Pretty Michal Part 21

"And what conclusion could Ibrahim draw from that?"

But this Valentine would not tell her.

Jigerdilla, however, helped him out.

"He might have thought," continued she, "that I belong more to you than to him. And why, indeed, might I not belong wholly to you?"

"Because you are his."

"It is true. He bought me for five hundred ducats; but if you gave him one thousand ducats for me he would hand me over to you, for he is greedy, and fond of money."

Valentine laughed heartily at these words.

"Whence would a poor devil like me get one thousand ducats?"

"Wait a bit, and I'll tell you something which I've never told to anybody else. Sit down by me! Nay! sit so that you can look into my eyes. When Ibrahim bought this vineyard, the kiosk already stood there, and in the kiosk was an oven. During vintage time, Ibrahim often took it into his head to sleep in the open air, and I had to bake bread for him. Once, as I was taking the loaves out of the oven, I found a ducat sticking to one of them. I said nothing about it, but waited till it was night, when I took up a knife and ripped up the floor of the oven. The whole of the underlying mortar was full of ducats. I suppose that when the town was taken by the Turks, some rich proprietor or other hid them there, and afterward perished in the war. I did not take away the treasure, but left it there, spread fresh mortar over it, and made a fire upon it to burn the mortar hard. The treasure is there now. I said nothing to Ibrahim about it, for if he got the money he would only drink the more and beat me oftener; nay, he would bring fresh wives into the house, and I should have trouble and strife enough. So I'll give the whole treasure to you. You can then ransom yourself and purchase me, and you'll have enough left for both of us to live comfortably together."

Valentine was in a sad difficulty. What was he to do? Fate gave him the chance of securing a pretty woman and a lot of money besides. At last he summoned his religion to his a.s.sistance.

"It is impossible, my good lady," said he apologetically; "the men of my faith do not buy women with money. No, our women, following the bent of their hearts, freely give their hands to the men of their own choice. And the men who marry them pay them for their devotion, not with gifts and gold, but with equal devotion and sympathy."

At these words Jigerdilla smote her hands together.

"Then your religion will suit me very well. If in your country such things are not matters of cash and barter, but free-will offerings, that is just what I should like. I'll follow you of my own free will. I'll fly with you, learn to know your G.o.d, go to your church, and take in baptism whatever name you like to give me."

Valentine ought to have found the offer very tempting. Had Dame Sarah been at his side she would certainly have said:

"Look, my son, now you've got fortune by the forelock, hold on fast with both hands and never let go again. You'll get a wondrously beautiful young woman, with large black eyes and a small red mouth, and a whole oven full of ducats besides; and (which is the main thing after all) you'll be saving an erring, unbelieving soul for an eternal salvation, and will thus obtain for yourself a claim upon Paradise." And it would have been the most natural thing in the world to have thought so.

But Valentine was very far indeed from thinking so. So long as the image of Michal lived in his heart, he saw in every other woman, however beautiful, only an evil spirit of temptation to which one has only to say, "Depart hence!" and it will instantly vanish into the air.

He loved another.

But he did not tell Jigerdilla so.

Instead of that he pulled a very wry face, bowed himself humbly, and said:

"How could I be such a villain as to seduce my master's wife?"

At this, Jigerdilla, fairly beside herself with rage, tore off her slipper, struck Valentine in the face, and cried:

"Be off, slave! Take your spade and set about your work!"

Then she covered herself once more with her veil that the b.u.mpkin might not see her face again, and her contempt for him was so great that she did not even think it worth while to fear that the craven would abuse the secret that he had learnt. "He who dare not touch his master's wife will certainly never dare to lay a hand on his master's treasure."

Then, with a good deal of unnecessary bustle, she bounced out of the vineyard, first stopping to bestow on the slumbering Ibrahim a kick sufficiently vicious to awaken him.

The Turk, thus roughly aroused from his narcotic sleep, began first of all to throw his arms and legs about; then he revolved five or six times on his axis, and finally rolled over a little hillock into the garden below. There he lay for some time, dreaming on with wide-open eyes and addressing the paradisaical shapes which the opium had conjured up before him. Then he stared blankly into the world around him; began blinking with his eyes and plunging with his knees, and at last raised himself on his elbows and bellowed for his slave.

Valentine hastened up to him.

"Where is my wife?"

"Am I your wife's keeper? Perhaps she has gone home."

