Pretty Michal Part 18

Valentine, therefore, begged the captain to allow him to return to the battlefield with two companions, to search for Simplex on the margin of the mora.s.s where they had last fought side by side. The undertaking was not without danger, for bands of marauders were wont to prowl about the battlefield to plunder the fallen and make captive the survivors; so the captain, Count Hommonai, gave Valentine not two, but six hors.e.m.e.n, who were to help seek the field-trumpeter by the borders of the mora.s.s.

But Simplex had not been cut down by the Turks after all. Such a glorious death was by no means his ideal. When the battle was raging its fiercest, when the opposing warriors fell upon each other tooth and nail, and there was such a whirring and clas.h.i.+ng of lances and battle-axes that it was as much as a man could do to avoid having an eye knocked out--then, I say, Simplex, without thinking twice about it, sprang nimbly from his nag, unbuckled both his kettle-drums, left his steed to its own devices, hid the trumpet in the bushes, and crept himself into a place where the reeds and sedges were thickest. Then when the din of battle was over and everything was quite still again, he crept out of his hiding-place and looked about him.

Here and there a few couples were still fighting in the distance, but all around lay only the bodies of those who had already had their fill of fighting in this life. Close to the swamp, too, he espied the charger of the Albanian horseman. It was quietly grazing, but the Albanian, whose head Valentine had split open, lay on the ground still holding fast the reins in his convulsively clenched fist, so that the horse dragged him along whenever it changed its place. The trumpeter immediately appropriated this beautiful beast.

First he loaded him with the kettle-drums, then he took off all the Albanian's finery, hung it on the end of his lance, and so rode toward the camp. Valentine and his comrades met him when he was already half-way there.

Simplex made the most of his victory. He demonstrated how he had first cloven the Albanian horseman to the very saddle-bow, and then torn his horse away from under him by main force. Valentine listened to him in silence, for in those days it was an understood thing that when one friend had achieved an heroic deed which sufficed for two, he was to relinquish half the glory of it to his less fortunate comrade; and further, that one friend should never put another to shame by publicly contradicting him when he drew the long-bow too strongly.

Simplex was highly commended by the captain, who made him a present of the Albanian's horse (his former sorry nag had returned of its own accord to the camp), so that he was richly recompensed. Then he gave the signal for the scattered hors.e.m.e.n to rea.s.semble, and in the evening the Hungarians retreated in perfect order to the other side of the Thiros, almost everyone of them taking back with him a captive Turk.

Valentine brought his prisoner to his mother, who was as much delighted as any child to whom his father brings home from the chase a live wild cat. The good woman would not hear of the Turk being bound to the wagon, and compelled to run after it on foot all the way to Ka.s.sa; but a.s.signed him a place near the coachman, merely taking the precaution to bind one of his feet to the trestle with a leather strap, so that it might not occur to him to spring down and run away. After that she tied up the poor fellow's maimed thumb.

With what pride would she not exhibit this real live Turk at home!

Young Furmender would no longer be able to say that Valentine was possessed by evil spirits, and that he was afraid of blood.

CHAPTER XVII.

In which it is shown by an edifying example that he who pursues the path of evil must needs fall into the ditch.

They all arrived safely at Ka.s.sa. Dame Sarah with the captive Turk had got home even sooner than her son.

"Do you know, Valentine," said she, "this Turk is a very good, pious fellow! He is as gentle as a lamb, and can speak Hungarian like a native. He learnt it at Grosswardein. All the way home I was holding up to him the glory of the Christian religion, and he listened to me with the greatest attention. How nice it would be if only I could convert him to the true faith!"

"Anything but that, dear mother!" cried Valentine, in consternation.

"Pray don't get it into your head to convert this Turk, or he'll remain where he is, and I shall lose his ransom, and be two hundred ducats out of pocket in consequence."

His impious speech scandalized worthy Dame Sarah greatly.

