Eyes Like the Sea Part 27

said he.

"I bade them leave off wailing, and hasten to clamber up into a willow-tree, whither the monsters could not follow us.

"It was an old pollard willow, the branches of which were cut off every year, so that only the crown of it remained, surrounded by young shoots.

I, who had never learnt the art of tree-climbing, was hoisted up by the gipsies first of all, and then they hastily scrambled up after me.

"When we had got to the top of the tree we discovered that in the middle of it was a large hole--the whole inside of the tree was hollow, and could contain a man.

"'Leader,' said the contra-ba.s.s, 'your loss would be most serious, creep down into that hole.' I took him at his word, and glided down from the crown of the tree into the deep hollow trunk. First of all, however, I tied my long cotton neckerchief to a little branch, that I might be able to hoist myself up again in case of need, for the hole in the willow went right down to its very roots. At the side of the tree, too, close to an old branch, there was an orifice as large as one's fist, through which one could look as through an attic window.

"The five wolves were not long in arriving.

"They did not come quite near at first, but reconnoitred. Whenever one of them sneaked up a little nearer, the clarinet-player aimed at it with his instrument, which the wolf took for a musket. Then the beast would back a little and scratch up the snow with his hind legs. They say the creature is wont to do this when he sees a man stand on the defensive; he tries to blind him with snow.

"When, however, the wolves at last discovered that we had no fire-arms, they sent up the ugliest howls, and began the siege of the willow. They took tremendous leaps in the air to reach the crown of the tree, but it was too high for them.

"Then it occurred to the gipsies that they had often heard that wolves had a strong penchant for music, and they began giving them a clarinet and fiddle concert.

"It is true that the nasty brutes left off the siege, sat round the willow, and began to howl in concert with the music, at the same time raising their horrid jaws towards the moon, and las.h.i.+ng their sides with their ragged brush-like tails; and for a short time I was quite amused at the scene. But suddenly our double danger occurred to my mind.

"'Hey! gipsies. Stop, I say! Is the devil in you? Your music will bring the pickets of the Croats upon us, and they will flay us alive.'

"At this they stopped their music.

"This appeared to make the wolves still more savage, and now they tried a fresh stratagem.

"They had found out that the willow leaned a little to one side, and rus.h.i.+ng at it from a little distance, they attempted to scale the sloping side of the tree. This manuvre was likely to have succeeded. It was then that I saw what a powerful beast the wolf really is, and how much more cunning than any species of dog. Scrambling up at full tilt, they managed to reach the crown of the willow, but there the brave contra-ba.s.s was awaiting them, and gave them such a kick on the snout with his iron-heeled boots that the attacking beasts fell head over heels backwards.

"This they repeated ten or twelve times.

"And there was this remarkable circ.u.mstance about it, that every time an attacking wolf was prostrated by a kick from the gipsy, the others rushed upon him as he fell, and worried him as if to punish him for his failure.

"Suddenly they left off, and went and sat down in a heap just in front of my window. Their tongues lolled out of their panting mouths; their hot, b.e.s.t.i.a.l breath rose into the cold air before me. They appeared to be taking counsel together. The biggest of them seemed to be their leader. If one of the younger ones yelped too much, he would snap at his neck as if to say 'shut up!'

"At last they appeared to have hatched their stratagem. The whole lot of them got up and shuffled farther off, squinting over their shoulders all the time towards the willow-tree.

"My gipsies fancied they were saved.

"'You shall have no roast gipsy this time!' bawled the clarinet-player after them derisively from his sure stronghold, as he fancied it.

"All at once the wolves returned and stormed onwards like race-horses, each one being about a wolf's tail ahead of the other.

"The first of them rushed straight up the tree, and while the contra-ba.s.s was kicking him in the head, the second wolf leaped across the first wolf's back and seized the man's leg.

"I heard a despairing shriek:

"'Don't let me go, comrade!'

"The second musician tried to free his down-falling friend from the jaws of the wild beast, and in doing so lost his balance, and the pair of them fell down from the tree.

"What happened after that is more than I can tell you. It is enough that I should have had to live through that mortal struggle of the two luckless victims with those filthy brutes. How many times have I not dreamt it all over again! I believe that even if I had committed all the seven deadly sins, I should have more than expiated them all in that awful hour. I hid my face in the crumbling rottenness of the hollow tree, that I might hear and see nothing. It seemed an eternity to me while the b.e.s.t.i.a.l howling lasted which the wolves made as they shared together their accursed banquet in my very presence.

