20892	----	Manasseh A Romance of Transylvania Retold from the Hungarian of Dr. Maurus Jókai Author of "Black Diamonds," "Pretty Michal," "The Baron's Sons," etc. By Percy Favor Bicknell Translator of "The Baron's Sons" Boston L. C. Page & Company 1901 _Copyright, 1901_ BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) _All rights reserved_ Colonial Press Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds &. Co. Boston, Mass., U. S. A. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE vii I. FELLOW-TRAVELLERS 1 II. A LIFE'S HAPPINESS AT STAKE 13 III. AN INTRUDER EXPELLED 19 IV. A BIT OF STRATEGY 24 V. HOLY WEEK IN ROME 34 VI. THE CONSECRATED PALM-LEAF 52 VII. AN AUDIENCE WITH THE POPE 60 VIII. AN UNWELCOME VISITOR 65 IX. THE ANONYMOUS LETTER 79 X. THE FOURTEENTH PARAGRAPH 90 XI. THE DECISION 103 XII. A GHOSTLY VISITANT 109 XIII. A SUDDEN FLIGHT 127 XIV. WALLACHIAN HOSPITALITY 137 XV. BALYIKA CAVE 158 XVI. A DESPERATE HAZARD 179 XVII. IN PORLIK GROTTO 188 XVIII. TOROCZKO 198 XIX. A MIDNIGHT COUNCIL 213 XX. MIRTH AND MOURNING 231 XXI. THE SPY 245 XXII. THE HAND OF FATE 256 XXIII. OLD SCORES 266 XXIV. A CRUEL PARTING 292 XXV. SECRETS OF THE COMMISSARIAT 302 XXVI. SOLFERINO 307 XXVII. AN HOUR OF TRIAL 314 XXVIII. A DAY OF RECKONING 318 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. A few words of introduction to this striking story of life in Szeklerland may not be out of place. The events narrated are supposed to take place half a century ago, in the stirring days of '48, when the spirit of resistance to arbitrary rule swept over Europe, and nowhere called forth deeds of higher heroism than in Hungary. To understand the hostility between the Magyars and Szeklers on the one hand, and the Wallachians on the other,--a state of feud on which the plot of the story largely hinges,--let it be remembered that the non-Hungarian elements of the kingdom were exceedingly jealous of their Hungarian neighbours, and apprehensive lest the new liberal constitution of 1848 should chiefly benefit those whom they thus chose to regard as enemies. Therefore, secretly encouraged by the government at Vienna, they took up arms against the Hungarians. The Croatians and Serbs, under the lead of Ban Jellachich and other imperial officers, joined in the revolt. The most frightful atrocities were committed by the insurgents. Hundreds of families were butchered in cold blood, and whole villages sacked and burned. These acts of massacre and rapine were especially numerous on the eastern borders of Transylvania, among the so-called Szeklers, or "Frontiersmen," in whose country the scene of the present narrative is chiefly laid. The Szeklers, who also call themselves Attilans, claim descent from a portion of that vast invading horde of Attila the Hun, which fell back in defeat from the battle of Châlons, in the year 451, and has occupied the eastern portion of Transylvania ever since. The Magyars are of the same or a nearly kindred race, and speak the same language; but their ancestry is traced back to a later band of invaders who forced their way in from the East early in the tenth century. The Wallachians, or "Strangers," form another considerable group in the population of Hungary. "Rumans" they prefer to call themselves, and they claim descent from the ancient Dacians, and from the conquering army led against the latter by Trajan. Besides these, Germans, Croatians, Serbs, Ruthenians, Slovaks, and other races, contribute in varying proportions to the heterogeneous population of the country. The Hungarian title of the book is "Egy az Isten,"--"One is the Lord,"--the watchword of the Unitarians of Transylvania. The want of an adequate English equivalent of this motto has led to the adoption of another title. In this, as in all the author's romances, love, war, and adventure furnish the plot and incident and vital interest of the narrative. As early as 1568, three years after the introduction of Unitarianism into Poland, John Sigismund Szapolyai, the liberal and enlightened voivode of Transylvania, issued a decree, granting his people religious toleration in the broadest sense. The establishment of the Unitarian Church in Hungary, on an equal footing with the Roman Catholic, the Lutheran, and the Calvinist, dates from that time. Through many trials and persecutions, through periods of alternate prosperity and adversity, it has bravely maintained its existence up to the present day, and now numbers nearly sixty-eight thousand members. Though a comparatively small body, the Unitarians of Hungary "hold together well," as our author says, and exert an influence in education and in all that makes for the higher life, quite out of proportion to their numbers. As in so many of Dr. Jókai's novels that have appeared in English, it has been found necessary to abridge the present work in translation. Not until we have endowed publishing houses which can afford to disregard the question of sales, shall we see this author's books issued in all their pitiless prolixity, in any country or language but his own. It is to be noted, in conclusion, that the excessive wealth of incident with which the following story abounds is characteristic of the author's style. Broken threads and occasional inconsistencies are found in all his works, and if they are met with here, it is not because of, but in spite of, the abridgment which the book has undergone. MANASSEH CHAPTER I. FELLOW-TRAVELLERS. Our story opens in an Italian railway station, in the spring of 1848. From a train that had just arrived, the passengers were hastening to secure their places in another that stood waiting for them. A guard had succeeded in crowding a party of two ladies and a gentleman into one of these itinerant prison-cells, which already contained seven occupants, before the newcomers perceived that they were being imposed upon. A vigorous protest followed. The elder of the two ladies, seizing the guard by the arm, addressed him in an angry tone, first in German, then in French. With the calm indifference of an automaton, the uniformed official pointed to a placard against the wall. _Per dieci persone_ was the inscription it bore. Ten persons, it seemed, were expected to find places here. "But we have first-class tickets," protested the lady, producing a bit of yellow pasteboard in proof of her assertion. The guard glanced at it with as little interest as he would have bestowed on a scarab from the tomb of the Pharaohs. Shrugging his shoulders, he merely indicated, with a wave of his hand, places where the three passengers might, perhaps, find seats,--one in this corner, a second yonder, and, if its owner would kindly transfer a greasy bundle to his lap, a third over there. This arrangement, however, was not at all to the liking of either the ladies or their escort. The latter was altogether disinclined to accept a seat between two fat cattle-dealers, being of no meagre dimensions himself. "We'll see about this!" he exclaimed, and left the compartment in quest of the station-master. That dignitary was promenading the platform in military uniform, his hands behind his back. The complainant began to explain the situation to him and to demand that consideration to which his first-class ticket entitled him. But the _illustrissimo_ merely opened his eyes and surveyed the gentleman in silence, much as a cuttlefish might have done if similarly addressed. "_Partenza-a-a!_" shouted the guards, in warning. The indignant gentleman hurried back to his compartment, only to find that, in his absence, three additional passengers had been squeezed into the crowded quarters, so that he himself now raised the total to thirteen,--a decidedly unlucky number. The ladies were in despair, and their attendant had begun to express his mind vigorously in his native Hungarian, when he felt himself touched on the elbow from behind, and heard a voice accosting him, in the same tongue. "My fellow-countryman, don't heat yourself. Not eloquence, but backsheesh, is needed here. While you were wasting your breath I had a guard open for me a reserved first-class compartment. It cost me but a trifle, and if you and your ladies choose to share it with me, it is at your service." "Thank you," was the reply, "but we shall not have time to change; we had only two minutes here in all." "Never fear," rejoined the stranger, reassuringly. "The _due minute_ is a mere form with which to frighten the inexperienced. The train won't start for half an hour yet." The two ladies were no less grateful to their deliverer than was Andromeda of old to the gallant Perseus. They gladly accepted the comfortable seats offered them, while their escort took a third, leaving the fourth for their benefactor, who lingered outside to finish his cigar. At the second ringing of the bell, he gave his half-smoked Havana to a passing porter, mounted the running-board of the moving train, and entered his compartment. Seating himself, the young man removed his travelling-cap and revealed a broad, arched forehead, surmounted by a luxuriant growth of hair. Thick eyebrows, bright blue eyes, and a Greek nose were the striking characteristics of his face, which seemed to combine the peculiarities of so many types and races, that an observer would have been at a loss to classify it. The other gentleman of the party was of genuine Hungarian stock, stout in figure and ruddy of countenance, with a pointed moustache, which he constantly twirled. The younger of the two ladies was veiled, so that only the graceful outlines of a face, evidently classic in its modelling, were revealed to the eye. But the elder had thrown back her veil, exposing to full view an honest, round face, blond hair, lively eyes, and lips that manifestly found it irksome to maintain that silence which good breeding imposes in the presence of a stranger. The ladies' escort was a very uneasy travelling companion. First he complained that he could not sit with his back toward the engine, as he was sure to be car-sick. The young stranger accordingly changed places with him. Then he found fault with his new seat, because it was exposed to a draught which blew the cinders into his eyes. Thereupon the young man promptly volunteered to close the window for him; but this only made matters worse, for fresh air was indispensable. At this, the blond lady gave up her place to the gentleman, and he, at last, appeared satisfied. Not so, however, the lady herself; she was now seated opposite the stranger, to whom she and her companions were so greatly indebted, and the feeling of indebtedness is always somewhat irksome. Women on a journey are inclined to regard a stranger's approach with some suspicion, and to be ever on the alert against adventurers. A vague mistrust of this sort concerning the young stranger may have been aroused by the mere fact that, Hungarian though his language indicated him to be, he and the ladies' escort indulged in no interchange of courtesies so natural among fellow-countrymen meeting by chance in a foreign land. Nevertheless the blond lady strove to assume an air that, on her part, should signify an entire absence of interest in all things relating to her _vis-à-vis_. Even when the sun shone in her face and annoyed her, she seemed determined to adjust the window-shade without any help from the stranger, until he courteously prevailed on her to accept his aid. "Oh, what helpless creatures we women are!" she exclaimed as she sank back into her seat. "You have yourselves to blame for it," was the other's rejoinder. If he had simply offered some vapid compliment, protesting, for example, that women were by no means helpless creatures, but, on the contrary, the rulers of the stronger sex, and so of the world,--then she would have merely smiled sarcastically and relapsed into silence; but there was something like a challenge in his unexpected retort. "_Par exemple?_" she rejoined, with an involuntary show of interest. "For example," he continued, "a lady voluntarily surrenders the comfortable seat assigned to her, and exchanges with a man who occupies an uncomfortable one." The lady coloured slightly. "A free initiative," said she, "is seldom possible with a woman. She is ever subject to a stronger will." "Yet she need not be," was the reply; "with the fascination which she exerts over men she is in reality the stronger." "Ah, yes; but suppose that fascination is employed over a man by women that have no right thus to use their power?" "Then the legitimate possessor of that right is still at fault. If fascination is the bond by which the man can be held, why does she not make use of it herself? A face of statuesque beauty that knows not how to smile has often been the cause of untold unhappiness." At these words the younger of the two ladies threw back her veil, perhaps to gain a better view of the speaker, and thus revealed just such a face as the young man had referred to,--a face with large blue eyes and silent lips. "Would you, then," the elder lady continued the discussion with some warmth, "have a wife employ the wiles of a coquette toward her own husband, in order to retain his love?" "I see no reason why she should not if circumstances demand it." "Very good. But you must admit that a wife is something more than a sweetheart; maternal duties and cares also enter into her life, and when, by reason of her exalted mission as a mother, anxieties and fears will, in spite of her, depict themselves on her face, what then becomes of your pretty theory?" The attack was becoming too warm for the young stranger, and he hastened to capitulate with a good grace. "In that case, madam," he admitted, "the husband is bound to show his wife nothing but the purest devotion and affection. The Roman lictors were, by the consul's orders, required to lower their fasces before a Roman matron; she was undisputed mistress in her sphere. The man who refuses to render the humblest of homage to the mother of his children deserves to have a millstone hung about his neck and to be cast into the sea." The blond lady seemed softened by this unconditional surrender. "Are you on your way to Rome, may I ask?" she presently inquired, her question being apparently suggested by the other's reference to ancient Roman customs. "Yes, that is my destination," he replied. "You go to witness the splendid ceremonies of Holy Week, I infer." "No; they do not interest me." "What!" exclaimed the lady; "the sublimest of our Church observances, that which symbolises the very divinity of our Saviour, does not interest you?" "No; because I do not believe in his divinity," was the calm reply. The lady raised her eyebrows in involuntary token of surprise at this most unexpected answer. She suddenly felt a strong desire to fathom the mysterious stranger. "I believe the Vatican is seeking an unusually large loan just now," she remarked, half-interrogatively. The stranger could not suppress a smile. He read the other's surmise that he might be of Hebrew birth and faith. "It is not the papal loan, madam," he returned, "that takes me to Rome; it is a divorce case." "A divorce case?" The blond lady could not disguise her interest at these words, while even the statuesque beauty at the other end of the compartment turned her face fully upon the speaker, and her lips parted slightly, like the petals of an opening rosebud. "Yes," resumed the young man, "a separation from one who has denied and rejected me for the sake of another; one whom I must for ever shun in the future, and yet cannot cease to love; one whose loss can never be made good to me. I am going to Rome because it is a dead city and belongs equally to all and to none." The train halted at a station, and the young man alighted. After a few words to the guard he disappeared from sight. "Do you know that gentleman?" asked the blond lady of her escort. "Very well," was the reply. "And yet you two hardly exchanged a word." "Because we were neither of us so disposed." "Are you enemies?" "Not enemies, and yet in a certain sense opponents." "Is he a Jew or an atheist?" "Neither; he is a Unitarian." "And what is a Unitarian, pray tell me?" "The Unitarians form one of the recognised religious sects of Hungary," explained the man. "They are Christians who believe in the unity of God." "It is strange I never heard of them before," said the lady. "They live chiefly in Transylvania," added the other; "but the great body of them, taken the world over, are found in England and America, where they possess considerable influence. Their numbers are not large, but they hold together well; and, though they are not increasing rapidly, they are not losing ground." The younger lady lowered her veil again and crossed herself beneath its folds; but her companion turned and looked out of the window with a curious desire to scrutinise the wicked heretic more closely. Both the ladies, as the reader will have conjectured, were strictly orthodox in their faith. The train soon started again, after the customary ringing and whistling and the guards' repeated warning of "_partenza!_" But the young heretic seemed to put as little faith in bells and whistles and verbal warnings as in the dogma of the Trinity; for he failed to appear as the train moved away from the station. The ladies who owed so much to his kindness could not deny a certain feeling of relief at being freed from the company of one who cherished such heterodox religious convictions. "You say you are well acquainted with the young man?" the blond lady resumed. "Yes, I know him well enough," was the answer. "His name is Manasseh Adorjan, he is of good old Szekler descent, and he has seven brothers and a twin sister. They all live at home in their ancestral castle. Some of the brothers have married, but all live together peacefully under one roof and form one household. Manasseh seems to have been recognised by the family as the gifted one,--his brothers are nothing more than honest and intelligent Szeklers,--and for his education and advancement in the world all worked in unison. When he was only twenty years old this young genius became a candidate for the council. In Transylvania it is the custom to make the higher government appointments from all four of the recognised religious sects,--Roman Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Unitarian. From that time dates our mutual hostility." "Then you are enemies, after all." "In politics, yes. However, I must not bore you ladies with political questions. Suffice it to say, then, in regard to Manasseh Adorjan, that a sudden change of government policy, and the defeat of his party, gave the young man a fall from his proud eminence and led him to turn his back, for a time at least, on his native land; for he scorned to seek the preferment that was so easily within his reach by renouncing his principles and joining the opposite party." "Now I understand," interposed the blond lady, "what he meant by his 'divorce case,' and his parting with one who had denied and rejected him, but whom he could never cease to love. Those were his words, and they referred to his country." "Yes, probably," assented the other; "for the young man is unmarried." At the next station the subject of this conversation suddenly reappeared. "Ah, we thought you were lost," exclaimed the elder of the two ladies, with a not unfriendly smile. "Oh, no, not lost," returned Manasseh; "what belongs nowhere and to no one cannot be lost. I merely took a seat on the imperial. Come, friend Gabriel,"--turning to the ladies' escort,--"will you not join me there? The view is really fine, and we can smoke also." The one thus familiarly addressed, and whose name was Gabriel Zimandy, accepted the invitation after a moment's demur. The ladies were left to themselves. CHAPTER II. A LIFE'S HAPPINESS AT STAKE. "A splendid country this!" exclaimed Gabriel Zimandy, when he had lighted his meerschaum and found himself at leisure to survey the landscape. "Too bad the Austrians have their grip on it!" "Look here," interposed Manasseh, "suppose we steer clear of politics. Do you agree?" "Did I say anything about politics?" retorted Gabriel. "I merely alluded to the beautiful view. Well, then, we'll talk about beautiful women if you prefer. You little know what a tender spot you touched upon with the ladies. I refer to the brunette--not to the blond, with whom you were talking." "Ah, is the other a brunette? I did not get a good look at her." "But she got a good look at you, while you were discussing the duties of women toward their husbands, the subject of divorce, and Heaven knows what else besides." "And did I awaken any unpleasant reminiscences?" asked the young man. "Not in the bosom of your fair antagonist,--she is already a widow,--but in that of her companion, who sat silent and listened to all you said. She is on her way to Rome to petition the Pope to annul her marriage." "Is that so!" exclaimed Manasseh, in surprise. "I should have said she was just out of a convent where she had been placed to be educated." "What eyes you have! Even without looking at her you have guessed her age to a month, I'll warrant! She is my client, the unfortunate Princess Cagliari, _née_ Countess Blanka Zboroy. You know the family: their estates are entailed, so that all but the eldest son have to shift for themselves as best they can. The younger sons go into the army or the Church, and the daughters are wedded to rich husbands, or else they take the veil. But it so happened that once upon a time a rich bishop belonging to this family made a will directing that his property be allowed to accumulate until it became large enough to provide a snug fortune of a million florins for each of his relatives; and this end was recently realised. But by the terms of the will, the heirs are allowed only the usufruct of this legacy, and, furthermore, even that is to be forfeited under certain circumstances, as for example, if allegiance be refused to the reigning dynasty, or if the legatee renounce the Roman Catholic faith, or, in the case of a woman, lead an unchaste life. Any part of the estate thus forfeited goes to the remaining legatees in an equal division, and so you can imagine what a sharp watch the several beneficiaries under this will keep over one another. A million is no bagatelle; the game is worth the candle. But to come back to our starting-point, Countess Blanka was joined in marriage with Prince Cagliari as soon as she left the convent. You must know the prince, at least by reputation; he plays no small part in the political world." "I have met him several times," replied Manasseh. "At court balls in Vienna, doubtless," said the advocate; "for, old as Cagliari is, he still turns night into day and burns the candle at both ends. When he married Countess Blanka he was very intimate with the Marchioness Caldariva, formerly known to lovers of the ballet as 'the beautiful Cyrene.' She practised the terpsichorean art with such success that one day she danced into favour with an Italian marquis who honoured her with the gift of his name and rank, after which he shot himself. The marchioness now owns a splendid palace in Vienna, a present from Prince Cagliari, who, they say, forgot to deliver up the key to her when he married Countess Blanka. It is even whispered that the marchioness herself tied the bridegroom's cravat for him on his wedding-day. Well, however that may be, the prince took the young lady to wife, much as a rich man buys a horse of rare breed, or a costly statue, or any other high-priced curiosity. But the poor bride could not endure her husband's presence. She was only a child, and, up to the day of her marriage, had no conception of the real meaning of matrimony. The prince has never enjoyed a moment's happiness with his young wife. His very first attempt to offer her a husband's caresses caused her to turn deadly pale and go into convulsions; and this occurred as often as the two were left alone. The prince complained of his hard lot, and sought medical advice. It was reported that the young wife was subject to epileptic attacks. A man of any delicacy would have accepted the situation and held his peace; but the prince took counsel of his factotum, a certain Benjamin Vajdar----" An involuntary movement, and a half-suppressed exclamation on Manasseh's part, made the speaker turn to him inquiringly; then, as the other said nothing, he resumed: "This factotum is the evil genius of the family, and the two together make a pair hard to match. The prince has obstinacy, sensuality, arrogance, and vindictiveness; and his tool has brains, cunning, and inventiveness, for the effective exercise of the other's evil tendencies. Cagliari finally went back to the beautiful Cyrene for consolation; but she was bent on proving her power over him, and at her bidding he heaped all sorts of indignities upon his innocent and helpless wife. At last, to crown all, he instituted divorce proceedings against her. This was the price he paid to regain the fair Cyrene's favour, but I am convinced that Benjamin Vajdar is at the bottom of it all. The prince bases his suit for a separation on his wife's alleged epileptic attacks and consequent unfitness for the wedded state. Of course that is all nonsense. I am not an epileptic, nor wont to bite or scratch people; but I can't approach this Cagliari without experiencing a sort of foaming at the mouth and a twitching of the muscles, as if I must pitch into the man, tooth and nail. My view of the case is that my client finds her husband's attentions so abhorrent that she even swoons when he offers to kiss her; and so I am going to apply for a total dissolution of the marriage, for if the other side win their case the papal edict will forbid a second marriage on the wife's part. And just imagine a young girl like her, in the first bloom of youth, scarcely twenty years old, compelled to renounce all hope of wedded happiness. We are now on our way to Rome to see whether my fair client's personal appeal may not avail somewhat with her judges. They cannot but take pity on her if their hearts are human. Prince Cagliari has of late lost favour at the Vatican, and all the conditions are in our favour; but there is one man whom I fear,--that cool and crafty Vajdar. I fell in with him in Venice, and asked him whither he was going. 'To Milan,' said he, but I knew he lied. He, too, is bound for Rome, and he will be there ahead of us, or at least overtake us. If we could only reach Rome first, I am confident we should win the game. But I fear he may be on this very train. Why, how warm you look! The perspiration stands in drops on your forehead. Does my pipe annoy you? No? Well, as I was saying, I suspect the fellow is on this train with us, and if he falls into my hands I'll wring his miserable neck! He thinks he's going to ruin the young life of my client and bury her alive, does he? We'll see about that." "He shall not do it!" exclaimed the other, with emphasis. "Good for you, my friend! And if you can propose some scheme for balking him, I'll take my hat off to you. Tell me, now, how can the princess make sure of outwitting her foes, and so escape the horrible fate of being buried alive?" "She can turn Protestant, and then the Church of Rome will have no claim whatever on her." "Very good, but how about the million florins left her as a good Catholic by the bishop?" Manasseh Adorjan crumbled his cigar in his fingers. "If the princess has a woman's heart in her bosom," he declared, "she will throw her million away in return for the love of a true man." CHAPTER III. AN INTRUDER EXPELLED. Meanwhile the train had reached another station, a junction where a halt was made for refreshments, pending the arrival of a connecting train. The advocate was hungry, and accordingly made his way to the dining-room, being first warned by his companion to use despatch, as otherwise, on returning to the ladies, he might find his compartment filled. "And what will you do meantime?" asked Gabriel. "I have my sketch-book with me," replied Manasseh, "and I am going to draw the view from my perch up here." "Ah, I did not know you were an artist." "Yes, I am an artist, and nothing more." Upon the arrival of the connecting train and the ensuing scramble for seats, the ladies of our little party felt some anxiety lest their privacy should be rudely broken in upon by unwelcome strangers. Princess Cagliari bent forward and looked down the platform, but immediately drew back again. Too late, however; she had been seen; and a moment afterward a young man, of sleek and comely appearance, immaculately dressed, and carrying in one hand a small cane whose peculiar head betrayed the fact that it concealed a rapier, sprang lightly on the foot-board and entered the compartment. "Ah, what an unexpected pleasure, Princess!" he exclaimed by way of greeting, lifting his hat and appropriating the corner seat opposite her. "Pardon me," said Blanka, "but that seat is engaged. The gentleman who is with us--" "Why, then, didn't he leave something--coat, or umbrella, or hand-bag--in proof of his claim to the seat?" interrupted the intruder. "The seat is now mine by railway usage, and I cannot deny myself the pleasure of sitting opposite you, my dear princess." Blanka controlled her indignation as best she could, but her companion felt called upon to come to her aid with an energetic remonstrance. "Mr. Vajdar," said she, severely, "you should know what is expected of a gentleman in his conduct toward a lady. You are well aware that the princess cannot endure your presence, nor are you ignorant of the reason." The handsome young man drew a gilt pasteboard box from his side pocket, removed the cover, and offered the contents to the last speaker. "Madam Dormandy, you are fond of sweets. Permit me to solicit your acceptance of these caramels. They are freshly made, and are really excellent." But Madam Dormandy turned her back disdainfully on the peace-offering and looked anxiously out of the window. "Where can Mr. Zimandy be all this time?" she murmured, impatiently. "How long will you continue to dog my steps?" asked the princess, addressing the intruder in a voice that trembled with passion. "Only to the grave," was the smiling reply; "there we shall separate--you to enter the gates of paradise, where I despair of gaining admission." "But what reason have you for wishing my ruin?" "Because you yourself will have it so. Have I ever made any secret of my designs or of my motives?" "Are you determined to make me leave this compartment?" "You would gain nothing by so doing," was Vajdar's cool retort. "I could not possibly forego the pleasure of your company, in whatever way you might choose to continue your journey." "What is your purpose in all this?" demanded Blanka. "To make you either as happy as a man can make a woman, or as wretched as only the devil himself can render a human being." "I defy you to do either." "Futile defiance! The game is in my hands, and I can make you as one buried alive." "God will never allow such an iniquity!" cried the princess. "Ah, my dear madam, you forget that we are on our way to Rome, where there are churches by the score, but no God." Blanka shuddered in spite of herself, and drew her shawl more closely about her, while her foe crossed one leg over the other and smiled self-complacently. The warning cry "_partenza!_" sounded along the platform, and the ladies' escort came running in alarm from the dining-room and sought his compartment. "Have I your seat, sir?" coolly inquired Benjamin Vajdar of the man who had so lately promised to wring his neck. "Oh, no, certainly not," mumbled the doughty advocate, in considerable surprise and confusion, as he caught his breath and meekly looked around for a vacant place. A lightning-flash from the blond beauty's eyes and a mocking smile from the dandy rewarded this courteous forbearance. But the mocking smile changed the next instant to a sudden expression of disquiet, if not of actual fear. Manasseh Adorjan stood in the doorway, and Blanka noted a swift interchange of glances between the young men, like the flashing of two drawn swords. "That place is already engaged, sir," said Manasseh, quietly. Benjamin Vajdar's face flushed quickly, and then as suddenly paled. In his eyes one could have read rage, hate, and fear, and his right hand clutched the head of his cane convulsively, as if about to draw the weapon therein concealed. But Manasseh still stood regarding him fixedly, and the intruder yielded without a word. Taking up his satchel, he left the compartment. The whole scene had occupied but a moment. What was it that gave one of these men such power over the other, like that of a lion-tamer over his charge? Manasseh himself took the vacated seat, without offering it to the advocate, and sat looking out of the window as long as Vajdar was in sight. At length the train started, and as it soon entered on a stretch of monotonous, waste territory, Blanka yielded to the drowsy lullaby of the smoothly rolling wheels, and fell asleep. Once or twice she half opened her eyes and was vaguely conscious that the young stranger opposite her was drawing something in the sketch-book that lay open on his knee. She pushed her veil still farther back from face and brow, hardly aware what she was doing, and again fell asleep. CHAPTER IV. A BIT OF STRATEGY. A sharp whistle from the locomotive awakened the sleepers. "Where are we now?" asked Blanka. "Near Bologna," answered the artist, who alone had remained awake; "and there I have to leave the train, which continues on, via Imola, to Ancona." "You leave the train? But I thought you, too, were going to Rome," said the princess, in surprise. "So I am," was the reply, "but by another route. My luggage will go through to Ancona, and thence by diligence to Rome, while I push on over the Apennines to Pistoja and Florence. It is a harder road, but its splendid views amply repay one for an occasional climb on foot by the _vetturino's_ side; and then, too, I shall reach Rome one day ahead of you, who go by way of Ancona." Blanka listened with interest. "Couldn't we take that route also?" she asked. "What do you say to it, Maria? We could quietly leave the train at Bologna and let our trunks go on to Rome without us." "But are the mountain passes safe?" queried Madam Dormandy, turning to Manasseh. "Is there no danger of highwaymen?" "Bad men are to be feared everywhere," replied the young man; "but as for highway robbers, they are much more to be apprehended by those travelling with valises and trunks than by the tourist that simply carries a satchel slung over his shoulder, as I intend to do. In my student days I used to tramp over these mountains in every direction, and the brigands never molested me. Whenever I fell in with a band I used to group the men together and sketch them. Artists have nothing to fear from gentlemen of the road." "And besides, we are two able-bodied men, and I always carry a brace of pistols--don't you?" spoke up the advocate, his professional zeal kindling at the prospect of stealing a march on the enemy. "I carry no weapons of any kind," calmly replied the artist. "Oh, I fear no harm from bad men," exclaimed the princess; "there is but one bad man whom we need to dread." The others easily guessed to whom she referred; but Gabriel Zimandy was bent on making her meaning still plainer. "He'd better not follow us into the mountains!" he cried, "for if the young rogue falls into my hands he'll wish he'd never been born. Lucky for him he took our friend's gentle hint; had he kept his seat a moment longer there would have been serious trouble." "Ha, ha!" laughed Madam Dormandy; "how surprised he will be when he fails to find us at Ancona and is obliged to journey on by diligence with our baggage, but without us!" "We shall be hurrying on ahead of him over these grand old mountains," added the princess, with enthusiasm, her cheeks glowing in pleased anticipation. "And we have to thank you, Mr. Adorjan, for the suggestion." With an impulsive movement she extended her hand to the young artist, who scarcely ventured to touch her finger-tips in return. "Very well, then," said he, "we will try the mountain road; and let us take no luggage but what we can carry in our hands. When we come to a beautiful waterfall we will sketch it, and when we chance upon a fine view we will celebrate its beauties in song." "Yes, and people will take us for strolling minstrels," interposed the princess; "and we must drop our real names and titles. Mr. Zimandy shall be the impresario, and Madam Dormandy the prima-donna; they can pass for husband and wife. We two can be brother and sister. What is your sister's name?" "Anna." "Lend me her name for a little while, will you? You don't object?" Manasseh turned strangely sober. "It would be only for your sake that I should object," he replied. "The bearer of that name is a very unfortunate girl." So they agreed to leave the train at Bologna and take the mountain pass. It only remained to hoodwink Benjamin Vajdar, and Manasseh Adorjan promised to effect this. He alighted before the train had fairly stopped, having first directed the others to go into the waiting-room. "That young man will not stir from his seat, nor will he even look out of the window," added Manasseh, with as much confidence as if he had acquired a talisman which enabled him to control the other's actions. As the train rolled out of the station the artist rejoined his party, with the welcome assurance that their enemy was now out of their way. "Is there a mysterious relation of some sort between you two?" asked Blanka. "Yes--one of fear: I tremble every time I see the man." "You tremble?" "Yes; I am afraid I shall kill him some day." With that, and as if regretting that he had said so much, he hurried away to engage a carriage to take them to Vergato. During his absence the advocate explained to his client that the Unitarians have an especial horror of bloodshed. He declared that some of them shrank from taking even an animal's life and abstained entirely from the use of meat. Blanka shook her head incredulously. She could not conceive of a gentleman's being forbidden by his scruples to use arms when the occasion demanded. How else, she asked, could he defend his honour, his loved ones, the women entrusted to his charge? When the four were seated in their carriage, the gentlemen facing the ladies, Blanka led the conversation back to the point at which Manasseh had dropped it. "You said you feared you should kill that young man some day," she began. "Does your religion forbid you to kill a man--under any circumstances?" "With a single exception," he replied; "but that exception is out of the question in this instance." Blanka wondered what the single exception could be, but refrained from asking. "Are you well acquainted with Mr. Vajdar?" she inquired presently. "We have known each other from childhood," was the reply. "Whatever I possessed was shared with him. His father was my father's steward; and when the steward proved false to his trust and gambled away a large sum of money committed to his care, and then shot himself, my father adopted the little orphan, and always treated him exactly as he did his own children. He grew up to be a bright and promising young man, and never failed to win a stranger's favour and confidence. But woe to those that thus confided in him! My poor sister, my dear, good little Anna, trusted him, and all was ready for their wedding when he disappeared, deserting her at the very altar." Even the shades of approaching nightfall could not hide the expression of pain on the speaker's face. "When did this occur?" asked Blanka, gently. "Last year--in February." "The date of my marriage, and of my first seeing that man," was Blanka's silent comment. She pondered the possible connection between the two circumstances. Benjamin Vajdar had left his affianced bride soon after seeing Princess Cagliari; he had then entered Cagliari's service as private secretary, and, a little later, divorce proceedings had been begun by the prince against his young wife. "Was it Mr. Vajdar's troubled conscience that made him leave us the moment you appeared?" she asked, after a pause. "No," said Manasseh; "he has no conscience. When he has an object in view, all means are legitimate with him. He knows neither consideration for others nor shame for his own misdeeds." "And yet he certainly played the coward before you." "Because he knows that I possess certain information, certain documentary evidence, by which, if I chose, I could hurl him down in confusion and disgrace from any height, however lofty, which he might succeed in attaining." "And you refrain from using this evidence against him?" "To use it would be revenge," replied the young man, calmly. "Is revenge forbidden where you live?" "Yes." "Has your sister never found a balm for her wounded affections?" "Never. My people are of the kind that loves but once." "Pray tell me where it is that your people have their home," urged the princess. "Is it on an island in the moon?" "Indeed, princess, it is not unlike those glimpses of the moon that we get through a large telescope when we examine, for instance, the rocky island known to astronomers as 'Plutarch,' or that named 'Copernicus.' Everything where I live would seem to you to savour of another planet. On the maps the place is put down as 'Toroczko.' It is in a mountain gorge, entered by a narrow path along the riverside and through a cleft in the rocks. The northern side of this narrow ravine, being in some measure exposed to the southern sun, is clothed with woods; the southern is a great wall of bare rock rising in terraces, or giant steps, that might well suggest the dreariness and desolation of a landscape in the moon. This barren expanse of naked rock is called the Szekler Stone, and was formerly surmounted by the castle of a Hungarian vice-voivode. Its ruins are still to be seen there. The lower slopes of this mountainside are cultivated now, and the ploughshare is gradually forcing one terrace after another to yield sustenance to the farmer. Thus it is that by these cultivated terraces the centuries of the town's history can be numbered. For there is a village there, deep down in the rocky ravine, as if on the floor of a volcano's crater, and in that village live the happiest people in all the world. Do not think me unduly prejudiced by the fact that I am one of them. No, I am not prejudiced. Strangers also find no terms of praise too high for those happy and industrious people. Noted English and German travellers have visited my native valley and afterward written books about it, as other travellers have about Japan or Circassia. Indeed, those two countries have something in common with my own. My people have developed and perfected industries peculiar to themselves, as have the Japanese, and they also are proud of their handsome women, as are the Circassians--except that the girls of Toroczko are not for sale, nor, for that matter, are they to be had by foreigners, even for love. Their charms bloom only for their own countrymen, and by them they are jealously guarded. They never work in the fields, and so their fair faces are never tanned or freckled. The young maidens keep their rooms, and spin, weave, and embroider for their own adornment. When Sunday comes and they all go to church, they fill six benches and form a veritable 'book of beauties,' of various types, both blond and brunette, which, however, one cannot so easily distinguish, owing to the richly worked kerchiefs under which their hair is hidden. Their entire costume is snow-white, even to the fine sheepskin bodice worn by each." "Ah, your young women think of nothing but dress, I fear," remarked Blanka. "By no means," protested Manasseh; "on the contrary, their childhood and youth are largely devoted to education. The people of our little valley maintain a high school for boys and a seminary for girls, as well as a charity school for the poor." "Then your people must be rich." "No, not rich. There are no lords or ladies among them, and they have suffered more from the ravages of war than any other community in Hungary." "But how," asked Blanka, "can they afford to dress their young women in silks and laces, and give both boys and girls an education? They must have some fairy talisman for conjuring wealth out of the rocks on which their houses stand." "And so they have. Their talisman is industry, and out of their rocky soil they conjure riches in the shape of iron,--the best that can be found in all Transylvania. The same men that fill the church every Sunday, in holiday attire, dig and delve under ground the remaining six days of the week. Another secret of their modest wealth is their abstinence from strong drink. There is not a single grog-shop in Toroczko. But I fear I am wearying you." Blanka begged him to continue, and took occasion to ask him why he did not go back to the beautiful valley which he seemed to love so warmly. "Because," was the answer, "my people are now enjoying a period of happiness in which I have no part. If misfortune should ever overtake them, I should go back and strive to lighten it, or at least I would bear it with them." CHAPTER V. HOLY WEEK IN ROME. It was evening when the travellers reached Rome. They had accomplished the journey in the time promised by Manasseh, and now the query was raised, could their enemy, by any possibility, have outstripped them? Upon the coachman's inquiring to what hotel he should take his passengers, Gabriel Zimandy drew out his memorandum-book and read the name of a house recommended to him by his landlord at Vienna. European innkeepers, be it observed, join together in a sort of fraternity for mutual aid in a business way, passing their guests along from city to city and from hand to hand, sometimes even providing them with letters of introduction. The cards of the hotel in question bore the important announcement, "German is spoken here;" and this was an advantage not to be despised. "You will come with us, won't you?" said the advocate, turning with a courteous bow to Manasseh. "Where German is spoken? No, I thank you. If I announce myself as a Hungarian, they will kiss my hand and then charge the kiss on the bill; if I say I am a German, I shall get a drubbing and be charged for that, too. I prefer to hunt up a modest little inn where, when I register from Transylvania, the good people will think it is somewhere in America, perhaps in the neighbourhood of Pennsylvania. The Yankees, you know, are highly respected in Italy." "I regret exceedingly--" began the advocate. "Among so many strangers it would have been very pleasant to have----" "At least one enemy within call," interrupted the young man, with a smile. "Well, you see, I am likely to be in Rome some time; so I shall look up a quiet room for myself near the Colosseum, where the sun shines and I can carry out certain plans of my own." The carriage turned into a brilliantly lighted street and passed a stately palace before which a richly sculptured fountain was sending its streams of sparkling water into the air. "The Palazzo Cagliari," remarked Manasseh, but without any significant emphasis. A natural impulse of curiosity moved Blanka to turn and look at the ancestral mansion of her husband's family. A moment later Manasseh signalled the driver to stop, and alighted from the carriage after shaking hands with his fellow travellers. Gabriel Zimandy said they should be sure to meet again soon; Madam Dormandy hoped they might all go sightseeing together in a few days; but Blanka said nothing as she bowed her farewell. Reaching their hotel, our three travellers were greeted by the landlord with unmistakable tokens of surprise. "And have your excellencies met with no mishap on the way?" he took early occasion to inquire. "Certainly not. Why?" "Your coming was announced in advance by our Vienna agent, and accordingly we reserved rooms for you. But at the same time another guest was also announced, a gentleman of high station from Hungary; and this afternoon word came that this gentleman and all his party had been captured by bandits in the ravine at the foot of Monte Rosso, and carried off into the mountains, where they will have to stay until their ransom is forthcoming. We feared your excellencies were of the party." "No," said Gabriel; "we came by way of Orvieto." "Lucky for you!" exclaimed the landlord. "What is the name of the gentleman you refer to?" asked the princess, in a tone that betrayed the keenness of her interest. "It's a queer name," answered the landlord, "and I can't remember it. But I'll find it for you in my letters of advice and send it up to your room." Blanka had hardly laid aside her wraps when a waiter knocked at her door and presented a card on a silver salver. "Conte Benjamino de Vajdar" was the name she read in the landlord's handwriting. * * * * * On the following morning, Blanka sent for the hotel-keeper and desired him to procure for herself and her two companions admission tickets to all the sacred ceremonies of the coming week. The worthy man fairly gasped at the coolness of this request. Tickets to the Sistine Chapel, to the Tenebræ, to the Benediction, and to the Glorification--and for three persons? Why, money couldn't buy them at that late hour, he declared. Admission tickets to paradise would be more easily obtainable. At the very utmost, places might still be procured on some balcony overlooking the Piazza di San Pietro, but only at extremely high prices. Yet the view from such a position would be a fine one; and mine host, without waiting to listen to any objections, hastened away to secure tickets, if they were still to be had. The princess made her lament to Gabriel Zimandy over her poor success in obtaining what she so ardently desired, and that gentleman sought to console her with the assurance that it was highly venturesome for ladies to trust themselves in the crowd that always attended the church ceremonies of Holy Week, and that she could read all about them much more comfortably in the newspapers. Blanka, however, took so much to heart the disappointment of her pious wishes, and came so near the point of tear-letting, that the advocate felt obliged to sally forth in person to see what he could do to console her. In less than an hour he was back again, breathless and exultant. He ran up-stairs with the agility of a much younger and less corpulent man, and hastened to the princess's room, regardless of the fact that she was at the moment under her hair-dresser's hands. "Victory!" he cried, panting for breath. "The impossible is achieved, and here are tickets for all three of us--to everything--to the Tenebræ, the washing of feet, the Last Supper, the Resurrection, the relics, the Benediction--" "But how did you get them?" interrupted the ladies, overcome with curiosity. Madam Dormandy had come hurrying out of her room at the first sound of his voice, and she and the princess now proceeded to pelt their victorious envoy with a volley of questions. "Well, you see," replied the lawyer, gradually recovering his breath, "it is a curious story. As I was tearing across the Corso, intent on my errand, I felt some one catch me by the coat-tail and heard a voice call to me in Hungarian, 'Haste makes waste!' I wheeled about, and there stood our Arian friend." "Manasseh Adorjan?" "Yes. He asked me if we had our affairs all in order, and I told him, by no means. I complained to him of our ill luck in securing tickets to the sacred ceremonies, and that it seemed impossible to get even anywhere near the Vatican. 'Well,' said he, with that confoundedly serious expression of his that you don't know whether to take as a sign of jest or earnest, 'let me see if I can't make it possible for you.' 'But,' said I, 'you don't imagine that you, a fallen statesman and an Arian heretic, can gain what is denied to Spanish princesses of the strictest orthodoxy?' 'You shall soon see,' he answered, and proceeded to lead me through one crooked street after another, until we found ourselves in front of a palace, at whose door a military watch was posted. He handed his card to the doorkeeper, and presently we were ushered into an anteroom, where Adorjan left me while he himself went with a man who seemed to be a private secretary, or something of the sort, into the next room. It wasn't long before he came out again and put three cards into my hand. 'There they are,' said he. 'Why, you are a regular magician!' I couldn't but exclaim. 'Oh, no,' he replied, 'I am no Cagliostro; the explanation is simple enough. This is the French embassy, and Monsieur Rossi is an old friend of mine. I have visited his family often. So when I asked him for tickets to all the ceremonies of Holy Week for two Hungarian ladies and their escort, he gave them to me at once. But now you must look sharp, for cards enough have been given out to fill the Sistine Chapel six times over, and there will be a scramble to get in.'" The princess was as pleased as a child. Her dearest wish was gratified; but, singularly enough, she owed this gratification to the very man whom she felt the necessity of avoiding and forgetting. It was, however, to the mysterious charm of the approaching ceremonies that she looked for an effective means of diverting her thoughts from forbidden channels. Yet the fact remained that he himself had opened the way for her to this earnestly desired distraction, and to Blanka it seemed as if his influence over her was only increased and strengthened by his absence. "What return, pray, did you make for all this kindness?" she asked. "A very ungracious one, I fear," replied Gabriel. "After receiving these tickets, which are worth many times their weight in gold, I told our benefactor that I feared they would profit us little, unless he procured one for himself, also, and acted as our guide." "You asked him to escort us?" exclaimed the princess, consternation in her tone. "I know it was a strange request," admitted the advocate, "to ask a heretic to witness the Passion, and the Resurrection, and the Glorification. It is like burning incense before his Satanic Majesty. Naturally enough, he refused at first point-blank, alleging that he had no right to thrust himself as attendant on two ladies without their invitation. 'Well, then,' said I, 'don't go as the ladies' escort, but just show me, your fellow countryman, the way about, else I shall certainly get lost, and find myself in the Catacombs instead of the Vatican.' Finally, I forced him to yield, and so he is to accompany us." In the afternoon of the same day Manasseh Adorjan called on the princess, and brought her a piece of good news of the utmost importance. Her trunks, and those of her friends, had arrived safely and promptly, and were at the custom-house. She had concluded that they had fallen into the bandits' hands, but it seemed that it was not the diligence, after all, that the robbers had waylaid; it was a post-carriage engaged by one of the travellers in the hope of reaching Rome a few hours earlier than the public conveyance. This one traveller only had been carried off into the mountains by the bandits, who had despatched a letter from their captive to Rome, addressed to Prince Cagliari, and presumably relating to the ransom. But as the prince was at present in Vienna, and postal communication between the two cities was at that time slow and uncertain, the ransom stood a good chance of being considerably delayed. This was a hint to the princess to make the most of the interim, and plead her cause at the Vatican, before her enemy could put in an appearance and damage her case. Manasseh, however, betrayed no sign of possessing any knowledge of the pending divorce suit, but continued to bear himself with the courteous reserve of a new acquaintance. Two things he sought thenceforth to avoid,--paying court to the beautiful young princess, and speaking lightly of things held sacred by her. Complying with the expressed wish of the two ladies, in the evening he made with them the round of the principal churches, which now all wore gala attire. He took his seat on the box by the coachman's side, and pointed out, in passing, the buildings and scenes of special interest. In one of the churches he showed the ladies facsimiles of the four nails used in the Crucifixion; of the originals, one, he explained, was preserved in St. Peter's, and another had been used to make the circle of the Iron Crown. He even bought as a souvenir one of these facsimiles, which a Cistercian monk was offering for sale. He obtained also consecrated palm-branches with gilded leaves, and bribed the custodian of the three sacred orange-trees planted by the Apostles to give his party each a tiny leaflet. He schooled his face to betray no incredulity when the keepers of the various holy relics recited their virtues, and related the miracles wrought by them. And when Blanka knelt in prayer before a statue of the Madonna, he withdrew respectfully to a distance. It was an earnest petition she offered before the blessed Virgin, a prayer for rescue from her enemies, and for strength to resist every temptation. And she knew not that her rescuer and her tempter were one and the same person, and that he stood there behind her at that very moment. Of a highly impressionable temperament, and fresh from her convent life, the princess was so moved by the sacred emblems about her, and by their holy associations, that she could not conceive of any one's viewing these objects with less of awe and reverence than herself. And when her conductor recounted the legend of the sacred lance in the chapel of St. Veronica,--how the Roman lictor Longinus had pierced the Saviour's side with this lance, and been himself struck blind the same instant, but had immediately recovered his sight when he rubbed his eyes with the hand on which four drops of the Redeemer's blood had fallen,--Blanka could not but ask herself whether another such miracle might not be wrought, and another blind man be restored to sight. She dreamed of this miracle that night, and made a vow to the Virgin that in case of her deliverance from her present difficulties, she would show her gratitude by presenting the Madonna with a jewel more precious than any that adorned her crown: she would offer this young man himself, who now refused to worship at her shrine. The princess felt herself rich enough to buy this jewel for her offering. Her heart held inexhaustible treasures, of which no man as yet could claim any share. She ceased to fear him against whom she had hitherto felt obliged to be on her guard; so much strength had she gained from the sacred relics that she now thought herself strong enough to make conquests of her own. In the morning Manasseh came early to escort the ladies and Gabriel Zimandy to the Sistine Chapel. Upon gaining the Piazza di San Pietro they found a vast throng already assembled, through which the young man was forced to pilot his charges. Blanka was compelled to cling fast to his arm, while Madam Dormandy took the advocate's, and so they made the best of their way forward. As if by instinct, Manasseh knew where a courteous request would open a path before them, where to resort to more energetic measures, and where a couple of _lire_ would prove most effectual. At length he was successful in gaining the very best position in the chapel, and here, unfolding a camp-stool which he had brought with him under his overcoat, he offered Blanka a seat, whence she could view the ceremonies in comfort, and without annoyance from the pushing and crowding multitude. Alas, poor Blanka! She only learned later from her father confessor what a sin she had committed in thus yielding to the weakness of the flesh, instead of standing through all the weary hours of that morning. A good Christian should not think of bodily comfort while his Saviour hangs bleeding on the cross. But she did not know this at the time, and therefore her escort's kind attention was most grateful to her. The Tenebræ is one of the most impressive of all the ceremonies of Holy Week in Rome. The Sistine Chapel is draped entirely in black, and only the soft rays of thirteen wax candles serve to lessen the darkness, out of whose depths, as out of the blackness of the tomb, sounds the antiphony of mourning and lamentation. The human forms moving to and fro before the cross are hardly distinguishable, but have the appearance of vague shadows. Then the candles are, one by one, extinguished, until only a single taper is left burning on the altar--that is Jesus. And in this darkness, symbolic of grief and mourning, an invisible choir sings the _Miserere_, Allegri's world-renowned composition, whose mystic notes bring so vividly before us that last scene on Golgotha,--the agony of the dying Saviour, the taunts of the lictors, the wailing of the holy women, the shrieks of the dead whose graves are opened, and who cry aloud for mercy, and finally the rending of the Temple curtain, and the chorus of angels in heaven. All this affects even the most hardened of skeptics with a power that cannot be withstood. For the time being the imagination is mistress of the reason. As the crowd poured out of the chapel after the ceremony was over, Blanka shot a glance of scrutiny from beneath her veil at the young man by her side. His face wore its wonted look of seriousness, the utter opposite of careless indifference, but at the same time wholly unlike the devout rapture of a believer. In fact, his expression betrayed but too clearly that his thoughts were little occupied with what he had just witnessed. "Have you heard the _Miserere_ many times before?" asked Blanka. "Twice only,--once in the Sistine Chapel, and again in St. Stephen's at Vienna." "But I thought its production was forbidden elsewhere than in Rome," said the princess. "Formerly that was the case," replied Manasseh, "the publication of Allegri's work being strictly prohibited; but after Mozart had heard it once and written it down from memory, its reproduction could not be prevented. So I had a chance to hear it in Vienna, where, however, it was but ill received, some of the audience even being moved to laughter." "For what reason, pray?" "Oh, not from any frivolity or irreverence, but because the music, which sounds so grandly impressive here in the Sistine Chapel, strikes one as a mere confusion of discordant notes amid other surroundings." On the following day came the washing of the Apostles' feet. Chosen priests from thirteen nations of the earth gathered in the Pauline Chapel to receive this humble service at the hands of the Pope himself. The thirteenth of these chosen ones represented the angel that is said to have appeared with the appointed twelve in St. Gregory's time. Then followed the Last Supper, at which also the holy father ministered to the Apostles in person. The next day was Saturday, and Gabriel Zimandy declared himself surfeited with holy ceremonies. Madam Dormandy agreed with him and began to complain of a fearful headache. Then the two united in maintaining that the princess looked utterly worn out and in need of rest. But Manasseh, who, by appointment, just then came upon the scene to offer his escort for the day, laughed them all three to shame. "That is always the way," said he; "people tire themselves out so before Saturday that on that day five-sixths of the crowd stay at home to save up their strength for Easter, and thus miss one of the most impressive spectacles of the week,--the adoration of the true cross." Poor Gabriel was now given no rest: he was forced to accompany the others once more to the Sistine Chapel, though he declared himself already quite stiff and sore with so much standing. The chapel was at its best; the black hangings had been removed, the light from the windows was softened, candles burned on the altar, and, as Manasseh had predicted, so many of the sightseers had stayed at home that ample room was left for those who were present. The general multitude could find little pleasure in the ceremony of the day,--the worship of a piece of wood about three yards in length, and unadorned with gold or silver. The Pope and the cardinals, gowned with no pretence to magnificence or pomp, knelt before the relic as it lay on the altar. It was but a fragment of the original cross, broken in the strife that attended its rescue. This piece is said to have been saved and carried off by an emperor, making his way barefoot from Jerusalem to Alexandria, where another emperor concealed the precious relic in a statue, and finally the Templars bore it in triumph through pagan hordes from Constantinople to Rome. And now, when the head of the Church, the pastor of a flock of two hundred million human beings, the keeper of the keys of heaven, approaches this bit of wood, he strips himself of his splendid robes, removes the crown from his head, the shoes from his feet, and goes, simply clad and barefoot, with humble mien, to kneel and kiss the sacred emblem. The cardinals follow his example, and meanwhile the choir sings Palestrina's famous composition, the "Mass of Pope Marcellinus," a wonderful piece that must have been first sung to the composer by the angels themselves. When the last notes of the music had died away, the bells of St. Peter's began to ring, the hangings before the windows were drawn aside, and Michael Angelo's marvellous frescoes were fully revealed to the admiring gaze of all present. The swords and halberds of the guards were once more raised erect, and the choir, the prelates, and the pilgrims joined in a common "Hallelujah!" "Hallelujah!" cried Gabriel Zimandy also, rejoicing that the ceremony was finally ended. "Never before in all my life have I been so completely tired out." On his return to the hotel, he stoutly protested against attending any more Church functions, and argued at length the inadvisability of the ladies exposing themselves to the heat and fatigue of the Easter service. Finally, and most important of all, he added that he had been granted an audience with the Pope and must prepare his address, which was to be in Latin. "We are infinitely indebted to you, friend Manasseh," he concluded, "for all your kindness; but you see for yourself how the case stands with me." "Yes, yes, I understand," replied the young man. "The audience is fixed for day after to-morrow, and of course you wish to prepare for it. Let me suggest, too, that you pay the French ambassador, to whose house I took you the other day, the courtesy of a call; he knows a little Latin, although, to be sure, it can't equal your own." This suggestion, casual though it was meant to appear, made it evident to the advocate that he owed the early granting of his request to the powerful influence of the French minister. And Manasseh, on his part, was not slow to perceive that the advocate's chief concern was lest his fair client, at this critical time, should be seen in public in the company of a strange young man. It might hurt her case irremediably. With a full understanding of the situation, Manasseh took leave of the princess, who indeed was looking very down-hearted at the prospect of missing what she had so ardently desired. But she was schooled to the denial of her own pleasure, and so quietly shook hands with her caller--then went to the window to watch his retreating form. CHAPTER VI. THE CONSECRATED PALM-LEAF. Early the next morning the cannon began to boom from the Castle of St. Angelo. Gabriel Zimandy sprang out of bed and dressed himself quickly. His first care was to tap at Madam Dormandy's door and inquire for her health. The patient answered in a pitiful voice that the guns were fairly splitting her poor head, and that she did not expect to live the day through. This reply seemed to be quite to the advocate's liking: of the lady's succumbing to her ailment he had not the slightest fear, while he now felt assured that it would be impossible for his client to go out that day. What conception had he, heartless man, of the longing that filled the young woman's soul for the papal blessing, to which she ascribed such miraculous power, but which to him was nothing more than a Latin phrase? Soon the bells began to ring from all the church-towers of the city, and a stream of people in gala attire poured toward St. Peter's. Poor Blanka sat at her window with eyes fixed on a certain corner, around which she had the day before seen Manasseh Adorjan's form disappear. The clocks struck twelve, thirteen, fourteen--by Italian reckoning of time; the crowds began to thin, and at last every one seemed to have betaken himself to St. Peter's. An open carriage halted in the now deserted street in front of the hotel, and Blanka recognised in its occupant the very person whose image had been so persistently before her mind's eye. "Pardon me, princess, for intruding," began Manasseh in greeting, as he entered the young lady's presence; "but yesterday I saw that you were disappointed at not being able to attend the Easter service at St. Peter's. I have found means to remove that disappointment, I hope." The princess felt her pulse quicken with eager delight, while at the same time she shrank back in nameless apprehension of what the young man might be going to propose. "I fear it is too late," she replied, quietly. "I am not even dressed for the occasion." "You have time enough," returned the other, reassuringly. "The French minister's wife has kindly offered to take you with her. Seats for the ladies of the embassy have been reserved and can be easily reached by a special entrance. They are very near the _loggia_ where the papal blessing will be pronounced. In an hour Madame Rossi will be here; that will give you time to get ready." "And are you going with us?" "No, that will be impossible, as the reserved seats are for ladies only; but I will escort Madame Rossi and her daughter to your door, and you will, I am sure, find them very pleasant company. For myself, I shall hunt up some sort of a perch where I can get a view of the day's festivities." So saying, the young man hurried away. Against this plan Gabriel Zimandy could raise no objections. Indeed, he saw the policy of making friends with the French embassy, and as long as Manasseh was not to accompany the party his professional schemes were in no wise endangered. When Manasseh returned with the French ladies he sought the lawyer. "Come, my friend," he urged, "if your legs have nothing to say against it, if your religious belief permits, and if you have studied your Latin speech enough for one day, I will find you a good shady spot where you can witness what no mortal eye has seen in all these eighteen Christian centuries, and is little likely to see again in eighteen centuries to come." "What may that be?" "A Pope of the Romish Church, pronouncing his blessing from the _loggia_ of St. Peter's on the Roman army, preparatory to its marching forth to fight for freedom. Durando's troops are now marshalled in St. Peter's Square, awaiting the papal blessing on the swords drawn for liberty and country. It has, I know, been your dream to witness a sight like that, and now I come to invite you to its realisation." "Well, well, that is something worth while," admitted the advocate. "The whole Roman army, and Durando himself! Surely, I can't afford to miss it." The invitation had driven quite out of his head all the objections so strenuously urged the day before. The ladies had no difficulty in reaching the places reserved for them; for the gentlemen, however, it was not so easy to find even standing-room. But at length Manasseh guided his companion to one end of the scaffolding which supported the ladies' platform, and there found for him a V-shaped seat in the angle of two beams, while he himself stood on a projecting timber which afforded him room for one foot, and clung to the woodwork of the platform with both hands. The discomfort of his position was lightened for him by the fact that, only a few feet above, he could see Blanka's face as she sat with eyes directed toward the _loggia_ where the Pope was soon to appear. It was a grand spectacle. The whole army--infantry, cavalry, artillery--was drawn up in the immense _piazza_, each regiment carrying two flags--the banner of the Church, on which were depicted the keys of heaven, and the red, white, and green flag of Italian freedom. The background to this scene was furnished by the cathedral itself, a vast throng of spectators crowded the foreground, and the whole united to produce an effect of pomp and grandeur that fairly beggars description. The clocks struck eighteen--midday. The great bell sounded in the western turret of the cathedral, and the booming of cannon was once more heard from the Castle of St. Angelo. The service within the cathedral was at an end, the leather curtains that hung before the great bronze doors parted, and out poured the procession of pilgrims, until the whole wide expanse of the portico was filled. Mysterious music fell on the ear from somewhere above: a military band stationed aloft in the cupola had struck up a psalm of praise, and it seemed to the listeners to come from heaven itself. Silver trumpets--so the faithful believe--are used in rendering this piece. All faces were now turned toward the _loggia_, a sort of projecting balcony high up on the front of the cathedral. A sound like the murmur of the sea rose from the multitude: each spectator was shifting his position, and seeking a clearer view. Then the _loggia_ became suddenly filled with moving forms,--cardinals in their splendid robes, knights in mediæval armour, pages in costly livery. The crown-bearers advanced with two triple tiaras, one the gift of Napoleon I., the other presented by the queen of Spain, and both sparkling with diamonds. A third crown,--the oldest of all, originally simple in form, then a double diadem, and finally a threefold tiara,--encircled the head of the Pope himself, who, seated on a golden throne, was borne forward to the stone breastwork, on which two crowns had been placed by their bearers. The pontiff rose from his seat and the sun shone full upon his venerable form. He wore a white robe embroidered with gold, and his appearance was radiant with light. The benignant smile that illumined his countenance outshone all the diamonds in his triple crown. How happy was Princess Blanka at that moment! and hers were the fairest gems in all that costly array,--two tears that glistened in her large dark eyes as she gazed intently on the scene before her. The two youngest cardinals took their stand on either side of the Pope, each holding a palm-leaf in his hand. Then, over the awed and silent throng before him, in a voice still strong, sonorous, and vibrant with feeling, the aged pontiff pronounced his blessing in words at once simple, sincere, and gracious. Blanka and Manasseh exchanged glances, and the young man felt a tear-drop fall upon his cheek. From that moment an indissoluble bond united the two. When the benediction was over, a stentorian voice from the multitude cried, "_Evviva Pio Nono!_" The shout was caught up by all the vast throng, and sent heavenward in a united cry of ever-swelling volume. Not merely Pius IX., but St. Peter himself seemed to stand before the jubilant multitude, opening heaven's gates with one key, and the portals of an earthly paradise of freedom with another. The two cardinals cast their palm-leaves down to the people, and as they fell, fluttering uncertainly, now this way, now that, all eyes followed them to see who should be the happy ones to secure the precious emblems of benediction and absolution. One leaf, after hovering in the air a moment, sank in ever narrowing circles until it lodged on the flag of a volunteer regiment, whereupon a mighty cheer burst from thousands of throats. The other, borne hither and thither by shifting breezes, was finally wafted toward the raised platform where sat the ladies of the French embassy. A hundred hands reached eagerly for it as it sank lower and lower; but one arm, extending higher than the others, secured the prize. It was Manasseh who from his elevated position, intercepted the coveted token as it fell, and he immediately turned and presented it to Princess Cagliari, amid a storm of applause from the onlookers. The princess was a beautiful woman, but at the moment of receiving this symbol of forgiveness and blessing, her face gained such a look of radiant happiness as can only be imagined on the countenance of an angel in his flight to heaven; and to her that precious leaf meant heaven indeed. But when she turned to thank the giver he had disappeared. "That was really grand," admitted Gabriel Zimandy, as his friend piloted him through the surging throng to the nearest cab. "To think of the Pope's giving his blessing to an army mustered in the cause of liberty! Such a sight was never seen before." "No," returned Manasseh; "and you must make haste to push your client's cause while he is in his present good humour, which may not last." "But, surely, you don't mean that his Holiness is in any way trifling with the people, do you?" asked the advocate. "I am fully convinced," replied the other, "that Pio Nono is a gentle, good-hearted, upright man, and a gracious pontiff; but I also believe that, at the very first engagement, the Austrians will give the pious Durando a most unmerciful whipping. What direction the wind will take in Rome after that, no mortal can tell. You will do well, however, to make the most of your time while that palm-leaf is still green." CHAPTER VII. AN AUDIENCE WITH THE POPE. On the following day came the audience with his Holiness, Pius the Ninth. The Very Reverend Dean Szerenyi was first sent by the master of ceremonies to instruct the lawyer and his client in the details of their approaching interview. This envoy even took pains to indicate in what sort of toilet ladies were expected to appear. The gown must come up high about the neck and might be of any colour desired, or of black silk if the wearer was in mourning. Jewelry was not forbidden. A lackey in red livery would usher the strangers into the audience-chamber. Their petition must be carried in the hand. In the throne-room--where ladies were permitted to gaze to their hearts' content on the splendid display of Japanese porcelain--the major-domo would marshal the company in a double file, and there they would wait until his Holiness appeared. "But look here," interposed Zimandy, with a troubled look, "does the Pope know I am a Calvinist?" "He never asks about the religious belief of those who seek an audience with him. On all alike he bestows his blessing, assuming that all who court his favour have an equal need of his benediction." "Are there very many asking an audience at this time?" "Only eight hundred." "E-e-e! Eight hundred! How am I ever going to get a chance to deliver my Latin speech that I have been working on all night?" "You will not be called upon for it at all. It is not customary in a general audience with the Pope to make set speeches. His Holiness addresses whom he chooses, and they answer him. All petitions are taken in charge by the secretary." "Then it is lucky I put into mine everything that I intended to say. Well, give my respects to his Holiness, and tell him I was the one who made the motion in the Pest Radical Club to have his portrait hung on the wall in a gilt frame; and if he is a smoker, I should be happy to send him some superfine--" But the dean had urgent matters to attend to, and begged to take his leave without further delay. Our travellers, with the eager promptness characteristic of Hungarians on such occasions, were the first to be ushered into the antechamber at the Vatican. Consequently they had an opportunity to hear the names of all the other petitioners announced by the footman as they came in by ones and twos and in little parties. They seemed to be all foreign prelates, princes, ambassadors, and other high dignitaries; and, in drawing them up in line, the major-domo gave them all precedence over our party, much to the latter's humiliation and disgust. It is not pleasant to stand waiting for a whole hour, only to find at its end that one is no farther forward than at first. But when the antechamber was nearly full, a uniformed official entered by a side door and made his way to the very foot of the line where the Hungarians were standing. "Serenissima principessa de Cagliari! Nobilis domina vidua de Dormand! Egregius dominus de Zimand!" This ceremonious apostrophe was followed by a wave of the hand, which indicated that the persons addressed were to follow the speaker, and that they were granted the special favour of a private hearing before his Holiness. Through the long hall, past lines of waiting men and women, they made their way; and as they went, inquiring looks and suppressed whispers followed them. The princess was recognised by many as the fortunate recipient of the consecrated palm-leaf on the day before, and they whispered one to another, "Ah, _la beata!_" This sudden turn of affairs drove Gabriel Zimandy's Latin speech completely out of his head, so that he could not have given even the first word. As he hastened forward in all his court toggery, as he called it, he could have sworn that there were at least fifty swords dangling between his legs and doing their best to trip him up. After passing through a seemingly endless succession of splendid halls and stately corridors, the party was ushered into an apartment opening on the magnificent gardens of the Vatican. Here it was that Pio Nono was wont to receive the ladies whom he favoured with a private audience. The princess and her companions stood before the august head of the Church, the sovereign who acknowledges no earthly boundaries to his dominions. Blanka felt a deep joy in her heart as she looked on that benignant countenance, her eyes filled with tears, and she sank on her knees. The Pope bent and graciously raised her to her feet. He laid his hand on her head, and spoke to her words of comfort which she enshrined in the inmost sanctuary of her heart. When the audience was over and our friends had retired, Gabriel Zimandy could not have given any coherent account of what had passed, nor, indeed, was he in the least certain whether he had unburdened himself of his Latin speech, or stuck fast at the _beatissime pater_. Madam Dormandy, however, was sure to enlighten him as soon as they regained their hotel. He knew at least that the written petition which he had carried in his hand was no longer on his person; hence he must have accomplished his main object. Madam Dormandy alone seemed to have kept her wits about her through it all. She was able to tell how the Pope, while Zimandy was stammering some sort of gibberish,--Hebrew or Greek, for aught she knew,--had taken his snuff-box from a pocket behind, and smilingly helped himself to a pinch of snuff. Further, the snuff-box had looked like a common tortoise-shell affair with an enamelled cover; and after he had taken his pinch, he had put his hand into the pocket of his gold-embroidered silk gown and drawn out a coarse cotton handkerchief such as the Franciscans use. But these little details had entirely escaped the princess and her lawyer. CHAPTER VIII. AN UNWELCOME VISITOR. One day, when Blanka announced her intention of visiting the Colosseum for the purpose of sketching it, Gabriel Zimandy declared that he could not be one of the party, and the two ladies must get along without his escort. He said he was going to the Lateran, in his client's interest, and added that he had just received unwelcome news from Manasseh. "Then you have told him what brought us to Rome," said the princess. "Are you angry with me for doing so?" asked the advocate. "No, no; you were quite right. What word does he send you?" "I'll read you what he says--if I can; he writes an abominable hand. 'While you are seeing the sights of Rome with the ladies,' he begins, 'important events are taking place elsewhere. General Durando has had a taste of the Austrians at Ferrara, and found them hard nuts to crack. In his wrath he now proclaims a crusade against them, fastens red crosses on his soldiers' breasts, and is pushing forward to cross the Po. But this action of his is very displeasing to the Pope, who does not look kindly on a crusade by a Roman army against a Christian nation. Accordingly he has forbidden Durando to cross the Po. If now the general disobeys, all those whose powerful favour your client at present enjoys will lose their influence; and should he suffer defeat beyond the Po, as he well may, your client's enemies could hardly fail to gain the upper hand. You will do wisely, therefore, to press an issue before it is too late.'" "But is it possible that I should be made to suffer for a defeat on the battle-field?" asked Blanka. "H'm! _Quidquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi_," returned the advocate, sententiously; and he hurried away without explaining that the quotation meant,--Whenever kings fall to quarrelling, the common people suffer for it. Such was the old Greek usage. Blanka was thus left to find her way to the Colosseum with Madam Dormandy, under the guidance of an abbot, whom they had secured as cicerone; and, while the reverend father entertained the young widow with a historical lecture, the princess seated herself at the foot of the cross that stands in the middle of the arena, and sought to sketch the view before her. But her success was poor; she was conscious of failure with every fresh attempt. Three times she began, and as often was forced to discard her work and start over again. The Colosseum will not suffer its likeness to be taken by every one; it is a favour that must be fought for. High up on the dizzy height of the third gallery sat a wee speck of a man with an easel before him. Even through an opera-glass the painter looked like an ant on a house-top. He wore a broad-brimmed straw hat, and behind him a large umbrella was opened against the fierce rays of the Italian sun. Thus protected, he sat there busily at work. Blanka envied him: he had mastered the mighty Colosseum and caught its likeness. How had he set about it? Why, naturally enough, he had climbed the giddy height and conquered the giant from above. She resolved to come again, early the next morning, and follow his example. With that she tore the spoiled leaves impatiently from her sketch-book, and threw them down among the thistles that sprang up everywhere between the stones of the ruin. It was getting late, and she was forced to return to her hotel and dress for the theatre. The way back led past the Cagliari palace, and Blanka noted with surprise that its iron shutters were open and the first story brilliantly lighted. The gate, too, was thrown back, giving a view of the courtyard, which wore rather the aspect of a garden. Who could have wrought this sudden transformation in the deserted old mansion? A still greater surprise awaited the princess when she reached her hotel. The proprietor himself came down the steps to open her carriage door, assist her to alight, and escort her to her rooms. "Thank you, sir, but pray don't trouble yourself," began Blanka. "I can find my way very well alone." The innkeeper persisted, however, although the double doors to which he led her, and which he threw open before her, were not those of her own apartment. The ladies found themselves in a sumptuously furnished anteroom, from which, through a half-opened door, they looked into a spacious drawing-room yet more luxuriously fitted up, with oil paintings on its walls and potted plants in its four corners. Leading out of this apartment, to right and left, were still other elaborately furnished rooms, which a footman in gold-braided red livery obsequiously threw open. "While the princess was out," explained the hotel keeper, with a bow and a smile, "I had this suite of rooms put in order for her reception, and hope they will give entire satisfaction." "No, no, my dear sir," protested Blanka, "they appear far too magnificent for my needs, and I prefer to remain where I was. And how about this footman?" "A servant of the house, but now dressed in the princess's livery," was the reply. "Henceforth he is to be at your sole disposal, and a liveried coachman in a white wig, with a closed carriage, is also ordered to serve you. All this is in compliance with directions from high quarters. A gentleman was here in your absence and expressed great displeasure that Princess Cagliari and her party were lodged in a suite of only four rooms. Where is his card, Beppo? Go and fetch it." Blanka had no need to look at the card: she knew well enough whose name it bore. Controlling her agitation, she turned calmly to the hotel proprietor. "I must beg you," said she, "not to receive orders from any one but my attorney. Otherwise I shall feel obliged to leave your hotel at once. Let my old rooms be opened for me again, and engage no special servants on my account." So saying, she returned to her former quarters. With no little impatience she awaited the advocate's return, and as soon as he appeared questioned him eagerly for news. "None at all," he answered, wearily. "I've been running around all day, and have accomplished absolutely nothing; couldn't find the people I wished to see, and those I did find pretended not to understand a word I said. If I only knew where that fellow Manasseh had hidden himself!" "I could tell you," thought Blanka, but did not offer to do so. "Well," said she, aloud, "if you have no news, I have. Look at this card." The lawyer put on his eyeglasses and read the name,--"Benjamin Vajdar." "Prince Cagliari is in Rome also," added Blanka. The advocate looked at her. "So Vajdar has been here, has he? Did you see him?" "No; but he is sure to come again. I have given orders that he is to be referred to you. I have nothing to say to him." "Just let me get hold of him!" cried Gabriel, with menace in his looks, and then added: "I only wish I knew where to find Manasseh." "I know," said the princess to herself. She had learned his address by a curious accident. When she and the young painter went to see the Sistine Chapel together they were called upon, as are all visitors, to give their names and addresses. Thus she could not avoid hearing the street and number of Manasseh's temporary abode, and this street and number she had afterward written down in her sketch-book--foreign names are so hard to remember. When her lawyer had withdrawn she sought her book and turned its leaves in search of the address. But though she hunted through all the pages again and again, she could not find the memorandum which she felt sure she had made. Suddenly she remembered having torn out and thrown away two or three leaves,--those containing her futile attempts to sketch the Colosseum. At this point a letter was delivered to the princess. It was from Prince Cagliari, and asked Blanka to assign an hour at which to receive him. She answered the note at once, naming ten o'clock of the following morning. Promptly on the hour appointed the prince's equipage appeared at the hotel door, and he himself came up the stairs, leaning on his gold-headed cane. He enjoyed the full use of only one foot, although his gouty condition was not very apparent except when he climbed a flight of stairs. Ordinarily he showed admirable skill in disguising his defect. He was still a fine-looking man, and only the whiteness of his hair betrayed his age. Clean-shaven and of florid complexion, he wore a constant smile on his finely chiselled lips, and bore himself with a graceful air of self-assertion that seldom failed of its effect on the women whom he chose to honour with his attentions. The head waiter hurried on before him to announce his coming. Blanka met the prince in her antechamber. He took her offered hand and at the same time barred the waiter's exit with his cane. "Is the princess still lodged in these rooms?" he demanded. The servant could not find a word to say in apology, but the princess came to his aid. "I wished to remain here," said she, calmly. The domestic was then dismissed and the visitor ushered into the next room. "I greatly regret," he began, "that you chose to put aside my friendly intercession on your behalf. These quarters do not befit your rank. Furthermore, by retaining a Protestant lawyer you appear to challenge me to the bitterest of conflicts." "Do you so interpret my action?" asked Blanka, proud reproach in her tone. "No, Blanka, assuredly not. Your own noble heart moved you rather to use mild measures--in spite of your attorney. You generously refrained from pushing your advantage against me while I was detained elsewhere and while my secretary was also unavoidably delayed. In return for this generosity, Prince Cagliari comes to you now, not as your opponent in a suit at law, not as a husband to claim his wife, but as a father seeking his daughter. What say you? Will you accept me as a father?" Blanka was almost inclined to believe in the speaker's sincerity; yet he had caused her far too much pain in the past to admit of any sudden reconciliation in this theatrical fashion. She remained unmoved. "Bear in mind, my dear Blanka," proceeded the prince, "that the key to the situation is now in my hands. Recent important events have made me a _persona grata_ at the Vatican, and now the first of the conditions which I feel justified in imposing on you is that you acquiesce in the arrangements which, with all a father's forethought, I have made for your comfort during your sojourn in Rome. If the case between us is to reach a peaceful settlement, we must, above all things, avoid the appearance of mutual hostility; and it is a hostile demonstration on the part of Princess Cagliari to be seen driving about the city in a hired cab, and occupying, with her party, a suite of only four rooms. My duty demanded that I should at least offer you the use of the Cagliari palace, which consists of two entirely distinct wings, with separate entrances, stairs, and gardens; but I knew only too well that you would have rejected the offer." "Most certainly." "Therefore nothing was left me but to order the apartments in this hotel commonly occupied by visiting foreign princes to be placed at your disposal. No burdensome obligation, however, will be incurred by you in acceding to this arrangement, as I shall, in the event of our separation, see that the expense is deducted from the allowance which I shall be required to make you." Blanka, who was naturally of a confiding disposition, not infrequently reposed her confidence where it was undeserved,--a failing not to be wondered at in one so young. Her husband was one of those in whom she thus sometimes placed too large a measure of trust, although she had early learned that no word from his mouth was to be accepted in its obvious meaning. Yet this matter of her apartments in the hotel seemed to her of such trifling moment that she let him have his way and consented to make the change which he desired, albeit at the same time strongly suspecting a hidden motive on his part. "I am very glad, my dear Blanka," said Cagliari, when the princess had indicated her willingness to comply with his request, "to find you disposed to meet me half-way in this matter. We will, then, leave further details to the hotel keeper. He will provide you with servants in the livery of our house. How many do you wish--two?" "One will suffice." "And if he does not suit you, dismiss him and demand another. You shall have no ground for suspecting me of placing a spy upon you in the guise of a servant." "Even if you should, it would trouble me little. A spy would find nothing to report to you." "My dear Blanka, no one sees his own face except in a mirror; others can see it at all times." "Have you anything to criticise in my conduct?" "Nothing, I assure you. I know your firmness of principle. I look at you now, not through the yellow glass used by a jealous husband in scrutinising his wife, but through the rose-coloured glass that a fond father holds before his eyes in regarding a beloved daughter. If you travelled in a stranger's company on your journey to Rome, that may very well have been a mere matter of chance. If you left the accustomed route under his escort, you may have done so to avoid suspected dangers. If you are seen again in Rome at this stranger's side, I see nothing in that but his recognition of his duty toward you,--the courtesy of a fellow countryman acquainted with Rome toward a lady visiting that city for the first time. And if you walked together arm in arm, it was undoubtedly because of the pressure of the crowd, which always justifies a lady in seeking the protection of the first man available." This speech filled Blanka with indignation and dismay. Weapons were being forged against her, she perceived; but she could do nothing. Had she offered a denial, her glowing cheeks would have testified against her. She held her peace, accordingly, and preserved such outward composure as she was able. "_N'en parlons plus!_" concluded the prince, fully aware of his triumph. "No one shall boast of outdoing Prince Cagliari in magnanimity,--not even his wife. Where you have knelt and sued for mercy, I too will kneel; what you have written in your petition I will subscribe to, and add still further: 'We are not husband and wife, we are father and daughter.' And you shall learn that this is no empty phrase. I do not seek to sever the bond between us; I exchange it for another." All this was uttered in so friendly a tone, and with such seeming warmth of feeling, that no one unacquainted with the speaker, and not knowing him for the most consummate of hypocrites and the cleverest of actors, could have listened to him without being moved almost to tears. But his hearer in this instance knew him only too well. She knew that Jerome Cagliari was most to be feared when he professed the noblest sentiments. Rising from his chair, he added, as if it were a matter of the most trifling importance: "This afternoon I will send my secretary to you." "Your secretary?" repeated Blanka, with a start. "Pray send me anybody but him,--a notary, a strange lawyer, an attorney's clerk, a servant. I will receive your instructions from any of these, but not from your secretary." "And why not from him?" "Because I hate him." "Then you hate the man who is your best friend in all the world,--yes, even a better friend than I myself. If I were to ask heaven for a son I could pray for no more excellent young man than he. He has my full confidence and esteem." "But if you knew why I hate him!" interjected Blanka, in a voice that trembled. "Before you bring your accusation against him," rejoined the other, "remember you are speaking, not to your husband, but to your father, who wishes not only to set you free, but also to make you happy. Accordingly, I will send Mr. Benjamin Vajdar to call on you to-morrow afternoon, to open the way for a harmonious settlement of the affair between us. I beg you to receive him as my confidant and plenipotentiary, and not to let your attorney know of his coming. For myself, I shall, with your permission, allow myself the pleasure of calling on you again." With this the prince kissed Blanka's hand, and withdrew. Scarcely had he gone, when Gabriel Zimandy presented himself to learn the object of Cagliari's visit. But Blanka obeyed orders, and kept back the chief motive of his coming, saying simply that he had asked permission to order a larger and finer suite of rooms for her use, and that in this matter she had thought best to humour him. The advocate acquiesced, recognising the importance of securing the prince's good-will under present conditions. CHAPTER IX. THE ANONYMOUS LETTER. No sooner had her lawyer left her than a letter was delivered to Blanka by one of the hotel servants. It was unsigned, and to the following effect: "PRINCESS CAGLIARI:--Be cautious. Prince Cagliari is carrying out a fiendish scheme against you. Like yourself, he is bent on securing a divorce, but only that he may marry you to his protégé and favourite. He is even capable of selling his own wife. Hitherto you have been Cagliari's wife, and the Marchioness Caldariva his mistress; now he wishes to reverse these relations, and make the marchioness his wife, and you his mistress. Be on your guard. You are in the country of the Borgias." The princess was not a little disturbed by this communication. Monstrous as was the plot which it purported to disclose, she could not disbelieve it when ascribed to the two men in question. Certain fearful remembrances of the past confirmed her suspicions, and even inspired her in her distress with thoughts of suicide. But what if this letter were merely a trap? Who could have written it? Who, in that city, where so few knew even of her existence, was sufficiently familiar with her private affairs to be able to write it? Whom could she now consult, with whom share her anxious forebodings? Involuntarily she took up her sketch-book, and turned its leaves once more. In vain; the address was gone--gone with the leaves she had torn out and thrown away in the Colosseum. Having no further engagements for that morning, she proposed to her companion a second visit to the Colosseum, that she might once more essay the sketch which had baffled her the day before. Both Madam Dormandy and the advocate signified their readiness to accompany her, the more so as a party of German visitors was planning an inspection of the Colosseum's subterranean chambers and passages, and Zimandy proposed to join them. Blanka made it her first care, on arriving at the Colosseum, to search for the lost sketch-book leaves; but though she remembered exactly where she had dropped them, neither she nor her friend could discover the least trace of them. Who could have appropriated them? The artist in the gallery had been the only stranger present at the time of her previous visit. While the advocate and Madam Dormandy went with the German party to inspect the lower regions, Blanka remained above, on the plea that such subterranean excursions made her unwell. There were no robbers or wild beasts to molest her in the arena during the others' absence, and, besides, the entrances were all guarded. She sat down at the foot of the cross, but not to draw, for her mind was not now on her sketch. Plucking the dandelions that grew in profusion about her, she fashioned them into a chain and hung it around her neck. The thought came to her, as she was thus engaged, that of all the Christian martyrs torn to pieces by wild beasts in that arena, not one of them, when the tigers and hyenas leaped upon their prey, felt such a terror as hers at sight of the monsters that seemed to be closing in about her to rend her limb from limb. How happy the artist must be up there in the lofty gallery! For there he was, still at work on his picture. The artist is the only really happy man. He need fear no exile; every land is his home. No foreign tongue can confuse him; his thoughts find a medium of expression intelligible to all. Wars have no terror for him; he paints them, but takes no part in them. Storms and tempests, by land or sea, speak to him not of danger, but are merely the symbols of nature's ever-varying moods. Popular insurrections furnish his canvas with picturesque groupings of animated humanity. Though all Rome surge with uproar about him, he sits under his sun-umbrella and paints. The artist is a cold-blooded man. He paints a madonna, but his piety is none the greater for it. He draws a Venus, but his heart is still whole. He pictures God and Satan, but prostrates himself before neither. How independent, too, he must feel as he wanders through the world! He asks no help in the production of his creations. The priest need not pray for rain or sunshine on his account. He seeks no office or title from prince or potentate. He desires no favour, no privilege, nor does he even require the advantage of a recognised religious belief. With his genius he can conquer the world. Art it is, moreover, that makes woman the equal of man. The woman artist is something more than man's other half; she is complete in herself. She does not ask the world for a living, she does not beg any man to give her his name, she kneels before no marriage-altar for the priest's blessing; she goes forth and wins for herself all that she desires. An irresistible impulse drove Blanka to ascend to the painter's lofty perch in order to see how he was succeeding in the task which she herself knew not even how to begin. An artist engrossed in his work heeds not what is going on around him. The painter in this instance wore a simple canvas jacket, spotted with oil and colours here and there, and a straw hat, broad of brim and ventilated with abundant holes. The princess, looking over his shoulder, was far less interested in the painter than in his work. Indeed, the artist himself was so absorbed in his task that, to save time, he held one of his brushes crosswise between his teeth while he worked with the other. Yet the instinct of politeness impelled him, as soon as he heard the rustle of a lady's skirt behind him, to remove his broad-brimmed hat and place it on the floor at his side. "Manasseh!" Startled surprise and gladness spoke in that word, which slipped out ere the speaker's discretion could prevent it. The young man turned quickly. "Princess!" he exclaimed, "where did you drop from?" "I was not looking for you," she stammered, thus betraying that she had been seeking him and was rejoiced, heart and soul, at the chance that had led her to him. Manasseh smiled. "No, not for me, but for the painter wrestling with the Colosseum from this lofty roost. I saw you yesterday attempting the same task from below." "And you recognised me--so far off?" "I have very good eyes. I also saw that you were dissatisfied with your attempts, for you tore out one leaf after another from your sketch-book and threw them away." "Did you find them again?" asked Blanka, breathlessly. "I made it a point to do so, Princess," was the reply. "Oh, then give them back to me, please!" "Here they are." No creditor ever did his distressed debtor a greater favour in surrendering to him an overdue note than did Manasseh in restoring the lost leaves to their owner. She replaced them carefully in her sketch-book, assuring herself, as she did so, that the missing address was on the blank side of one of them. What if it had caught the young man's eye? How would he have explained its presence there? She sat down to rest a moment on the stone railing of the gallery, her back to the arena and her face toward Manasseh,--an arrangement that very much interfered with the artist's view of what he was painting. The sun shone directly in her eyes, and she had no sunshade, having left hers in the carriage. The arena was so shaded that she had needed none there. Manasseh adjusted his umbrella so as to shield the princess, and the rosy hue which its red fabric cast on her face reminded him of the _Horæ_ that precede the sun-god's chariot at dawn, their forms glowing with purple and rose-coloured tints in the morning light. "I am very glad I happened to meet you," said Blanka, speaking more sedately this time. "The party I came with is down below listening to an archæological lecture on the _cunei_, the _podium_, the _vomitorium_, and heaven knows what all, in which I am not interested. So I have time to discuss with you, if you will let me, a point which you raised the other day and which I have been puzzling over ever since. You said that where you used to live revenge is unknown; and that, though you were suffering under a grievous injury and had the means to exact full satisfaction, yet you would not take your revenge. I too am suffering in the same manner, and that is why I am now in Rome. I have pondered your words and have imitated your example. Possessing the means of revenge, I refused to use them. I loosed my enemy's hands when they were bound. Did I do well?" "Yes." "No, I did not. I should have taken my revenge. Revenge is man's right." "Revenge is the brute's right," Manasseh corrected her. "It never repairs an injury that has once been done. In this I and the handful of my fellow-believers differ from mankind in general. In our eyes war is revenge, the duel is revenge, capital punishment is revenge, revolution is revenge. Those who profess themselves followers of Jesus too often forget that when he was dying on the cross he said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'" "That was said by Jesus the man; but Jesus the God has ascended into heaven, whence he will come to judge the quick and the dead. And that is revenge." "That conception of the Judgment is one that I cannot entertain," returned Manasseh. "Man has made a god of the noblest of men, and has made him like those earlier divinities who slew Niobe's innocent children with their arrows." Blanka was sitting so far back on the stone railing that the artist felt obliged to warn her of her danger. "Oh, I am protected by guardian angels," she replied, lightly. She wished to learn whether one of those angels was then before her. "I received this morning an anonymous letter," she continued, "and as it contains certain facts which only you could know, my first thought was that you had written it." "I assure you, I have never written you a letter," declared Manasseh. "Please read it." She handed him the letter. How quickly the young man's calm face flushed and glowed with passion as he read! The martyrs of old could forgive their enemies for the tortures inflicted on them; but could they also pardon the inhumanity shown to their loved ones? Manasseh crumpled the paper in his hand with vindictive energy, as if he had held in his grasp the authors of that detestable plot. Yet what right had he now to take vengeance on a man whom he had refrained from punishing on Anna's behalf? Anna was his own sister, and as such a beloved being. Her life had been spoiled by this man, yet her brother had been able to declare, "We do not seek revenge"--although this revenge was easily in his power. And what was Blanka to him? A dream. And did this dream weigh more with him than the sorrow that had invaded his own family? He returned the letter to its owner. "Just like them!" he muttered between his teeth. "Prince Cagliari is in Rome," remarked Blanka. "I know it. I met him, and he spoke to me and thanked me for the attentions I had shown his wife during Holy Week." It was fortunate for the princess that she sat in the rosy light of the red umbrella, so that her heightened colour passed unnoticed. "He called on me this morning," said she, "and showed himself very gracious. His position is now stronger than it was, affairs at the Vatican being guided at present by those who look upon him with favour." "Yes, I know that," said Manasseh. "How do you know it, may I ask?" "Oh, I have wide-reaching connections. My landlord is a cobbler. 'Messere Scalcagnato' lounges about the _piazza_ by the hour, is therefore well instructed in political matters, and keeps me duly informed of all that takes place at the Vatican." The princess gave a merry laugh at the thought of Manasseh's taking lessons in politics from the professor of shoemaking. A little feeling of satisfaction contributed also to her display of good humour: she was assured by Manasseh's words that his address was still the same that she had noted in her sketch-book. But her laugh was immediately followed by a sigh, and she folded her hands in her lap. "I wage war with nobody, Heaven knows!" she exclaimed, sadly. "I have merely sued for mercy, and it has been promised me." "Princess," interposed the young man, gently, "I cannot intervene between you and your enemies, but I can arm you with a weapon of defence against their assaults. If you wish to repulse the man whom you fear and who pursues you,--to give him such a rebuff that he will never again dare to approach you,--then wait until he makes the proposal which you dread, and give him this answer: 'Between you and me there is a canonical interdict which renders our union impossible; it is contained in the fourteenth paragraph of the Secret Instructions.' As soon as you say that he will vanish so completely from your presence that you will never set eyes on him again." "Wonderful!" cried Blanka. "That will surely be a miracle." "Such it may always remain to you," returned Manasseh, "and you may never know how deep a wound you have inflicted. But you must thenceforth look for no mercy. Sue urgently for a decision, and be prepared for a harsh one." "Thank you," said Blanka, simply. "_N'en parlons plus_"--repeating Prince Cagliari's phrase. With that she stepped lightly to the stone block which the artist had been using for a chair, and, seating herself on it, began to copy in outline his painting of the Colosseum, as if that had been the sole purpose of her coming. Nor did she so much as ask permission thus to violate the rules of professional courtesy. This sketching from a finished picture she found vastly easier than drawing from the object itself, a task which always proves elusive and baffling to the beginner. Manasseh took his stand behind her as she worked, but his eyes were not wholly occupied in following her pencil. Meanwhile the archæological explorers had abundant time to inspect all the subterranean passages and chambers of the Colosseum, and it was only when they emerged into the arena and began to seek their lost companion, with loud outcries, that she started up in some alarm and made haste to retrace her steps. Manasseh picked up the dandelion chain that had fallen from her neck and put it in his bosom. CHAPTER X. THE FOURTEENTH PARAGRAPH. Blanka was now like a boy who fears to stay at home alone, and to whom his father has therefore given a loaded gun as a security. The lad has a shuddering eagerness to encounter a burglar, that he may try his weapon on him, never doubting but that he can kill a giant if need be. Let the robbers come if they wish; he is armed and ready for them. In this confidence Blanka's entire mood underwent a change: she became light-hearted almost to the point of unrestrained gaiety. At the very door of her hotel she began to exchange pleasantries with the landlord, who came forward to greet her with the announcement that a gentleman, a count, had called upon her in her absence. "Count who?" asked the princess, whereupon she was presented with a card bearing the name of Benjamin Vajdar. But she read it without losing a particle of her serenity, and then ordered an elaborate lunch. While her dishes were preparing, she sent for a hair-dresser and for a maid to assist at her toilet. She wished to make herself beautiful--even more beautiful than usual--and, indeed, she accomplished her object. Her slender form, its height accentuated by a long bodice, looked still taller from the imposing manner in which her hair was dressed. Her features, until then somewhat drawn by the strain of constant anxiety, gained now a vivacity that was matched by the added colour that glowed in her cheeks. A single morning in the Italian sun had, it would have seemed to an observer, worked wonders in her appearance. But what she herself marvelled at most of all was the new light that shone in her eyes. What could have caused this transformation? The weapon which she held in her hands,--"the fourteenth paragraph of the Secret Instructions." What cared she that to her these words were utterly meaningless? It sufficed her to know that there was such a paragraph; _he_ had told her so. A waiter announced that her lunch was served. Ordinarily Blanka ate no more than a sick child; now she was conscious of an appetite like that of a convalescent making up for a long series of lost meals. The dainties which she had ordered tasted uncommonly appetising. While she was busy with her oysters, the head waiter informed her that the "count" had come a second time and begged leave to wait upon her. "Show him up," promptly replied the princess, without allowing her lunch to be interrupted in the least. The handsome young man already introduced to the reader was ushered in. The situation in which he found the princess seemed scarcely to harmonise with his plans. It rendered exceedingly difficult any approach to the sentimental. "Set a chair for the gentleman," Blanka commanded her attendant, speaking, as if from forgetfulness, in Hungarian, and then correcting herself with a great show of surprise at her own carelessness. "_Grazie!_ And now, sir, pray be seated. You will pardon me if I go on with my lunch. We can converse just the same. This man will not understand a word we say. We may consider our interview entirely private." Vajdar misinterpreted the situation: he thought the princess feared him, as of old, and that therefore she kept her servant in the room. This belief only added fuel to his evil passions. He who sees himself feared gains an increased sense of power. "I come bearing the olive-branch, Princess," he began, in smooth accents. At this Blanka turned suddenly to her attendant. "That reminds me," she exclaimed; "Beppo, the waiter forgot my olives." Vajdar had taken a chair and drawn up to the table. "The prince wishes," he continued, "to keep his promise and to show you all the affectionate concern of a father toward his daughter." He produced a roll of manuscript from his pocket. "There are certain points in your marriage contract which must be discussed. Prince Cagliari made over to you, at the time of your union, one million silver florins. If you should gain your suit you would retain this sum in full; otherwise you would lose it all. He now offers you the following compromise. The principal is not to be paid into your hands, but you are to receive the interest on it, at six per cent., during your lifetime. And, more than that, one-half of the Palazzo Cagliari is placed at your disposal as a dwelling." The princess bowed, as if in assent, but expressed the hope that she should not be obliged to stay long in Rome. "I think you will find it advisable to remain some time, at any rate," said the young man. "But I wish to return home, to Hungary, where, as you know, I have an estate of my own." "That will be impossible, because the Serbs have burnt your castle to the ground." "Burnt it to the ground? But my steward has not informed me of this." "And for a very good reason: the insurgents chopped off his head on his own threshold." Even this intelligence could not destroy Blanka's appetite. She ate her sardines with unusual relish, and Vajdar could see that she gave little credence to his words. "Stormy times are ahead of us," he went on, "and I assure you this is the only safe retreat for you,--the holy city, the home of peace." "As is proved by the iron shutters on the windows of the Cagliari palace," remarked Blanka. "But tell me, if I should wish to choose my own household and my own intimates, would that liberty be allowed me?" "Undoubtedly. Nevertheless, it would be greatly to your advantage to surround yourself with persons speaking the language of the country and familiar with its ways." "And if I should win my cause, and should take a fancy to marry again, could I select a husband to suit myself?" This was too much. It was like throwing raw meat to a caged tiger. "Without doubt," murmured Benjamin Vajdar between his teeth, at the same time casting furious glances at the servant behind his mistress's chair. Suddenly the princess changed her tactics. She wished to show her enemy that she dared leave her entrenchments and offer battle in the open field. "Caro Beppo," said she, turning to the servant, "clear the table, please, and then stay outside until I call you. Meantime, admit no one." The two were left alone, and Vajdar was free to say what he wished. Blanka made bold to rise and survey herself coquettishly in the mirror, as if to make sure of her own beauty. She was the first to speak. "All these favourable turns in my affairs are due to your kind intervention, I infer," she began. "Without wishing to be boastful, I must admit that they are. You know the prince: he has more whims and freaks than Caligula. He has moments when he is capable of throttling an angel from heaven, and gentle moods in which he is ready to do his most deadly enemy a secret kindness. These latter phases of his humour it was my task to lie in wait for and turn to your account. Whether this was a difficult task or not, you who know the prince can judge." "You will find me not ungrateful," said the princess. "In case the unpleasant affair which has called me to Rome is settled satisfactorily, I shall make over to you, as the one chiefly instrumental in effecting this settlement, the yearly allowance intended for me by the prince. For myself I retain nothing further, and wish nothing further, than my golden freedom." Vajdar's face glowed with feeling. He was a good actor and could summon the colour to his cheeks at will. "But even if you should give me your all, and the whole world besides," he returned, "I should count it as dross in comparison with one kind word from your lips. I know it is the height of boldness on my part to strive for the object of my longing; but an ardent passion justifies even the rashest presumption. You remember the fable of the giants' piling Pelion upon Ossa in order to scale Olympus. I am capable of following their example. You would cease to look down on me were I of like rank with yourself; and this equality of station I shall yet attain." "I am sure I shall be the first to congratulate you." "The prince has promised to be a father to you if, as the result of a peaceful separation, he ceases to be your husband. A somewhat similar promise he has made to me also." "Does he intend to adopt you as his son?" asked Blanka. "Such is his purpose," replied Vajdar. "And what, pray, is his motive in this?" Benjamin Vajdar averted his face, as if contending with feelings of shame. "Do not ask me," he begged, "to betray the weakness of my poor mother. Hers was an unhappy lot, and I am the child of her misfortune. He whose duty it is to make that misfortune good is--Prince Cagliari." Blanka could hardly suppress an exclamation. "Oh, you scoundrel!" she was on the point of crying, "how can you dishonour your mother in her grave, and deny your own honest birth, merely to pass yourself off as a prince's bastard son?" Instead of this she clapped her hands and exclaimed: "How interesting! It is just like a play at the theatre. 'Is not the little toe of your left foot broken?' 'Yes.' 'Then you are my son.' Or thus: 'Haven't you a birthmark on the back of your neck?' 'I have.' 'Let me see it. Aha! you are my long-lost boy.' Or, again: 'Who gave you that half of a coin which you wear on a string around your neck?' 