only a single bright point shimmering there. It was the lunt of a musket, which someone was hiding beneath his mantle to prevent it from going out.

"Halt!" cried a voice from the bushes, and at a distance of only ten paces a wild shape sprang up, resting its heavy firearm on an iron fork fastened in the ground. The robber did not aim at the two rustically clad shapes who were carrying the litter, but at the gentleman who was following a considerable distance behind.

"Jesus, Maria!" cried Michal, "he is shooting at my husband!"

"Don't shoot at him, Hanack!" cried Stevey to the robber, "don't you see that he's a clergyman?"

The challenge was of use, the freebooter lowered his lunt. Possibly, too, he was somewhat taken back at finding himself face to face with three men, one of whom was armed with an ax and another with a hanger; besides, he was not quite certain whether his powder was wet or dry. He therefore used clemency and answered amicably:

"Oh! 'tis you, Stevey, eh? Whom are you leading?"

"A clergyman and his wife."

"Then it is a Lutheran! A lucky thing for him! Had he been a Papist, I should have chucked him down that hole. But when you get to where Hamis is keeping watch, tell him that you are guiding a Romish priest and his sister, for he is ready to flay a Lutheran alive."

"Don't be afraid," said the kopanitschar kindly to the lady, "a single robber will not think of attacking three men. This is the outermost picket, the camp is down in that deep hollow yonder."

They hastened onward, and now Michal begged her husband not to lag so far behind her.

The guide had calculated rightly that by ascending the steep upward path through the bear's track they would reach the mountain's summit before sunrise, by which time the clouds would lie below them. The mists over their heads now began to clear away. As the rays of the sun dissipated the snow clouds, it was as if millions of crystal needles were shimmering in the air, till a gust of wind suddenly swept them all away and revealed the clear blue sky. Then the sun came forth amidst the Alpine summits. At first, however, they did not see the sunrise to advantage, for their way led through a dense grove of young pine trees growing up among the charred stumps of a burnt forest. The litter was here of no use. They had to creep through the young undergrowth on all fours.

The guide now told the travelers to remain where they were; he would go ahead and look about to see if it was all right. With that he crept cautiously forward among the thick bushes, taking great care not to disturb the rustling leaves in the silent woods. In a little time he came back very crestfallen. It was not safe. The robbers were encamped close by the Devil's Castle.

Then Simplex also crept close to the extreme edge of the wood, and there saw with his own eyes, at the foot of the old tower rising above the steep precipices, forty men armed with muskets and axes lying on the grass round a fire, on which a substantial breakfast was broiling.

There are some insanely audacious ideas which only the extremity of despair can suggest, and Simplex was just the sort of man to whom such mad ideas would naturally occur. So now, too, he hit upon an expedient which none but a devil-may-care ex-student with a taste for adventure would ever have thought of.

"Listen, Stevey!" said he suddenly to the guide, "I'll scare away all the robbers!"

"Stop!" cried the terrified guide; "are you mad?"

But the deed was already done. Simplex took the trumpet from his shoulder and blew a mighty alarum that re-echoed far and wide through forest and dale, and then he cried aloud: "Run! the soldiers are coming!"

The robbers no sooner heard it than they sprang to their feet in terror. Many of them even took the precaution to discharge their firearms in the direction of the forest, so as to give the alarm to their remaining companions who were encamped all about. A general stampede ensued. Simplex kept on blowing his trumpet with all the strength of his lungs; the guide threw himself with his face to the ground, praying three different prayers simultaneously, and tossing his arms and legs about like an epileptic; while Henry Catsrider, in his agony, hastily climbed up a tree.

Now when pretty Michal saw the panic-stricken robbers scattering in all directions, the guide in convulsions, Simplex trumpeting with all his might and main, and her clerical husband hastily clambering up the nearest tree, she could not refrain from bursting into a hearty peal of laughter. If die she must, she might just as well have one more good laugh before she did die. It could make not the slightest difference.

But no sooner had the threatened peril been so marvelously averted than the laughter of the pretty lady infected the trumpeter to such a degree that he let his instrument fall to the ground; then the kopanitschar also rose from the ground and burst into a hoarse guffaw, and at last Henry Catsrider himself descended from his perch and also burst out laughing.

The young lady thought how funny it is when man and wife laugh in unison. It is perhaps a wife's greatest bliss to be able to laugh when her husband laughs, and weep when he weeps.

But the kopanitschar gave the trumpeter a violent blow on the back and said, half in jest and half in anger: "I'll never be your guide again as long as I live! May the vihodar of Zeb get hold of you!"

Michal thought to herself how strange it is when a husband suddenly breaks off in the middle of a peal of laughter as if he had had a cold douche. Must not a wife in such a case also cease laughing?

"But now we must pack off as quietly as possible while the road is clear," continued the kopanitschar. "We must not stop a minute till we get to Praszkinocz!"

So they all took to their heels and tried to reach the Devil's Castle as quickly as they could, where the fires were still burning, and hacked and bloody pieces of bone, and half-roasted hunks of flesh on huge wooden spits, were scattered all about. The spring bubbling forth from the plateau formed, deep down in the valley below, a small lake covered with water lilies and the broad red flowers of the water clover. Hither came the wild beasts of the forest to slake their thirst.

