The King Of The Mountains Part 21

In order to please the unfortunate fellow they bound me. He turned over towards me and began to pull out hairs, one by one, with the patience and the regularity of a professional hair remover. When I saw what this new punishment was to be, I believed that the wounded man, touched by my misery, and sympathizing with me because of his own sufferings, wished to shield me from his comrades, and give me an hour's respite. The extraction of one hair is not so painful, by a good deal, as the p.r.i.c.k of a pin. The first twenty came out, one after the other, without any discomfiture. But soon I changed my tune. The scalp, irritated by a mult.i.tude of imperceptible lesions, became inflamed. A dull itching began on my head; it became a little livelier; and at last it was intolerable. I would like to have raised my hands to my head; I understood with what intuition the wretch had had me bound. Impatience but aggravated the trouble; all the blood in my body rushed to my head.

Every time Sophocles approached his hand to my scalp, a woful shivering seized my whole body. A thousand inexplicable stingings tormented my arms and legs. The nervous system, irritated at every point, enveloped me in a network more exasperating than Dejanire's tunic. I rolled over on the ground, I groaned, I cried for mercy, I regretted the bastinado.

The executioner had pity on me only when he had completely exhausted himself. When he felt his eyes become dim, his head heavy, and his arm weary, he made a last effort, plunged his hand into my hair, seized a fist full, and fell over on his pallet, drawing from me a despairing cry.

"Come with me," said Moustakas. "Thou shalt decide, in a corner by the fire, if I can compete with Sophocles, and whether I merit a lieutenancy."

He raised me like a feather and carried me to the camp, in front of a heap of resinous wood and piled up brushwood. He took off the bonds, he stripped me of my clothes, leaving me only my trousers. "Thou shalt be my under-cook," he said. "We will make the fire and we will prepare the King's dinner, together."

He lighted the stack of wood and laid me out on my back, about two feet from the mountain of flames. The wood crackled, the red cinders fell like hail around me. The heat became unbearable. I hitched along with my hands a little distance, but he came with a frying-pan in his hand, and pushed me back with his foot to the place where he had first laid me.

"Look well, and profit by my lessons. Here are the heart, liver, and kidneys from three sheep; there is enough to feed twenty men. The King will choose the most delicate morsels; he will distribute the remainder to his men. Thou wilt have none of it for the present, and if thou tastest my cooking, it will be with the eyes only."

I soon heard the bubbling in the sauce pan, and it reminded me that I had been fasting since the evening before. My hunger added one more torment. Moustakas held the pan under my eyes and made me look at the appetizing color of the meat. He thrust it under my nose and I smelled the steam of the food. Suddenly he perceived that he had forgotten the seasoning, and he hurried away to find the salt and pepper, leaving the sauce pan to my care. The first idea which came to me was to steal a piece of the meat, but the brigands were only ten feet away; they would stop me at once. "If I only had my package of a.r.s.enic," I thought. What could I have done with it? I had not put it back in my box. I thrust my hands into my pockets. I drew out a soiled paper and a handful of that beneficent powder, which would save me, perhaps, or at least avenge me.

Moustakas returned at the instant when I was holding my open hand above the sauce pan. He seized me by the arm, looked me straight in the eye, and said in a menacing tone: "I know what thou hast done."

I dropped my arm discouraged. The cook added:

"Yes, thou hast thrown something over the King's dinner."

"What?"

"A spell. But no matter. Believe me, my poor milord, Hadgi-Stavros is a greater sorcerer than thou art. I am going to serve his dinner. I will have my part of it, but thou shalt not taste it."

"Great good may it do thee!"

He left me before the fire, placing me in the care of a dozen brigands who were crunching black bread and bitter olives. These Spartans kept me company for an hour or two. They attended to my fire with the watchfulness of sick nurses. If, at times, I attempted to drag myself a little further away from my torture they cried out: "Take care, thou wilt freeze!" And they pushed me toward the flames with heavy blows of the burning brushwood. My back was covered with red spots, my skin was raised in blisters, my eye-lashes had succ.u.mbed to the heat of the fire, my hair exhaled an odor of burning horn, and yet I rubbed my hands in glee at the thought of the King eating my cooking and that something startling would happen upon Parna.s.sus before night.

Very soon Hadgi-Stavros' men re-appeared in the camp, stomachs filled, eyes shining, faces smiling. "Go on!" I thought, "your joy and your health will soon fall like a mask, and you will curse each mouthful of the feast which I seasoned for you!" The celebrated poisoner, Locuste, must have pa.s.sed some very pleasant moments during her life. When one has reason to hate men, it is pleasure enough to see a vigorous being who goes, who comes, who laughs, who sings, while carrying in his intestines a seed of death which will spring up and devour him. It is a little like the same joy a good doctor experiences at the sight of a dying man whom he is able to bring back to life. Locuste used medicine inversely, as I did.