"I dared not stir, lest they might find out that I also was there. Great Heaven! What horrors I had to endure!

"Suddenly a sort of growling and snarling began close beside me. The old wolf was running sniffing round the hollow tree. He had discovered that there was still booty inside it.

"He began to sc.r.a.pe the earth at the root of the tree. He evidently meant to dig a hole beneath the tree through which he might get at me.

Fortunately for me, it was not sandy soil, but stony, hard-frozen turf.

He could not succeed that way.

"Then he caught sight of the hole in the side of the tree. At one time, perhaps, a branch had been sawed off at this spot, and the bark had rotted away. The wolf began to enlarge this opening, tore it with his claws, and gnawed and worried the rotten wood with his grinders. He had soon so far enlarged the hole as to be able to stick his head into it. I saw the green glare of his fiery eyes; I felt his stinking breath; I heard the gnas.h.i.+ng of his teeth. Then despair made me foolhardy. I drew my crooked knife out of the leg of my boot, with the other hand I seized the wolf by the ear, and cut it off at a single twirl.

"At this the beast, with a furious howl, drew back his head from the hole, and began to howl and run away like a whipped cur. The others followed after him. With the wolf's ear remaining in my hand as a trophy, I sank back against the hollow trunk; I could not sink right down, because the hollow s.p.a.ce was too narrow."

I felt a cold shudder run all over me at this ghastly narrative. Bessy herself was quite exhausted.

"Alas! I am quite worn out. I tremble at the very thought of it. You are the second person to whom I have told it. But how pale you are all at once!"

I suppose I _had_ turned very pallid. It had suddenly flashed through my brain that just at that very time my wife was on her journey through an uninhabited valley, and the foresters told me that wolves strayed about there.

Bessy sighed deeply, raised her drooping head, and then continued her story:--

"Thus I had freed myself from the wolves; but I was not left very long in the belief that shame at my depriving their leader of one of his ears was the cause of it. No! Wolves are not so shamefaced as all that. A troop of hors.e.m.e.n was approaching from behind the sand-hills. There were six men on horseback and one man on a.s.sback.

"One terror had been supplanted by another.

"Peering through the hole in the tree, I recognised the uniforms of the hors.e.m.e.n by the light of the moon--they were Jellachich's hussars. And that there might be no doubt about their coming after us, I recognised as they came near the face of the a.s.s-rider. It was my ba.s.s-viol player, whom I had left behind me.

"It was very easy to see what had happened. The gipsy, to save his own skin, or, perhaps, at the flogging-post itself, had confessed that the band had come from Comorn, and was hired by me to go as far as Debreczin. Hence it was not very difficult to conclude that I was only a false gipsy, who was carrying despatches from the beleaguered fortress to the Hungarian Government.

"The hors.e.m.e.n had brought the gipsy with them that he might put them on my track. Once discovered, and I was lost.

"On the snow field, lit up by the moonlight, the scene of the hideous struggle was plain to the newcomers. The long lines of blood, fragments of torn garments, a foot sticking out of a boot in the snow--Ugh! May I never see such a sight again!

"The hors.e.m.e.n galloped quickly up over the crackling snow.

"The violoncellist had to dismount from his a.s.s.

"The good creature howled and groaned from the bottom of his throat, bewailing his comrades in the gipsy tongue, and cursing the monsters who had devoured them.

"The leader of the patrol was a sergeant. He ordered the gipsy about in Croatian, and the gipsy has the peculiar virtue of understanding what is said to him in a language of which he is perfectly ignorant. He replied in Hungarian.

"'Oh, woe, woe! Those accursed wolves have devoured our leader! There's his boot! They've only left his boot. I recognise it well. He bought it only last week at Czegled. He gave six florins for it. A brand-new boot!

And this is his foot.'

"It was plain to me that the gipsy had guessed that I was hidden somewhere, and there was enough of the gipsy in him, even amidst the greatest horrors, to induce him to make fools of my pursuers. He betrayed me first of all because he couldn't help it; he saved me finally because he _could_. He knew very well that I had given my new boots to the contra-ba.s.s. My boots were of Russian leather.

"'Look there!' cried the sergeant, and he pointed with his finger.

'_Jeden, dwa! Jak sza tri?_'[81]