Pretty Michal Part 22

But the ransom of the prisoners did not go off so smoothly after all. The Kaimakan of Eger wrote to the Commandant of Onod that he did not consider the Eger butcher worth four hundred gulden, the amount of the trumpeter's ransom. There were still two and thirty butchers at Eger, and therefore he would not give more than two hundred gulden for this particular butcher. If the other two hundred gulden were not paid in cash, the whole of the Christian prisoners at Eger should suffer for it on the soles of their feet. Annexed to the Kaimakan's letter was a heart-rending pet.i.tion from the Christian prisoners, in which they implored the Commandant to fulfill the desire of the Kaimakan for their sakes.

The Commandant of Onod thereupon fetched out of prison the six and twenty Turks who were in captivity there, and made them address a solemn memorial to the Kaimakan of Eger, whom they piteously besought not to bastinado the Christian captives, as in such a case they, the Turkish captives, would be visited with still more grievous torments.

The princ.i.p.al sufferers, however, were the two prisoners who were to be exchanged, and from whom both sides tried to extort as much as possible, so that in their mutual distress they grew quite fond of each other.

At last Valentine sent the extra two hundred gulden, and both Simplex and the Turkish butcher were escorted to Eger with fetters on only one leg. There the Kaimakan received his gold and the butcher his wife. Ibrahim Kermes celebrated his liberation with a banquet, to which Simplex was also invited, and regaled with mutton in twelve different editions. Finally, Ibrahim presented him with a pair of red morocco slippers, while Jigerdilla sent Valentine a couple of superfine laced pocket-handkerchiefs, with initials embroidered in the four corners in Turkish letters, and wet with the tears from her lovely eyes at the recollection of him.

But Ibrahim Kermes swore by the beard of the Prophet that he would never again buy a Calvinist _giaour_ as a slave, even if he could get him for a single denarius.

And now, after all this, it is high time that Valentine set out to seek his unhappy Michal.

CHAPTER XXI.

Is full of good tidings, inasmuch as it treats of the discomfiture of evil-doers.

Simplex had quite won Valentine's heart by warning him of the dangers threatening his sweetheart which he had overheard in the robber's camp. It is true he did not tell him the whole truth for fear of frightening him too much, or even making him lose courage altogether. But so much he did tell him: that Catsrider, instead of taking his Michal to the parsonage which, as a curer of souls, he ought to have occupied, had remained in his father's house, where they had treated Michal very cruelly. But he added that, sooner or later, the robbers would destroy the house, and then Michal had a most terrible fate to expect.

"What shall I do? Merciful Heaven, what shall I do?" groaned poor Valentine.

"My dear fellow," said Simplex, "what you have to do is perfectly plain. You must carry off your beloved from the place at once."

"But that would be a sin against G.o.d."

"Yet you'll do it all same. Just you come along with me. One word with her, one look at her, and I'm sure you'll do what I've said."

"G.o.d preserve me from so great a sin."

"Now just listen to me. I'm a Lutheran. I don't believe in predestination. But you are a Calvinist. You are bound to believe in it. You know for certain that everything which happens, or may happen to you, is already recorded in a great book which has been written before the beginning of the world. Your will can alter nothing therein, and if it is recorded of you that you must die on the top of a mountain, and you don't go up the mountain, the summit will come down to you and place itself beneath your feet. I say you have only got to take the first step, and all the other steps will follow as a matter of course. If you resolve to see your beloved, you will never leave her again, but will bring her back with you, though you walked in the shadow of the gallows all the way along. If all this had not been preordained, you would have remained at home and married Kitty Furmender."

They were discoursing thus as they proceeded along the highway, provided this time with such good weapons that not every kidnaper of slaves would have cared to attack them. But as far as these waylayers were concerned, they felt themselves pretty safe, for they had chosen not the Ka.s.sa road but the Gauz road, and such abductors very seldom ventured on the left bank of the Hernad, because the river is liable to overflow, and thus often prevents them from escaping when hard pressed by pursuers.

What our wanderers really had to fear were the ordinary robber bands who terrorized those regions, and whose exact whereabouts could only be learnt by experience; for these bandits were here, there, and everywhere, and very often broke into Poland, where they were naturally as welcome guests as here in Transylvania.

Simplex undertook to find out all about the robbers from the frequenters of the fairs, who were generally best informed on the subject. His friend he left at an inn in the meantime.

When he returned, his face was beaming with joy.

"Didn't I say that we were Fortune's own children? Didn't you come into the world in a caul, Valentine? The town is full of joy. All three robber bands have been captured. They fell into an ambuscade while on their way to plunder the Iglo fair. Three counties and the Imperial soldiers were banded together for the occasion. They drove them out of their rocky lairs, occupied every point of exit, and at last the robbers ran short of powder, and all who had not already fallen surrendered. The haughty Hafran and the cruel Bajus were taken alive. Their comrades, to obtain a pardon, delivered them up bound hand and foot. But most wonderful of all is Janko's story. It was I who contributed to his overthrow. The pursuers were unable to lay hands upon him, for when he saw himself abandoned by his own people and surrounded on every side, he cut down a pine tree and glided with it over a rocky precipice; then he climbed up another steep rock like a wild cat, so that no one could come up with him.

Yet he was taken after all, and he has a woman to thank for it. He had sent a message through me to the wife of the kopanitschar of Hamar (and I pa.s.sed it on to an oil merchant) that she should treat him friendly when he next came to her, but that her husband should not show his face at all. Now, when he saw himself so hotly pursued, Janko fled straight to the kopanitschar's wife, who is his sweetheart. The woman received him with open arms, made him a great feast, and they were right merry together. Wine flowed all night, and a couple of bagpipers played the music by turns. They soon got tired of playing, but Janko never tired of dancing. He drank on to midday, and was in such high good-humor that he did not know what to do with himself. At last he scattered handfuls of gold among the gaping peasantry, and while they were fighting for it among themselves, he went out into the fields, declaring that whosoever dared to follow him would be a dead man. And, indeed, no one had the courage to follow him but one man, and that man was the kopanitschar.