"But, but, my son, are these two hundred ducats more to you than the soul of a converted heathen? How can you speak so impiously? Suppose the Apostles had thought as you do! And why lay such stress upon these two hundred ducats? If you want money, here hang the keys at my girdle. I'll give them to you. Thrust your arm into the great money chest, take the whole treasure away with you if you will, for we have an honest trade which brings us in as much gold and silver as we want. But if you must earn money, at all events don't earn it by offering men's flesh for sale. Say! Will you have the keys?"

"G.o.d bless you, my dear mother! I don't want your gold. I'll spend no money but what I've earned, piece by piece, by the sweat of my brow."

"Eh, eh, young fellow! I see what it is. You have something on your mind which you don't want your old mother to know. Come, sir, confess that you're in love! Out with it, don't be shamefaced! Your father was just such another mealy-mouth. For two whole years he was dangling after me without the pluck to open his mouth, till at last I was forced to take pity on him. Come, now, speak the truth! You are in love?"

"Perhaps I am."

"Who's the lady?"

"That's more than I can tell you."

"Some poor la.s.s, I suppose of lowly birth perhaps? Perhaps a peasant's daughter, or maybe, even a serving-maid? I don't care. Let her family be what it may, if only she herself is a virtuous virgin, you may bring her to my house without fear. If she is clumsy, I'll gladly shut one eye and only see that she loves you. If she knows absolutely nothing at all, I'll be her teacher, and she shall learn from me everything which a right-minded housewife ought to know.

Come, now! Who is it?"

"I cannot say, my good mother!"

"Valentine! Valentine!" cried Dame Sarah, threatening her son with the large carving-knife which she always kept hanging by her side.

"You are after no good thing. You love a woman who has already got a husband. Don't deny it! I see by your sudden change of color that I've hit the mark. Valentine, you are walking in evil ways! Bethink you what is in store for you--here on earth the sword of the headsman, and in the next world the fires of h.e.l.l! You know that in matters of morality our laws don't jest! I have seen with my own eyes many a head, quite as comely as yours, roll in the sand--the sole offense of these poor sinners was presuming to cast sheep's eyes at women who had no business to have lovers at all. But I pray G.o.d that he'll place an obstacle in your path at the very outset, which will make it impossible for you to go any further on the way where shame, death, and d.a.m.nation await you. G.o.d will hear me!"

But Valentine reflected that he too had recommended his affairs to G.o.d. Had he not said that if he returned safe and sound from the battle, it should be a sign that his intention of seeking out his beloved in her misery was right and pious? And, lo! the blessing of G.o.d had followed hard upon his footsteps; he had not only returned home safe and sound, but had brought back with him a captive whose ransom would enable him to face all manner of unknown perils with far more courage than if he only had an empty purse. Therefore he impatiently waited for the kinsfolk of his prisoner Achmed to send him the ransom from Grosswardein. But it was just at this time that Dame Sarah was moving heaven and earth to convert the Turk. Every day she read to him extracts from the Gospels, and taught him to sing hymns. He had even got so far as to renounce those articles of his creed which prohibited the drinking of wine and the eating of ham, when he one day put to Dame Sarah the ticklish question, whether a converted Turk might not keep all four of his wives? The worthy dame smote her hands together in horror.

"What! you have four wives, you d----d Turk? Well, then, you may remain in your heathenish faith for all I care. Go with your four wives to your Turkish h.e.l.l, but don't contaminate ours." And with that she washed her hands of him altogether.

A few days later the Turk's ransom reached the hands of Captain Hommonai, who paid over the money to Valentine, and Achmed was sent off to Grosswardein.

So Valentine had at last enough money to carry out what he had so long been brooding over.

His first step was to beg Captain Hommonai for a short furlough for himself and his comrade Simplex, which furlough he very easily obtained, inasmuch as my lord count was just then in the middle of his honeymoon, and therefore ill disposed to engage in martial feats for some time to come. The Turks also were keeping very quiet in that part of the country.

The two hundred ducats Valentine already had in his pocket. All that he now required for his journey was a good cloth mantle, a stout ax, a flask, and a knapsack.

It was also of no small a.s.sistance to our two honest comrades that the general ordered the squadron of cavalry to which they belonged to proceed to Onod (which was half-way to Zeb), for Valentine was thereby able to conceal from his mother the fact that he had obtained leave of absence. So they reached Onod safely, and thence made their way across country to seek Michal.