'My mother, on her death-bed.' 'Come to my arms. You have found your father.'" Her listener was convinced that he had to do with a credulous child whose ears were open to the flimsiest of fairy tales. He proceeded to entertain her with further interesting details of his story, after which the princess produced the anonymous letter she had that morning received. First smoothing it out on her knee,--for it had been sadly crumpled by a certain hand, and, indeed, even bore the impression of a man's thumb in oil,--she presented it to her visitor. "Please read that," said she, "and then explain it to me." Vajdar had no sooner glanced at the letter than he perceived that the enemy, by a feigned retreat, had been decoying him over a mine which threatened presently to explode. Yet his assurance did not desert him. "A stupid bit of play-acting!" he exclaimed, throwing the letter down on the table. "But whose interest could it have been to indulge in play-acting at my expense?" asked Blanka. "I can tell you, for I recognise the handwriting. The Marchioness Caldariva wrote you that letter." "The Marchioness Caldariva? Is she here?" "To be sure. The prince never travels without her." "But what motive had she thus to injure herself and, perhaps, prevent her marriage with the prince?" "Motive enough for a woman," replied Vajdar,--"jealousy." "Jealousy!" repeated Blanka, in astonishment. But one glance at the face confronting her was a sufficient explanation. That handsome face, smiling with triumph and self-confidence, made her tingle with wrath and scorn from head to foot. This man, it appeared, was impudent enough to play the rôle of suitor to his patron's wife, and also, at the same time, to pose as the object of a sentimental attachment on the part of that patron's mistress. And he smiled complacently the while. "Sir," resumed the princess, whom that smile so irritated that she resolved to use her deadly weapon without further delay, "I appreciate your devotion to my cause, but I cannot deceive you. I must not encourage hopes that would end only in disappointment. Let this matter not be referred to again between us." "But how if it were imposed by the prince as the indispensable condition of a peaceful settlement of your relations with him?" "I cannot believe that such is the case," replied Blanka, calmly. "But however that may be, I cannot bind myself by any promise to you, knowing as I do that the question of matrimony between us is one that the canons of the Romish Church forbid us to consider." "Ah, you have been studying ecclesiastical law, I see,--an error like that of the sick man that reads medical works. You undoubtedly have in mind the tenth paragraph, which forbids a son to marry his father's divorced wife; but you should have read farther, where it is declared that a marriage pronounced null and void by the clemency of the Pope is as if it never had been, and thus offers no hindrance to a subsequent union." "No," rejoined the princess, "I did not refer to the tenth paragraph. The paragraph which renders our union impossible is the fourteenth." The shot was fired, the mark was hit. Like a tiger mortally wounded the man sprang up and stood leaning on the back of his chair, glaring at his assailant with a fury that made her draw back in alarm. With what sort of ammunition had the gun been loaded, that it should inflict so deadly a wound,--that it should cause such a sudden and complete transformation of that complacently smiling face? "Who told you that?" demanded Vajdar so furiously that Blanka recoiled involuntarily. "Only one person could have been your informant, and I know who that person is. I shall have my revenge on both of you for this!" With that he was gone, hurrying out of the room and out of the hotel as if pursued by a legion of devils. Beppo came running to his mistress, and seemed surprised not to find her lying in her blood on the floor with half a dozen dagger-thrusts in her bosom. "Well," he exclaimed, "whoever that man may be, I shouldn't like to meet him on a dark night in a narrow street." Blanka told her servant that if the gentleman who had just left ever called again, she should not be at home to him. Then she sent her obedient Beppo away, as she wished to be alone. First of all, she must ponder the meaning of those mysterious words that had proved so potent in routing her enemy. She could hardly wait for her lawyer to return, so eager was she to question him in the matter. "Well," began the advocate on entering, "what have you accomplished?" "I have not made peace." "Why not?" "Because it would have cost more than war. All negotiations are broken off. Read this letter." "A devilish plot!" cried the lawyer wrathfully. "But they are fully capable of carrying it out, all three of them. Did you show this to Vajdar?" "Yes." "And was that why he ran out of the hotel in such an extraordinary manner that the very waiters felt tempted to seize him at the door?" "They had no such thought, I'll warrant," returned Blanka. "They are all in his pay. To-morrow I leave this place. You must find me a private dwelling." "I have one for you already. The Rossis are moving out of the embassy, and have engaged a private house. They invite you to share their new quarters with them. There is ample room." "Oh, how fortunate for me!" "And yet the affair is not so altogether fortunate, after all. Rossi has fallen from favour, and with his fall the whole liberal party loses its influence at the Vatican." But what did the princess care for the liberal party at that moment? She was thinking of the lucky chance that had made it possible for her to meet Manasseh again--at the house of their common friends. "Now I must beg you," said she, changing the subject, "to press my suit as diligently as possible. But first let me ask you a question. You are thoroughly familiar with the marriage laws of the Romish Church, aren't you?" "I know them as I do the Lord's Prayer." "Do you remember the fourteenth paragraph?" "The fourteenth paragraph? Thank God we have nothing to do with that." "Why 'thank God'?" "Because the fourteenth paragraph has to do with state's prison offences; it declares null and void any marriage, if either of the contracting parties has committed such an offence." The mystery was clear to Blanka now. CHAPTER XI. THE DECISION. Gabriel Zimandy came to the princess one day with a very downcast mien. "Our case makes no headway," he lamented, "and the reason is that your advocate is a Protestant. Now there are two ways to remedy this: either you must dismiss me and engage a Roman Catholic lawyer, or I must turn Roman Catholic myself. The latter is the shorter and simpler expedient." Blanka thought him in fun, and began to laugh. But Zimandy maintained his solemnity of manner. "You see, Princess," he went on, "I am ready to renounce the faith of my fathers and incur the world's ridicule, all to serve you. I am going this morning to the cardinal on whom the whole issue depends, to ask him to be my sponsor at the baptism." The princess pressed his hand warmly in sign of her appreciation of his devotion. In a few days the lawyer carried out his purpose and was received into the Church of Rome. The newspapers gave the matter considerable prominence, and it was generally expected that the godfather's present to the new convert would be a favourable decision in the pending divorce suit. And, in fact, a week later the decision was rendered. It was to the following effect: The husband and wife were declared divorced, but with the proviso that the latter should never marry again, and the former not during his divorced wife's lifetime. Thus the coffin-lid was closed on the young wife, who was, as it were, buried alive; but in falling it had caught and held fast the bridal veil of the Marchioness Caldariva, who could not now hope to be led to the altar so long as the princess remained alive. Had there been in this some malevolent design to wreak vengeance on the two women at one stroke, the purpose could not have been better accomplished. The further provisions of the decree of the Roman Curia were of secondary importance. Prince Cagliari was required to pay to Princess Zboroy--for Blanka retained her rank and title--an annuity of twelve thousand ducats, to give over for her use as a dwelling one wing of the Cagliari palace, and to restore her dowry and jewels. These latter terms were evidently to be credited to Gabriel Zimandy's generalship; for his client might have found herself left with neither home nor annuity. So the lawyer's conversion had met with its reward even in this world. But Blanka's enjoyment of house and home and yearly income was made dependent on a certain condition: she was never to leave Rome. The nature of the decree rendered this provision necessary. As she was forbidden to contract a second marriage, her judge found himself obliged to keep her under his eye, to make sure that his mandate was obeyed; and no more delicate and at the same time effective way to do this could have been devised than to offer her a palace in Rome and bid her enjoy its possession for the rest of her life. This was surely kinder than shutting her up in a convent. After the rendering of this decree Blanka lost no time in taking possession of that half of the Cagliari palace assigned to her, and in engaging a retinue of servants befitting her changed surroundings. Her own property yielded her an income equal to that which she received from the prince, and thus she was enabled to allow herself every comfort and even luxury that she could desire. Of the two wings of the palace, Blanka's faced the Tiber, while the other fronted upon the public square. Each wing had a separate garden, divided from its neighbour by a high wall of masonry, and the only connection between the two parts of the house was a long corridor, all passage through which was closed. What had once been a door, leading from the room which Blanka now chose for her bedchamber into the corridor, was filled in with a fireplace, whose back was formed by a damascened iron plate. This apartment the princess selected for her asylum, her hermitage, where she could be utterly shut out from the world. The next day after the decision was rendered, Blanka was greeted by her bosom friend, the fair widow Dormandy, with the announcement of her engagement to Gabriel Zimandy. They intended to be married in Rome, she said, and then return to Hungary, whither the bridegroom's business called him. It was clear to Blanka now why her lawyer had been so ready to renounce "the faith of his fathers." It was more for the sake of winning the hand of Madam Dormandy, who was a devout Catholic, and of marrying her then and there, in Rome, than on account of his client's interests. Here let us take leave of the worthy man and let him depart with God's blessing, his newly married wife by his side, and his honorarium from Princess Blanka in his pocket. Thus the divorced wife, who was yet hardly more than a girl, found herself left alone in Rome. She shut herself off entirely from the world, never venturing into society lest people should whisper to one another as she passed,--"_la condannata!_" She received no one but her father confessor, who came to her once a week. The sins which she had to confess to him were,--the doubting of providence, rebellion against human justice, forbidden dreams in waking hours, envy of others' happiness, aversion to prayer, and hatred of life--all sins for which she had to do penance. Meanwhile quite a different sort of life was being led in the other wing of the palace. She could not but hear, from time to time, sounds of mirth and gaiety in the adjoining garden, or even through the solid partition-wall of the house. Voices that she knew only too well, and some that she hated, penetrated to her ears and drove her from one room to another. In due time, however, the malarial fever of the Italian summer came to her as another distraction. It was an intermittent fever, and for six weeks she was subject to its periodical attacks, which returned every third day with the constancy of a devoted lover. When at length she began to mend, her physician prescribed a change of air. Knowing that his patient could not absent herself from Rome and its vicinity, he did not send her to Switzerland, but to Tivoli and Monte Mario; and even before venturing on these brief excursions she was obliged to ask permission at the Vatican. The convalescent was allowed to spend her days on Monte Mario, but required to return to Rome at nightfall. Good morals and good laws demanded this. Nevertheless, even this slight change--the drives to and from Monte Mario, and the mountain air during the fine autumn days--did the princess good, and eventually restored her health. Meanwhile there was more than one momentous change in the political world, but Blanka heeded them not. What signified to her the watchword of the period,--"Liberty?" What liberty had she? Even were all the world beside free, she was not free to love. CHAPTER XII. A GHOSTLY VISITANT. It was the irony of fate that the mansion which had been assigned as a permanent dwelling-place to the woman condemned to a life of asceticism, had been originally fitted up as a fairy love-palace for a beautiful creature, possessed of an unquenchable thirst for the fleeting joys of this earthly existence. Over the richly carved mantelpiece in Blanka's sleeping-room was what looked like a splendid bas-relief in marble. It was in reality no bas-relief at all, but a wonderfully skilful bit of painting, so cleverly imitating the sculptor's chisel that even a closer inspection failed to detect the deception. It represented a recumbent Sappho playing on a nine-stringed lyre. The opening in the sounding-board of the instrument appeared to be a veritable hole over which real strings were stretched. This painting Blanka had before her eyes when she lay down to sleep at night, and it was the first to greet her when she awoke in the morning. Nor was it simply that she was forced to see it: Sappho seemed able to make her presence known by other means than by addressing the sight alone. Mysterious sounds came at times from the lyre,--sometimes simple chords, and again snatches of love-songs which the princess could have played over afterward from memory, so plainly did she seem to hear them. Occasionally, too, the notes of a human voice were heard; and though the words were muffled and indistinct, as if coming from a distance, the air was easily followed. These weird melodies came to Blanka's ears nearly every evening, but she did not venture to tell any one about them. She tried to persuade herself it was all imagination on her part, and feared to relate her experience, lest she should incur suspicion of insanity and be consigned to a less desirable prison than the Cagliari palace. One evening, as she was preparing to retire, and was standing for a moment before her mirror, the Sappho seemed to give vent to a ripple of laughter. The princess was so startled that she dropped the candle she held in her hand. Once more she heard that mysterious laugh, and then she beat a hasty retreat to her bed and buried herself in the pillows and blankets. But, peeping out at length and throwing one more glance at the picture, which was faintly illumined by her night-lamp, she heard still another repetition of the mysterious laughter, coming apparently from a great distance. Was this, too, an illusion, a dream, a trick of her imagination? If the painted Sappho was alive, why did she give these signs only at night, and not in the daytime as well? November came, and with it rainy days, so that Blanka was constrained to suspend her drives to Monte Mario and remain in the house. Every evening she sat before her open fire with her eyes fixed on the glowing phoenix with which the back of the fireplace was adorned. It was the work of Finiguerra, the first of his craft to discard the chisel for the hammer. The many-hued feathers of the flaming bird were of steel, copper, brass, Corinthian bronze, silver, and gold. Especially resplendent was the bird's head, with its gleaming red circle around the brightly shining eye. This eye glowed and sparkled in the flickering light of the crackling wood fire until it seemed fairly endowed with life and vision. One evening, as the princess was watching this glowing eye, it suddenly vanished from the bird's head and left a dark hole in its place. Then, as if not content with this marvellous demonstration, the phoenix next took flight bodily and disappeared, apparently up the chimney, with a rattling, rasping sound, as of the creaking of cogged wheels, leaving a wide opening where it had been. The coals which still glowed on the hearth presently died with a hissing noise, and only the soft light of the shaded lamp diffused itself through the room. Out of the mysterious depths of the fireplace stepped the white-clad form of a woman. "I am the Marchioness Caldariva," announced the unbidden guest. The suddenness and the mystery of it all, as well as the name that greeted her ears, might well have startled the Princess Blanka. The strange visitor was of tall and slender form, and suggested, in her closely fitting gown of soft material, a statue of one of the pagan goddesses. Her thick blond hair was carelessly gathered into a knot behind; her complexion was pale, her blue eyes were bright and vivacious, and her coral lips were parted in a coquettish smile. Every movement was fraught with grace and charm, every pose commanded admiration. She followed up her self-introduction with a laugh--a laugh that sounded familiar to her listener. It was the Sappho's tones that she heard. Blanka gazed in wonder at the mysterious apparition. She thought she must be dreaming, and that this was but another creation of her own fancy. "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the visitor, "an original way to pay a call, isn't it?--without warning, right through the back wall of your fireplace, and in _négligé_, too! But as you wouldn't visit me, I had to come to you, and this is the readiest communication between our apartments. You didn't know anything about it, did you? The back of your fireplace is a secret door. If you press on the green tile here at the left, the phoenix flies up the chimney, and then if you bear down hard on this one at the right, it returns to its place again. Do you see?" As she spoke the white lady stepped on the tile last designated, and straightway the phoenix descended and filled the opening through which she had just made her entrance. "On the other side," she continued, "is a piece of mechanism which will only work when a secret lock has been opened, and to effect this the bird's eye must first be pushed aside to make room for the key. Your ignorance of all this became apparent to me when I found both of the two keys in my room. One of them belongs to you, and I have brought it to give you. Without it you might be broken in upon most unpleasantly by some unwelcome intruder. But with the key in your possession, you can insert it in the lock whenever you wish to guard against any such intrusion." With that the speaker handed over the key, and then went on: "Now you will be able to visit me, just as I do you. One thing more, however, is necessary. You generally have a fire in your fireplace, and not every woman is a Saint Euphrosyne, able to walk barefoot over glowing coals. Here is a little bottle of liquid with which you can quench the flames at pleasure. It is a chemical mixture expressly prepared for this purpose. And in this other bottle is another liquid for rekindling the fire,--no secret of chemistry, this time, but only naphtha. Let us try it at once, for your room is cold and I have nothing on but this dressing-gown." The flames were soon crackling merrily again in the fireplace. Blanka, much bewildered and still doubting the evidence of her senses, sank down on a sofa, while her unbidden guest seated herself opposite. The princess raised her eyes involuntarily to the Sappho over the mantelpiece. Again the familiar laugh fell on her ears. "You look up at the Sappho," said the marchioness. "You have heard her play and sing and laugh more than once, haven't you? Well, you shall learn the secret of it all. A jealous husband once had the passage constructed which connects our two apartments. You know the story of Dionysius's Ear. Here you see it in real life. A hollow tube runs from the opening in the lyre directly to my room, and through this the jealous husband was able to hear every sound in his wife's chamber. Through it, too, you have heard me sing and play and laugh, and I have heard tones of sadness from your room, and exclamations in an unknown tongue, with no cheering word to comfort you and drive away your sorrow. Three days ago, about midnight, you began to sing, and that time I could follow the words,--'_De profundis ad te clamavi, Domine.'_ Don't look so surprised. You are not dreaming all this, and I am really the Marchioness Caldariva, better known as 'the beautiful Cyrene.' I have intruded on you this evening, but to-morrow you will admit me of your own free will, and the day after you shall be my guest. We will signal to each other through the tube when we are alone and disengaged, and we shall soon be great friends." Blanka started slightly at the bare thought of friendship with this woman. "I am in love with you already," continued the Marchioness Caldariva. "For the past week we have been meeting every day. We kneel side by side in the same church, for I go to church regularly; but you have not noticed me, because you never raise your eyes from your prayer-book to look at your neighbours' bonnets and gowns. As for me, now, I watch you all the time I am praying. Daily prayers are a necessity with me. In the morning I pray for the sins I have committed the day before, and in the evening for those to be committed on the morrow. Another bond of sympathy between us is the similar lot to which we are both condemned,--a life unblessed by domestic happiness,--and we cherish therefore a common hatred of the world. You, however, show yours by leading a solitary life of mourning, I mine by amusing myself the best way I can. If I were strong enough to follow your example, I should do so, but I can't live without distraction. You are strong; I am weak. I admire in you your power to humble your enemies before you. You were told, weren't you, that I wrote that anonymous letter?" Blanka looked at the speaker with wide eyes of inquiry and wonder. She began at length to place confidence in her words. "And you were told the truth, too," continued the other. "Oh, those two men are intriguers of the deepest dye. I was accused of upsetting their plan. I was told how mercilessly you had repulsed one of them. Really, that was a master stroke on your part. The fourteenth paragraph! He himself confessed the secret to me,--how he forged a note, some years ago, in the name of a good friend of his, who now holds the incriminating document in his possession. With it he can at any time crush his false friend and deliver him over to a long imprisonment. The trembling culprit wished to free himself at any cost from this sword of Damocles suspended over his head, and he proposed to me two ways to effect the desired end. One was for me to seduce the young artist and then, as the price of my smiles, cajole him into surrendering the fatal note." The beautiful Cyrene threw at her listener a look full of the proud consciousness of her own dangerous charms. Blanka drew back in nameless fear under her gaze. "The other way," proceeded the marchioness, "was to have him assassinated if he refused to give up the forged paper." Blanka pressed her hands to her bosom to keep from crying out. "Between these two plans I was asked to choose, and I rejected them both,--the first because I knew the young man adored you, the second because I knew you reciprocated his feeling." The princess rose hastily and walked across the room, seeking to hide her tell-tale blushes. "Come," said the marchioness, lightly, "sit down again and let us laugh over the whole affair together. You see, I would have nothing to do with either tragedy. I prefer comedy. Both of our arch-schemers have now taken flight from Rome; they were seized with terror at a street riot the other day, and they won't come back again, you may be sure, unless it be in the rear of a besieging army. So now we have the Cagliari palace quite to ourselves, and can sit and chat together all we please. But I must say good night; I've gossiped enough for one while, and I'm sleepy, too." Once more the fire was extinguished and the phoenix made to yield a passage, after which Blanka found herself alone again. She shuddered at the thought of having lived for months with an open door leading to her bedroom. She debated with herself whether to stick her key in that door and leave it there permanently, while she herself sought another sleeping-room, or to yield to the charm of her unbidden guest and acquiesce in her plan of exchanging confidential visits. The strangeness and mystery of it all, and still more the hope that her neighbour might let fall an occasional word concerning Manasseh, at length prevailed over her fears and scruples, and determined her to receive the other's advances. On the following evening she gave her servants permission to go to the theatre,--the play representing the defeat of the Austrian army by the Italians,--while she herself, after having her samovar and other tea-things brought to her room, took up her mandolin and struck a few chords on its strings. The reclining Sappho answered her, and a few minutes later there came a knock on the back of the fireplace. "Come in!" The phoenix rose, and the fair Cyrene appeared, this time in full toilet, as for a fashionable call, her hair dressed in the English mode, a lace shawl falling over her pink silk gown, from beneath which one got an occasional glimpse of the richly embroidered underskirt and a pair of little feet encased in high-heeled shoes. "You were going out?" asked the princess. "I was coming to see you." "Did you know I was waiting for you?" "I told you yesterday I should come, and I knew you were expecting me from your sending your servants away to the theatre." "And you knew that too?" "Yes, because they took mine along with them. So here we are all alone by ourselves." The consciousness of being the only living creatures in a whole house has a delicious charm, fraught with mystery and awe, for two young women. Blanka took her guest's hat and shawl, and then proceeded to start a fire on the hearth. The fair Cyrene meanwhile caught up her mandolin and began to sing one of Alfred de Musset's songs, full of the warmth and glow of the sunny South. Presently the hostess invited her guest to take tea with her, and asked her at the same time her baptismal name. The marchioness laughed. "Haven't you heard it often enough? They call me 'Cyrene.'" "But that isn't your real name," objected Blanka. "You were not christened 'Cyrene.'" "I use it for my name, however, and no one but my father confessor calls me by my real name, so that now I never hear it without thinking that I must fall on my knees and repeat a dozen paternosters in penance. Besides, my name doesn't suit me at all. It is Rozina, and I am as pale as moonshine. You might far better be called Rozina, for you have such beautiful rosy cheeks, and I should have been named Blanka. I'll tell you, suppose we exchange names: you call me Blanka, and I'll call you Rozina." The suggestion seemed so funny to Blanka that she burst out laughing, and a woman who laughs is already more than half won over. "Now, then," continued the other, "we can chat away to our heart's content. There's no one to listen to us or play the spy--a good thing for you to know, Rozina, because all your servants are hired spies. Your doorkeeper and his wife keep a regular journal of who comes in and who goes out, what visiting-cards are left, whom you receive, where you drive,--which they learn from your coachman,--whom you visit, and even with whom you exchange a passing word. Your maid reads all your letters and searches all your pockets. Even your gardener keeps an account of all the flowers you order; for flowers, you know, have a language of their own. Be sure you don't buy a parrot, else it will turn spy on you, too." "Who can it be that is so suspicious of me?" asked the princess, in surprise. "Have you forgotten the strict terms of your uncle's legacy, and are you unaware how slight an indiscretion on your part might furnish your relatives with a pretext for contesting your right to a share of the property? Do you forget, too, how trifling an error might result in the cutting off of your allowance from Prince Cagliari?" "Well, let them watch me, if they wish," returned Blanka, composedly. "I have no secrets to hide from anybody." "A rash assertion for a woman to make," commented the other, as she poured herself a glass of water. "How warm this water is!" she exclaimed, after taking a sip. Blanka sprang up and offered to bring some ice from the dining-room. "Aren't you afraid to go for it alone?" "Certainly not; the lamps are all lighted." While the hostess was out of the room, her guest turned over Blanka's portfolio of drawings, and among them found her outline sketch of the Colosseum. "You sketch beautifully," commented the marchioness, upon the other's return. "It is my only diversion," replied the princess. "This view of the Colosseum reminds me of one I saw at the Rossis'." "The artist may have chosen the same point of view," returned Blanka with admirable composure. "I called on him at his studio lately," proceeded the marchioness. "I had heard one of his pictures very highly praised. It represents a young woman sitting on the gallery railing in the Colosseum, with the sunlight streaming on her through a red umbrella. The warm glow of the sunbeams is in striking contrast with the deep melancholy on the girl's face. I offered the artist two hundred scudi for the piece, but he said it was not for sale at any price." Blanka felt as powerless in the hands of this woman as a rabbit in the clutches of a lion. The beautiful Cyrene closed the portfolio and exclaimed: "Rozina, these men are terrible creatures! They make us women their slaves. But the woman's first and dominant thought must ever be to find some escape from her bondage." With that she jumped up and ran out of the room, as if taken suddenly ill. Her hostess followed to see what was the matter, and found her sitting in a corner of the adjoining apartment. "You are weeping?" "Not at all; never merrier in my life!" Nevertheless, two tears were shining in the fair Cyrene's eyes. Next she ran to the piano and began to rattle off "La Gitana," which Cerito had just made so popular throughout Europe. "Have you the score?" asked the marchioness, turning to Blanka. "No, but I can play it from memory." "Then play it to me, please." Blanka complied, and the other began to dance "La Gitana" to her playing. The spirit and feeling, the coquettish grace and seductive charm, which the dancer put into the movements of her lithe form, challenge description. If only a man could have seen her then! From sheer amazement Blanka found herself unable to control her fingers, which struck more than one false note. "Faster! Put more fire into it!" cried the dancer. But Blanka could not go on. "Ah, you don't remember it, after all." "I can't play when I look at you," was the reply; and the Marchioness Caldariva believed her. "You could drive a man fairly insane." "As long as the men will torment us, we must be able to pay them back." She took Blanka's arm and returned with her to the other room. "Woe to him who invades my kingdom!" she continued. "He is bound to lose his reason. Do you wish to wager that I can't drive all Rome crazy over me? If I took a notion to dance the 'Gitana' on the opera-house stage for the benefit of the wounded soldiers, all Rome would go wild with enthusiasm, and the people would half smother me with flowers." "I will make no such wager with you," returned Blanka, "because I know I should lose." The beautiful Cyrene changed the subject and invited the princess to attend one of her masked balls,--"a masquerade party," she explained, "of only forty guests at the most, and those the chief personages of Roman society. I ferret out all their secrets and can see through their masks; but I use no witchery about it. My guests are admitted by ticket only, and my major-domo, who receives these cards, writes on the back of each a short description of the bearer's costume. So I have only to go to him and consult his notes to learn my guest's identity." "But cannot your guests also procure information from the same source--for a consideration?" "Undoubtedly. My domestics are none of them incorruptible." Blanka laughed, and Rozina hastened to take advantage of her good humour. "And now just imagine among these forty masks one guest who comes neither through the door, nor through the major-domo's anteroom, so that no card, no personal description, no cab-number, no information of any kind, is to be had concerning her from my servants. She is acquainted with all the secrets of those around her, but no one can guess her secret, or fathom her mystery. Meanwhile a young painter has taken his seat in one corner behind a screen of foliage, and sketches the lively scene before him. He is the only one who, with beating heart, guesses the name of the mysterious unknown. What do you say,--will this bewitching guest from fairyland deign to figure as the chief personage on my young artist's canvas?" "Before deciding, may I see a list of those whom you have invited?" "Certainly--a very proper request." The marchioness handed over her fan, the ribs of which were of ivory, and served the owner as tablets. They were covered with a miscellaneous list of well-known names from all classes, and the last among them was Manasseh Adorjan's. "You can order a costume of black lace, spangled with silver stars," the fair Cyrene went on; "then, with a black velvet mask, you will be ready to appear as the Queen of Night." Blanka offered no objection to this plan. "I will admit you upon signal, through our secret passageway, into my boudoir, and from there you will pass, when the way is clear, into the ladies' dressing-room, and thence into the ballroom. With this fan of mine in your hand, you will, after some instructions from me, be able to puzzle and mystify all whom you address, while no one will be in a position even to hazard a surmise as to your identity. When you tire of the sport, come to me, pretend to tease me, and then turn and run away. I will give chase, and under cover of this diversion you will slip out of the room, and return to your own apartments by the same way you came, while I continue the hunt and summon all present to aid me in finding my mysterious guest." Such was the speaker's influence over Blanka, that the latter could not give her a refusal. Accordingly, when the two parted, it was with the understanding that they were soon to see each other again at the marchioness's masquerade. CHAPTER XIII. A SUDDEN FLIGHT. Blanka sat in her room, with closed doors, preparing her costume for the masked ball. Affairs in the world outside had moved rapidly during the past few days. In the feverish excitement of that revolutionary period, mob violence was threatening to gain the upper hand. Shouts of boisterous merriment reached the princess from the street. From the adjoining wing of the palace, too, other sounds, almost equally boisterous, fell on her ear at intervals. The fair Cyrene was entertaining a company of congenial spirits. Gradually the noise in the street grew louder, until it seemed as if a cage of wild animals had been let loose before the Cagliari palace. Suddenly, as Blanka stood before her fire, all her senses alert, she saw the glowing phoenix rise from its position, and her fair neighbour stood in the opening. "Put out your fire, and let me in," bade the marchioness. "I have emptied my extinguisher. Don't you hear the mob storming my palace gates? The soldiery who were summoned to restore order have made common cause with the rioters, and we are in frightful peril. Quick! Out with your fire, and let me and my guests through. We can make our escape by your rear door, and so gain the riverside in safety." Blanka could not refuse this appeal. She opened the way for the marchioness and her motley company to pass out; then she herself, first closing the secret passage between the two wings of the palace, followed the other fugitives and, gaining the street by a wide détour, engaged a cab to take her to the Vatican. "His Holiness receives no one this afternoon," was the announcement made to her at the door. Almost in despair, and bewildered by the sudden turn of events which had thus cast her homeless on the streets, the princess returned to her carriage. "Do you know where Signor Scalcagnato lives?" she asked the driver. "Scalcagnato the shoemaker, the champion of the people? To be sure I do: in the Piazza di Colosseo. But if the lady wishes to buy shoes of him she should not address him as _Signor_ Scalcagnato." "Why not?" "Because he will ask half as much more for them than if he were called plain _Citizen_ Scalcagnato." After this gratuitous bit of information the coachman whipped up his horse and rattled away toward the Colosseum with his passenger. Arriving at the shoemaker's shop, Blanka was received by a little man of lively bearing and a quick, intelligent expression. "Pst! No words needed," was his greeting. "I know all about it. I am Citizen Scalcagnato, _il calzolajo_. Take my arm, citizeness. Cittadino Adorjano lives on the top floor, and the stairs are a trifle steep. He is out at present, but his studio is open to you." The young lady was reassured. The honest cobbler evidently did not suspect her of coming to meet his tenant by appointment, but took her for an artist friend on a professional visit, or perhaps a customer come to buy a picture. The shoemaker took the artist's place, in the latter's absence, and sold his paintings for him. Perhaps, too, the artist sold his landlord's shoes when that worthy was abroad. Thus it was that Blanka took the offered arm without a misgiving, and suffered the cobbler to lead her up the steep stairway to the little attic chamber that served her friend for both sleeping-room and studio. It was as neat as wax, and as light and airy as any painter could desire. A large bow-window admitted the free light of heaven and at the same time afforded a fine view of the Palatine Hill. Leaning for a moment against the window-sill, in mute admiration of the prospect before her, the princess thought how happy a woman might be with this view to greet her eyes every day, while a husband who worshipped her and was worshipped by her worked at her side--or, rather, not _worked_, but _created_. It was a picture far more alluring than any that the Cagliari palace had to offer. "Pst!" the cobbler interrupted her musing; "come and let me show you the portrait." So saying, he conducted her to an easel on which rested a veiled picture, which he uncovered with an air of pride and satisfaction. The feeling of rapture that took possession of Blanka at sight of her own portrait was owing, not to the fact that it was her likeness,--radiant though that likeness was with youth and beauty and all the charm of an ideal creation,--but to the thought that _he_ had painted it. "The price is thirty-three million, three hundred and thirty-three thousand, three hundred and thirty-three _scudi_, and not a _soldo_ less!" announced the shoemaker, with a broad smile. Then he laid his fingers on his lips. "Pst! Not a word! I know all. It will be all right." Blanka saw now that he had recognised her the moment she entered his shop. "The citizen painter is not at home," continued the other, "but he will turn up at the proper time where he is wanted. Sun, moon, and stars may fall from heaven, but he will not fail you. No more words! What I have said, I have said. You can now return home, signorina, and need give yourself no further uneasiness. Whatever occurs in the streets, you need not worry. And finally"--they had by this time reached the ground floor again--"it will be well for you to take a pair of shoes with you, to make the coachman think you came on purpose for them. Here's a good stout pair, serviceable for walking or for mountain-climbing. You can rely on them. So take them along; you may need them sometime." "But how do you know they will fit me?" asked Blanka. "Citizeness, don't you remember the stone footprint of our Lord in the church of _Domine quo vadis_? And may not the footprint of an angel have been left in the sand of the Colosseum for a devout artist to copy in his sketch-book? Such a sketch is enough for the Cittadino Scalcagnato to make a pair of shoes from, so that they cannot fail to fit." The princess turned rosy red. "I have no money with me to pay for them," she objected. "A footman usually accompanies me and pays for all my purchases; but to-day I left him at home, and I neglected to take my purse with me." "No matter; I understand. I'll charge the amount. Here, take this purse and pay your cab-fare out of it when you reach the square. Don't go home in a carriage, but on foot. You needn't fear to do so, with a pair of shoes in your hand. If your gold-laced lackey were with you, you might meet with insult and abuse; but walking alone with the shoes in your hand, you will not be molested, and you will find all quiet at home by this time. Now enough said. I know all. You can pay me back later." With that the little shoemaker escorted his guest to her carriage and took leave of her with a polite request--intended for the cabman's ear--for her further patronage. Following the mysterious little man's directions, Blanka reached home unharmed, and found everything there as she had left it. Whatever violence the rioters may have allowed themselves in storming the marchioness's quarters, her own wing of the palace, for some reason that she could only vaguely conjecture, had been spared. After assuring herself of this, the princess tried on her new shoes, and found that Citizen Scalcagnato was no less skilful as a shoemaker than eminent as a politician and a party-leader. The house was now still and deserted, although the sounds of riotous excess were faintly audible in the distance. The servants had evidently fled at the same time that Blanka and the marchioness left the palace. Looking out of her rear window, the princess noticed that her garden gate was open; it must have been left swinging by her domestics in their flight. She was hastening down-stairs to close it, when a man's form appeared before her in the gathering gloom, and she cried out in sudden terror. "Do not be alarmed, Princess." The words came in a firm, manly voice that thrilled the hearer; she recognised the tones. Manasseh Adorjan stood before her. "I could not gain admittance by the front door," he explained, "so I went around to the garden gate." "And how is it," asked Blanka, "that you have come to me at the very moment that I was seeking you?" "I wished, first, to bid you farewell. I am going home, to Transylvania, for my people are in trouble and I must go and help them. As long as they are happy I avoid them, but when misfortune comes I cannot stay away. War threatens to invade our peaceful valley, and I hasten thither." "Has the hour come, then, when you feel it right to kill your fellow-men?" "No, Princess; my part is to restore peace, not to foment strife." Blanka's hands were clasped in her lap. She raised them to her bosom and begged her fellow-countryman to take her with him. The colour mounted to his face, his breast heaved, he passed his hand across his brow, whereon the perspiration had started, and stammered, in agitated accents: "No, no, Princess, I cannot take you with me." "Why not?" asked Blanka, tremulously. "Because I am a man and but human. I could shield you against all the world, but not against myself. I love you! And if you came with me, how could you expect me to help you keep your vows? I am neither saint nor angel, but a mortal, and a sinful one." The poor girl sank speechless into a chair and hid her face in her hands. "Hear me further, Princess," continued the other, with forced calmness. "I have told you but one reason why I sought you here to-day. The other was to show you a means of escape from this place, where you cannot remain in safety another day. You must leave Rome this very night, and that will be no easy thing to accomplish now that all the gates are guarded. But I have a plan. Above all things, you must find a lady to take you under her protection, and that, I think, can be effected. Citizen Scalcagnato issues all the passports for those that leave the city by the Colosseum gate. From him I have learned that the Countess X---- is to leave for the south to-night. I have obtained a pass for you, and you have only to make yourself ready and go with me to the Colosseum gate, where we will wait for her carriage. She is a good friend of yours and cannot refuse to take you as her travelling-companion. Do you approve my plan?" "Yes, and I thank you." "Then a few hours hence will see you on your journey southward. I shall set out for the north, and soon the length of Italy will separate us. Is it not best so?" Blanka gave him her hand in mute assent. * * * * * An hour later Manasseh and Blanka stood in the shelter of the gateway by which the countess was expected to leave Rome. They had not long to wait: the sound of an approaching carriage was soon heard, and when it halted under the gas-lamp Blanka recognised her friend's equipage. The gate-keeper advanced to examine the traveller's passport, and as the carriage door was thrown open Blanka hastened forward and made herself known. "What do you wish?" demanded the liveried footman. The princess turned and looked at him. Surely she had seen that face and form before in a different setting, but she could not recall when or where. So much was evident, however, that the speaker was more wont to give than to receive orders. Blanka turned again to the open carriage door and plucked at the cloak of the person sitting within. "You are fleeing from Rome, too, Countess," said she. "I beg you to take me with you." But the carriage door was closed in her face. "Countess, hear me!" she cried, in distress. "Have pity on me! Don't leave me to perish in the streets!" Her petition was unheeded. The footman drew her away and, as he turned to remount the vehicle, whispered three words in her ear: "_È il papa!_" It was the Pope, and he was fleeing! The spiritual ruler of the world, the king of kings, Heaven's viceroy upon earth, was flying for his life. The judge fled and left the prisoner to her fate. Blanka felt herself absolved from all her vows. She plucked from her bosom the consecrated palm-leaf, tore it to pieces, and threw the fragments scornfully after the retreating carriage. Then she turned once more to Manasseh. "Now take me with you whithersoever you will!" she cried, and she sank on his bosom and suffered him to clasp her in a warm embrace. CHAPTER XIV. WALLACHIAN HOSPITALITY. Manasseh had not much choice of routes in making his way, with his companion, to Transylvania. After leaving Italy, he bent his course first to Deés, as the road thither seemed to offer no obstacles to peaceful travellers. Troops were, indeed, encountered here and there on the way; but they suffered Manasseh and Blanka to pass unmolested. Manasseh had fortunately provided a generous hamper of supplies, so that his companion was not once made aware that they were passing through a district lately overrun by a defeated army, which had so exhausted the resources of all the wayside inns that hardly a bite or a sup was to be had for love or money. The weather was unusually fine, as the sunny autumn had that year extended into the winter. The Transylvanian was perfectly familiar with the region, and entertained his fellow-traveller with legends and stories of the places through which they passed. In the splendid chestnut forests that crowned the heights of Nagy-Banya he told her the adventures of the bandit chief, Dionysius Tolvaj, who kept the whole countryside in terror, until at last the men of Nagy-Banya hunted him down and slew him. In his mountain cave are still to be seen his stone table, his fireplace, and the spring from which he drank. Manasseh also related the adventures of bear-hunters in these woods, and told about the search for gold that had long been carried on in the mountains, and often with success, so that many of them were now honeycombed with shafts and tunnels. Up from yonder valley rose the spirit of the mountains, a white and vapoury form, with which the sturdy mountaineers fought for the possession of the hidden treasure. In reality, however, it was no genie, but simply the fumes of sulphur and arsenic from the smelting works of the miners, who never drew breath without inhaling poison. And yet they lived and throve and were a healthy and happy people, the men strong, the women fair, and one and all fondly attached to their mountain home. One evening Manasseh pointed to a town in the distance, and told his companion that it was Kolozsvar. As they drew nearer they saw that it was garrisoned with a division of the national guard. Manasseh was now among people who knew him well, and he did not expect to be asked to show his passport. But he was mistaken. Suddenly a hand was laid on his arm and a firm voice saluted his ears. "So you thought you'd slip by me without once showing your papers, did you? A pretty way to act, I must say!" Manasseh turned to the speaker, who proved to be a short, broad-shouldered, thick-set man, in a coarse coat such as the Szeklers wear, high boots, and a large hat. His arms were disproportionately long for his short body, his beard was either very closely cut or sadly in need of the razor, and his legs were planted widely apart as he confronted the travellers in a challenging attitude. Perhaps he wished to invite Manasseh to a wrestling bout. Blanka looked on in surprise as she saw the two men fling their arms around each other. But it was not the embrace of wrestlers. They exchanged a hearty kiss, and then Manasseh cried, joyfully: "Aaron, my dear brother!" "Yes, it is Aaron, my good Manasseh," returned the stocky little man, with a laugh; and, throwing aside the jacket that hung from his neck, he extended his right hand to his brother. Then he turned to Blanka. "And this pretty lady is our future sister-in-law, isn't she? God bless you! Pray bend down a bit and let me give your rosy cheek a little smack of a kiss." Blanka complied, and brother Aaron gave her blushing cheek much more than "a little smack." "There," declared the honest fellow, with great apparent satisfaction, "I'm delighted that you didn't scream and make a fuss over my bristly beard. You see, I haven't had a chance to shave for four days. Three days and nights I've been here on the watch for my brother and his bride." "And what about our two brothers, Simon and David?" asked Manasseh, anxiously. "Are they alive and well?" "Certainly, they are alive," was the answer. "Have you forgotten our creed? Our life is from everlasting to everlasting. But they are really alive and in the flesh, and, what is more"--turning to Blanka--"they are sure to come to meet us and will expect to receive each a nosegay from their brother's sweetheart." Blanka smiled and promised not to disappoint them, for there were still plenty of autumn flowers in the woods and fields. "Yes," said Aaron, "you'll find posies enough on the road. We are going by a way that is covered with them. If you don't believe it, look at this bouquet in my hat; it is still quite fresh, and I picked it in the Torda Gap. Have you ever heard of the Torda Gap? There is nothing like it in all the world; you'll remember it as long as you live. It is a splendid garden of wild flowers, and there you will see the cave of the famous Balyika,--he was Francis Rakoczy's general. Thence it is only a step to the Szekler Stone, and we are at home. Do you like to walk in the woods?" "Nothing better!" Here Manasseh pulled his brother's sleeve. "Do you really mean to take us by the way of Torda Gap?" he whispered. "Yes," returned the other, likewise in an undertone; "there is no other way." A blare of trumpets interrupted this conversation, and presently a squad of hussars came riding down the street, every man of them a raw recruit. "Look, see how proud he is on his high horse!" interjected Aaron. "He never even looks at a poor foot-passenger like me. Halloa there, brother! What kind of a cavalryman do you call yourself, with no eyes for a pretty girl? Oh, you toad!" With this salutation Aaron called to his side the young lieutenant who rode at the head of the hussars. He bore a striking resemblance to Manasseh,--the same face, the same form, the same eyes. Indeed, the two had often been mistaken for each other. There was only a year's difference in their ages. The young hussar gave his hand to Manasseh, and while they exchanged cordial greetings they looked each other steadfastly in the eye. "Whither away, brother?" asked the elder. "I am going to avenge my two brothers," was the reply. "And I am going to rescue them," declared Manasseh. "I am going forth to fight for my country," was the other's rejoinder. Then the rider bent low over his horse's neck, and the two brothers kissed each other. "But aren't you going to ask your new sister for a kiss, you young scapegrace?" cried Aaron. The youthful soldier blushed like a bashful girl. "When I come back--when I have earned a kiss--then I will ask for it. And you will give me one, won't you, dear sister-in-law, even if they bring me back dead?" Blanka gave him her hand, while a nameless dread showed itself in her face. "Never fear!" cried the young man. As he gave Blanka a radiant look he saw tears glistening in her eyes. "I shall not die. _Egy az Isten!_"[1] [Footnote 1: See preface.] "_Egy az Isten!_" repeated the elder brother. Then the young hussar put spurs to his horse and galloped to the head of his little company. "Come, let us be going," said Aaron, and he led the way toward the farther end of the town, where the family owned a villa which they used whenever occasion called them from Toroczko to Kolozsvar. Adjoining the house lay a garden which was now rented to a market-woman, who made haste to prepare supper for the travellers. Blanka went into the kitchen and helped her, but not before the woman had been instructed in what was going on and warned not to breathe a word to the young mistress of the dangers that encompassed them all in those troublous times. It was Manasseh's desire to lead his bride home without giving her cause for one moment of disquiet on the way. "Can you sleep in a carriage?" the market-woman asked her, without pausing in her baking and boiling. "Now as for me, many's the time I've slept every night for two weeks in my cart when I was taking apples to market. One gets used to that sort of thing. The gentlemen propose to set out for Torda this very night, because to-morrow is the great market-day in Kolozsvar, and there'll be troops of peddlers and dealers of all sorts coming into town, and farmers driving their cattle and sheep and swine, so that you couldn't possibly make head against them if you should wait till morning." Blanka readily gave her consent to any plan that seemed best to her conductors. Aaron meanwhile had brought out three good horses from the stable and harnessed them to a travelling carriage. "Water behind us, fire before us," he remarked to Manasseh as he buckled the last strap. Wallachian troops were holding the mountain passes about Torda, and had even threatened Toroczko; but thus far the inhabitants had not allowed themselves to be frightened. Now, however, there was a report that General Kalliani was approaching from Hermannstadt with a brigade of imperial soldiery. Consequently it was to be feared that a general flight from Torda to Kolozsvar would soon follow; and, when once the stream of fugitives began, it would be impossible to make one's way in an opposite direction. Therefore our travellers had not a moment to lose. Blanka was by this time well used to travelling by night, and she entered cheerfully and without question into the proposed plan. A longing to reach "home," and perhaps a vague suspicion of the perils that threatened her party, made her the more willing to push forward. When danger braces to action, a high-bred woman's power of endurance is almost without limit. Aaron drove, Manasseh sat beside him, and thus the entire rear seat was left to Blanka, who was so swathed and muffled in wraps and furs that she was well-nigh hidden from view. Despite all the plausible explanations, she came very near guessing the well-meant deceit that was practised upon her. "Why, your horses are saddled!" she exclaimed to Aaron. "Yes, to be sure," calmly replied the mountaineer. "That's the custom in Transylvania; we put saddles on our carriage-horses just as in Styria they buckle a block of wood over the horse's neck." Blanka appeared satisfied with this explanation of Transylvanian usage. Aaron gave his good Szekler steeds a free rein. They were raised in the mountains and could, if need were, trot for twenty-four hours on a stretch without food or water; then, if they were unharnessed and allowed to graze a little, they were able to resume the journey with unslackened pace. The driver had no occasion to use reins or whip: they knew their duty,--to pull lustily when the road led up-hill, to hold back in going down-hill, to trot on a level, to overtake and pass any carriage in front of them, to quicken their pace when they heard one behind, and to halt before every inn. Aaron, turning half around on his seat, beguiled the time by telling stories to his fair passenger, to whom his fund of amusing anecdotes seemed inexhaustible. When at length, as they were ascending a long hill, he noticed that she ceased to laugh at his tales, but sat inert and with head sunk on her bosom, he put his hand into his waistcoat pocket and, drawing out an enamelled gold watch, pressed the stem and held it to his ear. "Half-past twelve," he murmured. The man himself was a gold watch encased in a rough exterior, a noble heart in a rude setting. His horny hands were hardened by toil, but he had a clever head on his shoulders; he was well endowed with mother-wit, quick at repartee, merciless in his satire toward the haughty and overbearing, cool and good-humoured in the presence of danger,--in short, a genuine Szekler, heart and soul. When, then, his repeater had told him the hour, Aaron turned and addressed his brother. "The young lady is asleep," said he, "and now you and I can have a little talk together. You asked me how our two brothers came to be captured. Let me begin at the beginning, and you shall hear all about it. You know when freedom is first born she is a puny infant and has to be suckled. That she cries for blood instead of milk is something we can't help. So all the young men of Toroczko enlisted in the militia,--every mother's son of them,--and they are now serving in the eleventh, the thirty-second, and the seventy-third battalions. You ask me, perhaps, why we mountain folk must needs take the field when already we are fighting for our country all our life long in the bowels of the earth. You say it is enough for us to dig the iron in our mountains without wielding it on the battle-field; else what do the privileges mean that were granted us by Andreas II. and Bela IV., by which we are exempted from military service? It's no use your talking, Manasseh; you've been away from home. But had you been here and seen and heard your brother David when he stood up in the middle of the marketplace, made a speech to the young men around him, and then buckled on his sword and mounted his horse, you would certainly have mounted and followed him. How can you quench the flames when every house is ablaze? All the young men were on fire and it was out of the question to dampen their ardour. Besides, this is no ordinary war; freedom itself is at stake, and that is a matter that concerns Toroczko. All the Wallachians around us, stirred up by imperial officers sent from Vienna, took up arms against us, and nothing was left us but to defend ourselves. The people took such a fancy to our brothers that there was no other way but to make them officers. You cry out against the good folk for letting their commanders be taken prisoners. But don't make such a noise about it." (Manasseh had thus far not once opened his mouth.) "You shall soon see that your brothers were no fools, and did not rush into danger recklessly. You know that soon after the Wallachian mass-meeting at Balazsfalva came the Szekler muster at Agyagfalva, and presently we found ourselves like an island in the midst of the sea. A Wallachian army ten thousand strong, under Moga's command, beset us on all sides, while we had but three hundred armed men all told,--just the number that Leonidas had at Thermopylæ. Our eldest brother, Berthold, who, since he turned vegetarian, can't bear to see a chicken killed for dinner, and is dead set against all bloodshed, advised us to make peaceful terms with the enemy. So we drew lots to see who should go out and parley with them, and it fell to our brother Simon. He took a white flag and went into the enemy's camp; but they held him prisoner and refused to let him go. Then David started up and went after him, with an offer of ransom for his release. But they seized him, too, and so now they have them both. Meanwhile the Wallachs are threatening, if we don't surrender to them and admit them into Toroczko, to hang our two brothers before our eyes. We on our part, however, turn a deaf ear to the rascally knaves, and would perish to the last man before we would think of yielding. It's no use your screaming in my ears, you won't make me change my mind. I'm ready to treat with people that are reasonable, but when they bite me I bite back. I agree with you it's a hateful thing to have two of our brothers hanged; noblemen are not to be insulted with the halter; their honour should be spared and their heads taken off decently. But what can we do? Can we hesitate a moment between two noblemen's deaths and the destruction of all the peasantry? One man is as good as another now. So you may make as much rumpus as you please, it won't do any good. I am taking you to Toroczko, and as our two brothers are as good as lost to us, you must take the command of the Toroczko forces. You have seen the barricade fighting in Vienna and Rome, and you understand such things. So, then, not another word! I won't hear it." Manasseh had not uttered a syllable, but had permitted his brother to argue out the matter with himself. "I don't gainsay you, brother Aaron," he calmly rejoined, "not in the least. Take me to Toroczko, the sooner the better; but we shall not get there by this road. Do you see that great cloud of dust yonder moving toward us?" "Aha! What sharp eyes you have to see it, by moonlight too! I hadn't noticed it before. All Torda and Nagy-Enyed are coming to meet us. They must have set out about the same time we did, to make the most of the night. We can't get through this way, that's sure. But don't you worry. It's a sorry kind of a fox that has only one hole to hide in. Do you see that gorge there on our right? It leads to Olah-Fenes. The people there are Wallachs, it is true, but they side with us; to prove it, they have cut their hair short. Next we shall come to Szent-Laszlo, where Magyars live. So far we can drive, though it's a frightful road and one of us must walk beside the carriage and keep it from tipping over. We must wake up the young lady, too, and tell her to hold on tight, or she'll be thrown out. But never fear. The horses can be depended on, and the carriage is Toroczko work and good for the jaunt." There was a halt, and Blanka awoke of her own accord. Manasseh turned to her, chatted with her a moment on the brightness of the stars and the clearness of the sky, then kissed her hand and bade her draw it back again under her furs, else it would get frost-bitten. Thereupon Aaron reined his horses toward the mountain gorge he had pointed out, and they began their dangerous journey over a rough wood-road that led through the ravine. At one point it ran along the brink of a precipice, and as they paused to breathe their horses the rumble of wagons on the highway from Torda fell on their ears, sounding like distant thunder in the still night. Then, to the north and south, red lights began to glimmer on the mountain peaks. "How beautiful!" exclaimed Blanka, as she gazed at them. Little did she suspect that they were beacon-fires calling to deeds of blood and rapine. A turn in the road at length conducted the travellers through a gap in the mountain range, and they had a view of the moonlit landscape before them. A noisy brook went tumbling and foaming down the ravine, and over it led a wooden bridge, at the farther end of which could be seen a rude one-story house surrounded by a palisade. Five smaller houses of similar architecture were grouped about it. The barking of dogs greeted the travellers while they were still some distance off, and the crowing of cocks soon followed. "Do you hear Ciprianu's roosters?" Aaron asked his brother. "So you are acquainted with Ciprianu and his poultry?" returned Manasseh. "Yes, I know them well. Ciprianu is a Wallach, but a nobleman of Hungary for all that, and his poultry unique of its sort. The cocks are white, but in head and neck they bear a strong resemblance to turkeys, and they gobble like turkeys, too. They are a special breed and Ciprianu wouldn't part with one of them for a fortune. He guards them jealously from thieves, and that explains why he has so many dogs. As soon as he hears our carriage-wheels he'll come out on his veranda and fire off his gun--not at us, but into the air, to let us know he's awake and ready to meet friend or foe." The barking increased, the dogs sticking their noses out from between the stakes of the palisade and joining in a full chorus. Presently a shot was heard from the front porch of the house. "Oh, they are firing at us!" cried Blanka, startled. "Don't be afraid, sister-in-law," Aaron reassured her; "that shot wasn't aimed at us." Then he shouted, in stentorian tones: "Don't shoot, Ciprianu, don't shoot! There's a lady with us, and she can't bear the noise." At this there was heard a great commotion among the dogs, as of some one quieting the unruly beasts with a whip. Then the gate opened and a six-foot giant in a sheepskin coat, wool outward, and bearing a club, appeared. He exchanged greetings in Rumanian with Aaron, and the conversation that followed was likewise in that language, so that Blanka could not understand a word of it. The Wallach pointed to the signal-fires on the mountains, and his face assumed an expression of alarm. Finally he took one of the horses by the bridle, and conducted the carriage through the gate and into his stronghold. "Why are we stopped here?" asked Blanka. Aaron gave her a reassuring reply. "Ciprianu says it is not best for us to go any farther to-night, as the rains have washed out the road in some places, and we might get into trouble in the dark. So we must accept his invitation and spend the rest of the night under his roof." Aaron had explained the situation only in part. The Wallachian's argument for detaining them had much less to do with water than with the fires on the mountain tops. The dogs were kicked aside to make room for the strangers, and sundry villagers appeared out of the gloom to reconnoitre the new arrivals. The country peasantry never give themselves a regular night's sleep, but lie down half-dressed in order to get up occasionally and look around in house and stable, to make sure all is as it should be. Ciprianu had a handsome daughter, as tall as himself and with regular features of the old Roman cast. At her father's call she came out, lifted Blanka like a child from the carriage, and carried her into the house. It was a pleasant little abode, built of smoothly planed oak beams and planks. The kitchen, which served also as entrance hall, was as neat as wax and cheerfully adorned with brightly polished tinware. The fire on the hearth was still smouldering, and it needed only a handful of shavings to make it blaze up and crackle merrily. The wall which separated the great fireplace from the next room was of glazed tiles, and thus the adjoining apartment was heated by the same fire that warmed the kitchen. Both the master of the house and his daughter were most cordial toward their guests. The father spread the table, while the girl put on the kettle and brought out the best that the house had to offer of food and drink, pressing the refreshments upon Blanka in words that sounded to her not unlike Italian, but were nevertheless quite unintelligible. "They can both speak Hungarian," whispered Aaron, when father and daughter were out of the room for a moment, "but these are times when they choose to forget all tongues except their own." Blanka soon learned that her hostess's name was Zenobia. When they sat down to the table, Zenobia made as if to kiss her fair guest's hand; Blanka, however, would not allow it, but embraced the young woman and kissed her on the cheek. This act was noted by the father with no little pride and satisfaction. Blanka could not understand his words; she could only guess his meaning by the gestures and the play of countenance with which a Wallachian knows so well how to convey his thoughts. Thus, when Ciprianu put his hand first to his head, then tapped Aaron on the shoulder, kissed his own fingers and then stretched them heavenward, made a motion with his head and raised his eyebrows, bowed low, stood erect again, thumped his bosom, and finally extended his great, muscular hands toward Blanka as if to caress her, she could not but infer that the Wallachian-Hungarian nobleman was proud of the courtesy shown to his daughter. After this bit of eloquent pantomime, Ciprianu turned and hastened out of the room and into the courtyard, whence he soon reappeared amid a great cackling of poultry. He brought with him, tied together by the feet, a cock and a hen of that splendid breed that so strangely resembles, in head and neck, the proudest of Calcutta turkeys. This pair of fowls he presented to Blanka. She smiled her pleasure, and gladly accepted the gift, mindful of the new duties soon to be imposed upon her as a young housewife, and thinking that this present would be a welcome addition to her establishment. The generous host did not wait for his guest's thanks, but disappeared again from the room. "Sister-in-law," said Aaron, "you little suspect the value of the present you have received. Even to his bishop Ciprianu has never given a cock and a hen of this breed at one time. So now we can sleep soundly in this house, for we have a sure proof that you have won its master's heart. With Ciprianu's cock and hen we can make our way unchallenged through the whole Wallachian army. They are as good as a passport for us." Blanka laughed, unaware of the full significance of his words. She was like a saint walking over red-hot coals without once singeing the hem of her robe. Ciprianu's house was, as is usual among the Wallachian nobility, well fitted for the reception of guests. Everything savoured of the householder's nationality, but comfort and abundance were everywhere manifest. Canopied beds were provided for all, only the master of the house, according to established custom, lay down before the kitchen door, wrapped in his sheepskin, and with his double-barrelled musket by his side. In an adjoining room stood two beds for Blanka and Zenobia. Aaron and Manasseh were likewise given a chamber in common. Curiously enough, one is often most wakeful when most in need of sleep. All her surroundings were so strange to Blanka that she found herself wide awake and listening to the barking of the dogs, the occasional crowing of the cocks, the snoring of the master of the house, and his frequent mutterings as he dreamed of fighting with thieves and housebreakers. Then her companion began to moan and sob in her sleep, and to utter disjointed sentences in Hungarian, of which she had so studiously feigned ignorance a few hours before. "Oh, dear Jonathan," she whispered, passionately, "do not leave me! Kiss me!" Then she moaned as if in anguish. Blanka could not compose herself to sleep. Only a wooden partition separated her from the room in which the two brothers slept. She could hear Manasseh turning restlessly on his couch and muttering in his sleep as if in dispute with some one. "No, I will not let you go!" she heard him exclaim. "You may plunge my whole country in blood, you may baptise my countrymen with a baptism of fire, but I will never despair of my dear fatherland. Your hand has girt it round about with cliffs and peopled it with a peaceful race. It is my last refuge, and thither I am carrying my bride. With your strong arm restore me to my beloved home. I will wrestle with you, fight with you; you cannot shake me off. I will not let you go until you have blessed me." The fisticuffs and elbow-thrusts that followed must have all spent themselves on poor Aaron's unoffending person. At length the elder brother wearied of this diversion and aroused his bedfellow. "With whom are you wrestling, brother?" he cried in the sleeper's ear. "With God," returned Manasseh. "Like Jacob at Peniel?" "Yes, and I will not let him go until he blesses me--like Jacob at Peniel." "Take care, or he will put your thigh out of joint, as he did Jacob's." "Let him, if it is his will." With that Manasseh turned his face to the wall, on the other side of which lay Blanka, who likewise turned her face to the wall, and so they both fell asleep. And the Lord blessed them and spake to them: "I am Jehovah, almighty. Increase and be fruitful. From your seed shall spring peoples and races; for you have prevailed with God, and shall prevail also with men." CHAPTER XV. BALYIKA CAVE. The sun rises late in November. When Blanka awoke, every one else in the house was already up. Manasseh met her with the announcement that their journey was thenceforth to be on horseback, at which she was as pleased as a child. So that explained why their carriage-horses had been saddled. In the kitchen a plentiful breakfast stood ready,--hot milk, bacon spiced with paprika, snow-white mountain honey, long-necked bottles of spirits distilled from various fruits, cheeses rolled up in the fragrant bark of the fir-tree,--all of which was new to Blanka and partaken of by her with the keenest relish, to the great satisfaction of her host. What was left on the table by his guests he packed up and made them carry away with them, assuring them it would not come amiss. Zenobia was to guide the travellers on their way. Blanka laughed with delight as she mounted her horse. At first she found it strange enough to sit astride like a man, but when she saw the stately Wallachian maiden thus mounted, she overcame her scruples and even thought it great fun. The little mountain horses were so steady and sure-footed that it was like being rocked in a cradle to ride one of them. The two young women rode ahead, while the men lingered behind a moment to drink a stirrup-cup with their host, who would not let them go without observing this ceremony. Entering the forest, Blanka accosted her companion. "Zenobia, call me 'Blanka,' and speak Hungarian with me. You spoke it well enough in your sleep last night." The Wallachian girl drew rein abruptly and crossed herself. "Holy Virgin!" she whispered, "don't lisp a word of what you heard me say, and don't ask me about it, either." They rode on side by side up the slope of the mountain. Blanka was in high spirits. The turf was silvered with hoar frost, except here and there where the direct rays of the sun had melted it and exposed the grass beneath, which looked all the greener by contrast. A stately grove received the travellers. A silence as of some high-arched cathedral reigned, broken occasionally by the antiphony of feathered songsters in the trees overhead. A pair of wild peacocks started up at the riders' approach and alighted again at a little distance. The ascent became steeper. Horses bred in the lowlands must have long since succumbed to the strain put upon them, but Aaron's good mountain ponies showed not even a drop of sweat on their sleek coats. Gaining the mountain top at length, the travellers saw before them a wild moor threaded by a narrow path, which they were obliged to follow in single file, Zenobia taking the lead. The sun was high in the heavens when they reached the end of this tortuous path and found themselves at a point where their road led downward into the valley below. A venerable beech-tree, perhaps centuries old, marked this spot. It was the sole survivor of the primeval forest that had once crowned the height on which it stood. Held firm by its great, wide-reaching roots, which fastened themselves in the crannies of the rock, it had thus far defied the elements. Its trunk half hid a cavernous opening in the mountainside, before which lay a large stone basin partly filled with water. "Here we will rest awhile, beside the Wonder Spring," said Zenobia, leaping from her horse and loosening her saddle-girth. "We'll take a bite of lunch and let our animals graze; then later we will water them." "How can we?" asked Blanka. "There is scarcely any water here." "There will be enough before long," was the reply. "That is why we call it the Wonder Spring: every two hours it gushes out, and then subsides again." Blanka shook her head doubtfully, and, as if to make the most of the water still remaining in the basin, she used her hand as a ladle and dipped up enough to quench the thirst of her pair of fowls--for her valuable present had not been left behind. Meanwhile Aaron had spread the lunch on the green table-cloth provided by good dame Nature, and had begun to cut, with his silver-mounted clasp-knife, a generous portion for each traveller. But Blanka declared herself less hungry than thirsty. "The saints have but to wish, and their desires are fulfilled," was Zenobia's laughing rejoinder. "Even the barren rocks yield nectar. Hear that! The spring is going to flow in a moment." A gurgling sound was heard from the cavernous opening behind the beech-tree, and presently an abundant stream of crystal-clear water burst forth, flooded the basin, and then went leaping and foaming over the rocks and down the mountainside into the ravine below. Blanka clapped her hands with delight at this beautiful appearance, and declared that if she were rich, she would build a house there and ask for no other amusement than to watch the spring when it flowed. She laughed like a happy child, and perhaps in all Transylvania, that day, hers was the only happy laugh that was heard. Aaron gathered a heap of dry twigs and made a fire, at which he taught Blanka to toast bread and broil bacon,--accomplishments not to be despised on occasions like this. In half an hour the spring ceased to flow. It stopped with a succession of muffled, gurgling sounds from the depths of its subterranean channel, ending finally with gulping down the greater part of the water that had filled the basin. Then all was still once more. Meanwhile something had occurred to trouble Blanka's happiness. Two or three wasps, of that venomous kind of which half a dozen suffice to kill a horse, lured from their winter quarters by the smell of food, were buzzing about her ears in a manner that spoiled all her pleasure. Aaron hastened to her assistance, and suspecting that the intruders had their nest in the hollow beech, he made preparations to smoke them out. Setting fire to a bunch of dry grass, he inserted it in the hollow of the tree and confidently awaited results. A sound like the snort of a steam-engine followed, and presently flames were seen bursting from the top of the chimney-like trunk. The dry mould and dust of ages that had collected inside this shaft had now caught fire, like so much tinder, turning the whole tree in a twinkling into a mighty torch. "Oh, what have you done?" cried Zenobia, starting up. "Do you know that you have killed my father and set fire to the house that sheltered you last night?" Blanka at first thought the girl was joking, but when she saw Aaron's vexed expression and Manasseh's ruffled brow, she knew that the words must have a meaning that the others understood, though she did not. "Quick!" exclaimed the Wallachian maiden. "Mount and away! You have not a moment to lose. I hasten back to my father. You can find your way down the mountain by following the bed of the brook. Night must not overtake you in this neighbourhood. Oh, Aaron, may God forgive you for what you have done this day!" Out of the burning tree a pair of owls fluttered, blinded and panic-stricken, a family of squirrels scampered off to a place of safety, and a nest of serpents squirmed and wriggled away from that blazing horror. Yet neither owls nor squirrels nor serpents fled with more headlong haste than did our travellers. Zenobia galloped back the way she had come, while the two men took Blanka between them and clattered down the rocky bed of the now nearly dry mountain torrent. Of all this Blanka could understand nothing. What great harm, she wondered, could come from the burning of an old beech-tree? Toward evening the travellers found themselves on a height commanding a wide view of the surrounding country. To the north rose the cliff where they had lunched at noon, and where they could still see black smoke ascending in a column from the smouldering beech as from a factory chimney. To the southeast another column of smoke was visible, and toward the same quarter Torda Gap opened before them in the distance. Aaron said they must halt here and rest their horses, whereupon all three dismounted and Manasseh spread a sheepskin for Blanka to sit on; but she chose rather to go in quest of wild flowers. "Your Blanka is a jewel of a woman!" exclaimed Aaron to his brother. "From early dawn she sits in the saddle, bears all the hardships of the journey, and utters not a sigh of weariness or complaint. With that filigree body of hers, she endures fatigues that might well make a strong man's bones ache, and keeps up her good cheer through them all. Nothing daunted by danger ahead, she makes merry over it when it is passed. Yet once or twice I thought she was going to lose heart, but she looked into your face and immediately regained her courage. But the hardest part of the journey is still to come. Turn your field-glass toward Monastery Heights, yonder, where you see the smoke. Do you find any tents there?" "Yes, and on the edge of the woods I see the gleam of bayonets." "That is the camp of Moga's insurgents, and it lies between us and the Szekler Stone. Every road leading thither is now unsafe for us. But hear my plan. The insurgents hold Monastery Heights, and we must ride past them, through the Torda Gap. The millers of the two mills that stand one at each end of the Gap are my friends. The Hungarian miller at Peterd has shut off Hesdad Brook to-day, to clear out the mill-race. He does it once in so often, and I know he is about it now. So we shall have no trouble making our way up the dry bed of the stream to the farther end of the Gap. The miller there has promised to give a signal if the road through the Torda woods is clear, and unless it is blocked by the insurgents we can push on at once to the saw-mill on the Aranyos, where a four-horse team is waiting for us with twelve mounted young men from Bagyon as escort. But don't wrinkle your brow, we sha'n't come to bloodshed yet awhile. A dozen Bagyon horsemen make nothing of dashing through the whole Wallachian army, and not a hair of their heads will be touched. We shall be shot at, but from such a distance that we shall never know it. We will tell the young lady it is the custom in our country to receive bridal parties with a volley of musketry. When we reach the Borev Bridge we are as good as at home, and we shall be there before any one can overtake us, I'll warrant." "But what if the Torda woods are held by the enemy?" queried Manasseh. "Then we will take up our quarters for the present in Balyika Cave. Everything is provided there for our comfort, and we shall not suffer. We'll wait until the danger passes. Near the Balyika Gate we shall find a signal: a cord will be stretched from one rock to another, and a red rag hung on it if danger threatens, but a green twig if all is well." "And when you first proposed in Kolozsvar that we should go home by way of Torda Gap, did you know the perils we should have to face?" "Certainly," replied Aaron. "You can read my heart, brother, like an open book, and I need not try to conceal anything from you. Do you suppose we should ever have taken up arms unless we had been forced to do so, even as you will exchange the olive-branch for the sword as soon as you find what is dearest to you in danger? You cannot do otherwise; the iron hand of destiny constrains you. You have brought your sweetheart with you from Rome; your honour as a man obliges you to make her your lawful wife. Our law, our canon, compels you to make your way home with her, for nowhere else can your wedding be duly solemnised. Suppose the enemy block your way: you are given a good horse, a trusty sword and a brace of pistols, and then, with thirteen loyal comrades, including myself, you clear a path, through blood if need be, to the altar whither it is your duty to lead your betrothed." While the two men thus discoursed on war and bloodshed, Blanka was enjoying the late autumn flowers that the frost had spared. Indigo-blue bell-flowers and red and white tormentils were still in bloom, while in the clefts of the rocks she came upon the red wall-pepper and a kind of yellow ragwort. She had gathered a great bunch of these blossoms when she had the good fortune to find a clump of bear-berry vines, full of the ripened fruit hanging in red clusters and set off by the leathery, dark green leaves, which never fall. The bear-berry is the pride of the mountain flora, and Blanka was delighted to meet with it. "Are these berries poisonous?" she asked Aaron, with childish curiosity, as soon as she rejoined her companions. He put one of them into his mouth to reassure her; then she had to follow his example, but immediately made a wry face and declared the fruit to be very bitter. "But the berries will do to put in my bouquets for your two brothers who are coming to meet us," she said, as she seated herself on the sheepskin to rest a few minutes and to tie up her flowers. At these words Aaron's eyes filled, but he hastened to reply, with assumed cheerfulness: "In Balyika Glen we shall find a still more beautiful species of bear-berry. It, too, is a kind of arbutus, but of great rarity, and found nowhere else except in Italy and Ireland. We call it here the 'autumn-spring flower.' The stems are coral-red, the leaves evergreen, and the blossoms grow in terminal umbels, white and fragrant, late in the fall, while the berries do not ripen until the following autumn, so that the beautiful plant bears flowers and fruit at one and the same time, and thus wears our national colours, the tricolour of Hungary." "Oh, where does it grow? Is it far from here?" exclaimed Blanka, eagerly, starting up from her seat. She had lost all feeling of fatigue. "It is a good distance, dear sister-in-law," replied Aaron. "To the Torda Gap is a full hour's ride, and thence to Balyika Glen about as far; and I'm afraid somebody is tired enough already, so that we had best stay overnight in the mill and not push on until to-morrow morning." "No, I am not tired," Blanka asserted. "Let us go on this evening," and she was ready to remount at once. "But the horses ought to graze a little longer," objected Aaron, "and even then we shall fare much better if we walk down the mountain; it will be easier for us than riding." With that he went off into the bushes and picked his hat full of huckleberries, returning with which he drew a clean linen handkerchief from his knapsack, used it as a strainer for extracting the juice of the fruit, and then presented the drink in a wooden goblet to Blanka. She left some for Manasseh, who drank after her and declared he had never tasted a more delightful draught. She seemed now fully rested and refreshed, and eager to resume their journey. Aaron put two fingers into his mouth and whistled, whereupon the three horses came trotting up to him. He called them by name, and they followed him as a dog follows his master, while Manasseh and Blanka brought up the rear. Thus the party descended the steep mountainside. The Torda Gap is one of the most marvellous volcanic formations in existence. It is as if a mighty mountain chain had been rent asunder from ridge to base, leaving the opposing sides of the gorge rugged and precipitous, but matching each other with a rude harmony of detail most curious to behold. The zigzags and windings of the giant corridor, three thousand feet in length, have a wonderful regularity and symmetry in their bounding walls. The whole forms an entrance-way or passage of solid rock, the most imposing gateway in the world, and a marvel to all geologists. The wonders of this mountain gorge, and the stories and legends that Aaron narrated as the travellers proceeded, made Blanka entirely unconscious of the difficulties of the way. After leaving the Peterd mill behind them, they were forced to use the bed of the stream for a road. Its waters were for the time being restrained, although numerous pools were still standing, in which numbers of small fishes darted hither and thither and crabs were seen in abundance. As the riders advanced through the rocky passageway, its walls came nearer and nearer together and left only a narrow strip of blue sky visible overhead, with a few slanting rays of the evening sunlight playing high up on one side of the gorge. At length the passage became so straitened that only three fathoms' space was left between the confining walls. When Hesdad Brook is at all full one can make his way through only with great difficulty and by boldly breasting its waters. Therefore it is that very few people have ever seen the gate of Torda Gap. Just above this narrow gateway is situated the natural excavation in the mountainside, called from its last defender, Balyika Cave. As the travellers approached this spot, Aaron rode on ahead, ostensibly to ascertain whether the water was still shallow enough to wade through, but in reality to look for the preconcerted signal and remove it before Blanka should come up. He had agreed with Manasseh, if the signal was favourable, to offer to show her the flower garden of Balyika Glen and to discourage all desire on her part to visit Balyika Cave, by alleging that it was the haunt of serpents; but if the signal should be unfavourable, he was to employ all his arts to make the young lady eager to inspect the cavern and pass the night there. He soon returned, and reported that it would be easy to wade their horses through the gateway, after which they could go and view the wonders of Balyika Cave. "But aren't there any snakes in the cave?" was Blanka's first and most natural inquiry. Every woman in her place would have put the same question. Ever since Mother Eve's misadventure with the serpent in Paradise, women have cherished a deadly enmity toward the whole reptile family. "Yes," was Aaron's reply, "there are snakes there." Manasseh drew a breath of relief, but this time he had mistaken his brother's meaning. "We need not fear them, however," the elder made haste to add. "We will build a fire and drive them out. Our fowls, too, will be a still better protection for us; with their naked necks they will be taken for vultures by the snakes, and we shall have no trouble whatever." Manasseh now knew that dangers surrounded them, and that they must pass the night in the cave. Aaron, however, put forth all his eloquence to depict the charms of the place, likening its cavernous depths to the groined arches of a cathedral, and telling how his ancestors had maintained themselves there for months at a time in the face of a besieging force. He assured Blanka that she would find it most delightful to camp there by a blazing fire; he and Manasseh would take turns watching while she slept, her head pillowed on a fragrant bundle of hay. They passed through the giant gateway, and clambered up to Balyika Cave, a spacious chamber in the side of the cliff, rudely but strongly fortified by a stone rampart that had been built to guard the entrance. A wild rosebush grew in the narrow doorway and seemed at first to refuse all admittance. Manasseh and Blanka waited without, while Aaron fought his way through the brambles, which tore at his leather coat without injuring it, and presently returned with three broad planks. He and Manasseh held the briers aside with two of them and laid the third as a bridge for Blanka to pass over unharmed. In a corner of the stone wall lay a pile of hay, and behind it a supply of pitch-pine torches, one of which Aaron now lighted. Then, like a lord in his own castle, he issued his orders to his companions. Manasseh was to lead the horses up, one at a time, and stable them in the rude courtyard, while Blanka was instructed to sit on a stone and arrange her flowers and feed her poultry. Meantime the master of ceremonies made everything ready for the other two within the cave. The cock and hen were soon picking the barley from their mistress's lap, while she busied her fingers with the manufacture of a red necklace of the hips that grew on the wild rosebush. That other necklace, the dandelion chain, was treasured by Manasseh among his most precious possessions. Soon the horses were led up, stalled and fed, and then their groom drew in the wooden planks, according to his brother's instructions, and carried them into the cave, leaving the wild rosebush to resume its guardianship of the doorway. After this Aaron came out and offered his arm, like a courteous host, to escort Blanka into the cavern. She was no little surprised, on entering, to find herself in a stately hall, clean and comfortable, and lighted and warmed by a cheerful fire of fagots in its centre. Near the fire stood a table, neatly spread with a white cloth, on which were placed glasses and a pitcher of fresh spring-water. Beside the table a couch, rude but comfortable, had been prepared for her repose. "Aaron, you are a magician!" cried the young girl. "Where did you get all these things?" At this question the good man nearly let the cat out of the bag by explaining that everything had long since been in readiness for their coming. But he checked himself and considered his answer a moment. To say that he had brought all this outfit in his knapsack would have been too obviously a falsehood, so he sought another way out of the difficulty. "I told the miller," he replied, with a jerk of his thumb over one shoulder, "that we should stay the night here, and he sent these things forward by a short cut over the mountain." Thus it was only the speaker's thumb, and not his tongue, that lied, by pointing backward to the mill just passed, instead of forward to the other mill at the upper end of Torda Gap. Aaron now offered to show the wonders of this rock palace, which, like the Palazzo Cagliari, consisted of two wings, from the second of which a low and narrow passage led upward to the mountain spring whence the thoughtful host had procured fresh water for their table. The previous occupants of this abode seemed to have been provided with not a few conveniences. Returning to the fireside, Blanka was easily persuaded to try the couch that had been spread for her. The three planks, laid on some flat stones and heaped with sheepskins and rugs, made a very comfortable resting-place even for a lady. Blanka demanded nothing further, except a glass of water, and then begged Aaron to tell her some more stories, to which she listened with her chin resting in her hand and her eyelids now and then drooping with drowsiness, despite the interest she took in the narrator's ingenious farrago of fact and fiction, of romance and reality. He told her how Balyika, the last lord of this castle, had held it for years against the imperial troops; even after Francis Rakoczy's surrender he had refused to lay down his arms, but had maintained his position with a sturdy band of a hundred mountaineers. With this little company he waged bitter warfare against his foes, losing his followers one after another in the unequal contest, until he alone was left. Even then he refused to yield himself, but outwitted all who strove to kill or capture him. Finally he met the fate of many another brave man,--he was betrayed by the woman he loved. He had been smitten with a passion for the daughter of the Torda baker, the beautiful Rosalie; but her affections were already bespoken by the butcher's apprentice, Marczi by name, a youth of courage and activity. However, she deigned to receive the outlawed chieftain's attentions, her sole purpose being to entrap him and deliver him up to his foes. One evening, when she went to keep an appointment with Balyika, she notified the village magistrate and the captain of the yeomen. These two took an armed force and surrounded the lovers' rendezvous, thinking thus at last to capture their man. But he cut his way through the soldiery, and, fleeing over the mountain, made straight for his cave in the Torda Gap, outstripping the pursuit of both horse and foot--with the single exception of the injured lover, Marczi, whom he could not shake off. The young man clung to his heels and chased him to the very entrance of his retreat, where, just as the robber chief was slipping through the opening of his cave, his pursuer hurled his hatchet with such deadly aim that it cleft the fugitive's skull, and he sank dead on the spot. "And that was how the last lord of the cave came to his end," concluded Aaron. "But what about Marczi and Rosalie?" asked Blanka. The narrator proceeded to gratify her curiosity by making the young man fall into the hands of the Mongols, after which he was captured by a troop of Cossacks; and then, when Aaron was putting him through a similar experience with the dog-faced Tartars, his listener succumbed at last to the drowsiness against which she had been struggling, and the story was abruptly discontinued. "I never heard that tale before, brother," said Manasseh, after assuring himself that Blanka was really asleep. "Nor I, either," was Aaron's candid reply; "but in a tight pinch a man turns romancer sometimes. I don't know, though, what fables we can invent to keep the young lady here over to-morrow. You think up something, brother; don't let me go to perdition all alone for the lot of yarns I've been reeling off to your sweetheart." "Very well," assented the other; "I'll set my wits to work. Now you lie down and rest a bit, while I stay up and tend the fire. At midnight I will wake you and lie down myself while you watch." Aaron lay down with a bundle of twigs under his head for a pillow, and, muttering a snatch of a prayer, was fast asleep in a twinkling. Manasseh was now left undisturbed to devise something new and surprising against his brother's awakening. Tearing a leaf from his sketch-book, he wrote as follows: "DEAR BROTHER AARON:--I cannot close my eyes in sleep while death threatens our brothers Simon and David. Nor can I endure the thought of my birthplace being turned into a bloody battle-field, and of the horrors of war invading the peaceful valley whither I am bringing my bride, and which has ever looked upon bloodshed with disapproval. It was my fond hope to give my wife a glimpse of mankind in something like its original sinless state, and to let her learn to know and worship the God of our fathers as a God of love and gentleness. I am seeking a way by which this cherished hope of mine may yet be realised. While the Lord watches over your slumbers, I go in quest of the insurgent leader. That which force and threats cannot effect may yet be accomplished by peaceful means. I go to rescue our brothers from imprisonment and death. No fears can hold me back, as no inducements could prevail on me to slip stealthily by their place of confinement and push forward to celebrate my wedding while they perhaps were being led out to execution. I go forth alone and unarmed, and I am hopeful of success. Meanwhile do you guard and cherish my beloved. Above all, take her away from this place early to-morrow morning. Our presence here is known to one man, and he may betray us. You know the way to Porlik Grotto; few people are even aware of its existence, so well is it hidden from the view of travellers. Thither you must conduct our companion, and I will join you there with our two brothers from Monastery Heights. I may perhaps be there before you. But if it should please God not to prosper my undertaking, take Blanka home with you, and, if the Lord preserves our family, treat her as a sister. She is worthy of your adoption. Break to her gently the news of my fate. In the accompanying pocketbook is all her worldly wealth, as well as my own savings. Take charge of it. My brother Jonathan resembles me in appearance, and is a much better man than I. To him I leave _all_ that I now call mine. "Do not betray to Blanka any anxiety on my account. If God be with me, who shall prevail against me? "Your brother, "MANASSEH." CHAPTER XVI. A DESPERATE HAZARD. After finishing his letter, Manasseh took a number of banknotes out of his pocketbook and put them into his waistcoat pocket, and then softly slipped the pocketbook itself, with his letter, under Aaron's pillow. On Blanka's pure brow, as she lay asleep, he gently pressed a parting kiss, after which he heaped fresh fuel on the fire, stole out of the cave, saddled his horse, and rode away into the darkness. The signal-fire on Monastery Heights showed him where to find the Wallachian camp. No outposts challenged his progress, and he made his way unmolested to the ruined monastery which sheltered the insurgents. Fastening his horse to a tree, he turned his steps toward the belfry tower that marked the position of the cloister and the chapel, which, as the only building on the mountain with a whole roof, served the Wallachian leader and his staff as headquarters. Softly opening the door, Manasseh found himself in a low but spacious apartment. Twelve men were seated around a table on which stood a single tallow candle, whose feeble rays could hardly pierce the enveloping clouds of tobacco smoke. The company was engaged in that engrossing pursuit which, as is well known, claimed so much of the officers' time during the campaigns of the period,--they were playing cards. One chair in the circle was empty. Perhaps its former occupant had gambled away his last kreutzer and left the room. At any rate, the newcomer advanced without hesitation and took the vacant seat. It may be that the players were too absorbed in their game to notice him; or possibly they had so recently come together that they were not yet sufficiently acquainted to detect a stranger's presence; or, again, the feeble light and the clouds of tobacco smoke may have rendered it impossible to distinguish one's neighbours very clearly. Whatever the reason, the stranger's advent elicited no comment. A pocketful of money furnished him all the language he needed to speak, and the cards were dealt to him as a matter of course. Opposite him sat the Wallachian leader. The game proceeded and the stakes rose higher and higher. One after another the losers dropped out, until at last Manasseh and the Wallachian commander were left pitted against each other, a heap of coins and banknotes between them. Fortune declared for Manasseh, and he swept the accumulated stakes into his pocket. At this the others looked him more sharply in the face. "Who is he?" was asked by one and another. "Why, you are Manasseh Adorjan!" exclaimed the leader at length, in astonishment. "What do you mean by this rashness?" The faces around him assumed threatening looks, and more than one muttered menace fell on his ear; but the hardy intruder betrayed no sign of uneasiness. "I trust I am among gentlemen," he remarked, quietly, "who will not seek a base revenge on a player that has won their money from them." The words failed not of their effect. Honour forbade that a hand should be raised against the fortunate winner. "But, Adorjan," interposed the leader, in a tone of mingled wonder and vexation, "how did you come here and what is your purpose?" "Time enough to talk about that when we have finished playing," was the careless rejoinder. "First I must win the rest of your money. So have the goodness to resume your seats." The company began to laugh. Clenched fists relaxed, and the men clapped the intruder jovially on the shoulder, as they again took their places around the table. "Haven't you a spare pipe to lend me?" Manasseh asked his right-hand neighbour. "Yes, yes, to be sure," was the ready reply. Manasseh filled the proffered pipe, drew from his pocket a banknote which he rolled into a lighter, thrust it into the candle-flame, and so kindled his pipe, after which he took up his cards and began to play. A faint-hearted man, on finding his own and his brothers' lives thus at stake, would have sought to curry favour by allowing his opponents to win. But not so Manasseh. He plundered the company without mercy, as before, and as before he and his _vis-à-vis_ were at last left sole antagonists, while the others rose from their places and gathered in groups about these two. Manasseh still continued to win, and his opponent's supply of money ebbed lower and lower. The loser grew furious, and drank deeply to keep himself in countenance. "Give me a swallow of your brandy," said Manasseh, but he had no sooner tasted it than he pushed the bottle disdainfully away. "Fusel-oil!" he exclaimed, making a wry face. "To-morrow I will send you a cask of my plum brandy." "No, you won't," returned his antagonist. "Why not, pray?" "Because to-morrow you shall hang." "Oh, no," replied Manasseh, lightly, "for that would require my personal presence, and I am needed elsewhere." The Wallachian continued to lose. Finally, in his fury, he staked his last penny--"and your brothers' heads into the bargain!" he added, in desperation. The other took him up and staked his own head in addition to the bundle of notes which he threw down nonchalantly before him. They played, and again Manasseh won. A man less bold of temperament might have thought to gain his enemies' good-will by leaving his winnings on the table. But Manasseh knew better. His opponents, angered by their losses, called him a robber, but still respected him. Had he, however, been so timid as to leave the money lying there, they would have regarded his action as such an insult that he would have been compelled to fight the entire company, one after another, in single combat. "Now, then," said the leader, "we have time to talk. Why are you here--to persuade us to release your two brothers and leave Toroczko in peace?" "A man of your discernment can fathom my motives without asking any questions," replied Manasseh, with a courteous bow. "Well, let us see how you are going to work to bring this about. Your brother David, like the simple rustic he is, thought to talk me over with Bible quotations. He preached me a sermon on the love of one's neighbour, Christ's commandments, the almighty power of Jehovah, and a lot more of the same sort, until at last I grew tired of it and had him locked up to keep him quiet. Your brother Simon is a shrewder man; he has been to school at Kolozsvar. He came to me with threats in his mouth, delivered a long harangue on the constitution, the powers of the government, our past history, and kept up such a din in my ears that finally I had to shut him up, too. But you are the cleverest of the three; you have been trained as a diplomat, and have taken lessons in Vienna from Metternich himself. Let us hear what you have to say." "Set my brothers free," returned Manasseh, boldly, "and promise me not to attack Toroczko; then I will give you sixteen fat oxen and twenty casks of plum brandy." The Wallachian sprang to his feet and clapped his hand to his sword. "If you were only armed," he exclaimed wrathfully, "you should pay for your insolence by fighting me. Do you take me for an Armenian peddler to be chaffered with in that fashion?" Manasseh kept his seat on the edge of the table, swinging one foot carelessly to and fro. "If you were an Armenian peddler," was his cool retort, "you would be far more sensibly employed than at present. But why so angry? I offer you what you most need, food and drink; and I ask in return what we most desire, peace." "But what you offer us we can come and take in spite of you. You three brothers are now in our hands, and we have only to send word to the people of Toroczko that, unless they lay down their arms and surrender the town, we shall hang you from the turret of St. George Castle." "There are five more of us brothers at home, and, furthermore, in order to reach St. George Castle you must push through the Gap or make your way over the Szekler Stone, and you know well enough that the men of Toroczko have held this valley in times past against the whole invading army of the Tartars." "You forget that there is still another way to reach Toroczko." "No, I do not forget it. You mean the bridge over the Aranyos. But our iron cannon guard that bridge, and your bushrangers are hardly the troops to take it." "Well, then, look out of yonder window toward the west. Do you see that signal-fire, and do you know its meaning? It means that a division of regular troops, with artillery and cavalry, is on the way hither from Szent-Laszlo." Manasseh burst into a laugh. "It means that a merry company of picnickers took their lunch this noon at the Wonder Spring, at the foot of the great beech-tree. The wasps came out and plagued them, so they stuck burning grass into the hollow trunk, and consequently the whole tree was soon in flames. That is what you see burning now." "Manasseh, if you are lying to me!" "You know me. You know I never lie. What I say is true. When I choose not to tell the truth, I hold my tongue. Last night I slept at Ciprianu's. There are no imperial troops to be seen for miles around. What is more, the Hungarian forces have left Kolozsvar. Whither have they gone? I do not know; but it might befall you, while counting on meeting with help, to stumble upon an enemy. After the first three Adorjans, you will encounter a fourth, Jonathan, and he will give you something beside Bible quotations and Metternichian diplomacy." The Wallachian was visibly affected by this speech, but he sought to hide his concern, and cried out, in a harsh tone: "If you are trifling with me, Adorjan, you'll find you have trifled with your own life. If you have told me a lie, God in heaven shall not save you." "But as I have not told you a lie, God in heaven will save me, and I beg you to tell me where I may lie down and sleep, for I am very tired." "Shut him up in the bell-tower," commanded the Wallachian. "Good!" cried Manasseh, with a laugh. "At least I shall be able to ring you up early in the morning." "Inasmuch as you have offered us a supply of brandy and eighteen oxen," were the leader's parting words, "we will have another interview in the morning." "Sixteen was the number," Manasseh corrected him. A bed of hay under the bell was furnished the captive, and he was locked up for the night, after which the company he had left held a council of war. CHAPTER XVII. IN PORLIK GROTTO. Complying with his brother's instructions, Aaron broke up his quarters at Balyika Cave early the next morning, and, descending with Blanka to the bed of the stream, led her up the valley to Porlik Grotto, one of nature's wonders known to few and seldom visited. From the top of its high-arched entrance hung cornel-bushes with brown leaves and red berries, while luxuriant wild grape-vines, with pendant clusters of ripe fruit, climbed upward from below to meet them, the whole thus forming an almost perfect screen before the opening. Through the screen, however, an observant eye caught the gleam of the stalactites within; the sun's rays, piercing the foliage, lighted them up like so many sparkling chandeliers. But our two travellers' thoughts were not on the beauties of the place. "If Manasseh should only come out now to meet us!" they both exclaimed at once. "There!" cried Aaron, "we both wished the same thing, and we have a sort of superstition here that a wish so uttered by two at the same time is bound to be fulfilled." But Manasseh did not appear. "Look there," said Aaron, with forced cheerfulness, pointing out the wonders of the grotto; "see how the limestone pillars grow together from above and below, till they meet and make one solid column." And all the while he was thinking: "What if Manasseh should come back, not alone, but with our two brothers! Yet is it right to ask so much of fate? Will not Heaven be angry with me for cherishing such a wish? Ah, let Manasseh himself come, even if he must come alone and with evil tidings!" "See there, my dove," he continued aloud to his companion, "how the arches extend back, one behind another, with balconies along the sides, just like a theatre, and high up yonder a perch for the gallery gods." Meanwhile he was saying to himself: "Oh, that brother of mine ought to have been here long ago if he was coming at all." Then, aloud to Blanka: "Hear me play on the organ up there,--for theatres have organs sometimes. You notice the pipes, side by side, some longer and some shorter, each for a different note. But you stay here,--the rocks are wet and slippery,--while I go up and play you a pretty tune." With that he clambered up the side of the cavern to a series of stalactites that presented somewhat the appearance of organ-pipes, and drew the handle of his hatchet across them, assuring his listener the while that he was playing a beautiful melody. Blanka was expected to laugh at this, and had Manasseh only been there, she could have done so with a light heart. "Don't you think this back wall looks like a stage curtain?" Aaron went on. "With a little stretch of the imagination you might take it for the curtain in the Kolozsvar theatre, with Apollo and the muses painted on it. One feels almost like stamping one's feet, to make it go up and the play begin." But the undercurrent of the speaker's thoughts was quite different. "What if Manasseh shouldn't come by noon--by nightfall?" he was asking himself. "Then what is to become of this poor girl?" Aloud once more: "That lad Manasseh must have made a little mistake--just like these young men! He probably took the longer way, instead of following my advice. But just look out toward the entrance, and see how the sun shines in through the leaves and lights up the whole grotto like a fairy palace." Blanka, however, was feeling so heavy of heart and, in a vague way, so fearful of impending misfortune, that she was in no mood to enjoy the splendours around her. She crossed her hands on her bosom and, in the half-light of this mysterious subterranean cathedral, yielded to the awe-inspiring influence of the place and gave utterance, in a subdued chant, to these words of the psalmist: "Hear me, O God, nor hide thy face, But answer, lest I die." Aaron could control his feelings no longer. Throwing himself down on his face, he began to sob as only a strong man can when he is at last moved to tears, not by any selfish grief, but by the very burden of his love and anxiety for others. But at that moment the psalm was broken off, and Aaron heard himself called three times by name. He rose to his knees and looked toward the opening of the grotto, where a glad and unexpected sight met his eyes. Glorified by the flood of light that poured in from without, appeared the forms of three men, the middle one being the tallest and stateliest. They were Manasseh and his two brothers, David and Simon. Aaron sprang up and threw himself on them with an inarticulate cry like that of a lioness recovering her lost cubs. Embraces and kisses were not enough: he bore them to the ground and thumped them soundly on the back in the excess of his emotion. "You rascal, you good-for-nothing, you shameless rogue, to worry me like that!" he exclaimed, accosting now one, now the other of his two lost brothers, after which he embraced them both once more. "And am I of no account?" asked Manasseh. "Have I no share in all this?" "You are your brothers' father," Aaron made answer, "before whom they prostrate themselves, even as the sheaves of Joseph's brethren bowed before his sheaf. We are all your humble slaves." So saying, he threw himself at Manasseh's feet and embraced his knees. "Torda Gap is, indeed, a place of wonders, but the greatest wonder of all you have wrought in rescuing your brothers." This unrestrained outburst of joy opened Blanka's eyes and made her see that there was far more behind the meeting of these brothers than she had at first suspected. She knew now that the vague dread which had oppressed her, and from which she had sought relief in sacred song, had not been unfounded. Thus it was that she felt all the more impelled to take up the psalm where she had broken off, and to pour out her gladness in the concluding lines: "He hears his saints, he knows their cry, And by mysterious ways Redeems the prisoners doomed to die, And fills their tongues with praise." Much rejoicing then followed, and the two brothers, whom Manasseh now presented to Blanka, told her all about the preparations made for receiving the bridal party at the Borev Bridge. Then all five sat down and emptied the lunch-basket with which Ciprianu had provided his guests; for thenceforth they would not need to carry their supplies with them. Toward noon they mounted their horses, David and Simon taking Blanka between them, and the other two bringing up the rear. "Now tell me all about it," began the elder brother, as he rode a little behind with Manasseh. "You must have had the eloquence of Aaron and the magician's power of Moses, to prevail on Pharaoh to let your people go." "I have wrought no miracle and used no eloquence," was the reply. "But I showed our foes neither fear nor haughtiness. I joined their circle, but did not spoil their entertainment. They questioned me, and I told them the truth. I asked them for peace, and offered them a price that I thought we were able to pay." "How high a price?" asked Aaron. "Sixteen oxen and twenty casks of plum brandy," was the matter-of-fact reply. "If my arm were only long enough, wouldn't I box your ears!" exclaimed Aaron, by way of giving vent to his admiration. "They wished to do something of the sort to me up yonder, too, when they heard my offer," returned the other. "But then they reconsidered the matter, and at last came to see that it was a very fair proposal, and one that needed no lawyer or interpreter to make clear to them. They all understood it, and finally declared themselves satisfied." "But where did you get the two horses for our brothers?" "I bought them, and I gave a price, too, such as is paid only for the best English thoroughbreds; but half of the money was what I won from the sellers themselves last night." "So you have been playing cards with the Amorites, you godless man!" "They held me prisoner till morning, while they took counsel together what to do with me and my two brothers. Some of them were for sending our heads, minus our bodies, to Toroczko, with a demand to surrender the town, else they would storm it and not leave one stone on another. But the upshot was that they led me out in the morning and told me my terms of peace were accepted. They abandon their plans against Toroczko, disperse to their homes, and promise henceforth to be our good neighbours, as heretofore." "Did they swear to this?" "Before the altar, and a priest administered the oath." "With two candles on the altar?" "Yes." "Then they will keep their word." "And I, as plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary, gave them a written and sealed pledge to restrain my people from all acts of hostility against them." "That will cost you a hard fight when you get home." "But I shall win. The Wallachians will respect the peace, and we shall avoid all contention with them. Their leader, when he handed me our passport, said to me: 'You now have no further cause for uneasiness so far as we are concerned. My comrades and I will do your countrymen no further harm. As to the supplies offered by you, we accept them as a gift, not as a ransom. One parting word I have to add, however, and I bid you mark it well: we cannot promise you that some day a renegade from your own midst may not plunge your town into war and bloodshed.' With that we shook hands and kissed each other; and I can assure you positively that from here to the Aranyos our way will be clear." "But how did you win them over so easily, I should like to know? Surely, the sixteen oxen and a few casks of brandy could not have done it." "I gained my end simply by telling the truth. I told them about our setting the beech-tree on fire. They had taken it for a signal, and the mistake might have cost them dear." "And did they believe you?" "No, they doubted my word and discussed the matter a long time in their council, one party being strongly opposed to any change in their preconcerted arrangements; and this faction pressed urgently for my immediate execution." "What, then, was it that saved you?" "A mere chance--no, it was Providence, rather. It was a heart that beat with warm human feeling and a will that was prompt to act. In the midst of their discussion a messenger came from Ciprianu and confirmed the truth of my words." "From Ciprianu? Then the messenger must have ridden all night." "Yes, through a trackless wilderness and over rugged mountains." "I do not see how mortal man could have accomplished it!" exclaimed Aaron, shaking his head. "It was not a man; it was a woman that effected the impossible. She came to Monastery Heights to attest the truth of my statement by assuring the insurgents that what they took for a signal-fire was merely the result of an accident. The woman who saved us three from death was Zenobia." At this point Blanka interrupted the conversation of the two brothers. She laughingly demanded to know what they were so earnestly discussing together. "We can't agree on what guests to invite to our wedding," was Manasseh's ready reply. "Aaron would have only the immediate family, but I am in favour of inviting all our friends. What are your wishes in the matter, my angel?" "I have no relatives or friends that I can invite to my wedding," answered Blanka, gently, "but I shall feel very happy if all your family can be present, even to your youngest brother, whom we met in Kolozsvar. You must send for him to come home." "He will be there, dear heart," Aaron assured her. "And stay! I have a friend, after all,--a friend that I have made since coming into this country, and should much like to see at my wedding. It is Zenobia, Ciprianu's daughter." * * * * * At sunset they reached the Aranyos River, beyond which lay the longed-for home, the happy valley which, from Manasseh's description, had so often been the subject of Blanka's dreams. At last she was to see Toroczko. CHAPTER XVIII. TOROCZKO. It was a new world to Blanka,--that busy mining community, where clouds of black smoke from the tall chimneys of the smelting works and iron foundries met the eye in every direction, and the cheerful hum of toil constantly saluted the ear. The Adorjan family gave the newcomer a most hearty welcome. With Anna, Manasseh's twin sister, the girl whom Benjamin Vajdar had so cruelly wronged, Blanka felt already acquainted. They embraced without waiting for an introduction, and when they drew back to scan each other's faces, they could hardly see for the tears that filled their eyes. Blanka was surprised, and agreeably so. She had prepared herself to see a face stamped with the melancholy of early disappointment, whereas she now beheld a fresh, rosy-cheeked countenance, golden locks, and blue eyes in which no tears had been able to dim the dancing light of a lively and cheerful temperament. Other women there were also in the family,--Rebecca, Berthold's wife, and Susanna, the helpmate of Barnabas, with a little circle of children around each. The home-coming of the long-absent brother with his betrothed was celebrated, in accordance with time-honoured custom, with a great dinner that filled the spacious family dining-room to its utmost. Blanka could not sufficiently admire the skill and patience with which Susanna directed the feast and ministered to the varied wants and the individual tastes of so many guests. The eldest brother and his family were vegetarians and would touch no meat, but indulged freely in milk and eggs, butter and cheese. With them sat Doctor Vernezs, who was even stricter in his vegetarianism; the sole contribution from the animal kingdom that he allowed in his diet was honey. Brother Aaron sat beside Blanka, and partook freely of a dish of garlic that had been provided especially for him. He offered some to Blanka. "I can eat this all my life," said he, with a roguish twinkle in his eyes, "but you only eleven weeks longer." She understood the allusion. In Szeklerland a lover and his sweetheart bear themselves with much decorum and mutual respect throughout the entire period of their engagement. Only after the wedding do they exchange the first kiss. Anna wished to come to her new friend's aid at this embarrassing juncture. "It won't be so long as that, Aaron!" she exclaimed. "Let us reckon it up, my little turtledove," returned the brother. "To-morrow we will tell the parson that our sister Blanka wishes to join our communion. The law requires her to wait two weeks after this first announcement and then to go and declare her purpose a second time. After that follow six weeks for the divorce proceedings. That makes eight weeks. Then the banns have to be published three successive Sundays, and so we make out the eleven weeks, as I said. For seventy-seven days and nights, then, our peach-blossom will be your companion, sister Anna." Anna and Blanka embraced each other with much affection. The latter showed no embarrassment at Aaron's plain speech. "I will add five days to the seventy-seven," said she, with a smile. "How so?" asked the brother and sister. "Because I shall not go to the parson to-morrow, but shall wait until after Sunday. I am going to your church on that day, and till then I can't tell whether I wish to belong to it or not." This prudent resolve met with Aaron's hearty approbation. * * * * * It was not long before Anna and Blanka became the warmest of friends. They shared the same room together, and the newcomer was allowed to look over all her companion's books, drawings,--for she, like her twin brother, was an artist,--keepsakes, and treasures of every sort. One day she came upon something that made her start back as if stung by an adder. It was a little portrait in an oval frame, a man's face, highly idealised by the artist, and yet strikingly true to life. Evidently the hand of love had depicted those lineaments. The eyes were bright, the lips wore a proud smile, the whole expression was one to charm the beholder. It was Benjamin Vajdar's likeness, and no ghost could have given Blanka a greater start. It was as if her most hated foe had pursued her into paradise itself, to spoil her pleasure there. Anna noticed her friend's involuntary movement, and she sighed deeply. "Did Manasseh tell you about him?" she asked. "I know him well," replied Blanka, and she could not control an accent of abhorrence in her voice as she spoke. Anna clasped her companion's hand in both her own. "I beg you," she entreated, in tones at once sad and tender, "if you know aught ill of him, do not tell it me." "You still love him?" asked the other, in compassion. The young girl sank down on the edge of her bed and hid her face in her hands. "He has killed me," she sobbed; "he has done much that a man, an honourable man, ought not to do; and yet I cannot hate him. We may say, 'I loved you yesterday, to-morrow I shall hate you,' and we may act as if we meant it; but we cannot really _feel_ it." "My poor Anna!" was all Blanka could say. "I know he is dishonourable," admitted the girl; "there are women here that report everything to me, thinking thus to cure me. But what does it avail? A sick person is not to be made well with words. How many a woman has waited for the return of an absent lover who may perhaps have gone around the world, or to the north pole, and who yet cannot get beyond the reach of her love and yearning!" "If it were only the earth's diameter that lay between you!" murmured Blanka. "True," replied Anna, resting her head on her hand; "the wide world is not so effective a barrier as a bewitching face that has once thrust itself between two loving hearts. That is harder to circumnavigate than the earth itself." "If a pretty face were all that stood between you----" began the other once more, sitting down beside her friend and putting her arms about her. "Yes, yes, I know," the poor girl interrupted; "the whole world and heaven and hell stand between us. All the laws of honour, of faith, and of patriotism, tear us asunder. I cannot go to him where he is, but yet it may be that he will come back to me--some day." "Do you think so?" "I believe it as I believe in one God above us. Not that I think we could now ever be happy together; but I am convinced that the road which he took on going away from here will some day bring him back again to our door. Broken and humbled, scorned and repulsed by all the world, he will then seek the one remaining asylum that stands open to him, and he will find one heart that still beats for him from whom all others have turned away." The speaker rose from her seat and stood erect, her face all aglow with noble emotion. Was it an angel in love with a devil? "See!" she continued, pointing to the little portrait, which was encircled by a wreath of immortelles, "this picture here in my room gives daily proof how lasting a thing love is in our family. My brothers all hate him with a deadly hatred, and yet they spare his likeness because they know that I still love him; they leave the little picture hanging in my room, nor offer to offend me by proposing another marriage for me. They know how deep is my love, and they respect my feelings. Oh, I beg you, if you have reason to hate this man, yet suffer his portrait to keep its place, and turn your eyes away from it if it causes you offence." But Blanka hated the man no longer. "Now I must not let you see me in tears," said Anna, briskly. "I must not make myself a killjoy in the family. I am naturally of a happy, cheerful temperament, and interested in all that goes on around me. My face shall never frighten people by being pale and wobegone. Just look in the glass! I am as rosy-cheeked as you." With that she drew Blanka to the mirror, and began to dispute with her as to which could boast the more colour. "You are happy," she continued, "and will be still happier. Manasseh will turn the earth itself into a paradise for you; just wait till you know him as I do, to the very bottom of his heart." Blanka could not but smile at the sister's proud claim. Yet Anna was in earnest. "Perhaps you don't believe me," said she. "Have you ever seen him in anger, with an enemy before him?" "Yes." "How did he look?" "On his forehead were two red spots." "Yes, and further?" "His eyes glowed, his face seemed turned to stone, his bosom heaved, and he strove with himself until gradually he recovered his self-control; then his features relaxed, he smiled, and presently he spoke as coolly and collectedly as possible." "Then you have never seen him really aroused," affirmed the sister, "as I saw him once, when with one hand he seized a strong man who had wronged him, and threw him down with such force that all his family had to hasten to help him up. When he speaks in wrath he can strike terror into a multitude, and he is such a master of all weapons of warfare that no one can vie with him. Now, then, have you ever really learned to know him?" "Indeed, I think not," returned Blanka, in surprise. "And hear me further," Anna went on. "When our house witnessed the sad event that spread a widow's veil over my bridal wreath, our whole family was terribly wrought up. My brothers swore to kill the man wherever they found him,--all but Manasseh. Nor did I seek to allay their wrath, knowing but too well that it was justified. But I also knew that they would never go forth into the world to hunt him down. To the people of Toroczko it is an immense undertaking to go even beyond the borders of Transylvania, and, as a general rule, no power on earth could drag one of them to Vienna or Rome. But Manasseh, I knew, must meet with the fugitive, as the two were to be dwellers in the same city and members of the same social circle. Manasseh, however, said not a word, and it was on him that I used all my influence. Still wearing my wedding-dress, I went to his room, where he was preparing for his journey. It happened that he was just putting a brace of pistols into their case; one of them he still held in his hand. I went up to him, threw myself on his bosom, and appealed to him. 