Midst the Wild Carpathians Part 16

"It is well, Apafi, it is all excellently well. But I see that thou art wont to commit thy understanding to the custody of thy wife. _Salem aleik.u.m!_ Peace be with thee!"

And off went the Pasha, shaking his head all the way.

But Apafi, with a lightened heart, hastened back to his wife.

Master Gabriel Haller waited a very long time at the door of the tent, till one of the bodyguards came out to inform him that the Prince would dine that day in his family circle.

Then he too shook his head and departed.

A couple of days later, with drums beating and banners waving, Prince Michael Apafi made his triumphal entry into Klausenburg.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PERI.

Once more we are in Hungary, among the h.o.m.olka Mountains, in one of those parts of the land which no one has ever thought of colonizing. For fifty miles round there is not a village to be seen; not a single pa.s.sable road traverses the whole mountain range. The very footpaths break abruptly off amongst the rocky labyrinths, terminating either in a leaf-covered waterfall, or at the forsaken hut of a charcoal-burner, the carbonized, sooty environment of which suffers nothing green to grow.

The very skirts of this wilderness are uninhabited. One can wander for hours among the oaks and beeches, towering up one above the other, without hearing any other sound but one's own footsteps; not a blade of gra.s.s, not a flower, not a shrub can thrive anywhere here. Beneath the uncleared trees rustle the fallen yellow leaves, peeping up from the midst of which we perceive the speckled caps of oddly-shaped fungi clinging in cl.u.s.ters to the mossy tree stems.

Only where the stream dashes down from the mountains, forcing its way through the valley, does the greensward appear. There, among the luxuriant gra.s.ses, lie the fearless stags; wild bees build their basket-shaped nests in the hollow trees on the margin of the stream, and sweep buzzing round the Alpine flowers which dance on the surface of the water.

That stream is the Rima.

In the dim, dismal distance still higher mountains appear, from which the stream plunges down in a snow-white torrent. The morning mists exaggerate the magic remoteness of the scene, and when at last you have reached the extremest point of that remoteness, it is only to see before you a still more awful expanse, still more desolate mountain ranges, forming as it were an immense and uninterrupted ladder up to heaven.

The Rima burrows in every direction among these primeval mountains. She alone is bold enough to force her way through this wild rocky labyrinth.

Sometimes she plunges down from the granite terraces with a far-resounding din, dissolving into a white, cloudy spray, in which the sunbeams paint an eternal rainbow, which spans the velvet-green margins of the abyss like a fairy bridge. A moss-clad rock projects from the midst of the waterfall, dividing it into two, and from the moss-clad rock wild roses look over into the dizzying, tumbling rapids below. Far away down, the vagrant stream is hemmed in between basalt rocks; the twofold echo changes its monotonous, m.u.f.fled roar into melancholy music; its transparent, crystal waters appear black from the colour of their stony bed, wherein rosy trout and sprightly water-snakes, like silver ribbons, disport themselves; then, escaping from its brief constraint, it dashes onwards from crag to crag, angrily scourging a huge ma.s.s of rock which once, in flood-time, it swept into its bed from a distance of many miles, and which, after the next thaw or rainfall, it will hurl a thousand fathoms deeper into the rock-environed valley.

Higher and higher we mount. The oaks and beeches fall behind us; the pines and firs begin. The horizon opens out ever wider and wider. The transparent mists which have hitherto veiled the heights are left behind in the depths. The little green patches of valley are scarcely visible through the opal atmosphere, and the hilly woodlands have dwindled into dark specks; only their outlines, gold and lilac in the rays of the rising sun, are still distinguishable.

And before us the mountains still rise higher and higher. One feels tempted to scale these fresh giants also, in order to find out whether there is really any end to them. Now too even the Rima has forsaken us.

Deep down below, we perceive a round, dark-blue lakelet, enclosed on all sides by steep rocks, on the mirror-like surface of which white swans are bathing beneath the shadows of the pines dependent over the water's edge. In the midst of this lakelet, the source of the Rima tosses and tumbles, casting its bubbling crystal fathoms high, and keeping the lakelet in perpetual ebullition, as if some spirit were trying to raise up the whole lake with his head.

And yet another mountain range starts up before our eyes, covered with thick fir-woods, though nothing else will grow on the steep ridge, which is covered along its whole length by ma.s.ses of rock piled one on the top of the other. Nowhere does a single green speck meet the eye.

Having scaled these heights also, we naturally fancy that at last we have reached the highest point, when suddenly, high above the dark fir forests, a white giant emerges, and before the eyes of the wearied mountaineer rise the lofty distant peaks of the Silver Alps, representing the unattainable with their towering, snowy pyramids.

Here we pause.

All along the mountain ridge, standing out the more distinctly for the great distance, meanders a footpath, disappearing among the pine forests at one point and re-emerging at another, thereby showing that some one must dwell here in the wilderness, a circ.u.mstance the more startling as, up to this point, the region has seemed altogether uninhabited, while beyond it shimmer the still more inhospitable snowy mountains.

From the top of this peak one sees hundreds and hundreds of mountains and valleys exactly resembling one another. The eye grows weary of regarding them, and so long as the sun's rays strike obliquely over the region, suffusing it with a golden mist, one can barely distinguish the separate parts of the oppressively sublime panorama.

