The Green Book Part 68

"Look, my lord, I have not a horse left. The Czar has just pa.s.sed through; every horse I had has been taken for himself and retinue."

"And that one in the corner?"

"That horse is not mine. It belongs to a courier just arrived from Kiew, who went at once to bed and is fast asleep."

"A courier who can allow himself to sleep on the way cannot have any very urgent business. Perhaps I can persuade him, for some good gold pieces, to sleep on until I have reached Mariopolis on his horse, whence it shall be sent back to him."

"You can try it, my lord!" It was not such an unheard-of thing in Russia for a courier to sell his horse from under him.

"If he will not lend me his horse I'll put a bullet through him,"

muttered Jakuskin to himself as he entered the guest-chamber.

A young officer of a lancer regiment lay on the bed wrapped in his cloak.

"Good-day, comrade," said Jakuskin.

"Don't talk of good days," returned he, his teeth chattering. "I am s.h.i.+vering all over. That confounded Caucasian fever has laid hold of me on the road. It's all up with me. And I had a despatch to deliver into the hands of the Czar himself wherever I might come up with him. General Roth sent me--delay is most serious. And I cannot sit my horse! I say, my dear fellow, do me a good turn and take charge of this despatch.

Take my horse. The Czar has gone to Taganrog Hasten after him! Give him this despatch--into his own hands. Those were my orders! As for me, I shall only be able to report myself to him in the next world. Lose no time, I entreat you."

Nothing could have been more welcome to Jakuskin. A despatch which must be delivered into the Czar's own hands--the Czar!

"Heaven be with you, comrade! You may die with an easy mind. I will faithfully carry out your commission; and if you have a betrothed I will write her where you breathed your last, and will send your mother your watch and chain. You could not have found a better subst.i.tute."

The officer probably died and was buried in that picturesque steppe.

Jakuskin, mounting his horse, placed the despatch intrusted to him in his breast-pocket.

But the horse given over to him was a sorry jade, and not accustomed, as his other had been, to the steppes. He could make but few miles a day, and whenever he came to a bridge his rider had to dismount and drag the animal across. He would not go over a bridge.

Owing to such a bad mount he did not reach Taganrog until four days after the arrival of the Czar.

One day Jakuskin found out that the Czar intended going from Alapka to Mordinof. Now there was but one road to it, and that only a bridle-path--a path called by the natives "the ladder." It well merited its cognomen, rising so steeply up the mountain-side that sometimes the horse has to force its way through narrow clefts in the rock.

Jakuskin hired a Tartar guide, who was to lead him through the forest to the summit of "the ladder."

Before dawn, in the dead of night, he made his start, to be there before the Czar. He was dressed in the costume of a Tartar huntsman, a double-barrelled gun slung over his shoulder. Emerging from the thick forest, he saw the steep mountain path before him. Over a spring, gus.h.i.+ng from out the rocky wall, grew a bush some ten feet distant from the path. The path itself was intercepted here by a cleft in the rock, across which a narrow bridge had been thrown, only wide enough for one horseman to pa.s.s at a time.

The most favorable spot possible for an ambush.

"Hi, lad! How green your eyes are!"

The man laughed a hollow, low laugh, as though out of an empty cask.

"You're right; my eyes are green." He spoke, and disappeared in the thick underwood.

Bethsaba's tale came into Jakuskin's mind. He drew back behind the tree, loaded his gun, and waited.

A vulture flew over him with hoa.r.s.e scream; he took the waiting man for a corpse, so motionless was he.

At length was heard the long-expected signal. The path groaned beneath the tramp of horses. The hors.e.m.e.n must perforce pa.s.s quite close to him.

He could aim as slowly as he pleased.

Only when the hors.e.m.e.n came up did he see how he had been the sport of fate. They were only outriders; the company pa.s.sed; the Czar was not among them.

Where could he be?

"Confound you, you fellow, with your green eyes!" said Jakuskin, with an oath. "You will be making me into a superst.i.tious fool!"

There was no sign of the Czar. He had escaped.

It is a delicious autumn day, such as is only to be met with in the enchantingly beautiful mountains of Tauris. The air is so pure that the distant ranges are brought near; silvery threads of gossamer flutter from every branch; the autumnal tints are an exquisite mixture of gold and red; the turf is strewn with pink anemones. That little spot of earth is the orchard of the world. There is a perfect forest of fruit-trees here, groaning under their ripe loads. Fallen apples and pears cover the ground. Blackbirds sing their praises to the owner of the woods, who grudges of his plenty neither to the wanderer nor to the birds of the air. The giant trees, which in other countries only bring forth wild pears, are here laden with luscious fruit sweet as honey.

What can be gathered with the hand is the pa.s.ser-by's; the rest is the property of the owner.

Czar Alexander was delighted with the wealth of fruit in this fairy-land. He began to believe in Bethsaba's fairy stories.

In one place, where the path led up through two rocky walls, the sound of bells came wafted down below.

The Czar, accosting a Tartar who was coming down the rocky path towards him, asked:

"Where are those bells which are ringing?"

"In St. George's Monastery," was the answer.

"Who built a monastery in this wilderness?"

"It is the former Temple of Diana. Among its ruins the black monks, who came here from Mount Athos, have settled."

"So this is, then, the famous Temple of Diana in Tauris?" returned the Czar, suddenly recalling to memory the tradition of the lovely priestess of Artemis, Iphigenia, of whom poets from Euripides down to Goethe have sung. "And is this temple a monastery now?"

The Czar never pa.s.sed by a church without entering it. And here was an attraction over and beyond his yearning for the sacred building. It was a piece of historical antiquity, a relic of cla.s.sic times, as well as a Christian asylum in a Mohammedan province.

"How does one get to the monastery?" he asked the Tartar.

"By a footpath which forks off from the ascent and leads round past the monastery to the regular path again. The horses would have to be sent on; the way can be only accomplished on foot. It is somewhat difficult to find. I could guide you."

The Czar was now more than ever anxious to see it; so, alighting from his horse, he ascended the path with the guide to the Temple of Diana.

It led through a thick forest. On either side picturesque groups of trees lined the way; wild vines festooned the branches, forming a green roof overhead, from which hung bunches of little round grapes, called in Tartar language "kacsi." Other fruit-bearing trees abounded; among them towered two thorn-bushes bearing plums--the one rosy red, the other waxen yellow. The yellow plum has a large stone; the red one grows in the form of a grape, like cherry-plums.

"What do you call this fruit?" the Czar asked his guide.

"The yellow is called 'alirek,' the red 'isziumirek.'"

"Gather me some. I should like to taste them."

The guide, hastily breaking off some blackberry leaves, formed them into a basket and filled it with red and yellow plums.

The Czar was heated from the mountain ascent, and thirsty. The ripe, juicy fruit, with its pleasant acid, was very grateful to him. He left none. Only on returning the empty basket to his guide was he struck by something in the man's appearance.