Pretty Michal Part 4

One wing of the house was already occupied by a company of Polish merchants, bringing cloth and spices to the Eperies market, and accompanied by an escort of twelve hired soldiers, in helmets and coats of mail, armed with swords and blunderbusses.

The wife of the kopanitschar, or host, a good-looking young person, immediately took charge of the pastor's wife, whom she led into her own private room, that she might not have to listen to the loose talk which would certainly flow from the unwashen mouths of so many men.

"For no one will close an eye here the whole night through,"

remarked the worthy woman confidentially. "Here in the mountains lurk Janko, Hafran, and Bajus, all three of them!"

Michal asked who these three worthies were.

The hostess told her they were three robber chiefs, each more terrible than the other. Hafran was cruel, Bajus a crafty rogue, but Janko a true hero who knew not fear.

How the eyes of the woman sparkled when she mentioned Janko!

Michal asked her whether she was not afraid to live in so lonely a place with so many robbers about.

"Oh! Janko will do us no harm," said the young hostess, smiling; and Michal was still such a child that she gave no heed to the woman's sparkling eyes and smiling lips.

The hostess then began to tell her how powerful the robbers were.

People were forever hanging, beheading, and breaking them on the wheel, and yet they never seemed to grow less. The militia of three counties combined with the Imperial troops were not strong enough to root them out of the mountains. And then she kept Michal awake till long after midnight by telling her of the adventures and exploits of the robbers, and the terrible fate which awaited them at the hands of the vihodar of Zeb.

"Who is he?" asked Michal.

What! not hear of the vihodar! He was the headsman of Zeb, a man famed far and wide. They call him the vihodar. Every child knows of him; but bandits, witches, and painted damsels know him best of all.

Michal's idea of these last three species of mankind was very vague; she had never even heard tell of them before. She, too, told the hostess whence she came, whither she was going, and how she had only been married the day before, and this was the first night that she and her husband had ever slept under the same roof.

About midnight Henry Catsrider came to his wife, and told her that the region was not safe. The mountain path over which they had to go was occupied by a band of robbers, and the number of the robbers was great. It is true the caravan was also numerous, but the members of it could not agree among themselves as to what was the best thing to be done. The Polish n.o.bleman, who had many musketeers with him, said that he had not come all that distance to be shot down like a dog.

He would send to Janko and offer him a ransom if he would let him pa.s.s through the glen unmolested. He was also willing to pay a ransom for all who cared to join him. But the merchants and the drovers would not agree to this, a.s.serting that however willing the robbers might be to negotiate when they had to do with armed n.o.blemen or poor ambulant students, they certainly would not allow wealthy merchants and fat drovers to escape scot free. Not to defend themselves, therefore, would be to lose everything. The fact is they had been over-persuaded by the Polish merchants, who had brought with them twelve Imperial soldiers, and were firmly persuaded that they could keep the robbers at bay. All they wanted was rainy weather.

"Why do they want rainy weather?" asked Michal.

"I'll tell you," whispered the kopanitschar's wife. "When it rains the robbers cannot fire, because their lunts won't burn and the powder gets moist. These twelve soldiers, however, have new-fangled muskets, which are fired, not with a lunt, but by a flint; the flint strikes upon a piece of steel, the steel gives out a spark, and the spark fires the powder. They say that these cunning firearms come from France. The soldiers would like to try them against the robbers, and they only want rainy weather in order that the robbers may not be able to fire upon them in return."

"But," remarked Henry, "the question is which party we ought to join, the Polish n.o.bleman's, who trusts in the clemency of the robbers and will pay them a ransom, or the merchants', who rely upon their firearms?"

"Join neither," said the hostess. "An idea occurs to me. I am sorry for that pretty young creature. She was only married yesterday. I'll be bound to say she has not kissed her husband yet. You must not go with the merchants, for the danger will be very great. I know Janko.

When he is attacked he is like a bear with a sore head. He cares not a fig for muskets, and does not value his life at a boot-lace. It would not be becoming for you to be mixed up in a skirmish. It is not a clergyman's business to fight. But neither must you join the Polish n.o.bleman and trust to the clemency of the robbers. I know Janko. The sight of a pretty woman makes him like the very devil.

He would rather leave a sack of gold untouched than a pretty woman.

I should not like you to fall into his hands. But I have a third plan ready. It would not do at all for a large company, but two or three people might very well try it. My husband will lead you over the mountain ridge, but let the horse, the mule, the drivers, and the baggage go on with the Polish n.o.bleman; and when they pa.s.s over the bridge where Janko bars the way, and when the blackmail has been levied, the drivers can halt at the Praszkinocz csarda with the beasts and the baggage. Meanwhile my husband will guide you so securely to the csarda that not a hair of your head shall be rumpled."

Michal thought the advice good. It was the best way of escaping two great dangers.

They put together in all secrecy what they needed most, entrusting the remainder of the baggage to one of the drivers (the other had evidently run away, for Henry could find him nowhere); the host brought alpenstocks, bast shoes with nails in the soles, which they put on forthwith, and they all set out in the gloom of twilight.

Suddenly they remarked that they were four. Simplex, the trumpeter, was trotting on behind them. He said that as he was not inclined to send his flesh to market he preferred scaling the mountains with them to accompanying the merchants or the magnate.