My malevolent reflections were interrupted by a singular tumult. The dogs barked in chorus, and a messenger, out of breath, appeared on the plateau with the whole pack at his heels. It was Dimitri, the son of Christodule. Some stones thrown by the bandits freed him from his escort. He shouted at the top of his lungs: "The King! I must speak to the King!" When he was about twenty steps from us, I called to him in a doleful tone. He was terrified at the state in which he found me, and he cried out: "The fools! Poor girl!"

"My good Dimitri!" I said to him, "where dost thou come from? Will my ransom be paid?"

"The ransom is well at stake, but fear nothing, I bring good news. Good for you, bad for me, for him, for her, for everybody! I must see Hadgi-Stavros. There is not a moment to lose. Until I come back, suffer no one to do you any harm; she would die for it! You hear, you wretches; do not touch milord. For your life. The King would cut you in pieces. Conduct me to the King!"

The world is such that a man who speaks as a master is almost sure of being obeyed. There was so much authority in the voice of this servant, and his pa.s.sion expressed itself in a tone so imperious that my guards, astonished and stupefied, forgot to keep me near the fire. I crept some distance away, and deliciously reposed upon the cold rock, until Hadgi-Stavros' arrival. He appeared not less agitated than Dimitri. He took me in his arms like a sick child, and carried me, without stopping, to that fatal chamber where Vasile was buried. He laid me on his own carpet with maternal solicitude; he stepped back and looked at me with a curious mixture of hate and pity. He said to Dimitri: "My child, this is the first time that I have left such a crime unpunished. He killed Vasile, that was nothing. He would have a.s.sa.s.sinated me, I pardoned him.

But he robbed me, the scamp! Eighty thousand francs less in Photini's dowry! I sought for a punishment equal to his crime. Oh, rest easy! I should have found it. Unhappy that I am! Why did I not restrain my anger? I have treated him harshly. And she will bear the penalty. If she receives two blows of the stick upon her little feet I shall never see her again. Men do not die of it, but a woman, a child of fifteen!"

He cleared the place of all the men who were crowding around us. He gently unwound the b.l.o.o.d.y bandages which enveloped my wounds. He sent his pipe-bearer for the balm of Ludgi-Bey. He seated himself on the damp gra.s.s in front of me, he took my feet in his hands and looked at the wounds. An almost incredible thing to tell! There were tears in his eyes!

"Poor child!" he said, "you have suffered cruelly. Pardon me. I am an old brute, a wolf of the mountain, a Palikar. I was trained in ferocity from twenty years of age. But you see that my heart is good, since I regret what I have done. I am more unhappy than you, because your eyes are dry and I weep. I shall set you at liberty without a moment's delay, or rather, no, you cannot go away thus. I will cure you first. The balm is a sovereign remedy. I will care for you as for a son. Health shall return quickly. You must be able to walk to-morrow. She must not remain a day longer in your friend's hands. In the name of Heaven tell no one of our quarrel to-day! You know that I do not hate you! I have said so often. I sympathized with you and I gave you my confidence. I told you my most sacred secrets. Do you not remember that we were friends until Vasile's death? An instant's anger must not make you forget twelve days of good treatment. You would not wish to break a father's heart. You are an honest young man; your friend ought to be good like you."

"But who, then?"

"Who? That cursed Harris! that devilish American! that execrable pirate!

that kidnapper of children! that a.s.sa.s.sin of young girls! that wretch whom I wish I held with you so that I could crush you in my hands, grind you together, and scatter your dust to the winds of my mountains! You are all the same, Europeans, a race of traitors, who dare not attack men, and who have courage to fight only against children. Read what he has written me and tell me if there are tortures cruel enough to chastise a crime like his!"

He savagely hurled a crumpled letter at me. I instantly recognized the writing, and I read:

"Sunday, May 11, on board The Fancy, Bay of Salamis.

"Hadgi-Stavros:

"Photini is on board under guard of four American cannons. I shall hold her as hostage as long as Hermann Schultz is prisoner. As thou treatest my friend, so shall I treat thy daughter. She shall pay hair for hair, tooth for tooth, head for head. Reply to me without delay, otherwise I shall come to see thee!

"John Harris."

On reading this letter I could not restrain my joy. "The good Harris!" I shouted, "I who accused him! But explain, Dimitri, why he has not rescued me sooner?"

"He has been away, Mr. Hermann; he was chasing pirates. He returned yesterday morning, unfortunately for us. Why did he not remain away!"

