The Pobratim Part 40

Retreat was now out of the question; he therefore tried to master his emotion.

"Oh! Radonic, is it you? How you frightened me! I did not recognise you. But how is it that you have come back? and this change in----"

"How is it that you are in my house at this hour of the night?" said he, laying his hands on him.

"I--I," quoth Vranic, gasping, "I came to see if everything was quiet, as I promised, and seeing your door open----"

"That is why you call Milena your love."

"Did I? You are mistaken, Radonic--though perhaps I did; but then it was only to see if she were expecting someone; you know women are light----"

"You liar, you villain, you devil!" And Radonic, clutching him by his shoulders, shook him.

"Believe me! I swear by my soul! I swear by the holy Virgin, whose medals--blessed by the Church--I wear round my neck. May I be struck down dead if what I say is not true!"

"Liar, forswearer, wretch!" hissed out Radonic, as he spat in Vranic's face.

"I never meant to wrong you," replied Vranic, blubbering. "I came here as a friend--I told you I would; may all the saints together blind me if what I say be not true."

But the husband, ever more exasperated, clutched his false friend by the throat, and as he spouted out all his wrath, he kept gripping him tighter and ever tighter. In his pa.s.sion his convulsively clenched fingers were like the claws of a bird of prey.

Vranic now struggled in vain; the candle, which had been blown out, had fallen from his fingers; he tried to speak, he gasped for breath, he was choking.

Radonic's grasp now was as that of an iron vice, and the more the false friend struggled to get free, the stronger he squeezed.

Vranic at last emitted a stifled, raucous, gurgling sound; then his arms lost their strength, and when, a moment afterwards, the furious husband relinquished his hold, his antagonist fell on the floor with a mighty thud.

The bells of the church were chiming in the distance.

Radonic, s.h.i.+vering, shuddering, stood stock-still in the darkness that surrounded him; he only heaved a noiseless sigh--the deep breath of a man who has accomplished an arduous task.

Vranic did not get up; he did not move. Was he dead?

"Dead!" whispered Radonic to himself.

Just then the body, prostrate at his feet, uttered a low, hoa.r.s.e, hollow sound. Was it the soul escaping from the body?

He looked down, he looked round; black clouds seemed to be whirling all around him like wreaths of smoke. He durst not move from where he stood for fear of stumbling against the corpse.

At last he took out his steel and began to strike a light, but in his trepidation, he struck his fingers far oftener than his flint. At last he managed to light a lantern on the table close by, and then came to look at the man stretched on the floor.

Oh, what a terrible sight he saw! He had till now seen murdered men and drowned men, but never had he witnessed such a terrifying sight before; it was so horrible that, like Gorgon's hideous head, it fascinated him.

After a few minutes' dumb contemplation, Radonic heaved again a deep sigh, and whispered to himself: "It is a pity I did not leave him time to utter a prayer, to confess his sins, to kiss the holy Cross or the image of the saints. After all, I did not mean to kill the soul and body together." Then, prompted by religious superst.i.tions, or by a Christian feeling--for he was of the Orthodox faith--he went to a fount of holy water, dipped in it a withered olive twig, and came to sprinkle the corpse, and made several signs of the holy Cross; then he knelt down and muttered devoutly several prayers for the rest of the soul of the man whom he had just murdered; then he sprinkled and crossed him again.

Had he opened the gates of paradise to the soul that had taken its flight? Evidently he felt much comforted after having performed his religious duties; so, rolling a cigarette, and lighting it at the lantern, he went to sit on the doorstep outside and smoke. That cigarette finished, he made another, and then another. At last, after having puffed and mused for about an hour, he again went into the house and made a bundle of all the things he wanted to take away with him. Everything being ready, and feeling hungry, he went to the cupboard, cut himself a huge slice of bread and a piece of cheese, which he ate as slowly as if he were keeping watch on board; then he took a long draught of wine, and, as midnight was striking, he left the house.

"I wonder," he thought, "where Milena is; anyhow, it is much better she is away, for, had she been in the house, she might have given me no end of useless trouble. Women are so fussy, so unpractical at times."

Thereupon he lighted his pipe.

"Still," he soliloquised, "I should have liked to see her before starting, to bid her good-bye. Who knows when I'll see her again, if I ever do see her? And how I hope this affair will be settled soon, and satisfactorily, too; he has no very near relations, and those he has will be, in their hearts, most grateful to me."

He trudged on wearily. When he pa.s.sed Mara's house, he stopped, sighed, and muttered to himself:

"Good-bye! Milena. I loved you in my own churlish way; I loved you, and if I've been unkind to you, it was all Vranic's fault, for he drove me on to madness. Anyhow, he has paid for it, and dearly, too; so may his soul rest in peace!"

"And now," thought he, "it is useless fooling about; it is better to be off and free in Montenegro before the murder is discovered and the Austrian police are after me, for there is no trifling with this new-fangled government that will not allow people to arrange their little private affairs--it even belies our own proverb: 'Every one is free in his own house.'"