From the foot of the ruin the valley sinks abruptly down toward the northwest, where it has quite a winterly aspect. The whole declivity is covered by a layer of snow, which the rays of the sun are never able to entirely melt. The sun only shows his face there for an hour at noon every day, and what is then melted quickly hardens into a coating of ice of a mirror-like smoothness. While on the southeastern side of the mountain snow and rain are always falling and clouds obscure the landscape, a bright sky smiles on the other side and you can see as far as Poland. In the valley beneath, at least two miles distant from the ruins of the Devil's Castle, lies the little village of Praszkinocz. A serpentine path winds down the slippery sides of the mountains into the village below, but few people ever use it, save an occasional charcoal-burner or wood-cutter.

"Alas, Stevey!" cried Simplex, shuddering at the sight of this perilous descent, "we shall never get off with a whole skin that way. 'Tis like the glass mountain of Prince Argyrus, and he, at all events, had an enchanted horse to fall back upon. If we creep down on all fours we shan't get there in two days, and what's to become of this delicate creature?"

"Have no fear, trumpeter," said the guide calmly, and he set to work felling a pine with his ax.

Meanwhile Simplex explored every hole and corner of the ruins to see if he could discover any hidden treasure which the robbers might have left behind, while Michal searched in the grass, which had been protected from the snow by the overhanging pine branches, for gentian and wood angelica, and great was her joy when she discovered some specimens of those wonder-working herbs.

But Henry stood aloof, holding his forehead with his hands as if his head ached.

As the pine branch fell to the last stroke of the ax, the roll of musketry suddenly began to resound from behind the mountains. The sharp volleys at once put an end to the composure of the party.

"Listen!" cried the guide; "the robbers have come to blows with the soldiers over there," and with that he dragged the fallen pine trunk to the edge of the declivity and poised it over the serpentine path, with the hewn-off end pointing downward.

"And now to horse, to horse! You, trumpeter, get up behind. His reverence must sit in the middle with his lady behind him, who must clip him tightly round the waist. Each one of us must hold fast to the branches on both sides, and draw up his legs so as not to get entangled in the wayside shrubs and briars. I'll sit in front and be coachman and pilot."

After thus assigning to everyone his place, the guide sat astraddle on the thick end of the trunk, and the three men jogged the dangerous vehicle along like a six-footed dragon till it toppled over the edge of the slope.

"Forward, dragon! in Heaven's name, forward!"

The pine trunk, once set in motion, glided down the smooth, mirror-like incline like a dart. The guide, spreading out his long legs, steered it right and left, and when it flew down a little too quickly, he sharply planted both his heels against the ground to slacken speed, and cried:

"Wo-ah, dragon, wo-ah!"

No gondolier, no coachman, could have steered or driven more skillfully. A single false shove, a single obstacle in the path, and all four of them would have been hurled into the abyss below and dashed to pieces.

But no footless serpent could have writhed more deftly down than the pine trunk. It was a sight worth seeing, this lightning-like flight down a mountain of glass.

"Holloah! hie! fly away, thou devil's steed!"

Silly Simplex, in a transport of delight, took the trumpet from his shoulder, and catching the mane of the pine tree firmly by one hand, blew a postilion-march with all his might.

"Holloah, ho! holloah, ho! This is the way the devil brings home his bride."

Michal, too, loosed her arm from her husband's neck and began to clap her hands for joy. What a rapture to fly down so swiftly! She feared nothing, she delighted in the very danger. Her heart was innocent. No sin oppressed her conscience. Well for her that she had had sense enough to shut her ears against the tempter. If only the shadow of a sin had now darkened her soul she would not have been so blithe in the midst of danger, but would have looked down with a shudder at the awful abyss which seemed both Death and Hell.

"Put your arms round me again or I shall fall off!" cried the man in front of her. His face was as pale as wax. A vertigo had seized him. And Michal had to hug him tightly lest he should lose his equilibrium, and she clasped him to her breast till they got to the bottom of the glen. The flight along the icy slope had lasted half an hour, on foot it would have taken them half a day at least to traverse it.

So they all thanked God that they had come off with a whole skin. And it was not long before they had to thank God for much more than that. At midday they were rejoined by their fellow travelers who had come through the valley, and fearful tales they had to tell of the dangers which they had encountered.

Janko, to whom a mounted messenger had been sent on beforehand to negotiate with the robbers, had granted the travelers a free passage thorough the defile, and the Polish nobleman paid for all those who accompanied him, students included, the ransom demanded. But in the meantime Hafran's robbers (it was these whom Simplex had scared away with his trumpet from the Devil's Castle) fell upon the Keszmár merchants who were marching far behind in the rear, cut down the drivers, tortured the merchants, and carried off the mules and pack-horses. But while they were thus making free with the booty, the twelve soldiers, armed with their new-fangled muskets which could be fired off even in rainy weather, fell upon the robbers, who could not shoot because of the wet. About forty of the freebooters bit the dust. Hafran, with the remainder, escaped by the skin of his teeth among the rocks, contriving to carry the whole of the spoil along with him, including the baggage of the young married people, who now had nothing left but what they were actually wearing. All the beautiful embroidery, lace, and fine linen which pretty Michal had worked and woven with her own hands, an inestimable treasure, had become the booty of these vagabonds.

"May the vihodar of Zeb break every one of them on the wheel!" cried the kopanitschar.

At these words Henry's face became fiery red.

But Michal threw her arms round his neck and consoled him.

"Let us thank God," said she, "for so marvelously delivering us from so great a peril."

She knew now what a great danger she had escaped, but she had no idea of the still greater danger that she was about to encounter.