Manasseh Part 15

"Yes," returned the other, likewise in an undertone; "there is no other way."

A blare of trumpets interrupted this conversation, and presently a squad of hussars came riding down the street, every man of them a raw recruit.

"Look, see how proud he is on his high horse!" interjected Aaron. "He never even looks at a poor foot-pa.s.senger like me. Halloa there, brother! What kind of a cavalryman do you call yourself, with no eyes for a pretty girl? Oh, you toad!"

With this salutation Aaron called to his side the young lieutenant who rode at the head of the hussars. He bore a striking resemblance to Mana.s.seh,--the same face, the same form, the same eyes. Indeed, the two had often been mistaken for each other. There was only a year's difference in their ages. The young hussar gave his hand to Mana.s.seh, and while they exchanged cordial greetings they looked each other steadfastly in the eye.

"Whither away, brother?" asked the elder.

"I am going to avenge my two brothers," was the reply.

"And I am going to rescue them," declared Mana.s.seh.

"I am going forth to fight for my country," was the other's rejoinder.

Then the rider bent low over his horse's neck, and the two brothers kissed each other.

"But aren't you going to ask your new sister for a kiss, you young scapegrace?" cried Aaron.

The youthful soldier blushed like a bashful girl. "When I come back--when I have earned a kiss--then I will ask for it. And you will give me one, won't you, dear sister-in-law, even if they bring me back dead?"

Blanka gave him her hand, while a nameless dread showed itself in her face.

"Never fear!" cried the young man. As he gave Blanka a radiant look he saw tears glistening in her eyes. "I shall not die. _Egy az Isten!_"[1]

[Footnote 1: See preface.]

"_Egy az Isten!_" repeated the elder brother.

Then the young hussar put spurs to his horse and galloped to the head of his little company.

"Come, let us be going," said Aaron, and he led the way toward the farther end of the town, where the family owned a villa which they used whenever occasion called them from Toroczko to Kolozsvar. Adjoining the house lay a garden which was now rented to a market-woman, who made haste to prepare supper for the travellers. Blanka went into the kitchen and helped her, but not before the woman had been instructed in what was going on and warned not to breathe a word to the young mistress of the dangers that encompa.s.sed them all in those troublous times. It was Mana.s.seh's desire to lead his bride home without giving her cause for one moment of disquiet on the way.

"Can you sleep in a carriage?" the market-woman asked her, without pausing in her baking and boiling. "Now as for me, many's the time I've slept every night for two weeks in my cart when I was taking apples to market. One gets used to that sort of thing. The gentlemen propose to set out for Torda this very night, because to-morrow is the great market-day in Kolozsvar, and there'll be troops of peddlers and dealers of all sorts coming into town, and farmers driving their cattle and sheep and swine, so that you couldn't possibly make head against them if you should wait till morning."

Blanka readily gave her consent to any plan that seemed best to her conductors.

Aaron meanwhile had brought out three good horses from the stable and harnessed them to a travelling carriage. "Water behind us, fire before us," he remarked to Mana.s.seh as he buckled the last strap.

Wallachian troops were holding the mountain pa.s.ses about Torda, and had even threatened Toroczko; but thus far the inhabitants had not allowed themselves to be frightened. Now, however, there was a report that General Kalliani was approaching from Hermannstadt with a brigade of imperial soldiery. Consequently it was to be feared that a general flight from Torda to Kolozsvar would soon follow; and, when once the stream of fugitives began, it would be impossible to make one's way in an opposite direction. Therefore our travellers had not a moment to lose.

Blanka was by this time well used to travelling by night, and she entered cheerfully and without question into the proposed plan. A longing to reach "home," and perhaps a vague suspicion of the perils that threatened her party, made her the more willing to push forward.

When danger braces to action, a high-bred woman's power of endurance is almost without limit.

Aaron drove, Mana.s.seh sat beside him, and thus the entire rear seat was left to Blanka, who was so swathed and m.u.f.fled in wraps and furs that she was well-nigh hidden from view. Despite all the plausible explanations, she came very near guessing the well-meant deceit that was practised upon her.

"Why, your horses are saddled!" she exclaimed to Aaron.

"Yes, to be sure," calmly replied the mountaineer. "That's the custom in Transylvania; we put saddles on our carriage-horses just as in Styria they buckle a block of wood over the horse's neck."

Blanka appeared satisfied with this explanation of Transylvanian usage.