'Manasseh,' I pleaded, 'my heart's treasure, unless you wish to kill me too, promise not to kill that man,--not to send his wretched soul out of this world.' Manasseh looked at me: his eyes glowed, as you have described, and two red spots burned on his forehead; his face turned hard, like that of a statue, and while he panted and struggled with the demon in his bosom, the pistol-barrel bent in his clenched hands like a wax taper, and so remained. I was wonder-struck. 'See!' I cried, 'you cannot shoot now any more with that pistol. So let him go; don't lay a finger on him.' Then my brother embraced and kissed me, and, lifting his hand to heaven, said, 'I promise you, sister Anna, that for your sake I will not kill the man, but will let him live.'" How her lover's image grew in Blanka's heart and assumed larger proportions as she listened to this recital! The twin sister was the brother's complement. It was necessary to know the nature of the one in order to understand that of the other. Hitherto Manasseh's self-control in foregoing all revenge had excited Blanka's wonder only; she had thought that the secret of this self-mastery was to be found in a rigid dogma only, but now she perceived that what really shielded the wretched culprit was the magic influence of a woman's faithful heart that could cease to love only when it ceased to beat. The pledge won from him by his sister Manasseh had come to regard as no less sacred than the articles of his faith. Thenceforth he commanded not merely the love of his betrothed, but her adoration. * * * * * Blanka soon found herself leading a life that differed in every respect from that which she had so recently quitted. In the Cagliari palace she had been left entirely to herself, and when she went abroad it had been only to witness scenes of intrigue and envy, dissipation and frivolity, hypocrisy and deceit, on every side. But in her new home she found a large family of honest souls living in loving harmony under one roof, all its members engaged in active work for the common good, and sharing at a common table the bread that they earned. Every joy, every sorrow was common to all, and so the newcomer was at once claimed as a sister by all alike, and immediately became a universal favourite. Work was found for her, too, every one assuming that she would far rather work than be idle; and, indeed, she would gladly have engaged in any toil, however severe, but the others would not let her overtax her strength in labours for which they were much better fitted than she. A task was found for her, however, exactly suited to her capacity,--the keeping of the family accounts. She received a big book, in which she entered the current expenses and receipts, with all the details of the family housekeeping that called for preservation. After the working days of the week came Sunday, the Lord's day. How Blanka had looked forward to that first Sunday, how often pictured to herself the Toroczko church and its Sabbath service! It was a simple structure, with four blank white walls, and a plain white ceiling overhead. A gallery ran across each end of the room, and in the middle stood the pulpit, with the communion table before it. Men and women, youths and maidens, entered the sacred house through special doors. First came the young men and took their places in the galleries, the students all gathering in a body on the same side as the organ. Next entered the married men in the order of their age, the wardens--or, as they were popularly known, the "big-heads"--taking their seats in the first pew facing the pulpit. On the left of the pulpit were seated the foremost families of the place, with the Adorjans at their head. For the first time Blanka now saw the people assembled in their holiday attire, a costume peculiar to the place, and showing a mixture of Hungarian and German dress. The men wore black dolmans faced with lamb's fleece, and further decorated with rows of carnelian and amethyst buttons, the setting of the stones being silver. Under the dolman was worn a waistcoat of fine leather embroidered with threads of silk and gold, and around the waist was girt a belt, as broad as one's hand, of red leather handsomely trimmed with strips of many-coloured skins. To complete this imposing outfit, there was thrown over one shoulder a handsome cloak richly embroidered with piping-cord, and furnished with a high collar made from the fur of the fox. A large silver brooch held the mantle together at the breast, while six rows of silver clasps adorned it on each side. The whole costume was luxurious in its appointments, and yet no one would presume to find fault with it on that score. The wearer had earned his adornment with the work of his hands. As soon as the men were seated, the women entered. A Parisian modiste would have been put to the blush by the ingenuity of design displayed by these countrywomen's costumes. The dazzlingly white linen, the tasteful combination of lace, embroidery, and furbelows, the handsome bodice and woven belt, the richly trimmed cloaks, the skirts hanging in many folds, the silk pinafores, the black lace caps set off by white veils disposed in picturesque puffs and creases,--all betrayed a wealth of fancy and nicety of taste on the wearer's part that would be hard to match. After the matrons were seated, the maidens came in through the fourth and last door, entering now in pairs, now singly, and sat down on the two sides of the house, behind the married women. Finally the children were admitted,--a splendid phalanx, a company of angels of the Murillo and Bernini type. The pride of the Toroczko church is its people. The churches of Rome boast many a masterpiece of early Italian art on their walls, but their worshippers are ragged and dirty. The walls of the Toroczko temple are bare, but the faces of its congregation beam with happiness. No works of sculpture, resplendent with gold and silver and precious stones, are to be seen there. The people themselves are arrayed in costly stuffs and furnish the adornment of the house. After a simple opening prayer, the pastor ascended the pulpit and addressed his flock, in words intelligible to all, on such themes as patriotism, man's duty to his fellow-man, the blessings of toil, the recompense of good deeds in the doer's own bosom, and God's infinite mercy toward his children. In his prayer the preacher referred to Jesus as the beloved Son of God, the model for mankind to follow, but he did not deny salvation and paradise to those that chose other leaders for their guidance. After the service Blanka asked Aaron and Berthold to go with her to the preacher as witnesses while she announced her purpose to join the church. After making this declaration in due form, she was reminded that she had two weeks in which to consider the matter carefully, at the end of which, if she was still of the same mind, she was to come back again and renew her declaration. "Two weeks longer," sighed Blanka, "and then six weeks more for the divorce!" Aaron heard her sigh, and hastened to say: "If we make a special effort we can shorten this period. Our law directs that an applicant for a divorce must either be a resident of, or own an estate in, Transylvania. Therefore, if you could acquire a piece of land here, we should only have to wait for the consistory to assemble and ratify the divorce already granted by the Roman Curia, with the added permission to marry again. That done, nothing further remains to hinder the marriage. So you must manage to buy a house-lot or something of the sort in Toroczko." "Have I money enough, do you think, to purchase an iron mine?" "What, do you really propose to buy one?" "Yes,--as my dowry to bring to Manasseh. He said he wished to begin a new career and turn miner." "Very well, then, we'll buy a mine and call it by your name, and it can't fail to turn out a diamond mine." The purchase was made on that very day, and in the evening the transfer of the property was solemnised with a banquet. It will be noted here that there is a great difference between the Hungarian Unitarians and the English Puritans. The strict observance of Sunday by the latter presents a marked contrast to the joy and freedom with which the day is celebrated by the former. The people of Toroczko gather in the evening for social intercourse, and even join in the pleasures of the dance, to the music of a gipsy orchestra, until the ringing of the vesper bell. Taverns and pot-houses are unknown in the village. CHAPTER XIX. A MIDNIGHT COUNCIL. While blood was being shed on the banks of the Theiss, on the slopes of the Carpathians, and in the mountains of Transylvania, life at the Austrian capital went on much as usual. A grand ball given by the Marchioness Caldariva made its due claim on the attention of the fashionable world. After the last note of the orchestra had died away and the last guest had departed, Prince Cagliari led the fair hostess to her boudoir. "How did it please you?" asked the prince, referring to the evening's entertainment. "Not at all," replied the other, throwing her bracelets and fan down on the table. "Didn't you notice that not one member of the court circle was present? They all sent regrets." "But the court is in mourning now, you know," was Cagliari's soothing reminder. "And I am in mourning, too," returned Rozina, in a passion. "How long must I submit to this humiliation?" she demanded, compressing her lips and darting a wrathful look at her devoted slave. "I swear to you," replied the latter, vehemently, "as soon as I get word of my divorced wife's death, our engagement shall be announced." "And how long is that woman to live?" demanded the angry beauty, in a tone that startled the listener. "As long as God wills," was all he could say in reply. The fair Cyrene drew nearer and laid her cheek caressingly against his shoulder. "Do you know where your wife is now?" she asked softly, and when the other shook his head, she went on: "You see, I don't lose sight of her so easily. As for you, you could only shut her up in Rome and leave her there; but I knew how to go to work to rid ourselves of this obstruction. The dogs of Jezebel were howling under her very windows, when there came a man blundering on to the scene and spoiled everything,--a man who is a man, who is more than a prince, a man from top to toe, in short, who carried off the woman from Rome. I hoped they would take flight to some foreign land, whence we might have obtained an official announcement of her death. Of course it might not have been true, but the fugitives would have changed their names, in all probability, and an official certificate would have answered our purpose. Did you receive Blanka's letter,--the one she wrote you from Trieste in November?" "No," replied the prince, much astonished at what he had just heard; "and I recently sent to her, by Vajdar, her allowance of fifteen thousand scudi for the current quarter." "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the marchioness, "a most affectionate and devoted foster-son you have there! Your letters pass through his hands and are, according to your directions, opened by him. As to this last letter of Blanka's, however, he must have forgotten to deliver it, and he counts himself blameless if a remittance of fifteen thousand scudi, directed to a person whose address cannot be found, goes astray. Really he has a genius for roguery. But you needn't get angry with him. The money has not gone out of the family: he spent it on diamonds for me. I learned all about that letter, too, a month ago." "And may I inquire what the princess wrote me?" "She begs leave to discontinue the enjoyment of your bounty, and announces her intention of marrying again; and to that end she declares her purpose of embracing the religion of her betrothed." "The most pleasing result of which will be the saving to me of sixty thousand scudi a year, which I will henceforth bestow on you." The speaker laid a caressing hand on the woman's shoulder. "Don't touch me, sir!" cried the marchioness, drawing back. "If one woman has had the spirit to say to you, 'There is your coronet and your gold; pick them up. I need them no longer, for I am going to marry a _man_, who shall be my lord and king,'--why, you may find that another woman can do the same." "But what would you have me do?" asked the other, helplessly; "follow Blanka Zboroy's example and turn Protestant with you, so that we might marry each other?" "Really, I have a good mind to say yes. What you propose in jest, sinful as it is, may be more to your liking than what I have to suggest." "You have a plan, Rozina?" "Yes. Before our loving couple can gain their end they must first reach Toroczko. There, high up in the mountains, lies the dove-cote where they hope to do their billing and cooing. But the surrounding woods are at present full of birds of prey, and--" "Do you dare to think of such a thing?" interrupted the prince, with a start. The old _roué_ had a dread of ghosts by night; he was full of all sorts of superstitions; he disliked to have a beautiful woman allude to certain unpleasant themes in his presence. "I am only letting my fancy play a little," replied the marchioness, "but perhaps what I have in mind may come to pass. If not, then will be the time for action." She fetched from her bookcase a military map of Transylvania. It gave in minute detail the mountains, hills, valleys, rivers, towns, and villages of the country. "Here in this valley," she resumed, pointing with her finger, "lies Toroczko, and these positions that I have marked are held by the Wallachian insurgents. Have you heard about their doings?" "Yes, frightful accounts." "Well, then, what if our runaway couple should stumble upon the scene of some of these horrid deeds? Possibly your wife is even now lying in the bed of one of these mountain streams." "Horrible!" "Horrible only if it were really so and we had no proof of it. But I have guarded against that. The war office receives detailed reports of all that is going on in Transylvania, and a transcript of those reports is furnished me." She produced a roll of manuscript and read a line or two, laughing as she did so. She might have been reading Sanskrit, for all the prince could understand of it. Then she nestled softly at her listener's side and began to stroke his chin with one velvet finger. "If you wish to make me very happy--to make us both very happy," she murmured, "bring me from the war office the key to this mysterious manuscript. Then we will sit down and decipher it together; and if it contains the name I am so anxious to hear, you shall see how a lioness can kiss her tamer's feet." The prince listened in silence. What effect her words were producing in his bosom, she could only conjecture. She threw herself back on her sofa with a smile on her face. "What do you say?" she asked. "It is not yet too late to find some one at the war office to do your bidding. Indeed, the hour is well suited for a confidential mission of that sort. And when you come back, if you find me asleep, just whisper in my ear, 'News from Transylvania!'--and I will wake up at once. So good-bye for the present. I shall expect you back again soon." Prince Cagliari took leave of the enchantress and made his way to the carriage that awaited him below. Entering it, he gave a direction to his coachman, and the carriage rolled rapidly down the street. Soon after the fair Cyrene--or Rozina, to call her by her real name--found herself alone, the tall clock in her boudoir struck ten, although the hour was nearer two. She rose at once, and taking a little key from her bosom, unlocked and opened the door of the old-fashioned timepiece. But instead of hanging weights and a swinging pendulum, the opening revealed another open door beyond, through which stepped a young man,--Benjamin Vajdar. "So you've come at last?" the marchioness exclaimed. "Yes, and I have the key to the cipher despatches, too!" All smiles and caresses, the siren led her visitor to the table on which lay the mysterious correspondence. But before the two begin their clandestine work, let us say a few words concerning the relations between them. Months before, at a court ball to which Prince Cagliari's influence had procured the Marchioness Caldariva a much-coveted invitation, Benjamin Vajdar, who then occupied a subordinate government position, was also present. Struck with the beauty of the marchioness, he sought an introduction, and, to make a long story short, was soon enrolled among her willing slaves. Not long after this first meeting he threw up his modest position and became Prince Cagliari's private secretary. A day had already been set for his marriage with Anna Adorjan, but he had the hardihood to write and beg to be released from the engagement. He did not, however, think it necessary to announce in his letter that he had changed his religion and turned Roman Catholic. A desire to shine in society, meanwhile, and the difficulty of doing so on a small salary, had led him to employ dishonest and criminal means for replenishing his purse. He had raised money on his friend Manasseh's forged signature. After entering the prince's service and finding himself amply supplied with means, he went to his broker to redeem the false note, but, to his consternation, was informed by the money-lender that, in a moment of financial embarrassment, although the note was not yet due he had presented it to Manasseh, who had promptly discounted it. Benjamin Vajdar felt capable of murdering the broker. A noose now seemed placed around his neck, and the end of the rope was held by the man whose sister he had just wronged so shamefully. The new secretary's appearance in the prince's household served to hasten the impending outbreak between the recently married couple. One afternoon Blanka left the house and fled to a friend of hers in Hungary, whence her petition for a divorce soon led her, her friend, and her lawyer, as we have already seen, to Rome. The decree which was in due time issued from the Vatican, that, so long as his divorced wife lived, the prince might not marry again, was a serious check upon certain pet schemes cherished by the Marchioness Caldariva. * * * * * To return to the latter's boudoir, where she and her willing tool were bending over the cipher despatches, after long and fruitless search they came upon a name familiar to them both,--Adorjan. It appeared that a certain Adorjan of Toroczko had gone out to parley with the insurgent forces then besieging the town, and they had seized him and held him prisoner. A second Adorjan had followed to ransom his brother, but he too was detained. Finally there came a third brother,--Manasseh. "Ah, at last!" cried the marchioness, eagerly. It appeared that this third Adorjan was on his way home from Italy, and was accompanied by his fiancée, whom he left in care of his brother Aaron while he himself sought the insurgents' camp. He too was seized and imprisoned, and preparations were made for the execution of the three brothers; but in the morning, by some means or other, he succeeded in persuading his captors to release all three of their prisoners and to give the whole party, including the young lady, Princess Blanka Zboroy, a safe-conduct to Toroczko, while the insurgents themselves dispersed to their homes. "But go on!" urged Rozina; "what occurred after that in Toroczko?" "Nothing further is said about Toroczko," answered the other. "Have you no spies there?" demanded the marchioness. "No, there are no informers in Toroczko. There was one, but you have made him your slave." "And you can sit there so calm and cool!" cried the woman, in a passion. "Just think, there is a man in that town in whose hand your good name and your freedom lie. If he but takes a fancy, he can drag you in the mud. You can count on no happiness, no security, without his consent. Remember, too, there is a woman with him who has smitten you in the face and made you recoil, who is perhaps even now laughing at you, who is the object of my deadly hatred, and during whose lifetime the door is closed to me into the world I wish to enter. So long as that woman lives the sun does not shine for me: I can show my face only at night. And can you sit there while those two are happy in each other's embraces? Oh, coward! How long are you going to let them live?" Benjamin Vajdar did not venture to open his mouth. The marchioness drew a key from her bosom and held it before him. "Do you see that?" she whispered, while for an instant a smile lighted up her face. "This key belongs to the man who first brings me word of that woman's death." So saying, she kissed the little key and held it to the other's lips to kiss also. "What do you say?" "I am wont only to think and to act, not to promise," was his reply. "Very well. _Au revoir!_" The marchioness pulled her bell-cord three times for her maid,--a signal for her visitor to retire. He hastened to the secret door, accordingly, and disappeared. Calling a cab, he ordered the driver to take him to the Café de l'Europe. The head waiter told him, in answer to his inquiries, that Prince Cagliari was there also,--was, in fact, taking supper with two ladies in a private room. The secretary asked to be shown thither. "I knew you would turn up here before the night was over," cried the prince, with a laugh, as the young man entered. "I had a cover laid for you." The two young women were costumed as _fleurs animées_,--the one as a violet, the other as a tulip. The remains of a generous meal were on the table. The newcomer held out his glass to the tulip and begged her to pour him some champagne. "One moment!" interrupted the prince. "First let me ask a question. How much have you left of my wife's quarterly allowance that I sent her by you?" "That is exactly what I was going to speak to you about," returned the young man. "I have to ask you for the next quarter's allowance also." "Indeed! And must you have it immediately?" "If you please." "But haven't you already learned, from her letter which she wrote me in November, that she is about to change her religion and marry again, and that consequently she declines all further assistance from me? Didn't this letter come into your hands?" Benjamin Vajdar shrugged his shoulders and calmly proceeded to squeeze lemon-juice on his oysters. "I assumed without question," he rejoined, "that a man of Prince Cagliari's chivalrous nature would merely reply to this letter: 'It is a matter of indifference to me how the princess orders her life; but so long as she bears my name she must not be forced to go on foot and soil her shoes.'" "Bravo!" cried the prince. "And you would have me give her a dower for her second marriage, would you, and a quarter's allowance into the bargain?" "Let us not discuss that at present," returned the other, "it would only spoil our evening. Time enough for serious matters to-morrow." "But I wish to discuss it now." "Very well. The truth of the matter is, the beautiful Princess Blanka is at this moment lying dead in the mountains of Transylvania." The prince recoiled. "Young man, I forbid you to indulge in such ill-chosen jests." Benjamin rose and made a low bow. "Such a lack of respect as a jest of that sort to my master and benefactor is an utter impossibility." "Well, then, sit down, and let us have no play-acting. Where do you say this thing occurred?" "Somewhere on the highway between Nagy-Enyed and Felvincz. She is lying there in the snow, transfixed with an insurgent's lance." The speaker therewith proceeded to relate several episodes in the bloody drama then enacting in Transylvania. "But why are you so sure that the princess is one of the victims?" asked the listener. "The names are all recorded," was the answer. "The first thing, therefore, for Prince Cagliari to do is to order the recovery of his wife's body, that it may receive proper interment in his family vault. If you wish to convince yourself of the truth of my statements, I will give you the key to the cipher despatches. The despatches themselves you will find in a place that is always open to you. Go and read for yourself." "No, no," cried the prince, "I will not look at the papers. What you have said is enough for me." "Very well," rejoined the secretary, quietly. "Then I will go and make ready to start at once for Transylvania. I am determined to find and bring back to you the remains of the Princess Blanka. It is a grim task, and calls for a heart of iron." "And a purse of gold," added the other. "Here is my pocketbook to begin with, and I will open an account for you with a Czernovicz banker." What was most important of all, the smooth-tongued secretary had entirely omitted,--namely, that the subject of his ingenious story was at that moment alive and well, and waiting to see the sun rise over the Toroczko hills. After the prince had somewhat recovered from the effect produced upon him by Benjamin Vajdar's announcement, he gave himself up to the rapturous thought that now at last he could carry word to Rozina of his wife's death. He sought her presence without delay. The marchioness, cosily ensconced on her sofa, was either asleep, or feigned to be, when Cagliari entered and whispered in her ear: "Rozina, my wife is dead!" Her eyes opened and a quick flush of pleasure overspread her face. "How? When? Where?" she asked eagerly. "At Nagy-Enyed--killed by the insurgents." "Nonsense!" cried the marchioness. "Who told you so?" "My private secretary, your favourite, Benjamin Vajdar. He has just read it in the despatches received at the war office." The listener's eyes flashed with scorn. "I am telling you the truth," asserted the other, vehemently. "I give you my word of honour, it is as I say. I have this moment given Vajdar my purse and despatched him to Transylvania to bring the poor woman's body back to Vienna." The prince seated himself in an armchair opposite the marchioness, and continued: "I am even more eager than you to see her laid to rest in my family vault. My motives are deeper and stronger than yours. You have been longing for Blanka Zboroy's death because her existence meant humiliation to you. This thought has brought unrest to your pillow, but a legion of demons chases sleep from mine. Shall a Cagliari suffer any living woman to drag his name in the mire before all the world--to laugh to scorn the decree of the Roman Curia--to scratch out his name after her own and replace it with that of a Szekler peasant? That may be allowed to pass among common people, but the descendants of the Ferraras will find a way, or make one, to prevent such a scandal. It has become a necessity in my eyes that _she_ should not walk the same planet with me." The marchioness was listening by this time with wide eyes, flushed cheeks, and parted lips. "Of late I have suffered heavy losses," the speaker continued. "Formerly my income amounted to a million and a half; now it is barely half a million. My estates in the Romagna have been confiscated, my serfs in Hungary freed, and I have lost frightful sums by my investments. I know many a poor devil has been forced to wont himself to rags and poverty, but for one who has been a leader among men to debase himself and drag out a miserable existence in obscurity--never! Shall I, forsooth, suspend the erection of the votive church which I began at the seat of my ancestors twelve years ago? Or shall I, discarding the masterpieces of a Thorwaldsen, embellish the sacred edifice with the rude productions of a stone-cutter? Would you have me say to the woman I adore, 'My dear, hitherto we have lived in two palaces; henceforth we must be content with one'? But most impossible of all would it be to confess my pecuniary embarrassments to my banker and my major-domo, and to direct them to cut down my future expenditures by a third, to sell my picture-gallery, my museum, and two-thirds of my collection of diamonds. No, no! What I am now telling you has never passed my lips before, nor ever will again; for I know how to apply the remedy, and I will not submit to humiliation, even though it should cost human blood to prevent it." The speaker bent forward and went on in a more guarded tone: "Now as to the woman of whom we were speaking. When her brothers gave her to me in marriage, we entered into a contract which stipulated that the property of the one who died first should go to the survivor. She was young, I was old; the advantage was all on her side. Our divorce has not annulled this contract. If Blanka Zboroy dies, her brothers must deliver her property over to me." "But her fortune is only a million." "Don't you believe it. To be sure, her brothers paid her the interest on only a million, but her property really amounts to five times that sum. My part thus far has been simply to await the turn of events. In Rome, as it appears, this woman's fate hung by a thread; but all at once she took the insane notion of marrying again. However, that does not invalidate the contract between us, as the Roman Curia, though it granted her a divorce, did so on terms that will make it impossible to recognise her marriage with a Protestant. When death overtakes her, it will be as the Princess Cagliari that she leaves this world. One thing we must remember, however: the Protestant Church will require her to renounce her former faith in order to render her separation from her first husband valid. Yet, if she does this she will forfeit all claim to her property, which, by the testator's will, can descend only to Roman Catholic heirs." With both hands Rozina drew the prince's head down and whispered in his ear: "She must die before this second marriage takes place." "I shall not meddle with destiny," returned the prince, straightening up again. "I shall be satisfied and ask no questions if Vajdar brings back a leaden casket containing the unhappy woman's remains. I shall render her the last honours with princely pomp, and shall then give orders to pursue and punish the insurgents who were responsible for her death." Rozina burst out laughing. It is always too irresistibly funny to see the devil trying to wash himself clean. Even Cagliari himself was forced to smile. "Yes," said he, "that is a joke we may laugh at, if you like. But now hear what I have to say further. If Blanka Zboroy renounces the faith of her fathers and marries again, it will not suffice for her only to die. The man she marries must die also, the parson who joined their hands at the altar, the witnesses of the ceremony, the whole family that received her in its midst, the schoolchildren that sang the bridal hymn, the guests who sat around the wedding-table, the people who looked out of their windows and saw the bridal procession pass,--yes, the whole town where this marriage took place must be destroyed, and I have it in my power to accomplish this. Now are you satisfied?" CHAPTER XX. MIRTH AND MOURNING. Meanwhile preparations were going forward in Toroczko for the approaching nuptials. All preliminaries had been duly attended to, Blanka had joined the Unitarian Church, and nothing now stood in the way of her marriage to Manasseh. In the courtyard to the rear of the Adorjan family mansion stood a little house, containing two rooms and a kitchen, which Aaron secretly fitted up in genuine Toroczko style, with carved hard-wood furniture, a row of pegs running around the wall and hung with a fine array of glazed earthenware mugs, and an old-fashioned dresser filled with pottery and a dazzling display of bright new tinware. In the sleeping-room bedclothes, canopy, and curtain were embroidered by peasant maidens. This little house was not to be shown to Blanka until her wedding day. During these preparations Aaron climbed the Szekler Stone every evening and surveyed the horizon in search of any beacons blazing on the surrounding hills. "If only no mishap befalls, to spoil everything!" he would murmur to himself as he came down again. On the Sunday when the banns are published for the last time it is customary for all the friends of the young couple--and there is sure to be a whole army of them--to assemble at the bridegroom's house, which in the present instance was also the bride's. The banquet on this occasion is not furnished by the bridal pair: it is a farewell supper given by the guests of the bride and groom, each of the company contributing a roasted fowl and a cake. The groom merely supplies the wine, but not gratis, as all pay for what they drink, and the sum thus collected goes into the village school fund. On Monday morning the wedding festivities begin in earnest. At an early hour people are awakened by the firing of cannon, after which young men mount their horses and gallop hither and thither, and two others, accompanied by trumpeters, go forth to invite the village folk to the wedding and to bear the bridal gifts through the street. Then the nuptial procession moves, amid the glad ringing of bells, from the house of the bride to the church. The old men head the line, the young men come next, and the women follow, while the bridegroom with his escort, and the bride with her bridesmaids, are given a place in the middle of the procession. On coming out of the church, the newly married pair receive a shower of flowers from the hands of the maidens gathered at the door. But the ceremonies at the church by no means end the wedding festival. What follows is peculiarly characteristic and important. First the young men bearing the bridal cake run a race from the church to the bridegroom's house, the victor winning a silk neckerchief embroidered by the bride. Then comes the rhymed dialogue, in which the representatives of the bride and of the groom chaffer with each other over the bride, but always with the result that the bridegroom's deputy gets the better of his opponent--yet only after the bridegroom himself has promised to be father and brother to his young wife, and to cherish her as the apple of his eye. Thereupon the maidens form a ring around the bride, sing songs to her to conquer her bashfulness, and so induce her to yield her hand to the bridegroom. After this the bridesmaids escort her to her new home--which in this case was represented by the little house that Aaron had secretly furnished for her. Neither Blanka nor Manasseh had even suspected what he was about. Blanka found herself in the paradise of her dreams, and when her attendants had placed a gold-embroidered cap on her head, and she came forth again into the courtyard,--which was now crowded with eager friends,--her hand in that of the man whose wife and queen she was thenceforth to be, it seemed to her that the happiness of heaven itself was her portion. Five hundred guests partook of the wedding feast. Food and drink were provided in plenty, and every heart was filled to overflowing with the joy of the occasion. And yet, to Blanka herself, something was still lacking. "If Jonathan and Zenobia were only here!" she could not but say to herself, and her happiness was not quite complete without them. Toward evening Aaron himself began to feel uneasy at their non-appearance. He had nearly exhausted his ingenuity in quieting Blanka's anxiety. Finally he played his last card. "Now, my angel," said he, "you remember I promised you I would dance the Szekler dance at your wedding. Have the goodness to pay attention, and you will see something that is not to be seen every day." The Szekler dance resembles no other terpsichorean exercise, nor is it by any means easy of execution. It calls for sinews of steel and great suppleness of limb. To make it still more difficult, the performer is obliged to provide his own music by singing a merry popular ballad while he dances. He throws himself first on one leg, then on the other, bending his knee and sinking nearly to the floor, while he extends the other leg straight before him, raises one hand above his head, and rests the other on his hip. His heels must never touch the floor, nor may he, while bobbing thus comically up and down and trolling his lively ditty, suffer his face to relax from that expression of sober and dignified earnestness which marks the true Szekler. It is a dance and a display of great physical strength and endurance at the same time. While Aaron's performance was still in progress, his brother Alexander broke through the circle of spectators and whispered something in his ear, whereupon the dancer immediately ceased his exhibition with the cry, "They have come!" With an exclamation of joy Blanka sprang up from her seat. She wished to be the first to welcome the long-awaited pair. "Sister-in-law," cried Alexander, "don't go out! Don't let her go out!" But it was too late. Two horses stood before the door, and on one of them sat Zenobia. Blanka ran to her and took her hand. "Have you come at last?" she exclaimed. "Oh, how long we've been looking for you! Let me help you down." Zenobia, however, sat silent and made no move to dismount. "Where is Jonathan?" asked Blanka. "There he is." Zenobia pointed to the other horse, on whose back was bound a swathed form--a corpse. "Jonathan!" cried Blanka, wildly. "Your brother killed my father," Zenobia continued in a monotone, "and my brothers killed your brother; and so it will go on now for nobody knows how long." Blanka was stricken speechless with horror, but Anna, who followed her, broke out in lamentations, until a strong hand was laid on her from behind and Aaron's voice was heard saying: "Don't cry, don't make a noise! If the people inside hear you, they'll come out and tear Ciprianu's daughter to pieces; and she is now our guest." Anna buried her face in Blanka's bosom. "Alexander," said Aaron, softly, turning to his brother, "go in and tell the gipsy band to play a lively reel. The company must be kept amused." Meanwhile Manasseh had appeared. "Manasseh," whispered Aaron, "come and help me lift our brother down from the horse." These words were to Manasseh like a dagger-thrust in his heart. His knees trembled under him. But presently he manned himself and hastened to untie the ropes that held the inanimate form on the horse's back. Zenobia meanwhile went on talking in a low tone to Blanka. "In the skirmish at Felvincz, the Hungarians had one man killed, and he was the man. His horse carried him until I found him. You invited us to your wedding, and here we are. Now you may, if you wish, take me in and say to your guests, 'This is the daughter of that Ciprianu whose sons laid waste Sasd and Felvincz and killed Jonathan Adorjan.'" "Away, away!" stammered Blanka, waving her hand. She was terrified at the thought of Zenobia's being found there by the people of Toroczko, and perhaps suffering violence at their hands. "Go in peace," said Aaron. "My people will not pursue you. Let bygones be bygones between us. We owe each other nothing now." "I owe you nothing, Aaron, but I owe something to your sister and your sister-in-law for the very kind invitation they sent me; and that is a debt which I will yet repay. To you, Manasseh, I have to say, remember those parting words on Monastery Heights: 'We make peace with you and swear to keep it; but if a traitor from your own number stirs up dissension between us, then tremble!' Think of those words often. And now farewell, and God bless you!" With that she turned her horse about and rode away, breasting the wind, which blew the snow into her face. "Where shall we lay the body?" asked Aaron. "The house is full of guests." "Here, in our little cabin," said Blanka. "What, in your bridal chamber?" gasped Aaron. "Oh, Father in heaven!" But there was no other way. The two brothers bore Jonathan into the little house, unswathed his cold limbs, and laid him in the bridal bed until his coffin should be ready for him. So death entered the little abode and was the first guest. Blanka sat down on the edge of the bed and gazed at the dead face. The resemblance between Jonathan and Manasseh was striking. This lifeless image of her husband suddenly revealed to her all that had hitherto been so carefully kept from her knowledge. When she met Jonathan in Kolozsvar she had conceived of the war, to which so many stately cavaliers were turning their horses' heads, as a kind of splendid tournament. She remembered now the promise she had made to give the young soldier a kiss on his return home, and recalled how he had begged her to keep her word even though he came back dead. And he had come back dead, and now claimed the fulfilment of her promise. She bent down over him, and as she did so the illusion that it was Manasseh himself lying lifeless before her, grew stronger still. She trembled as she touched her lips to the dead man's marble brow, and with an outburst of sobs and tears she called aloud, "Manasseh!" He was at her side in a moment, bending over her and pressing her to his heart. So he was not dead, after all. She recovered her self-control, but she murmured in his ear: "Oh, do not die! Never let me see you lying like that before me!" Then she gave place to the three brothers, who likewise embraced the dead man. One by one the other brothers came out of the house of rejoicing and entered the chamber of mourning. Alexander had summoned them. The guests, however, found nothing strange in their disappearance, but merely gave themselves up the more unrestrainedly to the gaiety of the occasion. That the bride and groom should have vanished so suddenly was entirely in accord with established usage: the loving pair had, it was taken for granted, sought the spot where all the delights of paradise awaited them. How different was the reality from these conjectures! Blanka watched through the long hours by the dead man's couch. So passed her wedding night. At early dawn the tolling of bells announced to the people of Toroczko that death had laid his cold hand on one of their number. Those who had been wedding guests the day before now came as mourners to the house of the Adorjans. The brothers were out on the mountainside. Graves for the dead in Toroczko are hewn out of the solid rock, and the side of some bare cliff serves the people for a cemetery. Here each family has a vault, which, as years pass, penetrates more and more deeply into the mountainside, until in many cases it becomes a veritable tunnel. No name is carved over these vaults, and only the memory of the survivors serves to distinguish one tomb from another. When a man dies, his relatives take it on themselves to hollow out his grave in the cliff. This is an old and pious custom. If, however, there is no man in the family to render this last service, the neighbours gladly offer their help. It would be a grievous thing in Toroczko to have one's grave dug by a hired grave-digger. In the afternoon the catafalque was erected in the church, and the entire population assembled to pay the last honours to the deceased. The people sang, and the pastor delivered a funeral discourse. Then all accompanied the remains to the rock-hewn cemetery. Men bore the coffin on their shoulders, and on the coffin lay the dead man's sword, crowned with garlands, and his shako pierced with a bullet-hole. Leading the procession marched a student chorus singing a dirge, while weeping women brought up the rear. When the family vault was reached, the seven brothers of the deceased took the coffin and laid it in the niche prepared to receive it; then they rolled a great stone before the opening, came out of the vault, and kissed one another. After that a plain villager, an old and gray-haired man, mounted a stone pulpit and addressed the assembly, telling them who it was they were burying, how he had lived, how he had been loved, and in what manner he had come to his end. The speaker closed with the hope that the memory of the departed might last as long as there were dwellers in the valley to speak his name. The pastor then blessed the grave and pronounced a benediction on the company before him. Finally the student choir rendered a closing selection, while the women and children left the place in groups, and only the men remained behind. Aaron now ascended the stone pulpit and spoke. "Brothers and friends," he began, "we have done our duty to the dead; now let us discharge our obligations to the living. Enough of funeral dirges for the present! Let us now to arms!" Three hundred men echoed his words. "To arms!" they cried, "to arms!" They were ready and eager to go in quest of the foemen at whose hands their fellow-townsman had met his death. "Come, let us go home and arm ourselves!" said they, one to another. "We will meet in the marketplace!" called out Aaron from the stone pulpit, when suddenly he felt a strong hand on his belt behind, and he was lifted down bodily from his place. He did not need to ask who dealt thus summarily with him; he knew that only his brother Manasseh was capable of such a feat of strength. "What are you thinking of?" cried Manasseh, in a voice that all could hear. "Have I not made peace with our neighbours and sworn in the name of the one living God to maintain it, and would you put me to shame?" "Have they not murdered our brother Jonathan?" demanded Aaron. "No; our brother fell in battle like a brave soldier, with his sword in his hand. And others of our land are fighting now for their country and will die for her. We shall mourn them and honour their memory, but we are not wild Indians to exact a bloody vengeance for those fallen on the battle-field." "Very well, brother Manasseh, but you need not charge us with being wild Indians. I do not ask that we should fall upon our neighbours and burn their houses over their heads, but that we should be on our guard and defend ourselves and our families the best we know how. Believe me, brother, I am as good a Christian as the next man; I go to church every holy day, even when I am ill; but I feel easier, when I pray for my soul's salvation, if I know my gun is loaded and primed." "Then you are no true believer in God," returned Manasseh, in a tone of reproof. "You worship that Jesus in whose name the massacre of St. Bartholomew was perpetrated, the burning of heretics sanctioned, and the crusades undertaken; but you are no true follower of that Jesus who came with a message of peace and good-will to mankind, and who said to Peter, 'They that take the sword shall perish with the sword.'" "I am not so sure that he really said that," rejoined Aaron, shrewdly. "Matthew has it that he did, but Mark and Luke make no mention of it, and, according to John, Jesus simply said to Peter, after the latter had cut off the ear of Malchus, the high priest's servant, 'Put up thy sword into the sheath.' At any rate, I am not clear what I should have done had he said it to me; but I know one thing, if I had been there when the Saviour handed the sop to Judas, I should have dealt Iscariot such a blow on the head that he wouldn't have had wit enough left to betray his master. And just so I will strike down the traitor who leads a foe against Toroczko, if he once comes within my reach." "What traitor do you mean?" "The one that the girl spoke of yesterday when she said, 'If a traitor rises up from amidst your own people, then tremble!' I know whom she meant now: with the insurgents is a man, lately come into notice, who surpasses all his fellows in cruelty. He is our Iscariot." "What makes you think so?" "Because he calls himself Diurbanu. No genuine Wallachian would have taken the nickname of his king, Decebalus. It is as if one of us should call himself Attila. Now, then, Manasseh, I love you and am ready to follow your lead. I shall never forget how you went up to Monastery Heights and came back with our two brothers. You knew how to serve them better than I. I would have avenged their death merely, but you saved their lives. So, as you made peace with Moga and his people, you have a right to ask us to keep it. Therefore we will demand no atonement from them for Jonathan's death. But when we hear that Diurbanu and his men, who know nothing about that peace and are no parties to it, are advancing on Toroczko, then will be the time for us to act." "And I will take a hand with you," declared Manasseh. Therewith the two brothers clasped hands and embraced each other, after which the men all returned to their homes. CHAPTER XXI. THE SPY. Albeit the earth reeked with blood in those days, yet the spring of 1849 saw the flowers blooming in as great profusion as ever, as if God's blessing had been vying with man's curse to see which should outdo the other. On a beautiful afternoon in May, Blanka and Anna, with Manasseh and Aaron, were climbing a steep and tortuous mountain path. Manasseh had his portfolio and some few other implements of his craft, while Aaron carried the ladies' wraps and lunch-basket. With the exception of iron-shod alpenstocks, none of the party were armed. The two men walked on ahead, side by side, leaving the young women to loiter behind and pick mayflowers. Rhododendrons, orchids, and epigonitis rewarded their search in abundance. From the valley below came up the bleating of goats and the flute-like notes of the blackbird. "Are you really in earnest, Aaron, about defending the town from this position in case of an attack?" asked Manasseh. "Wasn't it from the Szekler Stone that our fathers repulsed the whole Mongolian horde?" was the rejoinder. "But that was in the old days, in old-fashioned warfare." "Well, the Wallachians are now no further advanced in military science than were the Tartars then." "Yes, but at that time the Szekler Stone was in a condition for defence," objected Manasseh. "And how do you know I haven't put it in such a condition again?" asked the other. "I should like to see how you have accomplished it." "I shall not show you, for you are not a soldier, and no civilian shall see my fortifications. I will show them to the two young ladies; they count as combatants. The other day they coaxed Alexander to lend them his pistols, and since then they have been practising shooting at a mark in the garden behind the house." "What, does my wife know how to handle a pistol?" "To be sure; and it's no elderberry popgun, either. You may depend upon it, she'll sell her life dear. You needn't laugh." The rocky height known as the Szekler Stone commands a view of vast extent. Nestled among the hills, twenty-two villages may be counted from its summit, with the Aranyos River winding this way and that among them, like a ribbon of silver, until it empties into another tortuous stream which carries its waters to the Maros. But on the opposite side, toward the northwest, in striking contrast with this picture of happy human industry, a boundless waste of rugged, forest-clad mountain peaks meets the eye, with no sign of house or hamlet. From the side toward Toroczko, which lay smiling in the valley, its fruit-trees in full bloom, its fields looking like so many squares of green carpet, and its church-spire rising conspicuous above the foliage, one could hear, like the throbbing of a giant's heart, the heavy beating of steam hammers. There the scythe and the ploughshare were being fashioned, and all the implements wherewith the hand of man subdued to his use those rugged hillsides. "If I could only paint that picture!" sighed Manasseh. "You succeeded with the Colosseum," was Blanka's encouraging rejoinder. "That was Rome, this is Toroczko. I could hit my sweetheart's likeness; my mother's is beyond me." Nevertheless he was determined to try his hand; so the others left him at work and went on to view the curiosities of the Szekler Stone. "Take good care of my wife," Manasseh called to his brother, "and don't let her fall over any precipice." "Never fear," Aaron shouted back. "The whole Szekler Stone shall fall first." "Promise not to take Blanka and Anna up Hidas Peak." "I promise." "On your honour as a Szekler and a Unitarian?" "On my honour as a Szekler and a Unitarian." With that Manasseh let them go their way. But in the midst of his sketching it occurred to him that Aaron had only promised not to "take" the ladies up Hidas Peak, which might mean that he would not carry them up, but was at liberty to lead them; for Aaron was full of all such quips and quibbles as that. Manasseh closed his portfolio, picked up his things, and followed the path taken by the others. Yet there was no mischievous intent in Aaron's mind. He conducted Anna and Blanka to the verge of the gorge that separates the so-called Hidas Peak of the Szekler Stone from the Louis Peak. This ravine is a deep cutting, down which a steep, breakneck path leads directly to Toroczko, but is very seldom used. On the farther side of the gorge may be seen a cave in the rocks, popularly known as Csegez Cave. A rude stone rampart guards its mouth, and, as only a very narrow path along the brink of the precipice leads to this cavern, it could be easily held against an assault. On the summit of Hidas Peak was planted a bundle of straw, which was visible from a considerable distance, and served as a warning not to ascend. Was it meant as a protection to the single fir-tree left standing there in lonely majesty, or to deter hay-thieves from cutting the grass that grew there? Perhaps it was a friendly caution to sightseers not to hazard the ascent, as it might cost them their lives. The two young women recognised at once the inadvisability of their attempting this dangerous climb, but to Aaron the ascent was mere sport. He had often been up there before. Promising his companions that, if they would be on their good behaviour, and not stir from the spot, he would climb the rocky height, blow a blast on his horn that should awake the echoes, and bring them back a twig from the solitary fir-tree, he left them seated on the grass and busy arranging the flowers they had gathered. It seemed a long time before he gained the summit, and the young women grew tired of sitting still in one place. Anna, true miner's daughter that she was, spied some scattered bits of carnelian in the rubble near by, and pointed them out to Blanka. Agate and chalcedony were also to be found among the loose stones, and often the three occurred together. Both Anna and her companion were soon busy gathering these treasures and pocketing the rarest specimens. Indeed, so intent were they on their work that they failed to note the approach of a strange man, until he stood within fifty paces of them. Whence could he have come? Had he been concealed behind some rock? What was his purpose in thus stealing on the two unprotected women? He wore the Wallachian peasant costume,--a high cap of white lamb's wool, from beneath which his long, black hair hung down over his shoulders, a leather dolman, without sleeves, a broad belt with buckles, under which his shirt extended half-way to his knees, and laced shoes. He carried a scythe over one shoulder, and stood with his back to the sun, so that his features could not be clearly distinguished. The young women seized each other by the hand, and uttered a cry of alarm. The sight of the strange figure seemed to work on them like a nightmare, or like the ghost of some one known in life, but long since laid to rest in the grave. At first the man appeared to be as badly frightened as the young ladies. He halted, gave a start as of surprise, opened his mouth to speak, and then stood dumb, with staring eyes. For several seconds he seemed undecided what to do next. Then he put himself in motion and advanced toward the ladies, his face at the same time assuming a wild, demoniac expression. He lowered his scythe from his shoulder, and grasped it in his right hand. At that moment there sounded from the height above the trumpet-like peal of Aaron's horn. "Aaron! Aaron!" cried both young women in concert and with all their strength. The intruder, taking fright at sound of the horn and at the name, stood still and threw a look behind. "Run, _frate_!"[1] shouted Aaron from above, already descrying the man. [Footnote 1: Rumanian for "brother."] But the latter, counting with safety on a considerable interval before Aaron could descend, started once more toward Anna and Blanka. Only twenty paces now intervened between him and them. His eyes glowed and his face was distorted with a horrid expression, more brutal than human. His appearance might well have made the boldest recoil. Anna planted herself before her companion, as if to shelter her, while Blanka felt only a mad desire to run and throw herself over the precipice. But suddenly, when the man was only a few steps from them, he halted and drew back as if some one had smitten him in the face, his knees trembled, and an inarticulate cry escaped his lips. He seemed to have encountered something from which he drew back in dismay, as the leopard, when pursuing a deer, turns tail at sight of a lion. Blanka and Anna gave a backward glance and then started to run. Fear now left them, and as they ran they called aloud, in the glad assurance of help near at hand, "Manasseh! Manasseh!"--until they reached him and threw themselves into his arms. Meanwhile the strange man, looking over his shoulder and seeing Aaron descending upon him with bold leaps and bounds, did not pause long to consider, but dropped his scythe and ran for his life, down the steep side of the gorge, over rubble-stones and slippery boulders. "What are you so frightened at?" asked Manasseh, taking the matter lightly and kissing back the roses into the ladies' pale cheeks. Panting and gasping for breath, they could hardly stammer out the cause of their alarm, but managed to explain that a "terrible man" had suddenly come upon them and chased them. Yet neither Blanka nor Anna went on to say of whom this strange figure had reminded her. "You little geese!" cried Manasseh, laughing, "it was only a hay-thief. Grass grows on Hidas Peak, and ever since the days of King Matthias the Szeklers on the Aranyos have quarrelled with their neighbours over the cutting of it. The man who is on hand first with his scythe carries it off. So that bugaboo of yours was merely a harmless peasant in quest of fodder for his cow, and he took fright at sight of us and ran away. Look there, will you, he has dropped his scythe in his eagerness to escape." The two young women, still clinging to Manasseh, went with him to examine the Wallachian's scythe. "A tool of our own make!" he cried, lifting it up and inspecting it. "It has our trade-mark. The snath is full of notches--probably the owner's record of work done and of his share in the harvest." The said owner was by this time far down the steep path. Aaron now joined his companions, much out of breath, red in the face, and without his hat, which he had thrown away in order to run the faster. He shouted to the fugitive to stop, and, going to the edge of the ravine, snatched up a great stone and hurled it after him. "Oh, heavens!" cried Anna, "what have you done? What if it should hit him?" "If it hits him it will help him along the faster," was Aaron's reply as he caught up a second stone, smaller than the first, and sent it to overtake its fellow. But the fleeing form was too far down the hill to serve as a good target, and Aaron's stones bounded harmlessly by. "You might have killed him!" said Anna, reproachfully. "And that would have been the best thing for all concerned," answered Aaron, giving his moustache a fierce pull. "But it would have been a piece of needless cruelty," remarked Manasseh,--"and merely on account of a little hay that has not been touched, after all." "He didn't come up here to steal hay; he is one of Diurbanu's spies." "But what, pray, could he spy out here?" "What could he spy out? Oh, just see how sharp my brother Manasseh is! My fortifications and armament are on the Szekler Stone. Yes, you may laugh now, but you won't laugh when you come to learn their value. I will show the ladies my cannon, but I won't let you see them, Manasseh." "Cannon, brother?" repeated Manasseh, laughing. "How in the world did you ever get them up here?" "My business is with the ladies now," was all Aaron would say. "You sit down on a stone and paint the beautiful view. My battery is not for you to see. Yes, I have a battery, all complete. If Aaron Gabor could fit out his Szeklers with artillery, why should not his namesake be able to do the same? You young women may see my big guns; I'll show them to you. But first promise me solemnly not to tell any mortal soul what you see--not even Manasseh." Blanka and Anna both pledged themselves most solemnly to secrecy, whereupon Aaron led them up to a height on which stood the ruins of Szekler-Stone Castle, one of the oldest monuments to be found in all Hungary. After a short interval the three rejoined Manasseh, the two ladies laughing and in the merriest of moods, scarcely heeding their conductor's solemnly raised forefinger and sober mien, which were meant to remind them of their promise. But they betrayed no secrets; they only laughed. Yet Aaron thought it betrayal enough for them even to laugh. "That's always the way," he muttered, "when you let a woman into a secret!" They soothed and caressed him, but only laughed the more as they did so. "I wish you to understand that this is no trifling matter," he declared, "and that I had good reason to send those stones after that prying spy." This allusion checked the young women's merriment at once, and a shudder ran over them at the remembrance of what had passed. "Did we both have the same thought?" whispered Blanka to Anna. "Yes," returned the latter, with a sigh. That night, before she lay down to sleep, Anna veiled the little portrait that hung in her room, as if to prevent her seeing it in her dreams. CHAPTER XXII. THE HAND OF FATE. Through the main street of Abrudbanya rode two men, one of them wearing an overcoat with silver buttons over his Wallachian dress, and a tuft of heron's feathers in his cap, while at his side hung a curved sword, pistols protruded from his holsters, and a rifle lay across his saddle-bow. His face had nothing of the Wallachian peasant in its features or expression. The other horseman, however, who rode at some paces' distance in the rear, was manifestly of the peasant class. The horses' hoofs awoke the echoes of the vacant street. Silence and desolation reigned supreme. Half-burned houses and smoke-blackened walls greeted the riders on every side. High up on the door-post of a church appeared the bloody imprint of a child's hand. How had it come there? Grass and weeds were growing in the marketplace, and a millstone covered the village well. Here and there a lean and hungry dog crept forth at the horsemen's approach, howled dismally, and then retreated among the ruins. After this scene of devastation was passed, the highway led the riders along the bank of a stream, on both sides of which smelting works had been erected, as this region is rich in gold-producing ore; but nothing except charred ruins was now left of the buildings. At intervals a deserted mill was passed, its wheel still turning idly under the impulse of the tireless stream. Leaving this mining district behind, the two riders came to a settlement of a different sort, which had not been given over entirely to destruction. Only occasionally a house showed windows or doors lacking, while many were wholly unharmed. Among the latter was one building in whose front wall a well-preserved Roman gravestone was set, its carving in high relief being still clearly outlined. Here had once been entombed the ashes of Caius Longinis, a centurion of the third legion. _Sit sibi terra levis!_ One of the door-posts had in ancient times served as a milestone, and the broad bench before the house was made from the lid of a sarcophagus, bearing an inscription which informed the archæologist what saffron-haired Roman beauty had, centuries before, been laid to rest beneath it. The riders drew rein before this house, and straightway an old woman of extraordinary ugliness stuck her head out of the little door. Among the Wallachians one meets with the comeliest young women and the ugliest old hags. Knock at any door, and it is sure to be opened by one of these ancient dames. "He isn't at home," called out the old woman, without waiting to be addressed. "He has gone to the 'Priest's Tree.' You'll find him there." "Well, then, if you know where this 'Priest's Tree' is, go ahead and show us the way," commanded he of the silver buttons, unwilling even to halt long enough to water his horse, so pressing was his errand. The way led through a vast forest, and when the riders reached their destination it was late evening, the darkness being further increased by gathering thunder-clouds. The so-called "Priest's Tree" is a giant beech standing in a broad open space and fenced around with a hedge planted by pious hands. Under this tree have been sworn the most solemn of oaths, and the ground shaded by it is hallowed. Near by stands a wooden church, exactly like the churches to be seen in all Wallachian villages, its steep roof and sides covered with shingles, and a pointed turret surmounting the whole. The belfry has no bell, and the windows are unglazed, so that the breezes blow at will through the deserted building. Our riders found a dozen or more horses tethered at the foot of the tree and watched by a few Wallachian lads, who were muffled in fur coats against the approach of the storm. The beech furnished a good shelter: lightning could not strike it, as it was the "Priest's Tree." Leaving his horse in charge of his attendant, he of the silver buttons hastened on to the church door, where an armed sentry demanded his name. "Diurbanu," was the reply, whereupon he was admitted. The interior of the church was very dark. Two wax tapers, indeed, burned on the altar, but they flickered and flared so in the wind as to furnish a very insufficient light. The thunder-clouds without, however, were now rent with frequent flashes of lightning, which served to illumine the scene within. About a dozen men were assembled there, sitting on the benches that had once been occupied by worshippers, some wearing the costume of the country, while others were dressed in military uniform. Before them, with his back to the altar, sat a man of commanding appearance, attired in a clerical gown with long, flowing sleeves. In his lap he held a little fair-haired boy, covering the child with one of his wide sleeves, and giving it the golden crucifix that hung from his neck to play with. At times his long black beard completely concealed the child's face. The little one was playing and prattling, giving no heed to the talk of the men about him and betraying no alarm at the tumultuous approach of the storm. The newcomer advanced and addressed the group: "Gentleman and friends, glorious descendants of Decebalus and Trajan!" "Never mind ceremony now, Diurbanu," interrupted the wearer of the gown, in a deep, commanding voice. "What news? Let us hear your errand." "I am the bearer of instructions." "Out with them, then!" "We must prosecute the war with might and main. There is no time to lose. Bem regards the Transylvanian campaign as ended, and has set out with his whole army for the Banat, leaving only a few regulars to guard the passes and to prosecute the siege of Karlsburg. Our part is to check him in his march on Croatia." "Or, in other words," interrupted the man in the gown, "to prevent him from dealing Jellachich a fatal blow, we are to throw ourselves in Bem's way." "The victors of Abrudbanya and Brad will not shrink from the undertaking, I should hope," was Diurbanu's response. "Let us understand each other," said the other, setting the little boy on his knee and trotting him up and down as he spoke. "Is it reasonable to suppose that we could, without cavalry, artillery, or experienced commanders, attack a fully equipped force with any hope of success, especially after that force has driven an Austrian army corps out of the country and shown itself able to repulse the Russian auxiliaries?" "No one expects that of us. Our operations are to be confined to raids in the mountains." "But no enemy is to be found now in the mountains. Don't you know that? You have just come over the mountains. Did you see any sign of the enemy?" "We have foes enough there still. There is Toroczko." Diurbanu's face, as he said this, was suddenly illumined by a blinding flash of lightning. "And Torda!" cried a voice from the benches. "No, we have nothing against Torda," declared Diurbanu, almost angrily. "But what have we against Toroczko?" asked another voice. "The men of Toroczko have never done us any harm. So far we have received their iron only in the form of ploughs and shovels, scythes and wheel-tires." "Their sons are serving under Bem," was the rejoinder, "and it is from them that we have received their iron in other shapes. Yet that is not the main reason. Toroczko is a breeding-place of Magyar ideas and Magyar civilisation, an asylum open to Protestant reformers, the pride of a handful of people who hope to conquer the world by dint of their science and industry. The fall of Toroczko would spread a wholesome fear far and wide; it would be almost as if one should report the overthrow of Pest itself. Bem's men would halt on the march, panic-stricken at the news, and Bem himself would be forced to yield to their desires and return to Transylvania. And the more terrible our work of devastation, the more brilliant will be the military success that must follow as its result." The thunder-claps came at such frequent intervals that the speaker could with difficulty make himself heard. When he had ended, the deep voice of him who wore the clerical gown began in reply: "Listen to me, Diurbanu. You are deceived on one point. Those on whom you count in this bloody work are sated with slaughter. So long as they thirsted for revenge they were eager to shed human blood; but now they have slaked their thirst and are beginning to rue their deeds. I saw a family being cut down in the open street, and I rushed forward and snatched this little flaxen-haired boy from the murderers' hands and hid him under my cloak. At that a young man, the most furious one of the party, aimed such a stroke at my head with his scythe that he would certainly have split my skull had not my cap deadened the blow. But three days later this same young man came to see the child whose rescue had filled him with such fury that he had lifted his hand with murderous intent against me, his anointed priest; and because the little boy cried for his lost blackbird, the young man went into the woods and caught another for him. More than that, he would now gladly restore the boy's parents to him if he could. Ever since I saved the little one's life he has clung to me and refused to be parted from me." The priest spoke in a tongue strange to the little boy, who consequently understood not a word of what was said, but went on with his innocent prattle and laughter. "Comrades," resumed Diurbanu, addressing the group before him, "all this is wide of the mark. We are in the midst of war, and in war-times the soldier must go whither he is sent." "Very well, Diurbanu," was the reply, "our soldiers will go whither they are sent. The wind can direct the storm-cloud whither it shall go, but cannot compel it to flash lightning and hurl thunderbolts at command." "But I know one storm-cloud," rejoined Diurbanu, "that has not withheld its thunderbolts." "You mean Ciprianu and his men?" "Yes." "But Ciprianu and both his sons are now fallen." "So much the better. He left a daughter who thirsts for revenge." "Do you know her?" "She is my sweetheart." "And have you picked out the village whose destruction is to be her bridal gift? Which one is it?" "I have told you already,--Toroczko." "But I say it shall be Torda!" cried a determined voice. "I protest." "Let us draw lots to decide it." "Very well," assented Diurbanu, and, going to the altar on which stood the flickering candles, he wrote a name on each of two cards and threw the bits of pasteboard into his cap. "Now who will draw?" he asked; but no one volunteered. "It must be an innocent hand that decides the fate of these two towns," continued Diurbanu. "This little chap shall draw for us." "What, this innocent child decide which town shall be given over to fire and blood and pillage!" exclaimed the priest. "An infernal contrivance of yours, Diurbanu!" But meantime the child had reached out a tiny hand and clutched at one of the cards, which it handed to the priest. "Bring me one of the candles," bade the latter. But no candle was necessary, for even as he spoke a flash of lightning penetrated to the remotest corner of the little church. The group of men whose heads were bent over the bit of cardboard started and cried out in concert: "Toroczko!" In the peal of thunder that followed the very ground shook under their feet and the building rocked over their heads. CHAPTER XXIII. OLD SCORES. The inhabitants of the doomed town were warned beforehand by a friendly informer what was in store for them. For two months they knew that they were standing over a mine which awaited only the proper moment to be touched off. Nevertheless, during this time they went about their usual tasks, digging iron out of the bowels of the earth, sowing their grain, planting and weeding their gardens, spinning their flax, tanning their hides, sending their children to school, and all betaking themselves to church on Sunday morning. The Sunday afternoon diversions, however, were suspended, and in their stead the entire male population practised military drill. Even the twelve-year-old boy cried if he was not allowed to take part. All were determined to shed their last drop of blood rather than let the enemy set foot inside their town. Even the women busied themselves sharpening axes and scythes, resolute in their purpose to defend their little ones or, if need were, to put them to death with their own hands and then slay themselves. No woman, no child, should fall into the enemy's clutches alive. It was the very last day of July. The fields were dotted with sheaves of grain, and the farmers were hastening to gather them in. They had been surprised by countless numbers of crows and ravens which invaded the valley and filled the air with their hoarse, discordant cries. Those experienced in war knew that these birds were the usual attendants and heralds of armies. More definite tidings were not long in coming. Messengers from St. George arrived breathless with the report that Diurbanu's troops were rapidly approaching. But no one was disconcerted by the news; all were ready for the enemy. Throwing scythes and pitchforks aside, they snatched up their firearms. Each battalion of the national guard had its assigned position. The streets were barricaded with wagons, and the road toward Borev was laid under water by damming the brook, to prevent a surprise from that direction. Aaron, with forty other men, clambered up the steep slope of the Szekler Stone to repulse the enemy from this commanding height,--forty men against as many hundred. They would have laughed at their own folly had they but stopped to think. Toward noon the sturdy little band of defenders was increased by the coming of fugitives from St. George. For these, too, there were arms enough in Toroczko. The effective force now in the village amounted to nearly four hundred. Manasseh was at home with the women of the family. They had declined Aaron's offer to conceal them in Csegez Cave, preferring to remain under the family roof and there await what God had appointed them. Manasseh now embraced Blanka and Anna and bade them farewell. "Where are you going?" asked Blanka, in alarm. Jonathan's pale face seemed at that moment to float before her vision, and she feared to part with her husband, lest he should not return. "I am going to the enemy's camp." "Alone?" "No, not alone. I am well attended: Uriel goes before me, Raphael is on my right hand, Gabriel on my left, behind me Michael, and over my head Israel." "But you are going unarmed." "No, I am armed with the peace treaty which our foes concluded with me, swearing not to attack Toroczko. That is my weapon, and with it I will win a bloodless victory." Blanka looked sorrowfully into her husband's face, and in that look was expressed all that her tongue was powerless to utter,--her infinite love for the man and her deep despair at the thought of perhaps never again meeting those eyes so full of love and tenderness for her. "I tried it once before, you know," he reminded her, "and you know how well I succeeded then. The leader of the Wallachians is an old acquaintance of mine." But this last was true in a sense that the speaker little dreamed--as he was to learn later. Blanka pressed her husband's hand. "Very well," said she, with a brave effort at cheerful confidence, "do as seems best to you, and Heaven will care for us." Manasseh could not suppress a sigh as he kissed his wife on the forehead. Anna, who could read her brother's face, knew what that sigh meant. "You need not be anxious about us, dear brother," she said. "We are under God's protection, and are prepared for the worst. We decided long ago what we should do if we were forced to it. When all is lost that is dearest to us,--our loved ones, our home, our country,--we shall not wait tamely for the enemy to break into the house. Here are two pistols: each of us will take one of them and point it at the other's heart, each will utter the name that is last in her thoughts, and that will be the last word that will ever pass her lips. Now you may go on your errand and need not fear for us." Manasseh's feelings were too deep for utterance. Without a word he kissed the dear ones before him and then left the house and hastened away. He turned his face toward St. George. He was alone and had not even a stick in his hand. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. To a good pedestrian St. George is only half an hour's walk from Toroczko. On the outskirts of the village Manasseh met scattered bodies of soldiery who surveyed him in much surprise; but, as he was unarmed, they offered him no injury. His calmness of bearing and the cool, collected look with which he met their scrutiny completely disarmed them. Besides, they were busy cutting up slaughtered cattle and cooking their supper in the open fields. As was usual among such irregular troops, no outposts had been set to challenge the approach of strangers. Manasseh accosted the first man whose face impressed him favourably, and asked for guidance to the commander's quarters. The man willingly gave him his escort. On the way he went so far as to unbosom himself to Manasseh, complaining that, at this busy season of the year, when all ought to be at home, men were forced to make so long a march. After showing the way to the house where the commander was to be found, he received a cigar from Manasseh, and acknowledged himself amply repaid for his trouble. Manasseh advanced to the door and announced to a group of armed men lounging about it that he wished to see Diurbanu. "The general is not to be seen just now," was the reply; "he is at dinner, and will not leave the table for some time yet." Manasseh drew a visiting-card from his pocket, and, first bending down one corner, sent it in to the general. The bearer of it soon returned with the announcement that Diurbanu bade the visitor wait awhile, and meantime he was to be bound and confined in the cellar. Manasseh assented to this peculiar reception. "Many men, many manners," said he to himself. It would have been easy enough for him to leap the railing of the porch and flee to the woods before the others could lay hands on him, but he had not come hither merely to run away again the next moment. "Very well, go ahead and bind me," said he, good-humouredly, to the guards. But they looked at one another in helpless inquiry who should undertake to manacle this large, strong man. When at length two had volunteered to essay the task, it appeared that there was no rope in readiness. "Go and get one," commanded the prisoner; and when a stout cord had been procured, he went on with his directions: "Now take my pocketbook out; you'll find some loose change in it which you may divide among you. There is also a folded paper in the pocketbook; deliver it to the general and ask him to read it. Then take a cigar out of my waistcoat pocket, light it and stick it in my mouth." These commands having been duly executed, two of the guards led their prisoner down into the cellar, which appeared to be Diurbanu's antechamber for such visitors as came to him with troublesome petitions. Not satisfied with conducting him to the main or outer cellar, Manasseh's escort opened the iron door leading into an inner compartment, pushed him through it, and closed the portal upon him, after bidding him take a seat and make himself comfortable. Manasseh found himself in almost total darkness. Only an air-hole over his door admitted a very feeble light from the dimly illumined outer cellar. He began to consider his situation, comforting himself with the reflection that at Monastery Heights he had been treated in much the same fashion, except that there his hands had not been bound. He had been kept in confinement all night, and in the morning his terms of peace had been accepted. This time, too, he hoped for a like issue. When a cigar is smoked in the dark it lights up the smoker's face at each puff. Suddenly a voice from out of the gloom called, "Manasseh!" "Who is there?" "I." It was a gipsy, whose voice Manasseh recognised. "How came you here, Lanyi?" he asked. "Diurbanu had me locked up--the devil take him!" "What grudge had he against you?" "He ordered me to play to him while he sat at dinner," explained the gipsy; "but I told him I wouldn't do it." "Why not?" "Because I won't make music for my country's enemies." His country, poor fellow! What share had he in that country beyond the right to tramp the public highway, and make himself a mud hut for shelter? "Then he gave me a cuff," continued the gipsy, "had me shut up here, and promised to hang me. Well, he may break me on the wheel, for aught I care, but I won't play for him even if he smashes my fiddle for refusing." "Well, don't be down-hearted, my little man," said Manasseh, cheerily. "I'm not a bit down-hearted," declared the other. "I only thought I'd ask you not to throw away your cigar-stump when you've finished smoking. You can walk, your feet are free; come here when you are through with your cigar, and let it fall into my mouth, so that I can chew it." "But you'll find it a hot mouthful." "So much the better." This cynical gipsy phlegm exactly suited Manasseh's mood, and he exerted himself to cheer the poor fellow up, promising to secure his release as soon as he himself should gain an audience with Diurbanu. "But you won't get out of here yourself in a hurry," returned the gipsy. "Once in Diurbanu's hands, you might as well be in the hangman's. Already he has put to death seven envoys who came to treat for peace, and they were only St. George peasants. So what will he do to you who are an Adorjan and wear a seal ring? But you've a breathing-spell yet. The others served him as a little relish before dinner; you are to be kept for dessert. One drinks a glass of spirits at a gulp, but black coffee is to be sipped and enjoyed. I know this Diurbanu well, and you'll know him, too, before he's through with you. I'll bet you my fiddle, Manasseh, you won't live to see another day; but it serves you right! You could handle three such men as Diurbanu in a fair fight; yet, instead of meeting him on the battle-field, you walk right into his clutches and let him bind you fast--like Christ on the cross." "Take not that name in vain, you rogue!" commanded Manasseh, sternly, "or I'll let you feel the weight of my foot." "Kick me if you wish to," returned the vagrant, imperturbably; "but, all the same, if I had been Christ I wouldn't have chosen a miserable donkey to ride on, but would have sent for the best horse out of Baron Wesselenyi's stud; and as soon as I had the nag between my legs, I would have snapped my fingers at old Pontius Pilate." The gipsy's eloquence was here interrupted by the sound of a key turning in the outer door of the cellar. "They're coming!" cried the fiddler; "and I sha'n't get your cigar-stump, Manasseh. They'll take me out first." Through the hole above the iron door a reddish light could now be seen. Presently the iron door itself was opened, and two men, bearing pitch-pine torches, entered, and then stood one on each side of the door. Diurbanu came last, dressed in the costume of a Wallachian military commander, his face flushed with wine and evil passions, and his long hair falling over his shoulders. Despite his disguise, Manasseh recognised him at once. He saw that the gipsy's words had conveyed no idle warning. The man before him was none other than Benjamin Vajdar. Yet the prisoner lost nothing of his composure, but with head erect and unflinching gaze faced his deadly enemy. "Well, Manasseh Adorjan," began the other, "you asked to see me, and here I am. Do you know me now?" "You are called Diurbanu," replied Manasseh, coldly. "And don't you know another name for me? Don't I remind you of an old acquaintance?" "To him whom you resemble, I have nothing to say. I have come to you as to Diurbanu, I have placed in your hands the peace-treaty which your people made with my people, and I demand its observance." "To convince you that I am not merely Diurbanu, but also another, look here." With that he called one of the torch-bearers and held to the flame the paper he had received from Manasseh. The latter shrugged his shoulders and blew a cloud of cigar-smoke. "Do you understand now," continued Diurbanu, "that there is one man in the world who has sworn to march against Toroczko, treaty or no treaty, to leave not one stone on another in that town, and not one of its people alive to tell the story of its destruction? My day has come at last--and Toroczko's night." The speaker's features took on at these words an expression more like that of a hyena than of a human being. "Idle threats!" muttered Manasseh, scornfully, between his teeth. "Idle threats, are they?" retorted the other, striking the hilt of his sword and raising his head haughtily. "You think, do you, that I am joking, and that I will take pity on you?" "Oh, as for me, you may do what you please with me--torture me, kill me, if you choose. I am ready. But that will not help you to take Toroczko. All are in arms there and waiting for you. Go ahead with your plan. You'll find many an old acquaintance to receive you there. Our defences are abundantly able to withstand your soldiers, who, you know well enough, are tired of fighting and have no love for storming ramparts. Kill me, if you wish, but there will be only one man the less against you; and all the satisfaction you and your men will get from Toroczko will be broken heads. Not one stone will you disturb in all the town." "We'll soon make you sing another tune," returned Diurbanu, and he began to roll up his sleeves, like an executioner preparing to torture his victim. "You shall hear our plan. I will be perfectly honest with you. While a part of my forces conduct a feigned assault in the valley, and so engage the attention of your men, my main body will descend on the town from the direction of the Szekler Stone, and will assail it in the rear, where none but women and children are left to receive the attack. What the fate of these women and children is likely to be, you may conjecture from the fact that the assaulting party is led by a woman,--a woman whose heart is full of bitter hatred, a maiden whose father and two brothers have been killed before her eyes, a proud girl whom your brothers have driven from their door with insulting words. This woman is Zenobia, Ciprianu's daughter, once your brother Jonathan's sweetheart, but now betrothed to me--or, at least, she fancies she is. While I keep your armed forces busy, she will knock at the door of your house. At her signal the work of carnage and destruction will begin. Your whole family will fall into her hands." Manasseh shuddered with horror, and drew a deep breath. His head was no longer proudly erect, his self-confidence was gone. "God's will be done!" he murmured. "So I've found your tender spot, have I?" cried the other, with an exultant laugh. "Just think what is in store for your wife (but what am I saying? She is not your wife)--your mistress." At this insult to his adored Blanka, Manasseh's wrath blazed up and mastered him. He spit his burning cigar stump into the speaker's face. It was the utmost he could do. The other swallowed his rage at the indignity and wiped the ashes from his face, which presently broke into a smile--a hideous smile. "Very good, Manasseh! One more score to charge up against you. I don't attempt to even the account on your unfeeling body, but on your soul, which I know how to torture. For this last insult, as well as for a hundred former injuries, I shall wreak ample revenge on Blanka Zboroy, before your own turn comes." "Do not count too confidently on that," rejoined Manasseh. "The moment your ruffian crew break into our house, two women will put their pistols to each other's hearts, and your men will find only a couple of dead bodies." "Ha, ha! To deprive you of even this last consolation, I beg to assure you that the two women will not lay a finger on their pistols, because Zenobia is to gain entrance to them before the men appear. She will come to them in the guise of a friend and deliverer, promising to rescue them for Jonathan's sake. She will furnish them Wallachian peasant clothes, help them about their disguise, and, amidst the general confusion, bring them away with her, alive and unharmed, to St. George, so that you will have the pleasure of seeing Blanka Zboroy in my power. Further details I will leave to your own imagination; and to enable you to pursue these pleasant fancies undisturbed I will now say good night." "Manasseh!" called a voice from the darkness, when Diurbanu had gone. "Who calls? Or is it only a rat?" Manasseh had forgotten that his dungeon contained another prisoner beside himself. "Yes, it's a rat," answered the voice. "I heard my schoolmaster tell a story once about a lion that fell into a snare, and a mouse came and gnawed the ropes so as to set him free. If you will bend down here I'll untie your knots with my teeth." Manasseh complied. The gipsy had splendid teeth, and he bit and tugged at the knots until the prisoner's hands were free, and he felt himself another man altogether. "Now pull this stake out from under my knees," directed the fiddler, whose hands were tied together and passed over his bent knees, where they were held fast by a stick of wood. His legs being freed, he slipped the cords from his hands like a pair of gloves. He was no little elated over his achievements. "And now we will sell our lives dear!" he cried, with a glad leap into the air. The rattle of small arms in the distance began to be heard, and through the little opening over the iron door a ruddy light as from a fire became visible. At first Manasseh thought some one was coming again with a torch; but as the iron door did not open, and the red light grew constantly brighter, he finally guessed the cause of the illumination. Those who were now assaulting Toroczko must have set fire to St. George first, to furnish the people of the former place an example of what they were themselves to expect, and perhaps also to supply a light for the attacking party. The whole village was in flames. So it appeared that Diurbanu's words had conveyed no empty threat. The work of revenge had begun with St. George, and now came Toroczko's turn. That the latter place was offering a spirited resistance could be inferred from the lively firing that was to be plainly heard. But how would it be when the attack in the rear should begin, from the direction of the Szekler Stone? Could Aaron and his forty men offer any effectual opposition to the invaders? Night must have fallen ere this. Manasseh paced his prison cell in almost unbearable impatience, as he listened to the distant firing, and watched the red glow over the door growing gradually brighter. A heavy booming as of cannon was heard from the Szekler Stone. So the attack in that quarter had begun, and Aaron's battery was at work. Zenobia must be leading the enemy into the town, for surely no means at Aaron's command could repulse the assaulting party. Manasseh was fast losing all self-control. "I will find a way out of this!" he cried, in a frenzy. Running to the door, he seized its iron ring and shook the heavy portal in impotent fury. Then he turned back and surveyed his place of confinement with searching eyes. It was now fairly well lighted by the ruddy glare that came through the air-hole. The place had formerly been a wine cellar, but every cask and barrel was now gone. The support on which they had rested, however, remained behind. This was a massive oak beam which had served to keep the wine casks from the damp earthen floor of the cellar. "Lanyi," commanded Manasseh, in quick, energetic tones, "take hold of one end of this beam, and we will batter the door down." "I'm your man!" responded the gipsy, with alacrity. He was small of person, but every sinew in his wiry frame was of steel. He grasped the beam behind while Manasseh carried the forward end, and so they converted it into a Roman battering-ram. The booming of cannon was drowned now by the pounding on the iron door. The two prisoners wondered that no one in the house seemed to hear them. But those who might before have heard were engaged elsewhere, while to those outside the noises in the street drowned all tumult in the cellar. At length the lock gave way under the tremendous battering to which it was subjected, and soon the door flew open. The outer door was of wood, and yielded readily. "Hold on, stand back!" cried the gipsy, as Manasseh was about to run up the stairs. "Wait until I take a peep and see if the coast is clear. I'll mayhap find a gun that some one has thrown down." "But I can't wait," returned the other, brushing him aside. "I need no gun. The first man that dares get in my way shall furnish me with arms. I am going to seek my wife! Let him who values his life run from before me!" He burst through the door, and sprang up the steps. No sooner was he in the open air than an armed figure confronted him. But Manasseh did not strike down this person, for it was a woman,--Zenobia. A dirk and a brace of pistols were stuck in her belt. "Take care!" she cried to Manasseh, and she made as if to shield him from view with her cloak. "Stay where you are!" But Manasseh seized her by the wrist and shouted hoarsely in her ear: "Where are my wife and sister?" Zenobia understood his tone and the frenzy with which he grasped her arm. With a sad smile she made answer: "Calm yourself. They are well cared for. They are at home in their own house, where no one can harm them." He looked at her, in doubt as to her meaning. Zenobia handed him her weapons. "Here, take these," she commanded. "You may need them. I have no further use for them." Thus, disarmed and in Manasseh's power, she stood calmly before him. "Now be quiet and listen to me," she went on. The cannon thundered on the Szekler Stone in one continuous roar, while fiery rockets shot from Hidas Peak in a wide curve and fell into the valley below, hastening the mad flight of routed and panic-stricken men, who fled as if for their lives to Gyertyamos, Kapolna, and Bedellö, to the woods, and into the mountain defiles. The burning village of St. George no longer offered them an asylum, and its streets were by this time nearly deserted. "That is over," said the Wallachian girl, calmly, and she led Manasseh into the empty house. "Aaron might as well stop now," she murmured to herself; "for there are no more to frighten." Then to Manasseh: "You know it takes two to get up a scare,--one to do the frightening and the other to be frightened. If I had but said to our men, 'Stop running away! Those are not the brass cannon of the national guard, but only Aaron Adorjan's holes in the side of the rock, where he is harmlessly exploding gunpowder; and that roll of drums that you hear on the Csegez road does not mean an approaching brigade of Hungarians, but is only the idle rub-a-dub of a band of school children,'--if I had said that, Toroczko would now lie in ashes. But I held my tongue and let the panic do its work. With this day's rout all is ended, and in an hour's time you can safely return home. When you meet your wife and sister, tell them you saw me this evening, and let them know that the Wallachian girl has forgotten nothing--do you hear me?--nothing. They wrote me a beautiful letter, both of them on one sheet of paper, a letter full of love and kindness. They called me sister and invited me to your wedding, promising me that Jonathan should be there, too, and making me promise to come. And when they had written the letter they even coaxed the stiff-necked Aaron, who hates us Wallachians like poison, to add his signature to it, though I could see in the very way he wrote his name how he disliked to do it. I promised to come, and I kept my word. And Jonathan came with me--I brought him. That night I told your wife and your sister that I should come to Toroczko once more, and not with empty hands, but should bring them something. I have come, and I bring them--you, Manasseh, alive and unharmed. That is how a Wallachian girl remembers a kindness." She turned to go, but then, as if remembering something, came back and drew a ring from her finger. "Here," said she, "I will give you this ring. Do you remember it?" "It belonged to my sister," answered Manasseh, in a tone of sadness. "I bought it for her to give to her lover as an engagement ring. Soon afterward he deserted her." "I know it. Her name is engraved inside the ring. The pretty fellow who gave it me told me all about it. He said to me: 'My pearl, my turtledove, my diamond, see here, I place this ring on your finger and swear to be true to you. But I can't marry you as long as that other woman lives who wears my betrothal ring, for our laws forbid it. That woman dwells in the big house at Toroczko. You know her name and know what to do to enable me to marry you.'" Manasseh trembled with suppressed passion as he listened. The girl handed him the ring and proceeded: "Give her back her ring; it belongs to her. And tell me, did not this man come to you and tell you how a shameless creature in woman's form was to steal into your house, and, under the pretext of rescuing your wife and sister, lead them away to misery and dishonour? Speak, did he not tell you some such story?" "Yes, he did." Zenobia laughed in hot anger and scorn. "Well, then," said she, in conclusion, "I have another present for you. The proverb says, 'Little kindnesses strengthen the bonds of friendship.' And this will be the smallest of gifts I could possibly make you. The handsome young man who gave me this ring, and is betrothed to me--or thinks he is--lies somewhere yonder in a ditch. His horse took fright at the tumult, and threw him so that he broke his ankle. His fleeing troops left him lying there; they stumbled over him and ran on; no one offered to help him up. They all hate him, and they see in his fall a punishment from Heaven. The Wallachian fears to lend aid to him that is thought to lie under God's displeasure. The fallen man's horse you will find in the church. Mount it and hasten back to Toroczko. As for the rider, you will do well to hang him to the nearest tree. You have a gipsy here to help you. And now farewell." She blew a little whistle that hung at her neck, and a lad appeared leading two mountain ponies. Zenobia mounted one, waved a final adieu to Manasseh, and rode away with her attendant toward Bedellö. "Come, sir," said the gipsy, touching Manasseh's elbow, "let us set about what she told us to do. You go into the church and get Diurbanu's horse while I go and find the rider. You have two pistols and a dagger. What, don't you want them? Then give them to me." The fiddler was proud to find himself so well armed. He made a belt of the cords he had brought with him from the cellar, and stuck the weapons into it. "Now we must hurry," he urged, "or the people will be coming back." While Manasseh made his way to the church, his companion hastened in search of Diurbanu. The little man had sharp eyes and keen wits. He conjectured that the fallen rider, with his broken leg, would avoid the dry harvest-fields, over which the fire was rapidly spreading, and would be found in the moist ditch beside the road. Nor was he wrong in this surmise. He was soon saluted in a voice that he recognised. "Gipsy, come here!" "Not so fast," the fiddler replied. "How do I know you won't shoot me?" "I have nothing to shoot with. I am lying in the water, so that even if I had my pistols the powder would be soaked through." "But what do you want of me?" "I wish you to save my life." "And won't you have me locked up afterward?" "If you will help me get away from here I'll make you a rich man. You shall have a thousand florins." "If you had promised me less I should have believed you sooner." "But I will pay you the money now. Come, take me on your back and carry me away." "Where to?" "Into the church yonder." The gipsy laughed aloud. "First do your swearing out here, then," said he, "for no one may curse God in his house. But what will you do in the church?" "I will wait while you run to Gyertyamos and hire a carriage for me. You shall have a thousand florins, the driver the same, and for every hour before sunrise that you accomplish your errand you shall receive an extra hundred." "You won't see the sun rise," muttered the fiddler to himself as he obeyed the other's directions. The burden proved not too heavy for the little man's back; he could have carried him all the way to Gyertyamos, but the horse must obey his rider, so into the church he went with him. "There, Manasseh," he cried, in triumph, "there's our man!" And he dropped his burden on the stone floor. Diurbanu cried out with pain as he fell, then raised himself on one elbow and met Manasseh's gaze. "Kill me and be done with it," he muttered, in sullen despair. But Manasseh remained standing with folded arms before him. "No, Benjamin Vajdar," said he, "you shall not die by my hand. He who kills Cain is seven times cursed. My promise to an angel whom you would have destroyed is your safeguard. I shall neither kill you myself nor let any one else lay hands on you. You are to live many days yet and continue in the way you have begun, obeying the sinful impulses of your wicked nature, and doing evil to those that have done nothing but good to you. You weigh upon our house like a curse, but it is God's will thus to prove and try our hearts. Fulfil your destiny, plot your wicked scheme's against us, and then at last, broken, humbled, scorned of all the world beside, come back to us and sue for pity at the door of those to whom you have shown no pity. God's will be done!" Manasseh allowed himself to use no reproach, no word of withering scorn, in thus addressing his enemy. He even spoke in German, to spare the fallen man's shame in the gipsy's presence. He had the horse in readiness for its master, and bade the fiddler help him lift the injured rider into the saddle and tie him there with ropes to ensure him against a second fall, especially as one foot was now unfit for the stirrup. "Aha!" cried the little gipsy, "a good idea! We'll take him alive and show him off in Toroczko." The fires in the village made the spirited horse restive and hard to manage. Manasseh took him by the bridle and led him out of the church, the gipsy following at the animal's heels. "Turn to the right and begone!" whispered Manasseh to the rider, and he caused the horse to make a sudden spring to one side. "Oh, he's got away!" cried the gipsy, in great chagrin. "Why didn't you let me take the bridle? Catch me bringing you another thousand-florin prize, to be thrown away like that!" "Never mind, my lad. From this day on you shall find a full trencher always ready for you at our house. But now let us start for home." * * * * * Six weeks later Benjamin Vajdar made his reappearance in Vienna, the net result of his expedition to Transylvania being, first, a heavy draft on the bank-account of his chief, and, second, a limping gait for himself, which proved a sad affliction to him on the dancing-floor. CHAPTER XXIV. A CRUEL PARTING. At the close of the war the young men of Toroczko who had served in the national guard returned home and resumed their work in the mines and iron foundries. The mining classes had always been exempt from military service in the imperial army, and so the Toroczko young men had no fear of being soon called away again from their peaceful industry. Out of these young artisans Manasseh set about forming a guild for the better working of the Toroczko mines. He wished to make intelligent and skilful mining engineers of them, and so enable them to avail themselves, more fully than they had yet done, of the mineral resources of their native hills. And having now had some experience of military discipline, these young men offered him material of no mean order for his experiment. They seconded his efforts with a will, reposing the utmost confidence in their leader, and perceiving that he knew thoroughly what he was undertaking. It was a great piece of good fortune for Manasseh that he had a partner in his enterprise who was in fullest sympathy with him, and in whom he could place the utmost trust. This partner kept the accounts of the business in which the two had invested their all, and showed the keenest intelligence and the most watchful vigilance in guarding their joint interests. This expert accountant and able manager was none other than Manasseh's wife. In the third year of her marriage, however, she had something else to engage her attention beside iron-mining: in that year the house of Adorjan was increased by the birth of twins,--Bela and Ilonka, the former a likeness in miniature of his father, and the latter a second Blanka. But their aunt Anna insisted on sharing the mother's cares, and soon she assumed almost entire charge of the little ones, thus enabling Blanka to resume her business duties. In this way everything was running smoothly, when one evening there came a government order requiring all men between certain ages to report within three days at Karlsburg for military service; any who refused would be treated as deserters. Three quarters of Manasseh's workmen came under the terms of this order; but they promptly obeyed and went to Karlsburg, where, after being found physically qualified, they were enrolled for six years' service,--three extra years being added to the usual term because they had neglected to report voluntarily. This was a hard blow to Manasseh's enterprise. He resolved to go to Vienna and petition for the exemption of his employees from military duty, claiming for them the miners' privileges which they had enjoyed hitherto. Well acquainted though he had been in government circles in the past, Manasseh now found everything changed and scarcely a familiar face left. Like the veriest stranger, he was forced to wait with the crowd of other petitioners in the war minister's anteroom until his turn should come. Much to his surprise, however, the great man's door suddenly opened and Prince Cagliari advanced to meet him with a face all smiles and words of honey on his lips. "Ah, my dear friend, how glad I am to see you!" began the prince. "All well at home? That's good. And what brings you hither, may I ask? You come on behalf of your countrymen who were recently drafted? Ah, yes." (Then in a whispered aside: "We'll soon arrange that; a word from me will suffice.") Again aloud: "A very difficult matter, sir, very difficult indeed! These recent complications in the Orient compel us to raise our army to its highest effective strength." (Once more in a whisper, with a stealthy pressure of the hand: "Pray give yourself not the slightest concern. I'll speak to his Excellency about it this very minute.") Manasseh was by no means pleased at finding himself placed under obligations to Prince Cagliari, but he could not well refuse such a gracious offer of assistance. Accordingly, when the prince returned and smilingly informed him that he had put the petition in the minister's hands, and obtained a promise that it should be speedily taken under favourable consideration, Manasseh forced himself to smile in return and to express his acknowledgments to his intercessor as he took leave of him. The petition was, in fact, taken under early advisement, and three days after Manasseh's return to Toroczko he was summoned to Karlsburg to learn the issue. "Your memorial has reached us from Vienna with a refusal," was the chilling announcement that greeted him. "Impossible!" cried Manasseh, in astonishment. "I was promised a favourable answer." The government official only shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "On what ground is the petition rejected?" asked Manasseh. "On the ground that those for whom you petition forfeited their privileges as miners by taking up arms in '48. Having taken them up once, they cannot refuse to do so a second time." Manasseh's bitter reflections were somewhat sweetened by the thought that, after all, he was not in any way indebted to Prince Cagliari. But he owed him more than he suspected. As he was turning to go, the government official detained him a moment longer. "I hope," said he, as if by way of a casual remark, "that your own exemption from service is a matter of no uncertainty." "My own exemption!" repeated Manasseh, in amazement. It had not once occurred to him that he, a former government councillor, might be drafted into the army. But he controlled his indignation at what seemed an ill-timed jest, and added, calmly: "At any rate, I cannot be charged with having forfeited my rights as a miner by taking up arms in 1848." "That remains to be seen," was the cool reply. Then, after some search among his papers, the official produced a document from which he read as follows: "'Mr. Manasseh Adorjan is alleged, on unquestionable authority, to have participated in the fight at St. George and Toroczko. In fact, he with his own hands took General Diurbanu prisoner and bound him with a rope to his horse. Only the animal's impatience of control saved the rider and secured him his freedom.'" After listening to this astounding accusation against him, Manasseh recognised that he was far more deeply in Cagliari's debt than he had supposed. * * * * * "I have accomplished my mission in brilliant style," was his report when he reached home. "Not only my workmen are drafted, but I also along with them." The women were struck with consternation, but Aaron burst out laughing. "Oh, you poor innocent!" he cried, "how can you be a soldier with one shoulder six inches higher than the other?" "What, am I really so misshapen as that?" asked Manasseh, in surprise. "To be sure, or at least you can make yourself so for the nonce. Don't you remember how our neighbour Methuselah's grandson went limping about with one leg longer than the other, when the recruiting officer was here?" "Methuselah's grandson may do that kind of thing," answered Manasseh, "but not an Adorjan. I can't practise any deceit of that sort." "Deceit!" cried Aaron; "we are deceiving no one--only the government." "And is the government no one?" asked his brother. "Well, it's all right to outwit the Austrians," muttered Aaron. "I don't agree with you," was all Manasseh could say. "If I am ordered to march I shall obey. My poor lads are obliged to exchange the pick for the rifle, and shall I, their master, shirk my duty?" "Manasseh is right," declared Anna. "What will do for a grandson of Methuselah will not do for an Adorjan. When an Adorjan's name is called he must answer to it like a man. Our brother will be the pride of his regiment, and will soon rise to be an officer; then he can obtain his discharge and come home." Manasseh pressed his sister's hand in gratitude for these words of courage and good cheer. "Yes, but suppose he has to go to war?" objected Blanka. "Never fear," returned her husband. "Even if Austria becomes involved in the present dispute, the Hungarian regiments are not likely to be sent to the front. They will be stationed in Lombardy, where all is as quiet as possible." "Then I will go with you," said Blanka, brightening up. "No, you must stay with us," Anna interposed. "You and the children are best cared for here, and, besides, if Manasseh goes away you will have to look after the iron works. New hands are to be engaged, and ever so much is to be done all over again. How can you think of leaving us in the lurch? There will be no one but you to manage things; you alone can direct the works and put bread into our poor people's mouths." "Ah, me!" sighed the distressed wife; "and must I live perhaps a whole year without seeing Manasseh--a whole autumn, winter, spring, and summer?" Anna's eyes filled with tears and a sigh escaped her lips. How many a season had she seen pass, without hope and without complaint! Blanka knew the meaning of those tears, and she hastened to kiss them away. And so it came about that the Toroczko young men, and Manasseh with them, were sent off to Lombardy. Thence every month came a letter to Toroczko, to Blanka Adorjan, from her devoted husband. The very first one told her how he had risen from private to corporal and then from corporal to sergeant. But there he stuck. On parting with his wife, he had consoled her with the confident assurance that in a year, at most, she would see him return; but the year lengthened into five. Little Bela no longer sent meaningless scrawls to his father, but wrote short letters in a round, clear hand, and even added verses on his father's birthday. But not a single furlough could that father obtain to go home and see his dear ones. Nor did he gain his long-expected promotion to a lieutenancy. The colonel of the regiment wrote letters with his own hand to Blanka, praising her husband and telling her how he was looked up to by all his comrades and esteemed by his officers; and yet he could not secure his promotion. Even the commandant at Verona had interceded for him in vain. He must have a powerful enemy who pursued him with relentless persistence. Blanka well knew who that enemy was, but she took no steps--for she felt that they would have been useless--to try to soften him. Her family were united in opposing any suggestion on her part of undertaking a journey. She did not even venture to visit her husband in Verona. An instinct, a foreboding, and also certain timely warnings, kept her safe at home. This long period of trial and suspense was not without its chastening effect on the young wife's character. It developed her as only stern experience can. On her shoulders alone rested the cares which her husband had formerly shared with her. The iron works were now under her sole management. Foresight, vigilance, and technical knowledge were called for, and nobly did she meet the demand. Those five years brought her many a difficult problem to solve and many an anxious hour. Once a hail-storm destroyed all her crops two days before the harvest, and she was forced to buy grain from her own purse. Again it happened that the crop of iron itself was ruined by something far worse than hail. Some one at Vienna dealt a mortal blow to all the iron mines in the land with a single drop of ink. He lowered the tariff, and native iron production thenceforth could go on only at a loss. But Blanka was determined not to close her mines and her foundries. She recognised the hand that had dealt her this severe blow, but she knew the harsh decree would have to be repealed before long, such an outcry was sure to go up against it. So she pawned her jewels, kept all her men at work,--they seconded her efforts nobly by volunteering to take less than full pay,--and wrote nothing at all about her troubles to Manasseh. CHAPTER XXV. SECRETS OF THE COMMISSARIAT. The mysterious workings of the commissary department are beyond the understanding of ordinary mortals. Therefore let it suffice us to take only a passing glance at those mysteries. Benjamin Vajdar was enjoying a tête-à-tête with the Marchioness Caldariva after the theatre. "Well, what has my cripple to report of his day's doings?" asked Rozina. "Is all going well in Italy?" "We signed a contract to-day for supplying our army there with forty thousand cattle," was Vajdar's reply. "Ah, that will make about two hundredweight of beef to a man," returned the other, reckoning on her fingers. "Not an ounce of which will ever reach them," said the secretary, with a smile; "but we shall make a couple of millions out of the transaction,--a mere bagatelle for Papa Cagliari, however; not enough to keep him in champagne." "A very clever stroke of yours," commented the marchioness, with approval; "and I can tell you of another little operation the prince has in hand just now. Bring me the morocco pocketbook out of my writing-desk, please." Vajdar limped across the room and brought the pocketbook. Rozina opened it and drew forth an official-looking document. "Here is a contract for so and so many bushels of grain to be furnished to the army. You see it foots up a large sum, but the profits won't be so very great, after all, owing to the recent rise in prices on the corn exchange." "Oh, don't worry about that," interposed Benjamin, with a knowing smile. "Who will ever know the difference if a quarter part of the total weight is chaff and clay? It will all grind up into excellent flour, and when the soldier eats his barley bread or his rye loaf it will taste all the better to him. There is nearly half a million florins' clear profit in the transaction, at a moderate estimate." "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the beautiful Cyrene. "So the soldiers must eat half a million florins' worth of chaff and clay to enable Papa Cagliari to take his morning bath in champagne." "Well, what of that? It makes, at most, only two florins' worth to a man, and the soldier who loves his country ought to be glad to eat two florins' worth of her soil. Has the prince any other contract under consideration?" "Yes, a very important one. He has procured an order that the troops in Italy shall wear for their summer uniform cotton blouses instead of linen, and he has the contract for furnishing the material." "But the prices named here are very low," objected Vajdar, reading from the paper Rozina had handed him. "Ah, but let me explain. The cotton is to be thirty inches wide, with so and so many threads to the warp--according to the specifications. But what soldier will ever think of counting the threads in his blouse, or know whether it was cut from goods thirty inches wide or twenty-eight? So, you see, with a little trimming here and a little paring there we can make a good hundred thousand florins out of the job." "But are our tracks well covered? Is there no risk in all this?" "Fear nothing. There are eyeglasses that blind the sharpest of eyes." "How if there are some eyes that will not be fitted with these glasses?" "Again I say, never fear. A victorious campaign covers a multitude of sins." "And a lost one brings everything to light." "Not at all. A slaughtered army tells no tales. But, by the way, is not our Toroczko friend among those who are likely enough to fall some day before the French and Italians?" "He is still in Lombardy," said Vajdar, with a significant nod of the head. "We have our eyes on him." "I am curious to know what this apostle of peace will do when he is ordered into battle. You know, he and his comrades are Unitarians and entertain scruples against shedding blood, except in defence of home and country. Will Manasseh Adorjan fight when he is ordered to, or throw down his arms?" "In either case, he will die," declared Benjamin Vajdar. "I should prefer to have him only wounded," said the marchioness. "Then his mate would leave her nest in the mountains and hasten to nurse him in the hospital; and contagious diseases are not uncommon in military hospitals, where both patients and nurses are often swept off by them--so quickly, too, that no one thinks of inquiring very closely into the matter." "You are impatient, marchioness," commented the secretary. "And you choose to remark upon it because I would have the prince a widower and a free man?" With that the fair Cyrene nestled close at her fellow-conspirator's side, and proceeded to caress him and to murmur soft words in his ear. And so the night sped, and the first peep of dawn overtook the two before they separated. CHAPTER XXVI. SOLFERINO. One of the most momentous battles in history was in progress, and the battalion in which Manasseh Adorjan still served as a sergeant stood from early morning until afternoon among the reserves, watching the fight. Leaning on his gun, Manasseh thoughtfully observed the transformation of that earthly paradise into a scene of slaughter. He thought how, in times of peace, the cry of a single human being in distress would call ready succour and excite the warmest sympathy; but now, when men were dying by thousands, their fellows looked on in the coldest indifference. He asked himself whether this fearful state of things, this deplorable sacrifice of a country's best and bravest sons, was a necessity, and must still go on for ages to come. And while he thus communed with himself he, too, held in his hands a weapon calculated to carry not only death to a valiant foe, but also sorrow and anguish to that foeman's wife and mother, and perhaps destitution to his family. To the north of the fortress of Solferino rose a wooded height, since known to the historians of that battle as Cypress Hill, and distinguished as the point around which the conflict raged most fiercely. Occupied alternately by each side, the opposing batteries stormed it in succession, and the squadrons, now of one army, now of the other, marched up to assault it. But though they marched up, Manasseh saw none of them return. Austrians, French, and Italians, all seemed to be swallowed up alike in that maelstrom of blood and fire. At four o'clock in the afternoon the battle was at its height. In the heat of the conflict one could see uniforms of all three armies mingled in inextricable confusion. The Austrian forces were at last becoming exhausted with toil and hunger. Whole regiments were there that had not tasted meat for a week--where were those forty thousand cattle?