Gradually, however, our attention is attracted towards a deep, rocky gorge, surrounded by greyish-blue mountains, which seem likely at any moment to topple over. In the midst of this gorge an enormous and completely isolated rocky pillar stands upright, looking for all the world as if it had just fallen from the skies. A careless glance might easily pa.s.s over this rocky ma.s.s without seeing anything remarkable about it; but a more attentive observer would discover a narrow wooden bridge planted on fir-wood piles, and apparently connecting the rocky block with the surrounding mountain summits. And gradually we perceive that it was not Nature's hand which made this rocky scaffolding so high.

Those monochromatic rocks, piled one atop the other, forming a wall all round, and seeming to prolong the mountain range, are the work of human hands. It is a ma.s.sive rocky bastion, almost as high as the hill which forms its base, and as the walls are everywhere carried right out to the verge of the steep, naked mountain side, they look as if they have grown out of it, and as if the creeping plants which cling to the rocky walls are only there to bind them more closely together.

In the year 1664, the eye which looked down from this point upon the bare bastions could have perceived within them a dwelling fresh from fairy-land. Corsar Beg, the terror of the district, dwelt in this stronghold, and at his command, hedges of roses bloomed on the bastions, groves of orange and pomegranate trees sprang up around the courtyard, and everywhere could be seen those gorgeous structures which oriental magnificence builds for transient pleasure. s.p.a.cious rotundas with sky-blue, enamelled cupolas, sparkling in the sun; variegated turrets rising from the bastions; balconies adorned with arabesques and covered with porcelain vases; slim, snow-white minarets encircled by fragrant creepers; trellised kiosks with their gilded columns; everything constructed of the most delicate materials, as if it were meant to be a toy castle; nothing but gilded wood and painted gla.s.s, enamelled tiles and variegated tapestry. Bright banners and pennants flutter down from the copper roofs, and golden half-moons sparkle on every gable-ridge.

All the kiosks, rotundas, and minarets are bright with banners and half-moons. 'Tis a fairy palace ready to take flight.

But the bastions which encircle this frail fairy palace are impregnable.

On every side nothing but inaccessible rocks, where, if once he reach them, the pursued can defend himself against odds a hundredfold. The Comparadschis stand, day and night, with burning matches behind the cannons which Corsar Beg has had cast for himself within the fortress, for there is no road for ordnance in the whole region. Two of the cannons are pointed at the bridge, to blow it into the air in case of an a.s.sault.

From this stronghold Corsar Beg sallies forth, pillaging the land and ma.s.sacring the defenceless people; and if he lights upon any pursuing host, he instantly turns tail with his Spahis and Bedouins; and whilst he flies to his stronghold along mountain paths, on mules laden with booty, his Timariots, who cover his retreat, throw barricades up on the narrow roads, and stone to death all who venture to follow them into the dark gorges. Sometimes, however, he permits the pursuers to come right up to the fortress walls, and while they are popping away at the rocky bastions with the little half-pound mortars which they have dragged up thither after incalculable exertions, and think that now they will starve him out at last, he plays a practical joke upon them by somehow or other (perhaps through subterranean ways), making a sortie from his stronghold, and robbing and burning behind the backs of the besiegers.

Every attempt to capture, surprise, or blockade him has been in vain.

The inhabitants of the surrounding villages have begun to migrate into more distant regions for fear of their terrible neighbour.

After the battle of St. Gothard, in which the Turkish general lost the fight and twelve thousand men against the Imperial and Hungarian forces, a twenty years' armistice was concluded between the Porte, the Emperor, and the Prince of Transylvania, which left the Turks in possession of all the fortresses which they had built or captured in Hungary. The lords of these fortresses now continued the war on their own account, and pillaged and destroyed whenever and wherever they had a chance. The Sultan was too far off to interfere in each individual case. All he could do was to authorize the complainants to capture the peace-breakers if they could, and deal with them as they chose.

In the twilight hour of a sultry summer evening, when the heat, compressed among the rocks during the day, made the atmosphere so heavy and stifling that sound only travelled with difficulty, we see two shapes hastening towards the same point from different directions. One is a man in Hungarian costume, with a low forehead and sharp, squinting eyes, whose oblique gaze seems expressly made to disconcert whomsoever he looks upon. The other is an old Turkish woman, with a warty chin covered with sprouting bristles. The sleeves of her long striped kaftan hang slovenly down, and her dirty turban gives you the impression that she has slept in it for weeks together.

The trysting-place which the two shapes are cautiously making for is a cavern covered with bushes. Both shapes glide, at the same time, into the cavern, from the dark depths of which they can see the fortress without being seen themselves. The old woman, with a hideous smile, whispers something in the man's ear.

"Are you quite sure?" inquired the squinter, with a searching look.

"So certain that I make bold to claim one-half of the promised reward in advance."

"That I can quite understand," replied the man with an insulting smile; "but I will make bold not to pay it. I prefer sticking to my principle of paying as I go along, sentence by sentence."

"Ask then!" murmured the hag greedily.

"When does the Beg return? I lay five ducats on that question."

"The answer to it costs ten. That is my lowest price."

"There's your money then! Now speak!"

The woman counted the gold pieces, put them in her bosom, and replied--

"The Beg comes home this evening."

"Where is the subterranean way by which he arrives?"

"The answer to that costs one hundred ducats."

"There you are! Don't count them, but answer me!"

The woman took the money, pointed to the yawning chasm behind them, and said--

"We are on the very spot."

The man looked around him with some surprise, then, jingling the purse from which he had been doling out the ducats in the old woman's ear, he said--