King Matthias and the Beggar Boy Part 4

"Let us hear," said the king, with delighted and eager curiosity. "But, little brother, try and tell your tale in an orderly way. First say how you got into the castle, and then tell me what you saw and heard. Be bold, my friend, and speak without reserve."

"Mr. King," began the ex-beggar, "I knew I should never get in by asking, and it might be the worse for me into the bargain; besides, there was neither door nor window, nor any one to speak to. 'Well,' I thought to myself, 'I shall never get in this way; I must keep watch and find out about those Jews. They get in somehow, though they never get out again--so people say.'"

"Right!" said the king; "go on."

"Well, Mr. King, I waited about there for ten weeks. I spied about all round the castle, and often went hungry; for I had no time to get food, though, thanks to you, I had the means. But it was all to no purpose. At last I began to think that perhaps Mr. Samson was dead, and that Your Highness would soon be thinking that I had eaten and drunk up my money and gone off. I was sitting on the trunk of a tree just outside the wood, but not very far from the castle, one evening, and I was feeling rather downcast about it all, when I fancied I saw two people coming.

They were not coming _from_ the castle, it is true, but were creeping through the thicket. 'Ho, ho!' I thought to myself. 'Now, Miska, have your wits about you! Suppose these night-birds should be on their way to the castle.' But being one alone against two, I took out my two pistols and waited to see what might happen."

Miska now opened his dolmany, and showed a steel coat of mail which he wore beneath it. "I had got myself this," he said, tapping it with his finger, "for I thought it might save me from being mortally wounded if I should happen to get caught anywhere by Samson's men, and I bought two pistols besides."

"You were wise," said the king.

"Well, it was not long before the men came quite close to me; but instead of going on towards the castle, they turned off in the direction of a little hollow. I had stood still till then, so that they should not notice me suddenly; and perhaps they would have gone on, if an abominable great long-eared owl which was just above my head had not begun its dismal evening song at that moment. They were just within about four steps of me when she gave a long, melancholy hoot, and one of the two men looked up and caught sight of me at once. The next moment he lifted his cap to me as humbly 'as if he could not count up to three.'

His companion, too, turned and looked about carefully, and I fancied I caught a glimpse of the glitter of a knife. So I just drew out one of my pistols and said coolly, 'See what I have got for you.'"

"Eh! what?" exclaimed Matthias in surprise.

"Why, of course, Your Highness; for I thought it would be much better to be beforehand with them."

The king laughed.

"Well, and I think, Mr. King, that I did not reckon amiss: for by doing as I did, I made them suppose that I was a highwayman, and just as bad as themselves--supposing they belonged to the castle; and besides that, it gave me an opportunity of finding out whom I had to do with."

"Go on," said the king; "this is very interesting. Let us hear more."

"Well, things might have gone very crooked," proceeded Miska; "for I had no sooner given the alarm than they were both down on me at once as quick as lightning, and I felt two daggers strike my mail coat.

"Fortunately for me I was quite prepared, and I did not lose my presence of mind. I fired one pistol just as they fell upon me, but of course I did not hit either of them. But my armour had done me good service; for the two fellows were disconcerted when they found that their daggers had touched metal, and I had time to jump on one side and point my second pistol at them.

"There was a little pause; my men had not given up their designs upon me, as it seemed, but were consulting, I suppose, how to escape the second charge of peas, and they seemed to mean to separate and come on me from both sides at once. 'But,' thought I, 'if you have, so have I--wits, I mean--and as from all I had heard of Samson's rascally a.s.sociates I was quite sure that I had found my gentlemen, I took advantage of the short pause, and cried out,--

"'May seventy-seven thousand thunderbolts strike you! Hear what I have to say, and don't rush upon a fellow like mad dogs!

"'I am wanting to come across Mr. Samson; I am tired of living on my own bread, and I should like to enter his service. If you belong to the castle, it would be better for you to take me to him, instead of attacking me; for I am not in the least afraid of you--and, what's more, a couple of chaps like you won't outwit me.'

"As soon as I had said my say with all possible speed, but in a firm rough voice, one of the scamps looked me all over from top to toe, as if he were going to buy me of a broker. The man was a st.u.r.dy, stout-limbed fellow, and as black as the darkest gipsy; and standing only a span from the muzzle of my pistol, without winking an eyelid, he said,--

"'Who are you, and what do you want with Mr. Samson? If you have come to spy, you may say your last prayer, for you won't see the sun again.'

"The man said this in such a soft, drawling voice, and so deliberately, that it suddenly struck me he was imbecile; for I had my finger on the trigger all the time, and one touch would have stretched him on the ground. However, I won't deny that his cool composure made me shudder a little.

"I answered as coolly as I could, 'I want to enter his service, sir, for I fancy he is a fine brave man; and a fellow like me, who cares nothing for his life, might be useful to him.'

"My man kept his eye upon my every movement. At last he said,--

"'I don't know who you are yet.'

"I hesitated half a moment, for I did not want to tell him my real name, and then I said they called me Alpar Janos, that I was an orphan, and that until now I had made a poor living by doing just anything that came to hand--which was true enough.

"As far as I could see in the twilight, the man's face began to clear; he whispered a few words to his companion in a language I did not know, Slovack or Latin, then looked me over again from top to toe, and said,--

"'Good! then you can come with us. We will show you the way in; it will be your own affair how you get out again, if you grow tired of scanty dinners.'

"Here our conversation ended," said the lad; while the king, who had listened to his preface with lively interest, said, "Very good. So you got in. And now tell me what the castle is like inside."

And here perhaps it will be better to take the words out of Miska's mouth and describe in our own way what he saw.