--and the bread dealt out to them was ill-baked, mouldy, gritty, and altogether unfit to eat. A final and concentrated effort was determined upon. Reserves to the front! Cypress Hill was to be stormed once more. A battalion of yagers, the pride of the Austrian army, charged up the fatal hill and succeeded in taking it, after which the rattle of musketry beyond announced that the fight was being continued on the farther side. At this point Manasseh's battalion was ordered to hold the hill while the yagers were pushed farther forward. The order was obeyed, and then Manasseh learned what the cypress-crowned height really was: it was a cemetery, the burial-ground of the surrounding district, and each cypress marked a grave. But the dead under the sod lay not more closely packed than the fallen soldiers with whose bodies the place was covered. Cypress Hill was a double graveyard, heaped with dead and dying Frenchmen, Italians, Austrians, Hungarians, Poles, and Croatians, their bodies disfigured and bleeding and heaped in chaotic confusion over the mounds beneath which slept the regular occupants of the place. In the soldier's march to glory each step is a human corpse. Manasseh took care to step over and between the prostrate forms before him. Gaining the summit of the hill, he had an open view of the prospect beyond. A large farm, since known to history as the _Madonna della Scoperta_, lay before him. A high terrace facing the hill had been converted by the enemy into a fortress, which commanded the cemetery, and which the yagers were now pressing forward to take. The charge was gallantly led, but after a fierce struggle, in which the assailants exhausted their ammunition, and the engagement became a hand-to-hand fight, the Austrians were driven back in confusion. Manasseh's battalion was then commanded to charge the terrace, from which the enemy's battery was dealing such deadly destruction, and to capture and hold the _Madonna della Scoperta_. The major gave the necessary orders, but it was to Manasseh that every eye was turned at this critical moment. Had he but shaken his head the whole battalion would have stood still and refused to advance a step. If he said the word, however, his comrades would follow him, and attempt the impossible. Manasseh looked up at the clouded heavens above, and breathed a sigh. The hour had come when he must bow before the iron will of destiny. He, the apostle of peace, must plunge into the midst of bloody strife. "Thy will be done!" he murmured, then advanced to the front of the battalion, and turned to address his comrades. "Forward!" They obeyed him with alacrity, singing as they advanced, "A mighty fortress is our God," and so began the assault. Not a shot was fired as they pushed forward at double-quick in the face of a murderous artillery discharge from the terrace above. Gaining the foot of the scarp, they planted their bayonets in the earthern wall, and so mounted the rampart, those behind helping up those in front. As they sang the last stanza of their hymn, the _Madonna della Scoperta_ was taken--without the firing of a single shot. The major of the battalion was beside himself with pride and exultation. He embraced Manasseh, and kissed him on both cheeks. "To-morrow will see you an officer with a medal of honour on your breast," was his confident prediction. Manasseh smiled sadly. He knew better than the other what to expect. Meanwhile the enemy had not given up the fight. The terrace, they perceived, must be retaken, and a detachment of French troops was advancing to storm it. "Let them come on!" cried the major, confidently. "We can handle them, ten to one. Give them a volley, my lads!" But this time Manasseh shook his head, whereupon the whole battalion grounded arms. "What do you mean?" exclaimed the major, astounded. Manasseh raised his hand to heaven. "_Egy az Isten!_" he cried, and all his comrades followed his example. "What do you say?" asked the bewildered officer. "We swear by the God who has said 'Thou shalt not kill!'" was Manasseh's reply. "But you are soldiers, and on the battle-field." "We do our duty, we go whither we are ordered, and we can die if we must; but we will not take human life except in defence of our homes and our fatherland." "But, man, the enemy will kill you." "So be it." The commander threatened, begged, wept--all in vain. The only reply was, "_Egy az Isten!_" The men were willing to discharge their pieces if necessary, but it would only be a waste of ammunition: they would fire into the air. Troops were now rapidly moving on the threatened position from two directions, one party to assault, the other to defend. Fearful slaughter seemed imminent, and nothing was left for those who had so gallantly carried the terrace but to die where they stood. Suddenly, however, a third power took a hand in the fray, and smote both assailants and defenders with equal fury. The black clouds that had been gathering over the battle-field opened and began such a cannonade as neither side could withstand. Wind, hail, lightning, and thunder, accompanied by an ominous darkness in which friend was indistinguishable from foe, played such havoc with the puny combatants and their mimic artillery, that all were forced to seek shelter and safety from the angry elements. Thus neither side was left in possession of the field, but a third and a mightier power than either claimed the victory in that day's fight. Manasseh and his comrades fled with the rest before the fury of the storm. They succeeded in gaining a sheltered position where they found campfires burning, and thought themselves among friends. But they were mistaken. They had stumbled in the darkness upon the enemy's camp. CHAPTER XXVII. AN HOUR OF TRIAL. Manasseh and those with him were taken prisoners and sent to Bresci. What befell them there is matter of history. Adorjan was surprised one morning by the receipt of the following: a coffee-coloured uniform, trimmed with red cord and its collar adorned with gold lace; a handsome sword in a gold-mounted scabbard; and an official document from the Italian war office, appointing him major of the battalion with which he had been taken prisoner. The sight of these most unexpected presents could not but thrill Manasseh with pride and exultation. Now at last it was in his power to wreak vengeance on those who had so grievously wronged him,--to cut his way, sword in hand, back to his downtrodden fatherland, perhaps even to exact a rich retribution at the oppressor's hands, and to restore his country once more to a position of proud independence. Added to all this, the seductive picture of future fame, of undying renown as a patriot and liberator, rose before his vision. Already, as hero of the _Madonna della Scoperta_, he had tasted the intoxication of martial glory. A strength and self-denial more than human seemed necessary if he would turn his back coldly on the splendid prospect that opened before him as his country's avenger and deliverer. What words can do justice to the conflicting emotions which Manasseh experienced in that hour of trial? His comrades in arms and many of his dearest friends, he felt convinced, would turn upon him with mockery and reviling if he should now still cling to his principles and refuse to disobey the commandment of his God,--"Thou shalt not kill." In Italy every house has its image of the crucified Saviour. Manasseh stood now before one of these crucifixes, lost in troubled thought. To Jesus, too, the people had cried: "Be our general, lead us against the Romans, free your nation!" And he had answered them: "I will lead you to a heavenly kingdom, and will free all mankind." Then he was heaped with scorn and abuse, was scourged by the Roman lictors, and was finally dragged before Pontius Pilate and crucified. But not the scourging, not the crown of thorns, or the cruel nails, or the spear of Longinus,--none of these was the really hard thing to bear. A man may suffer the severest physical torture and still utter no cry. The cruelest of all was the scornful laughter of those to whom he had brought salvation and eternal life, the blame of his fellow-citizens for whom he so freely shed his life's blood. That was what only a man of divine nobility and courage could endure. "I am but mortal!" cried the tempted man, in anguish. "I cannot attain unto such heights." And he buckled on his gold-mounted sword. The crucified form, however, seemed to turn its eyes upon him in mild reproof and gentle encouragement. "I will lend you my aid," it seemed to say to him. But Manasseh hastened from the room and turned his steps toward the commandant's quarters. Perturbed in mind and hardly master of himself, he started at the rattle of his own sword; and when some of his comrades saw him pass and cheered him with loud hurrahs, he hurried by and barely returned their salute. The general received him in his breakfast-room, where he was engaged with his morning mail. Acknowledging Manasseh's greeting, he handed him an open letter. The Hungarian took it and read as follows: "Villafranca. Peace has been concluded. The Hungarian battalion is to be disbanded, and its members allowed to return home." This room, too, had its crucifix. It seemed to look down on Manasseh with the same gentle reproof, and to say, "Have I failed you in your hour of trial?" With the first ripening of the fruit in the Toroczko orchards, Manasseh and his comrades were at home. Blanka came to meet her husband as far as Kolozsvar, bringing her little daughter Ilonka with her. Bela could not come, as he had just then a school examination. At the Borev bridge a splendid reception awaited the home-comers. A handsome little lad headed the receiving party, waving a flag. "Who is that pretty boy?" Manasseh asked his wife. She laughed merrily, and rebuked him for not knowing his own son. But he had not seen the child for six years. His brother Aaron, too, he hardly recognised, so gray had his hair turned under the anxieties of the past few years. The speech of welcome which the elder brother was to have delivered proved a total failure, owing to the emotion aroused in the orator's breast at sight of the returned wanderer. But the most affecting part of it all to Manasseh was the appearance of his sister Anna. The poor girl, he could not fail to see, was sinking into an early grave. CHAPTER XXVIII. A DAY OF RECKONING. Victory had neither glossed over nor defeat buried from sight those dishonest army contracts. Louder and louder grew the murmurs against the fraud that had contributed so disastrously to the unhappy issue of the war, until at last a high military officer opened his mouth and declared, emphatically, "The parties responsible for such an outrage deserve to be hanged!" Soon after this bold utterance a decree went forth for an investigation of the scandal and the condign punishment of the guilty ones. Confusion and panic followed in more than one family of exalted station. A nobleman of proud lineage burnt all his papers and then opened the veins of his wrists with a penknife, and so escaped the ignominy of a trial in court. Another submitted to arrest, but no sooner saw his prison door closed upon him than he despatched himself by piercing his heart with a breast-pin. Two others vanished completely from sight and hearing the very day the edict was published, and never showed themselves afterward. Benjamin Vajdar, black with guilt as he knew himself to be, chose the shrewder course of remaining in Vienna and calmly going about his business, with all the outward confidence of spotless innocence. Suspicion is much like a watch-dog; it leaps upon the man who quails. Prince Cagliari and the Marchioness Caldariva also remained quietly in the city, and even went so far as to forego their wonted sojourn at the seashore when summer came. They seemed to have acquired a sudden extraordinary fondness for the Austrian capital. But one day the expected happened to Benjamin Vajdar. He was called to the police bureau. The official who received him was an old friend of his who now gave signal proof of his friendliness. "Benjamin Vajdar," said he, "you are ordered by the government to leave Vienna within twenty-four hours and go back to your native town, beyond which you are forbidden to stir." This mandate was a surprise to Vajdar, who had expected to be arrested and tried, and had made his preparations accordingly. However, there was nothing to do but submit to the inevitable. Further particulars or explanations were denied him, except that he would find a special police officer placed at his service from that moment until he reached his destination,--which was a polite intimation that he was thenceforth under government surveillance, and that any attempt at flight would be frustrated. He returned at once to his house, which adjoined that of the Marchioness Caldariva. Indeed, from his bedroom a secret passage, already referred to, led into Rozina's boudoir; but the clock-door had seldom opened to the secretary of late. Toward seven o'clock in the evening he saw a closed carriage drive away from the next door. "She is going to the opera," said he to himself as he watched the vehicle turn a corner and disappear. He donned hat and coat and sauntered after it, the emissary of the police always ten steps in the rear. Arrived at the opera-house, he purchased tickets for himself and his faithful attendant, and then made his way to the box of the marchioness. Rozina received him with apparent cordiality and listened to his whispered account of what had befallen him. "Have you talked this over with Prince Cagliari?" she asked. "No, and I shall not," replied Vajdar, with significant emphasis. "This is his doing." "What makes you think so, pray?" asked the marchioness, with an air of surprise. "Why should he plot the ruin of his own secretary and confidant?" "You yourself are the cause," was the retort. The beautiful woman bent her head still nearer to him. Even her cruel heart felt the compliment conveyed in this acknowledgment of her power. "And what do you wish of me, my poor boy?" she murmured softly in his ear. "I wish an interview with you after the opera--a strictly confidential interview." "Very well. Come to me as soon as I get home, and I will admit you." "No; you shall not turn me away so easily, with an empty promise." "What, must I swear to you, then?" "No, give me the little key, and I shall be sure of gaining admittance." "I am almost afraid to trust you with it," objected the marchioness, with an arch look; "but still you shall have it--there! And now guard it well, and be discreet." Vajdar kissed the hand extended to him and retired. The fair Cyrene turned again toward the stage and joined in the applause. One might have thought she was applauding the prima-donna; but no, she was applauding herself. Benjamin Vajdar returned home, left the police officer quartered in his antechamber, and, with his servant's aid, began packing his trunks. After that task was accomplished he waited impatiently for the close of the opera and Rozina's return. When his watch told him that he must have waited long enough, he passed noiselessly through the secret passage and opened the mysterious door in the tall clock at its farther end. The marchioness was not there. One hour, two hours, he waited in her boudoir, and still she failed to appear. "Very well; so be it," said Vajdar to himself. "You thought to outwit me; we shall see which will outwit the other." With that he opened the little writing-desk and took out the morocco-bound pocketbook which he seemed to know so well where to find. A single glance at its contents satisfied him that the papers he desired were still there. He quickly pocketed his prize and then paused to look around for the last time at the dainty appointments of the luxurious apartment. "Adieu, beautiful Cyrene, adieu, for ever!" he murmured, a smile of irony on his lips. Stealthily he had come, stealthily he withdrew. He did not take the trouble to close the writing-desk, but he was careful to leave the little key sticking in the clock door, where its rightful owner would be sure to see it. He found the police officer still awake and waiting for him. A cab was quickly summoned, and the two started on their journey to Transylvania. When the Marchioness Caldariva entered her boudoir a little later, her eyes fell at once on her open writing-desk, and she perceived that the morocco pocketbook was gone. She laughed, but it was not a pleasant laugh to hear. "Very good," said she, half aloud; "you would have it so, and I am not to blame." * * * * * Anna Adorjan hovered on the brink of the grave. She had heard that Benjamin Vajdar was charged with a penal offence, and she felt only too well convinced that if such a charge had been brought against him he must be guilty. If guilty, he would be sentenced to a term of imprisonment, and she would never see him return to his old home as she had once so confidently expected. She had nothing now to live for. Her dear brother Manasseh was restored to his family, and she was ready to die. "Brother," she gently entreated, as she lay on her bed of pain, "if he should by any chance ever come back to us, promise me to treat him as you would if I were still here. You will promise me that, won't you?" A silent nod of Manasseh's bowed head was her sufficient assurance that her slightest wish would be respected. "And even though he may never come back, I wish you to make my resting-place in the rocks large enough for two. Perhaps he will return sometime, when he sees his life drawing to a close, and he may be glad to find a place ready for him by my side. You will do as I wish in this matter, brother Manasseh, will you not?" Another nod of the bowed head. * * * * * The prediction uttered by Manasseh, when his enemy lay in his power in the desolate church at St. George, was completely fulfilled. Though he would have infinitely preferred banishment to Siberia, Benjamin Vajdar was forced to return to Toroczko, to the very house where he had been reared, and there take up his abode as a state prisoner. The government made him a pitiful allowance of three hundred florins a year, to keep him from starving. Thus it was, too, that Anna's words came true, and the man despised and rejected of all the world sought refuge in the house where he had been tenderly nurtured as a child. Thus did he return, vanquished in life's battle, to have his wounds bound by the hands of those he had so grievously wronged, and to beg a place in that family circle into which he had done his utmost to bring sorrow and despair. Manasseh met the police officer at the door, and heard his announcement with perfect composure. "We have no objection to raise," said he, "against the decree of the government. Benjamin Vajdar was formerly a member of our family, and so we must provide for him. The state allowance of twenty-five florins a month we beg leave to refuse. In our iron works there is a bookkeeper's position open to this man, and we shall ask him to assume its duties. Indeed, we shall ourselves probably be the gainers by this arrangement, as the keeping of our books has become too heavy a burden for my wife, and she will be glad to be relieved. But enough of this at present; to-morrow we will discuss the matter more at length. Meanwhile Mr. Vajdar is welcome to our house." Benjamin Vajdar's emotions can better be imagined than described. To find himself called upon to lighten Blanka Zboroy's duties and to live in constant sight of her happy home life, after all he had done in the vain attempt to spoil that life, was more than he had counted on. He bit his compressed lips till the blood ran. Opening the door of the chamber into which he had been ushered, he hurried out to seek the freedom of the open air and to set his confused thoughts in order. On his way his attention was caught by an unexpected sight. Through an open door he had a full view of a bier, on which rested a coffin, and in the latter, with hands folded on her bosom, lay the woman he had most cruelly wronged. In those clasped hands he saw a little picture wreathed in evergreen,--his own likeness, which the dead girl had begged her family to bury with her. Now, if never before, the unhappy man saw what a wealth of love he had cast aside, a love that, even in death caused by his base desertion, could forgive him his perfidy and carry his picture in a fond embrace down to the grave. As his guardian angel, she would bear it with her up to God's throne, and there plead his cause. Overcome at last by a flood of anguish and remorse, the guilty man cried aloud in his despair and fell prostrate beside the coffin, striking his head on its corner as he sank unconscious to the floor. Manasseh found him there and bore him back to his room. After putting him to bed and ministering to his wants, he went out with Aaron to prepare Anna's grave. "We must make it wide enough for two," said he; "it was her wish." When, after several hours of hard work, the two brothers returned home, Manasseh went at once to his guest's room. Before his marriage this chamber had been occupied by him, and he still used it occasionally for writing. In his absence Vajdar had risen and seated himself at the desk. Searching the drawer for writing-materials, he had come upon a sheet of paper yellow with age, and written upon in ink now much faded. The document proved to be a promissory note, but the signature was so heavily scored through and through as to be hardly legible. Benjamin Vajdar started violently as he took up the faded sheet and saw that the man whom he had so feared and hated had, by his own voluntary act, disarmed himself and put it out of his power to punish the fraud practised upon him by his false friend. As if distrusting his own constancy and the binding force of his promise to his sister, Manasseh had, with a few strokes of his pen, rendered harmless what could otherwise have been used as incriminating evidence against the forger. On entering the room, Manasseh detected a peculiar odour in the air. Benjamin Vajdar sat at the writing-desk, a morocco pocketbook open before him. A half-finished letter lay under the writer's hand, but his pen had ceased to move. His eyes met those of his host with a dull stare. "Don't come near me!" he cried, in warning. "Death is in this room!" But Manasseh hurried to the window, threw it open, and then, snatching up the pocketbook and the papers scattered over the desk, cast them all into the fire that was burning on the hearth. Thus all the tell-tale documents relating to certain fraudulent army contracts went up in smoke, but not before they had done their deadly work on one, at least, of the guilty men involved. Those papers had passed through the hands of a second Lucretia Borgia, and not without reason had she applauded herself that night at the opera when she permitted her dupe to extort from her the little key which she wore in her bosom. * * * * * Many years of untroubled peace and happiness for the Adorjan family followed these events. The children and grandchildren born to Manasseh and Blanka grew up to call them blessed, the labours of the Toroczko miners and iron-workers were prospered, and Heaven still smiles on the humble homes of that happy valley. THE END. 
39048	----	produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) THE SLAVES OF THE PADISHAH [Illustration: Dr. Jókai Mór 1900] The Slaves of the Padishah ("The Turks in Hungary," being the Sequel to "'Midst the Wild Carpathians") _A ROMANCE_ BY MAURUS JÓKAI _Author of "'Midst the Wild Carpathians," "Black Diamonds," "Pretty Michal," etc._ TRANSLATED FROM THE SIXTH HUNGARIAN EDITION BY R. NISBET BAIN [Illustration: SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE THIRD EDITION] LONDON JARROLD & SONS, 10 & 11, WARWICK LANE, E.C. [_All Rights Reserved_] 1903 AUTHORISED VERSION _Copyright_ _London: Jarrold & Sons_ CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. THE GOLDEN CAFTAN 9 II. MAIDENS THREE 17 III. THREE MEN 31 IV. AFFAIRS OF STATE 41 V. THE DAY OF GROSSWARDEIN 52 VI. THE MONK OF THE HOLY SPRING 77 VII. THE PANIC OF NAGYENYED 93 VIII. THE SLAVE MARKET AT BUDA-PESTH 102 IX. THE AMAZON BRIGADE 112 X. THE MARGARET ISLAND 118 XI. A STAR IN HELL 125 XII. THE BATTLE OF ST. GOTHARD 134 XIII. THE PERSECUTED WOMAN 154 XIV. OLAJ BEG 169 XV. THE WOMEN'S DEFENCE 179 XVI. A FIGHT FOR HIS OWN HEAD 193 XVII. THE EXTRAVAGANCES OF LOVE 218 XVIII. SPORT WITH A BLIND MAN 233 XIX. THE NIGHT BEFORE DEATH 237 XX. THE VICTIM 261 XXI. OTHER TIMES--OTHER MEN 267 XXII. THE DIVÁN 276 XXIII. THE TURKISH DEATH 293 XXIV. THE HOSTAGE 307 XXV. THE HUSBAND 313 XXVI. THE FADING OF FLOWERS 321 XXVII. THE SWORD OF GOD 327 XXVIII. THE MADMAN 340 XXIX. PLEASANT SURPRISES 349 XXX. A MAN ABANDONED BY HIS GUARDIAN-ANGEL 360 XXXI. THE NEWLY DRAWN SWORD 364 XXXII. THE LAST DAY 371 INTRODUCTION. "Török Világ Magyarországon," now englished for the first time, is a sequel to "Az Erdély arany kora," already published by Messrs. Jarrold, under the title of "'Midst the Wild Carpathians." The two tales, though quite distinct, form together one great historical romance, which centres round the weakly, good-natured Michael Apafi, the last independent Prince of Transylvania, his masterful and virtuous consort, Anna Bornemissza, and his machiavellian Minister, Michael Teleki, a sort of pocket-Richelieu, whose genius might have made a great and strong state greater and stronger still, but could not save a little state, already doomed to destruction as much from its geographical position as from its inherent weakness. The whole history of Transylvania, indeed, reads like an old romance of chivalry, cut across by odd episodes out of "The Thousand and One Nights," and the last phase of that history (1674-1690), so vividly depicted in the present volume, is fuller of life, colour, variety, and adventure than any other period of European history. The little mountain principality, lying between two vast aggressive empires, the Ottoman and the German, ever striving with each other for the mastery of central Europe, was throughout this period the football of both. Viewed from a comfortable armchair at a distance of two centuries, the whole era is curiously fascinating: to unfortunate contemporaries it must have been unspeakably terrible. Strange happenings were bound to be the rule, not the exception, when a Turkish Pasha ruled the best part of Hungary from the bastions of Buda. Thus it was quite in the regular order of things for Hungarian gentlemen to join with notorious robber-chieftains to attack Turkish fortresses; for bandits, in the disguise of monks, to plunder lonely monasteries; for simple boors to be snatched from the plough to be set upon a throne; for Christian girls, from every country under heaven, to be sold by auction not fifty miles from Vienna, and for Turkish filibusters to plant fortified harems in the midst of the Carpathians. Jókai, luckier than Dumas, had no need to invent his episodes, though he frequently presents them in a romantic environment. He found his facts duly recorded in contemporary chronicles, and he had no temptation to be unfaithful to them, because the ordinary, humdrum incidents of every-day life in seventeenth century Transylvania outstrip the extravagances of the most unbridled imagination. No greater praise can be awarded to the workmanship of Jókai than to say that, although written half a century ago (the first edition was published in 1853), "Török Világ Magyarországon" does not strike one as in the least old-fashioned or out of date. Romantic it is, no doubt, in treatment as well as in subject, but a really good romance never grows old, and Jókai's unfailing humour is always--at least, in his masterpieces--a sufficient corrective of the excessive sensibility to which, like all the romanticists, he is, by temperament, sometimes liable. Most of the characters which delighted us in "'Midst the Wild Carpathians" accompany us through the sequel. The Prince, the Princess, the Minister, Béldi, Kucsuk, Feriz, Azrael, and even such minor personages as the triple renegade, Zülfikar, are all here, and remain true to their original presentment, except Azrael, who is the least convincing of them all. Of the new personages, the most original are the saponaceous Olaj Beg, whose unctuous suavity always conveys a menace, and the heroic figure of the famous Emeric Tököly, who, but for the saving sword of Sobieski, might have wrested the crown of St. Stephen from the House of Hapsburg. R. NISBET BAIN. _December, 1902._ The Slaves of the Padishah. CHAPTER I. THE GOLDEN CAFTAN. The S---- family was one of the richest in Wallachia, and consequently one of the most famous. The head of the family dictated to twelve boyars, collected hearth-money and tithes from four-and-fifty villages, lived nine months in the year at Stambul, held the Sultan's bridle when he mounted his steed in time of war, contributed two thousand lands-knechts to the host of the Pasha of Macedonia, and had permission to keep on his slippers when he entered the inner court of the Seraglio. In the year 1600 and something, George was the name of the first-born of the S---- family, but with him we shall not have very much concern. We shall do much better to follow the fortunes of the second born, Michael, whom his family had sent betimes to Bucharest to be brought up as a priest in the Seminary there. The youth had, however, a remarkably thick head, and, so far from making any great progress in the sciences, was becoming quite an ancient classman, when he suddenly married the daughter of a sub-deacon, and buried himself in a little village in Wallachia. There he spent a good many years of his life with scarce sufficient stipend to clothe him decently, and had he not tilled his soil with his own hands, he would have been hard put to it to find maize-cakes enough to live upon. In the first year of his marriage a little girl was born to him, and for her the worthy man and his wife spared and scraped so that, in case they were to die, she might have some little trifle. So they laid aside a few halfpence out of every shilling in order that when it rose to a good round sum they might purchase for their little girl--a cow. A cow! That was their very ultimate desire. If only they could get a cow, who would be happier than they? Milk and butter would come to their table in abundance, and they would be able to give some away besides. Her calf they would rear and sell to the butcher for a good price, stipulating for a quarter of it against the Easter festival. Then, too, a cow would give so much pleasure to the whole family. In the morning they would be giving it drink, rubbing it down, leading it out into the field, and its little bell would be sounding all day in the pasture. In the evening it would come into the yard, keeping close to the wall, where the mulberry-tree stood, and poke its head through the kitchen door. It would have a star upon its forehead, and would let you scratch its head and stroke its neck, and would take the piece of maize-cake that little Mariska held out to it. She would be able to lead the cow everywhere. This was the Utopia of the family, its every-day desire, and Papa had already planted a mulberry-tree in the yard in order that Csákó, that was to be the cow's name, might have something to rub his side against, and little Mariska every day broke off a piece of maize-cake and hid it under the window-sill. The little calf would have a fine time of it. And lo and behold! when the halfpennies and farthings had mounted up to such a heap that they already began to think of going to the very next market to bring home the cow; when every day they could talk of nothing else, and kept wondering what the cow would be like, brindled, or brown, or white, or spotted; when they had already given it its name beforehand, and had prepared a leafy bed for it close to the house--it came to pass that a certain vagabond Turkish Sheikh shot dead the elder brother, who was living in Stambul, because he accidentally touched the edge of the holy man's garment in the street. So the poor priest received one day a long letter from Adrianople, in which he was informed that he had succeeded his brother as head of the family, and, from that hour, was the happy possessor of an annual income of 70,000 ducats. I wonder whether they wept for that cow, which they never brought home after all? Mr. Michael immediately left his old dwelling, travelled with his family all the way to Bucharest in a carriage (it was the first time in his life he had ever enjoyed that dignity), went through the family archives, and entered into possession of his immense domain, of whose extent he had had no idea before. The old family mansion was near Rumnik, whither Mr. Michael also repaired. The house was dilapidated and neglected, its former possessors having lived constantly abroad, only popping in occasionally to see how things were going on. Nevertheless, it was a palace to the new heir, who, after the experience of his narrow hovel, could hardly accommodate himself to the large, barrack-like rooms, and finally contented himself with one half of it, leaving the other wing quite empty, as he didn't know what to do with it. Having been accustomed throughout the prime of his life to deprivation and the hardest of hard work, that state of things had become such a second nature to him, that, when he became a millionaire, he had not much taste for anything better than maize-cakes, and it was high festival with him when _puliszka_[1] was put upon the table. [Footnote 1: A sort of maize pottage.] On the death of his wife, he sent his daughter on foot to the neighbouring village to learn her alphabet from the cantor, and two heydukes accompanied her lest the dogs should worry her on the way. When his daughter grew up, he entrusted her with the housekeeping and the care of the kitchen. Very often some young and flighty boyar would pass through the place from the neighbouring village, and very much would he have liked to have taken the girl off with him, if only her father would give her away. And all this time Mr. Michael's capital began to increase so outrageously that he himself began to be afraid of it. It had come to this, that he could not spend even a thousandth part of his annual income, and, puzzle his head as he might, he could not turn it over quickly enough. He had now whole herds of cows, he bought pigs by the thousand, but everything he touched turned to money, and the capital that he invested came back to him in the course of the year with compound interest. The worthy man was downright desperate when he thought upon his treasure-heaps multiplying beyond all his expectations. How to enjoy them he knew not, and yet he did not wish to pitch them away. He would have liked to have played the grand seignior, if only thereby to get rid of some of his money, but the rôle did not suit him at all. If, for instance, he wanted to build a palace, there was so much calculating how, in what manner, and by whom it could be built most cheaply, that it scarce cost him anything at all, but then it never turned out a palace. Or if he wanted to give a feast, it was easy enough to select the handsomest of the boyars for his guests. Whatever was necessary for the feast--wine, meat, bread, honey, and sack-pipers--was supplied in such abundance from his own magazines and villages, that he absolutely despaired to think how it was that his ancestors had not only devoured their immense estates, but had even piled up debts upon them. To him this remained an insoluble problem, and after bothering his head for a long time as to what he should do with his eternally accumulating capital, he at last hit upon a good idea. The spacious garden surrounding his crazy castle had, by his especial command, been planted with all sorts of rare and pleasant plants--like basil, lavender, wild saffron, hops, and gourds--over whom a tenant had been promoted as gardener to look after them. One year the garden produced such gigantic gourds, that each one was as big as a pitcher. The astonished neighbours came in crowds to gaze at them, and the promoted ex-boyar swore a hundred times that such gourds as these the Turkish Sultan himself had not seen all his life long. This gave Master Michael an idea. He made up his mind that he would send one of these gourds to the Sultan as a present. So he selected the finest and roundest of them, of a beautiful flesh-coloured rind, encircled by dark-green stripes, with a turban-shaped cap at the top of it, and, boring a little hole through it, drew out the pulp and filled it instead with good solid ducats of the finest stamp, and placing it on his best six-oxened wagon, he selected his wisest tenant, and, dinning well into his head where to go, what to say, and to whom to say it, sent him off with the great gourd to the Sublime Porte at Stambul. It took the cart three weeks to get to Constantinople. The good, worthy farmer, upon declaring that he brought gifts for the Grand Seignior, was readily admitted into the presence, and after kissing the hem of the Padishah's robe, drew the bright cloth away from the presented pumpkin and deposited it in front of the Diván. The Sultan flew into a violent rage at the sight of the gift. "Dost thou take me for a swine, thou unbelieving dog, that thou bringest me a gourd?" cried he. And straightway he commanded the Kiaja Beg to remove both the gourd and the man. The gourd he was to dash to pieces on the ground, the bringer of the gourd was to have dealt unto him a hundred stripes on the soles of his feet, but the sender of the gourd was to lose his head. The Kiaja Beg did as he was commanded. He banged the gourd down in the courtyard outside, and behold! a stream of shining ducats gushed out of it instead of the pulp. Nevertheless, faithful above all things to his orders, he had the poor farmer flung down on his face, and gave him such a sound hundred stripes on the soles of his feet that he had no wish for any more. Immediately afterwards he hastened to inform the Sultan that the gourd had been dashed to the ground, the hundred blows with the stick duly paid, the silken cord ready packed, but that the gourd was full of ducats. At these words the countenance of the Grand Seignior grew serene once more, like the smiling summer sky, and after ordering that the silken cord should be put back in its place, he commanded that the most magnificent of caftans should be distributed both to the bastinadoed farmer and to the boyar who had sent the gift, and that they should both be assured of the gracious favour of the Padishah. The former had sufficient sense when he arrived at Bucharest to sell the gay garment he had received to a huckster in the bazaar, but his master's present he carefully brought home, and, after informing him of the unpleasant incident concerning himself, delivered to him his present, together with a gracious letter from the Sultan. Master Michael was delighted with the return gift. He put on the long caftan, which reached to his heels, and was made of fine dark-red Thibetan stuff, embroidered with gold and silken flowers. Gold lace and galloon, as broad as your hand, were piled up on the sleeves, shoulder, and back, to such an extent that the original cloth was scarcely visible, and the hem of the caftan was most wondrously embroidered with splendid tulips, green, blue, and lilac roses, and all sorts of tinsel and precious stones. Master Michael felt himself quite another man in this caftan. The Sultan had sent him a letter. The Sultan had plainly written to him that he was to wear this caftan. This, therefore, was a command, and it was possible that the Sultan might turn up to-morrow or the next day to see whether he was wearing this caftan, and would be angry if he hadn't got it on. He must needs therefore wear it continually. But this golden caftan did not go at all well with his coarse fur jacket, nor with his wooden sandals and lambskin cap. He was therefore obliged to send to Tergoviste for a tailor who should make him a silk dolman, vest, and embroidered stockings to match the golden caftan. He also sent to Kronstadt for a tasselled girdle, to Braila for shoes and morocco slippers, and to Tekas for an ermine kalpag with a heron's plume in it. Of course, now that he was so handsomely dressed, it was quite out of the question for him to sit in a ramshackle old carriage, or to bestride a fifty-thaler nag. He therefore ordered splendid chargers to be sent to him from Bessarabia, and had a gilded coach made for him in Transylvania; and when the carriage and the horses were there, he could not put them into the muddy wagon-shed and the sparrow-frequented, rush-thatched stable, but had to make good stone coach-houses and stables expressly for them. Now, it would have looked very singular, and, in fact, disgusting, if the stable and coach-house had been better than the castle, whose shingle roof was a mass of variegated patches and gaping holes where the mortar had fallen out and left the bricks bare; so there was nothing for it but to pull down the old castle, and to order his steward to build up a new one in its place, and make it as beautiful and splendid as his fancy could suggest. Thus the whole order of the world he lived in was transformed by a golden caftan. The steward embellished the castle with golden lattices, turrets, ornamental porches and winding staircases; put conservatories in the garden, planted projecting rondelles and soaring belvederes at the corners of the castle and a regular tower in the middle of it, and painted all the walls and ceilings inside with green forests and crooked-beaked birds. Of course, he couldn't put inside such a place as this the old rustic furniture and frippery, so he had to purchase the large, high, shining hump-backed arm-chairs, the gold-stamped leather sofas, and the lion-legged marble tables which were then at the height of fashion. Of course, Turkey carpets had to be laid on the floor, and silver candelabra and beakers placed upon the magnificent tables; and in order that these same Turkey carpets might not be soiled by the muddy boots of farmyard hinds, a whole series of new servants had to be invented, such as footmen to stand behind the new carriage, cooks for the kitchen, and a special gardener for the conservatories, who, instead of looking after the honest, straightforward citron-trees and pumpkins, had gingerly to plant out cactuses and Egyptian thistles like dry stalks, in pots, whence, also, it came about that as there was now a regular gardener and a regular cook, pretty Mariska had no longer any occasion to concern herself either with garden or kitchen, nor did she go any more to the village rector to learn reading or writing, but they had to get her a French governess from whom she learnt good taste, elegant manners, embroidery, and harp-strumming. And all these things were the work of the golden caftan! CHAPTER II. MAIDENS THREE. The family banner had scarce been hoisted on to the high tower of the new castle, the rumour of Mariska's loveliness and her father's millions had scarce been spread abroad, when the courtyard began to be all ablaze with the retinues and equipages of the most eminent zhupans,[2] voivodes,[3] and princes; but Master Michael had resolved within himself beforehand that nobody less than the reigning Prince of Moldavia should ever receive his daughter's hand, and stolidly he kept to his resolution. [Footnote 2: A Servian Prince.] [Footnote 3: A Roumanian Prince.] Now the reigning Prince of Moldavia no doubt had an illustrious name enough, but he also had inherited a very considerable load of debt, and what with the eternal exactions of the Tartars, and the presents expected by all the leading Pashas, and other disturbing causes, he saw his people growing poorer and poorer, and his own position becoming more and more precarious every year. He therefore did not keep worthy Master Michael waiting very long when he heard, on excellent authority, that there was being reserved for him in Wallachia a beautiful and accomplished virgin, who would bring to her husband a dowry of a couple of millions, in addition to an uncorrupted heart and an old ancestral title. So, gathering together all the boyars, retainers, and officers of his court, he set off a-wooing to Rumnik, where he was well received by the father, satisfied himself as to the young lady's good graces, demanded her hand in marriage, and, allowing an adequate delay for the preliminaries of the wedding, fixed the glad event for the first week after Easter. Master Michael, meantime, could think of nothing else but how he could cut as magnificent a figure as possible on the occasion. He invited to the banquet all the celebrities in Moldavia, Servia, Bosnia, and Transylvania. He did not even hesitate to hire from Versailles one of Louis XIV.'s cooks, to regulate the order and quality of the dishes. On the day of the banquet the good gentleman was visible everywhere, and saw to everything himself. Quite early, arrayed in the golden caftan, the heron-plumed kalpag, and the tasselled girdle, he strutted about the courtyard, corridors and chambers, distributing his orders and receiving his guests; and his heart fluttered when he beheld the courtyard filling with carriages, each one more brilliant than its predecessor, escorted by gold-bedizened cavaliers, from which silver-laced heydukes assisted noble ladies, in splendid pearl-embroidered costumes, to descend. There was such a rustling of silk dresses, such a rattling of swords, and such an endless procession of elegant and magnificent forms up the staircase, as to make the heart of the beholder rejoice. Master Michael rushed hither and thither, and pride and humility were strangely blended on his face. He assured all he welcomed how happy they made him by honouring his poor dwelling with their presence; but the voice with which he said this betrayed the conviction that not one of his guests had quitted a home as splendid as his own poor dwelling. Then he plunged into the robing-chamber of the bride, where tire-women, fetched all the way from Vienna, had been decking out Mariska from early dawn. It gave them no end of trouble to adjust her jewels and her gewgaws, and if they had heaped upon the fair bride all that her father had purchased for her, she would have been unable to move beneath the weight of her gems. Thence the good man rushed off to the banqueting-room, where his domestics had been busy making ready two rows of tables in five long halls. "Here shall sit the bride! That arm-chair to the right of her is for the Patriarch--it is his proper place. On the left will sit Prince Michael Apafi. He is to have the green-embossed chair, with the golden cherubim. The bridegroom will sit on the right hand of the Patriarch. You must give him that round, armless seat, so that he cannot lean back, but must hold himself proudly erect. Over there you must place Paul Béldi and his spouse, for they are always wont to sit together. Their daughter Aranka will also be there, and she must sit between them on that little blue velvet stool. Opposite to them the silk sofa is for Achmed Pasha and Feriz Beg, recollect that they won't want knife or fork. The Dean must have that painted stone bench, for a wooden bench would break beneath him, and no chair will hold him. The three-and-thirty priests must be placed all together over there--you must put none else beside them, or they would be ashamed to eat. Don't forget to pile up wreaths of flowers on the silver salvers; and remember there are peculiar reasons for not placing a pitcher of wine before Michael Teleki. Achmed Pasha must have a sherbet-bowl placed beside the can from which he drinks his wine, and then folks will fancy he is not transgressing the Koran. Place goblets of Venetian crystal before the ladies, and golden beakers before the gentlemen, the handsomest before Teleki and Bethlen, the commoner sort before the others, as they are wont to dash them against the walls. The bridegroom should have the slenderest beaker of all, for he'll have to pledge everyone, and I want no harm to befall him. Mind what I say!" Nearly all the wedding guests had now assembled. Only two families were still expected, the Apafis and the Telekis, whom Master Michael in his pride wished to see at his table most of all. He glanced impatiently into the courtyard every time he heard the roll of a carriage, and the staircase lacqueys had strict injunctions to let him know as soon as they saw the Prince's carriage approaching. At last the rumbling of wheels was heard. Master Michael went all the way to the gate to receive his guests, shoving aside all the vehicles in his way, and bawling to the sentinels on the tower to blow the trumpets as soon as ever they beheld the carriage on the road. The goodly host of guests also thronged the balconies, the turrets, and the rondelles, to catch a glance at the new arrivals, and before very long two carriages, each drawn by four horses, turned the corner of the well-wooded road, carriages supported on each side by footmen, lest they should topple over, and escorted by a brilliant banderium of prancing horsemen. They were instantly recognised as the carriages of the Prince and his Prime Minister, and the voices of the trumpets never ceased till the splendid, gilded, silk-curtained vehicles had lumbered into the courtyard, although the master of the castle was already awaiting them at the outer, sculptured gate, and himself hastened to open the carriage door, doffing first of all his ermine kalpag. But he popped it on again, considerably nonplussed, when, on opening the carriage, a beardless bit of a boy, to all appearance, leapt out of it all alone, and there was not a trace of the Prince to be seen in the carriage. Perhaps he had dismounted at the foot of the hill in order to complete the journey on foot, as Master Michael himself was in the habit of doing every time he took a drive in his coach, for fear of an accident. But the youthful jack-in-the-box lost no time in dispelling all rising suspicions by quickly introducing himself. "I am Emeric Tököly," said he, "whom his Highness the Prince has sent to your Worship as his representative to take part in the festivities, and at the same time to express his regret that he was not able to appear personally, but only to send his hearty congratulations, inasmuch as her Highness the Princess is just now in good hopes, by the grace of God, of presenting her consort with an heir, and consequently his Highness does not feel himself capable of enduring the amenities which under these circumstances Ali Pasha might at such a time think fit to force upon him. Nevertheless he wishes your Worship, with God's will, all imaginable felicity." Master Michael did not exactly know whether to say "I am very glad" or "I am very sorry;" and in the meanwhile, to gain time, was turning towards the second carriage, when Emeric Tököly suddenly intercepted him. "I was also to inform your Worship that his Excellency Michael Teleki, having unexpectedly received the command to invade Hungary with all the forces of Transylvania, has sent, instead of himself, his daughter Flora to do honour to your Worship, much regretting that, because of the command aforesaid, which will brook neither objection nor delay, he has been obliged to deny himself the pleasure personally to press your Worship's hand and exchange the warm kiss of kinsmanship; but if your Worship will entrust me with both the handshake and the kiss, I will give your Worship his and take back to him your Worship's." The good old gentleman was absolutely delighted with the young man's patriarchal idea, forgot the sour and solemn countenance which he had expressly put on in honour of the Prince, and, falling on the neck of the graceful young gentleman, hugged and kissed him so emphatically that the latter could scarcely free himself from his embraces; then, taking Flora Teleki, the youth's reported _fiancée_, on one arm, and Emeric himself on the other, he conducted them in this guise among his other guests, and they were the first to whom he introduced his daughter in all her bridal array. A stately, slender brunette was Mariska, her face as pale as a lily, her eyes timidly cast down, as, leaning on her lady companion's arm, and tricked out in her festal costume, she appeared before the expectant multitude. The beauty of her rich black velvet tresses was enhanced by interwoven strings of real pearls; her figure, whose tender charms were insinuated rather than indicated by her splendid oriental dress, would not have been out of place among a group of Naiads; and that superb carriage, those haughty eyebrows, those lips of hers full of the promise of pleasure, suited very well with her bashful looks and timid movements. Amongst the army of guests there was one man who towered above the others--tall, muscular, with broad shoulders, dome-like breast, and head proudly erect, whose long locks, like a rich black pavilion, flowed right down over his shoulders. His thick dark eyebrows and his coal-black moustache gave an emphatically resolute expression to his dark olive-coloured face, whose profile had an air of old Roman distinction. This was the bridegroom, Prince Ghyka. When the father of the bride introduced the new arrivals to the other guests, his first action was to present them to Prince Ghyka, not forgetting to relate how courteously the young Count had executed his commission as to the transfer of the kisses, which, having been received with general hilarity, suggested a peculiarly bold idea to the flighty young man. While he was being embraced by one after the other, and passed on from hand to hand so to speak, he suddenly stood before the trembling bride, who scarce dared to cast a single furtive look upon him, and, greeting her in the style of the most chivalrous French courtesy, at the same time turning towards the bystanders with a proud, not to say haughty smile, pardonable in him alone, said, with an amiable _abandon_: "Inasmuch as I have been solemnly authorised to be the bearer of kisses, I imagine I shall be well within my rights if I deliver personally the kisses which my kinswomen, Princess Apafi and Dame Teleki have charged me to convey to the bride." And before anyone had quite taken in the meaning of his concluding words, the handsome youth, with that fascinating impertinence with which he was wont to subdue men and women alike, bent over the charming bride, and while her face blushed for a moment scarlet red, imprinted a noiseless kiss upon her pure marble forehead. And this he did with such grace, with such tender sprightliness, that nothing worse than a light smile appeared upon the most rigorous faces present. Then, turning to the company with a proud smile of self-confidence on his face: "I hope," said he, tucking Flora Teleki's hand under his arm, "that the presence of my _fiancée_ is a sufficient guarantee of the respect with which I have accomplished this item of my mission." At this there was a general outburst of laughter amongst the guests. Any sort of absurdity could be forgiven Emeric, for he managed even his most practical jokes so amiably that it was impossible to be angry with him. But the cheeks of two damsels remained rosy-red--Mariska's and Flora's. Women don't understand that sort of joke. The bridegroom, half-smiling, half-angry, stroked his fine moustache. "Come, come, my lad," said he, "you have been quicker in kissing my bride than I have been myself." But now the reverend gentlemen intervened, the bells rang, the bridesmaids and the best men took possession of the bride and bridegroom, the ceremony began, and nobody thought any more of the circumstance, except, perhaps, two damsels, whose hearts had been pricked by the thoughtless pleasantry, one of them as by the thorn of a rose, the other as by the sting of a serpent. And now, while for the next hour and a half the marriage ceremony, with the assistance of the Most Reverend Patriarch, the Venerable Archdeacon, three-and-thirty reverend gentlemen of the lower clergy, and just as many secular dignitaries, is solemnly and religiously proceeding, we will remain behind in the ante-chamber, and be indiscreet enough to worm out the contents of the two well-sealed letters which have just been brought in hot haste from Kronstadt for Emeric Tököly by a special courier, who stamped his foot angrily when he was told that he must wait till the Count came out of church. One of the letters was from Michael Teleki, and its contents pretty much as follows:-- "MY DEAR SIR AND SON, "Our affairs are in the best possible order. During the last few days our army, 9,000 strong, quitting Gyulafehervár, has gone to await Achmed Pasha's forces near Déva, and will thence proceed to unite with Kiuprile's host. War, indeed, is inevitable; and Transylvania must be gloriously in the forefront of it. Do not linger where you are, but try and overtake us. It would be superfluous for me to remind you to take charge of my daughter Flora on the way. God bless you. "MICHAEL TELEKI. "_Datum Albæ Juliæ._ "P.S.--Her Highness the Princess awaits a safe delivery from the mercy of God. His Highness the Prince has just finished a very learned dissertation on the orbits of the planets." The second letter was in a fine feminine script, but one might judge from it that that hand knew how to handle a sword as well as a pen. It was to the following effect:-- "MY DEAR FRIEND, "I have received your letter, and this is my answer to it. I can give you no very credible news in writing, either about myself or the affairs of the realm. A lover can do everything and sacrifice everything, even to life itself, for his love. (You will understand that this reference to love refers not to me, a mournful widow, but to another mournful widow, who is also your mother.) I do not judge men by what they say, but by what they do. All the same, I have every reason to think well of you, and I shall be delighted if the future should justify my good opinion of you. "Your faithful servant, "ILONA. "P.S.--I shall spend midsummer at the baths of Mehadia." The noble bridal retinue, merrily conversing, now returned from the chapel to the castle, the very sensible arrangement obtaining, that when the guests sat down to table each damsel was to be escorted to her seat by a selected cavalier known to be not displeasing to her. The only exceptions to this rule were the right reverend brigade, and Achmed Pasha and Feriz Beg, the two Turkish magnates present, whose grave dignity restrained them from participating in this innocent species of gallantry. First of all, as the representative of the Prince of Transylvania, came Emeric Tököly, conducting the aged mother of the bridegroom, the Princess Ghyka; after him came Paul Béldi, leading the bride by the hand. Béldi's wife was escorted by the master of the house, and her pretty little golden-haired daughter Aranka hung upon her left arm. Feriz Beg was standing in the vestibule with a grave countenance till Aranka appeared. The little girl, on perceiving the youth, greeted him kindly, whereupon Feriz sighed deeply, and followed her. The bridegroom led the beautiful Flora Teleki by the hand. On reaching the great hall, the company broke up into groups, the merriest of which was that which included Flora, Mariska, and Aranka. "Be seated, ladies and gentlemen! be seated!" cried the strident voice of the host, who, full of proud self-satisfaction, ran hither and thither to see that all the guests were in the places assigned to them. Tököly was by the side of Mariska, opposite to them sat the bridegroom, with Flora Teleki by his side. Aranka was the _vis-à-vis_ of Feriz Beg. The banquet began. The endless loving-cup went round, the faces of the guests grew ever cheerier, the bride conversed in whispers with her handsome neighbour. Opposite to them the bridegroom, with equal courtesy, exchanged from time to time a word with the fair Flora, but the conversation thus begun broke down continually, and yet both the lady and the prince were persons of culture, and had no lack of mother-wit. But their minds were far away. Their lips spoke unconsciously, and the Prince grew ever gloomier as he saw his bride plunging ever more deeply into the merry chatter of her gay companion, and try as he might to entertain his own partner, the resounding laughter of the happy pair opposite drove the smile from his face, especially when Flora also grew absolutely silent, so that the bridegroom was obliged, at last, to turn to the Patriarch, who was sitting on his right, and converse with him about terribly dull matters. Meanwhile, a couple of Servian musicians began, to the accompaniment of a zithern, to sing one of their sad, monotonous, heroic songs. All this time Achmed Pasha had never spoken a word, but now, fired by the juice of the grape mediatized by his sherbet-bowl, he turned towards the singers and, beckoning them towards him, said in a voice not unlike a growl: "Drop all that martial jumble and sing us instead something from one of our poets, something from Hariri the amorous, something from Gulestan!" At these words the face of Feriz Beg, who sat beside him, suddenly went a fiery red--why, he could not have told for the life of him. "Do you know 'The Lover's Complaint,' for instance?" inquired the Pasha of the musician. "I know the tune, but the verses have quite gone out of my head." "Oh! as to that, Feriz Beg here will supply you with the words quickly enough if you give him a piece of parchment and a pen." Feriz Beg was preparing to object, with the sole result that all the women were down upon him immediately, and begged and implored him for the beautiful song. So he surrendered, and, tucking up the long sleeve of his dolman, set the writing materials before him and began to write. They who drink no wine are nevertheless wont to be intoxicated by the glances of bright eyes, and Feriz, as he wrote, glanced from time to time at the fair face of Aranka, who cast down her forget-me-not eyes shamefacedly at his friendly smile. So Feriz Beg wrote the verses and handed them to the musicians, and then everyone bade his neighbour hush and listen with all his ears. The musician ran his fingers across the strings of his zithern, and then began to sing the song of the Turkish poet: "Three lovely maidens I see, three maidens embracing each other; Gentle, and burning, and bright--Sun, Moon, and Star I declare them. Let others adore Sun and Moon, but give me my Star, my belovéd!" "When the Sun leaves the heavens, her adorers are whelméd in slumber; When the Moon quits the sky, sleep falls on the eyes of her lovers. But the fall of the Star is the death of the man who adores her-- And oh! if _my_ load-star doth fall, Machallah! I cease from the living!" General applause rewarded the song, which it was difficult to believe had not been made expressly for the occasion. "Who would think," said Paul Béldi to the Pasha, "that your people not only cut darts from reeds, but pens also, pens worthy of the poets of love?" "Oh!" replied Achmed, "in the hands of our poets, blades and harps are equally good weapons; and if they bound the laurel-wreath round the brows of Hariri it was only to conceal the wounds which he received in battle." When the banquet was over, Tököly, with courteous affability, parted from his fair neighbour, whom he immediately saw disappear in a window recess, arm-in-arm with Flora. He himself made the circuit of the table in order that he might meet the fair Aranka, but was stopped in mid-career by his host, who was so full of compliments that by the time Tököly reached the girl, he found her leaning on her mother's arm engaged in conversation with the Prince. Aranka, feeling herself out of danger when she had only a married man to deal with, had quite regained her childish gaiety, and was making merry with the bridegroom. Tököly, with insinuating grace, wormed his way into the group, and gradually succeeded in so cornering the Prince, that he was obliged to confine his conversation to Dame Béldi, while Tököly himself was fortunate enough to make Aranka laugh again and again at his droll sallies. The Prince was boiling over with venom, and was on the verge of forgetting himself and exploding with rage. Fortunately, Dame Béldi, observing in time the tension between the two men, curtseyed low to them both, and withdrew from the room with her daughter. Whereupon, the Prince seized Tököly's hand, and said to him with choleric jocosity: "If your Excellency's own bride is not sufficient for you, will you at least be satisfied with throwing in mine, and do not try to sweep every girl you see into your butterfly-net?" Tököly quite understood the bitter irony of these words, and replied, with a soft but offensively condescending smile: "My dear friend, your theory of life is erroneous. I see, from your face, that you are suffering from an overflow of bile. You have not had a purge lately, or been blooded for a long time." The Prince's face darkened. He squeezed Tököly's hand convulsively, and murmured between his teeth: "One way is as good as another. When shall we settle this little affair?" Tököly shrugged his shoulders. "To-morrow morning, if you like." "Very well, we'll meet by the cross." The two men had spoken so low that nobody in the whole company had noticed them, except Feriz Beg, who, although standing at the extreme end of the room with folded arms, had followed with his eagle eyes every play of feature, every motion of the lips of the whole group, including Dame Béldi and the girl, and who now, on observing the two men grasp each other's hands, and part from each other with significant looks, suddenly planted himself before them, and said simply: "Do you want to fight a duel because of Aranka?" "What a question?" said the Prince evasively. "It will not be a duel," said Feriz, "for there will be three of us there," and, with that, he turned away and departed. "How foolish these solemn men are," said Tököly to himself, "they are always seeking sorrow for themselves. It would require only a single word to make them merry, and, in spite of all I do, they will go and spoil a joke. Why, such a duel as this--all three against each other, and each one against the other two--was unknown even to the famous Round Table and to the Courts of Love. It will be splendid." At that moment the courier, who had brought the letters, forced his way right up to Tököly, and said that he had got two important despatches for him. "All right, keep them for me, I'll read them to-morrow. I won't spoil the day with tiresome business." And so he kept it up till late at night with the merriest of the topers. Only after midnight did he return to his room, and ordered the soldier who had brought the letters to wake him as soon as he saw the red dawn. CHAPTER III. THREE MEN. Tököly's servant durst not go to sleep on the off-chance of awaking at dawn in order to arouse his master, and so the sky had scarcely begun to grow grey when he routed him up. Emeric hastily dressed himself. A sort of ill-humour on his pale face was the sole reminder of the previous night's debauch. "Here are the letters, sir," said the soldier. "Leave me in peace with your letters," returned Emeric roughly, "I have no time now to read your scribble. Go down and saddle my horse for me, and tell the coachman to make haste and get the carriage ready, and have it waiting for me near the cross at the slope of the hill, and find out on your way down whether the old master of the house is up yet." The soldier pocketed the letter once more, and went down grumbling greatly, while Emeric buckled on his sword and threw his pelisse over his shoulders. Soon after the soldier returned and announced that Master Michael had been up long ago, because many of his guests had to depart before dawn, amongst them the Prince, also the Turkish gentleman; the bride was to follow them in the afternoon. "Good," said Emeric; "let the coachman wait for me in front of the Dragmuili _csarda_.[4] You had better bring with you some cold meat and wine, and we'll have breakfast on the way." And with that he hastened to the father of the bride, who, after embracing him heartily and repeatedly, with a great flux of tears, and kissing him again and again, and sending innumerable greetings through him to every eminent Transylvanian gentleman, took an affectionate leave of him. [Footnote 4: An inn.] Tököly hastened to bestride his horse on hearing that his adversaries had been a little beforehand with him, and, putting spurs to his horse, galloped rapidly away. Master Michael looked after him in amazement so long as he could see him racing along the steep, hilly way, till he disappeared among the woods. A soldier followed him at a considerable distance. Emeric, on reaching the cross, found his adversaries there already. Feriz Beg had brought with him Achmed Pasha's field-surgeon. Tököly had only thought of breakfast, the Prince had thought of nothing. "Good morning," cried the Count, leaping from his horse. The Beg returned his salute with a solemn obeisance; the Prince turned his back upon him. "Let us go into the forest to find a nice clear space," said Tököly; and off he set in silence, leading the way, while the soldiers followed at some distance, leading the horses by the bridles. After going about a hundred yards they came to a clear space, surrounded by some fine ash-trees. The Prince signified to the soldiers to stop here, and, without a word, began to take off his dolman and mantle and tuck up his sleeves. It was a fine sight to behold these men--all three of them were remarkably handsome fellows. The Prince was one of those vigorous, muscular shapes, whom Nature herself seems specially to have created to head a host. As he rolled up the flapping sleeves of his gold-embroidered, calf-skin shirt, he displayed muscles capable of holding their own single-handed against a whole brigade, and the defiant look of his eye testified to his confidence in the strength of his arms, whose every muscle stood out like a hard tumour, while his fists were worthy of the heavy broadsword, whose blade was broadest towards its point. Feriz Beg, on discarding his dolman, rolled up the sleeves of his fine shirt of Turkish linen to his shoulders, and drew from its sheath his fine Damascus scimitar, which was scarce two inches broad, and so flexible that you could have bent it double in every direction like a watch-spring. His arms did not seem to be over-encumbered with muscles, but at the first movement he made, as he lightly tested his blade, a whole array of steel springs and stone-hard sinews, or so they seemed to be, suddenly started up upon his arm, revealing a whole network of highly-developed sinews and muscles. His face was fixed and grave. Only Emeric seemed to take the whole affair as a light joke. With a smile he drew up his lace-embroidered shirt of holland linen, bound up his hair beneath his kalpag, and folded his well-rounded arms, whose feminine whiteness, plastic, regular symmetry, and slender proportions, gave no promise whatever of anything like manly strength. His sword came from a famous Newcastle arms manufactory, and was made of a certain dark, lilac-coloured steel, somewhat bent, and with a very fine point. "My friends," said Emeric, turning towards his opponents, "as there are three of us in this contest, and each one of the three must fight the other two, let us lay down some rule to regulate the encounter." "I'll fight the pair of you together," said the Prince haughtily. "I'll also fight one against two," retorted Feriz. "Then each one for himself and everybody against everybody else," explained Tököly. "That will certainly be amusing enough; in fact, a new sort of encounter altogether, though hardly what gentlemen are used to. Now, I should consider it much nobler if we fought against each other singly, and when one of us falls, the victor can renew the combat with the man in reserve." "I don't mind, only the sooner the better," said the Prince impatiently, and took up his position on the ground. "Stop, my friend; don't you know that we cannot commence this contest without Feriz?" "Pooh! I didn't come here as a spectator," cried the Prince passionately; "besides, I have nothing to do with the Beg." "But I have to do with you," interrupted Feriz. "Well," said Tököly, "I myself do not know what has offended him, but he chose to intervene, and such challenges as his are wont to be accepted without asking the reason why. No doubt he has private reasons of his own." "You may stop there," interrupted Feriz. "Let Fate decide." "By all means," observed the Count, drawing forth three pieces of money impressed with the image of King Sigismund--a gold coin, a silver coin, and a copper coin--and handed them to the Turkish leech. "Take these pieces of money, my worthy fellow, and throw them into the air. The gold coin is the Prince, the copper coin is myself. Whichever two of the three coins come down on the same side, their representatives will fight first." The leech flung the pieces into the air, and the gold and silver pieces came down on the same side. The Prince beckoned angrily to Feriz. "Come, the sooner the better. Apparently I must have this little affair off my hands before I can get at Tököly." Tököly motioned to the leech to keep the pieces of money and have his bandages ready. "Bandages!" said the Prince ironically. "It's not first blood, but last blood, I'm after." And now the combatants stood face to face. For a long time they looked into each other's eyes, as if they would begin the contest with the darts of flashing glances, and then suddenly they fell to. The Prince's onset was as furious as if he would have crushed his opponent in the twinkling of an eye with the heavy and violent blows which he rained upon him with all his might. But Feriz Beg stood firmly on the self-same spot where he had first planted his feet, and though he was obliged to bend backwards a little to avoid the impact of the terrible blows, yet his slender Damascus scimitar, wove, as it were, a tent of lightning flashes all around him, defending him on every side, and flashing sparks now hither, now thither, whenever it encountered the antagonistic broadsword. The Prince's face was purple with rage. "Miserable puppy!" he thundered, gnashing his teeth; and, pressing still closer on his opponent, he dealt him two or three such terrible blows that the Beg was beaten down upon one knee, and, the same instant, a jet of blood leaped suddenly from somewhere into the face of the Prince, who thereupon staggered back and let fall his sword. In the heat of the duel he had not noticed that he had been wounded. Whilst raining down a torrent of violent blows upon his antagonist, he incautiously struck his own hand, so to speak, on the sword of Feriz Beg, just below the palm where the arteries are, and the wound which severed the sinews of the wrist constrained him to drop his sword. Tököly at once rushed forward. "You are wounded, Prince!" he cried. The leech hastened forward with the bandages, the dark red blood spurted from the severed arteries like a fountain, and the Prince's face grew pale in an instant. But scarcely had the surgeon bound up his wounded right hand than his eye kindled again, and, turning to Emeric, he cried: "I have still a hand left, and I can fight with it. Put my sword into my left hand, and I'll fight to the last drop of my blood." "Don't be impatient, Prince," said Emeric courteously; "ill-luck is your enemy to-day, but as soon as you are cured you may command me, and I will be at your service." The Prince, who was already tottering, leaned heavily on his soldiers, who hastened towards him and conveyed him half unconscious to the carriage awaiting him. His wound was much worse than it had seemed at first, and there was no knowing whether it would not prove mortal. Only two combatants now remained in the field--Emeric and Feriz. The Beg was still standing in his former place, and beckoned in dumb show to Emeric to come on. "Pardon me, my worthy comrade," said the Count, "you are a little fatigued, and a combat between us would be unfair if I, who have rested, should fight with you now. Come, plump down on the grass for a little beside me. My man has brought some cold provisions for the journey; let us have a few mouthfuls together first, and then we can fight it out at our ease." This nonchalant proposal seemed to please Feriz, and, leaning his sword against a tree, he sat down in the grass, whilst Emeric's servant unpacked the cold meat and the fruit which he had brought for his master, together with a silver calabash-shaped flask full of wine. Emeric returned the flask to the soldier. "Look you, my son," said he, "you can drink the wine, and then fill the flask with spring water, for Feriz Beg does not drink wine, and there are no other drinking utensils; I, therefore, will also drink water, and so we shall be equal." Feriz Beg was pleased with his comrade's free and easy behaviour, took willingly of the food piled up before him, and not only drank out of the same flask, but even answered questions when they were put to him. A faint scar was visible on the forehead of the young Beg, which the fold of his turban did not quite conceal. "Did you get that wound from a Magyar?" inquired the Count. "No, from an Italian, on the isle of Candia." "I thought so at once. A Magyar does not cut with the point of his sword. I see the hand of an Italian fencing-master in it. I can even tell you the position you were in when you received it. The enemy was beside you, in front of you, on your right hand, and on your left. Now you employed that masterly circular stroke which you have just now displayed, whereby you can defend yourself on all sides at once. Then the foe in front of you suddenly rose in his saddle, and with a blow which you did not completely ward off, scarred your forehead with the point of his sword." "It was just like that." "It is one of the master-strokes of Basanella, and very carefully you have to watch it, for there is scarce any defence against it; the sword seems to strike up and down in the same instant, as if it were a sickle, and however high you may hold your own sword, the blow breaks through your defence. There is, indeed, only one defence against it, and that the simplest in the world--dodge back your head." "You are quite right," said Feriz Beg smiling, and after washing his hands, he again took up his sword, "let us make an end of it." "I don't mind," said Tököly; and lightly drawing his own sword with his delicate white hand, just as if it were a gewgaw which he was disengaging from its case to present to a lady, he took up his position on the ground. "Just one word more," said Tököly with friendly candour. "When you fight with a single opponent, do not rush forward as if you were on a battlefield and had to do with ten men at least, for in so doing you expend much force uselessly, and allow your opponent to come up closer; rather elongate your sword and allow only your hand to play freely." "I thank you for the advice," said Feriz smiling. Had it been anybody else he would probably have thrust back the advice into his face. But Emeric imparted it to him with such a friendly, comrade-like voice as if they had only come there for the fun of the thing. Then the combat began. Feriz Beg, with his usual impetuosity, pressed upon his adversary as if he would pay him back his amicable counsels in kind; while Tököly calmly, composedly smiling, flung back the most violent assaults of his rival as if it were a mere sport to him, so lightly, so confidently did his sword turn in his hand, with so much finished grace did he accompany every movement--in fact, he hardly seemed to make any exertion. The most violent blows aimed at him by Feriz Beg he parried with the lightest twist of his sword, and not once did he counter, so that at last Feriz Beg, involuntarily overcome by rage, fell back and lowered his sword. "You are only playing with me. Why don't you strike back?" "Twice you might have received from me Basanella's master-stroke, so impetuously do you fight." In a duel nothing is so wounding as the supercilious self-restraint of an opponent. Feriz Beg grew quite furious at Tököly's cold repose, and flung himself upon his opponent as if absolutely beside himself. "Let us see whether you are the Devil or not," he cried. At the same instant, when he had advanced a pace nearer to Tököly, the latter suddenly stretched forth his sword and at the instant when he parried his opponent's blow, he made a scarce perceptible backward and upward jerk with the point of his sword, and at that same instant a burning red line was visible on the temples of Feriz Beg. The young Turk lowered his sword in surprise as his face, immediately after the unnoticed stroke, began to bleed. Tököly flung away his sword and, tearing out his white pocket-handkerchief, rushed suddenly towards his opponent, stanched the wound with the liveliest sympathy, and said, in a voice tremulous with the most naïve apprehension: "Look now! didn't I tell you all along to watch for that stroke?" By this time the leech had also come up with the bandages, and examining the wound, observed consolingly: "A soldierly affair. Only the skin is pierced. In three days you will be all right." Tököly, full of joy, pressed the hand of Feriz Beg. "Henceforth we will be good friends," said he. "Before God, I protest I never gave you the slightest cause of offence." "I shall rejoice in your friendship," said Feriz solemnly, "but if you wish it to last, listen to my words: never approach a girl whom you do not love in order to make her love you, and if you are loved, love in return and make her happy." "You have my word of honour on it, Feriz," replied Tököly. "Of all the girls whom I have seen since I knew you, not one of them have I loved, and by none of them do I want to be loved." Feriz Beg could not refrain from shaking his head and smiling. "Apparently you forget that your own bride was among them." Tököly bit his lips in some confusion, and answered nothing; he thought it best to pass off this slip of the tongue as a mere jest. Then the two reconciled antagonists embraced and returned to the roadside cross. Tököly constrained the Beg to take his coach and go on to Ibraila, while he himself mounted his horse, and taking leave of Feriz, took the road leading to the Pass of Bozza. The soldier-courier now fancied it was high time that the urgent letters, of which he was the bearer, should be read, and accordingly asked his master about it. "Well, where are your two letters?" asked the Count very languidly. "There are not two, sir, but three." "What! have they multiplied?" "Miss Flora gave me the third half an hour before she took coach to go home." "Then she has gone on before, eh? Well, let us see what they write about." Teleki's was the first letter which Emeric perused; he glanced through it rapidly, as if it had no very great claim upon his attention. When he came to that part of it where he was told to look after Flora, he paused for a little. "Well, I can easily overtake her," he thought, and he took the second letter, which was subscribed with the name of Helen. Twice he perused it, and then he returned to it a third time, and his face grew visibly redder. Involuntarily he sighed as he thrust the letter into his breast pocket just above his heart, and looked sadly in front of him, as if he were listening to the beating of his own heart. Then he broke open the third letter. It contained an engagement ring, nothing else. That was all--not a single accompanying word or letter. For an instant Emeric held it in his hand in blank amazement; his steed stopped also. For some minutes his face was pale and his head hung down. But in another instant he was again upright in his saddle, and he exclaimed in a voice loud enough to be heard afar: "Well, it's not coming off then, so much the better!" Then he threw away the envelope in which the ring had been, and drawing out the letter which he had thrust into his bosom, he put the ring into it and then returned it to his bosom; then, with a glowing face, he turned his horse's head and, in the best of humours, called to his soldier: "We will not go to Transylvania. Back to Mehadia!" CHAPTER IV. AFFAIRS OF STATE. The year was a few weeks older since we saw Tököly depart from Rumnik, after reading the three letters, and behold, Michael Teleki still lingered at Gyulafehervár, and had _not_ gone with the Transylvanian forces to Déva. He had been feeling ill for some days, and had not been able to leave his room. A slow fever tormented his limbs, his face had lost its colour, he was hardly able to hold himself up, and every joint ached whenever he moved. He had need of repose, but not a single moment could he have to himself, and just when he would have liked to have shown the door to every worry and bother, the Prince at one moment, and the Turkish Ambassador at another, were continually pressing their affairs upon him. At that moment his crony Nalaczi was with him, standing at the window, while Teleki sat in an arm-chair. All his members were shaken by the ague, his breath was burning hot, his face was as pale as wax, and he could scarce keep his lips together. By his chair stood his page--young Cserei--whilst huddled up in a corner on one side was a scarce visible figure which clung close to the wall with as miserable, shamefaced an expression as if it would have liked to crawl right into it and be hidden. What with the darkness and its own miserableness, we should scarce recognise this shape if Teleki did not chance to give it a name, railing at it, from time to time, as if it were a lifeless log, without even looking at it, for, in truth, his back was turned upon it. "I tell you, Master Szénasi, you are an infinitely useless blockhead----" "I humbly beg----" "Don't beg anything. Here have I, worse luck, been entrusting you with a small commission, in order that you might impart some wholesome information to the people, and instead of that you go and fool them with all sorts of old wives' stories." "Begging your Excellency's pardon, I thought----" "Thought? What business had you to think? You thought, perhaps, you were doing me a service with your nonsense, eh?" "Mr. Nalaczi said as much, your Excellency." Mr. Nalaczi seemed to be sitting on thorns all this while. "Now just see what a big fool you are," interrupted Teleki. "Mr. Nalaczi _may_ have told you, for what I know, that it might be well for you to use your influence with the common people by mentioning before them the wonders which have recently taken place, and thereby encouraging them to be loyal and friendly to each other, but I am sure he did not tell you to manufacture wonders on your own account, and terrify the people by spreading abroad rumours of coming war." "I thought----" Here he stopped short, the worthy man was quite incapable at that moment of completing his sentence. "Thought! You thought, I suppose, that just as I was collecting armies, you would do me a great service by preaching war? So far as I am concerned, I should like to see every sword buried in the earth." "Begging your Excellency's pardon----" "Get out of my sight. Never let me see you again. In three days you must leave Transylvania, or else I'll send you out, and you won't thank me for that." "May I humbly ask what I am to do if your Excellency withdraws your favour from me?" whined the fellow. "You may do as you like. Go to Szathmár and become the lacquey of Baron Kopp, or the scribe of Master Kászonyi. I'm just going to write to them. I'll mention your name in my letter, and you can take it." "And if they won't accept me?" "Then you must tack on to someone else, anyhow you shan't starve. Only get out of my sight as quickly as possible." The "magister" withdrew in fear and trembling, wiping his eyes with his pocket-handkerchief. "Sir," said Nalaczi, when they were alone together, "this violence does harm." "The only way with such fellows is to bully them whatever they do, for they are deceivers and traitors at heart, and would otherwise do you mischief. Kick and beat them, chivy them from pillar to post, and make them feel how wretched their lot is, if you don't want them to play off their tricks upon you." "I don't see it in that light. This irritability will do you no good." "On the contrary it keeps me up. If I had not always given vent to my feelings I should have been lying on a sick-bed long ago. Take these few thalers, go after that good-for-nothing, and tell him that I am very angry with him, and therefore he must try in future to deserve my confidence better, in which case I shall not forget him. Tell him to wait in the gate for the letter I am about to write, and when once he has it in his hand let him get out of Transylvania as speedily as he can. Remind him that I don't yet know about what happened in the square at Klausenberg, and if I did know I would have him flogged out of the realm; so let him look sharp about it." Nalaczi laughed and went out. Teleki sank back exhausted on his pillows, and made his page rub the back of his neck violently with a piece of flannel. At that instant the Prince entered. His face was wrath, and all because of his sympathy. He began scolding Teleki on the very threshold. "Why don't you lie down when I command you? Does it beseem a grown-up man like you to be as disobedient as a capricious child? Why don't you send for the doctor; why don't you be blooded?" "There is nothing the matter with me, your Highness. It is only a little _hæmorrhoidalis alteratio_. I am used to it. It always plagues me at the approach of the equinoxes." "Ai, ai, Michael Teleki, you don't get over me. You are very ill, I tell you. Your mental anxiety has brought about this physical trouble. Does it become a Christian man, I ask, to take on so because my little friend Flora cannot have one particular man out of fifteen wooers, and a fellow like Emeric, too--a mere dry stick of a man." "I don't give it any particular importance." "You are a bad Christian, I tell you, if you say that. You love neither God nor man; neither your family, nor me----" "Sir!" said Teleki, in a supplicating voice. "For if you did love us, you would spare yourself and lie down, and not get up again till you were quite well again." "But if I lie down----" "Yes, I know--other things will have a rest too. The bottom of the world isn't going to fall out, I suppose, because you keep your bed for a day or two. Come! look sharp! I will not go till I see you lying on your bed." What could Teleki do but lie down at the express command of his Sovereign. "And you won't get up again without my permission, mind," said the Prince, signalling to young Cserei, and addressing the remainder of his discourse to him. "And you, young man, take care that your master does not leave his bed, do you hear? I command it, and, till he is quite well, don't let him do any hard work, whether it be reading, writing, or dictation. You have my authorisation to prevent it, and you must rigorously do your duty. You will also allow nobody to enter this room, except the doctor and the members of the family. Now, mind what I say! As for you, Master Teleki, you will wrap yourself well up and get yourself well rubbed all over the body with a woollen cloth, clap a mustard poultice on your neck and keep it there as long as you can bear it, and towards evening have a hot bath, with salt and bran in it; and if you won't have a vein opened put six leeches on your temples, and the doctor will tell you what else to do. And in any case don't fail to take some of these _pilulæ de cynoglosso_. Their effect is infallible." Whereupon the Prince pressed into Teleki's hand a box full of those harmless medicaments which, under the name of dog's-tongue pills, were then the vogue in all domestic repositories. "All will be well, your Highness." "Let us hope so! Towards evening I will come and see you again." And then the Prince withdrew with an air of satisfaction, thinking that he had given the fellow a good frightening. Scarce had he closed the door behind him than Teleki beckoned to Cserei to bring him the letters which had just arrived. The page regarded him dubiously. "The Prince forbade me to do so," he observed conscientiously. "The Prince loves to have his joke," returned the counsellor. "I like my joke, too, when I've time for it. Break open those letters and read them to me." "But what will the Prince say?" "It is I who command you, my son, not the Prince. Read them, I say, and don't mind if you hear me groan." Cserei looked at the seal of one of the letters and durst not break it open. "Your Excellency, that is a _secretum sigillum_." "Break it open like a man, I say. Such secrets are not dangerous to you; you are a child to be afraid of such things." Cserei opened the letter, and glancing at the signature, stammered in a scarce audible voice: "Leopoldus."[5] [Footnote 5: _i.e._ the Emperor Leopold.] Teleki, resting on his elbows, listened attentively. "YOUR HIGHNESS AND MY WELL-DISPOSED FRIEND--I have heard from Baron Mendenzi Kopp and worthy Master Kászonyi of your Excellency's good dispositions towards me and Christendom, and your readiness to help in the present disturbances. All my own efforts will be directed to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the Christian Princes, so that there may not be the slightest occasion that the Turkish War should extend, and that the whole power of the Ottoman Empire should be hurled on me and my dominions. But I hope that the fury of these barbarians, by the combination of the foreign kings and princes, shall, with God's assistance, be so opposed and thwarted as to make them turn back from the league of the combined faithful hosts. Meanwhile, I assure your Excellency and the Estates of Transylvania of my protection, so long as you continue well-disposed towards me, and I entrust the maintenance of this good understanding between us to Messrs. the illustrious Baron Kopp and the Honourable Mr. Kászonyi. Wishing your Excellency good health and all manner of good fortune, etc., etc." Cserei looked at the doors and windows in terror, for fear someone might be listening. "And now let us read the second letter." Cserei's top-knot regularly began to sweat when he recognised at the bottom of the opened letter the signature of the Grand Vizier, who thus wrote to the Prince: "MOST ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE, HEARTY LOVE AND GREETING!--We would inform thee of our grace and favour that we have sent a part of our army to the assistance of the imprisoned heroes in our most mighty master the Sultan's fortress of Nyitra, where the faithless foe are besieging them. It is therefore necessary that thou with thy whole host and all the necessary muniments of war should hasten thither without loss of time, so as to unite both in heart and deed with our warriors, who are on their way against the enemy. We believe that by the grace of God thou wilt be ready to render useful service to the mighty Sultan, and so be entitled to participate in his favour and liberality. We, moreover, after the end of the solemn feast days which we are wont to keep after our fasts are over, will follow our advance guards with our countless hosts, and thou meanwhile must manfully take this business in hand, so that thy loyalty may shine the more gloriously in martial deeds. Peace be to those who are in the obedience of God." Poor Cserei, when he had read this letter through, had a worse fit of ague than his master. He anxiously watched the face of the statesman, but the only thing visible in his features was bodily suffering. There was no sign of mental disturbance. The blood flew to his face, the veins were throbbing visibly in his temples. "Come hither, my son," he said in a scarcely audible voice; "bring me a glass of water, put into it as much rhubarb powder as would go on the edge of a knife, and give it me to drink." Cserei fancied that the sick Premier had not mastered the contents of the letter because of a fresh access of fever, and, having prepared the rhubarb water in a few moments, gave it him to drink, whereupon Teleki crouched down beneath his coverlet. He could have done nothing better, for now the ague burst forth again, so that he regularly shivered beneath its attack. Cserei wanted to run for a doctor. "Whither are you going?" asked Teleki. "Fetch ink and parchment, and write." The lad obeyed his command marvelling. "Bring hither the round table and sit down beside it. Write what I tell you." The pen shook in the lad's hand, and he kept dipping it into the sand instead of into the ink. Teleki, in a broken voice, dictated a letter as well as the fever would allow him. "MOST EXALTED GRAND VIZIER AND WELL-BELOVED SIR,--We learn from your Highness's dispatch that the armies of the Sublime Sultan who have lately been besieging the fortress of Nyitra are now endeavouring to combine their forces, and though this realm has but a meagre possession of the muniments of war remaining to it, we shall be prepared most punctually to hold at your Highness's gracious disposition as much, though it be but little, forage, hay, and other necessary stores as we still possess, you making allowance for all inevitable defects and shortcomings. Moreover, rumour has it that the hostile hosts are beginning to show themselves on the borders of Transylvania, which irruption, though it be no secret, is yet to be confirmed, and should it be so we must meet it with all our attention and energy. As to this your Highness shall be informed in good time, and in the meanwhile we commit you to God's gracious favour, etc., etc." Cserei sighed and thought to himself: "I wonder whence all the hay and oats is to come?" But Teleki knew very well that in consequence of last year's bad harvests and inundations the Turkish army was suffering severely from want of hay, so that what with him was an occasion for delay, with them was an occasion for hurrying--whence we may draw the reflection that the great events of this world are built upon haycocks! "Address the second letter," continued Teleki, "to his Excellency Baron Mendenzi Kopp and to the honourable Achatius Kászonyi, commandants of the fortress of Szathmár," and he thus went on dictating to Cserei, whilst in the intervals of silence the groans which the ague forced from his breast were distinctly audible. "With joy we learn of the intention of your Honours to endeavour to seize one of the gates of entrance of the enemy of our faith, through which he was always ready to come for our destruction. May the God of mercy forward the designs of your Excellencies. If, on this occasion, your Excellencies could also find time to make a feigned attack upon Transylvania in order to give us a reasonable excuse of our inability to lend the Turks the assistance they expect from us, you would make matters easier for us, and render us an essential service. On the other hand, if we should be compelled against our wills to send our soldiers against the Christian camp, in conjunction with the enemies of our faith, we assure your Excellencies that our host will be a purely nominal one, etc., etc. "P.S.--The bearer of this letter can be employed by your Excellencies as a courier or otherwise." Cserei looked with amazement at the man in whom mental vivacity seemed to rise triumphant even over the lassitude of fever. "Take a third sheet of paper, and address it to the Honourable Ladislaus Ebéni, Lieutenant-Governor of the fortress of Klausenburg. "We hasten to inform your Honour that preparations are being made by the Commandant of the fortress of Szathmár, which leads us to conjecture that he meditates making an irruption into Transylvania. It may, of course, be merely a feint, but your Honour would do well to be prepared and under arms, lest he have designs against us, and is not merely making a noise. We, meanwhile, will postpone the advance of our arms into Hungary, lest, while we are attacking on one side, we leave Transylvania defenceless on the other. Once more we counsel your Honour to use the utmost caution, etc." "And now take these letters and carry them to the Prince, that he may sign them." "And what if he box my ears for allowing your Excellency to dictate?" said the frightened lad. "Never mind it, my son, you will have suffered for your country. I, too, have had buffets enough in my time, not only when I was a child, but since I have grown up." And with that he turned his face towards the wall and pulled the coverlet over him. Fortunately Cserei found Apafi in the apartment of the consort, and thus avoided the box on the ear, got the letters signed, and dispatched them all in different directions, so that all three got into the proper hands in the shortest conceivable time. And now let us see the result. The Grand Vizier blasphemed when he had read his, and swore emphatically that if there were no hay in Transylvania he would make hay of their Excellencies. Baron Kopp and Mr. Kászonyi chuckled together over _their_ letter. The Commandant murmured gruffly: "I don't care, so you needn't." Mr. Ebéni, however, on reading his letter, deposited it neatly among the public archives, growling angrily: "If I were to call the people to arms at every wild alarm or idle rumour, I should have nothing else to do all day long. It is a pity that Teleki hasn't something better to do than to bother me continually with his scribble." CHAPTER V. THE DAY OF GROSSWARDEIN. In order that the horizon may stand clearly before us, it must be said that in those days there were two important points in Hungary on the Transylvanian border: Grosswardein and Szathmár-Németi, which might be called the gates of Transylvania--good places of refuge if their keys are in the hand of the Realm, but all the more dangerous when the hands of strangers dispose of them. At this very time a German army was investing Szathmár and the Turks had sat down before Grosswardein, and the plumed helmets of the former were regarded as as great a menace on the frontiers of the state as the half-moons themselves. The inhabitants of the regions enclosed between these fortresses never could tell by which road they were to expect the enemy to come. For in such topsy-turvy days as those were, every armed man was an enemy, from whom corn, cattle, and pretty women had to be hidden away, and their friendship cost as much as their enmity, and perhaps more; for if they found out at Szathmár that some nice wagon-loads of corn and hay had been captured from local marauders without first beating their brains out, the magistrates would look in next day and impose a penalty; and again, on the other hand, if it were known at Grosswardein that the Szathmárians had been received hospitably at any gentleman's house, and the daughter of the house had spoken courteously to them, the Turks would wait until the Szathmárians had gone farther on and would then fall upon the house in question and burn it to the ground, so that the Szathmárians should not be able to sleep there again; and, as for the daughter of the house, they would carry her off to a harem, in order to save her from any further discoursing with the magistrates of Szathmár. And, last of all, there was a third enemy to be reckoned with, and this was the countless rabble of _betyárs_, or freebooters, who inhabited the whole region from the marshes of Ecsed to the morasses of Alibuner, and who gave no reason at all for driving off their neighbour's herds and even destroying his houses. In those days a certain Feri Kökényesdi had won renown as a robber chieftain, and extraordinary, marvellous tales were told in every village and on every _puszta_[6] of him and the twelve robbers who followed his banner, and who were ready at a word to commit the most incredible audacities. People talked of their entrenched fortresses among the Bélabora and Alibuner marshes which were inaccessible to any mortal foe, and in which, even if surrounded on all sides, they could hold out against five regiments till the day of judgment. Then there were tales of storehouses concealed among the Cumanian sand-hills which could only be discovered by the scent of a horse; there were tales of a good steed who, after one watering, could gallop all the way from the Theiss to the Danube, who could recognise a foe two thousand paces off, and would neigh if his master were asleep or fondling his sweetheart in the tavern; there were tales of the gigantic strength of the robber chief who could tackle ten _pandurs_[7] at once, and who, whenever he was pursued, could cause a sea to burst forth between himself and his pursuers, so that they would be compelled to turn back. [Footnote 6: Common.] [Footnote 7: Police officers.] As a matter of fact, Mr. Kökényesdi was neither a giant who turned men round his little finger nor a magician who threw dust in their eyes, but an honest-looking, undersized, meagre figure of a man and a citizen of Hodmezö-Vásárhely, in which place he had a house and a couple of farms, on which he conscientiously paid his portion of taxes; and he had bulls and stallions, as to every one of which he was able to prove where he had bought and how much he had paid for it. Not one of them was stolen. Yet everyone knew very well that neither his farms nor his bulls nor his stallions had been acquired in a godly way, and that the famous robber chief whose rumour filled every corner of the land was none other than he. But who could prove it? Had anybody ever seen him steal? Had he ever been caught red-handed? Did he not always defend himself in the most brilliant manner whenever he was accused? When there was a rumour that Kökényesdi was plundering the county of Mármaros from end to end, did he not produce five or six eye-witnesses to prove that at that very time he was ploughing and sowing on his farms, and was not the judge at great pains to discover whether these witnesses were reliable? Those who visited him at his native place of Vásárhely found him to be a respected, worthy, well-to-do man, who tossed his own hay till the very palm of his hand sweated, while those who sought for Kökényesdi on the confines of the realm never saw his face at all; it was indeed a very tiresome business to pursue him. That man was a brave fellow indeed who did not feel his heart beat quicker when he followed his track through the pathless morasses and the crooked sand-hills of the interminable _puszta_. And if two or three counties united to capture him, he would let himself be chased to the borders of the fourth county, and when he had leaped across it would leisurely dismount and beneath the very eyes of his pursuers, loose his horse to graze and lie down beside it on his _bunda_[8]--for there was the Turkish frontier, and he knew very well that beyond Lippa they durst not pursue him, for there the Pasha of Temesvar held sway. [Footnote 8: Sheepskin mantle.] Now, at this time there was among the garrison of Szathmár a captain named Ladislaus Rákóczy. The Rákóczy family, after Helen Zrinyi's husband had turned papist, for the most part were brought up at Vienna, and many of them held commissions in the Imperial army. Ladislaus Rákóczy likewise became a captain of musketeers, and as the greater part of his company consisted of Hungarian lads, it was not surprising if the Prince of Transylvania, on the other hand, kept German regiments to garrison his towns and accompany him whithersoever he went. It chanced that this Ladislaus Rákóczy, who was a very handsome, well-shaped, and good-hearted youth, fell in love with Christina, the daughter of Adam Rhédey, who dwelt at Rékás; and as the girl's father agreed to the match, he frequently went over from Szathmár to see his _fiancée_, accompanied by several of his fellow-officers, and he and his friends were always received by the family as welcome guests. Now, it came to the ears of the Pasha of Grosswardein that the Squire of Rékás was inclined to give away his daughter in marriage to a German officer, and perchance it was also whispered to him that the girl was beautiful and gracious. At any rate, one night Haly Pasha, at the head of his Spahis, stole away from Grosswardein and, taking the people of Rékás by surprise, burnt Adam Rhédey's house down, delivered it over to pillage, beat Rhédey himself with a whip, and tied him to the pump-handle, while, as for his daughter, who was half dead with fright, he put her up behind him on the saddle and trotted back to Grosswardein by the light of the burning village. Ladislaus Rákóczy, who came there next day for his own bridal feast, found everything wasted and ravaged, and the servants, who were hiding behind the hedges, peeped out and told him what had happened the night before, and how Haly Pasha had abducted his bride. The bridegroom was taciturn at the best of times, but a Hungarian is not in the habit of talking much when anything greatly annoys him, so, without a word to his comrades, he went back to the governor and asked permission to lead his regiment against Grosswardein. The general, perceiving that persuasion was useless, and that the youth would by himself try a tussle with the Turks if he couldn't do it otherwise, took the matter seriously and promised that he would place at his disposal, not only his own regiment but the whole garrison, if only he would persuade the neighbouring gentry to join him in the attack on the Turks of Grosswardein. As for the gentry, they only needed a word to fly to arms at once, for there was scarce one of them who had not at one time or other been enslaved, beaten, or at least insulted by the Turks, so that the mere appearance of a considerable force of regular soldiers marching against the Turks was sufficient to bring them out at once. The Turks, having once got possession of Grosswardein, had established themselves therein as firmly as if they meant to justify the Mussulman tradition that he never abandons a town that he has once occupied, or never voluntarily surrenders a place in which he has built a mosque, and indeed history rarely records a case of capitulation by the Turks--_their_ fortresses are generally taken by storm. From the year 1660, when Haly Pasha occupied the fortress, a quite new Turkish town had arisen in the vacant space between the fortress and the old town, and this new town was surrounded by a strong palisade, the only entrances into which were through very narrow gates. This new town was inhabited by nothing but Turkish chapmen, who bartered away the goods captured by the garrison, and Haly Pasha's Spahis did a roaring business in the oxen and slaves which they had gathered together, attracting purchasers all the way from Bagdad. Thus from year to year the market of Grosswardein became better and better known in the Turkish commercial world, so that one wooden house after another sprang up, and they built across and along the empty space just as they liked, so that at last there was hardly what you would call a street in the whole place, and people had to go through their neighbours' houses in order to get into their own; in a word, the whole thing took the form of a Turkish fair, where pomp and splendour conceals no end of filth; the patched up wooden shanties were covered with gorgeous oriental stuffs, while in the streets hordes of ownerless dogs wandered among the perennial offal, and if two people met together in the narrow alleys, to pass each other was impossible. This fenced town was not large enough to hold the herds that were swept towards it, there was hardly room enough for the masters of the herds; but on the banks of the Pecze there was a large open entrenched space reserved for the purpose, where the Bashkir horsemen stood on guard over the herds with their long spears, and had to keep their eyes pretty open if they didn't want Kökényesdi to honour them with a visit, who was capable of stealing not only the horses but the horsemen who guarded them. Take but one case out of many. One day Kökényesdi, in his _bunda_, turned inside out as usual, with a round spiral hat on his head and a large knobby stick in his hands, appeared outside the entrenchment within which a closely-capped Kurd was guarding Haly Pasha's favourite charger, Shebdiz. "What a nice charger!" said the horse-dealer to the Kurd. "Nice indeed, but not for your dog's teeth." "Yet I assure you I'll steal him this very night." "I shall be there too, my lad," thought the Kurd to himself, and with that he leaped upon the horse and grasped fast his three and a half ells long spear; "if you want the horse come for it now!" "I'm not going to fetch it at once, so don't put yourself out," Kökényesdi assured him. "You may do as you like with him till morning," and with that he sat down on the edge of the ditch, wrapped himself up in his _bunda_, and leaned his chin on his big stick. The Kurd durst not take his eyes off him, he scarce ventured even to wink, lest the horse-dealer should practise magic in the meantime. He never stirred from the spot, but drew his hat deep down and regarded the Kurd from beneath it with his foxy eyes. Meanwhile it was drawing towards evening. The Kurd's eyes now regularly started out of his head in his endeavours to distinguish the form of Kökényesdi through the darkness. At last he grew weary of the whole business. "Go away!" he said. "Do you hear me?" Kökényesdi made no reply. The Kurd waited and gazed again. Everything seemed to him to be turning round, and blue and green wheels were revolving before his eyes. "Go away, I tell you, for if this ditch was not a broad one I would leap across and bore you through with my spear." The _bunda_ never budged. The Kurd flew into a rage, dismounted from the horse, seized his spear, and climbing down into the ditch, viciously plunged his spear into the sleeping form before him. But how great was his consternation when he discovered that what he had looked upon as a man in the darkness was nothing but a propped up stick, on which a _bunda_ and a hat were hanging! While he had been staring at Kökényesdi, the latter had crept from out of the _bunda_ beneath his very eyes and hidden himself in the ditch. The Kurd had not yet recovered from his astonishment when he heard the crack of a whip behind his back, and there was Kökényesdi sitting already on the back of Haly Pasha's charger, Shebdiz, and the next moment he had leaped the ditch above the Kurd's head, shouting back at him: "The trench is not broad enough for this horse, my son!" * * * * * Master Szénasi was one of those who had been sent to find Kökényesdi, and he now arrived at Demerser, the famous robber's most usual resting-place in those days, and pushing his way forward told him that the gentlemen of Szathmár had sent him to ask him, Kökényesdi, to assist them in their expedition against the Turks. Kökényesdi, who was carrying a sheaf on his back, looked sharply at the magister, who dared not meet his gaze, and when he had finished his little speech he roared at him: "You lie! You're a spy! I don't like the look of your mug! I'm going to hang you up!" Szénasi, who was unacquainted with the robber chief's peculiarities, was near collapsing with terror, whereupon Kökényesdi observed with a smile: "Come, come, don't tremble so, I won't eat you up at any rate, but tell the gentleman that sent you here that another time he mustn't send a spy to me, for to tell you the truth I don't believe in such faces as yours. You may tell the gentleman, moreover, that if he wants to speak to me he must come himself. I don't care about making a move on the strength of idle chatter. I am easily to be found. Go to Püspök Ladánya, walk into the last house on the right-hand side and ask the master where the Barátfa hostelry is, he'll show you the way; and now in God's name scuttle! and don't look back till you've got home." The magister did as he was bid, and on getting home delivered the message to his masters, whereupon they immediately set out; Raining going on the part of the military, János Topay on the part of the Hungarians, together with Ladislaus Rákóczy himself and the captain of the gentry of Báródság. The gentlemen safely reached Püspök Ladánya, where they had to wait at the magistrate's house till night-fall, although Raining would have much preferred to meet Kökényesdi by daylight, and Rákóczy was burning to carry through his enterprise as soon as possible. While they waited Raining could not help asking the magistrate whether it was far from there to the Barátfa inn? The magistrate shook his head and maintained there was no such inn in the whole district, nor was there. Raining fancied that the magistrate must be a stranger there, so he asked two or three old men the same question, but they all gave him the same answer: there might be a _barátfa puszta_[9] here but there could be no inn on it, or if there was an inn, the _puszta_ itself did not exist. [Footnote 9: Common.] "Well, if they don't know anything about it at the last house we had better turn back," said Raining to himself; and, when it had grown quite dark, he approached the house and began to talk with the master who was dawdling about the door. "God bless thee, countryman! where's the barátfa inn?" The man first of all measured the questioner from head to foot, and then he merely remarked: "God requite thee! over yonder!" and he vaguely indicated the direction with his head. "We want to go there; can't you show us the way?" asked Topay. The man seized the questioner's hand and pointed with it to a herdsman's fire in the distance. "Look; do you see the shine of its windows there?" "Which is the way to it?" "That way 'tis nearer, t'other way it's quicker." "What do you mean?" "If you go that way you'll go astray the quicker, and if you go t'other way you may plump into a bog." "You lead us thither," intervened Rákóczy, at the same time pressing a ducat into the man's fist. He looked at it, turned it round in his palm and gave it back to Rákóczy with the request that he would give him copper money in exchange for it. He could not imagine anyone giving him gold which was not false. When this had been done he neatly led the gentlemen through the morass--wading in front of them, girded up to his waist--through those hidden places where the water-fowl were sitting on their nests, and when at last they emerged from among the thick reedy plantations they saw a hundred paces in front of them a fire of heaped up bulrushes brightly burning, by the light of which they saw a horseman standing behind it. Here their guide stopped and the three men trotted in single file towards the fire, which suddenly died out at the very moment they were approaching it, as if someone had cast wet rushes upon it. Topay greeted the horseman, who lifted his hat in silence and allowed them to draw nearer. "There are three of you gentlemen together," he observed guardedly; "but that doesn't matter," he continued. "It would be all the same to me if there were ten times as many of you, for there's a pistol in every one of my holsters, from which I can fire sixteen bullets in succession, and in each bullet is a magnet, so that even if I don't aim at my man I bring him down all the same." "Very good, very good indeed, Master Kökényesdi," said Topay; "we have not come here for you to pepper us with your magnetic globules, but we have come to ask your assistance for the accomplishment of a doughty deed, the object of which is an attack upon our pagan foes." "Oh, my good sirs, I am ready to do that without the co-operation of your honours. In the courtyard of a castle in the Baborsai _puszta_ there is a well some hundred fathoms deep and quite full of Turkish skulls, and I will not be satisfied till I have piled up on the top of it a tower just as high made of similar materials." "So I believe. But you would gain glory too?" "I have glory enough already. I am known in foreign countries as well as at home. The King of France has long ago only waited for a word from me to make me chief colonel of a long-tailed regiment, and quite recently, when the King of England heard how I bored through the hulls of the munition ships on the Theiss, he did me the honour to invite me to form a regiment of divers to ravage the enemy under water. And I've all the boys for it too." "I know, I know, Master Kökényesdi, but there will be booty here too, and lots of it." "What is booty to me? If I choose to do so, I could bathe in gold and sleep on pearls." "Have you really as much treasure as all that?" inquired Raining with some curiosity. "Ah," said Kökényesdi, "you ought to see the storehouse in the Szilicza cavern, where gold and silver are filled up as high as haystacks. There, too, are the treasures dug up from the sands of the sea, nothing but precious stones, diamonds, rubies, carbuncles, and real pearls. I, myself, do not know how many sackfuls." "And cannot you be robbed of them?" "Impossible; the entrance is so well concealed that no man living can find it. I myself can never tell whether I am near it; the shifting sand has so well covered it. Only one living animal can find it when it is wanted, and that is my horse. And he will never betray it, for if anyone but myself mounts him, not a step farther will he go." "And how did you come into possession of these enormous treasures?" asked Raining with astonishment. "God gave them to me," said the horse-dealer, raising his voice and his eyebrows at the same time. "Very edifying, no doubt, my friend," said Topay; "but tell me now, briefly, for how much will you join us against the Turks of Grosswardein?