"Excellent Harris! He has not lost a single day. But where did he kidnap the daughter of this old scamp?"

"At our house, M. Hermann. You know her, Photini. You have dined more than once with her."

The Daughter of the King of the Mountains was then that boarding-school miss with the flat nose, who sighed for John Harris.

I concluded from this that the abduction had been accomplished without violence.

The pipe-bearer now came up with a package of linen and a bottle filled with yellow pomade. The King dressed my feet with practiced touch, and I experienced within an hour a certain relief. Hadgi-Stavros was, at this moment, a fine subject for the study of psychology. He had as much brutality in his eyes as delicacy in his touch. He unwound the bandages from my instep so gently that I scarcely felt it; but his glance said: "If I could only strangle thee!" He took out the pins as adroitly as a woman; but with what pleasure would he have thrust his cangiar into me.

When he had adjusted the bandages, he stretched out his clenched fists and savagely roared:

"I am no longer a King, since I must refrain from gratifying my anger!

I, who have always commanded, I obey a threat! He, who has made millions of men tremble, is afraid! They will boast of it, without doubt; they will tell the whole world of it; Oh! for the means to silence those European gossips! They will publish it in their papers, perhaps even in their novels. Why did I marry? Ought such a man to have children? I was born to fight soldiers and not to rear up little girls! Thunder is not for children; cannons are not for children. If they were, they would no longer fear the thunder-bolts and cannon-b.a.l.l.s. This John Harris may well laugh at me! What if I should declare war against him? What if I should capture his ship by force? I have attacked many, when I was a pirate, and twenty such cannons did not trouble me. But my daughter was not on board. Dear little one! You know her then, Monsieur Hermann? Why did you not tell me that you boarded with Christodule? I would have asked no ransom; I would have released you instantly, for love of Photini. Truly, I wish that she knew your language. She will be a princess in Germany, some day or other. Is it not true that she will make a beautiful Princess? I think so! Since you know her you will forbid your friend to do her any harm. Could you have the heart to see a tear fall from those dear eyes? She has never harmed you, the poor innocent! If anyone ought to expiate your sufferings, it is I. Tell M.

John Harris that you bruised your feet on the paths; you may then do me any harm you choose."

Dimitri stopped this torrent of words. "It is very unfortunate that M.

Hermann is wounded. Photini is not safe in the midst of those heretics, and I know M. Harris: he is capable of anything!"

The King scowled. Suspicions of a lover entered the father's heart. "Be off, then," he said to me; "I will carry you if necessary to the foot of the mountain; you can find, in some village, a horse, a carriage, a litter; I will furnish everything needed. But let him know, that from to-day, you are free, and swear to me, on the head of your mother, that you will tell no one of the injury which has been done you?"

I scarcely knew how I could endure the fatigues of the journey; but anything seemed preferable to the company of my tormentors. I feared that a new obstacle might arise before I was free. I said to the King: "Let us start! I swear to you by all I hold most sacred, that they shall not touch a hair of your daughter's head!"

He raised me in his arms, threw me over his shoulder, and mounted the staircase to his cabinet. The entire band rushed out in front of him and barred our pa.s.sage. Moustakas, livid as a man attacked with cholera, said to him: "Where art thou going? The German has thrown a spell over the food. We are suffering all the pains of h.e.l.l. We are frightfully ill, through his fault, and we wish to see him die."

My hopes were dashed to the ground. Dimitri's arrival; John Harris'

providential interference; Hadgi-Stavros' change of front; the humiliation of that superb head to the feet of his prisoner; so many events, crowded into a quarter of an hour, had turned my head; I had already forgotten the past, and I had rashly begun to count on the future.

At the sight of Moustakas, I remembered the poison. I felt that any moment might precipitate a fearful event. I clung to the King of the Mountains, I wound my arms around his neck, I begged him to carry me away without delay. "It will redound to thy glory," I said to him.

"Prove to these savages that thou art King! Do not reply! words are useless. Let us pa.s.s over their bodies. Thou knowest thyself what interest thou hast in saving me. Thy daughter loves John Harris; I am sure of it, she confessed it to me!"

"Wait!" he replied. "Let us pa.s.s first! we can talk later."

He laid me carefully down on the ground, and rushed, with clenched fists, into the midst of the bandits. "You are fools!" he shouted. "The first one who touches milord will answer to me. What spell do you say he has cast? I ate with you; am I ill? Let me pa.s.s! he is an honest man; he is my friend!"

Suddenly, he changed countenance; his legs gave way under the weight of his body. He seated himself near me, leaned toward me and said with more grief than anger:

"Imprudent! Why did you not tell me that you had poisoned us?"