As he left the town, he bethought himself of what he was to do. First he would see his father-in-law, and ask him to go down to town and fetch his daughter, for it was useless to leave Milena alone in Budua; life would not be pleasant there till the business of the _karvarina_ was settled. Then, as Montenegro was always at war with Turkey, he supposed that he would, as almost all _hayduk_, have to take to fighting as an occupation, though, thank G.o.d, he said to himself, not as a means of subsistence.

It was, however, only at dawn that he managed to get out of the town gate, together with some peasants going to their early work, and so he crossed the frontier long before Vranic's murder was known in town.

On the morrow, when Milena fainted on the murdered man's corpse, she was taken up and placed on her bed; she was sprinkled with water and vinegar; she was chafed and fanned; a burning quill was placed under her nose, but, as none of these little remedies could recall her to life, medical help had to be sent for. Even when she came back to her senses, another fainting-fit soon followed, so that she was almost the whole day in a comatose state.

Meanwhile (Tripko having summoned help), the house was filled with people, who all bustled about, talked very loud, asked and answered their own questions. Those gifted with more imagination explained to the others all the incidents of the murder. Last of all came the guards. Then they, with much ado and self-importance, managed to clear the house.

Though Mara would have liked to take Milena back home with her, still the doctors declared that it was impossible to remove her from her bed, where for many weeks she lay unconscious and between life and death, for a strong brain-fever followed the fainting-fits. Her father and mother (who had come to take her away) tended her, and love and care succeeded where medical science had failed.

CHAPTER X

PRINCE MATHIAS

Sailing from Trieste to Ragusa, the _Spera in Dio_ was becalmed just in front of Lissa; for days and days she lay there on that rippleless sea, looking like "a painted s.h.i.+p upon a painted ocean."

It was towards the middle of spring, in that season of the year called by the Dalmatians the _venturini_, or fortunate months, on account of the shoals of sardines, anchovies, and mackerel, which swim up the Adriatic, and towards that eastern part of its sh.o.r.es, affording the people--whose barren land affords them but scanty food--the main source of their sustenance.

At last a faint breeze began to blow; it brought with it the sweet scent of thyme and sage from the rocky coast only a few miles off, and made the flabby sails flap gently against the masts, still, without swelling them at all. Everyone on board the _Spera in Dio_ was in hopes that the wind would increase when the moon rose, but the sun went down far away in the offing, all shorn of its rays, and like a huge ball of fire; then a slight haze arose, dimming the brightness of the stars, casting over nature a faint, phosph.o.r.escent glimmer; then they knew that the wind would not rise, for "the mist leaves the weather as it finds it;" at least, the proverb says so.

Already that afternoon the crew of the _Spera in Dio_ had seen the waters of the sea--as far as eye could reach--bickering and simmering; still, they knew that the slight s.h.i.+vering of the waters was not produced by any ruffling wind, but by the glittering silver scales of myriads of fish swimming on the surface of the smooth waters. In fact, a flock of gulls was soon hovering and wheeling over the main, uttering shrill cries of delight every time they dipped within the brine and s.n.a.t.c.hed an easy prey; then a number of dolphins appeared from underneath, and began to plunge and gambol amidst the shoal, feasting upon the fry. The fish, in a body, made for the sh.o.r.e, hoping to find protection in shallower waters. Alas! a far more powerful enemy was waiting for them there.

Night came on; the fishermen lighted their resinous torches on the prows of the boats, and the fish, attracted by the sheen, which reflected itself down in the deep, dark water, were lured within the double net spread out to catch them.

When the shoal began to follow the deceptive light, the quiet waters were struck with mighty, resounding thuds, and the terror-stricken sardines swam hither and thither, helter-skelter, entangling themselves within the meshes of that wall of netting spread out to capture them.

Thus the whole of that balmy summer night was pa.s.sed in decoying and frightening the shoal, in gathering it together, then in driving it into the inlet where the nets were spread.

At last, at early dawn, the long-awaited moment came. Every fisherman, dumb with expectation, grasped the ropes of the net and tugged with l.u.s.ty sinews and a rare good-will. For the father, the sustenance of his children at home lay in those nets; for the lover, the produce of that first night's fishery would enable him to say whether he could wed the girl he loves that year, or if the marriage would have to be postponed till more propitious times.

The strong men groaned under the weight they were heaving, but not a word was spoken. Finally, the dripping nets were uplifted out of the water. It was a rare sight to see the fish glistening like a ma.s.s of molten silver within the brown meshes, just when the first hyacinthine beams of the dawning sun fell upon their glossy, nacreous scales.

The captain and his two mates, the _pobratim_, rowed on sh.o.r.e and took part in the general rejoicings, for nothing gladdens the heart of man as abundance; moreover, they made a very good stroke of business, for, having ready-money, they bought up, and thus secured, part of their cargo for their return voyage.

On the morrow, a fresh and steady breeze having begun to blow, the lazy sails swelled out, the s.h.i.+p flew on the rippling waters, like a white swan, and that very evening they dropped the anchor at Gravosa, the port of Ragusa.