--not counting the booty, which of course will be pretty considerable." "Well--that is not so easily said. Of course I shall have to collect together my twelve companies, and it will cost something to hold them together and give them what they want and pay them." "At any rate you can name a good round sum for the services you are going to render us, can't you? Come! how much do you require?" The robber chief reflected. "Well, as it is your honours' own business I hope your honours won't say that I tax you too highly. Let us look at the job in this way: suppose I came to the attack with seventeen companies, and I charge one thousand thalers for each company. Let us say each company consists of one thousand men, that will be a thaler per head--and what is that, 'twill barely pay for their keep. Thus the whole round sum will come to seventeen thousand thalers." "That won't do at all, Master Kökényesdi. 'Twere a shame to fatigue so many gallant fellows for nothing, but suppose you bring with you only a hundred men and the rest remain comfortably at home? In that case you shall receive from us seventeen hundred florins in hard cash." "Pooh!" snapped the robber, "what does your honour take me for, eh? Do you suppose you are dealing with a gipsy chief or a Wallachian bandit, who are paid in pence? Why, I wouldn't saddle my horse for such a trifle, I had rather sleep the whole time away." "But you have so much treasure besides," observed Raining naïvely. "But we may not break into it," rejoined the robber angrily. "Why not?" "Because we have agreed not to make use of till it has mounted up to a million florins." "And what will you do with it then?" "We shall then buy a vacant kingdom from the Tartar king, where the pasturage is good, and thither we will go with our men and set up an empire of our own. We will buy enough pretty women from the Turks for us all, and be our own masters." Topay smiled. "Well," said he, "this seventeen hundred florins of ours will at any rate purchase one of the counties in this kingdom of yours." He was greatly amused that Raining should take the robber's yarn so seriously, and he pushed the German gentleman aside. "Mr. Kökényesdi," said he, "you have nothing to do with this worthy man; he is come with us only to see the fun, but it is we who pay the money, and I think we understand each other pretty well." "Why didn't you tell me so sooner?" said the robber sulkily, "then I shouldn't have wasted so many words. With which of you am I to bargain?" "With this young gentleman here," said Topay. "Ladislaus Rákóczy. I suppose you know him by report?" "Know him? I should think I did. Haven't I carried him in my arms when he was little? If it hadn't been so dark I should have recognised him at once. Well, as it is he, I don't mind doing him a good turn. I certainly wouldn't have taken a florin less from anyone else. I'll take from _him_ the offer of seventeen hundred thalers." "Seventeen hundred florins, _I_ said." "I tell your honour, you said thalers--thalers was what _I_ heard, and I won't undertake the job for less; may my hand and leg wither if I move a step for less." "Oh, I'll give him his thalers," said Rákóczy, interrupting the dispute; whereupon the robber seized the youth's hand and shook it joyfully. "Didn't I know that your honour was the finest fellow of the three?" said the robber. "If, therefore, you will send these few trumpery thalers a week hence to the house of the worthy man who guided you hither, I will be at Grosswardein a week later with my seventeen hundred fellows." "But, suppose we pay you in advance, and you don't turn up?" said Raining anxiously. The robber looked at the quartermaster proudly. "Do you take me for a common swindler?" said he. Then he turned with a movement of confiding expansion to the other gentlemen. "We understand each other better," he remarked. "Your honours may depend upon me. God be with you." With that he turned his horse and galloped off into the darkness. The three gentlemen were conducted back to Ladány. "Marvellous fellow, this Kökényesdi," said Raining, who had scarce recovered yet from his astonishment. "You mustn't believe all the yarns he chooses to tell you," said Topay. "What!" inquired Raining. "Had he then no communications with the French and English Courts?" "No more than his grandmother." "Then how about those treasures of which he spoke?" "He himself has never seen them, and he only talked about them to give you a higher opinion of him." "And his castle in the puszta, and his seventeen companies of freebooters?" "He invented them entirely for your honour's edification. The freebooter is no fool, he lives in no castle in the puszta, but in a simple village as modest Mr. Kökényesdi, and his seventeen companies scarcely amount to more than seventeen hundred men." "Then why did he consent so easily to take only seventeen hundred thalers?" "Because he does not mean to give his lads a single farthing of it." Raining shook his head, and grumbled to himself all the way home. * * * * * In a week's time they sent to Kökényesdi the stipulated money. Raining, moreover, fearing lest the fellow might forget the fixed time, did not hesitate to go personally to Vásárhely, to seek him at his own door. There stood Master Kökényesdi in his threshing-floor, picking his teeth with a straw. "Good-day," said the quartermaster. "If it's good, eat it," murmured Kökényesdi to himself. "Don't you know me?" "Blast me if I do." "Then don't you remember what you promised at the Barátfa inn?" "I don't know where the Barátfa inn is." "Then haven't you received the seventeen hundred thalers?" "What should I receive seventeen hundred thalers for?" "Don't joke, the appointed time has come." "What appointed time?" "What appointed time? And you who have to be at Grosswardein with seventeen hundred men!" "Seventeen oxen and seventeen herdsmen on their backs, I suppose you mean." "Well, a pretty mess we are in now," said Raining to himself as he wrathfully trotted back to Debreczen, and as he rushed into Rákóczy's room exclaiming, "Well, Kökényesdi has toasted us finely!" there stood Kökényesdi before his very eyes. "What, you here?" "Yes, I am; and another time your honour will know that whenever I am at my own place I am not at home." * * * * * It was the Friday before Whit Sunday, and the time about evening. A great silence rested over the whole district, only from the minarets of Varalja one Imâm answered another, and from the tombs one shepherd dog answered his fellow: it was impossible to distinguish from which of the two the howling proceeded. A couple of turbaned gentlemen were leisurely strolling along the bastions. Above the palisaded gate the torso of a square-headed Tartar was visible, with his elbows resting on the ramparts, holding his long musket in his hand. The Tartar sentinel was gazing with round open eyes into the black night, watching lest anyone should come from the direction in which he was aiming with his gun, and blowing vigorously at the lunt to prevent its going out. While he was thus anxiously on the watch, it suddenly seemed to him as if he discerned the shape of a horseman approaching the city. In such cases the orders given to the Osmanli sentinels were of the simplest description: they were to shoot everyone who approached in the night-time without a word. The Tartar only waited until the man had come nearer, and then, placing his long musket on the moulding of the gate, began to take aim with it. But the approaching horseman rode his steed as oddly as only Hungarian _csikósok_[10] can do, for he bobbed perpetually from the right to the left, and dodged backwards and forwards in the most aggravating manner. [Footnote 10: Horse-dealers.] "Allah pluck thy skin from off thee, thou drunken Giaour," murmured the baffled Tartar to himself, as he found all his aiming useless; for just as he was about to apply the lunt, the _csikós_ was no longer there, and the next moment he stood at the very end of his musket. "May all the seven-and-seventy hells have a little bit of thee! Why canst thou not remain still for a moment that I may fire at thee?" Meanwhile the shape had gradually come up to the very gate. "Don't come any nearer," cried the Tartar, "or I shan't be able to shoot thee." "Oh, that's it, is it?" said the other. "Then why didn't you tell me so sooner? But don't hold your musket so near to me, it may go off of its own accord." We recognise in the _csikós_ Kökényesdi, whose horse now began to prance about to such an extent that it was impossible for the Tartar to take a fair aim at it. "I bring a letter for Haly Pasha, from the Defterdar of Lippa," said the _csikós_, searching for something in the pocket of his fur pelisse, so far as his caracolling steed would allow him. "Catch it if you don't want to come through the gate for it." "Well, fling it up here," murmured the sentinel, "and then be off again, but ride decently that I may have a shot." "Thank you, my worthy Mr. Dog-headed Hero; but look out and catch what I throw to you." And with that he drew out a roll of parchment and flung it up to the top of the gate. The Tartar, with his eyes fixed on the missive, did not perceive that the _csikós_, at the same time, threw up a long piece of cord, and the sense of the joke did not burst upon him until the _csikós_ drew in the noose, and he felt it circling round his body. Kökényesdi turned round suddenly, twisted the cord round the forepart of his horse, and clapping the spurs to its side, began galloping off. Naturally, in about a moment the Tartar had descended from the top of the gate without either musket or lunt, and the cord being well lassoed round his body, he plumped first into the moat, a moment afterwards reappeared on the top of the trench, and was carried with the velocity of lightning through bushes and briars. Being quite unused to this mode of progression, and vainly attempting to cling by hand or foot to the trees and shrubs which met him in his way, he began to bellow with all his might, at which terrible uproar the other sentries behind the ramparts were aroused, and, perceiving that some horseman or other was compelling one of their comrades to follow after him in this merciless fashion, they mounted their horses, and throwing open the gate, plunged after him. As for Kökényesdi, he trotted on in front of them, drawing the Tartar horde farther and farther after him till he reached a willow-wood, when he turned aside and whistled, and instantly fifty stout fellows leaped forth from the thicket on swift horses with _csákánys_[11] in their hands, so that the pursuing Turks were fairly caught. [Footnote 11: Long-handled hammers.] They turned tail, however, in double-quick time, having no great love of the _csákánys_, and never stopped till they reached the gate of the fortress, within the walls of which they yelled to their heart's content, that Kökényesdi's robbers were at hand, had leaped the cattle trench at a single bound, seized a good part of the herds and were driving the beasts before them; whereupon, some hundreds of Spahis set off in pursuit of the audacious adventurers. When, however, the robbers had reached the River Körös, they halted, faced about and stood up to their pursuers man to man, and the encounter had scarce begun when the Spahis grew alive to the fact that their opponents, who at first had barely numbered fifty, had grown into a hundred, into two hundred, and at last into five or six hundred: from out of the thickets, the ridges, and the darkness, fresh shapes were continually galloping to the assistance of their comrades, while from the fortress the Turks came rushing out on each other's heels in tens and twenties to the help of the Spahis, so that by this time the greater part of the garrison had emerged to pounce upon Kökényesdi's freebooters; when suddenly, the battle-cry resounded from every quarter and from the other side of the Körös, whence nobody expected it, the _bandérium_[12] of the gentry of Báródság rushed forth, and swam right across the river; while from the direction of Várad-Olaszi, amidst the rolling of drums, Ladislaus Rákóczy came marching along with the infantry of Szathmár. [Footnote 12: Mounted troops.] "Forward!" cried the youth, holding the banner in his hand, and he was the first who placed his foot on the storming-ladder. The terrified garrison, after firing their muskets in the air, abandoned the ramparts and fled into the citadel. Rákóczy got into the town before the Spahis who were fighting with Kökényesdi, and who now, at the sound of the uproar, would have fled back through the town to take refuge in the citadel, but came into collision with the cavalry of Topay, who reached the gates of the town at the same moment that they did, and both parties, crowding together before the gates, desperately tried to get possession of them, during which tussle the contending hosts for a moment were wedged together into a maddened mass, in which the antagonists could recognise each other only from their war-cries; when, all at once, from the middle of the town, a huge column of fire whirled up into the air, illuminating the faces of the combatants. The fact was that Kökényesdi had hit upon the good idea of connecting a burning lunt with the tops of the houses, and making a general blaze, so that at least the people could see one another. By this hideous illumination the Spahis suddenly perceived that Rákóczy's infantry had broken through the ramparts in one place, and that a sturdy young heyduke had just hoisted the banner of the Blessed Virgin on the top of the eastern gate. "This is the day of death," cried the Aga of the Spahis in despair; and drawing his sword from its sheath, he planted himself in the gateway, and fought desperately till his comrades had taken refuge in the town, and he himself fell covered with wounds. It was over his body that the Hungarians rushed through the gates after the flying Spahis. At that moment a fresh cry resounded from the fortress: "Ali! Ali!" The Pasha himself was advancing with his picked guards, with the valiant Janissaries, with those good marksmen, the Szaracsies, who can pierce with a bullet a thaler flung into the air, and with the veteran Mamelukes, who can fight with sword and lance at the same time. He himself rode in advance of his host on his war-horse, his big red face aflame with rage; in front of him his standard-bearer bore the triple horse-tail, on each side of which strode a negro headsman with a broadsword. "Come hither, ye faithless dogs! Is the world too narrow for ye that ye come to die here? By the shadow of Allah, I swear it, ye shall all be sent to hell this day, and I will ravage your kingdom ten leagues round. Come hither, ye impure swine-eaters! Your heads shall be brought to market; everyone who brings in the head of a Christian shall receive a ducat, and he who brings in a captive shall die." Thus the Pasha roared, stormed, and yelled at the same time; while Topay tried to marshal once more his men who were scattering before the fire of the Turks, galloping from street to street, and re-forming his terrified squadrons to make head against the solid host of the advancing Turks, which was rapidly gaining ground, while Kökényesdi's followers only thought of booty. "A hundred ducats to him who shoots down that son of a dog!" thundered the Pasha, pointing out the ubiquitous Topay, and, finding it impossible to get near him, roared after him: "Thou cowardly puppy! whither art thou running? Look me in the face, canst thou not?" Topay heard the exclamation and shouted back very briefly: "I saw _thy_ back at Bánfi-Hunyad."[13] [Footnote 13: See "'Midst the Wild Carpathians," Book II., Chapter IV.] At this insult Ali Pasha's gall overflowed, and seizing his mace, he aimed a blow with it at Topay, when suddenly a sharp crackling cross-fire resounded from a neighbouring lane, and amidst the thick clouds of smoke, Rákóczy's musketeers appeared, sticking their daggers into their discharged firearms, a practise to which the bayonet owed its origin at a later day. The Turkish cavalry, crowded together in the narrow street, was in a few moments demoralised by this rapid assault. The improvised bayonet told terribly in the crush, swords and darts were powerless against it. "Allah is great!" cried Ali. "Hasten into the fortress and draw up the bridge, we are only perishing here. Only the fortress remains to us." His conductors, against his will, seized his bridle, and dragged him along with them; and when a valiant musketeer, drawing near to him, cut down his charger, the terrified Pasha clambered up into the saddle of one of his headsmen, and took refuge behind his back. A young Hungarian horseman was constantly on his track. Nobody could tell Ali who he was, but one could see from his face that he was the Pasha's fiercest enemy, and animated by something more than mere martial ardour. This young horseman gave no heed to the bullets or blades which were directed against him; he was bent only on bloodshed. It was young Rákóczy, to whom bitterness had given strength a hundredfold. Forcing his way through the flying hostile rabble, he was drawing nearer and nearer to Ali every moment, cutting down one by one all who barred the way between him and the Pasha, and the Turks quailed before his strong hands and savage looks. At length they reached the bridge, which was built upon piles, between deep bulwarks, and led into the fortress, the front part of whose gate was fortified by iron plates and huge nails, and could be drawn up to the gate of the tower by round chains. On the summit of the tower of the citadel could still be seen the equestrian statue of St. Ladislaus derisively turned upside down between the severed legs of two felons. The Hungarians and the Turks reached the bridge together so intermingled that the only thing to be seen was a confused mass of turbans and helmets, in the midst of a forest of swords and scimitars, with the banner of the Blessed Virgin cheek by jowl with the crescented horse-tails. At the gate of the citadel stood two long widely gaping eighteen-pounders commanding the bridge, filled with chain, shot, and ground nails; but the Komparajis dare not use their cannons, for in whatever direction they might aim, there were quite as many Turks as Hungarians. On the bridge itself the foes were fighting man to man. Rákóczy was at that moment fighting with the bearer of the triple horse-tail, striving to take the standard pole with his left hand, while he aimed blow after blow at his antagonist with his right. "Shoot them down, you good-for-nothings!" roared Ali Pasha, turning back to the inactive and contumacious Komparajis. "Reck not whether your bullets sweep away as many Mussulmans as Hungarians, myself included! Sweep the bridge clear, I say! Life is cheap, but Paradise is dear!" But the gunners still hesitated to fire amongst their comrades, when Ali sent two drummers to them commanding them to aim their guns aloft and fire into the air. The contest on the bridge was raging furiously; the Janissaries had placed their backs against the parapet, and there stood motionless, with their huge broad-swords in their naked fists, like a fence of living scythes, tearing into ribbons everything which came between them. Then it occurred to a regiment of German Drabants to clamber up the parapet of the bridge, and tear the Janissaries away from the parapet; some ten or twenty of these Drabants did scramble up on the bridge, when the parapet suddenly gave way beneath the double weight, and Janissaries and Drabants fell down into the deep moat beneath, throttling each other in the water, and whenever a turbaned head appeared above the surface, the Germans standing at the foot of the bridge beat out its brains with their halberds. Meanwhile, the two fighting heroes in the middle of the bridge were almost exhausted by the contest. They had already hacked each other's swords to pieces, had grasped the banner, the object of the struggle, with both hands, and were tearing away at it with ravening wrath. The Turkish standard-bearer then suddenly pressed his steed with his knees, making it rear up beneath him, so that the Turk stood now a head and shoulder higher than Rákóczy, and threatened either to oust him from his saddle or tear the standard from his hand. At that moment the white figure of a girl appeared on the summit of the rampart of the tower, her black locks streaming in the wind, her face aglow with enthusiasm. "Heaven help thee, Ladislaus!" cried the girl from the battlement of the tower; and the youth, hearing from on high what sounded like a voice from heaven, recognised it, looked up and saw his bride--a superhuman strength arose in his heart and in his arm, and when the Turkish standard-bearer made his charger rear, Rákóczy suddenly let the flag-pole go, and seizing the bridle of the snorting steed with both hands, with one Herculean thrust, flung back steed, rider, and banner through the palisade into the deep moat below. "There is no hope save with God!" cried Ali in despair, for his terrified people at the sight of this prodigy had dragged him along with them against his will. "Ladislaus! Ladislaus! My darling!" resounded from above. The youth was fighting with the strength of ten men; three horses had already been shot under him, and a third sword was flashing in his hand. Already he was standing on the drawbridge; his sweetheart threw down a white handkerchief to him, and he was already waving it above his head in triumph, when a well-directed bullet pierced the young hero's heart, and he collapsed a corpse on the very threshold of his success, in the very gate of the captured fortress at the feet of his beloved. At that same instant a heart-rending shriek resounded, and from the top of the tower a white shape fell down upon the bridge; the beautiful bride, from a height of thirty feet, had cast herself down on the dead body of her beloved, and died at the same instant as he, mingling their blood together; and if their arms did not, at least their souls could, embrace each other. This spectacle so stupefied the besiegers, that Ali Pasha had just time enough swiftly to raise the drawbridge and save the fortress and a fragment of his host. Of those who remained outside, not a single soul survived. Kökényesdi massacred without mercy everything which distantly resembled a Turk, together with the camels and mules, sparing nothing but the horses, and when every house had been well plundered, he set the town on fire in twelve places, so that the flames in half an hour consumed everything, and the whole city blazed away like a gigantic bonfire, the rising wind whirling the smoke and flame over the ditch towards the fortress. "Ali Pasha may put that in his pipe and smoke it," said Kökényesdi, rejoicing at the magnificent conflagration. * * * * * But the bodies of Ladislaus Rákóczy and his sweetheart they bore away, and buried them side by side in the family vault at Rákás. CHAPTER VI. THE MONK OF THE HOLY SPRING. About a day's journey from Klausenburg there used to be a famous monastery, whose ruined tower remains to this day. Formerly the ample courtyard was surrounded by a stone wall, massive and strong, within which crowds of pilgrims, coming from every direction, found a convenient resting-place. For at the foot of this monastery was a famous miraculous spring, which entirely disappeared throughout the winter and spring, but on certain days in the summer and autumn was wont to trickle through the crevices of the rocks, and, for a couple of weeks or so, to bubble forth abundantly, whereupon it gradually subsided again. During this season whole hosts of suffering humanity, the lame, the paralytic, the aged, the mentally infirm, and the childless mothers, would come from the most distant regions; and the Lord of Nature gave a wondrous virtue to the waters, and the sufferers quitted the blessed spring crutchless and edified, both in body and mind. There could be seen, hung up on the walls of the church, votive crutches which the cripples had left behind them; and more than one great nobleman, out of gratitude to the holy spring, enriched the altar with gold and silver plate. The larger part of the building was reserved for noble guests, the common people encamped in the courtyard beneath tents; and behind the building a splendid garden was laid out, which the worthy monks always magnificently maintained. Even to this day, in the grassy patches round about the spot, it is possible to discover the savage descendants of many rare and precious flowers. At the period in which our history falls, the convent of the holy well was represented by a single reverend father, whom the common tongue simply called Friar Gregory, and there was scarce a soul in Transylvania who did not know him well. He was a big man, six feet in height, with a flowing black beard, swarthy, lean, with a bony frame, and with hands so big that he could cover a six-pound cannon ball with each palm. A simple habit covered his limbs, head-dress he had none, and his broad shining forehead was without a wrinkle. His droning voice was so powerful that when he sang his psalms he made more noise than a whole congregation. At the times when the holy spring was flowing, the cellar and pantry of the good friar stood wide open to rich and poor alike, for whatever he earned in one year he never put by for the next, and whatever the wealthy paid to him the needy had the benefit of; and whenever any clerical colleague happened to come his way, whether he were Orthodox, Armenian, Calvinist, or Unitarian, he could not make too much of him; all such guests, during their stay, regularly swam in milk and butter, and remembered it to the very day of their death. Just at this very time the Right Reverend Ladislaus Magyari's little daughter, Rosy, was suffering from a complaint which gave the lie to her healthy name, and her father thought it just as well to take her to the holy spring, perchance the healing water would restore to her wan little face the colour of youth. Brother Gregory was beside himself with joy; the best room was prepared for his right reverend colleague, and brother cook, brother cellarer, and brother gardener were ordered to see to it that meat, drink, and heaps of flowers were provided for the honoured guests. No two people in the wide world were so suited to each other as Father Gregory and Dean Magyari; their hearts were equally good, and each of them had a head upon his shoulders. They rose up early in the morning to argue with each other on dogmatic questions--to wit, which faith was the best, truest, happiest, most blessed, and surest, and kept it up till late in the evening, by no means neglecting the frequent emptying of foaming beakers during the contest, pounding each other with citations, entangling each other with syllogisms, flooring each other with authorities, and overwhelming each other with anecdotes; and it always ended in their shaking hands and agreeing together that every faith was good if only a man were true to himself. While her father was thus manfully battling, pretty pale Rosy would be amusing herself in the garden or by the spring with little girls of her own age, and the fresh air, the scent of the flowers, and the beneficent water of the spring gradually restored to her face its vanished bloom; and Magyari joyfully thought how delighted her mother would be if she were able to embrace her convalescent child, and, in sheer delight at the idea, spun out his disputatious evenings whilst Rosy in an adjacent cell was sleeping the sleep of the just. The two worthy gentlemen were sitting over their cups one beautiful evening, when a loud knocking was heard at the outer gate. The rule was that at sundown the pilgrim mob was to betake itself to the courtyard of the cloister, and the gate should be closed. The friar who kept the gate came to announce that four queer-looking monks demanded admission, were they to be let in? "There can be no question about it," said Father Gregory. "If any desire admission, bring them to us, and provide refreshment for them." In a few moments the four friars in question entered. They were dressed in coarse black sackcloth habits, with the cowls drawn down over their heads. All that was to be seen of them was their eyes and shaggy beards. With deep obeisances, but without a word, they approached the two reverend gentlemen. The Father rose politely and greeted them respectfully in Latin: "Benedicite nomen Domini." They only kept on bowing and were silent. "Nomen dei sit benedictum!" repeated Gregory, fancying that his guests did not hear what he said, and as they did not reply to that, he asked with great astonishment: "Non exandistis nomen gloriosissimi Domini, fratres amantissimi?" At this the foremost of them said: "We do not understand that language, worthy brother." "Then what sort of monks are ye? To what confession do ye belong? Are ye Greeks?" "We are not Greeks." "Then are you Armenians?" "We are not Armenians." "Arians, then?" "Neither are we Arians." "Are you Patarenes?" "No, we are not." "Then _in gloriam æterni_ to what order do you belong?" "We are robbers," thereupon exclaimed the one interrogated, throwing aside the fold of his cloak, beneath which could be seen a belt crammed with daggers and pistols. "My name is Feri Kökényesdi," said he, striking his breast. Magyari thereupon leaped from his chair, which he immediately converted into a weapon; it at once occurred to him that he had an only daughter to defend, and he was ready to fight the robbers on behalf of her. But the father pulled him by the cassock and whispered: "Pray be quiet, your Reverence," and then with an infinitely placid face he turned towards the robbers. "So that is the order to which you belong," said he. "Still, if you have come as guests, sit down and eat what you desire." "But that is not sufficient. Outside this monastery there are 1700 of us, and all of them want to eat and drink, for it is only the ancient prophets who, when hungry, were content with the meat of the Word." "Let them also satisfy their desires." "However, the main thing is this: in your Reverence's chapel is a whole lot of very nice gold and silver saints, who certainly befriend those who sigh after them, and as we cannot come running to them here every day in order to entreat their aid, we had better take them along with us, that they may be helpful to us on the road." "Thou hast a pretty mother-wit, frater! Who could refuse thee anything?" "It is also no secret to us, Father Gregory, that your Reverence's cellar is crammed with kegs full of good money, silver and gold. May we be allowed to relieve your Reverence of a little of this burden?" "He is quite welcome to it," thought the father, well aware that there was absolutely nothing at all. "Do not imagine, your Reverence," continued the robber, "that we cannot extort a confession, if it should occur to your Reverence to conceal anything. It would be just as well, therefore, if your Reverence were to reveal everything before we cut up your back with sharp thongs." The brother smiled as good-humouredly as if he were listening to some pleasing anecdote. "Have you any other desires, my sons?" "Yes, a good many. There is a great crowd of women collected together in your Reverence's courtyard. We have taken no vows of celibacy, therefore we should like to choose from among them what would suit us." Magyari felt the hairs of his head rising heavenwards, a cold shiver ran through him from head to foot, and he would have risen from his place had not the monk pressed him down with a frightfully heavy hand. "For God's sake, my dear son, do not so wickedly. Take away the saints from the altar if you like, but harm not the innocent who are now peacefully slumbering in the shadow of God's protection." "Not another word, Brother Gregory," cried the robber, closing his fist on his dagger, "or I'll set the monastery on fire and burn every living soul in it, yourself included. A robber only recognises four sacraments: wine, money, wenches, and blood! You may congratulate yourself if we are content with the third and dispense with the last." "So it is!" observed another of the cowled and bearded robbers, tapping Magyari on the shoulder. "Do you recognise me, eh, your Reverence?" Magyari, with a sensation of shuddering loathing, recognised Szénasi, a canting charlatan whose frauds he had often exposed. "We know well enough," said the fellow with an evil chuckle, "that you have a fair daughter here. I am going to pay off old scores." If Magyari had not been well in the brother's grip, he would have gone for the wretch. Every fibre of his body was shivering with rage. Only the brother remained calm and smiling. Joining his hands together, he made a little mill with the aid of his two thumbs. "Wait, my dear son, cannot we come to some agreement. You know very well that my money is concealed in barrels, but so well hidden is it that none besides myself know where it is. Even if you turned this monastery upside down you would not find it. You may also have heard that once upon a time there lived a kind of men called martyrs, who let themselves be boiled in oil, or roasted on red-hot fires, or torn in pieces by wild beasts, without saying a word which might hurt their souls. Well, that is the sort of man _I_ am. If I make up my mind to hold my tongue, you might tear me to bits inch by inch with burning tweezers, and you would get not a word nor a penny out of me. Now 'tis for you to choose. Will you carry off the money and leave the poor women-folk alone, or will you lay your hands on the down-trodden, lame, halt, consumptive beggar-women, whom you will find here, and not see a farthing? Which is it to be?" The four robbers whispered together. No doubt they said something to this effect: only let the pater produce his money, and then it will be an easy thing for us to take back our given word and satisfy our hearts' desires. They signified that they would stand by the money. "Look now! you are good men," said the father, "take these two torches and come with me to the cellar and go through my treasures, only you must do none any harm." "A little less jaw, please," growled Kökényesdi. "Two go in front with the torches, and Brother Gregory between you. I'll follow after; the magister can remain behind to look after the other parson. Whoever speaks a word or makes a signal, I'll bring my axe down on his head--forward!" And so it was. Two of the robbers went in front with torches; after them came the brother with Kökényesdi at his heels with a drawn dagger in his hand; last of all marched Magyari, whom Master Szénasi held by the collar at arm's-length, threatening him at the same time with a flashing axe. Thus they descended to the cellar. The good father, with timid humility, hid his head in his hood and looked neither to the left nor to the right. The cellar was provided with a large, double, iron trap-door. After drawing out its massive bolts, the worthy brother raised one of its flaps, bidding them lower the torches for his convenience. As now the first robber descended and the second plunged after him, the father suddenly kicked out with his monstrous wooden shoe and brought the door down on his head, so that he rolled down to the bottom of the stairs; and then, quick as thought, he turned upon Kökényesdi, seized his hands, and said to Magyari: "You seize the other!" Kökényesdi, in the first moment of surprise, thrust at the brother, but his dagger glanced aside against the stiff hair-shirt, and there was no time for a second thrust, for the terrible brother had seized both his hands and crushed them against his breast with irresistible force with one hand, while with the other he dispossessed him of all the murderous weapons in his girdle one by one, shaking him with one hand as easily as a grown man shakes a child of nine; then he dragged him towards the cellar door, pressing it down with their double weight so that those below could not raise it. Mr. Magyari that self-same instant had caught the magister by the nape of the neck and, mindful of the wrestling trick he had learnt in his youth when he was a student at Nagyenyed, quickly floored, and, not content with that, sat down on the top of him with his whole weight, so that the poor meagre creature was flattened out beneath him. Magyari at the same time relieved his sprawling hands of their murderous weapons in imitation of the good priest. Kökényesdi admitted to himself that never before had he been in such a hobble. In a stand-up fight he had rarely met his equal, and more than once he had held his own against two or three stout fellows single-handed; but never had he had to do with such a man as Brother Gregory, one of whose hands was quite sufficient to pin his two arms uselessly to his side, while with the other hand he explored his remotest pockets to their ultimate depths and denuded them of every sort of cutting and stabbing instrument. When the robber realized that even his gigantic strength was powerless to drag his antagonist away from the cellar door beneath which his two comrades were vainly thundering, he endeavoured to free himself by resorting to the desperate devices of the wild-beasts, lunging out with his feet and worrying the iron hand of the monk with his teeth; whereupon Brother Gregory also lost his temper and, seizing Kökényesdi by the hair of his head, held him aloft like a young hare, so that he was unable to scratch or bite any more. "Do not plunge about so, dilectissime; you see it is of no use," said the brother, holding the robber so far away from him by his hairy poll with outstretched hand that at last he was obliged to capitulate. "Thou seest what unmercifulness thou dost compel us to adopt, amantissime!" said the brother apologetically, but still holding him aloft with one hand and shaking a reproving finger at him with the other. "Dost thou not shudder at thyself, does not thine own soul accuse thee for coming to plunder holy places? Or dost thou not think of the Kingdom of Hell to the very threshold of which evil resolves have misguided thy feet, and where there will be weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth?" "Let me go, you devil of a friar!" gasped the robber, hoarse with rage. "Not until thou hast come to thyself and art sorry for thy sins," said the brother, still holding in the air his dilectissime, whose eyes by this time were starting out of his head because of the tugging pressure on his hair; "thou must be sorry for thy sins." "I am sorry then, only let me go!" "And wilt thou turn back to the right path?" "Yes, yes, of course I will." "And thou wilt steal no more?" "Not a cockchafer." "Nor curse and swear?" "Never no more." "Very well, then, I'll let thee go. But, colleague Magyari, first of all tie all these daggers and axes together and fling them out of the window." Mr. Magyari, who had meanwhile disposed of the magister by tying his hands and legs so tightly that he was unable to move a muscle, effected the clearance confided to him, while Brother Gregory deposited on the ground his convert, who leaned against the wall breathing heavily. "Well, you monk of hell, give me something to eat if there's anything like a kitchen here." "Oh, my dear son," said the pater tenderly, stroking the face of his lambkin; "believe me, that there is more joy in heaven over one converted sinner----" "You're a devil, not a friar; for if you were a man of God you could not have got over Kökényesdi so easily--Kökényesdi, who was wont to overthrow whole armadas single-handed--and now to be beaten by an unarmed man!" "Thou didst come against me with an axe and a _fokos_,[14] but I came against thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts, and He who permitted David the shepherd to pluck the raging lion by the beard and slay him, hath aided my arm also in order that I might be a blessing to thee." [Footnote 14: Sledge-hammer.] "Blessing indeed!--hang me up! I deserve it for letting myself be collared by a parson." "Oh, my dear son, to attribute such flagrant cruelty to me! Heaven rejoices not in the death of a sinner." "Then let me go!" "How could I let thee go when thou art but half converted? Rather remain here, my son, in this holy seclusion and try and cleanse thy soul by holy penance and prayer." The robber foamed with rage. "Where is there a nail that I may hang myself upon it?" "That thou certainly wilt never be able to do, for a worthy pater shall always be by thy side to teach thee how to sing the Psalter." The robber gnashed his teeth and stamped with his feet as he cast at the terrible brother bloodshot glances very similar to those which a hyena casts upon a beast-tamer whom he would like to tear to bits and grind to mincemeat, but whom he durst not attack, being well aware that if he but lay a paw or even cast an eye upon him he will instantly be felled to the ground. "Besides that," continued the brother, "by way of a first trial thou shalt presently deliver a God-fearing discourse." "I preach a sermon!" "Not exactly a sermon, but inasmuch as thy faithful followers outside the walls of the monastery may be growing impatient at thy long absence, thou wilt stand at a window and, after assuring them of thy heart-felt penitence, thou wilt send the worthy fellows away that they may depart to their own homes." "Very well," said Kökényesdi, thinking all the time, let me once be planted at the window in the sight of my bands and at a word from me they will break up the whole monastery, and I will leap out to them at the first opening. Then Brother Gregory called Magyari aside and whispered in his ear: "You meanwhile will get the carriage ready and take your seat in it with your daughter, and as soon as you perceive that the rabble has departed from the monastery, you will drive straight to Klausenburg and inform Mr. Ebéni, the commandant, that a mixed band of freebooters, together with the garrison of Szathmár, has invaded the realm. I detected a helmet beneath a cowl of one of the rascals I kicked into the cellar. Try to defend the capital against their attacks. God be with you!" The two priests pressed each other's hands, whereupon Brother Gregory, taking the robber by the arms and shoving him through a little low door, in order that no mischief might befall him, caught him by the nape of the neck and began to force him to ascend a narrow corkscrew staircase, two or three steps at a time. It was evening now and dark, and there was nothing about the corkscrew staircase to suggest to the robber whither he was being led till at last the brother opened a trapdoor with his head and emerged with him on to a light place and deposited him in front of a lofty window. The robber's first thought was that he could clear the window at a single bold leap, but one swift glance from the parapet made him recoil with terror; beneath him yawned a depth of at least fifty ells, and, glancing dizzily aloft, he perceived hanging above his head the bells of the monastery. They were in the tower. "So now, my dear son," said the brother, "stand out on this parapet and call in a loud voice to thy faithful ones that they may draw nigh and hear thee. Then thou wilt speak to them, and in case thou shouldst be at a loss for words, I shall be standing close by this bell-tongue to suggest to thee what thou shalt say. But, for God's sake, beware of thyself, dilectissime! Thou seest what a frightful depth is here below thee, and say not to thy faithful followers anything but what I shall suggest to thee, nor give with thy head or thy hand an unbecoming interpretation to thy words, for if thou doest any such thing, take my word for it that at that same instant thou shalt fall from this window, and if once thou dost stumble, thou wilt not stop till thou dost reach the depths of hell." The robber stood at the window with his hair erect with horror. He actually trembled--a thing which had never occurred to him before. His valour, that cold contempt for death which had always accompanied him hitherto, forsook him in this horrible position. He felt that at this giddy height neither dexterity nor audacity were of the slightest use to him. Beneath his feet was the gaping abyss, and behind his back was a man with the strength of a giant from whom a mere push--nay! the mere touch of a finger, or a shout a little louder than usual, were sufficient to plunge him down and dash him into helpless fragments on the rocks below. The desperate adventurer, in a fever of terror never felt before, crouched against one of the pillars of the window clutching at the wall with his hand, and it seemed to him as if the wall were about to give way beneath him, as if the tower were tottering beneath his feet; and he regarded the ground below as if it had some horrible power of dragging him down to it, as if some invisible force were inviting him to leap down from there. Meanwhile his bands, who were lying in ambush outside the monastery, perceived the form of their leader aloft and suddenly darted forward in a body with a loud yell. "Speak to them, attract their attention!" whispered the brother; "quick, mind what I say!" The robber indicated his readiness to comply by a nod of his swimming head, and repeated the words which the brother concealed behind the tongue of the bell whispered in his ear. "My friends" (thus he began his speech), "the priests are collecting their treasures; they are piling them on carts; there are sacks and sacks crammed with gold and silver." A hideous shout of joy from the auditors expressed thorough approval of this sentence. "But the worthy brethren have no wine or provisions in this monastery, but in their cellars at Eger there is plenty, so let two hundred of you go there immediately and get what you want." The freebooters approved of this sentiment also. "As for the desires that you nourish towards the womenfolk here, I am horrified to be obliged to tell you that for the last three days the black death, that most terrible of plagues, which makes the human body black as a coal even while alive, and infects everyone who draws near it, has been raging within the walls of this monastery during the last three days. I should not therefore advise you to break into this monastery, for it is full of dead and dying men, and so swift is the operation of this destroying angel that my three comrades succumbed to it even while I was ascending this tower, and only the Turkish talisman I wear, composed of earth seven times burnt, and the little finger of a baby that never saw the light of day, have preserved me from destruction." By the way, Father Gregory had discovered all these things while he was investigating the robber's pockets. At this terrifying message the horde of robbers began to scatter in all directions from beneath the walls of the monastery. "For the same reason neither I myself nor the treasure of the monastery can leave this place till all the gold and silver that has been found here has been purified first by fire, then by boiling, and then by cold water, lest the black death should infect you by means of them. And now before making a joint attack on Klausenburg, as we had arranged--which, in view of the height of its walls and the strength of its fortress, would scarcely be a safe job to tackle--you will do this instead: Hide yourselves in parties of two hundred in the forests of Magyar-Gorbo, Vista and Szucság, and remain there quietly without showing yourself on the high road; at the same time four hundred of you will go round at night by the Korod road, and the rest of you will make for the Gyalu woods, and go round towards Szász Fenes. Then, when the garrison of Klausenburg hears the rumour that you are approaching by the Korod road, they will come forth with great confidence; and while some of you will be enticing them further on continually, the rest of you can fall on the defenceless town and plunder it. All you have to do is to act in this way and never show yourselves on the high road." The robbers expressed their approval of their leader's advice with a loud howl; and while Kökényesdi tottered back half senseless into the brother's arms, they scattered amongst the woods with a great uproar. In an hour's time all that could be heard of them was a cry or two from the darkened distance. The people assembled in the monastery had been listening to all this in an agony of terror; only Magyari understood the meaning of it. When the brother came down from the tower, Kökényesdi was locked up with his two comrades, and the two reverend gentlemen embraced and magnified each other. "After God, we have your Reverence to thank for our deliverance," said Magyari with warm feeling, holding his trembling little daughter by the hand. "But now we must save Klausenburg," said Gregory. "I will set out this instant; my horse is saddled." "Your Reverence on horseback, eh? How about the girl?" "I will leave her here in your Reverence's fatherly care." "But think." "Could I leave her in a better place than within these walls, which Providence and your Reverence's fists defend so well?" "But what if this robber rabble discover our trick and return upon the monastery with tenfold fury?" "Then I will all the more certainly hasten to defend the walls of your Reverence, because my only child will be within them." With that the pastor kissed the forehead of his daughter, who at that moment was paler than ever, fastened his big copper sword to his side, seized his shaggy little horse by the bridle, opened the door for himself, and, with a stout heart, trotted away on the high road. But the brother summoned into the chapel the whole congregation, and late at night intoned a thanksgiving to the Lord of Hosts; after which Father Gregory got into the pulpit and preached to the faithful a powerful and fulminating sermon, in which he stirred them up to the defence of their altars, and at the end of his sacred discourse he seized with one hand the gigantic banner of the church--which on the occasion of processions three men used to support with difficulty--and so stirred up the enthusiastic people that if at that moment the robbers had been there in front of the monastery, they would have been capable of rushing out of the gates upon them with their crutches and sticks and dashing them to pieces. CHAPTER VII. THE PANIC OF NAGYENYED. While the priests were girding swords upon their thighs, while the lame and the halt were flying to arms in defence of their homes and altars, the chief commandant of the town of Klausenburg, Mr. Ebéni, was calmly sleeping in his bed. The worthy man had this peculiarity that when any of his officers awoke him for anything and told him that this or that had happened, he would simply reply "Impossible!" turn over on the other side, and go on slumbering. Magyari was well aware of this peculiarity of the worthy man, and so when he arrived home, late at night, safe and sound, he wasted no time in talking with Mr. Ebéni, but opened the doors of the church and had all the bells rung in the middle of the night--a regular peal of them. The people, aroused from its sleep in terror at the sound of the church-bells at that unwonted hour, naturally hastened in crowds to the church, where the reverend gentleman stood up before them and, in the most impressive language, told them all that he had seen, described the danger which was drawing near to them beneath the wings of the night, and exhorted his hearers valiantly to defend themselves. The first that Mr. Ebéni heard of the approaching mischief was when ten or twenty men came rushing to him one after another to arouse him and tell him what the parson was saying. When at last he was brought to see that the matter was no joke, he leaped from his bed in terror, and for the life of him did not know what to do. The people were running up and down the streets bawling and squalling; the heydukes were beating the alarm drums; cavalry, blowing their trumpets, were galloping backwards and forwards--and Mr. Ebéni completely lost his head. Fortunately for him Magyari was quickly by his side. "What has happened? What's the matter? What are they doing, very reverend sir?" inquired the commandant, just as if Magyari were the leader of troops. "The mischief is not very serious, but it is close at hand," replied the reverend gentleman. "A band of freebooters--some seventeen companies under the command of a robber chief--have burst into Transylvania, and with them are some regular horse belonging to the garrison of Szathmár. At this moment they cannot be more than four leagues distant from Klausenburg; but they are so scattered that there are no more than four hundred of them together anywhere, so that, with the aid of the gentlemen volunteers and the Prince's German regiments, you ought to wipe them out in detail. The first thing to be done, however, is to warn the Prince of this unexpected event, for he is now taking his pleasure at Nagyenyed." "Your Reverence is right," said Ebéni, "we'll act at once;" and, after dismissing the priest to look after the armed bands and reconnoitre, he summoned a swift courier, and, as in his confusion he at first couldn't find a pen and then upset the inkstand over the letter when he _had_ written it, he at last hurriedly instructed the courier to convey a verbal message to the Prince to the effect that the Szathmárians, in conjunction with the freebooters, had broken into Transylvania with seventeen companies, and were only four hours' march from Klausenburg, and that Klausenburg was now preparing to defend itself. Thus Ebéni gave quite another version to the parson's tidings, for while the parson had only mentioned a few horsemen from the Szathmár garrison he had put the Szathmárians at the head of the whole enterprise, and had reduced the distance of four leagues to a four hours' journey which, in view of the condition of the Transylvanian roads, made all the difference. The courier got out of the town as quickly as possible, and by the time he had reached his destination had worked up his imagination to such an extent that he fancied the invading host had already valiantly covered the four leagues; and, bursting in upon the Prince without observing that the Princess, then in an interesting condition, was with him, blurted out the following message: "The Szathmár garrison with seventeen bands of freebooters has invaded Transylvania and is besieging Klausenburg, but Mr. Ebéni is, no doubt, still defending himself." The Princess almost fainted at these words; while Apafi, leaping from his seat and summoning his faithful old servant Andrew, ordered him to get the carriage ready at once, and convey the Princess as quickly as possible to Gyula-Fehervár, for the Szathmár army, with seventeen companies of Hungarians, had attacked Klausenburg, and by this time eaten up Mr. Ebéni, who was not in a position to defend himself. Andrew immediately rushed off for his horses, had put them to in one moment, in another moment had carried down the Princess' most necessary travelling things, and in the third moment had the lady safely seated, who was terribly frightened at the impending danger. The men loafing about the courtyard, surprised at this sudden haste, surrounded the carriage; and one of them, an old acquaintance of Andrew's, spoke to him just as he had mounted the box and asked him what was the matter. "Alas!" replied Andrew, "the army of Szathmár has invaded Transylvania, has devastated Klausenburg with 17,000 men, and is now advancing on Nagyenyed." Well, they waited to hear no more. As soon as they perceived the Princess's carriage rolling rapidly towards the fortress of Fehervár, they scattered in every direction, and in an hour's time the whole town was flying along the Fehervár road. Everyone hastily took away with him as much as he could carry; the women held their children in their arms; the men had their bundles on their backs and drove their cows and oxen before them; carts were packed full of household goods; and everyone lamented, stormed, and fled for all he was worth. Just at that time there happened to be at Nagyenyed the envoy of the Pasha of Buda, Yffim Beg, who had been sent to the Prince to hasten his march into Hungary with the expected auxiliary army, and who absolutely refused to believe Teleki that they ought to remain where they where, as it was from the direction of Szathmár that an attack was to be feared. The worthy Yffim Beg was actually sitting in his bath when the panic-flight took place; and, alarmed at the noise, he sprang out of the water, and wrapping a sheet round him rushed to the window, and perceiving the terrified flying rabble, cried to one of the passers-by: "Whither are you running? What is going on here?" "Alas, sir!" panted the breathless fugitive, "the Szathmár army, 27,000 strong, has invaded Transylvania, has taken everything in its road, and is now only two hours' march from Nagyenyed." This was quite enough for Yffim Beg also. Hastily tying the bathing-towels round his body and without his turban, he rushed to the stables, flung himself on a barebacked steed and galloped away from Nagyenyed without taking leave of anyone; and did not so much as change his garment till he reached Temesvár, and there reported that the countless armies of Szathmár had conquered the whole of Transylvania! Thus Teleki had gained his object: the Transylvanian troops had now good reasons for staying at home. Yet he had got much more than he wanted, for he had only required of Kászonyi a feigned attack, whereas the band of Kökényesdi had ravaged Transylvania as far as Klausenburg. The fact that the worthy friar and Mr. Ladislaus Magyari had captured the leader of the freebooters made very little difference at all, for the crafty adventurer had bored his way through the wall of his dungeon that very night, and had escaped with his three comrades. Early next morning, on perceiving that his captives had escaped, Father Gregory was terribly alarmed, imagining that they would now bring back the whole robber band against him; and, hastening immediately to collect the whole of the pilgrims, loaded wagons with the most necessary provisions and the treasures of the altar, conducted them among the hills, and there concealed them in the Cavern of Balina, carrying the sick members of his flock one by one across the mountain-streams in front of the cavern and depositing them in the majestic rocky chamber, which more than once had served the inhabitants of the surrounding districts as a place of refuge from the Tartars, having a large open roof through which the smoke could get out, while a stream flowing through it kept them well supplied with drinking-water. In an hour's time fires and ovens, made from fresh leaves and mown grass, stood ready in the midst of the place of refuge; and on a stone pedestal, in the background, always standing ready for such a purpose, an altar was erected. Meanwhile Kökényesdi had hastened to overtake his bands which had scattered at the word of the brother in order to re-unite them before the people of Klausenburg could capture them in detail. Szénasi he dispatched to call back the wanderers who had been sent to the cellars of Eger and besiege the monastery. When Szénasi returned with the two hundred hungry men he only found empty walls, and to make them emptier still--he burnt them down to the ground. He then sat down, and by the light of the conflagration wrote a sarcastic letter to Teleki, in which he informed him with a great show of humility that he had made the required diversion against Transylvania, that he kissed his hand, that he might command him at any future time, and that he was his most humble servant. He had scarcely sent off the letter by a Wallachian gipsy, picked up on the road, when he saw a company of horsemen galloping towards the burning monastery, and recognised in the foremost fugitive Kökényesdi. "It is all up with us!" cried the robber chief from afar, "we are surrounded. All the parsons in the world have become soldiers, and turned their swords against us as if they were Bibles. The Calvinist pastor, the Catholic friar, the Greek priest, and the Unitarian minister--every man jack of them has placed himself at the head of the faithful, and are coming against us with at least twenty thousand men: students, artisans and peasants, the whole swarm is rushing upon us. I and fifty more were set upon by the whole Guild of Shoemakers, who cut down twenty of my men; they were all as mad as hatters, and when the peasants had done with us, the gentlemen took us up: they united with the German dragoons, and pursued my flying army on horseback. Every bit of booty, every slave they have torn from us; this Calvinist Joshua is always close on my heels, not a single one of our infantry can be saved." The robber chief behaved as the leader of robber bands usually do behave. When he had to fight, he fought among the foremost; but when he had to run, then also he was well to the front. When he was beaten, he cared not a jot whether the others got off scot-free, he only thought of saving himself. When he had announced the catastrophe from horseback to the terrified Szénasi, he clapped spurs to his nag, and, without looking back to see whether anyone was following him, he galloped off, and left Szénasi in the lurch with the footmen. The fox is always most crafty when he falls into the snare. The perplexed hypocrite perceived that however quickly he might try to escape, the cavalry would overtake him at Grosswardein and mow him down. Unfortunately, he knew not how to ride, and therefore could not hope to save himself that way. Already the trumpets of the Transylvanian bands were blaring all around him; fiery beacons of pitchy pines were beginning to blaze out from mountain-top to mountain-top; on every road were visible the flying comrades of Kökényesdi, terrifying one another with their shouts of alarm as they rushed through the woods and valleys, not daring to take refuge among the snowy Alps, where the axes of the enraged Wallachians flashed before their eyes; and there was not a single road on which they did not run the risk of being trampled down by the Hungarian banderia and the German dragoons. In that moment of despair Szénasi quickly flung himself into the garments of a peasant, climbed up to the top of a tree, and as soon as he perceived the first band of German horsemen approaching him, he called out to them. "God bless you, my noble gentlemen!" They looked up at these words and told the man to come down from the tree. "No doubt you also have taken refuge from the robbers, poor man!" "Ah! most precious gentlemen! they were not robbers, but German soldiers in Hungarian uniforms who had been sent hither from Szathmár. Take care how you pursue them, for if your German soldiers should meet theirs, it might easily happen that they would join together against you. I heard what they were saying as I understand their language, but I pretended that I did not understand; and while they made me come with them to show them the road, they began talking among themselves, and they said that they had had sure but secret information from the Klausenburg dragoons that they were going to attack the town. The Devil never sleeps, my noble gentlemen!" The good gentlemen were astounded; the intelligence was not altogether improbable, and as, just before, a vagabond had been captured who could speak nothing but German, a mad rumour spread like wild-fire among the Magyars that the dragoons had an understanding with the enemy and wanted to draw them into an ambush; and so the gentlemen told the students, and the students told the mechanics, and by the time it reached the ears of Ebéni and the parsons, there was something very like a mutiny in the army. The gentry suggested that the Germans should be deprived of their swords and horses; the students would have fought them there and then; but the most sensible idea came from the Guild of Cobblers, who would have waited till they had lain down to sleep and then bound and gagged them one by one. Master Szénasi meanwhile went and hunted up the dragoons, whom he found full of zeal for the good cause entrusted to them, and had a talk with them. "Gentlemen!" said he, "what a pity it is, but look now at these Hungarian gentlemen! Well, they are shaking their fists at you, so look to yourselves. Someone has told them that you are acting in concert with the people of Szathmár, so they won't go a step further until they have first massacred the whole lot of you." At this the German soldiers were greatly embittered. Here they were, they said, shedding their blood for Transylvania, and the only reward they got was to be called traitors! So they sounded the alarm, collected their regiments together, took up a defensive position, and for a whole hour the camp of Mr. Ebéni was thrown into such confusion that nothing was easier for Master Szénasi than to hide himself among the fugitives. All night long Mr. Ebéni suffered all the tortures of martyrdom. At one time he was besieged by a deputation from the Magyars, who demanded satisfaction, confirmation, and Heaven only knows what else; while the worthy parsons kept rushing from one end of the camp to the other, with great difficulty appeasing the uproar, enlightening the half-informed, and in particular solemnly assuring both parties that neither the Hungarian gentlemen wanted to hurt the Germans nor the Germans the Hungarians, till light began to dawn on them, and the reconciled parties were convinced, much to their astonishment, that the whole alarm was the work of a single crafty adventurer who clearly enough had gained time to escape from the pursuers when they had him in their very clutches. CHAPTER VIII. THE SLAVE MARKET AT BUDA-PESTH. In the middle of the sixteenth century, Haji Baba, the most celebrated slave-dealer of Stambul, having been secretly informed beforehand, by acquaintances in the Seraglio, that a great host would assemble that summer beneath Pesth, hastily filled his ship with wares before his business colleagues had got an inkling of what was going to happen; and, steering his bark with its precious load through the Black Sea and up the Danube, reached Pesth some time before the army had concentrated there. Casting anchor in the Danube, he adorned his vessel with oriental carpets and flowers, and placing a band of black eunuchs in the prow of the vessel with all sorts of tinkling musical instruments, he set about beating drums till the sound re-echoed from the hills of Buda. The Turks immediately assembled on the bastions of the castle of Buda right opposite, and perceiving the bedizened ship with its flags streaming from the mast and sweeping the waves, thereby giving everyone who wanted to know what sort of wares were for sale there, got into all sorts of little skiffs and let themselves be rowed out thither. The loveliest damsels in the round world were there exhibited for sale. As soon as the first of the Turks had well intoxicated himself with the sight of the sumptuous wares, he hastened back to get his money and come again, telling the dozen or so of his acquaintances whom he met on the way what sort of a spectacle he had seen with no little enthusiasm, and in a very short time hundreds more were hastening to this ship which offered Paradise itself for sale. Hassan Pasha, the then Governor of Buda, perceiving the throng from the windows of his palace, and ascertaining the cause, sent his favourite Yffim Beg to forbid the market to the mob till he, the general, had chosen for himself what girls he wanted; and if there was any one of the slave-girls worthy of consideration, he was to buy her for his harem. Yffim Beg hastened to announce the prohibition, and when the skiffs had departed one by one from the ship, he got into the general's curtained gondola and had himself rowed over to the ship of Haji Baba. The man-seller, perceiving the state gondola on its way to him, went to the ship's side, and waited with a woe-begone face till it had come alongside, and stretched forth his long neck to Yffim Beg that he might clamber up it on to the deck. The Beg, with great condescension, informed the merchant that he had come on behalf of the Vizier of Buda, who was over all the Pashas of Hungary, to choose from among the wares he had for sale. Haji Baba, on hearing this, immediately cast himself to the ground and blessed the day which had risen on these hills, and the water and the oars which had brought the Beg thither, and even the mother who had made the slippers in which Yffim Beg had mounted his ship. Then he kissed the Beg's hand, and having, as a still greater sign of respect, boxed the ears of the eunuch who happened to be nearest to the Beg, for his impertinence in daring to stand so near at all, led Yffim into the most secret of his secret chambers. Heavy gold-embroidered hangings defended the entry to the interior of the ship; after this came a second curtain of dark-red silk, and through this were already audible sweet songs and twittering, and when this curtain was drawn aside by its golden tassels, a third muslin-like veil still stood in front of the entrance through which one could look into the room beyond without being seen by those inside. Fourteen damsels were sporting with one another. Some of them darting in and out from between the numerous Persian curtains suspended from the ceiling, and laughing aloud when they caught each other; one was strumming a mandoline; five or six were dancing a round dance to the music of softly sung songs; another group was swinging one another on a swing made from costly shawls. All of them were so young, all of them were of such superior loveliness, that if the heart had allowed the eye alone to choose for it, mere bewilderment would have made selection impossible. Yffim Beg gazed for a long time with the indifference of a connoisseur, but even his face relaxed at last, and smilingly tapping the merchant on the shoulder, he said to him: "You have been filching from Paradise, Haji Baba!" Haji Baba crossed his hands over his breast and shook his head humbly. "All these girls are my pupils, sir. There is not one of them who resembles her dear mother. From their tenderest youth they have grown up beneath my fostering care; I do no business with grown-up, captured slave-girls, for, as a rule, they only weep themselves to death, grow troublesome, wither away before their time, and upset all the others. I buy the girls while they are babies; it costs a mint of money and no end of trouble before such a flower expands, but at least he who plucks it has every reason to rejoice. Look, sir, they are all equally perfect! Look at that slim lily there dancing on the angora carpet! Did you ever see such a figure anywhere else? How she sways from side to side like the flowering branch of a banyan tree! That is a Georgian girl whom I purchased before she was born. Her father when he married had not money enough for the wedding-feast, so he came to me and sold for a hundred denarii the very first child of his that should be born. Yes, sir, not much money, I know, but suppose the child had never been born? And suppose it had been a son! And how often too, and how easily I might have been cheated! I am sure you could not say that five hundred ducats was too much for her if I named that price. Look, how she stamps down her embroidered slippers! Ah, what legs! I don't believe you could find such round, white, smooth little legs anywhere else! Her price, sir, is six hundred ducats." Yffim Beg listened to the trader with the air of a connoisseur. "Or, perhaps, you would prefer that melancholy virgin yonder, who has sought solitude and is lying beneath the shade of that rose-tree? Look, sir, what a lot of rose-trees I have all about the place! My girls can never bear to be without rose-trees, for roses go best with damsels, and the fragrance of the rose is the best teacher of love. That Circassian girl yonder was captured along with her father and mother; the husband, a rough fellow, slew his wife lest she should fall into our hands, but he had no time to kill his child, for I took her, and now I would not sell her for less than seven hundred ducats; there's no hurry, for she is still quite a child." Here Yffim Beg growled something or other. "Now that saucy damsel swinging herself to and fro on the shawl," continued the dealer, "I got in China, where her parents abandoned her in a public place. She does not promise much at first sight, but touch her and you'll fancy you are in contact with warm velvet. I would let you have her, sir, for five hundred ducats, but I should charge anyone else as much again." Yffim Beg nodded approvingly. "And now do you see that fair damsel who, with a gold comb, is combing out tresses more precious than gold; she came to me from the northern islands, from a ship which the Kapudan Pasha sent to the bottom of the sea. I don't ask you if you ever saw such rich fair tresses before, but I do ask you whether you ever saw before a mortal maid with such a blindingly fair face? When she blushes, it is just as if the dawn were touching her with rosy finger-tips." "Yes, but her face is painted," said Yffim Beg suspiciously. "Painted, sir!" exclaimed Haji Baba with dignity. "Painted faces at my shop! Very well! come and convince yourself." And, tearing aside the muslin veil, he entered the apartment with Yffim Beg. At the sight of the men a couple of the charming hoydens rushed shrieking behind the tapestries, and only after a time poked their inquisitive little heads through the folds of the curtains; but the Georgian beauty continued to dance; the Chinese damsel went on swinging more provocatively than ever; the beauty from the northern islands allowed her golden tresses to go on playing about her shoulders; a fresh, tawny gipsy-girl, in a variegated, elaborately fringed dress, with ribbons in her curly hair, stood right in front of the approaching Beg, eyed him carefully from top to toe, seized part of his silken caftan, and rubbed it between her fingers, as if she wanted to appraise its value to a penny; while a tiny little negro girl with gold bracelets round her hands and legs, fumigated the entering guest with ambergris, naïvely smiling at him all the time with eyes like pure enamel and lips as red as coral. The robber-chapman was right, there was not one of these girls who felt ashamed. They looked at the purchaser with indifference and even complacency, and everyone of them tried to please him in the hope that he would take them where they would have lots of jewels and fine clothes, and slaves to wait on them. Haji Baba led the Beg to the above-mentioned beauty, and raising the edge of her white garment and displaying her blushing face, rubbed it hard, and when the main texture remained white, he turned triumphantly to the seller. "Well, sir! I sell painted faces, do I? Do you suppose that every orthodox shah, emir, and khan would have any confidence in me if I did? Will you not find in my garden those flowers which the Sultana Valideh presents to the greatest of Emperors on his birthday, and which in a week's time the Sultan gives in marriage to those of his favourite Pashas whom he delights to honour? Why, I don't keep Hindu bayaderes simply because they stain their teeth with betel-root and orange yellow, and gild their eyebrows; accursed be he who would improve upon what Allah created perfect! The black girl is lovely because she is black, the Greek because she is brown, the Pole because she is pale, and the Wallach because she is ruddy; there are some who like blonde, and some who like dark tresses; and fire dwells in blue eyes as well as in black; and God has created everything that man may rejoice therein." While the worthy man-filcher was thus pouring himself forth so enthusiastically, Yffim Beg, with a very grave face, was gazing round the apartment, drawing aside every curtain and gazing grimly at the dwellers behind them, who, clad in rich oriental garments, were reclining on divans, sucking sugar-plums and singing songs. Haji Baba was at his back the whole time, and had so much to say of the qualifications of every damsel they beheld, that the Turkish gentleman must have been sorely perplexed which of them to choose. He had got right to the end of the apartment, when unexpectedly peeping into the remotest corner, he beheld a damsel who seemed to be entirely different from all the rest. She was wrapped in a simple white wadding-like garment, only her head was visible; and when the Beg turned towards her, both his eyes and his mouth opened wide, and he stood rooted to the spot before her. It was the face of the Queen in the Kingdom of Beauty. Never had he seen such a look, such burning, glistening, flashing eyes as hers! The proud, free temples, beneath which two passionate eyebrows sparkled like rainbows, even without a diadem dispensed majesty. At the first glance she seemed as savage as Diana surprised in her bath, at the next she was as timorous as the flying Daphne; gradually a tender smile transformed her features, she looked in front of her with a dazed expression like betrayed Sappho gazing at the expanse of ocean in which she would fain extinguish her burning love. "Chapman!" cried the Beg, scarce able to contain himself for astonishment, "would you deceive me by hiding away from me a houri stolen from heaven?" "I assure you, sir," said the chapman, with a look of terror, "that it were better for you if you turned away and thought of her no more." "Haji Baba, beware! if perchance you would sell her to another, or even keep her for yourself, you run the risk of losing more than you will ever make up again." "I tell you, sir, by the beard of my father, look not upon that woman." "Hum! Some defect perhaps!" thought Yffim to himself, and he beckoned to the girl to let down her garment. She immediately complied, and, standing up, stripped her light mantle from her limbs. Ah! how the Beg's eyes sparkled. He half believed that what he saw was not human, but a vision from fairy-land. The damsel's shape was as perfect as a marble statue carved expressly for the altar of the Goddess of Love, and the silver hoop encircling her body only seemed to be there as a girdle in order to show how much whiter than silver was her body. "Curses on your tongue, vile chatterer!" said Yffim Beg, turning upon the chapman. "Here have you been wasting an hour of my time with your empty twaddle, and hiding the beauties of Paradise from my gaze. What's the price of this damsel?" "Believe me, sir, she won't do for you." "What! thou man-headed dog! Dost fancy thou hast to do with beggars who cannot give thee what thou askest? I come hither to buy for Hassan Pasha, the Governor of Buda, who is wont to give two thousand ducats to him who asks him for one thousand." At these words the damsel's face was illuminated by an unwonted smile, and at that moment her large, fiery eyes flashed so at Yffim Beg that _his_ eyes could not have been more blinded if he had been walking on the seashore and two suns had flashed simultaneously in his face, one from the sky and the other from the watery mirror. "It is not that," said the slave merchant, bowing himself to the ground; "on the contrary, I'll let you have the damsel so cheaply that you will see from the very price that I had reserved her for one of the lowest _mushirs_, in case he should take a fancy to her--you shall have her for a hundred dinars." "Thou blasphemer, thou! Dost thou cheapen in this fashion the masterpieces of Nature. Thou shouldst ask ten thousand dinars for her, or have a stroke on the soles of thy feet with a bamboo for every dinar thou askest below that price." The merchant's face grew dark. "Take her not, sir," said he; "you will be no friend to yourself or to your master if you would bring her into his harem." "I suppose," said the Beg, "that the damsel has a rough voice, and that is why she is going so cheaply?" and he ordered her to sing a song to him if she knew one. "Ask her not to do that, sir!" implored the chapman. But, already, he was too late. At the very first word the girl had laid hold of a mandolin, and striking the chords till they sounded like the breeze on an æolian harp, she began to sing in the softest, sweetest, most ardent voice an Arab love-song: "In the rose-groves of Shiraz, In the pale beams of moonlight, In the burning heart's slumber, Love ever is born. "'Midst the icebergs of Altai, On the steps of the scaffold, In the fierce flames of hatred, Love never can die." The Beg felt absolutely obliged to rush forthwith upon Haji Baba and pummel him right and left for daring to utter a word to put him off buying the damsel. The slave-dealer patiently endured his kicks and cuffs, and when the jest was over, he said once more: "And again I have to counsel you not to take the damsel for your master." "What's amiss with her, then, thou big owl? Speak sense, or I'll hang thee up at thine own masthead." "I'll tell you, sir, if only you will listen. That damsel has not belonged to one master only, for I know for certain that five have had her. All five, sir, have perished miserably by poison, the headman's sword, or the silken cord. She has brought misfortune to every house she has visited, and she has dwelt with Tartars, Turks, and Magyars. Against the Iblis that dwells within her, prophets, messiahs, and idols have alike been powerless; ruin and destruction breathe from her lips; he who embraces her has his grave already dug for him, and he who looks at her had best have been born without the light of his eyes. Therefore I once more implore you, sir, to let this damsel go to some poor mushir, whose head may roll off without anybody much caring, and do not convey danger to so high a house as the palace of Hassan Pasha." The Beg shook his head. "I thought thee a sharper, and I have found thee a blockhead," said he, and he signified to the damsel to wrap herself in her mantle and follow him. "Allah is my witness that I warned you; I wash my hands of it," stammered Haji Baba. "The girl will follow me; send thou for the money to my house." "The Prophet seeth my soul, sir. If you are determined to take the damsel, _I_ will not give her to you for money, lest so great a man may one day say that he bought ruin from me. Take her then as a gift to your master." "But I have forgotten to ask the damsel's name?" "I will tell you, but forget not every time that name passes your lips to say: 'Mashallah!' for that woman's name is the name of the devil, and doubtless she does not bear it without good cause, nor will she ever be false to it." "Speak, and chatter not!" "That damsel's name is Azrael ... Allah is mighty!" CHAPTER IX. THE AMAZON BRIGADE. It was three days since Azrael had come into the possession of Hassan Pasha, and in the evening of the third day Haji Baba was sitting in the prow of his ship and rejoicing in the beautiful moonlight when he saw, a long way off, in the direction of the Margaret island a skiff, and then another skiff, and then another, row across the Danube, and heard heart-rending shrieks which only lasted for a short time. Presently the skiffs disappeared among the trees on the river bank, the last hideous cry died away, and from the rose-groves of the castle came a romantic song which resounded over the Danube through the silent night. The merchant recognised the voice of the odalisk, and listened attentively to it for a long time, and it seemed to him as if through this song those shrieks were passing incessantly. The next day Yffim Beg came to see him, and the merchant hospitably welcomed him. He set before him a narghile and little cups of sherbet, and then they settled down comfortably to their pipes, but neither of them uttered a word. Thus a good hour passed away; then at last Haji Baba opened his mouth. "During the night I saw some skiffs row out towards the island, and I heard the sound of stifled shrieks." And then they both continued to pull away at their narghiles, and another long hour passed away. Then Yffim Beg arose, pressed the hand of Haji Baba, and said, just as he was moving off: "They were the favourite damsels of Hassan Pasha, who had been sewn up in leathern sacks and flung into the water." Haji Baba shook his head, which signifies with a Turk: I anticipated that. Not long afterwards the whole host began to assemble below Pesth, encamping on the bank of the Danube; a bridge suddenly sprang into sight, and across it passed army corps, heavy cannons and wagons. First there arrived from Belgrade the Vizier Aga, with a bodyguard of nine thousand men, and pitched their tents on the Rákás; after him followed Ismail Pasha, with sixteen thousand Janissaries, and their tents covered the plain. The Tartar Khan's disorderly hordes, which might be computed at forty thousand, extended over the environs of Vácz; and presently Prince Ghyka also arrived with six thousand horsemen, and along with him the picked troops of the Vizier of Buda; the whole army numbered about one hundred thousand. So Haji Baba did a roaring trade. There were numerous purchasers among so many Turkish gentlemen; there was something to suit everyone, for the prices were graduated; and Haji thought he might perhaps order up a fresh consignment from his agents at Belgrade, hoping to sell this off rapidly so long as the camp remained. But he very much wanted to know how long the concentration would go on, and how many more gentlemen were still expected to join the host, and with that object he sought out Yffim Beg. The Beg answered straightforwardly that nearly everyone who had a mind to come was there already. The Prince of Transylvania had treacherously absented himself from the host, and only Kucsuk Pasha and young Feriz Beg's brigades were still expected; without them the army would move no farther. At the mention of these names Haji Baba started. "You have as good as made me a dead man, sir. I must now go back to Stambul with my whole consignment." "Art thou mad?" "No, but I shall become bankrupt, if I wait for these gentlemen. Never, sir, can I live in the same part of the world, sir, with those fine fellows, whom may Allah long preserve for the glory of our nation! I have two houses on the opposite shores of the Bosphorus, so that when these noble gentlemen are in Europe I may be in Asia, and when they come to Asia I may sail over to Europe." "Thou speakest in riddles." "Then you have not heard the fame of Feriz Beg?" "I have heard him mentioned as a valiant warrior." "And how about the brigade of damsels which is wont to follow him into battle?" Yffim Beg burst out laughing at these words. "It is easy for you to laugh, sir, for you have never dealt in damsels like me. But you should know that what I tell you is no jest, and Feriz Beg is as great a danger to every man who trades in women as plague or small-pox." "I never heard of this peculiarity of his." "But I have. I tell you this Feriz Beg is a youth with magic power, in whose eyes is hidden a talisman, whose forehead is inscribed with magic letters, and from whose lips flow sorcery and magic spells, so that whenever he looks upon a woman, or whenever she hears his words even through a closed door, that woman is lost for ever. Just as he upon whom the moon shines when he is asleep is obliged to follow the moon from thenceforth, so, too, this young man draws after him with the moonbeams of his eyes all the women who look upon him. Ah! many is the great man who has cursed the hour in which Feriz Beg galloped past his windows and thereby turned the heads of the most beauteous damsels. Even the Grand Vizier himself has wept the loss of his favourite bayadere Zaida, who descended from his windows by a silken cord into the sea, and swam after the ship which bore along Feriz Beg; and one night my kinsman, Kutub Alnuma, who is a far greater slave merchant than I am, was, while he slept, tied hand and foot by his own damsels to whom he heedlessly had pointed out Feriz Beg, and the whole lot incontinently ran after him." "And what does the youth do with all these women?" "Oh, sir, that is the most marvellous part of the whole story. For if he culled all the fairest flowers of earth for the sake of love, I would say that he was a wise man, who tasted the joys of Paradise beforehand. But it is quite another thing, sir. You will be horrified when I tell you that he at whose feet all the beauties of earth fling themselves, never so much as greets one of them with a kiss." "Is he sick, then, or mad?" "He loves another damsel, a Christian girl, who is far from here, and for whom he has pined from the days of his childhood. At the time of his first battle he saw this girl for the first time, and as often as he has gone to war since, it is always with her name upon his lips that he draws his sword." "And what happens to the girls he takes away?" "When the first of these flung themselves at his feet, offering him their hearts and their very lives and imploring him to kill them if he would not requite their love, to them he replied: 'You have not been taught to love as I love. Your love awoke in the shadows of rose-bushes, mine amidst the flashing of swords; you love sweet songs, and the voice of the nightingale, I love the sound of the trumpet. If you would love me, love as I do; if you would be with me, come whither I go; and if Allah wills it, die where I die.' Ah, sir, there is an accursed charm on the lips of this young man. He destroys the hearts of the damsels with his words so that they forget that Allah gave them to men as playthings and delightful toys, and they gird swords upon their tender thighs, fasten cuirasses of mail round their bosoms, and expose their fair faces to deadly swords." "And do these women really fight, or is it all a fable?" "They do wonders, sir. No one has ever seen them fly before the foe, and frequently they are victorious; and if they have less strength in their arms than men, they have ten times more fire in their hearts. And if at any one point the fight is most dogged, and the enemy collecting together his most valiant bands has tired out the hardly-pressed spahis and timariots, then the youth draws his sword and plunges into the blackest of mortal peril. And then the wretched women all plunge blindly after him, and each one of them tries to get nearest to him, for they know that every weapon is directed against him, and they ward off with their bosoms the bullets which were meant for him. And so long as the youth remains there, or presses forward, they never leave him, the whole battalion perishes first. And at last, if he wins the fight and remains master of the field, the youth dismounts from his horse, collects the bodies of the slain who have fallen fighting beside him, kisses them one by one on their foreheads, sheds tears on their pale faces, and with his own hands lays them in the grave. And, believe me, sir, these bewitched, enchanted damsels are mad after that kiss, and their only wish is to gain it as soon as possible." "And is there none to put an end to this scandal? Have the generals no authority to abolish this abomination? Do not the outraged owners demand back their slave-girls?" "You must know, sir, that Feriz Beg stands high in the favour of the Sultan. He is never prominent anywhere but on the battlefield, but there he gives a good account of himself; and if anybody who came to his tents to try and recover his slave-girls by force, he might easily be sent about his business minus his nose and ears. Besides, who could say that these warriors of Feriz are women? Do they not dispense thrusts and slashes instead of kisses? Do you ever hear them sing or see them dance and smile so long as they are under canvas? Oh, sir, I assure you that you would do well if you told all those who buy slave-girls from me to guard the damsels from the enchanting dark eyes of this man, for there is a talisman concealed in them. And, in particular, forget not to tell your master to conceal his damsel, for you know not what might happen if a magician caused a female Iblis[15] to enter into her. If an enamoured woman is terrible, what would an enamoured she-devil be? You bought her, take care that she does not sell you! The day before yesterday you threw his favourite women into the water, the day after to-morrow you might----but Allah guard my tongue, I will not say what I would. Watch carefully, that's all I'll say. Yet to keep a watch upon women is the most difficult of sciences. If you want to get into a beleagured fortress, hide an enamoured woman in it, and she'll very soon show you the way in. Take heed to what I say, sir, for if you forget my words but for half an hour, I would not give my little finger-nail for your head." [Footnote 15: Evil spirit.] Whereupon Yffim Beg arose without saying a word and withdrew, deeply pondering the words of the slave-dealer. But Haji Baba that same night drew up his anchors, and at dawn he had vanished from the Danube, none knew whither. CHAPTER X. THE MARGARET ISLAND. On the Margaret island, in the bosom of the blue Danube, was the paradise of Hassan Pasha, and to behold its treasures was death. At every interval of twenty yards stands a eunuch behind the groves of the island with a long musket, and if any man fares upon the water within bullet-reach, he certainly will never tell anyone what he saw. Paradise exhales every intoxicating joy, every transient delight; it is full of flowers, and no sooner does one flower bloom than another instantly fades away; and this also is the fate of those flowers which are called damsels, for some of these likewise fade in a day, whilst others are culled to adorn the table of the favourite. This, I say, is the fate of all the flowers, and frequently in those huge porcelain vases which stand before Azrael's bed, among its wreaths of roses and pomegranate flowers, one may see the head of an odalisk with drooping eyes who yesterday was as bright and merry as her comrades, the rose and pomegranate blossoms. Oh, that woman is a veritable dream! Since he possessed her Hassan Pasha is no longer a man, but a piece of wax which receives the impression of her ideas. He hears nothing but her voice, and sees nothing but her. Already they are beginning to say that Hassan Pasha no longer recognizes a man ten feet off, and is no longer able to distinguish between the sound of the drum and the sound of the trumpet. And it is true, but whoever said so aloud would be jeopardizing his head, for Hassan would conceal his failings for fear of being deprived of the command of the army if they became generally known. All the better does Yffim Beg see and hear, Yffim Beg who is constantly about Azrael; if he were not such an old and faithful favourite of Hassan Pasha he might almost regret that he has such good eyes and ears. But Azrael's penetrating mind knows well enough that Yffim Beg's head stands much more firmly on his shoulders than stand the heads of those whom Hassan Pasha sacrifices to her whims, so she flatters him, and it is all the worse for him that she does flatter. Hassan Pasha, scarce waiting for the day to end and dismissing all serious business, sat him down in his curtained pinnace, known only to the dwellers on the fairy island, and had himself rowed across to his hidden paradise, where, amidst two hundred attendant damsels, Azrael, the loveliest of the living, awaits him in the hall of the fairy kiosk, round whose golden trellis work twine the blooms of a foreign sky. Yffim Beg alone accompanies the Pasha thither. The Governor, after embracing the odalisk, strolled thoughtfully through the labyrinth of fragrant trees where the paths were covered by coloured pebbles and a whole army of domesticated birds made their nests in the trees. Yffim Beg follows them at a little distance, and not a movement escapes his keen eyes, not so much as a sigh eludes his sharp ears; he keeps a strict watch on all that Azrael does and says. In the midst of their walk--they hadn't gone a hundred paces--a falcon rose before them from among the trees and perched on a poplar close by. "Look, sir, what a beautiful falcon!" cried Yffim Beg. Azrael laughed aloud and looked back. "Oh, my good Beg, how canst thou take a wood-pigeon for a falcon? why it _was_ a wood-pigeon." "I took good note of it, Azrael, and there it is sitting on that poplar." "Why, that's better still--now he calls a nut-tree a poplar. Eh, eh! worthy Beg, thou must needs have been drinking a little to see so badly." "Well, that was what I fancied," said the Beg, much perplexed, and for the life of him not perceiving the point of the jest. Why should the odalisk make a fool of him so? "But look then, my love," said Azrael, appealing to the Pasha; "thou didst see that bird fly away from the tree yonder, was it not a wood-pigeon flying from a nut-tree?" Hassan saw neither the tree nor the bird, but he pretended he did, and agreed with the odalisk. "Of course it was a wood-pigeon and a nut-tree." Yffim Beg did not understand it at all. They went on further, and presently Yffim Beg again spoke. "Shall we not turn, my master, towards that beautiful arcade of rose-trees?" Azrael clapped her hands together in amazement. "What! an arcade of roses! Where is it?" "Turn in that direction and thou wilt see it." "These things! Why if he isn't taking some sumach trees full of berries for an arcade of rose-trees!" Hassan Pasha laughed. As for Yffim Beg he was lost in amazement--why did this damsel choose to jest with him in this fashion? At that moment a cannon shot resounded from the Pesth shore. "Ah!" said the Pasha, stopping, "a cannon shot!" "Yes, my master," said Yffim, "from the direction of Pesth." "From Pesth indeed," said Azrael, "it was from Buda; it was the signal for closing the gate." "I heard it plainly." "Excuse me, my good Beg, but thy hearing is as bad as thy sight. I am beginning to be anxious about thee. How could it be from the direction of Pesth when the whole camp has crossed over to Buda?" "Maybe a fresh host has arrived, which now awaits us." "Come," cried Azrael, seizing Hassan's hand, "we will find out at once who is right;" and she hastened with them to the shore of the island. On the further bank the camp of Feriz Beg was visible; they were just pitching their tents on the side of the hills. A company of cavalry was just going down to the water's-edge, at whose head ambled a slim young man whose features were immediately recognised, even at that distance, both by the favourite Beg and the favourite damsel. Only Hassan saw nothing; in the distance everything was to him but a blur of black and yellow. "Well, what did I say?" exclaimed Yffim Beg triumphantly; "that is the camp of Feriz Beg, and there is Feriz himself trotting in front of them." The words were scarce out of his mouth when the terrible thought occurred to him that Azrael had no business to be looking upon this strange man. The odalisk, laughing loudly, flung herself on Hassan's neck. "Ha, ha, ha! the worthy Beg takes the water-carrying girls for an army!" Then Yffim Beg began to tremble, for he perceived now whither this woman wanted to carry her joke. "My master," said he, "forbid thy slave-girl to make a fool of me. The camp of Feriz Beg is straight in front of us, and thou wilt do well to prevent thy maid-servant from looking at these men with her face unveiled." "Allah! thou dost terrify me, good Beg!" said Azrael, feigning horror so admirably that Hassan himself felt the contagion of it. "Say! where dost thou see this camp?" "There, on the water-side; dost thou not see the tents on the hillocks?" "Surely it is the linen which these girls are bleaching." "And that blare of trumpets?" "I only hear the merry songs that the girls are singing." In his fury Yffim Beg plucked at his beard. "My master, this devilish damsel is only mocking us." "Thou art suffering from deliriums," said Azrael, with a terrible face, "or thou art under a spell which makes thee see before thee things which exist not. Contradict me not, I beg; this hath happened to thee once before. Dost thou not remember when thou fleddest from Transylvania how, then also, thou didst maintain that the enemy was everywhere close upon thy heels! Thou also then wert under the spell of a hideous enchantment, for thy eunuch horseman who remained behind at Nagyenyed, and is now a sentinel on this island, hath told me that there was no sign of any enemy for more than twenty leagues around, and he remained waiting for thee for ten days and fancied thou wert mad. Most assuredly some evil sorcery made thee fly before an imaginary enemy without thy turban or tunic." Yffim Beg grew pale. He felt that he must surrender unconditionally to this infernal woman. "Was it so, Yffim?" cried Hassan angrily. "Pardon him, my lord," said Azrael soothingly; "he was under a spell then, as he is now. Thou art bewitched, my good Yffim." "Really, I believe I am," he stammered involuntarily. "But I will turn away the enchantment," said the damsel; and tripping down to the water's-edge she moistened her hand and sprinkled the face of the Beg, murmuring to herself at the same time some magic spell. "Now look and see!" The Beg did all that he was bidden to do. "Who, then, are these walking on the bank of the Danube?" "Young girls," stammered the Beg. "And those things spread out yonder." "Wet linen." "Dost thou not hear the songs of the girls?" "Certainly I do." "Look now, my master, what wonders there are beneath the sun!" said Azrael, turning towards Hassan Pasha; "is it not marvellous that Yffim should see armies when there is nothing but pretty peasant girls?" "Miracles proceed from Allah, but methinks Yffim Beg must have very bad sight to mistake maidens for men of war." Yffim Beg durst not say to Hassan Pasha that he also had bad sight; he might just as well have pronounced his own death sentence at once. Hassan wanted to pretend to see all that his favourite damsel pointed out, and she proceeded to befool the pair of them most audaciously in the intimate persuasion that Hassan would not betray the fact that he could not see, while Yffim Beg was afraid to contradict lest he should be saddled with that plaguy Transylvanian business. Meanwhile, on the opposite bank, Feriz Beg in a sonorous voice was distributing his orders and making his tired battalions rest, galloping the while an Arab steed along the banks of the Danube. The odalisk followed every movement of the young hero with burning eyes. "I love to hear the songs of these damsels; dost not thou also, my master?" she inquired of Hassan. "Oh, I do," he answered hastily. "Wilt thou not sit down beside me here on the soft grass of the river bank?" The Pasha sat down beside the odalisk, who, lying half in his bosom, with her arm round his neck, followed continually the movements of Feriz with sparkling eyes. "Look, my master!" said she, pointing him out to Hassan; "look at that slim, gentle damsel, prominent among all the others, walking on the river's bank. Her eyes sparkle towards us like fire, her figure is lovelier than a slender flower. Ah! now she turns towards us! What a splendid, beauteous shape! Never have I seen anything so lovely. Why may I not embrace her--like a sister--why may I not say to her, as I say to thee, 'I love thee, I live and die for thee?'" And with these words the odalisk pressed Hassan to her bosom, covering his face with kisses at every word; and he, beside himself with rapture, saw everything which the girl told him of, never suspecting that those kisses, those embraces, were not for him but for a youth to whom his favourite damsel openly confessed her love beneath his very eyes! And Yffim Beg, amazed, confounded, stood behind them, and shaking his head, bethought him of the words of Haji Baba, "Cast forth that devil, and beware lest she give you away!" CHAPTER XI. A STAR IN HELL. Let the gentle shadows of night descend which guard them that sleep from the eyes of evil spectres! Let the weary errant bee rest in the fragrant chalice of the closed flower. Everything sleeps, all is quiet, only the stars and burning hearts are still awake. What a gentle, mystical song resounds from among the willows, as of a nightingale endowed with a human voice in order to sing to the listening night in coherent rhymes the song of his love and his melancholy rapture. It is the poet Hariri whom, sword in hand, they call Feriz Beg, "The Lion of Combat," but who, when evening descends, and the noise and tumult of the camp are still, discards his coat of mail, puts on a light grey _burnush_, and, lute in hand, strolls through the listening groves and by the side of the murmuring streams and calls forth languishing songs from the depths of his heart and the strings of his lute, uninterrupted by the awakening appeals of the trumpet. Many a pale maid opens her window to the night at the sound of these magic songs--and becomes all the paler from listening to them. The eunuchs steal softly along the banks of the Margaret Island with their long muskets, and stop still and watch for any suspicious skiff drawing near to the island; and the most wakeful of them is old Majmun, who, even when he is asleep, has one eye open, and in happier times was the guardian of the harem. He sits down on a hillock, and even a carrier-pigeon with a letter under its wings could not have eluded his vigilance. He has only just arrived on the island, having previously accompanied Yffim Beg into Transylvania, and therefore has only seen Azrael once. His eyes roam constantly around, and his sharp ears detect even the flight of a moth or a beetle, yet suddenly he feels--some one tapping him on the shoulder. He turns terrified, and behold Azrael standing behind him. "Accursed be that singing over yonder. I was listening to it, so did not hear thee approach. What dost thou want? Why dost thou come hither in the darkness of night? How didst thou escape from the harem?" "I prythee be quiet!" said the odalisk. "This evening I went a-boating with my master, and a gold ring dropped from my finger into the water; it was a present from him, and if to-morrow he asks: 'Where is that ornament?' and I cannot show it him, he will slay me. Oh, let me seek for it here in the water." "Foolish damsel, the water here is deep; it will go over thy head, and thou wilt perish." "I care not; I must look for it. I must find the ring, or lose my life for it." And the odalisk said the words in such an agony of despair that the eunuch was quite touched by it. "Thou shouldst entrust the matter to another." "If only I could find someone who can dive under the water, I would give him three costly bracelets for it; I would give away all my treasures." "I can dive," said Majmun, seized by avarice. "Oh, descend then into the water for me," implored the damsel, falling on her knees before him and covering the horny hand of the slave with her kisses. "But art thou not afraid of being suffocated? For then in the eyes of the governor I should be twice guilty." "Fear not on my account. In my youth I was a pearl-fisher in the Indian Ocean, and I can remain under water and look about me like a fish, even at night, while thou dost count one hundred. Only show me the place where the ring fell from thy finger." Azrael drew a pearl necklace from her arm and casting it into the water, pointed at the place where it fell. "It was on the very spot where I have cast that; if thou dost fetch up both of them for me, the second one shall be thine." Majmun perceived that this was not exactly a joke, and laying aside his garment and his weapon, bade the damsel look after them, and quickly slipped beneath the water. In a few seconds the eunuch's terrified face emerged above the water and he struck out for the shore with a horrified expression. "This is an evil spot," said he; "at the bottom of the water is a heap of human heads." "I know it," said the odalisk calmly. The eunuch was puzzled. He gazed up at her, and was astounded to observe that in the place of the sensitive, supplicating figure so lately there, there now stood a haughty, awe-inspiring woman, who looked down upon him like a queen. "Those heads there are the heads of thy comrades," said Azrael to the astounded eunuch, "whom last night and the preceding nights I asked to do me a service, which they refused to do. Next day I accused them to the governor and he instantly had their heads cut off without letting them speak." "And what service didst thou require?" "To swim to the opposite shore and give this bunch of flowers to that youth yonder." "Ha! thou art a traitor." "No such thing. All I ask of thee is this: dost thou hear those songs in that grove yonder? Very well, swim thither and give him this posy. If thou dost not, thy head also will be under the water among the heap of the others. But if thou dost oblige me I will make thee rich for the remainder of thy life. It is in thine own power to choose whether thou wilt live happily or die miserably." "But I have a third choice, and that is to kill thee," cried the eunuch, gnashing his teeth. Azrael laughed. "Thou blockhead! Whilst thou wert still under the water it occurred to me to fill thy musket with earth and gird thy dagger to my side. Utter but a cry and thou wilt have no need to wait for to-morrow to lay thy head at thy feet." At these words the damsel squeezed the eunuch's arm so emphatically that he bent down before her. "What dost thou command?" "I have already told thee." "I am playing with my own head." "That is not as bad as if I were playing with it." "What dost thou want of me?" "I want thee to row me across to the opposite shore." "There is only one skiff on the island, and in that Yffim Beg is wont to fish." "Oh, why have I never learnt to swim!" cried Azrael, collapsing in despair. "What! wouldst thou swim across this broad stream?" "Yes, and I'll swim across it now, this instant." "Those are idle words. If thou art not a devil thou wilt drown in this river if thou canst not swim." "Thou shalt swim with me. I will put one hand on thy shoulder to keep me up." "Thou art mad, surely! Only just now thou didst threaten me with death, and now thou wouldst trust thy life to me! I need only hold thee under for a second or two to be rid of thee for ever. Water is a terrible element to him who cannot rule over it, the dwellers beneath the waves are merciless." "By putting my life into thy hands I show thee that I fear thee not. Lead me through the water!" "Thou art mad, but I still keep my senses. Go back to the Vizier's kiosk while he hath not noticed thy absence. I will not betray thee." "Then thou wilt not go with me?" said the odalisk darkly. "May I never see thee again if I do so," said Majmun resolutely, sitting down on a hillock. "Wretched slave!" cried Azrael in despair, "then I will go myself." And with that she cast herself into the water from the high bank. Majmun, unable to prevent her leap, plunged in after her and soon emerged with her again on the surface of the water, holding the woman by her long hair. She suddenly embraced the eunuch with both arms, turned in the water so as to come uppermost and raising her head from the waves, cried fiercely to the submerged eunuch: "Go to the opposite shore, or we'll drown together." The eunuch, after a short, desperate struggle, becoming convinced that he could not free himself from the arms of the damsel who held him fast like a gigantic serpent, with a tremendous wrench contrived to bring his head above the water and cried unwillingly: "I'll lead thee thither." "Hasten then!" cried Azrael, releasing him from her arms and grasping the woolly pate of the swimmer with one hand; "hasten!" The eunuch swam onwards. Nothing was to be seen but a white and a black head moving closely together in the darkness and the long tresses of the damsel floating on the surface of the waves. "Is the bank far?" she presently asked the slave, for she was somewhat behind and could not see in front of her. "Art thou afraid?" "I fear that I may not be able to see it." "We shall be at the other side directly. The stream is broad just now, for the Danube is in flood." A few minutes later the negro felt firm ground beneath his feet, and the odalisk perceived the branch of a willow drooping above her face. Quickly seizing it, she drew herself out of the water. Softly and tremulously she ran towards the grove of trees which concealed what she sought, and on perceiving the singer, whose enchanting tones had enticed her across the water, she stood there all quivering, holding back her breath, and with one hand pressed against her bosom. The young singer was sitting on a silver linden-tree. He had just finished his song, and had placed the lute by his side, and was gazing sadly before him with his handsome head resting against his hand as if he would have summoned back the spirit which had flown far far away on the wings of his melody. "Now thou canst speak to him," said Majmun to the damsel. Azrael stood there, leaning against a weeping willow and gazing, motionless, at the youth. "Hasten, I say. The night is drawing to an end and we have to get back again. Wherefore dost thou hesitate when thou hast come so far for this very thing?" The odalisk sighed softly, and leant her head against the mossy tree trunk. "Thou saidst thou wouldst rush to him, embrace his knees, and greet him with thy lips, and now thou dost stand as if rooted to the spot by spells." The damsel slowly sank upon her knees and hid her face in her garment. "The girl is really crazy," murmured the negro; "if thou hast come hither only to weep, thou couldst have done that just as well on the other side." At that moment the voice of a bugle horn rang out from a distance through the silent night, whereupon the singer, suddenly transformed into a warrior, sprang to his feet. It was the first _reveille_ from the camp of Buda to awake the sleepers, and Hariri disappeared to become Feriz Beg again, who, drawing his sword, quickly hastened away from among the willow-trees, and in his hurry forgot his lute beneath a silver birch. "Thou seest he has departed from thee," cried the negro malevolently, seizing the damsel's hand. "Hasten back with me while yet there is time." The girl arose--holding her breath as she gazed after the youth--and waited till he had disappeared among the bushes; then she drew forth the wreath of flowers which she had hidden in her bosom, and took a step forward, listening till the retreating footsteps had died away, and then suddenly rushed towards the abandoned lute, pressed it to her heart, covered it with kisses, and fell down beside it filled with agony and rapture. Then she took the wreath and cast it round the lute, and the wreath was composed of these flowers: A rose. What does a rose signify in the language of love?