Michal had no objection. It was only one familiar face the more, and he had quite won her heart by his gayety and good-humor. Besides that, he could help her to talk to the guide, who was a native Pole and therefore unintelligible without an interpreter, for Simplex could patter Polish very well.

The wish of the Polish merchants was gratified: it began to rain.

Scarcely was the little group half an hour's journey from the kopanitscha, scarcely had it begun to ascend the footpath, when it was enveloped in so dense a mist that only the experience of its guide saved it from being lost in the wilderness.

The experienced mountaineer comforted them with the a.s.surance that the mist would not be long in their way, for it was nothing but a descending cloud. They would soon be able to look down upon it with a clear sky over their heads. By sunrise they would be among heights never visited by clouds.

Simplex, on this occasion, approved himself a highly useful traveling companion. To prevent the young wife from growing weary on the slippery way, he hewed down with his hanger two young pine trees and made a litter out of them, on which weary Michal was made to sit, while he and the guide bore her between them over the most difficult parts of the way.

The kopanitschar spoke Polish with the trumpeter in order that the lady might not understand what they were talking about. He said to him that if either of them were to slip, litter-bearers, lady, and all would infallibly plunge headlong into the abyss, the bottom of which could not be seen for the mists, though they could hear the murmuring of the mountain stream far below them. Or if they lost themselves in the thick mists and strayed into a chasm or a snowdrift, whence not even a chamois could force his way out again; or if they met the man-eating bear which haunted the forests; or if they fell foul of the robbers' camp, then G.o.d have mercy on their souls!

And while the young bride was thus sitting between them on her litter, she took the fan-tailed pigeon from her pocket, and fed it out of her hand and gave it drink from her lips, unconscious of the thousand deadly perils which surrounded her, and whispered caressingly: "My dovey, my darling little dovey!"

The young morning was now beginning to dawn, for the mist was growing lighter and snow fell instead of rain; they had already reached the Alpine regions.

"We are on the right road," murmured the kopanitschar; "there goes the track of the bear through the juniper tree, and yonder is the place by which the hares, the wild goats, and the buffaloes go up every morning to drink out of the mountain tarn. We are close upon the Devil's Castle."

But surely he must have been mistaken! How can that be the right way which leads to the Devil's Castle?

"What is that shimmering in the bushes?" inquired Simplex anxiously.

"The eyes of a lynx," growled the guide; "he is on the lookout for young chamois."

But a lynx has two eyes, and there was only a single bright point shimmering there. It was the lunt of a musket, which someone was hiding beneath his mantle to prevent it from going out.

"Halt!" cried a voice from the bushes, and at a distance of only ten paces a wild shape sprang up, resting its heavy firearm on an iron fork fastened in the ground. The robber did not aim at the two rustically clad shapes who were carrying the litter, but at the gentleman who was following a considerable distance behind.

"Jesus, Maria!" cried Michal, "he is shooting at my husband!"

"Don't shoot at him, Hanack!" cried Stevey to the robber, "don't you see that he's a clergyman?"

The challenge was of use, the freebooter lowered his lunt. Possibly, too, he was somewhat taken back at finding himself face to face with three men, one of whom was armed with an ax and another with a hanger; besides, he was not quite certain whether his powder was wet or dry. He therefore used clemency and answered amicably:

"Oh! 'tis you, Stevey, eh? Whom are you leading?"

"A clergyman and his wife."

"Then it is a Lutheran! A lucky thing for him! Had he been a Papist, I should have chucked him down that hole. But when you get to where Hamis is keeping watch, tell him that you are guiding a Romish priest and his sister, for he is ready to flay a Lutheran alive."

"Don't be afraid," said the kopanitschar kindly to the lady, "a single robber will not think of attacking three men. This is the outermost picket, the camp is down in that deep hollow yonder."

They hastened onward, and now Michal begged her husband not to lag so far behind her.

The guide had calculated rightly that by ascending the steep upward path through the bear's track they would reach the mountain's summit before sunrise, by which time the clouds would lie below them. The mists over their heads now began to clear away. As the rays of the sun dissipated the snow clouds, it was as if millions of crystal needles were shimmering in the air, till a gust of wind suddenly swept them all away and revealed the clear blue sky. Then the sun came forth amidst the Alpine summits. At first, however, they did not see the sunrise to advantage, for their way led through a dense grove of young pine trees growing up among the charred stumps of a burnt forest. The litter was here of no use. They had to creep through the young undergrowth on all fours.

The guide now told the travelers to remain where they were; he would go ahead and look about to see if it was all right. With that he crept cautiously forward among the thick bushes, taking great care not to disturb the rustling leaves in the silent woods. In a little time he came back very crestfallen. It was not safe. The robbers were encamped close by the Devil's Castle.

Then Simplex also crept close to the extreme edge of the wood, and there saw with his own eyes, at the foot of the old tower rising above the steep precipices, forty men armed with muskets and axes lying on the gra.s.s round a fire, on which a substantial breakfast was broiling.

There are some insanely audacious ideas which only the extremity of despair can suggest, and Simplex was just the sort of man to whom such mad ideas would naturally occur. So now, too, he hit upon an expedient which none but a devil-may-care ex-student with a taste for adventure would ever have thought of.

"Listen, Stevey!" said he suddenly to the guide, "I'll scare away all the robbers!"

"Stop!" cried the terrified guide; "are you mad?"