Aaron gave his good Szekler steeds a free rein. They were raised in the mountains and could, if need were, trot for twenty-four hours on a stretch without food or water; then, if they were unharnessed and allowed to graze a little, they were able to resume the journey with unslackened pace. The driver had no occasion to use reins or whip: they knew their duty,--to pull l.u.s.tily when the road led up-hill, to hold back in going down-hill, to trot on a level, to overtake and pa.s.s any carriage in front of them, to quicken their pace when they heard one behind, and to halt before every inn.

Aaron, turning half around on his seat, beguiled the time by telling stories to his fair pa.s.senger, to whom his fund of amusing anecdotes seemed inexhaustible. When at length, as they were ascending a long hill, he noticed that she ceased to laugh at his tales, but sat inert and with head sunk on her bosom, he put his hand into his waistcoat pocket and, drawing out an enamelled gold watch, pressed the stem and held it to his ear.

"Half-past twelve," he murmured.

The man himself was a gold watch encased in a rough exterior, a n.o.ble heart in a rude setting. His h.o.r.n.y hands were hardened by toil, but he had a clever head on his shoulders; he was well endowed with mother-wit, quick at repartee, merciless in his satire toward the haughty and overbearing, cool and good-humoured in the presence of danger,--in short, a genuine Szekler, heart and soul.

When, then, his repeater had told him the hour, Aaron turned and addressed his brother. "The young lady is asleep," said he, "and now you and I can have a little talk together. You asked me how our two brothers came to be captured. Let me begin at the beginning, and you shall hear all about it. You know when freedom is first born she is a puny infant and has to be suckled. That she cries for blood instead of milk is something we can't help. So all the young men of Toroczko enlisted in the militia,--every mother's son of them,--and they are now serving in the eleventh, the thirty-second, and the seventy-third battalions. You ask me, perhaps, why we mountain folk must needs take the field when already we are fighting for our country all our life long in the bowels of the earth. You say it is enough for us to dig the iron in our mountains without wielding it on the battle-field; else what do the privileges mean that were granted us by Andreas II. and Bela IV., by which we are exempted from military service? It's no use your talking, Mana.s.seh; you've been away from home. But had you been here and seen and heard your brother David when he stood up in the middle of the marketplace, made a speech to the young men around him, and then buckled on his sword and mounted his horse, you would certainly have mounted and followed him. How can you quench the flames when every house is ablaze?

All the young men were on fire and it was out of the question to dampen their ardour. Besides, this is no ordinary war; freedom itself is at stake, and that is a matter that concerns Toroczko. All the Wallachians around us, stirred up by imperial officers sent from Vienna, took up arms against us, and nothing was left us but to defend ourselves. The people took such a fancy to our brothers that there was no other way but to make them officers. You cry out against the good folk for letting their commanders be taken prisoners. But don't make such a noise about it." (Mana.s.seh had thus far not once opened his mouth.) "You shall soon see that your brothers were no fools, and did not rush into danger recklessly. You know that soon after the Wallachian ma.s.s-meeting at Balazsfalva came the Szekler muster at Agyagfalva, and presently we found ourselves like an island in the midst of the sea. A Wallachian army ten thousand strong, under Moga's command, beset us on all sides, while we had but three hundred armed men all told,--just the number that Leonidas had at Thermopylae. Our eldest brother, Berthold, who, since he turned vegetarian, can't bear to see a chicken killed for dinner, and is dead set against all bloodshed, advised us to make peaceful terms with the enemy. So we drew lots to see who should go out and parley with them, and it fell to our brother Simon. He took a white flag and went into the enemy's camp; but they held him prisoner and refused to let him go. Then David started up and went after him, with an offer of ransom for his release. But they seized him, too, and so now they have them both. Meanwhile the Wallachs are threatening, if we don't surrender to them and admit them into Toroczko, to hang our two brothers before our eyes. We on our part, however, turn a deaf ear to the rascally knaves, and would perish to the last man before we would think of yielding. It's no use your screaming in my ears, you won't make me change my mind. I'm ready to treat with people that are reasonable, but when they bite me I bite back. I agree with you it's a hateful thing to have two of our brothers hanged; n.o.blemen are not to be insulted with the halter; their honour should be spared and their heads taken off decently. But what can we do? Can we hesitate a moment between two n.o.blemen's deaths and the destruction of all the peasantry? One man is as good as another now. So you may make as much rumpus as you please, it won't do any good. I am taking you to Toroczko, and as our two brothers are as good as lost to us, you must take the command of the Toroczko forces. You have seen the barricade fighting in Vienna and Rome, and you understand such things.

So, then, not another word! I won't hear it."

Mana.s.seh had not uttered a syllable, but had permitted his brother to argue out the matter with himself.