--"I love thee, I am happy." Then a pomegranate-flower, which signifies: "I love none but thee!" Then a pink, which signifies: "I wither for love of thee." Then a balsam, which signifies: "I dare not approach thee." And, finally, a forget-me-not, which signifies: "Let us live or die together." This wreath the odalisk fastened together with a lock of her own hair, which signifies: "I surrender my life into thy hands!" For a Turkish woman never allows a lock of her hair to pass into the hand of a stranger, believing, as she does, that whoever possesses it has the power to ruin or slay her, to deprive her either of her reason or her life. Majmun gazed at her in astonishment. Was this all she had come for through so many terrible dangers? "Hasten, damsel, with thine incantations," said he, "the camp is now aroused and the dawn is at hand." Azrael cast a burning kiss with her hand in the direction whither Feriz had disappeared; then returning to the slave, she said, with her usual commanding voice: "Remain here and count up to six hundred without looking after me, and by that time I shall have come back." Majmun counted up to six hundred with a loud voice. Meanwhile, Azrael ran along the dam of the river bank till she came to the sluice, which she raised by the exertion of her full strength. The liberated water began to flow through the opening with a mighty roar. Then Azrael hastened back to the negro. "And now for the island," said she. And once more they traversed the dangerous way, Azrael lying on her back with a hand on the negro's head. In her bosom was a poplar leaf, which afforded her great satisfaction. On reaching the island Azrael richly recompensed the negro, and said to him: "To-morrow morning, at dawn, thy master, Yffim Beg, will seek thee and command thee to accompany him and Hassan Pasha across the bridge to the other side where stands the camp of Feriz Beg. Thou wilt find no one there, but look at the place where we were this night, and if thou shouldst find there a nosegay or a wreath, bring it to me!" Majmun listened with amazement. How could Azrael have found out all about these things? Azrael returned to the kiosk, where Hassan Pasha was still sleeping the deep sleep of opium. He awoke in the arms of his favourite, and he could not understand why her hands were so cold and her kisses so burning. The odalisk told him she had been dreaming. She had dreamt that she swam across the river enticed by the singing of the Peris. Hassan smiled. "Go on sleeping, and continue thy dream," said he. The sun was high in the heaven when Hassan Pasha quitted the kiosk. Yffim Beg was awaiting him. "Wilt thou not ride to Pesth there to mark out the place for the camp of Feriz Beg, who has just arrived?" Azrael shrewdly guessed that Yffim Beg was for leading the Governor to the Pesth shore to satisfy him as to the peasant girls whom he was said to have mistaken for soldiers by some evil enchantment. She also thought how convenient it would be for her that they should take Majmun with them for the whole day. Hassan accordingly accepted Yffim's invitation, and galloped with him and Majmun over to the opposite shore, where Yffim was amazed to discover that not a soul of Feriz Beg's host was visible. In the night the suddenly released water had covered the whole ground of their camp, and they had been obliged to retire farther away from the river and seek another encampment beyond Pesth. Yffim Beg would have liked to have torn out his beard in his wrath if he had not been restrained by the general's presence. But Majmun, under the pretext of clearing the way, reconnoitred the scene of yesterday's interview, and there, in the roots of the silver birch, he found that a wreath had been deposited. He concealed it beneath his _burnush_, and carried it home to Azrael. The wreath was composed of two pieces--a branch of laurel and a spray of thorn. The damsel bowed her head before this answer. She knew that it signified: "Suffer if thou wouldst prevail!" CHAPTER XII. THE BATTLE OF ST. GOTHARD. It was a beautiful summer evening; there was a half-moon in the sky, and a hundred other half-moons scattered over the hillocks below. The Turkish host had encamped among the hills skirting the river Raab. Concerning this particular new moon, we find recorded in the prophetic column of the "Kaossa Almanack" for the current year that it was to be: "To the Germans, help in need; To the Turks, fortune indeed; To the Magyars, power to succeed. And whoever's not ill Shall of health have his fill, For 'tis Heaven's own will." The worthy astrologer forgot, however, to find out in heaven whether there are not certain quarters of the moon beneath which man may easily die even if they are not sick. The great Grand Vizier Kiuprile, after resting on the ruins of Zerinvár, turned towards the borders of Styria and united with the army of the Pasha of Buda, below St. Gothard. Kiuprile's host consisted for the most part of cavalry, for his infantry was employed in digging trenches round Zerinvár, whose commandant, in reply to an invitation to surrender the fortress and not attempt to defend it with six hundred men against thirty thousand, jestingly responded: "As one Hungarian florin is worth ten Turkish piasters, one Hungarian warrior necessarily must be worth ten Turkish warriors." And what is more, the worthy man made good this rate of exchange, for when the victors came to count up the cost, they found that for six hundred Hungarians they had had to pay six thousand Osmanlis into the hands of his Majesty King Death. Kiuprile had then pursued the armies of the Emperor, but they refused to stand and fight anywhere; and while their enemies were marching higher and higher up the banks of the Raab, they seemed to be withdrawing farther and farther away on the opposite shore. The army of the Pasha of Buda should have gone round at the rear of the imperial forces, in order to unite with the Pasha of Érsekújvár, the former having previously cut off every possibility of a retreat; but Hassan, as an independent general, did not follow the directions sent him, simply because they came from Kiuprile, and he also made straight for the Raab by forced marches, in order to wrest the opportunity of victory from his rival. Thus the two armies came together, on July 30th, below the romantic hills of St. Gothard, each army pitching its tents on the right bank of the river, and occupying the summits of the hills, which commanded a view of the whole region. And certainly the worthy gentlemen showed no bad taste when they took a fancy to that part of the kingdom. In every direction lay the yellow acres, from which the terrified peasants had not yet reaped the standing corn; to the right were the gay vineyard-clad hills; to the left the dark woods and stretch upon stretch of undulating meadow-land, bisected by the winding ribbon of the Raab. On a hill close by stood the gigantic pillared portico of the Monastery of St. Gothard, with fair pleasure-groves at its base. Farther away were the towers of four or five villages. The setting sun, as if desirous of making the district still more beautiful, enwrapped it in a veil of golden mist. "Thou dog!" cried Hassan Pasha to the peasant who alone received the terrible guests in the abandoned cloisters, "this region is far too beautiful for the like of you monks to dwell in. But you will not be in it long, my good sirs, for I mean to take it for myself. The peasant after all is lord here. He eats his own bread and he drinks his own wine, and he has a couple of good garments to draw over his head. But stop, things shall be very different, for I shall have a word to say about it." The honest peasant took off his cap. "God grant," said he, "that more and more of you may dwell in my domains, and that I may build your houses for you." The man was a grave-digger. Hassan Pasha and his suite occupied the monastery, whose vestibule was filled with priests and magistrates from every quarter of the kingdom, whose duty it was to collect and bring in provisions and taxes due to the Turkish Government. And what they brought in was never sufficient, and therefore the poor creatures had to send deputies as hostages from time to time, who followed their lords on foot wherever they went, and relieved each other from this servitude in rotation; some of them had been here for half a year. The Turkish army was more than 100,000 strong, and the right bank of the river was planted for a long distance with their tents. The monastery constituted the centre of the camp; there was the encampment of Hassan's favourite mamelukes and the selected corps of cloven-nosed, gigantic negroes, who used to plunge into the combat half-naked, and neither take nor give quarter. Alongside of them was the cavalry of Kucsuk Pasha, a corps accustomed to the strictest discipline. Close beside the tents of this division, within a quadrilateral, guarded by a ditch, you could see the camp of the Amazon Brigade, whose first thought when they pitch their tents is to entrench themselves. Close to the camp of Kucsuk lies the Moldavian army, from whose elaborate precautions you can gather that they have a far greater fear of their allies all around them than of the foe against whom they are marching. From beyond the monastery, right up to the vineyards of Nagyfalva, the ground is occupied by the noisy Janissaries of Ismail Pasha, who, if their military reputation lies not, are more used to distributing orders to their commanders than receiving orders from them. Beyond the vine-clad hills lies the cavalry of the Grand Vizier, Achmed Kiuprile, and all round about, wherever a column of smoke is to be seen or the sky is blood-red, there is good reason for suspecting that there the marauding Tartar bands are out, whom it was not the habit to attach to the main army. Far in the rear, along the mountain paths, on the slopes of the narrow forest passes, could be seen the endlessly long procession of wagons laden with plunder, intermingled with long round iron cannons and ancient stone mortars, each one drawn along by ten or twelve buffaloes, striving laboriously and painfully to urge their way forward, and if one of them stops for a moment, or falls down, all the others behind it must stop also. It is now evening, and from one division of the army to another the messengers from headquarters are hurrying. Kiuprile's messenger comes to inform Hassan that the army of the enemy has taken up its position on the opposite bank, between two forests, the French mercenaries and the German auxiliary troops have joined it, so that it would be well to attack it in the night, before it has had time properly to marshal its ranks. "Thy master is mad," replied Hassan; "how can I fly across the water? Before me is the river Raab. I should have to fling a bridge across it first--nay two, three bridges--which it would take me days to do, and I cannot even begin to do it till the old ammunition waggons have arrived. Go back, therefore, and tell thy master that if he wants to fight I'll sound the alarm." The messenger opened his eyes wide, being unaware of the fact that Hassan was short-sighted, and consequently only knew the river Raab from the map, not knowing that at the spot where he stood the river was not more than two yards wide, and could be bridged over in a couple of hours without the assistance of old ammunition wagons--so back the messenger went to Kiuprile. He had scarce shown a clean pair of heels, when the messenger of Kucsuk Pasha arrived to signify in his master's name that the battle could not be postponed, because no hay had arrived for the horses. Hassan turned furiously on the captive magistrates. "Why have you not sent hay?" The wisest of them, desirous to answer the question, politely rejoined: "It has been a dry summer, sir, the Lord has kept back the clouds of Heaven." "Oh, that's it, eh!" said Hassan. "Tell Kucsuk Pasha that he must give his horses the clouds to eat; the hay of the Magyars is there, it seems." This messenger had no sooner departed than a whole embassy arrived from the Janissaries, and the whole lot of them energetically demanded that they should be led into battle at once. "What?" inquired Hassan mockingly, "has your hay fallen short too, then?" The Janissaries are infantry, by the way. "It is glory we are running short of," said the leader of the deputation stolidly; "it bores us to stand staring idly into the eyes of the enemy." "Then don't stare idly at them any longer; away with those mutinous dogs and impale them, and put them on the highest hillock that the whole army may see them." The bodyguard, after a fierce struggle, overpowered the Janissaries, and pending their impalement, locked them up in the cellar of the cloisters. By this time Hassan Pasha was in the most horrible temper; and just at that unlucky moment who should arrive but Balló, the envoy of the Prince of Transylvania. Hassan, who could not see very well at the best of times, and was now blinded with rage besides, roared at him: "Whence hast thou come? Who hath sent thee hither? What is thy errand?" "I come from Kiuprile, sir," replied Balló blandly. "What a good-for-nothing blackguard this Kiuprile must be to send to me such a rogue as thou art, except in chains and fetters." "Well, of course he knows that I am the envoy of Transylvania, and represent the Prince." "Represent the Prince, eh? Art thou the Prince's cobbler that thou standest in his shoes? Hast thou brought soldiers with thee?" "Gracious sir----" "Thou hast _not_, then? Not another word! Hast thou brought money?" "Gracious sir!" "Not even money! Wherefore, then, hast thou come at all? Canst thou pay the allotted tribute?" "Gracious sir!" "Don't gracious sir me, but answer--yes or no!" "Well, but----" "Then why not?" "The land is poor, sir. The heavy hand of God is upon it." "Thou must settle that with God, then, and pray that it may not feel my heavy hand also. Wherefore, then, hast thou come?" Balló made up his mind to swallow the bitter morsel. "I have come to implore you to remit the annual tribute." At first Hassan did not know what to say. "Hast thou become wooden, then," he said at last, "thou and thy whole nation? What right have ye to ask for a remission of the tribute?" "Gracious sir, the tribute is five times more than what Gabriel Bethlen was wont to pay." "Gabriel Bethlen was a fine fellow who paid in iron what he did not pay in silver; if he paid fourteen thousand thalers for the privilege of fighting alongside of us, ye may very well pay down eighty thousand for sitting comfortably at your own firesides. What, only eighty thousand for Transylvania, a state that is always digging up gold and silver, when a single sandjak[16] pays the Pasha of Thessalonica twice as much?" [Footnote 16: Province.] At these words the national pride awoke in the breast of Balló. "Sir, Thessalonica is a subject province, and its Pasha has unlimited power over his sandjaks, but Transylvania is a free state." "And who told thee that it shall not become a sandjak like the rest?" said Hassan grimly. "Before the moon has waxed and waned again twice, take my word for it that a Turkish Pasha shall sit on the throne of Transylvania! Dost thou hear me? By the prophet I swear it." "The Grand Seignior has also sworn that the ancient rights of Transylvania should never be infringed. He swore it on the Koran and by the Prophet." "It is beneath the dignity of the Grand Seignior, our present Sultan," cried Hassan, "to remember the oath sworn by the great Suleiman; not what he says, but what his viziers wish, will happen. And vainly do ye entrust your heads to his hand, while the sword of execution remains in our hands! I'll humble you, ye stony-headed, most obstinate of all nations! Ye shall be no different from the Bosnian rajas who themselves pull the plough!" Balló raised his head with a bitter look before the wrathful vizier. "Then, sir, you must find another population for Transylvania, for you will not find there now the men you seek. You may see no end of murdered Magyars there, but a degraded Magyar you will never find." At these words Hassan drew his sword, and with his own hand would have decapitated the presumptuous ambassador, but the mamelukes dragged him away, assuring the Pasha that they would impale him along with the Janissaries. "Place the stake in front of my window that I may speak to the insolent wolf while he is well spitted." The men-at-arms did indeed thrust Balló into the cellar along with the Janissaries, and began to plant a long, sharp-pointed stake in front of the Pasha's window, when, all at once, a frightful din arose behind their backs, for the Janissaries, hearing that their comrades had been condemned to death without mercy, had revolted in a body. In a moment they had cut down those of their officers who remonstrated, and while one body rushed towards the monastery, beating their alarm-drum and blowing their horns, the others attacked the negro giants guarding the impalement stakes already planted on the top of the hill, and in a few moments the executioners were themselves writhing on the stakes. Meanwhile the mamelukes of Hassan, who were preparing to resist the insurgents, put to flight by the furious Janissaries, made for the courtyard of the cloister and its garden, which was surrounded by a stone wall, and after barricading the entrances, succeeded with great difficulty in shutting the iron gates in the faces of their assailants, and prepared vigorously to defend them. The insurgents surrounded the monastery, and bombarding its windows with bullets and darts, began to besiege it at long-firing distance. Hassan, distracted by rage and fear, fled into the tower of the monastery, leaving his guards to defend the gates till the other divisions of the army should come to quell the insurgents, but they did not stir. Hassan perceived from his tower that not a man from Kiuprile's army was coming to his assistance, though they very well could see his jeopardy and hear the din of the firing a long way off. On the other side the Moldavians had pitched their camp on the hills, but it never entered their minds to draw nearer; on the contrary, they were only too delighted to see Turks devour Turks in this fashion. Ismail Pasha's army seemed rather to be retreating than approaching, and from Kucsuk and his son he durst not hope for assistance, as they were his personal enemies. At that moment the insurgents caught sight of the stake planted before the window, and set up a howl of fury. "Ah, ha! Hassan had this planted here for himself. Let's fix up Hassan!" With a shudder the Vizier reflected on the enormous difference between the throne of Transylvania and the stake on which he might be planted instead, and cursed softly as he murmured to himself: "That rogue of a Christian must have prayed to his God that I might be brought to shame here;" and grasping in his terror the solitary bell-rope that hung there, and winding it round his neck, he stood by the window, so that if the rebels should burst through the gates he might leap out and hang himself, rather than that they should wreak their horrible threats upon him. The night had now set in, but the besiegers kindled pine branches, by whose spluttering light they streamed round the monastery; and then came a sudden and continuous firing of guns and beating of drums and a frightful braying of buffalo horns. The banner of danger had already been planted on the summit of the tower, but from no quarter did help arise, and from time to time the sound of a bell rang through the air as a chance bullet struck it. Hassan, full of terror, drew back behind the window curtains. Suddenly a yell still more terrible than the hitherto pervading tumult filled his ear--the besiegers had discovered the cellar in which their comrades had been confined, and, bursting in the doors, liberated them, and the Transylvanian deputy along with them, who speedily left this scene of uproar behind him. At the sight of their bound and fettered comrades, the Janissaries' wrath increased ten-fold. The leader of the released captives, waving an axe over his head with a fierce howl, and hurling himself at the iron gate, hammered away like the roaring of guns; whilst the rest of them, who hitherto had been firing at the windows from a distance, now attacked the entrances with unrestrainable fury, raining showers of blows upon the gates. But the gates were of good strong iron plates, well barricaded below with quadraginal paving-stones. The besiegers' arms grew weary, and the mamelukes on the roof flung stones and heavy beams down upon them, doing fearful execution among their serried ranks; whilst every mameluke who fell from his perch, pierced by a bullet, was instantly torn to pieces by the crowd, which flung back his head at the defenders. "Draw back!" cried the officer in command, who stood foremost amidst the storm of rafters and bullets. "Run for the guns! At the bottom of that hill I saw a mortar planted in the ground; draw it forth, and we'll fire upon the walls." In an instant the whole Janissary host had withdrawn from below the monastery, and the whole din died away. Yet the dumb silence was more threatening, more terrible, than the uproar had been. Very soon a dull rumbling was audible, drawing nearer and nearer every instant; it was the rolling of a gun-carriage full of artillery. Hundreds of them were pushing it together, and were rapidly advancing with the heavy, shapeless guns. At last they placed one in position opposite the monastery; it was a heavy iron four-and-twenty pound culverin, whose voice would be audible at the distance of four leagues. This they planted less than fifteen yards from the monastery, and aimed it at the gate. "There is no help save with God!" cried Hassan in despair; and he took off his turban lest they should thereby recognise his dead body. At that instant a trumpet sounded, and the cavalry of Kucsuk Pasha appeared in battle array, making its way through the congested masses of the insurgents; while Feriz Beg, at the head of his Spahis, skilfully surrounded them, and cut off their retreat. Kucsuk Pasha, with a drawn sword in his hand, trotted straight up to the gun and stood face to face with its muzzle. "Are ye faithful sons of the prophet, or fire-worshippers, giaurs, and idolators, that ye attack the faithful after this fashion?" he asked the insurgents. At these words the ringleaders of the insurgents came forward. "We are Janissaries," he said, "the flowers of the Prophet's garden, who are wont to pluck the weeds we find there." "I know you, but you know me; ye are good soldiers, but I am a good soldier too. Hath Allah put swords into the hands of good soldiers that they may fall upon one another? Ye would weep for me if I fell because of you, and I would weep for you if ye fell because of me--but where would be the glory of it? What! Here with the foe in front of you, ye would wage war among yourselves, to your own shame, and to the joy of the stranger? Is not that sword accursed which is not drawn against the foe?" "Yet accursed also is the sword which returns to its sheath unblooded." "What do ye want?" "We want to fight." "And can you only find enemies among yourselves?" "Our first enemy is cowardice, and cowardice sits in the seat of that general who alone is afraid when the whole camp wants to fight. We would first slay fear, and then we would slay the foe." "Why not slay the foe first?" "We will go alone against the whole camp of the enemy if the rest refuse." "Good; I will go with you." "Thou?" "I and my son with all our squadrons." At these words the mutineers passed, in an instant, from the deepest wrath to the sublimest joy. "To battle!" they cried. "Kucsuk also is coming, and Feriz will help!" These cries spread from mouth to mouth. And immediately the drums began to beat another reveille, the horns gave forth a very different sound, they turned the cannons round and dragged them to the river's bank, and began to build a bridge over the Raab with the beams and rafters that had been hurled down upon them. The hostile camp lay about four hours' march away, on the opposite bank, between two forests, and by an inexplicable oversight, had left that portion of the river's bank absolutely unguarded. The Janissaries swam to and fro in the water strengthening the posts and stays of the improvised bridge by tying them stoutly together, and by the time the night had begun to grow grey, the first bridge ever thrown over the Raab was ready and the infantry began to cross it. It was only then that the German-Hungarian camp perceived the design of the enemy, and speedily sent three regiments of musketeers against the Turks, who fought valiantly with the Janissaries, and drove them right back upon the bridge, where a bloody tussle ensued as fresh divisions hastened up to sustain the hardly-pressed Mussulmans. Meanwhile a second bridge had been got ready, over which Kucsuk's cavalry quickly galloped and fell upon the rear of the musketeers. These warriors, taken by surprise and perceiving the preponderance of the enemy, and obtaining no assistance from their own headquarters, quickly flung down their firearms and made helter-skelter for their own trenches. The next moment the two combating divisions were a confused struggling mass. Kucsuk's swift Spahis cut off the retreat of the Christian infantry; only for a few moments was there a definite struggle, the tussle being most obstinate round the standards, till at last they also began to totter and fall one after the other, and three thousand Christian souls mounted on high together, pursued by a roar of triumph from the Mussulmans, who, seizing the advanced trenches, planted thereon their half-moon streamers, and plundered the tents which remained defenceless before them. At that moment the Christian host was near to destruction, and if Kiuprile had crossed the river and Hassan Pasha had shared the fight with Kucsuk, he would have become famous. But the two chief commanders remained obstinately behind on the further shore. Kiuprile, who the evening before had himself wanted to begin the fight when he had received a negative answer, had now not even saddled his nag, and looked on with sinister _sangfroid_ while the extreme wing of the army was engaged. Hassan, on the other hand, would have liked nothing better if the Janissaries, and Kucsuk their auxiliary, had lost the battle thus begun without orders, and so far from hastening to their assistance remained sitting up in his tower. He could see nothing of the battle, but he heard a cry, and fancying that it was the death-yell of the Janissaries, took his beads from his girdle and began zealously to pray that the Prophet would keep open for them the gates of Paradise. "Master, master!" exclaimed Yffim Beg, "gird on thy sword and to horse!" The Pasha heard nothing. At last Yffim Beg, in despair, seized the bell-rope, and pulled the old bell right above Hassan's head, whereupon the latter rushed in terror to the window. "What is it? What dost thou want?" "Hasten, sir!" roared Yffim Beg. "Kucsuk Pasha has beaten the enemy, taken their trenches, and is plundering their tents. Do not allow him to have all the glory of scattering the Christians!" Hassan leapt from his seat. If he had heard that Kucsuk's men were being cut to pieces he would have gone on praying, but Kucsuk triumphed--had all the triumph to himself. The thought was a keen spur to his mind. Up everyone who could stir hand or foot! Forward Spahis and Arabs! To battle every true believer! Let the dervishes go up in the tower and sing dirges for the fallen! Let the ground shake beneath the rolling of the guns! Let the horns ring out for now is the day of glory! In an instant the camp was alert, and crowds of warriors rushed towards the bridge. Every man pressed hard on the heels of his fellow; those who were crowded into the water did their best to reach the opposite shore by swimming; whole companies swam through on horseback, and the heavy iron guns moved forward as rapidly as if they had wings. It was only now that the vast numbers of the Ottoman host became manifest, it seemed suddenly to spring out of the ground in every direction; the tiny little cramped Christian camp over against them looked like an island in an inundation. In the very centre of the host could be seen Hassan Pasha with a brilliant suite, twenty horse-tail banners fluttered around him, the pick of his veterans at his side. On the left was the army of Ismail Pasha; on the right were the hosts of the Moldavians. Their immediate objective was the trenches already occupied by Kucsuk Pasha. At that moment Yffim Beg was seen galloping along the front of the host with the Vizier's commands for Kucsuk Pasha. "Ye remain where now you are, and move no farther till a fresh command arrives. Feriz Beg and his battalion move forward along the outermost wing." Hassan could not endure that two such heroes should help each other in the battle, and that the son should deliver the father. Kucsuk beat the tattoo. Feriz Beg moved along the left wing, where he formed the reserve. Then the reveille sounded; a hideous yell filled the air; the Mussulman host, with bloodthirsty rage, rushed upon the front of the Christian army. No power on earth can save them! But what is this? Suddenly the impetus of the assailants is stayed. Along the front of the camp of the Christian infantry star-shaped trenches have been dug during the night and planted full of sharp stakes. The foremost row of the assailants pause terror-stricken in front of these trenches, and for an instant the onset is arrested. But only for an instant. The powerful impact of the rearward masses flings them into the deadly ditch, one after another they fall upon the pointed stakes, a mortal yell drowns the cry of battle, in a few moments the star-shaped trenches are filled with corpses and the rushing throng tramples over the dead bodies of their comrades to get to the other side of the ditch. And now the roar of the cannons begin. Up to that moment the guns of the Christians have remained inactive, concealed behind the gabions. Now their gaping throats face the attacking host. At a single signal the roar of eighty iron throats is heard, bullets and chain-shot make their whirring way through the serried ranks, the crackling mortars discharge sackloads of acorn-shaped balls, while the fire-spitting grenades terrify the rearmost ranks. The Mussulmans host recoils in terror, leaving their dead and wounded behind them. Horrible spectacle! Instead of the lately brilliant ranks the ground is strewn with mangled bloody limbs, writhing like worms in the dust. The next moment the splendid array again covers the ground; the corpses are no longer visible, they are hidden by the feet of the living. The beaten squadrons are sent to the rear; fresh battalions fill their places; the assault is renewed. The fire of the guns no longer keeps them back. They cast down their eyes, shout "Allah!" and rush forward. An earth-rending report resounds, a fiery mine has exploded beneath the feet of the assailants; fragments of human limbs intermingled with strips of tempest-tossed banners fly up into the air amidst whirling clouds of smoke. The second assault is also flung back, and in the meantime the Christian army has succeeded in drawing a line of wagons across their front. And now a third, now a fourth, assault is delivered, each more furious than the last. The Christians begin to despair; every regiment of the Turkish host is now engaged with them, only Kucsuk has received no order to advance. Hassan would win the battle without him. There he stands, together with his staff, directing the most perverse of battles, hurling his swarms against unassailable rocks, assaulting entrenched places with cavalry; at one time distributing orders to regiments which had ceased to exist, at another sending to consult with commanders who had fallen before his very eyes. Those around him listened to his words with astonishment, and not one of them durst say: "Dismount from your horse, you cannot see ten yards in front of you!" The din of the renewed assaults sounded in his ears like a cry of triumph. "Look how they waver!" he cried; "look how the Christian ranks waver, and how their banners are falling in the dust! Shoot them, shoot them down!" and none durst say to him: "These are thy hosts whose death-cries thou dost hear, and it is the fire from the Christian guns which mow down whole ranks of thy army!" The Ottoman host had begun its tenth assault, when Hassan sent a courier to Kiuprile on the opposite shore with this message: "Thou canst return to Paphlagonia! We have won the battle without thee. Tell them at home what thou hast seen!" Kiuprile, seriously alarmed lest he should have no part in the glory of the contest, immediately mounted the whole of his cavalry, flung a bridge over the river, and began to cross it. This happened at the very moment when Ismail Pasha was leading the Osmanlis to the tenth assault. The leader of the Christian host, Montecuculi, no sooner perceived Kiuprile's movement, than he called together his generals and gave them to understand that if they awaited Kiuprile where they stood they would be irretrievably lost. They were just then loading their guns with their last charge. Many faces grew pale at this announcement, and a deep silence followed Montecuculi's words. Yet his words were the words of valour. Three heroes had been in his army--one of them, the French general, the Marquis de Brianzon, had already fallen; the other two, still present, were the German general, Toggendorf, and the Hungarian cavalry officer, Petneházy. At the commander-in-chief's announcement the faces of both remained unmoved, and Toggendorf, with the utmost _sang-froid_ came forward: "If we must choose between two deaths," said he, "why not rather choose death by advancing than death in flight?" "Not so, my lad," cried Petneházy, enthusiastically grasping his comrade's hand; "we choose between death and glory, and he who seeks glory will find a triumph also." "So be it," said Montecuculi, with cool satisfaction, thrusting his field-glass into his pocket and drawing forth his thin blade; and, while he sent the two heroes to the two wings, he placed himself in front of the army, and commanded that the barrier of wagons should instantly be demolished. The last discharge thundered forth, and from amidst the dispersing clouds of smoke two compact army columns could be seen rapidly charging--they were Toggendorf's cuirassiers and Petneházy's hussars. Petneházy made straight for the still hesitating Moldavian army, which, with Prince Ghyka at its head, had as yet taken no part in the fight. Heaven itself gave him the inspiration. The Prince of Moldavia had been waiting for a long time for some one to attack him, that he might at once quit the field of battle to which he had been constrained to come, though it revolted his feelings as a Christian to do so; consequently, when Petneházy was within fifty yards of his battalions, they, as if at a given signal, turned tail without so much as crossing swords with the foe, galloped off to the left bank of the Waag, and so quitted the field. This flight threw the whole Turkish army into disorder. A more skilful general would indeed have withdrawn the whole host, but, because of his short-sightedness, Hassan did not perceive that the Moldavians had fled, and nobody durst tell him so. Ismail Pasha immediately hastened to fill up the gap; but before he had reached the spot, Toggendorf's cuirassiers were upon him, and he was caught between two fires in a moment. The Janissaries received the full brunt of the swords of the cuirassiers and the hussars, and in the first onset Ismail Pasha himself fell from his horse. A hussar rushed upon him, and severing from his body his big bared head, stuck it on the point of a lance, and raised it in the air as a very emblem of terror to the panic-stricken Turks. The Janissaries were no longer able to rally, in every direction they broke through the hostile ranks in a desperate attempt at flight, and, which was worse still, the flying infantry barred the way against the cavalry which was hastening to their assistance. All this was taking place within two hundred yards of Hassan Pasha, and he saw nothing of it. "Glory be to Allah," he cried, raising his hands to heaven; "victory is ours! The Christian is flying and is casting down his banners in every direction. The best of his warriors are wallowing in the dust. The rest are flying without weapons and with pale----" Those about him listened, horror-stricken, to his words. The Christian host was at that moment cutting down the Janissaries, the flower of the Turkish camp! "Thou ravest, my master!" cried Yffim Beg, seizing the bridle of Hassan Pasha's horse. "Fly and save thyself! The best of thy army has perished, the Janissaries have fallen, the Moldavian army hath fled. Ismail Pasha's head has been hoisted on to a pike!" "Impossible!" roared Hassan, beside himself, "come with me; let us charge, the victory is ours." But his generals seized him, and tearing his sword from his hand, seized the bridle of his horse on both sides and hurried him along with them towards the bridge, which was now full of fugitives. The hazard of the die had changed. The pursuers had become the fugitives. An hour before the Christian camp ran the risk of annihilation; it was now the turn of the Turks. Kiuprile seeing the catastrophe, destroyed his bridges and remained on the opposite bank. Meanwhile on the wings, Kucsuk Pasha and Feriz Beg, with his brigade of Amazons, were valiantly holding their own against the cuirassiers of Toggendorf and the hussars of Petneházy, till at last the melancholy notes of the bugle-horns gave the signal for retreat, and the combatants gradually separated. Only a few scattered bands, and presently, only a few scattered individuals, still fought together, and then they also wearily abandoned the contest and returned silently to their respective camps. Both sides felt that their strength was exhausted. The Christian host had four thousand, the Turkish sixteen thousand slain, and among them its best generals; they also lost all their heavy cannons, their banners, and their military renown; but none lost so much as Feriz Beg. The Amazon Brigade had perished. By its deliberate self-sacrifice it had saved the Turkish army from utter destruction. CHAPTER XIII. THE PERSECUTED WOMAN. Perhaps by this time you have clean forgotten our dear acquaintance, pretty Mariska, the wife of the Prince of Wallachia? Ah, she is happy! Although her husband is far away, her sorrow is forgotten in the near approach of a new joy--the joy of motherhood. There she sits at eventide in the garden of her castle, weaving together dreams of a happy future, and her court ladies by her side are making tiny little garments adorned with bright ribbons. When the peasant women pass by her on the road with their children in their arms, she takes the children from them, presses them to her bosom, kisses, and talks to them. She is the godmother of every new-born infant, and what a tender godmother! Day after day she visits the churches, and before the altar of the Virgin-Mother prays that she also may have her portion of that happiness which is the greatest joy God gives to women. After the battle of St. Gothard it was Prince Ghyka's first thought to send a courier to his wife, bidding her not to be anxious about her husband, for he was alive and would soon be home. This was Mariska's first tidings of the lost battle, and she thanked God for it. What did she care that the battle was lost, that the glory of the Turkish Sultan was cracked beyond repair, so long as her husband remained to her? With him the husbands of all the other poor Wallachian wives were also safe. She at once hastened to tell the more remote of these poor women that they were not to be alarmed if they heard that the Turkish army had been cut down, for their husbands were free and quite near to them. What joy at the thought of seeing him again! How she watched for her husband from morn till eve, and awoke at night at the slightest noise. If a horse neighed in the street, if she heard a trumpet far away, she fancied that her husband was coming. One night she was aroused by the sound of a light tapping at her bedroom door, and her husband's voice replied to her question of "Who is there?" Her surprise and her joy were so great that in the first moment of awaking she knew not what to do, whereupon her husband impatiently repeated: "Mariska, open the door!" The wife hastened to embrace her husband, admitted him, fell upon his neck, and covered him with kisses; but, perceiving suddenly that the kisses her husband gave her back were quite cold, and that his arm trembled when he embraced her, she looked anxiously at his face--it was grave and full of anxiety. "My husband!" cried the unusually sensitive woman with a shaky voice. "Why do you embrace me--us, so coldly," her downcast eyes seemed to say. The Prince did not fail to notice the expression, and very sadly, and sighing slightly, he said: "So much the worse for me!" His hands, his whole frame shook so in the arms of his wife; and yet the Prince was a muscular as well as a brave man. "What has happened? What is the matter?" asked his wife anxiously. "Nothing," said the Prince, kissing her forehead. "Be quiet. Lie down. I have some business to do which must be done to-night. Then I'll come to you, and we'll talk about things." Mariska took him at his word, and lay down again. But she still trembled--why, she knew not. There must be something wrong, something very wrong with her husband, or else he would not have welcomed his wife so coldly at the very moment of his arrival. After a few moments, during which she heard her husband talking in an undertone with someone outside, he came in with his sword in his hand, and after seeming to look for something, he turned to Mariska: "Have you the keys of your treasure-box?" "Yes, they are in my secretaire." The Prince took the keys and withdrew. Mariska breathed again. "Then it is only some money trouble after all," she thought. "Thank God it is no worse. They have lost something in the camp, I suppose, or they are screwing some more tribute out of him." In a short time the Prince again returned, and stood there for a time as if he couldn't make up his mind to speak. At last he said: "Mariska, have you any money?" "Yes, dear!" Mariska hastened to answer, "just ten thousand thalers. Do you want them?" "No, no. But have them all ready to hand, and if you collected your jewels together at the same time you would do well." "What for, my husband?" "Because," stammered Ghyka, "because--we may--and very speedily, too--have to set out on our travels." "Have to travel--in my condition?" asked Mariska, raising a pathetic face up to her husband. That look transfixed the very soul of Ghyka. His wife was in a condition nearer to death than to life. "No, I won't stir a stump," he suddenly cried, beside himself with agitation, striking his sword so violently on the table that it flew from its sheath, "if heaven itself fall on me, I won't go." "For God's sake, my husband, what is the matter?" cried Mariska in her astonishment; whereupon the Prince proudly raised his eyebrows, approached her with a smile, and pressing his wife to his bosom, said reassuringly: "Fear nothing. I had an idea in my head; but I have dismissed it, and will think of it no more. Take it that I have asked you nothing." "But your anxiety?" "It has gone already. Ask not the reason, for you would laugh at me for it. Sleep in peace. I also will sleep upon it." The husband caressed and kissed his wife, and his hand trembled no longer, his face was no longer pale, and his lips were no longer so cold as before. But the wife's were now. When her husband tenderly kissed her eyes and bade her sleep, she pretended that she was satisfied; but as soon as he had withdrawn from her room, she arose, put on a dressing-gown, and calling one of her maids, descended with her into the hall, and sent for a faithful old servant of her husband's, who was wont to accompany him everywhere, an old Moldavian courier. "Jova!" she said, "speak the truth! What's the matter with your master? What have you seen and heard?" "It is a great trouble, my lady. God deliver us from it! We only escaped destruction at the battle of St. Gothard by not standing up against the Magyars. But what were we to do? Christian cannot fight against Christian, for then should we be fighting against God. The Turkish army was badly beaten there. And now the Vizier of Buda, that he may wash himself clean, for the Sultan is very wroth, wants to cast the whole blame of the affair on the head of the Prince." "Great Heaven! And what will be the result?" "Well, it would not be a bad thing if your Highnesses were to withdraw somewhere or other for a time to give the Sultan's wrath time to cool." "To my father's, eh? in Wallachia?" "Well, a little farther than that, I should say." "True, we might go to Transylvania; we have lots of good friends there." "Even there it might not be as well to stay. You would do well to make a journey to Poland." "Do you suppose the danger to be so great then?" "God grant it be not so bad as I think it." "Thank you for your advice, Jova. I will tell my husband quite early in the morning." "My lady, you would do well not to wait till morning." The woman grew pale. "What do you mean?" "I mean that if you would take care of yourselves, you should take carriage this very night, this very hour. I will go before the horses with a lantern, and a courier shall be sent on ahead to have fresh relays of horses awaiting us at every station, so that by the time it begins to grow grey, we shall have left the last hill of this region out of sight." The terrified Princess returned to her bedchamber, and quickly packed up her most valuable things, making all the necessary preparations for a long journey. But the door leading to her husband's room was locked, and she durst not call him, but with an indescribable sinking of heart awaited the endlessly distant dawn. She was unable to close her eyes the whole night. Wearied out in body and soul she rose as soon as she saw the light of dawn, sitting with her swimming head against the window, whence she could look down into the courtyard. Gradually the courtyard awoke to life and noise again, and the hall was peopled with domestics hurrying to and fro. The grooms began walking the horses up and down, the peasant girls with pitchers on their heads were returning from the distant wells, a merry voice began singing a popular ditty in one of the outhouses. All this seemed as strange to the watchful lady as the life and the movement of the outside world seems to one condemned to death who gazes upon it from the window of his cell. Then the door opened and her husband came out of his bedchamber and greeted his wife with a voice full of boisterous courage. He was dressed in a short stagskin jacket, which he generally wore when he went a-hunting, and wore big Polish boots with star-like spurs. "Going a-hunting, eh?" asked Mariska, from whose soul all her terrifying phantoms vanished instantly when her husband embraced her in his vigorous arms. "Yes, I'm going a-hunting. I feel so full of energy that if I don't tumble about somewhere or other I shall burst. Any boar or bear that I come across to-day will have good cause to remember me." "Oh! take care no ill befalls you!" "Befalls me!" cried the Prince, proudly smiting his herculean breast. The lady flung herself on her husband's neck with the confidence of a child, and lifting from his head his saucy bonnet with its eagle plume, which gave him such a brave appearance, and smoothing down his curls, kissed his bonny face, and forgot all her thoughts and visions of the bygone night. The Prince withdrew, and Mariska opened her window and looked out of it to see him mount his horse. While the Prince was going downstairs, a dirty Turkish cavasse in sordid rags entered the courtyard, from which at other times he was wont to fetch letters, and mingled with the ostlers and stablemen without seeming to attract attention. A few moments later the Prince ordered his horse to be brought in a loud resonant voice, whereupon the cavasse immediately came forward, and producing from beneath his dirty dolman a sealed and corded letter, pressed it to his forehead and then handed it to the Prince. The Prince broke open the letter and his face suddenly turned pale; taking off his cap, he bowed low before the cavasse and saluted him. O Prince of Moldavia! to doff thy eagle-plumed cap to a dirty cavasse, and bow thy haughty manly brow before him! Whatever can be the meaning of it all? Mariska's heart began to throb violently as she gazed down from her window. The Prince, with all imaginable deference, then indicated the door of his castle to the cavasse and invited him to enter first; but the Turk with true boorish insolence, signified that the Prince was to lead the way. Suddenly, in an illuminated flash, Mariska guessed the mystery. In the moment of peril, with rare presence of mind, she rushed to her secretaire, where her jewels were. Her first thought was that the cavasse had come for her husband; he must be bribed therefore to connive at his escape. Then she saw hastening through the door the old groom Jova. The face of the ancient servitor was full of fear, and there were tears in his eyes. "Has the cavasse come for my husband, then?" she inquired tremulously. "Yes, my lady," stammered the servant; "why don't you make haste?" "Let us give him money." "He won't take it. What is money to him? If he returns without the Prince his own head will be forfeit." "Merciful God! Then what shall we do?" "My master whispered a few words in my ear, and I fancy I caught their meaning. First of all I must take you off to Transylvania, my lady. Meanwhile my master will remain here with the cavasses and their attendants, who are now in the courtyard. My master will remain with them and spin out the time till he feels pretty sure that we have got well beyond the river Sereth in our carriage. Near there is a bridge over a steep rocky chasm, beneath which the river flows. That bridge we will break down behind us. The Prince will then bring forth his charger Gryllus, on whose back he is wont to take such daring leaps, and will set out in the same direction with the Turkish cavasses. When he approaches the broken-down bridge, he will put spurs to his steed and leap across the gap, while the Turks remain behind. And after that God grant him good counsel!" Mariska perceiving there was no time to be lost, hastily collected her treasures and, assisted by Jova, descended by way of the secret staircase to the chapel and stood there, for a moment, before the image of the Blessed Virgin to pray that her husband might succeed in escaping. Before the chapel door stood a carriage drawn by four muscular stallions. She got into it quickly, and succeeded in escaping by a side-gate. Meanwhile the Prince, with great self-denial, endeavoured to detain his unwelcome guests by all manner of pretexts. First of all he almost compelled them to eat and drink to bursting point, swearing by heaven and earth that he would never allow such precious guests as they were to leave his castle with empty stomachs. Then followed a distribution of gifts. Every individual cavasse got a sword or a beaker and every sword and every beaker had its own peculiar history. So-and-so had worn it, So-and-so had drunk out of it. It had been found here and sent there, and its last owner was such a one, etc., etc. And he artfully interlarded his speech with such sacred and sublime words as "Allah!" "Mahomet!" "the Sultan!" at the mention of each one of which the cavasses felt bound to interrupt him repeatedly with such expressions as "Blessed be his name!" so that despite the insistence of the Turks, it was fully an hour before his horse could be brought forward. At last, however, Gryllus was brought round to the courtyard. The Prince now also would have improved the occasion by telling them a nice interesting tale about this steed of his, but the chief cavasse would give him no peace. "Come! mount your Honour!" said he, "you can tell us the story on the way." The Prince mounted accordingly, and immediately began to complain how very much all the galloping of the last few days had taken it out of him, and begged his escort not to hurry on so as he could scarce sit in his saddle. The chief cavasse, taking him at his word, had the Prince's feet tied fast to his stirrups, so that he might not fall off his horse, sarcastically adding: "If your honour should totter in your saddle, I shall be close beside you, so that you may lean upon me." And indeed the chief cavasse trotted by his side with a drawn sword in his hand; the rest were a horse's head behind them. When they came to the path leading to the bridge the way grew so narrow because of the rocks on both sides that it was as much as two horsemen could do to ride abreast. The Prince already caught sight of the bridge, and though its wooden frame was quite hidden by a projecting tree, a white handkerchief tied to the tree informed him that his carriage with his consort inside it had got across and away, and that the supports had been also cut. At this point he made as if he felt faint and turning to the chief cavasse, said to him, "Come nearer, I want to lean on you!" and upon the cavasse leaning fatuously towards him he dealt him such a fearful blow with his clenched fist that the Turk fell right across his horse. And now: "Onward, my Gryllus!" The gallant steed with a bound forward left the escort some distance behind, and while they dashed after him with a savage howl, he darted with the fleetness of the wind towards the bridge. The Prince sat tied to his horse without either arms or spurs, but the noble charger, as if he felt that his master's life was now entrusted to his safe-keeping, galloped forward with ten-fold energy. Suddenly it became clear to the pursuers that the beams of the bridge had been severed and only the balustrade remained. "Stop!" they shouted in terror to the Prince, at the same time reining in their own horses. Then Ghyka turned towards them a haughty face, and leaning over his horse's head, pressed its flanks with his knees, and at the very moment when he had reached the dizzy chasm he laughed aloud as he raised his eagle-plumed cap in the air, and shouted to his pursuers: "Follow me, if you dare!" The charger the same instant lowered its head upon its breast, and, with a well-calculated bound, leaped the empty space between the two sides of the bridge as lightly as a bird. The Prince as he flew through the air held his eagle-plumed cap in his hand, while his black locks fluttered round his bold face. The terrified cavasses drew the reins of their horses tightly lest they should plunge after Gryllus; but one of them, carried away by his maddened steed, would also have made the bold leap but the fore feet of the horse barely grazed the opposite bank, and with a mortal yell it crashed down with its rider among the rocks of the stream below. The Prince meanwhile, beneath the very eyes of the cavasses, loosened the cords from his legs on the opposite shore and also allowed himself time enough to break down the remaining balustrades of the bridge, one by one, and pitch them into the river. Then, remounting his steed, he ambled leisurely off whilst the cavasses gazed after him in helpless fury. A rapid two hours' gallop enabled him to overtake the carriage of his wife, who, according to his directions, had hastened without stopping towards Transylvania with the sole escort of the old horseman. On overtaking the carriage he mounted the old man on his own nag, and sent him on before to Transylvania requesting the Prince to allow him and his wife to pass through Transylvania to the domains of the Kaiser. He himself took a seat in the carriage by the side of Mariska, who was quite rejoiced at her husband's deliverance, and forgot the anxieties still awaiting her. According to the most rigorous calculations their pursuers would either have to go another way, or they might throw another bridge over the Sereth; but, in any case they had a day's clear start of them, which would be quite sufficient to enable them, travelling leisurely, to reach the borders of Transylvania, where the Seraskier of Moldavia had no jurisdiction. In this hope they presently perceived the mountains of Szeklerland rising up before them, and the nearer they came to them the more lightly they felt their hearts beat, regarding the mountain range as a vast city of refuge stretching out before them. They had already struck into that deep-lying road which leads to the Pass of Porgo, which, after winding along the bare hillside, plunges like a serpent into the shady flowering valleys beneath, and every now and then a mountain stream darted along the road beside them; above them the dangerous road looked like a tiny notch in which a heavy wagon crawled slowly along, with lofty rocks apparently tottering to their fall above it in every direction. And here galloping straight towards them, was a horseman in whom the Prince instantly recognised his _avant courier_. Old Jova reached them in a state of exhaustion, and Gryllus also seemed ready to drop. "Go no further, sir!" cried the terrified servant, "I have come all the way without stopping from Szamosújvár where the Prince is staying. I laid your request before him. 'For God's sake!' cried the Prince, clasping his hands together, 'don't let your master come here, or he'll ruin the whole lot of us. Olaj Beg has just come hither with the Sultan's command that if the Prince of Moldavia comes here he is to be handed over.'" The Prince gazed gloomily in front of him, his lips trembled. Then he turned his face round and shading his eyes with his hand, gazed away into the distance. On the same road by which he had come a cloud of dust could be seen rapidly approaching. "Those are our pursuers," he moaned despairingly; "there is nothing for it but to die." "Nay, my master. Over yonder is a mountain path which can only be traversed on foot. With worthy Szeklers or Wallachs as our guides we may get all the way to Poland through the mountains. Why not take refuge there?" "And my wife?" asked the Prince, looking round savagely and biting his lips in his distress; "she cannot accompany me." All this time Mariska had remained, benumbed and speechless, gazing at her husband--her heart, her mind, stood still at these terrible tidings; but when she heard that her husband could be saved without her, she plunged out of the carriage and falling at his feet implored him, sobbing loudly, to fly. "Save yourself," she cried; "do not linger here on my account another instant." "And sacrifice you, my consort, to their fury?" "They will not hurt me, for they do not pursue an innocent woman. God will defend me. You go into Transylvania; there live good friends of mine, whose husbands and fathers are the leading men in the State; there is the heroic Princess, there is the gentle Béldi with her angel daughter, there is Teleki's daughter Flora--we swore eternal friendship together once--they will mediate for us; and then, too, my rich father will gladly spend his money to spare our blood. And if I must suffer and even die, it will be for you, my husband. Save yourself! In Heaven's name I implore you to depart from me." Ghyka reflected for a moment. "Very well, I will take refuge in order to be able to save you." And he pressed the pale face of his wife to his bosom. "Make haste," said Mariska, "I also want to hasten. If die I must--I would prefer to die among Christians, in the sight of my friends and acquaintances. But you go on in front, for if they were to slay you before my eyes, it would need no sword to slay me; my heart would break from sheer despair." "Come, sir, come!" said the old courier, seizing the hand of the Prince and dragging him away by force. Mariska got into the carriage again, and told the coachman to drive on quickly. The Prince allowed himself to be guided by the old courier along the narrow pass, looking back continually so long as the carriage was visible, and mournfully pausing whenever he caught sight of it again from the top of some mountain-ridge. "Come on, sir! come on!" the old servant kept insisting; "when we have reached that mountain summit yonder we shall be able to rest." Ghyka stumbled on as heavily as if the mountain was pressing on his bosom with all its weight. He allowed himself to be led unconsciously among the steep precipices, clinging on to projecting bushes as he went along. God guarded him from falling a hundred times. After half an hour's hard labour they reached the indicated summit, and as the courier helped his master up and they looked around them, Nature's magnificent tableau stood before them; and looking down upon a vast panorama, they saw the tiny winding road by which his wife had gone; and, looking still farther on, he perceived that the carriage had just climbed to the summit of a declivity about half a league off. Ah! that sight gave him back his soul. He followed with his eyes the travelling coach, and as often as the coach ascended a higher hill, it again appeared in sight, and it seemed to him as if all along he saw inside it his wife, and his face brightened as he fancied himself kissing away her tears. At that instant a loud uproar smote upon his ears. At the foot of the steep mountain, on the summit of which his wife had just come into sight again, he saw a troop of horsemen trotting rapidly along. These were the pursuers. They seemed scarcely larger than ants. Ah! how he would have liked to have trampled those ants to death. "You would pursue her, eh? Then I will stop you." And with these words seizing a large grey rock from among those which were heaped upon the summit, he rolled it down the side of the mountain just as the Turks had reached a narrow defile. With a noise like thunder the huge mass of rock plunged its way down the mountain-side, taking great leaps into the air whenever it encountered any obstacle. Ah! how the galloping rock plunged among the terrified horsemen--only a streak of blood remained in its track, horses and horsemen were equally crushed beneath it. With a second, with a third rock also he greeted them. The cavasses, at their wits' end, fled back, and never stopped till they had clambered up the opposite ridge; they did not feel safe among the plunging rocks below and there they could be seen deliberating how it was possible to reach the road behind their backs. Guessing their intention, the Prince sent his servant to fling a rock down upon them from the hillside beyond, which, as it came clattering down, made the cavasses believe that their enemies were in force, and they climbed higher up still. "There they will remain till evening," thought the Prince to himself; "so they will not overtake Mariska after all." And so it conveniently turned out. The cavasses, after consulting together for a long time fruitlessly as to what road they should take to get out of the dangerous pass, began to yell from their lofty perch at their invisible foes, threatening them with the highest displeasure of the Sultan if they did not allow them to pass through in peace; and when a fresh shower of rocks came down by way of reply, they unsaddled their horses and allowing them to graze about at will, lit a fire and squatted down beside it. * * * * * Meanwhile, the hunted lady, exchanging her tired horses for four fresh ones in the first Transylvanian village she came to, pressed onwards without stopping. Travelling all night she reached Szamosújvár in the early morning. The Prince was no longer there. He had migrated in hot haste, they said, before the rising of the sun, to Klausenberg. Mariska did not descend from her carriage, but only changed her horses. Three days and three nights she had already been travelling, without rest, in sickness and despair. And again she must hasten on farther. It was evening when they reached Klausenberg. The coachman, when he saw the towers in the distance, turned round to her with the comforting assurance that they would now be at Klausenberg very shortly. At these words the lady begged the coachman not to go so quickly, and when he lashed up his horses still more vigorously notwithstanding, and cast a look behind him, she also looked through the window at the back of the carriage and saw a band of horsemen galloping after them along the road. So their pursuers were as near to them behind as Klausenberg was in front. There was not a moment's delay. The coachman whipped up the horses, their nostrils steamed, foam fell from their lips, they plunged wildly forward, the pebbles flashed sparks beneath their hoofs, the carriage swayed to and fro on the uneven road, the persecuted lady huddled herself into a corner of the carriage, and prayed to God for deliverance. CHAPTER XIV. OLAJ BEG. The Prince was just then standing in the portico of his palace conversing with the Princess, whose face bore strong marks of the sufferings of the last few days. Shortly after the panic of Nagyenyed she had given birth to a little daughter, and the terror experienced at the time had had a bad effect on both mother and child. Apafi's brow was also clouded. The Prince's heart was sore, and not merely on his own account. Whenever there was any distress in the principality he also was distressed, but his own sorrow he had to share alone. For some days he had found no comfort in whatever direction he might turn. The Turks had made him feel their tyranny everywhere, and the foreign courts had listened to his tale of distress with selfish indifference; while the great men of the realm dubbed him a tyrant, the common folks sung lampoons upon his cowardice beneath his very windows; and when he took refuge in the bosom of his family he was met by a sick wife, who had ceased to find any joy in life ever since he had been made Prince. A sick wife is omnipotent as regards her husband. If Anna had insisted upon _her_ husband's quitting his princely palace, and returning with her to their quiet country house at Ebesfalu--where there was no kingdom but the kingdom of Heaven--perhaps he would even have done that for her. As the princely pair stood on the castle battlements, the din of the town grew deeper, and suddenly the rumble of a carriage, driven at full tilt, broke upon the dreamy stillness of the castle courtyard, and dashing into it stopped before the staircase; the door of the coach was quickly thrown open and out of it rushed a pale woman, who, rallying her last remaining strength, ran up the staircase and collapsed at the feet of the Prince as he hastened to meet her, exclaiming as she did so: "I am Mariska Sturdza." "For the love of God," cried the agitated Prince, "why did you come here? You have destroyed the state and me; you have brought ruin on yourself and on us." The unfortunate lady was unable to utter another word. Her energy was exhausted. She lay there on the marble floor, half unconscious. The Princess Apafi summoned her ladies-in-waiting, who, at her command, hastened to raise the lady in their arms and began to sprinkle her face with eau-de-Cologne. "I cannot allow her to be brought into my house," cried the terrified Apafi; "it would bring utter destruction on me and my family." The Princess cast a look full of dignity upon her husband. "What do you mean? Would you hand this unfortunate woman over to her pursuers? In her present condition, too? Suppose _I_ was obliged to fly in a similar plight, would you fling _me_ out upon the high road instead of offering me a place of refuge?" "But the wrath of the Sultan?" "Yes; and the contempt of posterity?" "Then would you have me bring ruin upon my throne and my family for the sake of a woman?" "Better perish for the sake of a woman than do that woman to death. If you shut your rooms against her, I will open mine wide to receive her, and then you can tell the Sultan if you like that I have taken her." Apafi felt that his wife's obstinacy was getting him into a hideous muddle. This audacious woman would listen to no reasons of state in any matter which interested her humanity. What was he to do? He pitied the persecuted lady from the bottom of his heart, but the emissary of the Sublime Porte, Olaj Beg, had come to demand her with plenipotentiary power. If he did _not_ shelter the persecuted lady he would pronounce himself a coward in the face of the whole world; if he _did_ shelter her, the Porte would annihilate him! In the midst of this dilemma, one of the gate-keepers came in hot haste to announce that a band of Turkish soldiers was at that moment galloping along the road, inquiring in a loud voice for the Princess of Wallachia. Apafi leant in dumb despair against a marble pillar whilst Anna quickly ordered her women to carry the unconscious lady to her innermost apartments and summon the doctor. She then went out on the balcony, and perceiving that the cavasses had just halted in front of the palace, she cried to the gate-keepers: "Close the gates!" Apafi would have very much liked to have countermanded the order; but while he was still thinking about it, the gates were snapped to under the very noses of the cavasses. They began angrily beating with the shafts of their lances against the closed gate, whereupon the Princess called down to them from the balcony with a sonorous, authoritative voice: "Ye good-for-nothing rascals, wherefore all that racket? This is not a barrack, but the residence of the Prince. Perchance ye know it not, because fresh human heads are wont to be nailed over the gates of your Princes every day as a mark of recognition? If that is what you are accustomed to, your error is pardonable." The cavasses were considerably startled at these words, and, looking up at the imperious lady, began to see that she really meant what she said. For a while they laid their heads together, and then turned round and departed. Apafi sighed deeply. "There is some hidden trick in this," said he, "but what it is God only knows." A few moments later a müderris appeared from Olaj Beg at the gate of the Prince, and, being all alone, was admitted. "Olaj Beg greets thee, and thou must come to him quickly," said he. Anna had drawn near to greet her guest, but hearing that Olaj Beg summoned the Prince to appear before him, she approached the messenger, boiling over with wrath. "Whoever heard," she said, "of a servant ordering his master about, or an ambassador summoning the Prince to whose Court he is accredited?" But Apafi could only take refuge in a desperate falsehood. "Poor Olaj Beg," he explained, "is very sick and cannot stir from his bed, and, indeed, he humbly begs me to pay him a visit. There is no humiliation in this--none at all, if I am graciously pleased to do it. He is an old man of eighty. I might be his grandson, he is wont to scold me as if I were his darling; I will certainly go to him, and put this matter right with him. You go to your sick guest and comfort her. I give you my word I will do everything to get her set free. For her sake I will humble myself." The Princess Apafi's foresight already suggested to her that this humiliation would be permanent, but, perceiving that her own strength of mind was not contagious, she allowed her husband to depart. Apafi prepared himself for his visit upon Olaj Beg. With a peculiar feeling of melancholy he did _not_ put on his princely dolman of green velvet, but only the _köntös_ of a simple nobleman, imagining that thus it would not be the Prince of Transylvania but the squire of Ebesfalu who was paying a visit on Olaj Beg. He went on foot to the house of Olaj Beg, accompanied by a single soldier, who had to put on his everyday clothes. The dogs had been let loose in the courtyard, for the Beg was a great protector of animals, and used to keep open table in front of his dwelling for the wandering dogs of every town he came to. Making his way through them, Apafi had to cross a hall and an ante-chamber, brimful with praying dervishes, who, squatting down with legs crossed, were reading aloud from books with large clasps, only so far paying attention to each other as to see which could yell the loudest. The Prince did not address them, as it was clear that he would get no answer, but went straight towards the third door. The chamber beyond was also full of spiders'-webs and dervishes, but a red cushion had been placed in the midst of it, and on this cushion sat a big, pale, grey man in a roomy yellow caftan. He also was holding a large book in front of him and reading painfully. Apafi approached, and even ventured to address him. "Merciful Olaj Beg, my gracious master, find a full stop somewhere in that book of yours, turn down the leaf at the proper spot, put it down, and listen to me." Olaj Beg, on hearing the words of the Prince, put the book aside, and turning with a sweet and tender smile towards him, remarked with emotion: "The angels of the Prophet bear thee up in all thy ways, my dear child. Heaven preserve every hair of thy beard, and the Archangel Izrafil go before thee and sweep every stone from thy path, that thy feet may not strike against them!" With these words the Beg graciously extended his right hand to be kissed, blinking privily at the Prince; nor would Apafi have minded kissing it if they had been all alone, but in the presence of so many dervishes it would have been derogatory to his dignity; so, instead of doing so, he took the Beg's hand and provisionally placed it in his left hand and gave it a resounding thump with his right, and then shook it amicably as became a friend. "Don't trouble thyself, my dear son, I will not suffer thee to kiss my hand," cried Olaj Beg, drawing back his hand and making a show of opposition so that everyone might fancy that Apafi was angry with him for not being allowed to kiss it. "You have deigned to send for me," said Apafi, taking a step backwards; "tell me, I pray, what you desire, for my time is short. I am overwhelmed with affairs of state." These last words Apafi pronounced with as majestic an intonation as possible. Olaj Beg thereupon folded his hands together. "Oh, my dear son!" said he, "the princely dignity is indeed a heavy burden. I see that quite well, nor am I in the least surprised that thou wishest to be relieved of it; but be of good cheer, the blessing of Heaven will come upon us when we are not praying for it; when thou dost least expect it the Sublime Sultan will have compassion upon thee, and will deliver thee of the heavy load which presses upon thy shoulders." Apafi wrinkled his brows. The exordium was bad enough; he hastened towards the end of the business. "Perchance, you have heard, gracious Olaj Beg! that the unfortunate Mariska Sturdza has taken refuge with us." "It matters not," signified the Beg, with a reassuring wave of the hand. "She took refuge in my palace without my knowledge," observed Apafi apologetically, "and what could I do when she was all alone? I couldn't turn her out of my house." "There was no necessity. Thou didst as it became a merciful man to do." "If you had seen her you would yourself have felt sorry for her--sick, half-dead, desperate, she flung herself at my feet, imploring compassion, and before I could reply to her she had fainted away. Perhaps even now she is dead." "Oh, poor child!" cried Olaj Beg, folding both his hands and raising his eyes to Heaven. "Her husband had left her in great misery, and alone she plunged into jeopardy," continued Apafi, trying to justify the persecuted woman in every possible manner. "Oh, poor, unhappy child!" cried Olaj Beg, shaking his head. "And more than that," sighed Apafi, "the poor woman is big with child." "What dost thou say?" "Yes, sir, and flying day and night in all sorts of weathers from her pursuers in such a condition, you can imagine her wretched condition; she was scarce alive, she was on the very threshold of death." "Allah be gracious to her and extend over her the wings of his mercy!" Apafi began to think that he had found Olaj Beg in a charitable humour. "I knew that you would not be angry about her." "I am not angry, my son, I am not angry. My eyes overflow at her sad fate." "She, you know, had no share in her husband's faults." "Far from it." "And it would not be right that an innocent woman should atone for what her husband has committed." "Certainly not." "Then do you think, my lord, that the Sublime Sultan will be merciful to this woman?" "What a question! Have no fear for her!" Apafi was not so simple as not to be struck by this exaggerated indulgence, the more satisfactory were the Beg's replies the keener grew his feeling of anxiety. At last, much perturbed, he ventured to put this question: "Gracious Beg! will you allow this unfortunate woman to rest in peace at my house, and can you assure me that the Sublime Sultan will espouse her cause?" "The Holy Book says: 'Be merciful to them that suffer and compassionate them that weep.' Therefore, behold I grant thee thy desire: let this poor innocent woman repose in thy house in peace, let her rest thoroughly from her sufferings and let her enjoy the blessedness of peace till such time as I must take her from thee by the command of the Grand Seignior." Apafi felt his brain reel, so marvellous, so terrible was this graciousness of the Turk towards him. "And when think you you will require this woman to be handed over?" Olaj Beg, with a reassuring look, tapped Apafi on the shoulder, and said with a voice full of unction: "Fret not thyself, my dear son! In no case will it be earlier than to-morrow morning." Apafi almost collapsed in his fright. "To-morrow morning, do you say, my lord?" "I promise thee she shall not be disturbed before." Apafi perceived that the man had been making sport with him all along. Rage began to seethe in his heart. "But, my lord, I said nothing about one day. One day is the period allowed to condemned criminals." "Days and seasons come from Allah, and none may divide them." "Damn you soft sawder!" murmured Apafi between his teeth. "My lord," he resumed, "would you carry away with you a sick woman whom only the most tender care can bring back from the shores of Death, and who, if she were now to set out for Buda, would never reach it, for she would die on the way?" Olaj Beg piously raised his hands to Heaven. "Life and death are inscribed above in the Book of Thora, and if it there be written in letters embellished with roses and tulips that Mariska Sturdza must die to-morrow, or the day after to-morrow, die she will most certainly, though she lay upon musk and were anointed with the balm of life, and neither the prayers of the saints nor the lore of the Sages could save her--but if it be written that she is to live, then let the Angels of Death come against her with every manner of weapon and they shall not harm her." Apafi saw that he would have to speak very plainly to this crafty old man. "Worthy Olaj Beg! you know that this realm has a constitution which enjoins that the Prince himself must not issue ordinances in the more weighty matters without consulting his counsellors. Now, the present case seems to me to be so important that I cannot inform you of my resolution till I have communicated it to my council." "It is well, my dear son, I have no objection. Speak with those servants of thine whom thou hast made thy masters; sit in thy council chamber and let the matter be well considered as it deserves to be; and if thereafter ye decide that the Princess shall accompany me, I will take her away and take leave of thee with great honour; but if it should so fall out that ye do not give her up to me, my dear son, or should allow her to escape from me--then will I take thee instead of her, together with thy brave counsellors, my sweet son." The Beg said these words in the sweetest, tenderest voice, as old grandfathers are wont to address their grandchildren, and descending from his pillows he stroked the Prince's face with both his hands, and kissed him on the temples with great good will, quite covering his head with his long white beard. Apafi felt as if the whole room were dancing around him. He did not speak a word, but turned on his axis and went right out. He himself did not know how he got through the first door, but by the time he had shut the second door behind him he bethought him that he was still the Prince of Transylvania, and by descent one of the first noblemen of the land, whereas Olaj Beg was only a nasty, dirty Turkish captain, who had been a camel-driver in the days of his youth, and yet had dared to speak to him, the Prince, like that! By the time he had reached the third door he had reflected that in the days when he was nothing but the joint-tenant of Ebesfalu, if Olaj Beg had dared to treat him so shamefully, he would have broken his bald head for him with a stout truncheon. But had he not just such a stout truncheon actually hanging by his side? Yes, he had! and he would go back and strike Olaj Beg with it, not exactly on the head perhaps, but, at any rate, on the back that he might remember for the rest of his life the _stylus curialis_ of Transylvania. And with that he turned back from the third door with very grave resolves. But when he had re-opened the second door he bethought him once more that such violence might be of great prejudice to the realm, and besides, there was not very much glory after all in striking an old man of eighty. But at any rate he would tell him like a man what it had not occurred to him to say in the first moment of his surprise. So when he had opened the first door and was in the presence of Olaj Beg, he stood there on the threshold with the door ajar, and said to him in a voice of thunder: "Hearken, Olaj Beg! I have come back simply to tell you----" Olaj Beg looked at him. "What dost thou say, my good son?" "This," continued Apafi in a very much lower key, "that it will take time to summon the council, for Béldi lives at Bodola, Teleki at Gernyeszeg, Csaky at Déva, and until they come together you can do what you think best: you may remain here or go"--and with that he turned back, and only when he had slammed to the door he added--"to hell!" CHAPTER XV. THE WOMEN'S DEFENCE. This incident was the occasion of great affliction to the Estates of Transylvania. The counsellors assembled at the appointed time at the residence of the Prince, who at that moment would have felt happier as a Tartar captive than as the ruler of Transylvania. On the day of the session everyone appeared in the council chamber with as gloomy a countenance as if he were about to pronounce his own death-warrant. They took their places in silence, and everyone took great care that his sword should not rattle. There were present: old John and young Michael Bethlen, Paul Béldi, Caspar Kornis, Ladislaus Csaky, Joshua Kapi, and the protonotarius, Francis Sárpataky. For the Prince, there had just been prepared a new canopied throne, with three steps; it was the first time he had sat on it. Beside it was an empty arm-chair, reserved for Michael Teleki. As soon as the guard of the chamber announced that the counsellors had assembled, the Prince at once appeared, accompanied by Michael Teleki and Stephen Naláczi. It could be seen from the Prince's face that for at least two hours Teleki had been filling his head with talk. Nalaczi greeted everyone present with a courtly smile, but nobody smiled back at him. Teleki, with cold gravity, led the Prince to the throne. The latter on first looking up at the throne, stood before it as if thunderstruck, and seemed to be deliberating for a moment whether it ought not to be taken away and a simple chair put in its place. But after thinking it well out he mounted the steps, and, sighing deeply, took his seat upon it. Michael Teleki stood silent in his place for some time, as if he was collecting his thoughts. His eyes did not travel along the faces of those present as they generally did to watch the effect of his words, but were fixed on the clasp of his kalpag, and his voice was much duller than at other times, often sinking to tremulous depths, except when he pulled himself together and tried to give it a firmer tone. "Your Highness, your Excellencies,--God has reserved peculiar trials for our unfortunate nation. One danger has scarce passed over us when we plump into another; when we try to avoid the lesser perils, we find the greater ones directly in our path, and we end in sorrow what we began in joy. Scarcely have we got over the tidings of the battle of St. Gothard (we had our own melancholy reasons for not participating therein), and the consequent annihilation of the far-reaching designs of the Turkish Empire, by the peace contracted between the two great Powers, amidst whose quarrels our unhappy country is buffeted about as if between hammer and anvil, when we have a fresh and still greater occasion for apprehension. For the generals of the Turkish Sultan impute the loss of the battle to the premature flight of Prince Ghyka, and at the same time hold us partly responsible for it--and certainly, had our soldiers stood in the place of the Wallachian warriors, although they would not have liked fighting their fellow-Magyars, nevertheless, if once they had been in for it, they would not have ran away and so the battle would not have been lost--wherefore the wrath of the Sublime Sultan was so greatly kindled against both the neighbouring nations, that he sent his cavasses to seize the Prince of Moldavia and carry him in chains to Stambul with his whole family. As for Transylvania, but for the mercy of God and the goodwill of certain Turkish statesmen, we might have seen it suddenly converted into a sandjak or province, and a fez-wearing Pasha on the throne of his Highness. Now it has so happened that the Prince of Moldavia, wresting himself and his wife out of the hands of their pursuers, took the shortest road to Transylvania. We sent a message to them that on no account were they to try to come here, as their flight would cost us more than a Tartar invasion. The Prince, therefore, took refuge in the mountains, but let his wife continue her journey, and, in an evil hour for us and herself, she arrived here a few days ago with the knowledge and under the very eyes of the Sultan's plenipotentiary. The husband having escaped, the whole wrath of the Sultan is turned upon the wife and upon us also if we try to defend her. What, then, are we to do? If we had to choose between shame and death, I should know what to say; but here our choice is only between two kinds of shame: either to hand over an innocent, tender woman, who has appealed to us for protection, or see a Turkish Pasha sitting on the throne of the Prince!" "But there's a third course, surely," said Béldi, "by way of petition?" "I might indeed make the request," interrupted Apafi, "but I know very well what answer I should get." "I do not mean petitioning the envoy," returned Béldi. "Who would humiliate himself by petitioning the servant when he could appeal to the master?" At this Apafi grew dumb; he could not bring forward the fact that he had already petitioned the servant. "I believe that Béldi is right," said young Michael Bethlen, "and that is the only course we can take. I am well acquainted with the mood of an eastern Despot when he gets angry, and I know that at such times it is nothing unusual for him to level towns to the ground and decapitate viceroys; but fortunately for Transylvania it is situated in Europe, where one state has some regard for another, and it is the interest of all the European kingdoms to maintain a free state between themselves and the Ottoman Empire, even if it be only a small one like Transylvania. And it seems to me that if our petition be supported at Stambul by the French, Austrian, and Polish ambassadors, there will be no reason for the Sultan, especially after such a defeat as the last one, to send a Pasha to Transylvania. And, finally, if we show him that our swords have not rusted in their scabbards, and that we know how to draw them on occasion, he will not be disposed to do so." The youth's enthusiastic speech began to pour fresh confidence into the souls of those who heard him, and their very faces appeared to brighten because of it. Teleki shook his head slowly. "I tell your Excellencies it will be a serious business," said he. "I am obliged to arouse you from an agreeable dream by confronting you with a rigorous fact. Europe has not the smallest care for our existence; we only find allies when they have need of our sacrifices; let us begin to petition, and they know us no more. It is true that at one time I said something very different, but time is such a good master that it teaches a man more in one day than if he had gone through nine schools. In consequence of the battle of St. Gothard, peace has been concluded between the two Emperors. I have read every article of it, every point, and we are left out of it altogether, as if we were a nation quite unworthy of consideration. Yet the French, the English, and the Polish ministers were there, and I can say that not one of them received so much pay from his own court as he received from us. If they want war, oh! then we are a great and glorious nation; but when peace is concluded they do not even know that we are there. In war we may lead the van, but in the distribution of rewards we are left far behind. And now the Pasha of Buda, who is bent upon our destruction and would like to set a pasha over Transylvania, after the last defeat, has sent down Yffim Beg to us to go from village to village demanding why the arrears of taxes have not been paid, and then he is coming to the Prince to ask the cause of the remissness and threaten him with the vengeance of the Pasha of Buda." There was a general murmur of indignation. "Ah, gentlemen, let us confess to each other that we play at being masters in our own home, but in fact we are masters there no longer. We may trust to our efforts and rely upon our rights, but we have none to help us; we have no allies either on the right hand or on the left; we have only our masters. We may change our masters, but we shall never win confederates. The Power which stands above us is only awaiting an opportunity to carry out its designs upon us, and no one could render it a better service in Transylvania than by raising his head against it. We have all of us a great obligation laid upon us: to recognise the little we possess, take care to preserve it, and, if the occasion arise, insist upon it. It is true that while the sword is in our hands we may defend all Europe with it; but let our sword once be broken and our whole realm falls to pieces and the heathen will trample upon us in the sight of all the nations. We shall bleed for a half-century or so, and nobody will come to our assistance; the gates of our realm will be guarded by our enemies; and, like the scorpion in a fiery circle, we shall only turn the bitterness of our hearts against ourselves. Do you want reasons, then, why we should not defend those hunted creatures who seek a refuge with us? The World and Fate have settled their accounts with us; this realm is left entirely to its own devices. Matters standing thus, if we refuse to deliver up to Olaj Beg the above-mentioned Princess of Moldavia, the armies of the Pashas of Buda and Grosswardein will instantly receive orders to reduce Transylvania to the rank of a vassal state of the Porte. There is no room here for regret or humanity, self-preservation is our one remaining duty and the duty of self-preservation demands that where we have no choice, we should do voluntarily what we may be forced to do." Teleki had scarce finished these words than an attendant announced that the Princess of Moldavia requested admittance into the council chamber. Apafi would have replied in the negative, but Teleki signified that she might as well come in. A few moments later the attendant again appeared and requested permission for the ladies of the Princess's suite to accompany their mistress, as she was too weak to walk alone. Teleki consented to that also. The counsellors cast down their eyes when the door opened. But there is a sort of spell which forces a man to look in the very direction in which he would not, in which he fears to look, and lo and behold! when the door opened and the hunted woman entered with her suite, a cry of astonishment resounded from every lip. For of what did the woman's suite consist? It consisted of the most eminent ladies of Transylvania. The wives and daughters of all the counsellors present accompanied the unfortunate lady, foremost among them being the Princess and Dame Michael Teleki, on whose shoulders she leaned; and last of all came old Dame Bethlen, with dove-white hair. All the most respectable matrons, the loveliest wives, and fairest maidens of the realm were there. The unfortunate Princess, whose pale face was full of suffering, advanced on the arms of her supporters towards the throne of the Prince. Her knees tottered beneath her, her whole body trembled like a leaf, she opened her lips, but no sound proceeded from them. "Courage, my child," whispered Anna Bornemissza, pressing her hand; whereupon the tears suddenly burst from the eyes of the unfortunate woman, and, breaking from her escort, she flung herself at the feet of the Prince, embracing his knees with her convulsive arms, and raising towards him her tear-stained face, exclaimed with a heart-rending voice: "Mercy! ... Mercy!" A cold dumbness sat on every lip; it was impossible for a time to hear anything but the woman's deep sobbing. The Prince sat like a statue on his throne, the steps of which Mariska Sturdza moistened with her tears. The silence was painful to everyone, yet nobody dared to break it. Teleki smoothed away his forelock from his broad forehead, but he could not smooth away the wrinkles which had settled there. He regretted that he had given occasion to this scene. "Mercy!" sobbed the poor woman once more, and half unconsciously her hand slipped from Apafi's knees. Aranka Béldi rushed towards her and rested her declining head on her own pretty childlike bosom. Then Anna Bornemissza stepped forward, and after throwing a stony glance upon all the counsellors present, who cast down their eyes before her, looked Apafi straight in the face with her own bright, penetrating, soul-searching eyes, till her astonished husband was constrained to return her glance almost without knowing it. "My petition is a brief one," said Dame Apafi in a low, deep, though perfectly audible voice. "An unfortunate woman, whom the Lord of Destiny did not deem to be sufficiently chastened by a single blow, has lost in one day her husband, her home, and her property; she implores us now for bare life. You see her lying in the dust asking of you nothing more than leave to rest--a petition which Dzengis Khan's executioners would have granted her. That is all she asks, but we demand more. The destiny of Transylvania is in your hands, but its honour is ours also; ye are summoned to decide whether our children are to be happy or miserable. But speak freely to us and say if you wish them to be honourable men or cowards. And I ask you which of us women would care to bear the name of a Kornis, a Csaky, or an Apafi, if posterity shall say of the bearers of these names that they surrendered an innocent woman to her heathen pursuers and constrained their own sons thereby to renounce the names of their fathers? Look not so darkly upon me, Master Michael Teleki, for my soul is dark enough without that. An unhappy woman is on her knees before you, hoping that she will find you to be men. The women of Transylvania stand before you, hoping to find you patriots. We beg you to have compassion for the sake of the honour of our children." Teleki, upon whom the eyes of the Princess had flashed fiercely during the speech, as if accepting the challenge, answered in a cold, stony voice: "Here, madam, we dispense justice only, not mercy or honour." "Justice!" exclaimed Anna. "What! If a husband has offended, is his innocent wife, whose only fault is that she loves the fugitive, is she, I say, to suffer punishment in his stead? Where is the justice of that?" "Justice is often another name for necessity." "Then who are all ye whom I see here? Are ye the chief men of Transylvania or Turkish slaves? This is what I ask, and what we should all of us very much like to know: is this the council chamber of the free and constitutional state of Transylvania, or is it the ante-chamber of Olaj Beg?" The gentlemen present preserved a deep silence. This was a question to which they could not give a direct answer. "I demand an answer to my question," cried Dame Apafi in a loud voice. "And what good will the answer do you, my lady?" inquired Teleki, pressing his index-finger to his lips. "I shall at any rate know whether the place in which we now stand is worthy of us." "It is not worthy, my lady. The present is no time for the Magyars to be proud that they dwell in Transylvania; we are ashamed to be the responsible ministers of a down-trodden, deserted, and captive nation. This your Highness ought to know as well as any of us, for it was a Turkish Pasha who placed your husband on the Prince's seat. And, assuredly, it would be a far less grief to us to lose our heads than to bend them humbly beneath the derisive honour of being the leaders of a people lying among ruins. But, at the most, history will only be able to say of us that we humbly bowed before necessity, that we bore the yoke of the stranger without dignity, that running counter to the feelings of our hearts and the persuasions of our minds, we covered our faces with shame, and yet that that very shame and dishonour saved the life of Transylvania, and that poor spot of earth which remained in our hands saved the whole country from a bloody persecution. We are the victims of the times, madam; help us to conceal the blush of shame and share it with us. There, you have the answer to your question." Dame Apafi grew as pale as death, her head drooped, and she clasped her hands together. "So we have come to this at last? Formerly valour was the national virtue, now it is cowardice. What is our own fate likely to be if we reject this poor woman? What has happened to-day to a Princess Ghyka might easily happen to the wives of Kornis and Csaky and Béldi to-morrow. For their husbands' faults they may be carried away captive, brought to the block, if only God does not have mercy upon them, for you yourselves say that this would be right. Why do you look at us? You, Béldi, Kornis, Teleki, Csaky, Bethlen, here stand your wives and daughters. Draw forth your coward swords, and if you dare not slay men, at least slay women; kill them before it occurs to the Turkish Padishah to drag them by the hair into his harem." As Dame Apafi mentioned the names of the men one after another, their wives and daughters, loudly weeping, rushed towards them, and hiding their heads in their bosoms, with passionate sobs, begged for the unfortunate Princess, and behold the eyes of the men also filled with tears, and nothing could be heard in the room but the sobbing of the husbands mingled with the sobbing of their wives. On Teleki's breast also hung the gentle Judith Veér and his own daughter Flora, and the great stony-hearted counsellor stood trembling between them; and although his cast-iron features assumed with an effort a rigorous expression, nevertheless a couple of unrestrainable tears suddenly trickled down the furrows of his face. The Prince turned aside on his throne, and covering his face, murmured: "No more, Anna! No more!" "Oh, Apafi!" cried the Princess bitterly; "if perish I must it shall not be by your hand. Anna Bornemissza has strength enough to meet death if there be no choice between that and shame. Be content, if Olaj Beg demands my death, I shall at least be spared the unpleasantness of falling at your feet in supplication. And now, pronounce your decision, but remember that every word you say will resound throughout the Christian world." Teleki dried the tears from his face, made his wife and daughter withdraw, and said in a voice tremulous with emotion: "In vain should I deny it, my tears reveal that I have a feeling heart. I am a man, I am a father, and a husband. If I were nothing but Michael Teleki, I should know how to sacrifice myself on behalf of persecuted innocence; and if my colleagues around me were only companions-in-arms, I should say to them, gird on your swords, lie in wait, rush upon the Turkish escort of the Princess, and deliver her out of their hands--if we perish, a blessing will be upon us. But in this place, in these chairs, it is not ourselves who feel and speak. The life, the death of all Transylvania depends upon us. And my last word is that we incontinently deliver up Mariska Sturdza to the ambassador of the Porte. If my colleagues decide otherwise, I will agree to it, I will take my share of the responsibility, but I shall have saved my soul anyhow. Speak, gentlemen, and if you like, vote against me." The silence of death ensued, nobody spoke a word. "What, nobody speaks?" cried Dame Apafi in amazement. "Nobody! Ah! let us leave this place! There is not a man in the whole principality." And with these words the lady withdrew from the council chamber. Her attendants followed her sorrowfully, one by one, tearfully bidding adieu to the unfortunate Princess. Aranka Béldi was the last to part from her. During the whole of this mournful scene her eyes had remained tearless, but she had knelt down the whole time by Mariska's side, holding her closely embraced, and assuring her that God would deliver her, she must fear nothing. When all the ladies had withdrawn, and Dame Béldi beckoned her daughter to follow her, she tenderly kissed the face of her friend and whispered in her ear: "I have still hope, fear not, we will save you!" and smiling at her with her bright blue eyes like an angel of consolation, got up and withdrew. The Princess, tearless, speechless, then allowed herself to be conducted away by the officers of the council chamber. The men remained sitting upon their chairs, downcast and sorrowful. Every bosom was oppressed, and every heart was empty, and the thought of their delivered fatherland was a cold consolation for the grief they felt that the Government of Transylvania should fling an innocent woman back into the throat of the monster which was pursuing her. The silence still continued when, suddenly, the door was violently burst open, and shoving aside the guards right and left, Yffim Beg entered the room. He had been sent by Hassan Pasha to levy contributions on the Prince and the people. The rough Turkish captain looked round with boorish pride upon the silent gentlemen, who were still depressed by the preceding incident, and perceiving that here he had to do with the humble, without so much as bowing, he strode straight up to the Prince, and placing one foot on the footstool before the throne, and throwing his head haughtily back, flung these words at him: "In the name of my master, the mighty Hassan Pasha, I put this question to thee, thou Prince of the Giaurs, why hast thou kept back for so long the tribute which is due to the Porte? Who hath caused the delay--thou, or the farmers of the taxes, or the tax-paying people? Answer me directly, and take care that thou liest not!" The Prince looked around with wrinkled brows as if looking for something to fling at the head of the fellow. He regretted that the inkstand was so far off. But Teleki handed a sheet of parchment to Sárpataky, the clerk of the council. "Read our answer to the Pasha's letter," said he; "as for you--sir I will not call you--listen to what is written therein. 'Beneficent Hassan Pasha, we greatly regret that you bother yourself about things which are already settled. We do not ask you why you came so late to the battle of St. Gothard. Why do you ask us, then, why we are so late with the taxes? We will answer for ourselves at the proper time and place. Till then, Heaven bless you, and grant that misfortune overwhelm you not just when you would ruin others.' When you have written all that down, hand it to his Highness the Prince for signature." The gentlemen present had fallen from one surprise into another. Michael Teleki, who a moment before, against the inclinations of his own heart and mind, had tried to compel the land to submit to the demand of Olaj Beg, could in the next moment send such a message to the powerful Vizier of Buda. But Teleki knew very well that the storm which was passing over the country on account of the Princess of Moldavia was sure to rebound on the head of the Vizier of Buda. The Sultan was seeking for an object on which to wreak his wrath because of the lost battle, and if the Pasha of Buda did not succeed in making the Government of Transylvania the victim, he would fall a victim himself. As for Yffim Beg, he did not quite know whether a thunder-bolt had plunged down close beside him, or whether he was dreaming. There he stood like a statue, unable to utter a word, and only looked on stupidly while the letter was being written before his very eyes, while Apafi's pen scraped the parchment as he subscribed his signature, while they poured the sand over it, folded it up, impressed it with an enormous seal, and thrust it into his palm. Only then did he emerge somewhat from his stupor. "Do ye think I am mad enough to carry this letter back with me to Buda?" And with these words he seized the letter at both ends, tore it in two, and flung it beneath the table. "Write another!" said he, "write it nicely, for my master, the mighty Hassan Pasha, will strangle the whole lot of you." Teleki turned coldly towards him. "If you don't like the letter, worthy müderris, you may go back without any letter at all." "I am no müderris, but Yffim Beg. I would have thee know that, thou dog; and I won't go without a letter, and I won't let you all go till ye have written another." And with these words he sat down on the steps of the Prince's throne and crossed his legs, so that two were sitting on the throne at the same time, the Beg and Apafi. "Guards!" cried Apafi in a commanding voice, "seize this shameless fellow, tie him on to a horse's back and drive him out of the town." They needed not another word. One of the guards immediately rushed forward to where Yffim Beg was still sitting on a footstool with legs crossed, and took him under the arm, while another of them grasped him firmly by the collar, and raising him thus in the air, kicking and struggling, carried him out of the room in a moment. The Beg struck, bit, and scratched, but it was all of no avail. The merciless drabants set him on the back of a horse in the courtyard, without a saddle, tied his feet together beneath the horse's belly, placed the bridle of the steed in the hands of a stable-boy, while another stable-boy stood behind with a good stout whip; and so liberally did they interpret the commands of the chief counsellor, that they escorted the worthy gentleman, not only out of the town, but beyond the borders of the realm. CHAPTER XVI. A FIGHT FOR HIS OWN HEAD. At Buda, while Hassan Pasha was fighting with the army of the German Emperor, Yffim Beg was preparing the triumphal arches through which the victors were to pass on their return, adorning them with green branches and precious carpets, and leaving room for the standards to be captured from the Germans and Hungarians. The bridge was also repaired and strengthened to support the weight of the heavy gun-carriages and cannon which Montecuculi was to have abandoned, and at the same time a large space on the Rákás was railed in where all the slaves of all the nations, including women and children, were to be impounded. And after all these amiable preparations the terrible message reached the worthy Yffim Beg from Hassan Pasha that he was to place all his movable chattels, gold and silver, on a fugitive footing, barricade the fortress, cut away the bridge so that the enemy might not be able to cross it, and follow him with the whole harem, beyond the Raab, for who could tell whether they would ever see the fortress of Buda again. Yffim Beg was not particularly pleased with this message, but without taking long to think about it, he put the damsels of the harem into carriages, sent them off along the covered way adjoining the water-gate, in order to make as little disturbance as possible, and, as soon as they were on the other side of the bridge, ordered it to be destroyed and the garrison of the fortress to defend themselves as best they could. He reached the Turkish army to find the opposing hosts drawn up against each other on different sides of the river, across which they bombarded each other from time to time, without doing much damage. The Pasha's pavilion was well in the rear, out of cannon-shot; he was delighted when he saw Yffim Beg, and could not take his fill of kissing Azrael, who was lovelier and more gracious than ever. "Remain here," he said to his favourites, embracing the pair of them. "I must retire now to the interior of my pavilion to pray for an hour or so with the dervishes, for a great and grievous duty will devolve upon me in an hour's time--two great Turkish nobles, Kucsuk Pasha and his son, are to be condemned to death." Azrael started as violently as if a serpent had crept into her bosom. "How have they offended?" she asked, scarce able to conceal her agitation. "Against the precepts of the Prophet they engaged in battle on a day of ill-omen; they have cast dirt on the victorious half-moon, and must wash off the stain with their blood." Hassan withdrew; Azrael remained alone in the tent with the Beg. "I saw thee shudder," said Yffim, fixing his sharp eyes on the face of Azrael. "Death chooses the thirteenth; he leaped past me at this very moment." "And on whom has the fatal thirteen fallen?" "On someone who stands beside me or behind me." "Behind thee in the tent outside is Feriz Beg." "But thou art beside me." "I am too young to die yet." "And is not he also?" "He of whom Hassan saith: 'He hath sinned!' becomes old and withered on the spot." "And hast thou done nothing for which thou shouldst die?" "My beard will grow white because of my loyalty; life is long in the shadow of Hassan." "But how long will Hassan have a shadow?" "Till his night cometh--but that is still far off." "Hast thou not heard of the case of Ajas Pasha, Yffim?--of Ajas, who was the mightiest of all the Pashas?" "He was the Sultan's son-in-law." "The Grand Seignior gave him his own daughter to wife, and loaded him with every favour. One day Ajas lost a battle against the Zrinyis. It was not a great defeat, but the Sultan was wrath and beheaded Ajas Pasha." "H'm! I recollect, it was a sad story." "And dost thou remember the story of the faithful Hiassar? Ajas charged him to bring to him before his death his favourite wife, not his whole harem which thou hast brought to Hassan Pasha, but only his favourite wife, that he might take leave of her; and dost thou know that for doing this thing the Sultan had Hiassar roasted to death in a copper ox? For a disgraced favourite possesses nothing--all he had is the Sultan's, his treasures, his wives and his children; and whoever lays his hand upon them is robbing the Sultan. Who knows, Yffim Beg, but what at this moment I may not be the Sultan's slave-girl? and from slave-girl to favourite is but a step, and thou knowest it would be but a short step for me." "What accursed things thou art saying." "The wife of Ajas Beg was the Sultan's favourite at the time when Hiassar was burnt, and a word from her would have saved him. But she said it not, because she was wrath with him; methinks the woman loved him once, and the slave despised her love. Give me my mandoline, Yffim, I would sing a song." The odalisk lay back upon the bed, while Yffim anxiously paced to and fro like a hyena fallen into a snare. The story just related had a striking resemblance to his own, and it would not take very much to give it a similar termination. Suddenly he stood before the damsel, who nonchalantly strummed the strings of her instrument. "What dost thou want?" "Ask not what thou knowest." "Thou wouldst save Feriz?" "I will save him." "I swear by Allah it is not to be done. Die he must, if only to tame thee; for if he remain alive thou wilt destroy the lot of us sooner or later." Azrael collapsed at the feet of the Beg. Sobbing, she embraced his knees. "Oh, be merciful! Say but a word for him to the general. I love the youth as thou canst see and dost very well know. Do not let him perish!" Like all little souls, Yffim Beg became all the bolder at these supplicating words, and seizing Azrael by the arms, roughly pulled her to her feet, and whispered in her ear with malicious joy: "I'll make thee a present of his head." At these words the woman raised her head, her eyes like those of a furious she-wolf seemed to glow with green fire, her tresses curled like serpents round her bosom. She said not a word, but her tightly clenched teeth kept back a whole hell of dumb fury. At that moment the Vizier returned. Azrael at once put on a smile. Hassan could not see what was seething in her heart. Yffim approached the Pasha confidentially. "Does the Sultan know of thy disaster?" "He has heard it since." "It would be as well to send me with gifts to the Porte." "Ask not that honour for thyself, Yffim; learn, rather, that whomsoever I send to Stambul now is as good as sent to Paradise. The Sultan's wrath is kindled, and he can only quench it with blood." All the blood quitted Yffim's own face. "Then thou hast thy fears, my master?" "His rage demands blood, and the blood of a great man, too. Which of us? That is all one, but a great man must die. If I cannot sacrifice someone in my place I shall perish myself, but there are men of equal value to myself from whom I can choose. There are two especially--Kucsuk and his son. They began the battle; if they had not begun it, there would have been no battle; and if there had been no battle, there would have been no disaster. They are Death's sons already. The third is the Prince of Moldavia. He was the first to fly from the fight; he had a secret understanding with the Christians. He is a son of Death also. I can throw in the Prince of Transylvania also, because he kept away from the battle altogether and was late with his tribute. Had he sent it sooner, we should have had money; and if we had had money, we should have been able to have bought hay; and if we had had hay the soldiers would not have hastened on the battle and so lost it. He also is a son of Death, therefore. Go thou into Transylvania and bring him hither to me." Azrael listened to all this with great attention. Yffim Beg regarded her with a radiant countenance, as much as to say: "You see our heads won't ache yet!" The odalisk, however, trembled no longer; she pressed her lips tightly together, and as if she was quite certain of what she was about to do, she pressed her sweetly smiling face close to that of the Vizier, and hanging on his arms, whispered to him: "O Hassan, how my soul would rejoice if I could see flow the blood of thine enemies." Hassan sat the damsel on his knees, and his lips sported with her twining tresses. Yffim Beg was in such a mighty good humour at being commissioned by Hassan to go as ambassador to the Prince of Transylvania, and so blindly exalted by such a mark of confidence, that he fancied he could well afford to torment Azrael a little. "Whilst thou wert away, my master," said he, "thy damsel implored me to grant her a favour, which I dare not do without first asking thy permission." Azrael regarded the smiling Beg with sparkling eyes, anxiously awaiting what he would be bold enough to betray. "What was it?