The Pobratim Part 44

Mathias, however, presented the King with a packet of photographs that he happened to have about him; they were all respectable ladies of his acquaintance, belonging to different _corps de ballet_. So while the King was trying to find out, with a magnifying-gla.s.s, what Miss Mome Fromage had done with her other leg--like the tin soldier in Andersen's tale--Mathias ran off with the Princess.

Then the King got dreadfully angry and ordered his guards to run after the fugitives.

The Princess, hearing the tramp of horses' feet, asked The Man with the Flashing Eyes to look round and see who was pursuing them.

"I see a squadron of cavalry riding full speed," said The Man with the Flashing Eyes.

"It's my father's body-guard."

"Hadn't we better hide in a bush, and leave them to ride on?" asked Mathias.

"No," replied the Princess.

Seeing the hors.e.m.e.n approach, she took off the long veil she wore at the back of her head, and threw it at them.

"As many threads as there are in this veil, may as many trees arise between us."

In a twinkling, a dense forest arose, like a drop-scene, between the fugitives and the guards.

Mathias and his bride had not gone very far, when they heard again the sound of horses.

The Man with the Flashing Eyes looked round and saw again the King's body-guard galloping after them.

"Can you dodge them again?" asked Mathias.

The Princess, for an answer, dropped a tear, and then bade it swell into a deep river between them and their pursuers.

The river rolled its ma.s.sy waters through the plain, while Mathias and his bride strolled away unmolested.

Again they heard the sound of horses' hoofs; again the guards were about to seize the runaways; again the Princess, drawing herself up in all the majesty of her little person, stretched out her arm threateningly, and ordered the darkness of the night to wrap them up as with a deep shroud.

At these words, The Long One grew longer and ever longer, until he reached the clouds; then, taking off his cap, he deftly clapped it on half of the sun's disc, leaving the royal guards quite in the shade.

When Mathias and his bride were about ten miles off, The Long One strode away and caught up with them after ten steps.

Mathias was already in sight of his own castellated towers, when the clatter of horses was again heard close behind them.

"There'll be bloodshed soon," said the Prince to his bride.

"Oh! now leave them all to me," said The Big One; "it's my turn now."

The lovers, followed by The Long One and The Man with the Flashing Eyes, entered the city by a postern, whilst The Big One squatted himself down at the princ.i.p.al gate and puffed himself out; then he opened his mouth as wide as the gate itself, so that it looked like a barbican. Thus he waited for the dauntless life-guards, who, in fact, came riding within his mouth as wildly as the n.o.ble six hundred had ridden within the jaws of death.

When the last one had disappeared, The Big One rose quietly, but at the same time with some difficulty, and tottered right through the town. It was an amusing sight to see his huge bloated paunch flap hither and thither at every step he made. Having reached the opposite gate, he again crouched down, opened his capacious mouth and spouted out all the life-guards, horses and all; and it was funny to see them ride off in a contrary direction, evidently hoping to overtake the fugitives soon, whilst the Prince, his bride and his suite were on the battlements, splitting with laughter at the trick played on their pursuers.

The old Queen was rejoiced to see her truant son come back so soon, and, moreover, not looking at all as seedy as he usually did after his little escapades. Still, she could not help showing her dissatisfaction about two things. The first was that Mathias had p.a.w.ned her parting gift; the second that the Princess had come without a veil.

This last circ.u.mstance was, however, easily explained; and then Her Most Gracious Majesty allowed the light of her countenance to shine on her future daughter-in-law.

The Long One was forthwith sent back to the old King, asking him, by means of a parchment letter, to come and a.s.sist at his daughter's wedding. His Majesty, hearing who Mathias really was, hastened to accept the invitation. He donned his crown, took a few valuables with him in a carpet-bag, fuming and fretting all the time at having to start--like a tailless fox--without his body-guard. Just as he was setting out, The Long One, stretching his neck a few miles above the watch tower and looking round, saw the hors.e.m.e.n riding back full speed towards the castle. The old King hearing this news, shook his head, very much puzzled, for he could not understand how the hors.e.m.e.n, who had ridden out by one gate, could be coming back by the other. The Long One explained to the King (what they never would have been able to explain themselves) that they had simply ridden round the world and come back the other side. His Majesty, who would otherwise have had all his guards put to death, forgave them right graciously, and to show Mathias that he bore him no ill-will, he presented him, as a wedding gift, with a valuable shawl he had just got second-hand at a p.a.w.nbroker's. That gift quite mollified the old Queen, and forthwith, as by enchantment, all the clouds looming on the political horizon disappeared, and the nuptials of Mathias and the Princess took place with unusual splendour.

The Princess gave up her freaks of disappearing in the middle of the night, Mathias never played _patience_ with his own cards any more, and both set their people an example of conjugal virtue.