"Janko had looked for him all night long in order to kill him, but he had remained concealed in a hayrick till midday. At midday, he crept out of his hiding-place and went to look for Janko. He had no other weapon but a long, two-p.r.o.nged wooden fork, which they use in those parts to toss hay.

"And he found Janko stretched out at full length in the meadow, and fast asleep. The kopanitschar caught him round the neck between the p.r.o.ngs of the fork, and pinned him fast to the ground. The terrible robber was caught and quite harmless. In vain he roared and cursed; the kopanitschar's iron fist and wooden fork held him down till the rest mustered up sufficient courage to hasten up and secure him.

"To-morrow the whole three of them will be executed at Eperies, and we will be there to see it all."

CHAPTER XXII.

Wherein is related what end was reserved for the evil-doers by way of deterrent example, which example, however, only distressed the soft-hearted without terrifying the stiff-necked.

"I won't be there to see it," said Valentine to Simplex. "A shudder runs through my whole body when I think of a man torturing another.

If a man were to beat, tweak, or flay me, I should only laugh at it; but when I see one man tormenting another, it makes my blood boil. I feel no dizziness when I stand on the edge of the loftiest precipice, but when I see another hovering over the abyss, I am beside myself with terror. I am amazed that there should be people who delight in watching the b.l.o.o.d.y scenes on the scaffold. The battlefield is quite another thing. There you fight man to man; there you do not hear the cries of the dying. The death I deal to one man, another man may at any moment deal to me. But I won't see men who are bound hand and foot tortured to death; I won't hear them shriek with anguish beneath the hand of the headsman."

"You'll go, notwithstanding," returned Simplex. "As I've already said, if you are a true Calvinist, you'll resign yourself to predestination, and must not say: 'I'll go hither, or, I'll go thither!' You will do what it was preordained you should do at the beginning of the world, and the place you are now going to is the town of Eperies, and the market place in that town."

And it all happened exactly as Simplex said. For they had no sooner stepped out of the tavern than they were stopped by a patrol of drabants, who learning that they were soldiers, showed them the mandate of the Commandant of Eperies, whereby all the soldiers on leave in the district were ordered to Eperies, to remain in the market place during the day, so that the people might not disturb the execution of the law's sentence, or the comrades of the robbers release them by a sudden and audacious onslaught.

So Valentine had to march to Eperies, with the other men-at-arms, whether he liked it or not.

Crowds of people were pouring into the town that day, from all quarters, as if a great banquet were to be given, or a lord lieutenant installed--gentlemen in coaches or on horseback, peasants sitting ten in a wagon, students, apprentices, peddlers, sacred-image sellers, and deceivers of all sorts.

Simplex and Valentine were sent on by wagon the same night to Eperies, where they arrived at dawn next morning.

At that time, Eperies no longer presented the smiling aspect of half a century before. The internecine disorders, the religious discussions, the ravages of robbers, had laid bare the whole region.

The stumps of trees and wildering weeds were all that remained of the orchards which had once encircled the city walls, and whole rows of ruined pleasure houses were left to tell what a merry life had once been there.

Instead of the fine old plum and lordly apple trees quite another sort of grove had grown up around the bastions--a ghastly grove of gaunt, withered trees, laden with sad fruits, a wood of gallowses, wheels, and spikes, on which the bones of criminals were rotting.

The three captured robber bands had largely contributed to this gruesome grove. The lesser fry, the receivers of stolen goods, and the women who had brought the robbers' powder from the town, had been executed outside the trenches, three days before; only for the three robber chieftains was reserved the supreme distinction of being done to death _within_ the walls. One could not make too sure of them.

In the great square, where the townhall and the large covered market stand opposite to each other, that terrible edifice, generally called the scaffold, had been raised. It towered high up and could only be ascended by ladders, which the headsman's apprentices, when they went to work, drew up after them so that none might follow. In the middle of the scaffold stood a broad block against which heavy wheels were leaning. On each side of the block two thick stakes were fastened with heavy dependent chains, the links of which could be locked and unlocked. From the top of each of these stakes projected huge forks with bars across them and hooks hanging down from the bars.

In front of the townhall a dais had been erected for the convenience of the sheriffs, mayor, and town councilors. A guard of honor stood in front of the dais, and the scaffold was environed by soldiers three deep. Valentine tried to get into the hindermost row. He wanted to see as little as possible of the terrible spectacle.

Simplex stood by his side, so as to be at hand in case his friend was taken ill. The great square was filled with a gaping crowd. At the windows stood or sat gayly dressed women, just as if a Corpus Christi procession were about to pa.s.s. The very roofs of the houses were covered with human heads. Booths had been erected in the market place, where cakes and mead were offered for sale, steaks basted, and pancakes tossed in large pans. The biographies of the robbers, printed on coa.r.s.e paper with red frontispieces, were also hawked about.

Conspicuous among the itinerant gypsies and peddlers was a woman who offered for sale long thongs fastened to the end of a stick, and was particularly importunate with Simplex.

"Come Mr. Trumpeter, won't you buy a thong made out of the skin flayed from the robbers' backs?"

Simplex at once recognized the voice; it was Pirka the witch. So under the pretext of chaffing with her, he at once entered into a conversation.

"What are these thongs of human skin good for?"

"They are good against the plague and falling sickness. They also keep wild beasts away, and compel the most stubborn of sweethearts to surrender."

"And how much are they apiece?"

"Four thalers."

But Valentine could stand it no longer.