--speak, Yffim Beg," remarked Hassan wildly. "Thou and the other Pashas are about to condemn a youth to death--young Feriz Beg, I mean." "Well?" said Hassan frowning, while the odalisk whom he held embraced trembled all over. "Azrael would like to see the young man die." The girl grew pale at these words; her heart for a moment ceased to beat, and then began fiercely to throb again. "A foolish wish," said Hassan; "but if thou desire it, be it so! Be present at the meeting of the Pashas, stand behind the curtains by my side, and thou shalt hear and see everything." Azrael imprinted a long and burning kiss on Hassan's forehead with a face full of death, and stood behind the curtain holding the folds together with her hands. "If thou shouldst faint," whispered Yffim Beg sarcastically, "thou shalt have a vessel of musk from me." Azrael laughed so loudly that Yffim fancied she must have gone mad. "And now call the Pashas and draw the curtain of the tent," commanded Hassan. At the invitation of Yffim all the officers of the camp came to the pavilion and took their seats in a circle on cushions. Last of all came the Grand Vizier, Kiuprile, a big, stout, angry man, who, without looking at anyone, sat down on the cushion beside Hassan and turned his back upon him. Then the roll of drums was heard, and Kucsuk Pasha and Feriz Beg, well guarded, were brought in from different sides--Kucsuk on the left hand, and Feriz on the right. "Look!" whispered Azrael to Hassan from behind the curtain; "look how proud they are, the son on the right, the father on the left. They seem to be encouraging each other with their glances." Hassan nodded his head as if thanking his favourite for assisting his weak eyes, and as both figures came within the obscurity of the tent, where the light was not very good at the best of times, acting on the hint given, he turned towards the aged Kucsuk Pasha and cried: "Thou immature youth, step back till I speak to thee." Then, turning to young Feriz Beg, he said: "Step forward, thou hardened old traitor! Wherefore didst thou leave the armies of the Sublime Sultan in the lurch?" Feriz Beg, as if a weapon against his persecutors had suddenly been put into his hand, stepped boldly right up to Hassan Pasha, and exclaimed in a bold voice, which rang though the tent: "Thou art the traitor, not I; for thou darest to hold the office of general when thou art blind and canst not distinguish two paces off father from son, or an enemy from a friend." Hassan sprang in terror from his carpet when he heard Kucsuk's son speak instead of Kucsuk. "That is not true," he stammered, changing colour. "Not true!" replied Feriz stiffly; "then, if thine eyes be good, wilt thou tell me what regiment is now passing thy tent with martial music?" The tent be it understood was open towards the plain overlooking the whole camp and the river beyond. A military band was just then crossing the ground not far from the tent, quite alone; no regiment was coming after it. "Methinks, thou mutinous dog, 'tis no answer to my question to inquire what regiment is now passing by, for it maybe that I know better than thou why it has arrived; nor is it part of my duty to mention the rabble by name; suffice it that I hear the trumpets and see the banners." The Pashas looked at each other; there was neither regiment nor banners. "So that's it, eh?" said Kiuprile, spitting in front of him; and with that he rose from his place, and, without looking at Hassan, took Kucsuk and Feriz by the arm. "Come!" said he to the other generals--"you can go now!" he cried to the guards, and the whole assembly withdrew from the tent. Hassan fell back on his carpet. He himself had betrayed his great defect. Azrael rushed from her hiding-place. "Oh, my master!" she cried; "thou didst wrongly interpret my words, and so made everything go wrong." "I am lost," he stammered, and quite beside himself he plunged into the interior of the tent to pray with the dervishes. Yffim Beg stood there as if his soul had been filched from him; while Azrael approached him with a smile of devilish scorn and stroked his face down with her hand. "Dost thou fancy thou wilt require another good word for thee?" "I can betray thee." "Thou couldst if thou didst but know which of the two is to live longest--Hassan or I." * * * * * Two hours after this scene there was a private conversation between Hassan Pasha and Yffim Beg, from which even Azrael was excluded. The interview over, Yffim Beg departed quickly from the camp. The general had sent him to Transylvania to go in his name from village to village to make a general inspection, and ask the magistrates why the common folks did not pay the taxes at the proper time. He was thence to go to the Prince and ask the cause of this delay in the transmission of taxes; thus either the people or the Prince would be held responsible. Hassan for a long time had had a scheme in his head of seizing Transylvania by force of arms, whereby, on the one hand, he would win the favour of the Porte, by adding a new subject state to Turkish territory, and, on the other hand, would secure for himself a good easy princely chair instead of a dangerously-jolting general's saddle. At the same time Olaj Beg was worrying Apafi to seize the escaped Princess of Moldavia and send her to Hassan Pasha, who was well aware that the silken cord would be constantly dangling before his eyes till he had found someone else whose neck he could jeopardise instead of his own. Kucsuk and his son had escaped from his talons, but he had just heard from Olaj Beg that the Moldavian Princess was with Apafi, and in an interesting condition, so that there was every prospect of a young Prince being born. Here, then, in case of necessity, was a person who could be handed over, and in case she escaped, the silken cord would remain round Apafi's neck. A few days after the departure of Yffim Beg, peace was hastily concluded between the Porte and the King of the Romans. In consequence thereof Hassan avoided a collision with the other generals, and, quitting them, hastened back to Buda with his army. Kiuprile marched right off to Belgrade, Kucsuk was dispatched to the fortress of Szekelyhid; only Feriz remained at Buda, for the simple reason that he was confined to his bed by a feverish cold in a kiosk, which was erected for him by the express command of Kiuprile. Just about this time Azrael had an excess of devotion, and was constantly plagued by terrifying dreams in which she saw Hassan Pasha walking up and down without his head, and every morning she got leave from him to pay a visit to an old dervish to pray against the apparition of evil spirits. Hassan was much affected by this devotion towards him and true Mussulman fervour, and made no opposition to his favourite damsel going every morning to the mosque to pray, and only returning from thence late every evening; but he impressed it upon her suite to keep a watchful eye upon the girl lest she should deceive them. They therefore permitted pious Azrael to visit the worthy dervish so wrapped up that only her eyes were visible, and soon afterwards saw her return with the gracious old man. The dervish had a white beard and white eyebrows, as if he were well frosted; his eyes were cast down, and he wore such a frightfully big turban that not even the tips of his ears were visible. He was also not very lavish of speech, dumbly he pointed out to the veiled damsel the great clasped book and she knelt down before it and began to read with edifying devotion, touching it from time to time with her forehead; while the dervish, raising his hand, blessed one by one the slaves standing outside the door, and, after indicating by dumb show that he must now go to the kiosk where the sick Feriz Beg was lying and cure him by the efficacy of his prayers, he hobbled away. All four slaves glued their faces to the iron lattice work of the door, thrust their cheeks between its ornaments, and saw how the kneeling damsel kept praying all the time before the large open book. She must have had an unconscionable fondness for prayer, for even when the evening grew late she had not moved from the spot till the dervish, leaning on his crutch, came hobbling back from Feriz Beg. Then she accompanied him into the interior of the mosque, and after a short hymn, returned to make her way back to the fortress. And thus it went on for ten days. The slaves of her escort now began to think that Azrael wanted to learn the Koran by heart and grew tired of watching her praying and bowing and genuflecting with unwearied devotion. Let us leave them gazing and marvelling, and seek out Feriz Beg, whom now, as at other times, the old dervish was tending. There sat the good old man by the bedside of the pale and handsome youth. Nobody else was in the room. With his hand he dried the dripping sweat from the youth's forehead, every hour he put red healing drops into his mouth with a golden spoon, he guessed what was wanted immediately from every sigh, from every groan of the invalid. When he slept he fanned fresh air upon him, when he woke and stretched forth his burning hands, he felt the throbbing pulse and comforted and soothed him with gentle and consolatory words; and if he flung about impatiently in the fever of delirium, he covered him up carefully, like a tender mother, moistened his lips with fresh citron-water; and if he perceived from his flushed face how he was suffering he would raise his head, and press his burning temples to his bosom. On the tenth day the youth's illness took a turn for the better. Early in the morning, when he awoke, he had a clear consciousness of his condition. There by the side of his bed still sat the old man with his eyes fixed on the youth's face. "So thou hast been my nurse, eh?" sighed the youth gratefully, and he extended his hand to take that of the dervish, and he respectfully impressed upon it a long burning kiss, closing his eyes piously as he did so. And when he again opened his eyes, holding continually the kissed hand between his own hands, behold! by his bedside no longer sat the old dervish, but a young and tremulous damsel, with black tresses rolling down her shoulders, with a blushing face and timidly smiling lips--it was Azrael. Feriz fancied that he was the sport of some delirious dream or enchantment, and only when he looked about him in his bewilderment and perceived the cast-off false beard and turban and the other lying symbols of age, did he regain his presence of mind; and immediately the expression of gratitude and devotion disappeared from the face of Feriz Beg, his features took in a rigorous expression and he withdrew his hand from the pressure of those other hands. Speak he could not, both mind and body were too much broken for that; but he pointed to the door and signified to the damsel in dumb show that she was to withdraw. "Thou knowest me, for thou hatest me," stammered Azrael; "if thou didst not know me thou wouldst not hate me, and if thou didst know me better thou wouldst love me." The youth shook his head. "Then--thou--lovest--another?" said the trembling girl. Feriz Beg nodded: yes. Azrael rose from her place as if some venomous spider had bitten her, her face was convulsed by a burning grief, she pressed her hands to her bosom; then slowly her form lost all its proud rigidity, and her eyes their savage brightness, her features softened, and collapsing before the bed of the youth she hid her face in his pillows and murmured in a scarce audible voice: "And therefore I love thee all the more." Then, resuming her disguise, she calmly piled upon herself all the tokens of old age till once more before the sick man stood the gentle honest dervish who hobbled away on his crutches, blessing everyone he encountered till he returned again to the mosque. After Azrael had withdrawn, Feriz at once dismissed the dervish, who, at the youth's command, confessed everything to him. The general's favourite damsel, he said, had come to the mosque to pray ten days ago and had changed garments with him in his hiding-place in order to tend the dear invalid all day long while the dervish, enwrapped in her veil, had prayed in the sight of the slaves. Feriz Beg threatened the dervish with death if he did not confess everything, and, as it became a true cavalier, richly rewarded him when he had revealed the secret intrigue, forbidding him at the same time to assist it any further. * * * * * Several days had passed by. Hassan Pasha spent his days in the mosque, and his nights behind the trellised gates of his harem; he scented an evil report in every new arrival, and avoided all intercourse with his fellows. The whole day he was praying, the whole night he was drunk; from morning to evening he was occupied with the priests and the Koran, and from the evening to the morning he amused himself among his damsels, listened to their songs, bathed in ambergris-water, drank wine mingled with poppies, and had his body rubbed with cotton-wool that he might sleep and be in paradise. Frequently he had bad dreams, an evil foreboding, like the pressure of a night-hag, lay upon his heart, and when he awoke he seemed to see it all vividly before his eyes and durst not sleep any more, but dressed himself, sought out the room of Azrael and made the damsel sit down beside him and amuse him with merry stories. The odalisk held unlimited sway over the mind of Hassan, and could, at will, tune his mind to a good or evil humour by anticipating his thoughts. The Pasha trusted her implicitly. It is a bad old custom with oriental potentates to go to bed fuddled and dream all manner of nonsense, and then incontinently to demand a clear interpretation of the nebulous stuff from their wise men--or wise women. This happened to be the case one morning with Hassan Pasha and Azrael who just then was watering with a silver watering-can a gorgeous gobæa, whose luxurious offshoots clambered like a living ladder to the roof of the greenhouse, thence casting down to the ground again tendrils as thick as ropes. "Last night I was dreaming of this very plant that thou dost nourish in yon large tub," said Hassan in a voice that sounded as if he thought it an extraordinary thing to be listening to his own words. "I dreamt that it put forth a long and flowery shoot which grew into a tall tree, and from the end of one of the branches of this tree hung a large yellow fruit. Then I thought I had some important and peculiar reason for breaking off the fruit, and I sent a big white-bearded ape up into the tree to fetch it. The ape reached the fruit, and for a long time plucked at it and shook it, but was unable to break it off. At last, however, he fell down with it at my feet, the golden fruit burst in two, and a red apple rolled out of it, and I picked them both up and was delighted. What does that signify?" Azrael kept plucking the yellow leaves off her dear plant and throwing them through the window, beckoned to the Pasha to sit down beside her, and tapping him on the shoulder, began to tick off the events on her pretty fingers. "The golden fruit is the Moldavian Princess, and the white ape thou didst send for her is none other than Olaj Beg. Thy dream signifies that the Beg is about to arrive with the Princess, who in the meantime has borne a son, and thou wilt rejoice greatly." Hassan was well content with this interpretation, when a eunuch entered and brought him a sealed letter on a golden salver. It was from the Pasha of Grosswardein. The letter was anything but pleasant. Ali Pasha begged to inform the Vizier that the Government of Transylvania, having delivered Mariska Sturdza into the hands of Olaj Beg, the Beg at once set off with her, and had got as far as Királyhágó, when some persons hidden in the forest had suddenly rushed out upon him, massacred his suite to the last man, and left the Princess' carriage empty on the high road. The Princess had in all probability been helped to rejoin her husband in Poland. The letter fell from the hand of Hassan Pasha. "Thou hast interpreted my dream backwards," he roared, turning upon Azrael; "everything has turned topsy-turvy. The ape descended from the tree with the fruit, but knocked his brains out." At that moment the door-keeper announced: "Olaj Beg has arrived with the Moldavian Princess." At these words Hassan Pasha, in the joy of his heart, leaped from his cushions, and after kissing Azrael over and over again, rushed forward to meet Olaj Beg, and meeting him in the doorway, caught him round the neck and exclaimed, beside himself with joy: "Then my ape has not knocked his brains out, after all!" Olaj Beg smilingly endured the title and the embrace, but on looking around and perceiving Azrael standing in the window he began doing obeisance to her with the greatest respect. "Hast thou brought her? Where is she? Thou hast not lost her, eh? Thou hast well looked after her?" asked Hassan in one breath. By this time Olaj Beg had bowed his head down to his very knees before the damsel, and was saying to her in a mollified voice: "May I hope that the beautiful Princess will not find it tiresome if we talk of grave affairs in her presence?" Azrael at once perceived the object of all this bowing and scraping. Olaj Beg wished her to withdraw. "Thou mayest speak before me, worthy Olaj Beg, though what thou art about to say is no secret to me, for I can read the future, and my secrets I tell to none." And now Hassan intervened. "Thou mayest speak freely before her, worthy Olaj Beg. Azrael is the root of my life." Olaj Beg made another deep and long obeisance. He had heard enough of that name to need no further recommendation. He made up his mind on the spot to tell Hassan, who was in the power of this infernal woman, no more than he deserved to know. "Then thou hast brought the Princess with thee?" insisted Hassan, whose joy beamed upon his face in spite of himself. "Did the Transylvanian gentlemen make much difficulty in handing her over?" "They handed her over, but it would have been very much better if they had not. I should have preferred it if they had risen in her behalf, stirred up all Klausenberg against me and beaten me to death. At any rate, I should then have died gloriously. But alas! the Magyar race is degenerating, it has begun to be sensible. Those good old times have gone when they used to fire a whole village for the sake of a runaway female slave; and it was possible to seize a whole county in exchange for one burnt village; if the Hungarian gentry continue to be as wise as they are now the younger generation of them may strike root in our very Empire." "I was alarmed on thy account, for I have just received a letter from the Pasha of Grosswardein, in which he informed me that certain persons had attacked the Princess's escort at Királyhágó and cut them down to a man." "I anticipated that," replied Olaj Beg slily. "When with much shedding of tears they handed the Princess over to me, I heard them whisper in her ear: 'Fear nothing!' and I well understood from that that those same gentlemen who in the council chamber, with wise precautions, resolved to deliver up the fugitive Princess, had agreed among themselves over their cups at dinner-time that as I left Transylvania they would lie in wait for, fall upon me, and liberate and take away with them the Princess whom, by the way, they did not deliver over immediately, giving out that she was sick and suffering torments. While I was awaiting her recovery, nobody but her ladies was allowed admittance to her, and as soon as she was on her legs again, I made all my preparations for the journey next day, marshalling all the carriages and baggage-wagons in the courtyard. I myself, however, got into a sorry matted conveyance with the Princess and her child, and set off the same night in the direction of Déva. My suite, with the empty carriages, was to follow next morning in the direction of Grosswardein. The masked men cut them down as arranged, but the Princess and her son were in safe hands all the time. Olaj Beg is an old fox, and a fox knows his way about." Hassan Pasha rubbed his hands delightedly. "Nevertheless," continued Olaj Beg, "imagine not, my good general, that because this woman is now in thy hands thou wilt be able to keep her. Sleeplessness will enter thy house as soon as thou hast admitted her within thy doors. If it be hard to guard any woman, it will be particularly hard to guard this one. The men and women of a whole kingdom have sworn to set her free by force or fraud, and will use every effort to do so. They will open thy bedroom doors with skeleton keys, they will dig beneath thy cellars, they will strew sleeping powder in thy evening potions, they will corrupt thy most faithful servants, and if no other poison make any impression upon thee they will pour into thy heart the most potent of all poisons, the tears of a supplicating woman. I have brought the treasure, and I deliver it into thy hands. Allah requites me for my pains by taking her from me. Thou art now her guard, conceal her as best thou canst. Thy greatest worry will be that thou canst not slay her, for indeed she were best hidden beneath the ground. But thou art to see to it that she is delivered alive into the hands of the Sultan's envoys, for shouldst thou kill her thyself be sure thou wilt soon feel the silken cord around thine own neck. Meanwhile, peace be with thee and to all who abide in the shadow of the Prophet!" With these words Olaj Beg stepped into the adjoining room, and leading in the Princess, placed her hand in the hand of Hassan; then he raised his eyes to Heaven. "Allah is my witness," said he, "that I have delivered her and her child into thy hands!" In the first moment Hassan Pasha was amazed at the woman's loveliness, and thought with regret that it was necessary for his own safety that she must die. Olaj Beg, however, had yet another piece of good advice to impart, and, with that object, drew nigh to him to whisper in his ear; but, as if his courage failed him at the last moment, he delivered his sentiments in the Arabic tongue. "Thou wouldst guard this woman best if thou tookest her child from her and locked it up separately. The mother certainly would not escape without the child." The Princess Ghyka did not understand these words, but she saw how the old fox indicated her little one with a glance and with what a greedy look Hassan regarded it; and she pressed the child all the closer to her bosom as she saw him come a step closer. The unhappy woman trembled when she saw Hassan smile upon the child like a hungry wolf would smile if he encountered it on his path. She guessed from their play of feature the terrible idea which the two men were discussing in a foreign tongue, and in her despair cast her eyes upon Azrael, as if hoping that she would find a response to her agony in a woman's heart. The odalisk pretended she had not observed the look, as if those present were not worthy of the slightest attention from her; when, however, Hassan gratefully embraced the Beg for this fresh piece of advice, Azrael intervened with a peculiar smile. "Thou dost act like one who, bending beneath the weight of a burden too heavy for him, would pass it on to his neighbour." Hassan looked at his favourite damsel inquiringly, while Olaj Beg, who was unaccustomed to hear women talk at all when men were holding counsel together, looked back with offended surprise over his shoulder. Azrael reclined lazily back upon her cushions, and swung one leg over her knee as she conversed with the two men. "Worthy Hassan," said she, "thou wouldst make two troubles out of one, if thou didst separate thy captives; while thou keepest thine eye on one of them, they will steal away the other behind thy back." Hassan cast a troubled look upon Olaj Beg, who stroked his long white beard and smiled. "If thou dost permit thy damsels to ask questions, thou must needs answer them," said he. At these words Azrael leaped from her place and boldly approached the two men, her flaming black eyes measured the Beg from head to foot, and when she spoke it was with a determined, startling voice. "Listen to me, Hassan--yes, I say, thou shouldst listen to me before all thy friends just because I am a woman. A man can only give advice, but a woman loves, and before a man thinks of danger a woman already sees it coming from afar, and while a man may grow into a crafty old fox, a woman is born crafty. Hassan knows very well that of all those who wear a mask of friendship for him, there is but one on whom he can absolutely rely, whose love all the treasures in India can as little destroy as they can lull her hatred asleep, who watches over him while he sleeps, and if she sleeps is dreaming of his destiny--that person am I." Hassan confirmed the words of the damsel by throwing his arm round her shoulders and drawing her towards him. "If this woman requires a sleepless, uncorruptible guardian," continued Azrael, "I will be that guardian. Make for us a long chain, and let one end of it be fastened to my arm and the other to her girdle. Thus the slave will be chained to the jailer, and, sleeping or waking, will be unable to escape from me. I shall be a good janitor. I will not let her, or her child, out of my hands." The damsel accompanied these words with such an infernal smile that Olaj Beg involuntarily edged away from her; while Hassan was enchanted by this noble specimen of loyalty. But Mariska's face was bright and resigned again, for she understood from the words of the odalisk, threatening as they were, that she and her child were not to be separated, and to all else she was indifferent. Olaj Beg drew the folds of his caftan over his lean, dry bosom, and after peering at the two women, remarked to Hassan: "'Tis well thou canst trust a woman to look after a woman." With that he backed out of the room, blessing all four corners of it as he went, and in the gateway distributed with great condescension to every one of the servants who had done anything for him some money ingeniously twisted up in pieces of paper (which, by the way, were found to contain a half-penny each when at last unfolded), and sitting in his mat-covered carriage, gave strict orders to the coachman not to look back till he saw the citadel of Buda. But Hassan the same hour sent for his goldsmith, and bade him prepare immediately a silver chain, four yards long, with golden shackles at each end, for Azrael and Mariska. The goldsmith took the measure of the hands of the two damsels, and brought in the evening a chain made of beaten silver, whose shackles were fastened by masterly-constructed padlocks, which Hassan himself fastened on the hands of the damsels, thrusting the key which opened the padlocks into his girdle, which he tapped a hundred times a day to discover whether it was still there or not. Then he dismissed the pair of them into Azrael's dormitory. Mariska endured everything--the chain, the shame, and rough words--for the privilege of being able to embrace her child. She lay down content on the carpets as far from Azrael as the chain would permit it, and folding her hands above the baby's innocent head, prayed with burning devotion to the God of mercy, and calmly went to sleep holding the child in her arms. * * * * * A little beyond midnight the child began softly wailing. At the first sound of its crying Mariska awoke, and as she moved her hand the chain rattled. Azrael was instantly alert. "Hast thou had evil dreams?" inquired the odalisk of Mariska; "the rattling of the chain aroused me." "The weeping of my child awoke me," said Mariska softly; and drawing the little one to her bosom, as it embraced its mother's beautiful velvet breast with its chubby little finger, and drank from the sweetest of all sources the draught of life, the young mother gazed upon it with unspeakable joy, smiled, laughed, caught the child's rosy little fingers in her mouth, and implanted resounding kisses on its rosy, chubby cheeks. She had no thought at that moment for chain and dungeon. Azrael felt in her heart the torments of the demons--it was that jealousy which those who are rocked in the lap of happiness feel at the sight of a luckless wretch who is happier than they are in spite of all his wretchedness. "Wherefore dost thou rejoice?" she asked, gazing upon the lady with the eyes of a serpent. "Because my child is with me." "But the whole world has abandoned thee." "It is more to me than the whole world." "More than thy husband?" Mariska reflected for a moment, and then, instead of replying, hugged the child still closer to her bosom and imprinted a kiss upon its forehead. "Wert thou ever a mother?" she asked Azrael in her turn. "Never," stammered the odalisk, and involuntarily her bosom heaved beneath a sigh. It was plain from the face of Mariska how much she pitied this poor woman. Azrael perceived the look, and it wounded her that she should be pitied. "Dost thou not know that both of you must die?" she asked with a darkened countenance. "I am ready." "And art thou not terrified at the thought? They will strangle thy child with a silken cord, and hang it dead upon thy breast, and then they will strangle thee likewise, and put you both in the grave, in the cold earth." "We shall see each other in a better world," said Mariska with fervent devotion. "Where?" inquired the astounded Azrael. Mariska, with holy confidence, raised her little one in her arms, and, lifting her eyes, said: "God will take us unto Himself." "And what need hath God of you?" "He is the Father of those who suffer, and in the other world He rewards those who suffer grief here below." "And who told thee this?" Mariska, as one inspired, placed her hand upon her heart and said: "It is written here!" Azrael regarded the woman abashed. Truly, many mysterious words are written in the heart, why cannot everyone read them? She also had listened to such mystic voices, but they were words shouted in a desert, in her savage breast there was no manner of love which could interpret their meaning. Mariska again put down her child on the edge of the cushion. "Place not thy child there," cried Azrael impatiently; "it might easily fall, place it between us!" Mariska accepted the offer, and placed the little one between herself and Azrael. When the first ray of dawn penetrated the large window Mariska awoke, and, folding her hands together above the head of the little child, again began to pray. Azrael looked on darkly. "Dost thou never pray?" said Mariska, turning towards her. "Why should women pray? Their destiny is not in their own hands. Their fate depends upon their masters; if their masters are happy, they are happy also; if their masters perish, they perish with them. This is their earthly lot--and that is all. Allah never gave them a soul--what have they to do with the life beyond this? In Paradise the Houris take their places and the Houris remain young for ever. The breath of a woman vanishes with the autumn mist like the fumes of a dead animal, and Allah has no thought for them." Mariska, with only half intelligible sorrow, looked at this woman who wished to seem worse than she really was. Azrael crept closer up to her. "And dost thou really believe that there is someone who listens to what the worms say, to what the birds twitter, and to what women pray?" "Certainly," replied the young Christian woman; "turn to Him, and thou wilt feel for thyself His goodness." "How can it be so? Why should He pay any attention to me?" "It is not enough I know to clasp thy hands and close thy eyes. Thy petition must come straight from thy heart, and thy soul must believe that it will gain its desire." Azrael's face flushed red. Hastily she cast herself down on her knees on the carpet, and pressing her folded hands to her bosom, stammered in a scarce audible voice: "God! grant me one moment in my life in which I can say: I am happy." Her eyes were still closed when the door of the dormitory opened, and Hayat, the oldest duenna of the harem, entered with an air of great secrecy. She was now a shrivelled up bundle of old bones, but formerly she had been the first favourite of Hassan Pasha, and now she was the slave and secret confidante of all the favourites in turn. Azrael leaned towards her, perceiving from the face of the duenna that she brought some message for her; whereupon the latter advanced and, looking around in case anyone should be lurking there, whispered some words in Azrael's ear. On hearing these words the odalisk leaped from her seat with a face flushed with joy, while unspeakably tender tears trembled in her eyes. Her hands were involuntarily pressed against her heaving bosom, and her lips seemed to murmur some voiceless prayer. Some great unusual joy had come upon her, some joy which she had always longed but never dared to hope for. Scarce able to restrain herself she turned towards her comrade, who, after listening to her, gazed wonderingly at her and pressed her hand, exclaiming in a voice of strong conviction: "Then it is true, our prayer has indeed been heard!" Azrael began merrily putting on her garments, and helped Mariska also to dress; then she sent the duenna with a message to Hassan. She must go again to the mosque of the old dervish to pray, for she had been dreaming of Hassan. Soon afterwards Hassan himself came to her, took from her arm the golden shackle which fastened the chain that bound her to Mariska, and, ordering her palanquin to be brought up to the door, sent her away to the old dervish; while, seizing the end of the Princess's chain, he led her, together with her child, into his own apartments and there sat down on his cushions, drawing his rosary from his girdle and mumbling the first prayers of the naáma, constantly holding in his hand the end of the Princess's chain. The Vizier had of late been much given to prayer, for since the lost battle not a soul had come to visit him. The envoys of the Sultan, the country petitioners, the foreign ministers, the begging brotherhoods, all of them had avoided his threshold as if he were dead. The first day he was painfully affected by this manifestation, but on the second day he commanded the door-keepers to admit none to his presence. Thus, at any rate, he could make himself believe that if nobody came to visit him it was by his express command. He knew right well that a sentence of death had been written down and that this sentence was meant for one of two persons, either the Princess or himself, where their two shadows mingled a double darkness was cast, and Israfil, the Angel of Death, stood over them with a drawn sword. Hassan knew this right well, and he pressed in his hand convulsively the silver chain to which his prisoner was attached, that prisoner whom he regarded as the ransom for his own life. CHAPTER XVII. THE EXTRAVAGANCES OF LOVE After that melancholy scene, when the ladies of Transylvania vainly drew tears and blushes from the faces of their husbands, a ray of hope still remained in one heart alone. It was pretty Aranka Béldi, who, when everyone else's eyes were full of tears, could whisper words of encouragement to her unhappy friend, and who, when everyone else abandoned her, embraced her last of all, and said to her with firm conviction: "Fear not, we will save you!" The youths of Transylvania also said: "Fear not, we will save you!" but Fate flung the dice blindly, the marked men in ambush captured only the escort, not the captive, and had all their fine trouble for nothing. Aranka Béldi, however, begged her father to let her go to Gernyeszeg to visit her friend Flora Teleki, and there the two noble young damsels agreed together to write two letters to acquaintances in Hungary. One of them wrote to Tököly, the other to Feriz Beg, and when the letters were ready, they read to each other what they had written. Flora's letter to Tököly was as follows: "SIR, "The fact that _I_ write these lines to you shows the desperate position I am in, when I have to hide my blushes and apply to him whom of all men I ought to avoid. But it is a question of life and death. Do you recollect the moment when, in the castle of Rumnik, you saw three maids embrace each other, of whom I was one? We then swore friendship and good fellowship to each other. One of the three at the present moment stands at the brink of death; I mean Mariska Sturdza, whose misfortunes cannot be unknown to you, and this is not the first mode of deliverance which we have attempted--but the last. Your Excellency is a powerful and magnanimous man, who has great influence with the Sultan, and where one expedient fails, you can employ another. I have always pictured your Excellency to myself as a valiant and chivalrous cavalier, and from what I know of the respect which all honourable persons of my acquaintance have for your Excellency, I have the utmost confidence that the unfortunate Princess of Moldavia will not wait in vain for deliverance. Do what you can, and may I add to the esteem in which you are held the fervent blessings of a heart which sincerely prays for your Excellency's welfare. "FLORA TELEKI." Flora's calculations were most just. Tököly, in those days, stood high in the favour of the Sultan, was on terms of intimacy with all the pashas and viziers, and very frequently a casual word from him had more effect than other people's supplications. And Flora showed a fine knowledge of character when she appealed to the magnanimity of the very man who had so grievously offended her, feeling certain that just for that very reason, although Tököly might not recognise the force of his former obligations, he would be magnanimous enough instantly to grant a favour to the lady who asked him for it, especially as the woman to be liberated had been the original cause of their separation. Aranka kissed her friend over and over again when she had read this letter, and then she suddenly grew sad. "Oh, _my_ letter is not nearly so pretty, I am ashamed to show it to you." Flora looked at her friend with gentle bashfulness as Aranka handed over her letter, and blushed like a red rose all the time she was perusing it. "NOBLE-HEARTED FERIZ! "When we were both children you maintained that you loved me (here she inserted within brackets: 'like a sister,' and a good thing for her that she did put these three words in brackets). If you still recollect what you said, now is the time to prove it. My dearest friend, Mariska Sturdza, is at Buda, a prisoner in the hands of Hassan Pasha. My only hope of her deliverance depends on you. I have heard such splendid things of you. If you see her, for whom I now implore you, with a sad face and tearful eyes, think how I should look if I were there, and if you give her back to me, and I can embrace her again, and look into her smiling eyes, then I will think of you, too. "ARANKA BÉLDI." The girls entrusted these letters to faithful servants, sending the first letter to Temesvár, where Tököly was then residing, and the second to Feriz Beg, who, as we know, lay ill at Buda. The news first reached Tököly at supper-time. On receiving the letter and reading it through, he at once put down his glass, girded on his sword, and telling his comrades that he was about to take a little stroll, he mounted his horse and vanished from the town. Feriz was lying half-delirious on his carpet. His health mended but slowly, as is often the case with men of strong constitutions, and the tidings of the smallest disaster which befell the Turks threw him into such a state of excitement that a relapse was incessantly to be feared, so that at last they would not allow any messages at all to be brought to him, for even when they brought good news to him he always managed to look at them from the worst side, so that news of any kind was absolute poison to him. At last his Greek physician made it a rule to read every letter addressed to his patient beforehand; and if it contained the least disturbing element, he let Feriz know nothing at all about it. What especially annoyed Feriz were any letters from women, and these were simply sent back. Thus Aranka's letter might very easily have had the fate of being suppressed altogether had it not been entrusted to Master Gregory Biró, a shrewd and famous Szekler courier, whose honourable peculiarity it was to go wherever he was sent, and do whatsoever he was told, be the obstacles in the way what they might. If he had been told to give something to the Sultan of Turkey, he would have wormed his way to him somehow--all inquiries, all threats would have been in vain; he would have insisted on seeing and speaking to him if his head had to be cut off the next moment. One day, then, worthy Gregory Biró appeared before the kiosk of Feriz Beg and asked to be admitted. At these words a Moor popped out, and, seizing him by the collar, conducted him to a room where a half-dressed man was standing before a fire cooking black potions in all sorts of queer-shaped crooked glasses. The Moor presented Gregory to the doctor as another messenger. "What is your name?" he asked, venomously regarding him from over his shoulder, and treating him to the most terrifying grimace he could think of. "Gregory Biró," replied the Szekler, nodding his head twice as was his custom. "Gregory, Gregory, what do you want here?" "I want to see Feriz Beg." "I am he; what have you brought?" Gregory twisted his mug derisively at these words, and immediately reflected that the business was beginning badly, for the person before him did not in the least resemble Feriz Beg as described to him. "I have brought a letter--from a pretty girl." "Give it to me quickly, and be off." Gregory twisted round his short jacket that he might get at his knapsack; but while he was fumbling inside it he was cute enough to extract the contents of the letter from its cover, and only handed the empty envelope to the doctor. "'Tis well, Gregory, now you may go," said he gently, and without so much as opening the envelope he thrust it into the fire and held the blazing paper under a retort which he wanted to warm. "Is that the way they read letters here?" asked Gregory, scratching his head, and he crept to the door; but there he stopped, and while half his body remained outside he thrust his arm up to the elbow into the long pocket of his _szüre_,[17] drew from thence a diamond-clasp, and holding it between two fingers cried: "Look! I found this ring on the road not far from here, perchance Feriz Beg has lost it." [Footnote 17: Sheepskin mantle.] The doctor took the splendid jewel, and feeling convinced that only a nobleman could have lost such a thing, he said he would show it to Feriz Beg immediately. "Ho! then you are not Feriz Beg after all!" cried the humorist. The doctor burst out laughing. "Gregory! Gregory! don't jest with me. I am the cook, and if I like you I will let you stay to dinner." Gregory pulled a wry face at the sight of the doctor's stews. The doctor thereupon took in the diamond-clasp to Feriz Beg, after bidding the Moor, whom he left behind him, not to drink anything out of the glasses standing there, or it would make him ill. Shortly afterwards the doctor returned in great astonishment, planted himself in front of Gregory with frowning eyebrows and roared at him in a voice which alarmed even the Szekler: "Where did you get that jewel from?" "Where did I get it from?" said Gregory, shrugging his shoulders; he was very pleased they wanted to frighten him. "Come, speak!--quick!" "Not now." "Why not?" snapped the doctor firmly. "Not to you, if you were to break me on the wheel." "I'll bastinado you." "Not if you impaled me, I say." "Gregory! If you anger me, I'll make you drink three pints of physic." "They are here, eh!" exclaimed Gregory, approaching the hearth, skipping among the flasks of the doctor, and seizing one of them, but he had the sense to choose alcohol, and dragging it from its case, sipped away at it till there was not a drop of it left. "Leave a little in it, you dog!" yelled the doctor, snatching the flask away from him, "don't drink it all!" "I'll drink up the whole shop, but speak I won't unless I like." The doctor perceived that he had met his match. "Then will you speak before Feriz Beg?" he asked. "I'll speak the whole truth then." So there was nothing for it but to open Feriz Beg's door before Gregory and shove him inside. Feriz Beg was sitting there on a couch, a feverish flush was burning upon his pale face; he still held the jewel in his hand, and his eyes were fastened upon it; just such a similar clasp he had given to Aranka Béldi when they were both children together. "How did you come by this jewel?" inquired Feriz in a soft, mournful voice. "She to whom you gave it gave it to me that you might believe she sent me to you." At these words Feriz Beg arose with flashing eyes. "She sent you to me! She! So she remembers me! She thinks of me sometimes, then." "She sent you a letter through me." Feriz Beg stretched out a tremulous hand. "Where is the letter?" "I flung it into the fire," interjected the doctor. "How dared you do that?" exclaimed Feriz angrily. But the doctor was not afraid. "I am your doctor, and every letter injures your health." "Panajot! you are an impertinent fellow!" thundered Feriz, with a face of inflamed purple; and he smote the table such a blow with his fist that all the medicine bottles tumbled off it. "Don't be angry, sir!" said Gregory, twisting his moustache at both ends, while Panajot coolly swept together the fragments of the broken bottles and boxes on the floor; "the worthy man did not burn the letter but only the envelope. I had gumption enough not to entrust the inside of it to him." And with these words he drew from his pouch a letter written on all four sides of the sheet and handed it to Feriz, who before reading it covered with kisses the lines traced by that dear hand, while Master Panajot looked at Gregory in amazement. "Go along, you old fox, Gregory," said he; "next time you come, I'll throw _you_ into the fire to boot." But Gregory, highly delighted, feasted his eyes on the youth's face all the time he was reading the letter. As if his soul had changed within him, as if he had passed from the troubles of this world to the joys of Paradise, every feature of the youth's face became smiling and joyful. The farther he read the brighter grew his eyes; and when he came to the last word he pressed the leaf to his heart with an expression of the keenest rapture, and held it there a long time, closing his eyes as if in a happy dream, as if he had shut them to see no other object when he conjured up her image before his mind. Master Panajot was alarmed, fancying some mischief had happened to the invalid, and turned upon Gregory with gnashing teeth: "What infernal document have you brought along with you, Gregory?" Feriz meanwhile smilingly nodded his head as if he would thank some invisible shape, and whispered softly: "So it shall be, so it shall be." "I'm afraid you feel bad, my master," said the doctor. Feriz looked up, and his face had grown quite round. "I?--I feel very well. Take your drugs from my table, and bring me wine and costly meats dear to the eyes and mouth. I would rejoice my soul and my palate. Call hither musicians, and open wide my gate. Pile flowers upon my windows, I would be drunk with the fragrance of the flowers that the breeze brings to me." Panajot fancied that the invalid had gone out of his mind, and yet full of the joy of life he rose from his couch, laid aside his warm woollen garment, put on instead a light silk robe, wound round his head a turban of the finest linen instead of the warm shaggy shawl, and he who had hitherto been brooding and fretting apathetically, had suddenly become as light as a bird, paced the room with rapid steps, with proudly erected face, from which the livid yellow of sickness had suddenly disappeared, and his eyes sparkled like fire. Panajot could not account for the change, and really believed that the patient had fallen into some dangerous paroxysm and in this persuasion bawled for all the members of the negro family. The old Egyptian door-keeper, a young Nubian huntsman, a Chinese cook, trampling upon each other in their haste, all rushed into the room at his cry. Feriz Beg, with boyish mirth, stopped them all before the doctor could say a word. "Thou, Ali," he said to the old door-keeper, "go to the mosque and cast this silver among the poor that they may give thanks to Allah for my recovery. And thou, O cook! prepare a dinner for twelve persons, looking to it that there is wine and flowers and music; and thou, my huntsman, bring forth the fieriest steed and put upon him the most costly wrappings; and ye others, take this worthy doctor and lock him up among his drugs that he may not get away, and call hither all my friends and acquaintances, and tell them we will celebrate the festival of my recovery." The servants with shouts of joy fulfilled the commands of Feriz. First of all they shoved good Panajot into his drug-brewing kitchen, and then they dispersed to do their master's bidding. Feriz then took the hand of the Szekler who had brought the message and shook it violently, saying to him in a loud firm voice: "Thou must remain with me till I have accomplished thy mistress's commands. For she has laid a command upon me which I must needs obey." Meanwhile, the ostlers had brought forward the good charger. It was a fiery white Arab, ten times as restless as usual because of its long rest; not an instant were its feet still. Two men caught it by the head and were scarce able to hold it, its pink, wide open nostrils blew forth jets of steam, and through its smooth white mane could be seen the ruddy hue of the full blood. The unfortunate Panajot poked his head through the round window of his laboratory, and from thence regarded with stupefaction his whilom invalid bestride the back of the wild charger, that same invalid who, if anyone knocked at his door an hour or two before, complained that his head was bursting. The charger pranced and caracolled and the doctor with tears in his eyes besought the bystanders if they had any sense of feeling at all not to let the Beg ride on such a winged griffin. They only laughed at him. Feriz flung himself into the saddle as lightly as a grasshopper. The two stablemen let go the reins, the steed rose up erect on his hind legs and bucked along as a biped for several yards. Then the Beg struck the sharp stirrups into its flank, and the steed, snorting loudly, bowed its head over its fore-quarters and galloped off like lightning. The doctor followed him with a lachrymose eye, every moment expecting that Feriz would fall dead from his horse; but he sat in the saddle as if grown to it, as he had always been wont to do. When the road meandered off towards the fortress he turned into it and disappeared from the astonished gaze of those who were looking after him. A few moments later the horseman was in the courtyard of the fortress. He demanded an interview with the general, and was told that he was receiving nobody. He applied therefore to his favourite eunuch instead. He arrived at the fortress with a full purse, he quitted it with an empty one; but he now knew everything he wanted to know, viz., that Hassan had entrusted the captive Princess to Azrael; that the two girls were tied by the hands to one chain; that he greatly feared someone would come and filch the Princess from him; that he got up ten times every night to see whether anyone had stolen into the palace; and that since Mariska had been placed in his hands he had drunk no wine and smoked no opium, and would eat of no dish save from the hands of his favourite damsel. Feriz Beg knew quite enough. Again he mounted his horse and galloped back to his kiosk, taking the neighbouring mosque on his way, on reaching which he called from his horse to the old dervish, who immediately appeared in answer to his summons. "Tell her who was wont to visit me in thy stead that I want to see and speak to her early to-morrow morning." And with that he threw some gold ducats to the dervish and galloped off. The dervish looked after him in astonishment, and picking up the ducats, instantly toddled off to the fortress, prowled about the gate all night, met Hajat at early dawn, and gave her the message for Azrael. This was the joyful tidings which the odalisk had received in response to her first prayer, and which had made her so happy. * * * * * Next morning she ordered her servants to admit none but the old dervish, and to close every door as soon as he had entered. Shortly afterwards, Azrael with her retinue of servants arrived at the mosque, and a few moments after she had disappeared behind the trellised railings the form of the old dervish appeared in the street, hobbling along with his crutch till he reached the kiosk. Feriz Beg perceived him through the window, and sent everyone from the room that he might remain alone with him. The dervish entered, closed the door behind him, let down the tapestries, took off his false beard and false raiment, and there before Feriz--tremulous, blushing, and shamefaced--stood the odalisk. "Thou hast sent for me," she stammered softly, "and behold--here I am!" "I would beg something of thee," said Feriz, half leaning on his elbow. "Demand my life!" cried the odalisk impetuously, "and I will lay it at thy feet!" and at these words she flung herself at the foot of the divan on which the youth was sitting. "I ask thee for nothing less than thy life. Once thou saidst that thou didst love me. Is that true now also?" "Is it not possible to love thee, and yet live?" "Say then that I might love thee if I knew thee better. Good! I wish to know thee." The damsel regarded the youth tremblingly, waiting to hear what he would say to her. The youth rose and said in a solemn, lofty voice: "In my eyes not the roses of the cheeks, or the fire of the eyes, or bodily charms make a woman beautiful, but the beauty of the soul, for I recognise a soul in woman, and she is no mere plaything for the pastime of men. What enchants me is noble feeling, self-sacrifice, loyalty, resignation. Canst thou die for him whom thou lovest?" "It would be rapture to me." "Canst thou die for her whom thou hatest in order to prove how thou dost love?" "I do not understand," said Azrael hesitating. "Thou wilt understand immediately. There is a captive woman in Hassan's castle who is entrusted to thy charge. This captive woman must be liberated. Wilt _thou_ liberate her?" At these words Azrael's heart began to throb feverishly. All the blood vanished from her face. She looked at the youth in despair, and said with a gasp: "Dost _thou_ love this woman?" "Suppose that I love her and thou dost free her all the same." The woman collapsed at the feet of Feriz Beg, and embracing his knees, said, sobbing loudly: "Oh, say that thou dost not love her, say that thou dost not know her, and I will release her--I will release her for thee at the risk of my own life." The reply of Feriz was unmercifully cold. "Believe that I love her, and in that belief sacrifice thyself for her. This night I will wait for her wherever thou desirest, and will take her away if thou wilt fetch her. It was thy desire to know me, and I would know thee also. Thou art free to come or go as thou choosest." The odalisk hid her tearful face in the carpets on the floor, and writhed convulsively to the feet of Feriz, moaning piteously. "Oh, Feriz, thou art merciless to me." "Thou wouldst not be the first who had sacrificed her life for love." "But none so painfully as I." "And art thou not proud to do so, then?" At these words the woman raised a pale face, her large eyes had a moonlight gleam like the eyes of a sleep-walker. She seized the hand of Feriz in order to help herself to rise. "Yes, I am proud to die for thee. I will show that here--within me--there is a heart which can feel nobly--which can break for that which it loves, for that which kills it--that pride shall be mine. I will do it." And then, as if she wished to clear away the gathering clouds from her thoughts, she passed her hand across her forehead and continued in a lower, softer voice: "This night, when the muezzin calls the hour of midnight, be in front of the fortress-garden on thy fleetest horse. Thou wilt not have to wait long; there is a tiny door there which conceals a hidden staircase which leads from the fortress to the trenches. I will come thither and bring her with me." Feriz involuntarily pressed the hand of the girl kneeling before him, and felt a burning pressure in his hand, and when he looked at the young face before him he saw the smile of a sublime rapture break forth upon her radiantly joyful features. Azrael parted from Feriz an altogether transformed being, another heart was throbbing in her breast, another blood was flowing to her heart, earth and heaven had a different colour to her eyes. She believed that the youth would love her if she died for him, and that thought made her happy. But Feriz summoned Gregory Biró, and having recompensed him, sent him back to his mistress with the message: "Thy wish hath been accomplished." So sure was he that Azrael would keep her word--if only she were alive to do so. * * * * * Hassan Pasha waited and waited for Azrael. If the odalisk was not with him he felt as helpless as a child who has strayed away from its nurse. In the days immediately following the lost battle, the shame attaching to him and his agonized fear for his life had quite confused his mind; and the drugs employed at that time, combined with restless nights, the prayers of the dervishes, the joys of the harem and opium, had completed the ruin of his nervous system. If he were left alone for an hour he immediately fainted, and when he awoke it was in panic terror--he gazed around him like one in the grip of a hideous nightmare. For some days he would leave off his opium, but as is generally the case when one too suddenly abandons one's favourite drug, the whole organism threatened to collapse, and the renunciation of the opium did even more mischief than its enjoyment. When Azrael rejoined him he was asleep, the chain by which he held the Princess had fallen from his hand and when he awoke there was a good opportunity of persuading him that Mariska had escaped from him while he slept. Hassan looked long and blankly at her, it seemed as if he would need some time wherein to rally his scattered senses sufficiently to recognise anyone. But Azrael was able to exercise a strange magnetic influence over him, and he would awake from the deepest sleep whenever she approached him. Azrael sat down beside the couch and embraced the Vizier, while Mariska, with tender bashfulness, turned her head away from them; and Hassan, observing it, drew Azrael's head to his lips and whispered in her ear: "I have had evil dreams again. Hamaliel, the angel of dreams, appeared before me, and gave me to understand that if I did not kill this woman, he would kill me. My life is poisoned because she is here. My mind is not in proper order. I often forget who I am. I fancy I am living at Stambul, and looking out of the window am amazed that I do not see the Bosphorus. This woman must die. This will cure me. I will kill her this very day." Mariska did not hear these words, all her attention was fixed upon the babbling of her child; and Azrael, with an enchanting smile, flung herself on the breast of the Vizier, embracing his waggling head and covering his face with kisses, and the smile of her large dark eyes illuminated his gloomy soul. Poor Hassan! He fancies that that enchanting smile, that embrace, those kisses are meant for him, but the shape of a handsome youth hovers before the mind of the odalisk, and that is why she kisses Hassan so tenderly, embraces him so ardently, and smiles so enchantingly. She fancies 'tis her ideal whom she sees and embraces. Ah, the extravagances of love! CHAPTER XVIII. SPORT WITH A BLIND MAN. Azrael had felt afraid when Hassan said: "I must kill this woman to-day." A fearful spectre was haunting the mind of the Vizier; he must be freed from this spectre, and made to forget it. So Azrael devised an odd sport for the man on the verge of imbecility. The seven days had passed during which Hassan had forbidden that anyone should be admitted to his presence, and it occurred to Azrael that in the ante-chamber crowds of brilliant envoys, and couriers, and supplicants were waiting, all eagerly desirous of an audience, many of them with rich gifts; others came to render homage, others with joyful tidings from the seat of war; whilst one of them had come all the way from the Grand Vizier with a very important message from the Sultan himself. Hassan's stupid mind brightened somewhat at these words, a fatuously good-natured smile lit up his face. "Let them come in, let them appear before me," he said joyfully to the girl; "and remain thou beside me and introduce them to me one by one; thine shall be the glory of it." But in reality none was awaiting an audience in the ante-room, there were no splendid envoys there, no humble petitioners, no agas, no messengers, none but the Vizier's own slaves. But these Azrael dressed up one by one to look like splendid magnates, village magistrates, and soldiers; put sealed letters, purses, and banners in their hands, and placing Hassan in the reception-room on a lofty divan, sat down with the Princess on stools at his feet, and ordered the door-keepers to admit the disguised slaves one by one. The mockery was flagrant, but was there among them all any who dared to enlighten Hassan? Who would undertake to undeceive him when a mere nod from Azrael might annihilate before the Vizier could realise that they were making sport of him? It was a fleet-winged demon fooling a sluggish mammoth with strength enough to crush her but with no wings to enable it to get at her, and the rabble always takes the part of the mocker, not of the mocked, especially if the former be lucky and the latter unlucky. The loutish slaves came one by one into the room, and Hassan turned his face towards them, remaining in that position while Azrael told him who they were and what they wanted. "This is Ferhad Aga," said the odalisk, pointing at a stable-man, "who, hearing of thy martial prowess in all four corners of the world has come hither begging thee with veiled countenance to include him among thy armour-bearers." Hassan most graciously extended his hand to the stable-man and granted him his petition. Azrael next presented to Hassan a cook from a foreign court, who, dressed in a large round mantle of cloth of silver, might very well have passed for a burgomaster of Debreczen, and whose shoulders bent beneath the weight of two sacks of gold and silver from Hassan's own treasury. "This is the magistrate of the city of Debreczen," said the odalisk, "who hath brought thee a little gift in the name of the municipality, with the petition that when thou dost become the Pasha of Transylvania thou wilt not forget them." Hassan smiled at the word money, had the sacks placed before him, thrust his arms into them up to his very wrists with great satisfaction, had their contents emptied at his feet, and dismissed the envoy with a hearty pressure of the hand. And now followed a negro, who brought some recaptured Turkish banners from the bed of a river which did not exist, in which the Turks had drowned the whole army of Montecuculi. Hassan was now in such a weak state of mind that he no longer recognised his own people in their unwonted garments, and the more extraordinary the things reported to him the more readily he believed them. And so Azrael kept on exhibiting to him envoys, couriers, and captains till, at last, it came to the turn of the envoy of the Grand Vizier, whose part the odalisk had entrusted to a clever eunuch who had been instructed to present to Hassan a sealed firman, which Azrael was to read because Hassan could not see the letters. It was to the effect that Hassan was to endeavour to preserve the life of the captive Princess, as the Grand Vizier himself intended in a few days to take her over alive. When thus it seemed good to Azrael that the most striking scene of the whole game should begin she exclaimed in a loud voice to the door-keepers: "Admit the ambassador of the Grand Vizier with the message from the Sublime Padishah!" The guards drew back the curtains and in came--Olaj Beg! "Truly I must needs admit," said he turning towards the odalisk, who stood there petrified with fear and amazement, "truly I must admit that thou art blessed with the faculty of seeing through walls and reading fast-closed letters, for thou hast announced me before I appeared officially and thou hast seen the firman hidden in my bosom before I have had time to produce it." Azrael arose. She felt her blood throbbing in her brain for terror. At that moment she had that keen sensation of danger when every atom of the body--heart, brain, hands, and the smallest nerve--sees, hears, and thinks. "Thou hast brought the firman of the Sultan?" she inquired of Olaj Beg with wrapt attention. "Thou knowest also what is written in it, O enchantress!" said Olaj, in a tone of homage, "therefore ask not." There was something in the yellow face of Olaj Beg which made him most formidable, most menacing at the very time when he seemed to be utterly abject in his humility. "What doth the Sublime Sultan command?" inquired Hassan, gazing abstractedly in front of him. "That thou prepare a scaffold in the courtyard of thy palace by to-morrow morning." "For whom?" inquired Hassan in alarm. It was curious that it was he who trembled at this word, and not the Princess. "That is the secret of to-morrow. Thou shalt break open and read this firman to-morrow, in it thou wilt find who is to die to-morrow." At these words Olaj Beg looked at the faces of all who were present, as if he would read their innermost thoughts, but in vain. He recognised none of those on whom his eyes fell. Although many of them seemed to be great men he could not remember meeting any of them in the Empire of the Grand Turk; and the face of Azrael was as cold and motionless as marble, he could read nought from that. But Azrael had already read the sealed firman through the eyes of Olaj Beg. She had read it, and it said that if by to-morrow morning the Princess was not set free then the scaffold would be erected for her, but if she had escaped, then it would be raised for Hassan and for whomsoever had set her free. "I must hasten to set her free," she thought. CHAPTER XIX. THE NIGHT BEFORE DEATH. The Angel of Death had already spread his wings over the palace of Hassan. It was already known that on the morning of the morrow someone of those who now dwelt beneath that roof would quit the world--only the name of the condemned mortal was not pronounced. Till late at evening the carpenters were at work in front of the palace gates, and every nail knocked into the fabric of the scaffold was audible in the rooms. When the structure was ready they covered it with red cloth, and placed upon it a three-legged chair and by the side of the chair leaned a bright round headsman's sword. A gigantic Kurd then mounted the scaffolding, and stamped about the floor with his big feet to see whether it would break down beneath him. The chair was badly placed, he observed it, put it right and shook his head while he did so. To think that people did not understand how to set a chair! Then he stripped his muscular arms to the shoulder, took up the sword in his broad palm and tested the edge of it, running his fingers along the blade as if it were some musical instrument and could not conceal his satisfaction. Then he made some sweeping blows with it, and as if everything was now in perfect order, he leaned it against the chair again and descended the ladder like a man well content with himself. The hands of Hassan Pasha trembled unusually when that evening he locked the golden padlocks on the hands of Azrael and Mariska. A hundred times he tapped the key hidden in his girdle to convince himself that it had not fallen out. Scarcely had he left the two women alone than he came back to them again to ascertain whether he had really locked their hands together, for he had forgotten all about it by the time he had reached the door. Then he came back a second time, looked all round the room, tapped the walls repeatedly, for he was afraid or had dreamt that there was another door somewhere which led out of the room. However, he convinced himself at last that there was not. Then he went to the window and looked out. There was a fall of fifteen feet to the bastions, and the ditch below was planted with sharp stakes; all round the room there was nothing whatever which could serve as a rope. The curtains were all of down and feathers; the dresses were of the lightest transparent material; the shawls which formed Azrael's turban and were twisted round her body were the finest conceivable; and the garments the odalisk actually wore were of silk, and so light that they stuck to the skin everywhere. Azrael saw through the mind of the Vizier. "Why dost though look at me?" she exclaimed aloud so that he trembled all over; "thou dost suspect me. If thou fearest this woman whom thou hast confided to me, take and guard her thyself." "Azrael," said Hassan meekly, "be not angry with me, at least not now." "Thou hast never suspected me, then?" "Have I not always loved thee? If even thou didst want my life would I not trust it with thee?" "Then wander not about the room so. Go and rest!" "Rest to-night? The Messenger of Death stands before the door." "What care I about the Messenger of Death? I know _when_ I am going to die! And _till_ then I will not lower my eyes before Death." "And when will Hassan die?" asked the Vizier, seizing the hand of his favourite and watching eagerly for her answer with parted lips. "Thou wilt survive me a day and no longer," said Azrael. There was a tremulousness in the intonation of her voice. She felt that what she said was true. The tears trickled from Hassan's face, and he covered it with his hands. Then the imbecile old man kissed the robe of the odalisk again and again, and folding her in his ardent embrace, actually sobbed over her. And he kept on babbling: "Thou wilt die before me?" "So it is written in the book of the Future," said Azrael proudly; "so long as thou seest me alive, have no fear of Death! But the sound of the horn of the Angel of Death which summons me away will also be a signal for thee to make ready." Hassan, having dried his tears, quitted Azrael's room, and on reaching his own, sank down upon a divan, and was immediately overcome by sleep. When he had gone, Mariska knelt down before the bed on which her little child was softly sleeping, and drawing a little ivory cross from her breast, began to pray. Azrael touched her hand. "Pray not now, thou wilt have time to pray later." Mariska looked at her in wonder. "I? Are not the hours of my life numbered?" "No. Listen to my words and act accordingly. I will free thee." The Princess was astonished, she fancied she was dreaming. The odalisk now drew a small fine steel file from her girdle, and, seizing the Princess's hand, began to file the chain from off it. After the first few rubs the sharp file bit deeply into the silver circlet, but suddenly it stopped, and, press it as hard as she would, it would bite the chain no more. "What is this? it won't go on. What is the chain made of? Even if it were of steel, another steel would file it." Azrael hastily filed right round the whole of the link which Hassan's smith had thought good to form of silver only on the outside, thinking that the fraud would never be discovered, and behold, the hard impervious substance which resisted the file was nothing but--glass. "Ah!" said Azrael, "all the better for us, the work will be quicker;" and seizing an iron candlestick, she broke in pieces with a single blow the whole of the glass chain which was only covered by a light varnish of silver, only the two locked golden manacles remained in their hands. "We shall be ready all the sooner," she whispered to Mariska, "now we must make haste and get you off." But Mariska still stood before her like one who knows not what is befalling her. "Hast thou thought how we are to escape?" she inquired of Azrael. "The guards of Hassan Pasha stand at every door, and all the doors have been locked by his own hand. In front of the gates of the fortress the sentinels have been doubled. I heard what commands he gave." "I have nought to do with doors or guards; we are going to escape through the window." Mariska looked at Azrael incredulously; she fancied she had gone mad. She could see nothing in the room by which they could descend from the window, and below stood the thickly planted sharp stakes. "Help me to let down this gobæa ladder!" said Azrael, and quick as a squirrel herself, she leaped on the edge of the great porcelain tub, and thrust aside the vigorous shoots of the plant from its natural ladder within, which grew right up to the roof and thence descended again to its own roots. Mariska began to see that her companion knew what she was about. She hastened to give her assistance, lowered the pliable trunk, and, looking round to see if anyone was watching, bent the branches towards the window. But still it was too short. The longest creepers only reached to the edges of the palisade, and one could not count upon the green sprouts at the end of the creepers. Even if the ladder which formed the flower were attached to it, it would still not reach to the bottom of the trench. Azrael looked around the room to see if she could find anything. Suddenly she had hit upon it. "Give me those scissors," she said to Mariska, and when the latter had returned to her, the odalisk had already let down her flowing tresses. Four long locks as black as night, reaching below her knee, the crown of a woman's beauty which make men rejoice in her, were twining there on the floor. "Give me the scissors!" she said to Mariska. "Wouldst thou cut off thy hair?" asked the Princess, holding back. "Yes, yes, what does it matter? It is wanted for the rope, and it will be quite strong enough." "Rather cut off mine!" said Mariska. With noble emulation she took from her head her small pearl haube, and loosened her own tresses, which, if not so long and so full of colour, at least rivalled those of her comrade in quantity. "Good; the two together will make the rope stronger," said Azrael; and with that the two ladies began clipping off their luxurious locks one by one with the little scissors. One marvellously beautiful tress after another flowed from the head of the odalisk. When the last had fallen, a tear-drop also followed it. Then she picked up the splendid tresses and began plaiting them together into strong knots. "Wouldst thou ever have thought," said Azrael, "that the locks of thy hair would be so intermingled?" Mariska gratefully pressed the hand of the odalisk. "How can I ever thank you for your goodness?" "Think not of it. Fate orders it so--and someone else," she muttered softly. And now the attached ladder was long enough to reach the bottom of the palisades. Then they pitched down all the pillows and cushions of the divans till they covered the sharp stakes, so that their points might not hurt the fugitives. Moreover, Azrael tied the tough shoots of the gobæa to the cross piece of the window with the wraps of her turban and girdle. "And now let me go first," said the odalisk, when all was ready; "if the branches of the creeper do not break beneath me, then thou canst come boldly after me, for thou and the child together are not heavier than I am." The sky was dark and obscured by clouds; no one saw a white shape descending from one of the black windows of the fortress down the wall, lower and lower, till at last it got to the bottom and vanished in the depths of the ditch. Mariska was waiting above there with a beating heart till the odalisk had descended; a tug at the gobæa-rope informed her that Azrael was already below, and Mariska could come after her. A supplicating sigh to God ascended from the anxious bosom of the Princess at that supreme moment of trial; then she fastened to her breast with the folds of her garment the little one, who, fortunately, was still sound asleep, and stepping from the window entrusted herself to the yawning abyss below. And, indeed, she had need of the most confident trust in God during this hazardous experiment, for if the child had awoke, the Komparajis pacing the bastions would have heard his tearful little wail at once, and it would have been all over with the fugitives. Nothing happened. Mariska reached the ditch in safety, together with her child. Azrael assisted her to descend, and then they began to creep along among the trenches on the river's bank. It was not advisable to clamber upon the trenches, as there they might have encountered a sentinel at any moment. At last they came to the end of the ditch where two bastions joined together, forming a little oblique opening, through which one could look down on the town of Pesth. Before the little opening stood a Komparaji leaning on his long lance. As his back was turned towards them, he did not notice the women, while they started back in terror when they saw him. The man stood right in front of the opening completely barring their way, and was gaping at Pesth, facing the steep declivity. Azrael quickly caught Mariska's hand and whispered in her ear: "Remain here! Sit down with the child, and see that he does not make a noise." And with that, quitting her companion and pressing against the wall of the bastion, she slowly and noiselessly began creeping along behind the back of the Komparaji. The sentinel remained standing there, as motionless as a statue, gazing at the Danube flying in front of him, when suddenly, like the panther leaping upon its prey, the odalisk leaped upon the Komparaji, and before he had time to call out, pushed him so violently that he plunged over into the abyss. Then quickly seizing Mariska's hand, the odalisk exclaimed: "And now forward quickly!" Like two spirits the forms of the women flitted across the bastions. In Azrael's hand was the key of the castle garden; in a few moments they reached the subterranean staircase, and when Azrael had locked the door behind her she turned to Mariska and said: "Now thou canst pray, for thou art saved." * * * * * The report had already spread through the two towns that early at dawn someone would be executed, and here and there people whispered that it would be the Princess of Moldavia. The population living outside the town were able to give full reins to their imagination, for the gates of the fortress, by Hassan Pasha's command, were already locked fast at six o'clock in the evening, and after that time nobody was allowed to enter out or in except the sentinels outside, and these only by the Szombat gate. The later grew the hour the more numerous became the crowd assembled in front of the gates thus unwontedly bolted and barred, consisting for the most part of people who lived inside the town of every rank, who thus waited patiently for the chance of reaching their houses again. Knocking at the gates was useless, the guards had been ordered to take no notice of such demonstrations. The darker grew the night, the more numerous became the throng before the gate, and the more closely they pressed together the plainer it became to them all that they would have to sleep outside. The largest concourse was in front of the Fejérvár gate, for that was the chief entrance. It was already close upon midnight, when some dozen horsemen, in the uniforms of Spahis, arrived at the gate, forcing their way through the throng, led, apparently, by a handsome youth (it was too dark to distinguish very clearly), who thundered at the gate with the butt-end of his lance. "You may bang away at it till morning," said a cobbler of Buda, who was lying prone, chawing bacon at his ease, "they won't let you in." "Then why are you all here?" cried the youth in the purest Hungarian. "Because they locked us out at six o'clock in the evening, and would not let us in." "Why was that?" "They say that at dawn of day someone in the fortress is to be executed." "Who is it?" said the youth, visibly affected. "Why, the Princess of Moldavia, of course." "Oh, that cannot be in any case," exclaimed the leader of the Spahis. "I have just come from the Sultan, and I have brought with me his firman, in which he summons her to Stambul; not a hair of her head is to be crumpled." "Then it will be just as well, sir, if you try to get into the fortress, for it may be you have come with the sermon after the festival is over, and that letter may remain in your pocket if once they cut off her head." The youth seemed for a moment to be reflecting, then, turning to those who stood around, he said: "Through which gate do they admit the soldiers on guard?" "Through the Szombat gate." The youth immediately turned his horse's head, and beckoned to his comrades to follow him. But at the first words he had uttered, a figure enwrapped in a mantle had emerged from a corner of the gate, and when he began to talk about the Princess and the firman, this figure, with great adroitness, had crept quite close to him, and when he turned round had swiftly followed him till, having made its way through the throng, it overtook him, and, placing its hand on the horseman's knee, said in a low voice: "Tököly!" "Hush!" hissed the horseman, with an involuntary start, and bending his head so that he might look into the face of his interlocutor, whereupon his wonder was mingled with terror, and throwing himself back in his saddle, he exclaimed: "Prince! can it be you?" For Prince Ghyka stood before him. "Could I be anywhere else when they want to kill my wife?" he said mournfully. "Do not be cast down, there will be plenty of time till to-morrow morning. I have plenty of confidence in my good star. When I really wish for a thing I generally get it even if the Devil stand in the opposite camp against me, and never have I wished for anything so much as to save Mariska." The Prince, with tears in his eyes, pressed the hand of the youth, and did not take it at all amiss of him that he called his wife Mariska. "Well, of course, you have brought the firman with you, and if you come with the suite of the Sultan----" "Firman, my friend? I have not brought a bit of a firman with me, and those who are with me are my good kinsfolk in Turkish costumes, worthy Magyar chums everyone of them, who have agreed to help me through with whatsoever I take it into my head to set about; but I have got something about me which can make firmans and athnamés, and whatever else I may require, whether it be the key of a dungeon, or a marshal's bâton, or a prince's sceptre--a golden knapsack, I mean." "And what are you going to get with that?" "Everything. I will corrupt the sentinels so that they will let me into the fortress; and once let me get in, and I'll either make Hassan Pasha sell Olaj Beg, or Olaj Beg sell Hassan Pasha. If a good word be of no avail I will use threats, and if my whole scheme falls through, Heaven only knows what I won't do. I'll chop Hassan Pasha and his guards into a dozen pieces, or I'll set the castle on fire, or I'll blow up the powder magazine--in a word, I won't desist till I have brought out your consort." "How can I thank you for your noble enthusiasm?" "You mustn't thank me, my friend; you must thank Flora Teleki, who is your wife's friend, and expects this of me." "Then you are re-engaged?" "No, my friend. Helen is my bride. Ah, that is the only real woman in the whole round world. I should be with her now if I were not engaged in this business, and as soon as I have finished with it, the pair of us will give you a wedding the like of which has never yet been seen in Hungary." The Prince sadly bowed his head. He means well, he thought, but there is a very poor chance of his succeeding. The mercurial youth seems to have no idea that within an hour he will be jeopardizing his head by engaging in a foolhardy enterprise which runs counter to the whole policy of the Turkish Empire. But Tököly's mind never impeded his heart. His motto always was: "_Virtus nescia freni_." "Then what do you intend to do?" Tököly casually asked Ghyka, just as if he considered it the most extraordinary thing in the world to find him there. "I also want to save Mariska, and I have hopes of doing so," said the Prince. "How? Tell me! Perchance we may be able to unite our efforts." "Scarcely, I think. My plan is simply to give myself up instead of my wife. They would execute her for my fault; it is only right that I should appear on the scaffold and take her place." "A bad idea!" exclaimed Tököly, "a stupid notion. If you deliver yourself up, they will seize you as well as your wife and do for the pair of you. I know a dodge worth two of that. Take horse along with us, and let us make our way into the fortress sword in hand; we shall do much more that way than if we went hobbling in on crutches. Luck belongs to the audacious." "You know, Tököly, that I do not much rely on Turkish humanity; and I am quite prepared, if I deliver myself up, for them to kill both me and her; but at least we shall die together, and that will be some consolation." "It is no good talking like that," cried the young Magyar impatiently. "Stop! A good idea occurs to me. Yes, and it will be better if you come with us and we all act in common. We will say openly at the gate that we bring with us the fugitive Prince of Moldavia as a captive. At the mere rumour of such a thing they will instantly admit us, not only into the fortress, but into the presence of Hassan likewise. The Pasha knows me pretty well, and if I tell him that I bring you a captive, he will believe me, or I'll break his head for him. He will be delighted to see you. But I will not give you up. I am responsible for you, and must mount guard over you. This will make it necessary to postpone the execution, for we shall have to write to Stambul that the husband has fallen into our hands, and inquire whether the wife is to be sacrificed, and we shall have time to elope ten times over before we get a reply." The Prince hesitated. If this desperate expedient had been a mere joke, Tököly could not have spoken of it with greater nonchalance. The Prince gave him his hand upon it. "The only question now is: which is the easiest way into the fortress. Let us draw near the first sentinel whom we find on the bridge or in the garden and wait until they change guard." The horsemen thereupon surrounded the Prince as if he was their captive, and escorted him along the river's bank. It was late. On the black surface of the Danube rocked the shapeless Turkish vessels, their sails creaking in the blast of the strong south wind. It was scarce possible to see ahead at all, nevertheless the little band of adventurers, constantly pushing forward, kept looking around to see where the sentinels were, keeping very quiet themselves that they might catch the watchword. Suddenly a cry was heard, but a cry which ended abruptly, as if the mouth from which it proceeded had been clapped to in mid-utterance. On reaching the walls of the palace garden, however, one of them perceived that an armed figure was standing in the little wicket gate. "There's the sentinel!" said Tököly. "The rascal must certainly be asleep to let us come right up to him without challenging us," said Tököly; and he approached the armed man, who still stood motionless in the gate, and addressed him in the Turkish tongue: "Hie, Timariot, or whoever you are! Are you guarding this gate?" "You see that I am." "Then why don't you challenge those who approach you?" "That's none of my business." "Then what is your business?" "To stand here till I am relieved." "And when will they relieve you?" "Any time." "Does the relief watch come by this gate?" "Not by this gate." "And by which gate can one get into the fortress?" "By no gate." "You give very short answers, my friend, but we must get at Hassan Pasha this very night without fail." "You must learn to fly then." "Don't joke with me, sir! I have very important tidings for the Vizier; you may possibly find it easier to get into the fortress than we could. You shall receive from me a hundred ducats on the spot if you inform the Pasha that I, Emeric Tököly, bring with me as a captive the fugitive Prince of Moldavia, and the Vizier himself will certainly reward you for it richly." The Count had no sooner mentioned his name, and pointed at the captive prince, than the Turkish sentinel quickly came forth from beneath the archway, and Tököly and Ghyka, in astonishment, exclaimed with one voice: "Feriz Beg!" "Yes, 'tis I. Keep still. You want to save Mariska, so do I." "So it is," said Tököly. "I promised the woman I do not love that I would do it, and I will keep my promise. You need have no secrets from us, for we shall require your assistance." "Your secrets are nought to me." The Prince listened with downcast head to the conversation of the two young men; then he intervened, took their hands, and said with deep emotion: "Feriz! Tököly! Once upon a time we faced each other as antagonists, and now as self-sacrificing friends we hold each other's hands. I don't want to be smaller than you. A scaffold has been put up in the courtyard of the fortress of Buda, that scaffold awaits a victim, whoever it may be, for the sword which the Sultan draws in his wrath will not remain unsatisfied. That scaffold was prepared for my wife, you must let me take her place. I am well aware that whoever liberates her must be prepared to perish instead of her. Let me perish. You, Feriz, can easily get into the fortress. Tell Hassan that the scaffold shall have the husband instead of the wife--let him surrender the wife for the husband." "Leave the scaffold alone, Prince. He who deserves it most shall get to the scaffold." "Don't listen to the Prince!" said Tököly to Feriz; "he has lost his head evidently, as he wants to make a present of it to Hassan. All I ask of you is to let me into the fortress; once let me get inside, and no harm shall be done. I was born with a caul, so good-luck goes with me." "Good. Wait here till the muezzin proclaims midnight, which will not be long, I fancy, as the night is already well advanced; meanwhile, keep your eye on those horsemen below there." The men fancied Feriz wanted to join the sentinels when the watch was relieved, and taking him at his word, hid themselves and their horses behind the lofty bank. The night was now darker than ever, only here and there a lofty star looked down upon them from among the wind-swept clouds. * * * * * Hassan had a restless night. Horrible dreams awoke him every instant, and yet he never wholly awoke, one phantom constantly supplanted the other in his agitated brain. The raging blast broke open one of the windows and beat furiously against the wall, so that the coloured glasses crashed down upon the floor. Aroused by the uproar, and gazing but half awake at the window, he saw the long curtain slowly approaching him as if some Dzhin were inside and had come thither to terrify him. "Who is that?" cried Hassan in terror, laying his hand on his sword. It was no one. It was only the wind which had stiffened out the curtains, expanding them like a banner and blowing gustily into the room. Hassan seized the curtain, pulled it away from the window, fastened it up by its golden tassels, and laid him down again. The wind returned to torment him and again worried the curtain till it had succeeded in unravelling the tassels, and again blew the curtain into the room. And then the tapestries of the door and the divans began fluttering and flapping as if someone was tugging away at their ends, and the flame of the night-lamp on the tripod flickered right and left, casting galloping shadows on the wall. "What is that? Have the devils been let loose in this palace?" Hassan asked himself in amazement. The closed doors jarred in the blast as if someone was banging at them from the outside, and every now and then the bang of a window-shutter would respond to the howling of the blast. Men have curious supernatural faculties through which their minds are suddenly illuminated. At that moment the idea flashed through Hassan's brain that, in the apartments of the wing beyond, a window must needs be open, which was the cause of the unwonted current of air which fluttered the curtains of his palace and made the doors rattle, and this window could be none other than Azrael's, and if it were open, then the two women must have escaped. At this horrible idea he quickly leaped out on to the floor, seized his sword, which was lying at his bedside, and, bursting open the door, rushed like a madman through all the apartments to Azrael's dormitory. At the instant of their escape Azrael had turned over the long divan and placed it right across the room in such a way that one end of it was jammed against the door, whilst the other end pressed against the wall, so that when Hassan tried to open the door, he found it impossible to do so. Everything was now quite clear to him. He called to nobody to open the door; he knew that they had escaped. In the fury of despair he snatched a battle-axe from the wall and began to break open the hard oaken door, so that the whole palace resounded with the noise of the blows, and the guards and the domestics all came running up together. Having beaten in the door at last, Hassan rushed into the room, cast a glance around, and even _his_ eyes could see that his slave had flown. Howling with rage he rushed to the window, and when he saw the dependent branches of the gobæa, he beat his forehead with his fists and laughed aloud as if something had broken loose inside him. "They have run off!" he yelled; "they have escaped, they have stolen their lives, and they have stolen my life, too. Run after them into every corner of the globe, pursue them, bring them back tied together, tied together so that the blood may flow through their fingers. Oh, Azrael, Azrael! How have I deserved this of thee?" And with that the old man burst into tears, and perceiving the odalisk's girdle on the window-frame, to which the plant was attached, he took it down, kissed it hundreds of times, hid his tearful face in it, and collapsed senseless on the floor. * * * * * "Hasten, Princess, hasten!" The odalisk pressed her companion's hand, and dragged her down along the bushy hillside. And now they had reached the hollow forming the entrance to the underground passage which terminated at the gates of the garden on the banks of the Danube. The odalisk had succeeded in filching the keys of the door of this secret passage from Hassan. While she was trying which of the two it was that belonged to the lock of the inner door, a cry resounded through the stillness of the night. "Hassan!" exclaimed the two girls together. They had recognised the voice. "They have discovered our escape," said Azrael. "Oh, God! do not leave me!" cried Mariska, pressing her hands together. "My child!" Azrael quickly opened the grating door. It took a few moments, and during that time a commotion was audible in the town, no doubt caused by the cry of Hassan. Cries of alarm and consternation spread from bastion to bastion, the whole garrison was aroused, and there was a confused murmur within the fortress. "Let us hasten!" cried Azrael, quickly opening the door and dragging after her the Princess into the blind-black corridor. At that moment a cannon-shot thundered from the fortress as an alarm-signal. Mariska, at the sound of the shot, collapsed in terror at Azrael's feet, and lay motionless in the corridor, still holding her child fast clasped in her arms. "Hah! the woman has fainted," cried the odalisk in alarm; "we shall both perish here," she cried in her despair. The din in the fortress grew louder every instant, from every bastion the signal-guns thundered. "No, no, we must not perish!" exclaimed the heroine, and with a strength multiplied by the extremity of the danger, she caught up the moaning woman and child in her arms, and raising them to her bosom began making her way with them along the covered corridor. Pitch darkness engulfed everything around them; the odalisk groped her way along by the feel of the wet, sinuous walls, stumbling from time to time beneath the burden of the dead weight in her arms, but at every fresh shot she started forward again and went on without resting. Onwards, ever onwards!--till the last gasp! till the last heart-throb! The awakened child also began to cry. Azrael's knees tottered, her bosom heaved beneath the double load, her staring eyes saw nothing; and the world was as dark before her soul as it was before her eyes. Heavy was the load upon her shoulder; but heavier still was the thought in her heart that this woman whom she was saving at the risk of her own life was the darling of him whom she loved herself, yet save her she must, for she had promised to do so. At every step she felt her strength diminishing; with swimming head she staggered against the wall, the steps seemed to have no end; if only she could hold out till she reached the door with her, and then for a moment might see Feriz Beg and hear from his lips the words: "Well done!"--then Israfil, the Angel of Death might come with his flaming sword. For some time she had gathered from the hollower resonance of the steps in the darkness that she was approaching the door; rallying her remaining strength, she tottered forward a few paces with her load, and when the latch of the door was already in her hand, her knees gave way beneath her, and along with the Princess and the child, she fell in a heap on the threshold, being just able to shove the key into the lock and turn it twice. * * * * * Feriz Beg, with the Magyar nobles, plunged again beneath the shade of the deep arch of the gate of the fortress garden and with wrapt attention listened for the muezzin to proclaim midnight. It was then that Azrael had said she would come. It never occurred to him that the woman could not come, so deeply had he looked into her heart that he felt sure she would fulfil her promise. If only the muezzin would proclaim midnight from the mosque. At last a cry sounded through the stillness of the night, but it was not the voice of the muezzin from the mosque, but Hassan's yell of terror from the fortress window and the din which immediately followed it, proclaiming that there was danger. Feriz's heart was troubled, but he never moved from the spot. He knew right well what that noise meant. They had tried to help the Princess to escape and her escape was discovered. "What is that noise?" asked the Prince apprehensively, sticking up his head. Feriz did not want to alarm him. "It is nothing," he answered. "Some one has stolen away on the bastions, perhaps, and they are pursuing him." Then the first cannon-shot resounded. Feriz, for the first time in his life, was agitated at the sound of a cannon. "That is an alarm-signal," cried Tököly, drawing his sword. "Keep quiet!" whispered Feriz, "perhaps they are shooting at the people who are thronging the gates." Nevertheless the shots were repeated from every bastion; the tumult, the uproar increased; a tattoo was beaten, the trumpets rang out and a whole concourse of people could be seen running along the bastions with torches and flashing swords in their hands. "They are pursuing someone!" cried the Prince, and unable to endure it any longer, he leaped upon the bank. "I know not what it is," stammered Feriz, and a cold shudder ran through his body. Ghyka grasped his sword, and would have rushed up the hill as if obeying some blind instinct. "What would you do?" whispered Feriz, grasping the hand of the Prince, and pulling him back by force under the gate. For a few moments they stood there in a dead silence, the tumult, the uproar seemed to be coming nearer and nearer--if it were to overtake them? "Hush!" whispered Feriz, holding his ear close to the door. He seemed to hear footsteps approaching from within and the plaintive wail of a child. A few moments afterwards there was a fumbling at the latch and a key was thrust into the lock and twice turned. Feriz hastened to open the door and the senseless forms of the two women fell at his feet. The youth quickly dragged the Prince after him, and recognising Mariska, who still lay in the embrace of Azrael, he placed her in her husband's arms together with the weeping child. "Here are your wife and child," said he, "and now hasten!" "Mariska!" exclaimed the Prince, beside himself; and embracing the child whom he now saw for the first time, he kissed the rosy face of the one and the pallid face of the other again and again. That voice, that kiss, that embrace awoke the fainting woman, and as soon as she opened her eyes, she quickly, passionately, flung her arms round her husband's neck while he held the child on his arm. No sound came from her lips, all her life was in her heart. "Quick! quick!" Feriz whispered to them. "Get into this skiff. When you get to the other side it will be time to rejoice in each other; till then we have cause to fear, for the whole of the Buda side of the river is on the alert. But I'll look after them here. On the other bank my servant is awaiting you with the swift horses; mention my name, and he will hand them over to you. On the banks of the Raab you will find another of my servants with fresh relays. Choose your horses, and then to Nógrád as fast as you can. Thence it will be easy to escape into Poland. Do not linger. Every moment is precious. Forward!" With that he conducted the fugitives to the skiff which was ready waiting for them, and at the bottom of which two muscular servants of his were lying out of sight. These helped them in, Feriz undid the rope, and at a few strokes of the oars they were already some distance from the shore. Then only did Feriz breathe freely, as if a huge load had fallen from his heart. "May they not pursue them?" inquired Tököly anxiously. "They may," returned Feriz; "but they cannot transport the horses in boats, as the fugitives now sit in the only boat here; the bridge, too, has been removed and they will hardly be able to build another in time on such a night as this." The fugitives had now reached the middle of the Danube, when Mariska, who had scarce been herself for joy and terror in her half-unconscious state, suddenly bethought her of her companion who had saved her with such incomprehensible self-sacrifice and energy, and standing up in the skiff waved her handkerchief as if she would thereby make up for the leave-taking which she had neglected in her joy and haste. "What are they doing?" cried Feriz angrily, seeing that they were attracting attention in consequence. Fortunately the night was dark and the people rushing down from the bastions could not see the skiff making its way across the Danube; presently its shape even began to vanish out of sight of the young eyes that were watching it. Feriz looked up to the sky with a transfigured face. Two stars, close together, looked down very brightly from amidst the fleeting clouds. Did he not see Aranka's eyes in that twin stellar radiance? Tököly took the hands of the young hero and pressed them hard. "Once before we stood face to face," he said with a feeling voice, which came from the bottom of his heart, "then I prevailed, now you prevail. God be with you!" Then the young Count mounted his horse, and beckoning to his comrades, galloped off in the direction of Gellérthegy. Feriz stood there alone on the shore with folded arms and tried to distinguish once more the shape of the skiff already vanishing in the darkness. Nobody thought of the poor odalisk who had saved them. All at once the youth felt the contact of a burning hand upon his arm. Broken in mind and body, the odalisk dragged herself to his knees, and seizing his hand drew it to her breast and to her lips. She could not speak, she could only sob and weep. Feriz looked at her compassionately. "Thou hast done well," he said gently. The girl embraced the youth's knees, and it was well with her that he suffered her to do so. "I thank thee for keeping thy word," said Feriz; "look now! that woman was not my beloved. She has a husband who loves her." Indescribably sweet were these words to the damsel. In them she found the sweetest reward for her sufferings and self-sacrifice. Then it was not love after all which made Feriz save this woman through her! The uproar meanwhile was extending along the shore, the pursuers could see that they were on the track of the fugitives. "We must be off," said Feriz; "wouldst thou like to come with me?" "Come with him!" What a thought was that for Azrael! To be able to live under the same roof with him! Yet she answered: "I will not come." It occurred to her that if she were found with the dear youth he would perish because of her. And besides, she knew that the invitation was due not to love but to magnanimous gratitude. "I want to go over to the island," she said in a faint voice. "Then I'll help thee to find thy skiff," said the youth, extending his hand to the odalisk to raise her up. She was still kneeling on the ground before him. She fixed upon him her large eyes swimming with tears, and whispered in a tremulous voice: "Feriz! Thou wert wont to reward those damsels who sacrificed themselves for thee, who died nobly and valiantly because they loved thee. Have not I also won that reward?" Feriz Beg sadly lowered his head as if it afflicted him to think of the significance of these words; then softly, gently, he bent over the damsel, and drawing her lovely head towards him, pressed a warm, feeling kiss on her marble forehead. The odalisk trembled with rapture beneath the load of that more than earthly sensation of pleasure, and leaping up and stretching her arms to Heaven, she whispered: "I am happy!--For the first time in my life. Now I may go--and die." Feriz, tenderly embracing her, led the damsel to her skiff. Then she stopped suddenly, and leaning her head against the shoulder of the youth, murmured in his ear: "When thou reachest thy kiosk, lie not down to sleep! Sit at thy window and look towards the island in the direction of sunrise. The night will be over ere long, and the dawn will come sooner than at other times. When thou seest this portent think of me and say for me the prayer which is used before the cold dawn, and say from thy heart: 'That woman does penance for her sins!'" The odalisk felt two tear-drops falling upon her cheek. They fell from the eyes of the youth. She could never feel happier in this world than she felt now. A few minutes later the skiff was flying over the rocking waves. CHAPTER XX. THE VICTIM. The Princess was saved, but she who had saved her was doomed. Along the banks of the rivers, and on the summits of the bastions, alarm-beacons had been kindled announcing the flight of the fugitives. It was late. On the shore the swift Arab horses of the pursuers were racing with the wind. But the wind was not idle, but blew and raged and fought with the foaming waves of the Danube, and tossed and pitched about every little boat that lay upon it. There was only one skiff, however, that ventured to cross the Danube and rise and fall with its billows, which were like the waves of the sea. A white form stood stonily motionless in the boat, and the blast kept twisting its soft garments round its body. The trembling boatman called upon the name of Allah. "Fear not, when you carry me," Azrael said to him, and her eyes hung upon a star which shone above her head, shining through the tatters of the scurrying clouds. The skiff reached the shore of the Margaret island. The damsel got out, and her last bracelet dropped from her hand into the hand of the boatman. "Remember me, and begone." "Dost thou remain here?" "No." "Whither wilt thou go?" Azrael answered nothing, but pointed mutely to the sky. The boatman did not understand much about it; but, anyhow, he understood that he could not give the damsel a lift up there, so he drew back his canoe and departed. Azrael remained alone on the island, quite alone; for that day everyone had been withdrawn by command of the Vizier; the damsels, the guards, and the eunuchs had all migrated to the fortress, the paradise was empty and uninhabited. Azrael strolled the whole length of the shore of the island. The mortars were still thundering down from the fortress, the horsemen were still shouting on the river's bank, the signal fires were blazing on the bastions, the night was dark, the wind blew tempestuously and scattered the leaves of the trees--but she saw neither the beacon fires, nor the darkness; she heard neither the tumult of men nor the howling of the blast; in her soul there was the light of heaven and an angelic harmony with which no rumour, no shape of the outer world would intermingle. She came to the kiosk in the centre of the island. Wandering aimlessly she had hit upon the labyrinthine way to it unawares. The sudden view of the summer-house startled her, and it awoke a two-fold sensation in her heart, it appealed equally to her memory and her imagination. She bethought her of the resolve she had made on coming to the island. She remembered that when she parted from the youth of her heart she had said: "When thou comest to thy kiosk, do not lie down to sleep; sit down at thy window, and look towards the island in the direction of the dawn. This night will be soon over, and the dawn will dawn more quickly than at other times. When thou seest it think of me and say for me the prayer of direction for the departing." She reflected that the youth must now be sitting at the window, looking towards the island, with his fine eyes weary of staring into the darkness. She would not weary those fine eyes for long. She hastily opened the door with her silver key and entered the hall. A hanging lamp was burning in the room just as the servants had left it in the morning. She drew forth a wax taper, and having lit it, proceeded to the other rooms, which opened one out of another, and whose floors were covered by precious oriental carpets, whose walls were inlaid with all manner of woods brought from foreign countries, and covered with tapestries, all splendid masterpieces of eastern art; the atmosphere of the rooms was heavy with intoxicating perfumes. All this was frightful, abominable to her now. As she walked over the carpets, it was as if she were stepping on burning coals; when she inhaled the scented atmosphere, it was as though she were breathing the corruption of the pestilence; everything in these rooms awoke memories of sin and disgust in her heart--costly costumes, porcelain vases, silver bowls, all of them the playthings of loathsome moments, whose keenest punishment was that she was obliged to remember them. But they shall all perish. And if they all perish, if these symbols of sin and the hundred-fold more sinful body itself become dust, then surely the soul will remember them no more? Surely it will depart far, far away--perchance to that distant star--and will be happy like the others who are near to God and know nothing of sin, but are full of the comfort of the infinite mercy of God, who has permitted them to escape from hence? With the burning torch in her hand she went all through the rooms, tearing down the curtains and tapestries, and piling them all on the divan; and when she entered the last of the rooms she saw a pale white figure coming towards her from its dark background. The shape was as familiar to her as if she had seen it hundreds of times, although she knew not where; and its face was so gentle, so unearthly--a grief not of this world suffused its handsome features and the joy of heaven flashed from its calm, quiet eyes--its hair clung round its head in tiny curls, as guardian-angels are painted. The damsel gazed appalled at this apparition. She fancied Heaven had sent her the messenger of the forgiveness of her sins; but it was her own figure reflected from a mirror concealed in the dark background--that gentle, downcast, sorrowful face, those pure, shining eyes she had never seen in a mirror before; the cut-off hair increased the delusion. Tremblingly she sank on her knees before this apparition, and touching the ground with her face, lay sobbing there for some time; and when she again rose up, it appeared to her as if that apparition extended towards her its snow-white arms full of pity, full of compassion; and when she raised her hands to Heaven it also pointed thither, raising a face transformed by a sublime desire. No, she could not recognise that face as her own, never before had she seen it so beautiful. Azrael placed her hands devoutly across her breast and beckoned to the apparition to follow her, and raising the curtain she returned into that room where she had already raised a funeral pyre for herself. There, piled up together, lay cushions of cloth of gold, Indian feather-stuffs, divans filled with swansdown, light, luxurious little tables, harps of camphor-wood adorned with pearls, lutes with the silvery voices of houris, a little basin filled with fine fragrant oils composed from the aroma of a thousand oriental flowers; this she everywhere sprinkled over the heaped-up stuff, and also saturated the thick carpets with it, the volatile essence filled the whole atmosphere. Then she pressed her hand upon her throbbing heart, and said: "God be with me!" And then she fired the heaped-up materials at all four corners, and, as if she were ascending her bridal bed, mounted her cushions with a smiling, triumphant face, and lay down among them, closing her eyes with a happy smile. In a few moments the flames burst forth at all four corners, fed freely by the light dry stuff, and combining above her like a wave of fire, formed a flaming canopy over her head. And she smiled happily, sweetly, all the time. The air, filled with volatile oil, also burst into flame, turning into a sea of burning blue; white clouds of smoke began to gather above the pyre; the strings of the harp caught by the flames burst asunder one by one from their burning frame, emitting tremulous, woeful sounds as if weeping for her who was about to die. When the last harp-string had burnt--the odalisk was dead. * * * * * The night was now drawing to a close. Feriz Beg, quietly intent, was sitting at the window of his kiosk, as he had promised the odalisk. He had not understood her mysterious words, but he did as she asked, for he knew instinctively that it was the last wish of one about to die. Suddenly, as he gazed at the black waves of the Danube and the still blacker clouds in the sky, he saw a bright column of fire ascend with the rapidity of the wind from the midst of the opposite island, driving before it round white clouds of smoke. A few moments later the flames of the burning kiosk lit up the whole region. The startled inhabitants gazed at the splendid conflagration, whose flames mounted as high as a tower in the roaring blast. Nobody thought of saving it. "No human life is lost, at any rate," they said quietly; "the harem and its guards were transferred yesterday." The wind, too, greatly helped the fire. The kiosk, built entirely of the lightest of wood, was a heap of ashes by the morning, when Feriz, accompanied by the müderris in his official capacity, got into a skiff and were rowed across to the island. Not even a remnant of embers was to be found, everything had been burnt to powder. Nothing was to be seen but a large, black, open patch powdered with ashes. The fire had utterly consumed the abode of sin and vice. Nothing remained but a black spot. In the coming spring it will be a green meadow. * * * * * In the afternoon of the following day we see a familiar horseman trotting up to the gates of the fortress--if we mistake not, it is Yffim Beg. All the way from Klausenburg he had been cudgelling his brains to find words sufficiently dignified to soften the expression of the insulting message which the Estates of Transylvania had sent through him to his gracious master. On arriving in front of Hassan's palace he dismounted as usual, without asking any questions, and gave the reins to the familiar eunuchs that they might lead the horse to the stables. There was no trace of the scaffold that had been erected in front of the gate the day before. Yffim Beg entered and passed through all the rooms he knew so well, all the doors of which were still guarded by the drabants of Hassan as of yore; at last he reached Hassan's usual audience chamber, and there he found Olaj Beg sitting on a divan reading the Alkoran. Yffim Beg gazed around him, and after a brief inspection, not discovering what he sought, he addressed Olaj Beg: "I want to speak to Hassan Pasha," said he. Olaj Beg looked at him, rose with the utmost aplomb, and approached a table on which was a silver dish covered by a cloth. This cloth he removed, and a severed bloody head stared at Yffim Beg with stony eyes. "There he is--speak to him!" said Olaj Beg gently. CHAPTER XXI. OTHER TIMES--OTHER MEN. Great men are the greatest of all dangers to little States. There are men born to be great generals who die as robber-chiefs. If Michael Teleki had sat at the head of a great kingdom, his name perchance would have ranked with that of Richelieu, and that kingdom would have been proud of the years during which he governed it. It was his curse that Transylvania was too small for his genius, but it was also the curse of Transylvania that he was greater than he ought to have been. The Battle of St. Gothard was a painful wound to Turkish glory, and it left behind it a constant longing for revenge, though a ten-years' peace had actually been concluded; and presently a more favourable opportunity than the prognostications of the Ulemas or the wisdom of the Lords of Transylvania anticipated presented itself, an opportunity far too favourable to be neglected. Treaty obligations had compelled the Kaiser to take part in the War of the Spanish Succession against Louis XIV., and the Kaiser's enemies at once saw that the time for raising their standards against him had arrived. The war was to begin from Transylvania, and the reward dangled before the Prince of Transylvania for his participation in this war was what his ancestors had often but vainly attempted to gain in the same way--the Kingdom of Hungary. It was, of course, a dangerous game to risk one kingdom in order to gain another, for both might be sacrificed. There was even a party in Transylvania itself which was indisposed to risk the little Principality for the sake of the larger kingdom, and though the most powerful arm of this party, Dionysius Banfy, had been cut off, it still had two powerful heads in Paul Béldi and Nicholas Bethlen. So one fine day at the Diet assembled at Fogaras, the Prince's guard suddenly surrounded the quarters of Paul Béldi and Nicholas Bethlen, and informed those gentlemen that they were State prisoners. What had they done? What crime had they committed that they should be arrested so unceremoniously? Good Michael Apafi believed that they were aiming at the princely coronet. This was a crime he was ready to believe in at a single word, and he urged the counsellors who had ordered the arrest at once to put the law into execution against the arrestants. But that is what these gentlemen took very good care not to do. It was much easier to kill the arrestants outright than to find a law which would meet their case. In those days worthy Master Cserei was the commandant of the fortress of Fogaras, and the castle in which the arrestants were lodged was the property of the Princess. As soon as Anna heard of the arrest she summoned Cserei, and showing him the signet-ring on her finger, said to him: "Look at that ring, and whatever death-warrant reaches you, if it bears not the impression of that seal, you will take care not to execute the prisoners; the castle is mine, so you have to obey my orders rather than the orders of the Prince." The Prince and his wife then returned together to Fejérvár. On the day after their arrival the chief men of the realm met together in council at the Prince's palace, and it was Teleki's idea that only those should remain to dinner who were of the same views as himself. So they all remained at the Prince's till late in the evening, and thoroughly enjoyed the merry jests of the court buffoon, Gregory Biró, who knew no end of delightful tricks, and swallowed spoons and forks so dextrously that nobody could make out what had become of them. Apafi had not noticed how much he had drunk, for every time he had filled his beaker from the flagon standing beside him, the flagon itself had been replenished, so that he fancied he had drunk nothing from sheer forgetfulness. But his face had got more inflamed and bloodshot than usual, and suddenly perceiving that the chair next to his was empty, he exclaimed furiously: "Who else has bolted? It is Denis Banfy who has bolted now, I know it is. What has become of Denis Banfy, I say?" The gentlemen were all silent; only Teleki was able to reply: "Denis Banfy is dead." "Dead?" inquired Apafi, "how did he die?" "Paul Béldi formed a league against him and he was beheaded." "Béldi?" cried Apafi, rising from his seat in blind rage, "and where is that man?" "He is in a dungeon at present, but it will not be long before he sits on the throne of the Prince." "On the scaffold, you mean!" thundered Apafi, beside himself, in a bloodthirsty voice, "on the scaffold, not the throne. I'll show that crafty Szekler who I am if he raises his head against me. Call hither the protonotarius, the law must be enforced." "The sentences are now ready, sir," said Nalaczi, drawing from his pocket three documents of equal size; "only your signature is required." He was also speedily provided with ink and a pen, which they thrust into the trembling hand of the Prince, indicating to him at the same time the place on the document where he was to sign his name. The thing was done. "Is there any stranger among us?" asked Teleki, looking suspiciously around. "Only the fool, but he doesn't count." The fool at that moment was making a sword dance on the tip of his nose, and on the sword he had put a plate, and he kept calling on the gentlemen to look at him--he certainly had paid no attention to what was going on at the table. The three letters were three several commands. The first was directed to Cserei, telling him to put the prisoners to death at once; the second was to the provost-marshal, Zsigmond Boer, to the effect that if Cserei showed any signs of hesitation he was to be killed together with the gentlemen; the third was to the garrison of the fortress, impressing upon them in case of any hesitation on the part of the provost to make an end of him forthwith along with the others. All three letters, sealed with yellow wax, were handed over to Stephen Nalaczi, who, placing them in his kalpag, pressed his kalpag down upon his head and hastened quickly from the room. He had to pass close to the jester on his way out, and the fool, rushing upon him, exclaimed. "O ho! you have got on my kalpag; off with it, this is yours!" and before Nalaczi had recovered from his surprise he found a cap and bells on his head instead of a kalpag. The magnate considered this jest highly indecent, and seized the jester by the throat. "You scoundrel, you, where have you put my kalpag? Speak, or I'll throttle you." "Don't throttle me, sir," said the jester apologetically, "for then you would be the biggest fool at the court of the Prince." "My kalpag!" cried Nalaczi furiously, "where have you put it?" "I have swallowed it, sir." "You worthless rascal," roared Nalaczi, throttling the jester, "would you play your pranks with me!" "Truly, sir, I shall not be able to bring it up again if you press my throat like that." "Stop, I mean to search you," said Nalaczi; and he began to tear up the coat of the jester, whereupon the kalpag came tumbling out from between its folds. "You clumsy charlatan," laughed Nalaczi, "well, you hid it very well, I must say." Then he put on his kalpag again, in which were all three letters well sealed with yellow wax, but he now hastened outside as rapidly as possible in case the fool should spirit them away again. The same night he galloped to Fogaras, though it cost him his horse to get there, summoned Cserei, and giving him the letter addressed to him said: "You, sir, are to execute this strict command to the very letter." The commandant took the letter, broke the seal, and then looked at the magnate in amazement: "I know not, sir, whether you or I have been made a fool of--but there's not a scrap of writing in this letter." Nalaczi incredulously examined the letter. It was a perfect blank. Hastily he broke open the other two letters. In these also there was nothing but the bare paper. The fool, while the nobleman was throttling him, had substituted blanks for the letters sent, and sent the sentences the same evening to the Princess, who thereby had discovered all that the Prince and his councillors were doing. In the morning the Princess went to Apafi with the three sentences in her hand, and reproached him for wanting to murder his ministers. The worthy Prince was amazed at seeing these orders signed by himself. He knew nothing about it, and embracing his wife, thanked her for watching over him and not allowing him to send forth such orders. As for Nalaczi, the shame of the thing made it impossible for him to show himself at Court, and he could only nourish a grudge against the fool. This accident greatly upset the worthy Prince, and he immediately rushed to release the captives. First of all, however, they had to sign deeds in which they solemnly engaged not to seek to revenge themselves on their accusers. Paul Béldi was wounded to the heart, but he regarded this calamity as a just retribution for having been the first to sign the league[18] against Denis Banfy; it was a weapon which now recoiled upon himself. [Footnote 18: See "'Midst the Wild Carpathians," Book II., Chapter VII.] But this private grief was the least of his misfortunes, for while Paul Béldi and Nicholas Bethlen had been sitting in their dungeon the war party had had a free hand, so that when the two gentlemen were released they were astounded to learn from their partisans that only the sanction of the Diván was now necessary for a rupture of the peace. Béldi perceived that to remain silent any longer would be equivalent to looking on while the State rushed to its destruction. He immediately assembled all those who were of the same opinion as himself--Ladislaus Csaky, John Haller, George Kapy--and consulted with them as to the future of the realm. Béldi opined throughout that the Prince should be spared, but he was to be compelled to dismiss such councillors as Teleki, Székely, Mikes, and Nalaczi, and form a new council of state. Kapy would have done more than this. "If we want as much as that," said he, "it would be better to declare ourselves openly; and if we draw the sword, we shall have no need to petition, but can fight, and whoever wins let him profit by it and become Prince." "No!" said Béldi, "I have sworn allegiance to the Prince, and though I love my country, and am prepared to fight for it, yet I will never break my oath. My proposition is that we assemble in arms at the Diet which is convened to meet at Nagy-Sink, together with the Szekler train-bands, and if we show our strength the Prince assuredly will not hesitate to change his counsellors, for I know him to be a good man who rather fears than loves them." The gentlemen present accepted Béldi's proposition. "Then here I will leave your Excellencies," said Kapy, stiffly buttoning his mente.