Yet the prayers of Dame Sarah were more efficacious than the resolutions of the two friends, for as they were pa.s.sing through the Onod forest, out of the bushes sprang twelve of those miscreants who then pursued the accursed trade of kidnaping Christian men and women in order to sell them to the Turks. Valentine indeed made a good fight for it, and broke no end of jaws and noses; but at last he was overpowered by numbers. Then the robbers gagged him, and tied him with his comrade to a tree, and naturally left him very little of the two hundred ducats which they found upon his person. Then they separated to seek fresh booty. In the evening they returned with a woman and a young girl, and at dusk they tied the captives to their saddles and haled them away.

Thus Dame Sarah's pious wish that her son Valentine might light upon an obstacle which should hinder him at the very outset from pursuing his evil way, was exactly fulfilled.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Wherein is related what very different fates befell the two honest comrades.

The wicked kidnapers took off all their captives' upper garments, leaving them nothing but their s.h.i.+rts and hose to cover their limbs with, and drove them in this guise through all the villages they came to.

The captive girl had bruised her feet on the stony ways so that it was as much as she could do to limp painfully along. Valentine could not bear to see the robbers goading the poor child on with their whips, as if she were a brute beast, so, as if he had not enough wretchedness of his own to carry, he must needs take her on to his shoulders and trudge along with her to Eger, where they happened to arrive on market day. The slaves were driven straight to the market place, where a brisk traffic in oxen, sheep, and buffaloes was going on, and one of the accursed robbers blew a hoa.r.s.e, squeaking fife, to advertise his slaves, and after attracting a crowd around them, began to praise their good points with a glib tongue. He called attention to Valentine's mighty arms as he stood there defiantly protruding his broad chest; but as for Simplex, he pulled such wretched faces and was so doubled up by his misery, that the robber felt bound to flip him now and then with his whip just to put a little life into him. The female slaves were treated with even less ceremony, for the robber tore the very smocks from their shoulders to show the purchasers how smooth their skins were.

First of all the woman and her little daughter were sold. A Mudir required them both, so at all events they had the consolation of each other's society.

Then there came an under-sized Turkish butcher who dealt in sheep flesh, and rejoiced greatly when he learnt from Valentine that he was a butcher's a.s.sistant. He did not chaffer very long about him, but paid the thousand ducats which the robber demanded for Valentine, put him in chains, and drove him off, at the same time bidding him be of good cheer, as he would be very well treated, have enough to eat, and when the vintage time came, might work in the vineyards in the open air, and have plenty of sour wine to comfort his heart with.

But for Simplex no purchaser could be found. They all looked at his hands, which were quite smooth and soft, for how could trumpet blowing make them hard? n.o.body would have him. In vain did the robber make him dance at the end of a rope like a bear, and cry continually:

"Buy! buy! Who'll buy this _giaour_?"

At last, finding that no one would buy him, he led him to the fortress to the pasha. There the Mutes.h.i.+n came to meet him, and the robber said that he had brought him a captive soldier, for all captive soldiers had to be handed over to the pasha, who made an immense profit out of them by buying them dirt-cheap and then reselling them to their friends at fancy prices. The Mutes.h.i.+n, therefore, paid the robber forty ducats down for Simplex, one of which the G.o.dless wretch gave to the poor captive as a sort of parting gift.

Simplex was then sent straight to the smithy, and there such heavy fetters were fastened to his legs that he could scarcely drag them along. After that they stuck him in a subterranean dungeon, already occupied by some fifty other persons, who said very little to each other, but squatted on the floor, as near as they could get to the narrow, single window, and carved pipes, plaited scourges, or wove Turkish girdles in order to earn a few aspers. Many of them, however, lay against the wall as if they were sick, and these had their feet tied up. A barber came down to them in the morning and evening to change their bandages, and rub their wounded soles with soothing salves.

Simplex asked them what long journeys they had been taking to make the soles of their feet so sore. One of them answered:

"Just wait a bit. It will be your turn soon to take the same journey and find out where Bambooland lies."