High posts at Court were created for the Prince's three friends, and they, indeed, often showed themselves remarkably useful. For instance, if a Prime Minister ever showed himself obstreperous, The Long One would stretch out his arm, catch him by the collar of his coat, and put him for a few days on some dark cloud under which the thunder was rumbling. If a meddling editor ever wrote an article against the prevailing state of things, The Man with the Flashing Eyes cast a look at his papers, and the fire brigade had a great ado to put out the conflagration that ensued. If the people, dissatisfied with peace and plenty, met in the parks to sing the Ma.r.s.eillaise, The Big One had only to open his mouth and they at once all went off as quietly as Sunday-school children, and all fell to singing the National Anthem. Anarchy, therefore, was unknown in a land so well governed, and flowing with milk and honey.

CHAPTER XI

MANSLAUGHTER

The _Spera in Dio_ having reached Gravosa, it discharged the timber it had taken for Ragusa, and loaded a valuable cargo of tobacco from Trebigne in its stead. The ship was now lying at anchor, ready to set sail with the fresh morning breeze.

It was in the evening. The captain was in hopes to start on the morrow; for at night it is a difficult task to steer a ship through that maze of sunken rocks and jagged reefs met with all along the entrance of the Val d'Ombla.

The _pobratim_ had been talking together for some time. Uros had tried to persuade his friend to go and marry Ivanka before the mistake under which her father was labouring had been cleared up; but the more the plan was discussed, the less was Milenko convinced of its feasibility.

Uros at last, feeling rather sleepy, threw himself into his hammock, and soon afterwards closed his eyes. Milenko, instead, stood for some time with his arms resting on the main-yard, smoking and thinking, his eyes fixed on the moon, in its wane, now rising beyond the rocky coast, from which the cypresses uplifted their dark spires, and the flowering aloes reared their huge stalks.

The warm breeze blew towards him a smell of orange blossoms from the delightful Val d'Ombla, and the fragrancy of the Agnus castus, the Cretan sage, and other balmy herbs and shrubs from that little Garden of Eden--the Island of La Croma. Feeling that he could not go to sleep, even if he tried, and finding the earth so fair, bathed as it was now by the silvery light of the moon, he made up his mind to go on sh.o.r.e and have a stroll along the strand.

What made him leave the ship at that late hour, and go to roam on the deserted sh.o.r.e? Surely one of those secret impulses of fate, of which we are not masters.

He had walked listlessly for some time on the road leading to Ragusa, when he heard the loud, discordant sounds of two men, apparently drunk, wrangling with each other. The men went on, then stopped again, then once more resumed their walk; but, at every step they made, their voices grew louder, their tones angrier. Both spoke Slav; but, evidently, one of the two must have been a foreigner. Milenko followed them, simply for the sake of doing something. When he got nearer, he understood that the cause of the quarrel was not a woman, as he had believed at first, but a sum of money which the Slav had lent to the foreigner.

As they kept repeating the selfsame things over and over, Milenko got tired of their discussion and was about to turn back. Just then, however, the two men stopped again. The Slav called the stranger a thief, who in return apostrophised him as a dog of a Turk. From words they now proceeded to blows; but, drunk as they apparently were, they did not seem to hurt each other very much. Milenko hastened on to see the struggle, for there is a latent instinct, even in the most peaceable man's nature, that makes him enjoy seeing a fight.

By the time Milenko came in sight of the two men, they had begun to fight in real earnest; blows followed blows, kicks kicks; the Slav --or rather, Turk--roused by the stranger's taunts, seemed to be getting over his drunkenness. He was a tall, powerful man, and Milenko saw him grip his adversary by his neck. Then the two men grappled with each other, reeled in their struggle, then rolled down on the ground. He heard the thud of their fall. Milenko hastened to try and separate them. As he got nearer he could see them clearly, for the light of the moon fell upon them. The stronger man was holding his adversary pinned down, and was muttering the same curses over and over again; but he did not seem to be ill-using him very much.

"Leave me alone," muttered the other, "or, by my faith, it'll be so much the worse for you!"

"Your faith! you have no faith, you dog of a giaour!" growled the other.

"I have no faith, have I? Well, then, here, if I have no faith!"

Milenko, for a moment, saw a knife glitter in the moonlight, then it disappeared. He heard at the same time a loud groan. He ran up to help the man from being murdered, regardless of his own safety.

The powerful man was trying to s.n.a.t.c.h the knife from his adversary's hand, but, as he was unable to do so, he rose, holding his side, from which the blood was rushing.

"Now you'll have your money!" said the little man, with a hideous laugh, and he lifted up his hand and stabbed his adversary repeatedly.

Milenko pulled out his own knife as he reached the spot, but he only got in time to catch the dying man in his arms and to be covered with his blood.

The murderer simply looked at his adversary, and hearing him breathe his last, "He's done for," he added; then he turned on his heels and disappeared.

Poor Milenko was stunned for a moment, as he heard the expiring man's death-rattle.