The castle, as has been said, was built round the four sides of a square, and, as was often the case with old strongholds, a wide covered gallery, or corridor, ran along each side, surrounding the courtyard.

There was not a sign of stables anywhere, for there was no way of getting horses in except by lowering them over the walls by a windla.s.s.

The ground-floor consisted of store-rooms and living-rooms; the keys of the former being always kept by the master, who allowed none but the most trusty persons to go into them, for they contained valuable goods of every sort and kind. Mr. Samson regularly visited these vaults, on the fifteenth of every month at midnight, when he was accompanied by twelve Jews. But how these latter got in, where they came from, and where they went to, was known to no one but Mr. Samson himself. The men looked like merchants, and he gave stuffs and ornaments, in certain quant.i.ties and of certain values, to each. Then he took them into a large empty room lighted by a four-cornered lamp which hung from the ceiling, and here for a couple of hours they were all busy counting money at a stone table. This was packed into various bags, and when Mr.

Samson had given a purse to each of his agents, the Jews took their departure amid a shower of compliments, and in what appeared to be a very well satisfied frame of mind, Mr. Samson escorting them and showing them the way. But whither they went, and why, and how, and by what way--that heaven alone could tell.

In the upper story of the castle there were some fine, cheerful, and well-lighted rooms; which is not a little surprising, for their windows all looked into the covered gallery, and from that into the courtyard.

However, this may be explained to some extent by the fact that the windows of these upper rooms were wide and lofty, the walls were painted snow-white, and were covered with some sort of varnish which doubled the light.

The furniture was in accordance with the taste of the day, and chosen rather for its good wearing qualities than for comfort; but the bright colours produced a pleasing and cheerful effect on the whole.

Mr. Samson kept an entire half of this story for the use of himself and his only relation, a young girl of fifteen named Esther, and an old woman who lived with her. Of the two other sides of the square, one was occupied by servants, the other was furnished but unused.

CHAPTER V.

CAUGHT.

One is apt to fancy that strange, out-of-the-way characters must needs be striking and uncommon in their persons, and it is really quite startling to find them after all mere ordinary-looking, every-day people.

Jason Samson, in spite of his remarkably eccentric conduct, was just one of these commonplace individuals to look at. It was himself, in fact, who had taken Miska into the castle; a man of middle size, neither stout nor thin, neither young nor old, but just middling in all respects. His features were such as we see over and over again, without having either our sympathies or interest in the least aroused. One can't call such persons either ill-looking or handsome, and their every-day characters inspire no feeling but that of utter indifference.

Mr. Samson was said, naturally enough, to be a man-hater. The walls of the Cube castle were twelve feet thick, and its inmates could see nothing either of their fellow-creatures or of G.o.d's beautiful world; for there was neither door to go in by nor window to look out of, and nothing whatever to be seen but the courtyard.

It was not a cheerful home certainly for the young girl whom Mr. Samson had some years previously brought to live there. He called her a relation of his, and she called him "uncle," but it did not at all follow that she was his niece; for it is the custom in Hungary, and considered only common politeness, for young people to address their elders as "uncles" and "aunts," whether related or not.

If Mr. Samson was commonplace in appearance, little Esther was very much the reverse. Without being regularly beautiful, there was a great charm about her, and she had a look of distinction which was entirely wanting in her guardian or jailer. Her clear, deep-blue eyes were full of life and animation, and the whole expression of her face told of a good heart. Add to this that she had a remarkably sweet and beautiful voice, and that, though untaught, she had a good ear for music, and was very fond of singing, and it will be understood that Esther was altogether not uninteresting. If she was not striking at first sight, yet the more one saw of her the more impressed and attracted one felt.

She was very much in awe of her "uncle," though she could not have said why, and though she had now lived with him some seven years, ever since the death of her parents indeed, when he had brought her away to the castle, with her attendant Euphrosyne, she being then a child of eight.

Esther was now fifteen, but she had as yet no idea that Mr. Samson was planning in his own mind to unite her more closely to himself by making her his wife, or she would have shrunk from him even more than she did now, though she knew nothing against him, and he could never be said to have ill-treated her in any way except that he kept her a close prisoner. Perhaps he thought that, considering her age, she had liberty enough; for she was free to go from one room to another, and she could walk up and down the gallery and in the courtyard.

But though she had grown accustomed to the life now, there were times, especially when the sun shone down for a short hour or two into the dull courtyard, in spring and summer, when the girl would look up with longing eyes to the blue sky and wonder what the world looked like outside the four grey walls. Sometimes she would see a bird fly past overhead, or watch a lark soaring up into the air, singing as it went.

Then the past would come back to her, and she would remember a time when she had run about the green fields, and had spent long days in the garden; when she had gathered wild flowers and wood-strawberries, and had heard the birds sing.

It made her a little sad to think of it all, and for a time she felt as if she were in a cage, and wondered whether she was to spend all her life in it; but she was blessed with a cheerful disposition, and on the whole she was not unhappy. She made occupation for herself in one way and another: she sewed, she embroidered, she netted; she read the two or three books she had over and over again, and she even wrote a little.

When one day Mr. Samson brought her a harp from his h.o.a.rd of treasures, she was delighted indeed: and having soon managed to teach herself how to play on it, she spent many a happy evening singing such songs as she had picked up or invented for herself.

Mr. Samson liked to hear the full, clear young voice singing in the gallery, though he seldom took any apparent notice of the singer. In his way perhaps he would have missed Esther a little if she had been taken from him; but he was not a kindly or affectionate personage, and the girl had no one to care for but Euphrosyne, a rather tiresome, foolish old woman, who often tried her patience a good deal with her whims and fidgets. Esther, however, was very patient with her, and clung to her simply because there was no one else to cling to.