"I don't gainsay you, brother Aaron," he calmly rejoined, "not in the least. Take me to Toroczko, the sooner the better; but we shall not get there by this road. Do you see that great cloud of dust yonder moving toward us?"

"Aha! What sharp eyes you have to see it, by moonlight too! I hadn't noticed it before. All Torda and Nagy-Enyed are coming to meet us. They must have set out about the same time we did, to make the most of the night. We can't get through this way, that's sure. But don't you worry.

It's a sorry kind of a fox that has only one hole to hide in. Do you see that gorge there on our right? It leads to Olah-Fenes. The people there are Wallachs, it is true, but they side with us; to prove it, they have cut their hair short. Next we shall come to Szent-Laszlo, where Magyars live. So far we can drive, though it's a frightful road and one of us must walk beside the carriage and keep it from tipping over. We must wake up the young lady, too, and tell her to hold on tight, or she'll be thrown out. But never fear. The horses can be depended on, and the carriage is Toroczko work and good for the jaunt."

There was a halt, and Blanka awoke of her own accord. Mana.s.seh turned to her, chatted with her a moment on the brightness of the stars and the clearness of the sky, then kissed her hand and bade her draw it back again under her furs, else it would get frost-bitten. Thereupon Aaron reined his horses toward the mountain gorge he had pointed out, and they began their dangerous journey over a rough wood-road that led through the ravine. At one point it ran along the brink of a precipice, and as they paused to breathe their horses the rumble of wagons on the highway from Torda fell on their ears, sounding like distant thunder in the still night. Then, to the north and south, red lights began to glimmer on the mountain peaks.

"How beautiful!" exclaimed Blanka, as she gazed at them. Little did she suspect that they were beacon-fires calling to deeds of blood and rapine.

A turn in the road at length conducted the travellers through a gap in the mountain range, and they had a view of the moonlit landscape before them. A noisy brook went tumbling and foaming down the ravine, and over it led a wooden bridge, at the farther end of which could be seen a rude one-story house surrounded by a palisade. Five smaller houses of similar architecture were grouped about it. The barking of dogs greeted the travellers while they were still some distance off, and the crowing of c.o.c.ks soon followed.

"Do you hear Ciprianu's roosters?" Aaron asked his brother.

"So you are acquainted with Ciprianu and his poultry?" returned Mana.s.seh.

"Yes, I know them well. Ciprianu is a Wallach, but a n.o.bleman of Hungary for all that, and his poultry unique of its sort. The c.o.c.ks are white, but in head and neck they bear a strong resemblance to turkeys, and they gobble like turkeys, too. They are a special breed and Ciprianu wouldn't part with one of them for a fortune. He guards them jealously from thieves, and that explains why he has so many dogs. As soon as he hears our carriage-wheels he'll come out on his veranda and fire off his gun--not at us, but into the air, to let us know he's awake and ready to meet friend or foe."

The barking increased, the dogs sticking their noses out from between the stakes of the palisade and joining in a full chorus. Presently a shot was heard from the front porch of the house.

"Oh, they are firing at us!" cried Blanka, startled.

"Don't be afraid, sister-in-law," Aaron rea.s.sured her; "that shot wasn't aimed at us." Then he shouted, in stentorian tones: "Don't shoot, Ciprianu, don't shoot! There's a lady with us, and she can't bear the noise."

At this there was heard a great commotion among the dogs, as of some one quieting the unruly beasts with a whip. Then the gate opened and a six-foot giant in a sheepskin coat, wool outward, and bearing a club, appeared. He exchanged greetings in Rumanian with Aaron, and the conversation that followed was likewise in that language, so that Blanka could not understand a word of it. The Wallach pointed to the signal-fires on the mountains, and his face a.s.sumed an expression of alarm. Finally he took one of the horses by the bridle, and conducted the carriage through the gate and into his stronghold.

"Why are we stopped here?" asked Blanka.

Aaron gave her a rea.s.suring reply. "Ciprianu says it is not best for us to go any farther to-night, as the rains have washed out the road in some places, and we might get into trouble in the dark. So we must accept his invitation and spend the rest of the night under his roof."

Aaron had explained the situation only in part. The Wallachian's argument for detaining them had much less to do with water than with the fires on the mountain tops.

The dogs were kicked aside to make room for the strangers, and sundry villagers appeared out of the gloom to reconnoitre the new arrivals.

The country peasantry never give themselves a regular night's sleep, but lie down half-dressed in order to get up occasionally and look around in house and stable, to make sure all is as it should be.