"I dreamt that she had been nibbling again at my plums. These women are so greedy. But I know that you, Valentine, have not eaten of my plums. Nor shall you do so, you dog! These plums are like the fruit of the tuba tree which stands in Paradise, and which you can never taste, you _giaour_, you swine, you! What have you done with my wife? It would be as well if I plucked all these plums and sent them to the pasha. What do you think he'll give me for them? Do you think that I can climb up that tree? What! I tell you I can fly up it like a squirrel."

Opium smokers in their drunken reveries always fancy themselves strong and agile. Yet the worthy man could not stand, much less fly.

So Valentine helped Ibrahim to climb the plum tree. The Turk was determined to pluck every one of the plums himself; the hand of a slave should never profane the dessert of the pasha.

And the poor slave was all the time thinking to himself that when he got home with his lord, Jigerdilla would treat him exactly as Potiphar's wife treated Joseph. A woman has no need to betake herself to the Old Testament to learn how to avenge herself on the man who has slighted her advances.

She will certainly get him beaten to death by her husband.

And to make the resemblance between the two cases more complete, there was a vision to be interpreted.

"What is the meaning of the dreams I've just been dreaming?" growled Ibrahim, in the tree. "I dreamt that a hen pounced down upon an eagle and flew away with him--not the eagle with the hen, but the hen with the eagle."

"Just you come down from that tree and I'll let you know all about it," thought Valentine to himself, and while Ibrahim was plucking the plums, he took out of his master's discarded girdle the key of his own fetters and quickly freed his feet. Then he planted himself close beside the tree.

Ibrahim was so busily engaged in plucking his fruit, and so lost in admiration at his beautiful bonameras, that it quite escaped him that the sun was going down, and that they had begun to sound the retreat in the fortress. Now this signified that everyone was to leave off laboring in his field or vineyard, for at the third signal the gates were closed, and whoever then remained outside had to stay there all night. Only at the third signal did Kermes reflect that it was growing late, and begin to climb down from the plum tree. First he handed to Valentine the basket-load of bonameras, and then he slowly began to let himself down, and begged his slave to help him.

And Valentine did help him, for just when Ibrahim was hanging with both hands to a branch between heaven and earth, Valentine threw the basket at him, plums and all, tore him to the ground, bound his hands to his back, and kicked him into the kiosk. The neighbors observed nothing of all this, for they were much too intent upon getting to the town themselves before the gates were closed, to notice what others were doing.

Valentine next locked the door of the kiosk and set about tearing up the mortar flooring.

Jigerdilla had spoken truly; there was no lack of ducats. Valentine did not let the opportunity escape him, but swept all the gold pieces together and put them into Ibrahim's knapsack. Then he donned the Turk's kaftan, turban, and girdle, compelling him to put on his own slave's clothes; and when it grew dusk, he threw a rope round his neck, and said to him:

"Now we are going to Onod, and if you dare to utter a word by the way, I'll break your own ax to pieces over your bald pate!" And as Ibrahim Kermes was very anxious about his beautiful ax, and still more so about his skull, he allowed himself, with true Mohammedan resignation, to be driven through the alley between the vineyards into the wood and from thence into the next village. There Valentine hired from the Christian magistrate a four-horse wagon, and drove with his captive master to Onod, where he arrived early next morning safe and sound.

CHAPTER XX.

In which is a very circ.u.mstantial, if not very pleasant, description of all the conditions to be observed in the exchange and purchase of slaves.

On arriving at the fortress of Onod, Valentine at once handed over his prisoner and the money he had brought with him (of course deducting the two hundred ducats which the robbers had taken away from him) to the Commandant of the fortress, that he might ransom therewith the persons who were languis.h.i.+ng in the dungeons of Eger, and especially the woman and child who had been abducted with him and sold at the Eger cattle market. As for the imprisoned butcher, he proposed to exchange him for the field-trumpeter, Simplex.

By this n.o.ble deed Valentine so completely won the hearts of the brave warriors of Onod, that they made him a corporal on the spot.

Moreover, the liberated lady also visited him with her daughter, expressed her thanks by kissing his hands and embracing his feet, informed him that she was a rich proprietress, and insisted upon giving him her daughter to wife as soon as she had reached maturity, the young lady at present being only twelve years of age.

Valentine thanked her for her offer, but begged her to bring up her daughter for some other more fortunate mortal. Who could tell where his bones might be bleaching in five or six years' time?

It was only pretty Michal that he had always in his thoughts.

He could scarcely wait for Simplex to appear, so impatient was he to set out with him to discover Michal.