[19] "I am not afraid of war, for there I see my enemy before me, and can fight him; but I do not like these armed appeals, for they are apt to twist a man's sword from his hand and turn it against his own neck." [Footnote 19: Fur pelisse.] And he withdrew. The other gentlemen resolved, however, that they would all arm their retainers. At a word from Béldi the armed Szeklers of Háromszék, Csik, and Udvarhelyszék rose at once; they were ready at an hour's notice to rise in obedience to the command of their generalissimo. The news of this audacious insurrection reached Michael Teleki at Gernyeszeg, who was beside himself with joy, well aware that Béldi was not the sort of man who was likely to prevail in a civil war whilst the contrary case would bring about his ruin, as he had now gone too far to draw back again. He immediately hastened to the Prince and, arousing him from his bed, told him that Béldi had risen against him, and so terrified Apafi that he immediately got into his coach, and fled by torchlight to Fogaras. Gregory Bethlen, Farkas, and the other counsellors also took to their heels in a panic--only Teleki remained cool. He knew the character of Béldi too well to be afraid of him. So the spark of ambition and rage was kindled in Paul Béldi's heart, and for some days it looked as if he would be the master of Transylvania, for nothing could resist him with the Szekler bands at his side, and all the regular troops were scattered among the frontier fortresses. But Béldi thought it enough to show his weapons without letting them be felt. Instead of a declaration of war he sent a manifesto full of loyalty to the Prince, in which he assured his Highness that he had taken up arms not against his Highness but in the name of the state; all he demanded was that the counsellors of the Prince should be tried by the laws of the realm. Whilst this wild missive was on its way, Teleki had had time to call together the troops from the frontier fortresses, and send orders to those of the Szeklers who had not risen to assemble under Clement Mikes in defence of the Prince; and while Béldi awaited an attack, he proceeded to take the offensive against him at once. One day Béldi was sitting in the castle of Bodola along with Ladislaus Csáky, when news was brought them that Gregory Bethlen, with the army of the Prince, was already before Kronstadt. "War can no longer be avoided," sighed Csáky. "We can avoid it if we lay down our arms," returned Béldi. "Surely you do not think of that?" inquired Csáky in alarm. "Why should I not? I will take no part in a civil war." "Then we are lost." "Rather we shall save thousands." The same day he ordered his forces to disperse and return home. The next day Gregory Bethlen sent Michael Vay to Bodola, who brought with him the Prince's pardon. Csáky ground his teeth together. It occurred to him that he had got Denis Banfy beheaded, yet he too had received a pardon, and he inquired of Vay in some alarm: "Can we really rely on this letter of pardon?" Michael Vay was candid enough to reply: "Well, my dear brethren, though you had a hundred pardons it would be as well if you courageously resolved to quit Transylvania notwithstanding." Csáky gave not another moment's thought to the matter, but packed up his trunks, and while it was still daylight escaped through the Bozza Pass. Béldi decided to remain; shame prevented him from flying. Nevertheless, Michael Vay told his wife and children of his danger and they insisted, supplicating him on their knees, that he should hasten away and save himself. "And what about you?" asked Béldi, looking at his tearful family. He had two handsome sons, and his daughter Aranka had grown up a lovely damsel; she was the apple of her father's eye, his pride and his glory. "What about you?" he asked with a troubled voice. "You can more easily defend us at Stambul than here," said Dame Béldi; and Béldi saw that that was a word spoken in season. That word changed his resolve, for, indeed, by seeking a refuge at the Porte, he would be able to help himself and his family much more, and perhaps even give a better turn to the fortunes of his country. There, too, many of the highest viziers were his friends who had very great influence in affairs. He immediately had his horse saddled, and after taking leave of his family with the utmost confidence, he escaped through the Bozza Pass the same night with an escort of a few chosen servants into Wallachia, where he found many other fugitive colleagues, and with them he took refuge at the Porte--then the highest court of appeal for Transylvania. CHAPTER XXII. THE DIVÁN. The gates of the seraglio were thrown wide open, the discordant, clanging, and ear-piercing music was put to silence by a thundering roll of drums, and twelve mounted cavasses with great trouble and difficulty began clearing a way for the corps of viziers among the thronging crowd, belabouring all they met in their path with stout cudgels and rhinoceros whips. The indolent, gaping crowd saw that it was going to be flogged, yet didn't stir a step to get out of the reach of the whips and bludgeons. The members of the Diván dismounted from their horses in the courtyard and ascended the steps, which were guarded by a double row of Janissaries with drawn scimitars, the blue and yellow curtains of the assembly hall of the Diván were drawn aside before them, and the mysterious inner chamber--the hearth and home of so much power and splendour, once upon a time--lay open before them. It was a large octagonal chamber without any of those adornments forbidden by the Koran; its marble pavement covered by oriental carpets, its walls to the height of a man's stature inlaid with mother-o'-pearl. Along the walls were placed a simple row of low sofas covered with red velvet and without back-rests, behind them was a pillared niche concealing a secret door where Amurath was wont to listen unperceived to the consultations of his councillors. Through the parted curtains passed the members of the Council of the Diván. First of all came the Grand Vizier, a tall, dry man with rounded projecting shoulders; his head was constantly on the move and his eyes peered now to the right and now to the left as if he were perpetually watching and examining something. His brown, mud-coloured face wore an expression of perpetual discontent; every glance was full of scorn, rage, and morbid choler; when he spoke he gnashed his black teeth together through which he seemed to filter his voice; and his face was never for an instant placid, at one moment he drew down his eyebrows till his eyes were scarce visible, at the next instant he raised them so that his whole forehead became a network of wrinkles and the whites of his eyes were visible; the corners of his mouth twitched, his chin waggled, his beard was thin and rarely combed, and the only time he ever smiled was when he saw fear on the face of the person whom he was addressing; finally, his robes hung about him so slovenly that despite the splendid ornaments with which they were plastered he always looked shabby and sordid. After the Grand Vizier came Kiuprile, a full-bodied, red-faced Pasha, with a beard sprawling down to his knees; the broad sword which hung by his side raised the suspicion that the hand that was wont to wield it was the hand of no weakling; his voice resembled the roar of a buffalo, so deep, so rumbling was it that when he spoke quietly it was difficult to understand him, while on the battle-field you could hear him above the din of the guns. Among the other members of the Diván there were three other men worthy of attention. The first was Kucsuk Pasha, a muscular, martial man; his sunburnt face was seamed with scars, his eyes were as bright and as black as an eagle's; his whole bearing, despite his advanced age, was valiant and defiant; he carried his sword in his left hand; his walk, his pose, his look were firm; he was slow to speak, and rapid in action. Beside him stood his son, Feriz Beg, the sharer of his father's dangers and glory, a tall, handsome youth in a red caftan and a white turban with a heron's plume. Last of all came the Sultan's Christian doctor, the court interpreter, Alexander Maurocordato, a tall, athletic man, in a long, ample mantle of many folds; his long, bright, black beard reaches almost to his girdle, his features have the intellectual calm of the ancient Greek type, his thick black hair flows down on both shoulders in thick locks. The viziers took their places; the Sultan's divan remains vacant; nearest to it sits the Grand Vizier; farther back sit the pashas, agas, and begs. "Most gracious sir," said Maurocordato, turning towards the Grand Vizier, "the poor Magyar gentlemen have been waiting at thy threshold since dawn." The Grand Vizier gazed venomously at the interpreter, protruding his head more than ever. "Let them wait! It is more becoming that they should wait for us than we for them." And with that he beckoned to the chief of the cavasses to admit the petitioners. The refugees were twelve in number, and the chief cavasse, drawing aside the curtains from the door of an adjoining room, at once admitted them. Foremost among them was Paul Béldi, the others entered with anxious faces and unsteady, hesitating footsteps; he alone was brave, noble, and dignified. His gentle, large blue eyes ran over the faces of those present, and his appearance excited general sympathy. Only the Grand Vizier regarded him with a look of truculent indifference--it was his usual expression, and he knew no other. "Fear not!--open your hearts freely!" signified the Grand Vizier. Béldi stepped forward, and bowed before the Grand Vizier. One of the Hungarians approached still nearer to the Vizier and kissed his hand; the others were prevented from doing the same by the intervention of Maurocordato, who at the same time beckoned to Béldi to speak without delay. "Your Excellencies!" began Béldi, "our sad fate is already well-known to you, as fugitives from our native land we come to you, as beggars we stand before you; but not as fugitives, not as beggars do we petition you at this moment, but as patriots. We have quitted our country not as traitors, not as rebels, but because we would save it. The Prince is rushing headlong into destruction, carrying the country along with him. His chief counsellor lures him on with the promise of the crown of Hungary in the hope that he himself will become the Palatine. Your excellencies are aware what would be the fate of Hungary after such a war. A number of the great men of the realm joined me in a protest against this policy. We knew what we were risking. For some years past I have been one of those who disapproved of an offensive war--we are the last of them, the rest sit in a shameful dungeon, or have died a shameful death. Once upon a time, as happy fathers of families, we dwelt by our own firesides; now our wives and children are cast into prison, our castles are rooted up, our escutcheons are broken; but we do not ask of you what we have lost personally, we ask not for the possession of our properties, we ask not for the embraces of our wives and children, we do not even ask to see our country; we are content to die as beggars and outcasts; we only petition for the preservation of the life of the fatherland which has cast us forth, and which is rushing swiftly to destruction--hasten ye to save it." Kucsuk Pasha, who well understood Hungarian, angrily clapped his hand upon his sword, half drew it and returned it to its sheath again. Feriz Beg involuntarily wiped away a tear from his eyes. "Gracious sirs," continued Béldi, "we do not wish you to be wrath with the Prince for the tears and the blood that have been shed; we only ask you to provide the Prince with better counsellors than those by whom he is now surrounded, binding them by oath to satisfy the nation and the Grand Seignior, for none will break such an oath lightly and with impunity; and these new counsellors will constrain him to be a better father to those who remain in the country than he was to us." When Béldi had finished, Maurocordato came forward, took his place between the speaker and the Grand Vizier, and began to interpret the words of Béldi. At the concluding words the face of the interpreter flushed brightly, his resonant, sonorous voice filled the room, his soul, catching the expression of his face, changed with his changing feelings. Where Béldi calmly and resignedly had described his sufferings, the voice of the interpreter was broken and tremulous. Where Béldi had sketched the future in a voice of solemn conviction, Maurocordato assumed a tone of prophetic inspiration; and finally, when in words of self-renunciation he appealed for the salvation of his country, his oratory became as penetrating, as bitterly ravishing, as if his speech were the original instead of the copy. Passion in its ancient Greek style, the style of Demosthenes, seemed to have arisen from the dead. The listening Pashas seemed to have caught the inspiration of his enthusiasm, and bent their heads approvingly. The Grand Vizier contracted his eyelids, puckered up his lips, and hugging his caftan to his breast, began to speak, at the same time gazing around abstractedly with prickling eyes, every moment beating down the look of whomsoever he addressed or glaring scornfully at them. His screeching voice, which he seemed to strain through his lips, produced an unpleasant impression on those who heard it for the first time; while his features, which seemed to express every instant anger, rage, and scorn in an ascending scale, accentuated by the restless pantomime of his withered, tremulous hand, could not but make those of the Magyars who were ignorant of Turkish imagine that the Grand Vizier was atrociously scolding them, and that what he said was nothing but the vilest abuse from beginning to end. Mr. Ladislaus Csaky, who was standing beside Paul Béldi, plucked his fur mantle and whispered in his ear with a tremulous voice: "You have ruined us. Why did you not speak more humbly? He is going to impale the whole lot of us." The Vizier, as usual, concluded his speech with a weary smile, drew back his mocking lips, and exposed his black, stumpy teeth. The heart's blood of the Magyars began to grow cold at that smile. Then Maurocordato came forward. A gentle smile of encouragement illumined his noble features, and he began to interpret the words of the Grand Vizier: "Worshipful Magyars, be of good cheer. I have compassion on your petition, your righteousness stands before us brighter than the noonday sun, your griefs shall have the fullest remedy. Ye did well to supplicate the garment of the Sublime Sultan; cling fast to the folds of it, and no harm shall befall you. Now depart in peace; if we should require you again, we will send for you." Everyone breathed more easily. Béldi thanked the Vizier in a few simple sentences, and they prepared to withdraw. But Ladislaus Csaky, who was much more interested in his Sóva property than in the future of Transylvania, and to whom Béldi's petition, which only sought the salvation of the fatherland, and said nothing about the restitution of confiscated estates, appeared inadequate, scarce waited for his turn to speak, and, what is more, threw himself at the feet of the Vizier, seized one of them, which he embraced, and began to weep tremendously. Indeed, his words were almost unintelligible for his weeping, and Mr. Csaky's oratory was always difficult to understand at the best of times, so that it was no wonder that the Grand Vizier lost his usual phlegm and now began to curse and swear in real earnest; till the other Magyar gentlemen rushed up, tore Csaky away by force, while Maurocordato angrily pushed them all out, and thus put an end to the scandalous scene. "If you kneel before a man," said Béldi, walking beside him, "at least do not weep like a child." Before Béldi could reach the door he felt his hand warmly pressed by another hand. He looked in that direction, and there stood Feriz. "Did you say that your wife was a captive?" asked the youth with an uncertain voice. "And my child also." The face of Feriz flushed. "I will release them," he said impetuously. Béldi seized his hand. "Wait for me at the entrance." The Hungarian refugees withdrew, everyone of them weaving for himself fresh hopes from the assurances of the Vizier. Only Ladislaus was not content with the result, and going to his quarters he immediately sat down and wrote two letters, one to the general of the Kaiser, and the other to the minister of the King of France, to both of whom he promised everything they could desire if they would help forward his private affairs, thinking to himself if the Sultan does not help me the Kaiser will, and if both fail me I can fall back upon the French King; at any rate a man ought to make himself safe all round. * * * * * Scarce had the refugees quitted the Diván when an Aga entered the audience-chamber and announced: "The Magyar lords." "What Magyar lords?" cried the Grand Vizier. "Those whom the Prince has sent." "They're in good time!" said the Vizier, "show them in;" and he at once fell into a proper pose, reserving for them his most venomous expression. The curtains were parted, and the Prince's embassy appeared, bedizened courtly folks in velvet with amiable, simpering faces. Their spokesman, Farkas Bethlen, stood in the very place where Paul Béldi had stood an hour before, in a velvet mantle trimmed with swan's-down, a bejewelled girdle worthy of a hero, and a sword studded with turquoises, the magnificence of his appointments oddly contrasting with his look of abject humility. "Well! what do ye want? Out with it quickly!" snapped the Grand Vizier, with an ominous air of impatience. Farkas Bethlen bent his head to his very knees, and then he began to orate in the roundabout rhetoric of those days, touching upon everything imaginable except the case in point. "Most gracious and mighty, glorious and victorious Lords, dignified Grand Vizier, unconquerable Pashas, mighty Begs and Agas, most potent pillars of the State, lords of the three worlds, famous and widely-known heroes by land and sea, my peculiarly benevolent Lords!" All this was merely prefatory! Kiuprile began to perspire; Kucsuk Pasha twirled his sword upon his knee; Feriz Beg turned round and contemplated the fountains of the Seraglio through the window. "Make haste, do!" interrupted Maurocordato impatiently; whereupon Farkas Bethlen, imagining that he had offended the interpreter by omitting him from the exordium, turned towards him with a supplementary compliment: "Great and wise interpreter, most learned and extraordinarily to be respected court physician of the most mighty Sultan!" Kiuprile yawned so tremendously that the girdle round his big body burst in two. Farkas Bethlen, however, did not let himself be put out in the least, but continued his oration. "Our worthy Prince, his Highness Michael Apafi, has been much distressed to learn that those seditious rebels who have dared to raise their evil heads, not only against the Prince but against the Sublime Porte also, as represented in his person, in consequence of the frustration of their plans, have fled hither to damage the Prince by their falsehoods and insinuations. Nevertheless, although our worthy Prince is persuaded that the wisdom of your Excellencies must needs confute their lying words, your goodwill confound their devices, and your omnipotence chastise their audacity, nevertheless it hath also seemed good to his Highness to send us to your Excellencies in order that we may refute all these complaints and accusations whereby they would falsely, treacherously and abominably disturb the realm ..." Maurocordato here took advantage of a pause made by the orator to take breath after this exordium, and before he was able to proceed to the subject-matter of his address, began straightway to interpret what he had said so far for the benefit of the Grand Vizier, being well aware that the Vizier would not allow anyone to speak a second time before he had spoken himself. The speech of the interpreter was this time dry and monotonous. All Farkas Bethlen's homiletical energy was thrown away in Maurocordato's drawling, indifferent reproduction. The Grand Vizier replied with flashing eyes, his face was twice as venomous as it had been before, and his gestures plainly indicated an intention to show the envoys the door. Maurocordato interpreted his reply. "The Grand Vizier says that not those whom ye persecute but you yourselves are the rebels who have broken the oath ye made to the Sublime Porte, inasmuch as your ambitious projects aim at the separation of Transylvania from its dependence on the Porte and at the conquest of Hungary--both sure ways of destruction for yourselves. Wherefore the Grand Vizier gives you to understand that if you cannot sit still and live in peace with your own fellow-countrymen, he will send to you an intermediary, who will leave naught but tears behind him." The Hungarian gentlemen regarded each other in astonishment. Not a trace of simpering amiability remained on the face of Farkas Bethlen, who was furious at the failure of the speech he had so carefully learnt by heart. He bowed still deeper than before, and sacrificing with extraordinary self-denial the remainder of his oration, especially as he perceived that any further parleying would not be permitted, he had resort to more drastic expedients. "Oh, sir! how can such accusations affect us who have always been willing faithfully to fulfil your wishes? We pay tribute, we give gifts, and now also our worthy Prince hath not sent us to you empty-handed, having commanded Master Michael Teleki not to neglect to provide us with suitable gifts, who has, moreover, sent to your Excellencies through me two hundred purses of money,[20] as a token of his respect and homage, beseeching your Excellencies to accept this little gift from us your humble servants." [Footnote 20: Equivalent to 100,000 thalers.] With these words the orator beckoned to one of the deputation, at whose summons, four porters appeared carrying between them, suspended on two poles, a large iron chest, which Farkas Bethlen opened, discharging its contents at the feet of the Grand Vizier. The jingling thalers fell in heaps around the Diván, and the sound of the rolling coins filled the room. The features of the Grand Vizier suddenly changed. Maurocordato stepped back. Bethlen's last words had needed no interpreter; the Vizier could not keep back from his face a hideous smile, the grin of the devil of covetousness. His eyes grew large and round, he no longer clenched his teeth together, he was rather like a wild beast eager to pounce upon his prey. Farkas Bethlen humbly withdrew among his colleagues; the Vizier could not resist the temptation, he descended from the Diván, rubbing his hands, tapping the shoulders of the last speaker, smiling at all the deputies, and even going so far as to extend his hand to one or two of them, which those fortunate beings hastened to kiss, and spoke something to them in Turkish, to which they felt bound to reply with profound obeisances. During this scene Maurocordato had quitted the Diván, and as in default of an interpreter the envoys were unable to understand the words of the Vizier, and could only bow repeatedly, Kiuprile, who had learnt Hungarian while he was Pasha of Eger, arose and roared at them in a voice which made the very ceiling shake: "The Vizier bids you go to hell, ye dogs of Giaours, and if we want you again we will send for you!" Whereupon he gave a vicious kick at a thaler which had rolled to his feet, while the deputies, after innumerable salutations, left the Diván. * * * * * On the departure of the Prince's envoys, the Grand Vizier immediately sent for Béldi and his comrades. When the refugees entered the Diván, not one of them yet knew that the envoys of the Prince had been there and brought the money which they saw piled up before them, though they could not for the life of them understand what the Grand Vizier and themselves had to do with all that money; and inasmuch as Maurocordato had also departed, and the cavasses sent after him could not find him anywhere, the Hungarians, in the absence of an interpreter, stood there for some time in the utmost doubt, striving to explain as best they could the signification of the peculiar signs which the Grand Vizier kept making to them from time to time, pointing now at the heaps of money and now at them, and expounding his sayings with all ten fingers. Every time he glanced at the money he could not restrain his disgusting, hyæna-like smile. "Don't you see," whispered Csaky to Béldi, "the Grand Vizier intends all that money for us?" Béldi could not help smiling at this artless opinion. At last, as the interpreter did not come, Kiuprile was constrained, very much against the grain, to arise and interpret the wishes of the Grand Vizier as best he could. "Worthy sirs, this is what the Grand Vizier says to you. The Prince's deputies have been here. They ought to have their necks broken--that's what _I_ say. They brought with them this sum of money, and they said all sorts of things which are not true, but the money which they brought is true enough. Having regard to which the Grand Vizier says to you that he recognises the justice of your cause and approves of it, but the mere recognition of its justice will make no difference to it, for it will remain just what it was before. But if you would make your righteous cause progress and succeed, promise him seventy more purses than those of the Prince's envoys, and then we will close with you. We will then fling _them_ into the Bosphorus sewn up in sacks, but you we will bring back into your own land and make you the lords of it." A bitter smile crossed the lips of Paul Béldi, he sighed sorrowfully, and looked back upon his comrades. "You know right well, sir," said he to Kiuprile, "that we have no money, nor do I know from whence to get as much as you require, and my colleagues are as poor as I am. We never used the property of the State as a means of collecting treasures for ourselves, and what little remained to us from our ancestors has already been divided among the servants of the Prince. We have no money wherewith to buy us justice, and if there be no other mode of saving our country, then in God's name dismiss us and we will throw ourselves at the feet of some foreign Prince, and supplicate till we find one who must listen to us. God be with you; money we have none." "Then I have!" cried a voice close beside Béldi; and, looking in that direction, they saw Kucsuk Pasha approach Paul Béldi and warmly press the right hand of the downcast Hungarian gentleman. "If you want two hundred and seventy purses I will give it; if you want as much again I will give it; as much as you want you shall have; bargain with them, fix your price; I am here. I will pay instead of you." Feriz Beg rushed towards his father, and, full of emotion, hid his face in his bosom. Béldi majestically clasped the hand of the old hero, and was scarce able to find words to express his gratitude at this offer. "I thank you, a thousand times I thank you, but I cannot accept it; that would be a debt I should never be able to repay, nor my descendants after me. Blessed are you for your good will, but you cannot help me that way." Kiuprile intervened impatiently. "Be sensible, Paul Béldi, and draw not upon thee my anger; weigh well thy words, and hearken to good counsel. To demand so much money from thee as a private man in exile would be a great folly, but assume that thou art a Prince, and that this amount, which it would be impossible to drag out of one pocket, could easily be distributed over a whole kingdom and not be felt. Do no more then than promise us the amount; it is not necessary that thou shouldst pay us before we have made thee Prince." Béldi shuddered, and said to Kiuprile with a quavering voice: "I do not understand you, sir, or else I have not heard properly what you said." "Then understand me once for all. If it be true what thou sayest--to wit, that the present Prince of Transylvania rules amiss, why then, depose him from his Principality; and if it also be true what thou sayest--to wit, that thou dost love thy country so much and seest what ought to be done--why then, defend it thyself. I will send a message to the frontier Pashas, and they will immediately declare war upon this state, seize Master Michael Apafi and all his counsellors, clap them into the fortress of Jedikula, and put thee and thy comrades in their places. Thou art only to promise the Grand Vizier two hundred and seventy purses, and he will engage to make thee Prince as soon as possible, and then thou wilt be able to pay it; which, if thou dost refuse, of a truth I tell thee, that I will clap thee into Jedikula in the place of Michael Apafi." The heart of Paul Béldi beat violently throughout this speech. His emotion was visible in his face, and more than once he would have interrupted Kiuprile if the Hungarian gentlemen had not restrained him. When, however, Kiuprile had finished his speech. Paul Béldi took a step forward, and proudly raising his head so that he seemed to be taller than usual, he replied in a firm, strong voice: "I thank you, gracious sir, for your offer, but I cannot accept it. A sacred oath binds me to the present Prince of Transylvania, and if he has forgotten the oath which he swore to the nation it is no answer to say that we should also violate ours, nay, rather should we remind him of his. I have raised my head to ask for justice, not to pile one injustice upon another. Transylvania needs not a new Prince, but its old liberties; and if I had only wanted to make war upon the Prince, the country would rise at a sign from me, the whole of the Szeklers would draw their swords for me, but it was I who made them sheath their swords again. I do not come to the Porte for vengeance, but for judgment; not my own fate, but the fate of my country I submit to your Excellencies. I do not want the office of Prince. I do not want to drive out one usurper only to bring in a hundred more. I will not set all Transylvania in a blaze for the sake of roasting Master Michael Teleki, nor for the sake of freeing a dozen people from a shameful dungeon will I have ten thousand dragged into captivity. May I suffer injustice rather than all Transylvania. Accursed should I be, and all my posterity with me, if I were to sell my oppressed nation for a few pence and bring armies against my native land. As to your threats--I am prepared for anything, for prison, for death. I came to you for justice, slay me if you will." Kiuprile, disgusted, flung himself back on his divan; he did not count upon such opposition, he was not prepared for such strength of mind. The other gentlemen who, from time to time, had fled to the Porte from Transylvania had been wont to beg and pray for the very favour which this man so nobly rejected. The Grand Vizier, perceiving from the faces of those present the impression made on them by Béldi's speech, turned now to the right and now to the left for an explanation, and dismay gradually spread over his pallid face as he began to understand. Béldi's colleagues, pale and utterly crushed, awaited the result of his alarming reply; while Ladislaus Csaky, unable to restrain his dismay, rushed up to Béldi, flung himself on his neck in his despair, and implored him by heaven and earth to accept the offer of the Grand Vizier. If the offer had been made to him he would most certainly have accepted it. "Never, never," replied Béldi, as cold as marble. The other gentlemen knelt down before him, and with clasped hands besought him not to make himself, his children, and themselves for ever miserable. "Arise, I am not God!" said Béldi, turning from his tearful colleagues. The Grand Vizier, on understanding what it was all about, leaped furiously from his place, and tearing off his turban, hurled it in uncontrollable rage to the ground, exclaiming with foaming mouth: "Hither, cavasses!" "Put that accursed dog in chains!" he screeched, pointing with bloodshot eyes at Béldi, who quietly permitted them to load him with fetters weighing half-a-hundredweight each, which the army of slaves always had in readiness. "Wouldst thou speak, puppy of a giaour?" cried the Vizier, when he was already chained. "What I have said I stand to," solemnly replied the patriot, raising his chained hand to Heaven. "God is my refuge." "To the dungeon with him!" yelled Kara Mustafa, beckoning to the drabants to drag Béldi away. Just as a hard stone emits sparks when it is struck, so Béldi turned suddenly upon the Vizier and said, shaking his chains, "Thine hour will also strike!" Then he suffered them to lead him away to prison. * * * * * Immediately afterwards, the Grand Vizier sent for the envoys of the Prince, and commending them and those who sent them, gave each of them a new caftan, and with the most gracious assurances sent them back to their native land, where nevertheless Master Farkas Bethlen had never been accounted a very great orator. In the gates of the Seraglio the dismissed envoys encountered Master Ladislaus Csaky. The worthy gentleman at once perceived from their self-satisfied smiles and the new caftans they were wearing that they had been sent away with a favourable reply; whereupon, notwithstanding that he had already agreed with Paul Béldi to render homage to the French and German Ministers, he did not consider it superfluous to pay his court to Master Farkas Bethlen also, and offer to surrender himself body and soul if the Prince would agree to pardon him and restore his estates. Farkas Bethlen accepted the proposal and not only promised Csaky an amnesty, but high office to boot if he would separate from Béldi; nay, he rewarded on the spot that gentleman who had thus very wisely fastened the threads of his fate to four several places at the same time, so that if one of them broke he could still hold on to the other three. * * * * * "Béldi has ruined his affairs utterly," said Kucsuk Pasha to his son, as they retired from the Diván; "I give up every idea of saving him." "I don't," sighed Feriz. "I'll either save or perish with him." "Let us go to Maurocordato, he may perhaps advise us." After an hour's interview with Maurocordato, Feriz Beg, with fifty armed Albanian horsemen, took the road towards Grosswardein. CHAPTER XXIII. THE TURKISH DEATH. In the gate of the Pasha of Grosswardein, amidst the gaping throng of armed retainers there, could be seen a pale wizened Moslem idly sprawling on the threshold, apparently regardless of everything, but sometimes looking up, cat-like, with half-shut, dreamy eyes, and at such times he would smile craftily to himself. Suddenly a handsome, chivalrous youth galloped out of the gate before whom the soldiers bowed down to the earth; this was the Pasha's favourite horseman, Feriz Beg, who had just arrived from Stambul. The Beg, as if he had only by accident caught sight of the sprawling Moslem, turned towards him, tapped him on the shoulder with his lance, and while the latter, feigning ignorance and astonishment, gazed up at him, he drew nearer to him and said: "What Zülfikar! dost thou not recognise me?" The person so addressed bowed himself to the earth. "Allah is gracious! By the soul of the Prophet, is it thou, gracious sir?" and with that he got up and began walking by the side of the horse of the Beg, who beckoned him to follow. "I have lost a good deal of money and a good many horses over the dice-box at Stambul, Zülfikar," said Feriz Beg, "so I have come into these parts to rehabilitate my purse a little. Where dost thou go a-robbing now, Zülfikar?" "La illah, il Allah! God is gracious and Mohammed is His holy Prophet," said Zülfikar, rolling his eyes heavenwards. "A truce to this piety, Zülfikar; ye renegades, with unendurable shamelessness, are always glorifying the Prophet, born Turks don't mention him half as much. What I ask thee is, where dost thou go a-plundering now of nights?" "I thank thee, gracious sir," answered Zülfikar, making a wooden picture of his face, "my wife is quite well, and there is nothing amiss with me either." "Zülfikar, I value in thee that peculiarity of thine which enables thee to become deaf whenever thou desirest it, but I possess a very good remedy for that evil, and if thou wilt I will cure thee of it." Zülfikar dodged the lance which was turned in his direction, and said with a Pharisaical air: "What does your honour deign to inquire of me?" "Didst thou hear what I said to thee just now?" "Dost thou mean: where I went robbing? I swear by the beard of the Prophet that I go nowhither for such a purpose." "I know very well, thou cat, that thou goest nowhither where there is trouble, but thou dost ferret out where a fat booty lies hidden, and thou leadest our Spahis on the track of it, wherefore they give thee also a portion of it; so answer me at once whom thou art wont to visit at night, as otherwise I shall open a hole in thy head." "But, sir, betray me not; for the Spahis would tie me to a horse's tail and the Pasha would impale me. Thou knowest that he does not allow robbery, but if it happens he looks through his fingers." "So far from betraying thee I would go with thee, I only know one mode of getting hold of booty. While the others storm a village, I stand a little distance off at the farther end of the village; whoever has anything to save always makes for the farther end of the village, and so falls into my hands." The renegade began to feel in his element. "My good sir, at night the Spahis will go to Élesd. There dwell rich Wallachians away from the high road. They have never had blackmail levied on them and there's lots of gold and silver there; if we get a good haul, do not betray me." "But may we not fall in with the soldiers of Ladislaus Székely?" "Nay, sir," said Zülfikar, winking his eyes, "they are far from here. Do not betray thy faithful servant." Feriz Beg put spurs to his horse and galloped off. Zülfikar sat down in the gate again, very sleepily blinking his eyes, and smiling mysteriously. Towards evening four-and-twenty Spahis crept out of the fortress and made off in the direction of Élesd. Feriz Beg kept an eye upon them, and when they had disappeared in the woods he aroused his Albanian horsemen and quietly went after them. It was past midnight when Feriz Beg and his company reached the hillside covering Élesd. The Spahis had already plundered the place as was evident from the distant uproar, the loud shrieks, the pealing of bells, and a couple of flaming haystacks which the mauraders had set on fire to assist their operations. Feriz Beg posted his Albanian horsemen at the mouth of a narrow pass, divided them into four bands and ordered them all to remain as quiet as possible and wait patiently till the Spahis returned. After some hours of plundering the distant tumult died away, and instead of it could be heard approaching a sound of loud wrangling. Presently, in the deep valley below, the Spahis became visible, staggering under the stolen goods, dispersed into twos and threes and quarrelling together over their booty. Feriz Beg let them come into the narrow pass and when they were quite unsuspiciously at the height of their dispute, he suddenly blew his horn and then suddenly fell upon them from all sides with his Albanian horsemen, surrounded and attacked the marauders, and before they had had time to use their weapons began to cut them down. The tussle was a short one. Not one of the Albanians fell, not one of the Spahis escaped. Feriz dried his sword and leaving the dead Spahis on the road, galloped back with his band to Grosswardein. In the Pasha's gate he again encountered Zülfikar and, shaking his fist at him, dismounted from his horse. "Thou dog! thou hast betrayed us to Ladislaus Székely; the Spahis have all been cut down." Zülfikar turned yellow with fear. It is true that he usually did something like this: when the Spahis would only promise him a small portion of the booty, he would for a few ducats extra let the Hungarian generals know of their coming, when one or two of them would bite the dust and the rest return without the booty. Last night also he had told the captain of Klausenberg of this particular adventure, but the commandant had been unable to make any use of it, for it had been the Prince's birthday, and he had been obliged to treat the soldiers. Zülfikar felt a lump in his throat when he heard that all twenty-four of the Spahis had perished, and he immediately quitted the fortress and made his way to Klausenberg through the woods as hard as he could pelt. Feriz Beg, however, in great wrath, paid a visit upon the Pasha. "Your Excellency," said he, assuming a very severe countenance, "this is the sort of allies we have. Last night I went on an excursion, taking four-and-twenty Spahis with me, in order to purchase horses for myself in the neighbourhood. We dealt honourably with the dealers. I entrusted the horses to the Spahis and myself galloped on in front. In a narrow pass the soldiers of Ladislaus Székely laid an ambush for the Spahis, surrounded them and cut them off to a man. When I came to their assistance there they were all lying slain and the slayers had trotted off on my own good steeds. Most gracious sir, that is treachery, our own allies do us a mischief. I will not put up with it, but if thou dost not give me complete satisfaction, I will go myself to Klausenberg and put every one of them to the sword, from Master Michael Apafi down to Master Ladislaus Székely." Ajas Pasha, whose special favourite Feriz Beg was, laughed loudly at this demonstration, patted the youth's cheek, and said in a consolatory voice: "Nay, my dear son, do not so, nor waste the fire of thy enthusiasm upon these infidels. I have a short method of doing these things--leave it to me." And thereupon he sent for an aga, and gave him a command in the following terms: "Sit on thy horse and go quickly to Klausenberg. There go to the commandant, Ladislaus Székely, and speak to him thus: Ajas Pasha wishes thee good-day, thou unbelieving giaour, and sends thee this message: Inasmuch as thy dog-headed servants during the night last past have treacherously fallen upon the men of Feriz Beg and cut down four-and-twenty of them, now therefore I require of thee to search for and send me instantly these murderers, otherwise the whole weight of my wrath shall descend upon thine own head. Moreover, in the place of the horses stolen from him, see that thou send to me without delay just as many good chargers of Wallachia, and beware lest I come for them myself, for then thou wilt have no cause to thank me." When the aga had learnt the message by heart he withdrew, and Ajas Pasha turned to Feriz Beg complacently: "Trouble not thyself further," said he, "in a couple of days the murderers will be here." "I want the Prince to intercede for them himself," said Feriz Beg. "And dost thou not believe then that the little finger of the Sublime Porte is able to give thee the lives of a few giaour hirelings, when it sends forth thousands to perish on the battle-field?" "And I will venture to bet a hundred ducats that Master Ladislaus Székely will reply that his soldiers were not out of the fortress at all last night." "I am sorry for thy hundred ducats, my dear son, but I will take thy bet all the same; and, if I lose, I will cut just as many pieces out of the skin of Master Ladislaus Székely." * * * * * The terrified Zülfikar was almost at his last gasp by the time he reached the courtyard of Master Ladislaus Székely, where, greatly exhausted, he obtained an audience of the commandant, who was resplendent in a great mantle trimmed with galloon and adorned with rubies and emeralds. This love of display was the good old gentleman's weak point. He had the most beautiful collection of precious stones in all Transylvania; the nearest way to his heart was to present him with a rare and beautiful jewel. He was engaged in furbishing up a necklace of chrysoprases and jacinths with a hare's foot when the renegade breathlessly rushed through the door unable to utter a word for sheer weariness. Ladislaus Székely fancied that Zülfikar had come for the reward of his treachery, and very bluntly hastened to anticipate him. "I was unable to make any use of your information, Zülfikar; it was the Prince's name-day, and the soldiers were not at liberty to leave the town." "How can your honour say so," stuttered Zülfikar; "you had four-and-twenty Spahis cut down at Élesd. What fool told your honour to kill them? You should merely have deprived them of their booty." Ladislaus Székely let fall his necklace in his fright and gazed at the renegade with big round eyes. "Don't be a fool, Zülfikar, my son! Not a soul was outside this fortress to-day or yesterday." "Your honour has been well taught what to say," said the renegade, with the insolence of fury; "you put on as innocent a face over the business as a new-born lamb." "I swear to you I don't understand a word of your nonsense." "Of course, of course! Capital! Excellent! But your honour would do well to keep these falsehoods for the messengers of Ajas Pasha, who will be with your honour immediately; try and fool them if you like, but don't fool me." Ladislaus Székely, well aware that every word he said was the sacred truth, fancied that Zülfikar's assertion was only a rough joke which he wanted to play upon him, so he cast an angry look on the renegade. "Be off, my son Zülfikar, and cease joking; or I'll beat you about the head with this hare's foot till I knock all the moonshine out of you." "Your honour had best keep your hare's foot to yourself, for if I draw my Turkish dagger I'll make you carry your own head." "Be off, be off, my son!" cried Székely, looking around for a stick, and perceiving a cane in the corner with a large silver knob he seized it. "And now are you going, or I shall come to you?" he added. Zülfikar had just caught sight, meanwhile, through the window of the aga sent by Ajas Pasha, and fearing to encounter him, hastily skipped through the door, which sudden flight was attributed by Master Ladislaus Székely to his own threats of violence. He followed close upon the heels of the fugitive, and ran almost into the very arms of the aga; whereupon, the aga, also flying into a rage, belaboured the commandant with his fists, reviled his father, his mother, and his remotest ancestry, and only after that began to deliver the message of Ajas Pasha, which he enlarged and embellished with the choicest flowers of an angry man's rhetoric. At these words Ladislaus Székely changed colour as often as a genuine opal, or as a fractured polyporus fungus. It was clear to him that someone or other had just slain a number of marauding Spahis, but he knew very well that neither he nor his men had performed this heroic deed, for that particular evening they had all been safe and sound at ten o'clock, and yet he was expected to pay the piper! "Gracious sir, unconquerable aga," he said at last, "my men the whole of that evening were on duty beneath the windows of the Prince, and the same evening I myself closed the city gates, so that no living thing except a bird could get out. Therefore, I pray you ask not of me the slayers of the Spahis, for never in my life have I killed one of them." The aga gnashed his teeth, and stared wildly about, as if seeking for big words worthy of the occasion. "Darest thou say such things to me, thou wine-drinking infidel?" he cried at last. "I know very well that thou, single-handed, hast not cut down four-and-twenty Spahis; rather do I believe there were two thousand of you that fell upon them, but these thou must give up to me, every man-jack of them." Large drops of perspiration began to ooze out upon the forehead of the commandant, and in his embarrassment it occurred to him that deeds were better than words, so he seized the chain covered with chrysoprases and jacinths, which he had just been polishing, and handed them in a deprecating manner to the Turk, knowing that such a line of defence was most likely to obtain a hearing. But the envoy gave the chain handed to him such a kick that the precious stones were scattered all over the deal boards, and, trampling them beneath his feet, he roared with a blood-red face: "I want the murderers, not your precious stones." The commandant thereupon seeing that the aga's embassy was really a serious matter, took him down to the soldiers, who were drawn up in the courtyard, in order to ask each one of them in the hearing of the envoy: "Where were you during the night in question?" Naturally everyone of them was able to prove an alibi, not one of them could be suspected. The aga very nearly had an overflow of gall. He said nothing, he only rolled his eyes; and when the last soldier had denied any share in the death of the Turks, he leaped upon his horse, and threatening them with his fist, growled through his gnashing teeth: "Wait, ye also shall have your St. Demetrius' day!"[21] and with that he galloped back to Grosswardein. [Footnote 21: _i.e._ you shall be stoned to death.] On his arrival he found Feriz Beg with the Pasha, and at once told his story, exaggerating the details to the uttermost. "What did I tell thee?" said Feriz to the Pasha; "didn't I say they would send back the message that they had never quitted the town. I am sorry for your honour's hundred ducats." At these words Ajas Pasha kicked over his chibouk and his saucer of sherbet, and in a hoarse, scarce intelligible voice, said to the aga: "Be off this instant to Stambul as fast as thou canst. Tell the Grand Vizier what has happened, and say to him that if he does not give me the amplest satisfaction, I myself will go against these unbelieving devourers of unruminating beasts who have dared to send me such a message, and will destroy them, together with their strongholds; or else I will cast my sword to the ground, and tie a girdle round my loins, and go away and join the brotherhood of Iskender! Say that, and forget it not!" * * * * * Very soon one firman after another reached the Prince from Stambul, each one of which, with steadily rising wrath, demanded the extradition of the assassins of the Spahis. The Prince made inquiries and searched for them everywhere, but nobody could be found to take upon his shoulders this uncommitted deed of heroism. The messages from the Porte assumed a more and more furious tone every day. In itself the death of four-and-twenty Spahis was no very serious stumbling-block, but what more than anything lashed the Turkish generals into a fury was the persistent refusal of the Prince to acknowledge the offence. Yet with the best will in the world he was unable to do anything else, for not a single person on whom suspicion might fall could he find throughout the Principality. * * * * * In those days the dungeons of Klausenburg were well filled with condemned robbers; in the past year alone no fewer than thirty incendiaries had been discovered who had resolved to fire all Transylvania. One day the noble Martin Pók, the provost-marshal of the place, appeared before the robbers, and attracted the attention of the most evil-disposed of these cut-throats and incendiaries by shouting at them: "You worthless gallows-dogs, which of you would like to be set free at any price?" "I would! I would!" cried a whole lot of them. "Bread is going to be dear, so we cannot waste it on the like of you, so Master Ladislaus Székely has determined that whoever of you would like to become Turks are to be handed over to our gracious master, Ajas Pasha, who will make some of you Janissaries, and send the rest to the isle of Samos; so whoever will be a Turk, let him speak." Everyone of them wanted to be a Turk. "Very well, you rascals, just attend to me! I must tell you what to say when you stand before the Pasha, for if you answer foolishly you will be bastinadoed. First of all he will ask you: 'Are you Master Ladislaus Székely's men?' You will answer: 'Yes, we are!' Then he will ask you: 'Were you at Élesd on a certain day?' And you must admit that you were. Finally, he will ask you if you met Feriz Beg there? You will admit everything, and then he will instantly release you from servitude. Do you understand?" "Yes, yes!" roared the incendiaries; and dancing in their fetters they followed the provost-marshal upstairs, who turned his extraordinary small head back from time to time to smile at them, at the same time twisting the ends of his poor thin moustache with an air of crafty self-satisfaction. * * * * * One day two letters reached Grosswardein from Stambul. One of these letters was from Kucsuk Pasha to his son, the other was from the Sultan to Ajas Pasha. The letter to Feriz Beg was as follows: "MY SON,--Let thy heart rejoice: Kiuprile and Maurocordato have not been wasting their time. The Grand Vizier is very wrath with the Prince and his Court. The death of the four-and-twenty Spahis is an affair of even greater importance in Stambul just now than the capture of Candia. I fancy we shall very soon get what we want." Feriz Beg understood the allusion, and went at once to the Pasha in the best of humours. "Listen to what the omnipotent Sultan writes," said the Pasha, producing a parchment sealed with green wax, adorned below with the official signature of the Sultan, the so-called Tugra, which was not unlike a bird's-nest made of spiders'-webs. Feriz Beg pressed the parchment to his forehead and his lips, and the further he read into it the more his face filled with surprise and joy. "VALIANT AJAS PASHA MY FAITHFUL SERVANT!--I wish thee always all joy and honour. Inasmuch as I learn from thee that the faithless servants of the Prince, in time of peace and amity, have slain four-and-twenty Spahis, and that their masters not only have not punished this misdeed but even presumed to deceive me with lying reports thereof, thereby revealing their ill-will towards me, now therefore I charge and authorise thee in case the counsellors of the Prince do not surrender the murderers in response to my ultimatum, which even now is on its way to them, or in case they make any objection whatsoever, or even if they simply pass over the matter in silence; in any such case I charge and authorise thee instantly to invade Transylvania with all the armies at thy disposal, and by the nearest route. Kucsuk Pasha also will immediately be ready at hand with his bands at Vöröstorony, and the Tartar King hath also our command to lend thee assistance. This done, I will either drive the Prince into exile or take him prisoner, when I will at once strike off the chains of Master Paul Béldi--who, because of his stubbornness, now sits in irons at Jedekula--and whether he will or not, I will place him incontinently on the throne of the Prince, etc., etc." "Dost thou believe now that we shall get the murderers?" asked Ajas Pasha triumphantly. "Never!" said Feriz Beg, laughing aloud and beside himself with joy. "What dost thou say?" growled the astonished Ajas; "but suppose we go for them ourselves?" "Well!" said Feriz, perceiving that he had nearly betrayed himself, "in that case--yes." But he said to himself "Not then or ever; and Paul Béldi will be released, and Paul Béldi will become Prince, and his wife will be Princess Consort, and Aranka will be a Princess too, and we shall see each other again." At that moment an aga entered the room and announced with a look of satisfaction: "Master Ladislaus Székely has now sent the murderers." Feriz Beg reeled backwards. The word "impossible" hung upon his lips, and he nearly let it escape. It _was_ impossible. "Let them come in!" said Ajas Pasha viciously. He would have preferred to carry out the Sultan's conditional command, seize the Principality, and conduct the campaign personally. Feriz Beg fancied he was dreaming when he saw the forty or fifty selected rascals who, led by Martin Pók, drew up before Ajas Pasha; the rogues were dressed up as soldiers but thief, criminal, was written on the face of each one of them. Master Martin Pók exhibited them to the Pasha and Feriz Beg, and very wisely stood aside from them. Feriz Beg clapped his hands together in astonishment. He knew better than anyone that these fellows had never seen the Spahis, and he waited to hear what they would say. Ajas Pasha sat on his sofa with a countenance as cold as marble, and at a sign from him a file of Janissaries formed behind the backs of the rascals, who tried to look as pleasant and smiling as possible before the Pasha to gain his favour. "Ye are Master Ladislaus Székely's men, eh?" inquired the Pasha of the false heroes. "We are--at thy service, unconquerable Pasha," they replied with one voice, folding their hands across their breasts and bowing down to the very ground. The Pasha beckoned to the Janissaries to come softly up behind each one of them. "Ye were at Élesd at midnight on the day of St. Michael the Archangel, eh?" he asked again. "We were indeed--at thy service invincible Pasha!" they repeated striking their knees with their foreheads. Feriz Beg rent his clothes in his rage. He would have liked to have roared at them: "Ye lie, you rascals! You were not there at all!" but he was obliged to keep silence. Ajas beckoned again to the Janissaries, and very nicely and quietly they drew their swords from their sheaths, and, grasping them firmly, concealed them behind their backs. The Pasha put the third question to the robbers. "Ye met Feriz Beg, eh?" "Lie not!" cried Feriz furiously. "Look well at me! Have you ever seen me anywhere before? Did you ever meet me at Élesd?" The interrogated, bowing to the earth, replied with the utmost devotion: "Yes--at your service, invincible Pasha and most valiant Beg!" At that same instant the swords flashed in the hands of the Janissaries, and the heads of the robbers suddenly rolled at their feet. "Oh, ye false knaves!" cried Feriz Beg, striking his forehead with his clenched fist. Ajas Pasha turned coolly towards Martin Pók: "Greet thy master, and tell him from me that another time he must be quicker, and not make me angry.--As for thee, Feriz, my son, pay me back those hundred ducats!" CHAPTER XXIV. THE HOSTAGE. One evening two horsemen dressed as Turks rode into the courtyard of the fortress of Szamosújvár, and demanded an audience of the noble Danó Sólymosi, the commandant. A soldier conducted to him the two Moslems, one of whom seemed to be a man advanced in years, whose sunburnt face was covered with scars; the other was a youth, whose face was half hidden in the folds of a large mantle, only his dark eyes were visible. "Good evening, captain," said the elder Turk, greeting the commandant, who at the first moment recognised the intruder and joyfully hastened towards him and grasped his hand. "So God has brought Kucsuk Pasha to my humble dwelling." "Then thou dost recognise me, worthy old man?" said Kucsuk, just touching the hand of the worthy old Magyar. "How could I help it, my good sir? Thou didst free my only daughter from the hands of the filthy Tartars, thou didst deliver her from grievous captivity, thou didst give her a place of refuge, food, and pleasant words in a foreign land. I should not be a man if I were to forget thee." "Well, for all these things I have come hither to beg something of thee." "Command me! My life and goods are at thy service." "Dost thou not detain here the family of Paul Béldi?" "Yes, sir; they brought the unfortunate creatures hither." "I must have Paul Béldi's consort out of this prison for a fortnight, at the accomplishment of which time I will bring her back again." The captain was thunderstruck. "Sir," said he, "you are playing with my head." "None will know, and in two weeks' time she will be here again." "But if they discover it?" "Have no fear of that. During that time I will leave in thy hands as a hostage my own son." The young cavalier approached, threw back his mantle, and the captain recognised Feriz Beg. He fancied he was dreaming. "Dost thou not suppose that I will bring back the woman for the sake of my son?" "Do what you think well," said the commandant. "I owe you a life, I will now pay it back to you; follow me!" The commandant led his visitors up a narrow corkscrew fortress into the corner tower, which was used as a dungeon for state prisoners. The circular windows were guarded by heavy iron bars, the heavy iron-plated oaken doors groaned upon their hinges, indicating thereby that they were very seldom opened. "Why did you put them in this lonely place?" asked Kucsuk Pasha; "is there not some other prison in the town?" "Don't blame me, sir; my orders were to lock the lady up securely, apart from her child, and in this tower are two adjacent chambers with a common window, and in one of them I have put the mother and in the other the child. I knew that they would not mind if they could speak to each other through the window, and press each other's hands, and even kiss each other through the bars." "Thou art a true man, my good old fellow," said Kucsuk Pasha, patting the commandant's shoulder; while Feriz Beg warmly pressed his hand. "Thou wouldst put me into just such another dungeon, eh?" he asked. "There would be no need of that, good Feriz Beg; you should dwell in my apartments." "But I would not have it so," said the youth, thinking with glowing cheeks of the fair Aranka who would thus be his next-door neighbour and fellow-prisoner. At last the iron door of the prison was opened, the jailor remained outside, and the two Osmanlis entered. By the side of a rude oak table was sitting a lady in deep mourning in front of the narrow window, reading aloud from a large Bible with silver clasps; her children at the window of the other dungeon were listening devoutly to the Word of God. When the men entered the woman started and looked up; the dim ray of light coming through the narrow window made her face appear still paler than it used to be; she looked up seriously, sadly--sorrow had lent a gentle gravity to the face that used to be so bright and gay. Kucsuk Pasha approached, and taking the lady's soft transparent hand in his own, briefly introduced himself. "I am Kucsuk Pasha, thy husband's most faithful friend in this world after thyself." "I thank you for your visit; my husband has often mentioned your name. Do you perchance bring me any message from him?" "He would have thee with him." "Then I am free?" cried the lady, tremulous between joy and doubt. "Rejoice not, lady; it is not in my power to give thee freedom, I only promise thee a brief interview with Paul Béldi, just time enough for thee to tell him how much thou hast suffered. He cannot come to thee, so thou must come to him. With me thou canst come most quickly, for the greatest part of the time we shall be travelling together." "Will my children come with me?" "They will remain here. But thou wilt see them again soon. Either thou wilt conquer Paul Béldi with thy tears, and melt his iron will, and then he will come back to Transylvania as Prince and every gate will be open before him; or else he will stand fast to his determination, and then thou wilt return to thy dungeon and he to his, and so you will both die in the dungeons of different realms. Now take leave of thy children and hasten. It depends upon thee whether they become princes and princesses or slaves for ever." "And who will defend them, who will watch over them, who will pray with them while I am away?" "Be not distressed. I will leave my own son here as a hostage while thou art away. Feriz will occupy thy dungeon, he will watch over thy children, and not let them be afraid. Hasten now and take leave of them." Dame Béldi rushed to the round window. Loudly sobbing, she called her children one by one, and then embraced them all as best she could. The cold iron bars stood between her breast and theirs. The tears of their weeping faces could not dissolve them. "Give this kiss to father!--And this kiss from me!--And this from me!" lisped the children, putting their little arms round their mother's neck through the bars. "My child, my good Aranka!" said Dame Béldi to the girl, who being about fifteen or sixteen was the eldest of them all; "look after thy little brothers and sisters! And you, my good little lads, comfort Aranka. God bless you! God defend you! One more kiss, Aranka! And one more for you, little David?" "Madame, time is passing, and Paul Béldi is waiting for thee to open his prison!" intervened Kucsuk Pasha, withdrawing Dame Béldi from the window of her children's prison, who thereupon turned her tear-stained face towards Feriz Beg, and in a passion of grief flung herself on the youth's neck, and said to him in a voice almost indistinguishable for her sobbing: "Thou noble heart! promise me that thou wilt love my children when I am far away!" "By Allah, I swear it!" exclaimed the youth, pressing to his bosom the poor woman who was half-fainting for sorrow, "I swear that I will love them for ever!" Ah! there was one among them whom he had already loved for a long, long time. "Hasten, lady!" urged the Pasha; "cast this mantle over thee, and place this turban on thy head that the guards may not recognise thee in the distance. The way is long, the time is short." "God be with you, God be with you!" sobbed Dame Béldi, casting with tremulous hands hundreds of kisses towards her children, who waved their goodbyes to her from their window and then, violently repressing her emotion, she rushed from the dungeon. Kucsuk Pasha pressed the hand of his son in silence, and left him in Dame Béldi's room. The children kept on weeping behind their window. The youth drew nearer to them. "Weep not," he said cheerfully, "your mother will soon come again and bring your father with her, and then you will all rejoice together." "Ah, but then they'll kill father!" sobbed one of the children timidly. "So long as Feriz Beg can use his sword none shall touch Paul Béldi," cried the youth, with flashing eyes. "My sword and my father's will flash around him, his enemies will be my enemies. Fear not! when I get back my sword, I will win back his liberty with it." "I thank you, I thank you," whispered a gentle voice overcome by emotion. Feriz Beg recognised the silvery voice of Aranka, and the weeping blue eyes of the seraph face which regarded him, like Heaven after rain, flashed upon him a burning ray of gratitude which was to haunt him in his dreams and in his memory for ever. Feriz felt his heart leap with a great joy. Pressing close up to the prison bars that he might get as close to the girl as possible he said to her with a tender voice: "How happy I am now that we dwell together as neighbours in the same dungeon, but oh, how much happier shall we be when no doors are closed upon us? Let me then have a place beside thy hearth and within thy heart!" The fair, sad girl, with a face full of foreboding, stretched through the bars of the dungeon a hand whiter than a lily, whiter than snow. Feriz Beg solemnly raised it to his lips and falling on his knees, in an outburst of sublime devotion touched his lips and his forehead with that beloved hand. CHAPTER XXV. THE HUSBAND. At the very hour when Kucsuk Pasha arrived at Stambul, Master Ladislaus Székely, whom Master Michael Teleki had sent with rich presents to the Porte, likewise dismounted from his carriage. It was his mission to win the favour of the infuriated Grand Vizier and the Pashas, who had again begun violently to urge Paul Béldi to accept the princely throne. Master Ladislaus Székely had also brought with him Zülfikar to be his guide and interpreter through the tortuous streets of Stambul. As we already know, this worthy gentleman's particular hobby was the collection of jewels, and the Prince had sent through him such a heap of precious stones that the heart of the good gentleman when he saw them all spread out before him died away within him at the thought that the whole collection was ruthlessly to be broken up and distributed among a lot of foreigners and Pashas. "What a shame to lose them all," he thought. "And even then who knows whether we shall be safe after all. It is like casting pearls before swine. A much quicker way would be to get Master Paul Béldi assassinated. That would be cutting the knot once for all, and we should have no further danger from that quarter. Michael Teleki wouldn't kill me for a trifle like that, I know. You, Zülfikar, my son, could you undertake to poison someone?" he inquired, turning towards the renegade. "The whole town if you like." "No, only Master Paul Béldi. It is all one to him whether he dies or remains a prisoner for life." "I'll do it for two hundred ducats, if you pay me half in advance." "I'll pay you, Zülfikar, but how will you get at him?" "That's my affair, all you have to do is to get the money ready." Accordingly Ladislaus Székely gave the earnest-money to the renegade, and the renegade went home and wrote a letter in the name of the Beglerleg of the following tenour: "Be assured that our affairs are in the best order, and we shall shortly gain our object." He strewed over these lines a fine blue dust which was the strongest of poisons, calculating that whoever wanted to read the letter would first brush the dust off it, whereupon the fine dust would rise in the air, and the person reading the letter would inhale the dust and die. After attaching the letter to his turban, he began prowling round the dungeon of Paul Béldi, awaiting an opportunity of worming his way into it. * * * * * Paul Béldi was sitting alone in the darkest corner of the dungeon of Jedikula. At his feet lay his faithful bloodhound, Körtövely, with his eyes fixed sadly on his master. Whenever his master slept the dog would sit up, never take his eyes off him, and begin growling at the lightest noise. Béldi, with folded arms, was sitting on the stone bench to which he was chained. His face had grown terribly pale and as if turned to stone. The pale gleam of light which filtered through the narrow window and lit up his face, found there no trace of that weary longing which the dweller in prisons generally has for the sun's rays. The whole man, body and soul, was hardened into steel. Suddenly the dog lying at his feet impatiently raised its sagacious head, and then with a whimper of joy ran towards the door; there it stood for a time merrily barking, and then ran back to its master and stood before him wagging its tail with one foot on his shoulder, whining and whimpering with such lively joy that one might almost have understood what it wanted to say. "What's the matter? Good dog!" said Béldi, stroking the dog's head. "What is it? Nobody's coming to see me that can make you happy." At that moment the key turned in the door of the dungeon and a group of men by the light of torches descended the steps and entered Béldi's prison; whereupon Körtövely quickly left his master and burrowing his way through the throng, began to yelp merrily over someone, and then rushing back to his master, planted his fore-paws on his breast and barked as if he would burst because he could not express more plainly the joy which his wonderful canine instinct had anticipated. Béldi, perceiving among those who visited him the Grand Vizier, Kiuprile, and Maurocordato, ordered his dog to be quiet, and standing up before them, saluted them with a deep bow. "Well, thou obstinate man!" said the Grand Vizier, "how long wilt thou torment thyself and offend the Sultan and thine own good friends? Wilt thou ever perceive that to sit on a stone bench in a damp dungeon is a very different thing to sitting on a princely throne?" "The more I suffer," said Béldi, in a strangely calm voice, "the more reason I have to rejoice that my country does not suffer instead of me." The Grand Vizier thereupon said something in Turkish which Maurocordato sadly interpreted: "The Grand Seignior informs thee that because of money thou hast been cast into prison, and only money can release thee; promise, therefore, two hundred and seventy purses, and thou shalt get the Principality to enable thee to pay it." "I have told you my determination," said Béldi, "and I will not depart from it. I will not promise money to the detriment of my country. I will not lead an army against it, and I will not break my oath. These were and will be my words from which I can never depart." "Never!" cried Kucsuk Pasha, pressing through the crowd. "Wilt thou not even now?"--and with that he led a pale female figure towards Béldi. "My wife!" exclaimed the captive, and he gripped fast his chains lest he should collapse for joy, terror, and surprise. The pale woman in mourning fell upon his bosom, her tears became his fetters. Paul Béldi burst into tears, he fell back upon his stone bench, his very soul was shattered. He remained clinging upon his wife's neck, speechless, unable to utter a word, and the whining dog licked now the hand of his master and now the lady's hand. "Let us turn aside," said Kucsuk Pasha; "let us leave them together"--and the Turks withdrew from the dungeon, leaving Paul Béldi alone with his wife. "I fancied," said Dame Béldi when she was able to utter a word amidst her choking sobs. "I fancied I was suffering instead of you, and oh! you were suffering more than I." "How did you come here?" asked Béldi, in a low stifled voice. "Kucsuk Pasha left his son as a hostage in my stead." "Worthy man! What useless sacrifices he is making for my sake. And my children?" "They remain in the dungeon whither also I must return, if you will not accept the Sultan's offer." "Have they taken away my girl Aranka also?" asked Béldi, with a heavy heart. "Yes, they have taken her too, and if we are released we shall have no whither to go. They have taken everything of ours. The Bethlen property has become the prey of Farkas Bethlen; the Haromszeki estate is now in the hands of Clement Mikes, although it is not lawful to deprive a Székler of his lands, even for high-treason. Our castle at Bodola has been totally destroyed, our escutcheon has been torn to pieces, and your name has been recorded in the journals of the Diet as a traitor." "Oh, ye men!" roared Béldi, shaking his chains in the bitterness of his anger; "if I were not Paul Béldi the wrath of God would descend upon your heads. But ah!--I love my country even if worms are gnawing it. Dry your eyes, my good wife! you see I am not weeping. What we suffer is the visitation of God upon us. I remain a Christian and a patriot. I leave my cause to God!" "You will not accept the offer of the Sultan?" inquired Dame Béldi, approaching her husband with fear and despair in her eyes. "Never!" replied Béldi, in a low voice. The wife, with a loud scream, flung herself at the feet of her husband, and, seizing his knees in a convulsive embrace, begged and besought him: "You would send me back to my dungeon? You would separate me from you for ever? Never, never, not even in the hour of death, shall I see you again." "Comfort yourself with the thought that you loved me, and were worthy of me, if you can suffer as I do and for the same reason." "You would plunge your children into eternal captivity?" "Tell them that their father lived honourably and died honourably, and teach them to live and die like him." "Think of your girl, Aranka; your favourite, your dearest child." "Rather may she fade away than Transylvania be plunged in the flames of war." "Béldi! drive me not to despair!" cried the wife trembling violently. "I am afraid, horribly afraid, of my dungeon. Twice have I had fever from the close, damp air. There was none to care for me in my sickness; I was calling your name continually, and you were far from me; I saw your image, and was unable to embrace you. Oh, Béldi! I shall die without you! The most terrible form of death--despair--will kill me!" Béldi knelt down by the side of his wife and embraced and kissed her. The woman fainted in his arms as the Turks entered his prison. Béldi beckoned Kucsuk Pasha to him. A sort of leaden, death-like hue had begun to spread over his face; he could scarce see with whom he was conversing. He laid his swooning wife in the arms of the Pasha, and stammered with barely intelligible words: "I thank you for your good will. Here is my wife--take her--back to her dungeon!" The Turks, in speechless astonishment, lifted up the fainting woman, and left the dungeon without plaguing Béldi with any more questions. Béldi stood stonily there as they went out, with open lips and a dull light in his eyes. When the last Turk had gone, and he saw his wife no longer, his head began to nod and droop down, and suddenly he fell prone upon the floor. Körtövely, the old hound, began sorrowfully, bitterly, to whine. At that moment Zülfikar entered the dungeon with the poisoned letter. He was too late. Paul Béldi had already departed from this world. * * * * * When Ladislaus Székely heard of Béldi's death he gave a magnificent banquet, and when the company was at its merriest Zülfikar came rushing in. "Come! out with those hundred ducats!" he whispered in the ear of Master Ladislaus Székely. "What do you mean?" cried Székely in a voice flushed with wine. "Paul Béldi had a stroke; be content with what you have had already." "Thou faithless dog of a giaour!" cried the renegade at the top of his voice so that everyone could hear him, "is this the way thou dost deceive me? Thou didst bargain with me for the death of Paul Béldi for two hundred ducats, and now thou wouldst beat me down by one half. Thou art a rogue meet for the hangman's hands. Is it thus thou dost treat an honest man? I'll not kill a man for thee another time until thou pay me in advance, thou faithless robber!" The company laughed aloud at this scene, but Master Ladislaus Székely seemed very much put out by the joke. "What are you talking about, you crazy fellow?" said he. "Who asked you to do anything? I never saw you in my life before!" "What!" cried Zülfikar. "I suppose thou wilt deny next that thou didst write this letter to Paul Béldi!" and with that he gave Ladislaus Székely the poisoned letter. He seized it, broke the seal, brushed away the dust, and ran his eye over it, whereupon he flung it at the feet of Zülfikar, exclaiming: "I never wrote that." Then he beckoned to the servants to seize Zülfikar by the collar and pitch him into the street. But the renegade stood outside in front of the windows and began to curse Székely before the assembled crowd for not paying him the price of the poison. Inside the house the guests laughed more heartily than ever, and at last Székely himself began to look upon the matter in the light of a joke, and laughed like the rest; but when he returned home to Transylvania he felt a pain in his stomach, and did not know what was the matter. He became deaf, could neither eat nor drink, and his bowels began to rot. Nobody could cure him of his terrible malady, till at last he fell in with a German leech, who persuaded him that he could cure him with the dust of genuine diamonds and sapphires. Ladislaus Székely handed to the charlatan his collection of precious stones. He abstracted the stones from their settings, but ground up common stones instead of them in his medical mortar, and stampeded himself with the real stones, leaving Ladislaus Székely to die the terrible death by poison which he had intended for Paul Béldi. * * * * * Paul Béldi they buried in foreign soil; none visited his grave. Only his faithful dog sat beside it. For eight days it neither ate nor drank. On the ninth day it died on the deserted grave of its master. CHAPTER XXVI. THE FADING OF FLOWERS. And now let us see what became of Aranka and Feriz. At last they were beneath one roof together--this roof was a little better than the roof of a tomb, but not much, for it was the roof of a dungeon. They could only see each other through a narrow little window, but even this did them good. They were able to press each other's hands through the iron bars, console each other, and talk of their coming joys and boundless happiness. The walls of the prison were so narrow, so damp, the narrow opening scarce admitted the light of day; but when the youth began to talk of his native land, Damascus, rich in roses, of palm-trees waving in the breeze, of warm sunny skies, where the housetops were planted with flowers, and the evergreens give a shade against the ever-burning sun, at such times the girl forgot her dungeon and fancied she was among the rose-groves of Damascus, and when the youth spoke of the future she forgot the rose-groves of Damascus and fancied she was in heaven. Days and days passed since the departure of Dame Béldi, and there were no news of her. Every day the spirits of the girl declined, every evening she parted more and more sadly with Feriz, and every morning he found it more and more difficult to comfort her. And now with great consternation the youth began to perceive that the girl was very pale, the colour of life began to fade from her round, rosy cheeks, and there was something new in the brightness of her eyes--it was no earthly light there which made him tremble as he gazed upon her. The youth durst not ask her: "What is the matter?" But the girl said to him: "Oh, Feriz! I am dying here; I shall never see your smiling skies." "I would rather see the sky black than thee dead." "The sky will smile again, but I never shall. I feel something within me which makes my heart's blood flow languidly, and at night I see my dead kinsfolk, and walk with them in unknown regions which I never saw before, and which appear before me so vividly that I could describe every house and every bush by itself." "That signifies that thou wilt visit unknown regions with me." "Oh, Feriz, I no longer feel any pleasure in those lands of yours, nor am I glad when I think of your palms, and as often as I see you darkness descends upon my soul, for I feel that I am going to leave you." "Speak not so, joy of my existence. Grieve not God with thy words, for God is afflicted when the innocent complain." "I am not complaining. I go from a bad into a good world, and there I shall see you in my dreams." "But if this bad world should become better, and you lived happily in it?" Aranka sadly shook her pretty, angelic head. "That it is not necessary for this world to grow better you can see from the fact that the good must die while the wicked live a long time. God seeks out those that love Him, and takes them unto Himself, for He will not let them suffer long." Feriz shuddered. What could have put these solemn, melancholy thoughts into the heart of this girl, this child? It was the approach of Death, the worm-bitten fruit ripens more quickly than the rest. Slow, creeping Death had seized upon the childish mind and made it speak like the aged--and sad it was to listen to its words. "Cheer up," said Feriz, with an effort, skimming with his lips the girl's white hand which she thrust out to him through the bars. "Thy mother will soon be here; thy father will sit on the throne of the Prince as he deserves; thou wilt be a Princess, and I will strive and struggle till I am high enough to sue for thee, and then I will lay my glory and renown at thy feet, and thou shalt be my bride, my queen, my guardian angel." The girl shook her head sorrowfully. "And we will walk along by the banks of the quiet streams in those ancient lands where not craft but valour rules, where the wise are only learned in the courses of the stars and the healing virtues of the plants, not in the science of the rise and fall of kingdoms. There from the window of my breeze-blown kiosk, which is built on the slopes of Lebanon, thou wilt view the whole region round about. Above, the shepherds kindle their fires in the blackness of the cedar forests; below, the mountain stream runs murmuring along, and all round about us the nightingale is singing, and what he singeth is the happiness of love. In the far distance thou seest the mirror of the great sea, and the white-sailed pleasure boat rocks to and fro on the transparent becalmed billows, and the moon looks down upon the limitless mirror, and a fair maiden sits in the pleasure-boat, and at her feet lies a youth, and both of them are silent, only a throbbing heart is speaking, and it speaks of the happiness of love." A couple of tears dropped from the eyes of the girl--the future was so seductive--and that picture, that fair country, she did not seem to be regarding them from the earth, it seemed to her as if she was looking down upon them from the sky and regretting that she was forced to leave--the beautiful world. Aranka adored her father. The man who was respected for his virtues by a whole kingdom was the highest ideal of his child. When Feriz began to speak of him, the girl's face brightened, and at the recital of his heroic deeds the tears dried up in her flashing eyes; and when the youth told her how the great patriot would return, glorious and powerful, supported by the mightiest of monarchs, and how he would throw open the prison doors of his children and be parted from them no more, then a smile would gradually transfigure the girl's face, and she would feel happy. And then she would steal apart into her own dungeon, and kneel down before her bed, and pray ardently that she might see her father soon, very soon. And she was to see him before very long. Paul Béldi's body was now six feet deep in the ground, and his soul a star farther off in the sky--to see him one must go to him. Paler and paler she became every day, her waking moments were scarcely different from her dreams, and her dreams from her waking moments. The provost-marshal now had compassion on the withered flower, and allowed it on the sunny afternoons to walk about on the bastions and breathe the fresh air. But neither moonlight nor fresh air could cure her now. Frequently she would take the hand of Feriz Beg and press it to her forehead. "See how it burns, just like fire! Oh, if only I might live till my father comes. How he would grieve for me!" Feriz Beg saw her wither from day to day, and still there was no sign of liberty. The youth used frequently to walk about the courtyard half a day at a time, like a lion in a cage, beating the walls with his forehead at the thought that that for which he had been striving his whole life long, and the possession whereof was the final goal of his existence, was drawing nearer and nearer to Death every hour, and no human power could hold it back! The wife of the provost-marshal, a good, true woman, nursed the rapidly declining girl. Medical science was then of very small account in Transylvania; the sick had resort to well-known herbs and domestic remedies based on the experience of the aged; they trusted for the most part to our blessed mother Nature and the mercy of God. The worthy woman did all she could, but her honest heart told her that the arrival of Aranka's father, and the sooner the better, would do more good than all her remedies. That would transform the invalid, and joy would give her back her failing vital energy. Feriz Beg had not been able to speak to Aranka for two days; the girl had suffered greatly during the night, and Feriz was condemned to listen to the moaning of his beloved, and to hear her in the delirium of fever through the prison windows without being able to go to her, without being able to wipe the sweat from her forehead, or put a glass of cold water to her lips, or whisper to her words of comfort, and had to be content with knowing that she was with those who carefully nursed her. Oh, it is not to the dying that death is most bitter. By the morning the fever left her. The rising sun was just beginning to shine through the narrow round window and the sick girl begged to be carried out into the open air and the warm morning sunshine. She was no longer able to walk by herself, and they carried her out on to the bastions in an arm-chair. It was a beautiful autumn morning, a sort of transparent light rested upon the whole region, giving a pale lilac blue to the sunlit scene. Where the road wound down from the Szekler hills a light cloud of dust was visible in the morning vapour; it seemed to be coming from the direction of Szamosújvár. "Ah! there is my mother coming!" whispered Aranka, with a smiling face. The young Turk held his hand before his face and fixed his eagle eyes in that direction; and when for a moment the breeze swept the dust off the road, and a carriage on springs drawn by five horses appeared, he exclaimed with a beating heart: "Yes, that is indeed the carriage in which they took away thy mother." Aranka was dumb with joy and surprise; she could not speak a word, she only squeezed Feriz Beg's hands and fixed her tearful eyes upon him with a grateful look. The carriage seemed to be rapidly approaching. "That is how people hasten who have something joyful to say," thought Feriz, and then he began to fear less boundless joy might injure the life of his darling. Soon the carriage arrived in front of the fortress and rumbled noisily over the drawbridge. Aranka, supported by the arm of Feriz, descended into the courtyard. They pressed onward to meet the carriage, and the smile upon her pallid face was so melancholy. The glass door of the carriage was opened, and who should come out but Kucsuk Pasha. There was nothing encouraging in his look; he said not a word either to his son or to the girl who clung to him, but the castellan was standing hard by, and he beckoned to him. "In the carriage," said Kucsuk, "is the prisoner for whom I left my son as an hostage; take her back, and look well after her, for she is very ill." Dame Béldi lay in the carriage unconscious, motionless. Aranka, paler than ever and trembling all over, asked: "Where is my father?" Kucsuk Pasha would have spoken, but tears came instead of words and ran down his manly face; silently he raised his hand, pointed upwards, and said, in a scarce audible voice: "In Heaven!" The gentle girl, like a plucked flower, collapsed at these words. Feriz Beg caught her moaning in his arms, she raised her eyes, a long sigh escaped her lips, then her beautiful lips drooped, her beautiful eyes closed, and all was over. The beloved maiden had gone to her father in Heaven. CHAPTER XXVII. THE SWORD OF GOD. For some time past God's marvels had been multiplied over Transylvania. No longer were they disquieting rumours which popular agitators invented for the disturbance of the public peace, but extraordinary natural phenomena whose rapid sequence stirred the heart of even the coldest sceptic. One summer morning at dawn, after a clear night, an unusually thick heavy mist descended upon the earth, which only dispersed in the afternoon, spread over the whole sky in the shape of an endless black cloud, and there remained like a heavy motionless curtain. Not a drop of water fell from it, and at noonday in the houses it was impossible to see anything without a candle. Towards evening every bird became silent, the flowers closed their calices, the leaves of the trees hung limply down. The people walking about outside began to complain of a stifling cough, and from that time forth the germs of every disease antagonistic to nature were seen in every herb, in every fruit; even the water of the streams was corrupted. The hot blood of man, the earth itself was infected by a kind of epidemic, so that weeds never seen before sprang up and ruined the richest crops, and the strongest oaks of the forest withered beneath the assault of grey blight and funguses, and the good black soil of the fruitful arable land was covered with a hideous green mould. For three whole days the sky did not clear. On the evening of the fourth day the stifling stillness was followed by a frightful hurricane, which tore off the roofs of the houses, wrenched the stars and crosses from the steeples of the churches, swept up the dust from the high-roads, caused such a darkness that it was impossible to see, and bursting open the willow trees, which had just begun to bloom, drove the red pollen before it in clouds, so that when the first big rain-drops began to fall they left behind them blood-red traces on the white walls of the houses. "It is raining blood from Heaven!" was the terrified cry. Not long afterwards came the cracking thunderbolts flashing and flaming as if they would flog the earth with a thousand fiery whips, while one perpendicular flash of lightning plumped right down into the middle of the town, shaking the earth with its cracking concussion, so that everyone believed the hour of judgment was at hand. Nevertheless the storm had scattered the clouds, and by eventide the sky had cleared, and lo! before the eyes of the gaping multitude a gigantic comet stood in the firmament, all the more startling as nobody had been aware of its proximity because for three days the sky had been blotted out by clouds. The nucleus of the comet stood just over the place where the sun had gone down, and the blood-red light of evening was not sufficient to dim the brightness of the lurid star; it appeared as if it had just slain the sun and was now bathing in its blood. The comet was so long that it seemed to stretch across two-thirds of the firmament, and the end of it bulged out broadly like a Turkish scimitar. "The sword of God!" whispered the people with instinctive fear. For two weeks this phenomenon stood in the sky, rising late one day and early the next. Sometimes it appeared with the bright sun, and in the solar brightness it looked like a huge streak of blue enamel in the sky and spread around it a sort of febrile pallor as if the atmosphere itself were sick: on bright afternoons the sun could be regarded with the naked eye. The people were in fear and terror at this extraordinary phenomenon, and when the blind masses are in an unconscious panic then a storm is close at hand, then they are capable of anything to escape from their fear. In those days the priests of every faith could give strange testimony of the general consternation which prevailed in Transylvania. The churches were kept open all day long, and the indefatigable curers of souls spoke words of consolation to the assembled hosts of the faithful. Magyari, the Prince's chaplain, preached four sermons every day in the cathedral, which was so crowded at such times that half the people could not get in at all but remained standing outside the doors. One evening the church was so filled with faithful worshippers that the very steps were covered with them, and all sorts of Klausenberg burgesses intermingled with travelling Szeklers in a group before the principal door, and after the hymn was finished they clapped to their clasped psalm-books and began to talk to each other while the sermon was going on inside. "We live in evil times," said an old master-tanner, shaking his big cap. "We can say a word about that too," interrupted a Szekler, who was up in town about a law-suit, and who seized the opportunity of saying what he knew because he had come from far. "Then you also have seen the sword of God?" inquired a young man. "Not only have we seen it, my little brother, but we have felt it also. Not a single evening do we lay down to rest without reciting the prayers for the dead and dying, and scarce a night passes but what we see the sky a fiery red colour, either on the right hand or to the left." "What would that be?" "Some village or town burning to ashes. They say the whole kingdom is full of destroying angels; one never knows whose roof will be fired over his head next." "God and all good spirits guard us from it." "We hear all sorts of evil reports," said a gingerbread baker. "Yesterday I was talking to a Wallachian woman whose husband was faring on the Járas-water on a raft taking cheese to Yorda. He was not a day's journey from his home when the Járas turned, began to flow upwards, and took the Wallachian back to his house from which he had started." A listening clergyman here explained the matter by saying that the Aranyos, into which the Járas flows, was greatly flooded just then, and it was its overflow which filled up the Járas; in fact it was Divine Providence which brought the Wallachian back, for if he had been able to go on farther, the Tartars would certainly have fallen upon him and cut him to pieces. "I have experienced everything in my time," said the oldest of the burgesses, "war, plague, flood and pestilence, but there's only one thing I am afraid of, and that is earthquake, for a man cannot even go to church to pray against that." At that moment the preacher in the church began to speak so loudly that those standing outside could hear his words, and, growing suddenly silent, they pressed nearer to the door of the church to hear what he was saying. The right rev. Magyari was trouncing the gentlemen present unmercifully: "God prepares to war against you, for ye also are preparing to war against Him. You have broken the peace ye swore to observe right and left, and ye shall have what you want, war without and war within, so that ye may be constrained to say: 'Enough, enough, O Lord!' and ye shall not see the end of what you have so foolishly begun." Magyari already knew that Teleki, at the Diet of Szamosújvár, had announced the impending war. Just at this very time two men of the patrician order in sable kalpags were seen approaching, in whom the Klausenbergers at once recognised Michael Teleki and Ladislaus Vajda, and so far as they were able they made room for them to get into the church through the crowd; but the Szekler did not recognise either of them, and when Ladislaus Vajda very haughtily shoved him aside with his elbows, he turned upon him and said: "Softly, softly, sir! This is the house of God, not the house of a great lord. Here I am just as good a man as you are." Those standing beside him tried to pull him aside, but it is the peculiarity of the Szeklers that they grow more furious than ever when people try to pacify them; and on perceiving that Ladislaus Vajda, unable to make his way through the throng, began to look about him to see how he best could get to his seat, the Szekler cried in front of him: "Cannot you let these two gentlemen get into the church? don't you see that the lesson is meant for them?" Teleki meanwhile had forced his way just over the threshold, and taking off his kalpag, exposed his bald, defenceless head in the sight of all the people, with his face turned in the direction indicated by the boisterous Szekler. Magyari continued his fulminating discourse from the pulpit. "Nobody dare speak against you now, for your words are very thunderbolts and strike down those with whom you are angry--nay, rather, men bow the knee before you and say, 'Your Excellency! Your Excellency!' but the judgment of the Lord shall descend upon you, the Lord will slay you, and then men will point the finger of scorn at you and say: 'That is the consort of the accursed one who betrayed his country!--these are the children of that godless man!' And your descendants will blush to bear the shameful name you have left them, for then the tongue of every man will wag in his mouth against you, and they will cry after your posterity: 'It was the father of those fellows who betrayed Transylvania and plunged us into slime from which we cannot now withdraw our feet' ..." "Come away, your Excellency!" said Ladislaus Vajda to Teleki, whom the parson seemed to have seen, for he turned straight towards him as he spoke. "What are you thinking of?" Teleki whispered back; "the parson is speaking the truth, but it doesn't matter." "Whither would ye go, ye senseless vacillators!" continued Magyari, "who empowered you to make the men of Transylvania fugitives, their wives widows, and their children orphans? Verily I say to you, ye shall fare like the camel who went to Jupiter for horns and got shorn of his ears instead." "It may be so," said Teleki to Vajda, "but we shall pursue our course all the same." The parson saw that the Minister of State was paying attention to his discourse, so he wrinkled his forehead, and thus proceeded: "When King Louis perished on the field of Mohács, the Turkish Emperor had the dead body brought before him, and recognising at the same time the corpse of an evil Hungarian politician lying there, he struck off its head with his sword, and said: 'If thou hadst not been there, thou dog! this honest child-king would not be lying dead here.' God grant that a foreign nation may not so deal with you." Teleki scratched his head, and whispered: "It may happen to me likewise, but that makes no difference." Shortly afterwards another hymn was sung, the two magnates put on their kalpags and withdrew, and the emerging crowd of people flowed along all around them, among whom the Szekler, as recently mentioned, followed hard upon the heels of the two gentlemen with singular persistency, lauding to the skies before everyone, in a loud voice, the sermon he had just heard, so as to insult the two gentlemen walking in front of him as much as possible. "That was something like a sermon," he cried, "that is just how our masters ought to have their heads washed--without too much soap. And quite right too! Why saddle the realm with war at all? Why should Transylvania put on a mustard plaster because Hungary has a pain in its stomach? What has all this coming and going of foreigners to do with us? Why should we poor Transylvanians suffer for the sake of the lean foreigners among us?" Ladislaus Vajda could put up with this no longer, and turning round, shouted at the Szekler: "Keep your distance, you rascal, speak like a man at any rate; don't bark here like some mad beast when it sees a better man than itself." At these words the Szekler thrust his neck forward, stuck his face beneath the very nose of the gentleman who had spoken to him, looked him straight in the face with bright eyes that pricked like pins, and said, twisting his moustaches fiercely: "Don't you try to fix any of your bastard names on me, sir, for if I go home for my sword I will pretty soon make you a present of a head, and that head shall be your own." Ladislaus Vajda would have made some reply, but Teleki pulled him by the arm and dragged him away. "Nothing aggravates your Excellency," said the offended gentleman. "Let him growl, he'll be all the better soldier if we do have war; never quarrel with a Szekler, my friend, for he always has a greater respect for his own head than for anyone else's." And so the two gentlemen disappeared through the gates of the Prince's palace. * * * * * The Prince himself was present at this sermon, and it produced this much impression that he enjoined a fast upon his whole household and then went to bed. In the night, however, he awoke repeatedly, and had so many tormenting visions that he woke up all his pages, and it was even necessary at last to send for the Princess herself, and only then did he become a little calmer when she appeared at his bedside; in fact, he kept her with him till dawn of day, continually telling her all sorts of sad and painful things so that the Princess's cries of horror could be heard through the door. In the morning, after the Princess had retired to her own apartments, she immediately summoned to her presence Michael Teleki, who, living at that time at the Prince's court as if it were his own home, was not very long in making his appearance, and obeyed the command to be seated with as much cheerful alacrity as if he had been asked to sit down at a banquet, though well aware that a bitter cup had been prepared for him which he must drain to the dregs. "Sir," said the Princess, "Apafi was very ill last night." "That was owing to the fast, he isn't used to such practices. Generally, he has a good supper, and if he departs from his usual course of life he is bound to sleep badly. Bad dreams plague an empty stomach just as much as an overburdened one." "And how about an overburdened conscience, sir? I have spent the whole night at his bedside, only this instant have I quitted him; he would not let me leave him, he pressed my hand continually, and he talked, soberly and wide-awake, of things which I should have thought could only have been talked about in the delirium of typhus. He said that that night he had stood before the judgment-seat of God, before a great table--which was so long that he could not see the end of it--and at this table sat the accusing witnesses, first of all Denis Banfy, and then Béldi, Dame Béldi and their daughter, and eldest son, who died in prison; Kepi, too, was there, and young Kornis, and old John Bethlen, and the rest of them; all these familiar faces were before him, and as tremblingly he approached the throne of God they all fixed their eyes upon him and pointed their fingers at him. Sir, it was a terrible picture." "Does your Highness fancy that I am an interpreter of dreams?" asked Teleki maliciously. "Sir, this is more than a dream--it is a vision, a revelation." "It may be so; the souls of the gentlemen enumerated are, no doubt, in Heaven, and it is possible that countless other souls will follow them thither." "And will the soul that shed their blood ascend thither too?" "Will your Highness deign to speak quite plainly--I suppose you mean me? Of course, I am the cause of all the evils of Transylvania. Till I came upon the scene, none but lamb-like men inhabited this state, in whose veins flowed milk and honey instead of blood! King Sigismund, Bethlen, Bocskai, George Rákóczy, for instance! Under them only some fifty or sixty thousand men lost their lives in their party feuds and ambitious struggles! Fine fellows, every one of them of course, everyone calls them great patriots. But I, whose sword has never aimed at a self-sought crown, I, who am animated by a great and mighty thought, a sublime idea, I am a murderer, and responsible not only for those who have fallen in battle, but also for those who have died quietly in their beds, if they were not my good friends." "There was a time, sir, when you used every effort to prevent Transylvania from going to war." "That was the very time when your Highness pleaded before the Prince for war in the name of your exiled Hungarian kinsfolk. Other times, other men." "I knew not then that such a desire would lead to the ruin of so many great and honourable men." "You feared war, and yet you fanned it. He who resists a snow-storm is swept away. Not the fate of men alone, but the fate of kingdoms also is here in question. Apafi may console himself with the reflection that God regards us both as far too petty instruments to lay upon our souls what He Himself has decreed in the fullness of time, and what will and must happen in spite of us, for the weeping and mourning which we listen to here is also heard in Heaven. The mottoes of our escutcheons go very well together. Apafi's is '_Fata viam inveniunt_,' mine is '_Gutta cavat lapidem_.' Let us trust ourselves to our mottoes." The Princess, with folded arms, gazed out of the window and remained in a brown study for some time. And now, as though her thoughts were wandering far away, she suddenly sighed: "Ah! this Béldi family so unhappily ruined, and how many more must be ruined likewise!" "Your Highness!" rejoined the Minister, without moving a muscle of his face, "when, in time of drought, we pray for rain the whole day, does anybody inquire what will become of the poor travellers who may be caught in the downpour? Yet it may well happen that some of them may take a chill and die in consequence." "I don't grasp the metaphor." "Well, the whole Principality is now praying for rain--a rain of blood, I admit--and there is every sign that God will grant it. I do not mean those signs and wonders in which the common folks believe, but those signs of the times which rivet the attention of thinking men. Formerly there was a large party in Transylvania which had engaged to uphold an indolent peace, and which had so many ties, amongst the leading men both of the Kaiser and the Sultan, that Denis Banfy could at one time boldly tell me to my face that that Party was a hand with a hundred fingers, which could squeeze everything it laid hold of like a sponge. And lo! the fingers have all dropped off one by one. Denis Banfy has perished--they say I killed him. Paul Béldi has died in prison--they say I have poisoned him. God hath called John Bethlen also to Himself. Kapi has died. The boldest of my enemies, Gabriel Kornis, has also died in the flower of his youth--naturally they attribute his death to me likewise. All those, too, who opposed war in the Diván have disappeared one by one. Kucsuk Pasha has been shot down by a bullet at Lippa. Kiuprile Pasha has been stifled by his own fat; and the youngest of the Viziers, Feriz Beg, has gone mad. "Gone mad!" cried the Princess, covering her face with her hands; "that noble, worthy youth who loved Transylvania so well?" "Do you not see the hand of God in all this?" asked the Minister. "No, sir," said the Princess, rising with a face full of sadness and approaching the Minister so as to look him straight in the face while she spoke to him, "it is your hand that I see everywhere. Denis Banfy perished, but it was you who had him beheaded. Béldi is dead, but it was you who drove him to despair. It was you, too, who threw his family into prison, and only let them out when the foul air had poured a deadly sickness into their blood. And Feriz Beg has gone mad because he loved Béldi's daughter, and she is dead." "Very well, your Highness, let it be so," replied the imperturbable Minister. "To attribute to me the direction of destiny is praise indeed. Believe, then, that everything which happens in the council chamber of this realm and in the heart of its members derives from me. I'll be responsible. And if your Highness believes that that flaming comet, which they call the Sword of God, is also in my hand--why--be it so! I will hurl it forth, and strike the earth with it so that all its hinges shall be out of joint." At that very moment the palace trembled to its very foundations. The Princess leaped to her feet, shrieking. "Ah! what was that?" she asked, as pale as death. "It was an earthquake, madame," replied Teleki with amazing calmness. "There is nothing to be afraid of, the palace has very strong vaults; but if you _are_ afraid, stand just beneath the doorway, that cannot fall." On recovering from her first alarm the Princess quickly regained her presence of mind. "God preserve us! I must hasten to the Prince. Will not you come too?" "I'll remain here," replied Teleki coolly. "We are in the hands of God wherever we may be, and when He calls me to Him I will account to Him for all that I have done." The Princess ran along the winding corridor, and, finding her husband, took him down with her into the garden. It was terrible to see from the outside how the vast building moved and twisted beneath the sinuous motion of the earth; every moment one might fear it would fall to pieces. The Prince asked where Teleki was; the Princess said she had left him in her apartments. "We must go for him this instant!" cried the Prince, but amongst all the trembling faces around him he could find none to listen to his words, for a man who fears nothing else is a coward in the presence of an earthquake. Meanwhile the Minister was sitting quietly at a writing-table and writing a letter to Kara Mustafa, who had taken the place of the dead Kiuprile. He was a great warrior and the Sultan's right hand, who not long before had been invited by the Cossacks to help them against the Poles, which he did very thoroughly, first of all ravaging numerous Polish towns, and then, turning against his confederate Cossacks, he cut down a few hundred thousands of them and led thirty thousand more into captivity. To him Teleki wrote for assistance for the Hungarians. Every bit of furniture was shaking and tottering around him, the windows rattled noisily as if shaken by an ague, the very chair on which he sat rocked to and fro beneath him, and the writing-table bobbed up and down beneath his hand so that the pen ran away from the paper; but for all that he finished his letter, and when he came to the end of it he wrote at the bottom in firm characters: "Si fractus illabatur orbis, impavidum ferient ruinæ!" Mustafa puzzled his brains considerably when he came to that part of the letter containing the verse which had nothing to do with the text, which the Minister, under the influence of an iron will struggling against terror, had written there almost involuntarily. When the menacing peril had passed, and the pages had returned to the palace, he turned to them reproachfully with the sealed letter in his hand. "Where have you been? Not one of you can be found when you are wanted. Take this letter at once, with an escort of two mounted drabants, to Varna, for the Grand Vizier." And then he began to walk up and down the room as if nothing had happened. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE MAD MAN. In the most secret chamber of the Diván were assembled the Viziers for an important consultation. The impending war was the subject of their grave deliberations. For as Mohammed had said, there ought to be one God in Heaven and one Lord on earth, so many of the Faithful believed that the time for the accomplishment of this axiom had now arrived. Those wise men of the empire, those honourable counsellors, Kucsuk and Kiuprile, were dead. Kara Mustafa, an arrogant, self-confidant man, directed the mind of the Diván, and everyone followed his lead. The Sultan himself was present, a handsome man with regular features, but with an expression of lassitude and exhaustion. During the whole consultation he never uttered a word nor moved a muscle of his face; he sat there like a corpse. One by one the ambassadors of the Foreign Powers were admitted. The orator of Louis XIV. declared that the French King was about to attack the Kaiser with all his forces; if the Sultan would also rise up against him, he would be able to seize not only all Hungary but Vienna likewise. The Sultan was silent. The Grand Vizier, answering for him, replied that Hungary had long since belonged to the Sultan, and no doubt Vienna and Poland would shortly share the same fate. The Sultan could only suffer tributary kings on the earth. The ambassador drew a somewhat wry face at these words, reflecting that France also was on the earth; then he withdrew. After him came the envoys of Emeric Tököly, offering the blood and the swords of the Hungarian malcontents to the Sultan if he would help them to win back Hungary. This time the Sultan replied instead of Mustafa. "The Grand Seignior greets his servants, and will be gracious to them if they will help him to win back Hungary." The envoys noticed that their words had ingeniously been twisted, but as they also had their own _arrière-pensées_ in regard to the Turks, they only looked at each other with a smile and withdrew. Then came the Transylvanian embassy--gentle, mild-looking men, whose orator delivered an extraordinarily florid discourse. His Highness, Michael Apafi, they said, and all the estates of Transylvania, were ready to draw their swords for the glory of the Grand Seignior and invade Hungary. Mustafa replied: "The Grand Seignior permits you to help your comrades in Hungary." The orator would like to have heard something different--for example, that the crown of Hungary was reserved for Michael Apafi, the dignity of Palatine for Teleki, etc., etc., and there he stood scratching his ear till the Grand Vizier told him he might go. Ha, ha! the Turkish policy was written in Turkish. After the foreign envoys came the messengers from the various pashas and commandants in Hungary, who brought terrible tidings of raids, incursions, and outrages on the part of the Magyar population against the Turks. The Grand Vizier exclaimed angrily at every fresh report, only the Sultan was silent. Last of all came the ulemas. On their decisions everything depended. Very solemnly they appeared before the Diván. First of all advanced the Chief Mufti in a long mantle reaching to his heels, and with a large beehive-shaped hat upon his head; his white beard reached to his girdle. After him came two imams, one of whom carried a large document in a velvet case, whose pendant seal swung to and fro beneath its long golden cord; the other bent beneath the weight of an enormous book--it was the Alkoran. The Alkoran is a very nice large book, larger than our _corpus juris_ of former days, and in it may be found everything which everyone requires: accusatory, condemnatory, and absolvatory texts for one and the same thing. The Mufti presented the Alkoran to the Sultan and all the Viziers in turn, and each one of them kissed it with deep reverence; then he beckoned to one of the imams to kneel down on a stool before the Diván and remain there resting on his hands and knees, and placing the Koran on his back, began to select expressly marked texts. For seventy years he had thoroughly studied the sacred volume, and could say that he had read it through seven hundred and ninety-three times. He, therefore, knew all its secrets, and could turn at once to the leaf on which the text he wanted to read aloud could be found. "The Alkoran saith," he read with unctuous devotion, "'the knot which hath been tied in the name of Allah the hand of Allah can unloose!' The Alkoran saith moreover: 'Wherever we may be, and whatever we may be, everywhere we are all of us in the hand of Allah.' Therefore this treaty of peace is also in the hand of Allah, and the hand of Allah can unloose everything. Furthermore, the Alkoran saith: 'If any among thy suffering father's children implore help from thee, answer him not: come to me to-morrow, for my vow forbids me to rise up to-day; or, if any ask an alms of thee answer him not: to-day it cannot be, for my vow forbids me to touch money; or, if anyone beg thee to slay someone, answer him not: to-morrow I will help thee, for my vow forbids me to draw the sword to-day; verily the observance of thy vow will be a greater sin to thee than its violation.' Moreover, thus saith the Alkoran: 'The happiness of the nations is the first duty of the rulers of the earth, yet the glory of Allah comes before it.' And finally it is written: 'Whoso formeth a league with the infidel bindeth himself to wage war upon Allah, yet vainly do the nations of the earth bind themselves together that they may live long, for let Allah send his breath upon them and more of them are destroyed in one day than in ten years of warfare: kings and beggars--it is all one.'" At each fresh sentence the viziers and the ulemas bowed their heads to the ground. Mustafa could not restrain a blood-thirsty smile, which distorted his face more and more at each fresh sentence, and at the last word, with a fanatical outburst, he threw off the mask altogether, and with a howl of joy kissed repeatedly the hem of the Chief Mufti's mantle. The Mufti then unclasped the velvet case which contained the treaty of peace, and drawing forth the parchment, which was folded fourfold, he unfolded it with great ceremony, and placing it in the hands of the second imam that he might hold it spread open at both ends, he exhibited the document to the viziers. It was a long and beautiful script. The initial letter was as big as a painted castle and wreathed around with a pattern of birds and flowers. The whole of the first line of it was in ultramarine letters, the other lines much smaller on a gradually diminishing scale, and whenever the name of Allah occurred, it was written in letters of gold. The Sultan's name was always in red, the Kaiser's in bright green letters. At the foot of it was the fantastic flourish which passed for the Sultan's signature, which he would never have been able to write, but which was always engraved on the signet ring which he wore on his finger. "Lo! here is the treaty," said the Mufti, pointing to the document, "from which, by the command of Allah, I will now wash off the writing." Thereupon he drew across the document a large brush which he had previously dipped into a large basin of water in which sundry chemicals had been dissolved, and suddenly the writing began to fade away, the Sultan's name written in red letters disappeared instantly from the parchment, then the lines written in black ink visibly grew dimmer. The Kaiser's name written in bright green letters resisted more obstinately, but at last these also vanished utterly, and nothing more remained on the white parchment but the name of God written in letters of gold--the corrosive acid was powerless against that. Deep silence prevailed in the Diván, every eye was fixed with pious attention on the bleaching script. Then, seizing a drawn sword, the Mufti raised it aloft and said: "Having wiped away the writing which cast dishonour on the name of Allah, I now cut this document in four pieces with the point of my sword." And speaking thus, and while the imam stretched the parchment out with both hands, the Mufti cut it into four pieces with the sword he held in his hand, and placing the fragments in a pan, filled it up with naptha from a little crystal flask. "Lo! now I burn thee before the face of Allah!" Then he passed an ignited wax taper over the pan, whereupon the naptha instantly burst into flame, and the fragments of the torn document were hidden by the blue fire and the white smoke. Presently the flame turned to red, the smoke subsided, and the parchment was burnt to ashes. "And now I scatter thy ashes that thou mayst be dispersed to nothing," said the Mufti; and, taking the ashes, he flung them out of the palace window. The burnt paper rags, like black butterflies, descended gently through the air and were cast by the wind into the Bosphorus below. No sooner was this accomplished than the pashas and viziers all leaped from their seats and drew their swords, swearing with great enthusiasm by the beard of the Prophet that they would not return their weapons to their sheaths till the crescent should shine on the top of the tower of the Church of St. Stephen at Vienna. At that moment the door-curtains were thrust aside, and into the Diván rushed--Feriz Beg. The face of the youth was scarce recognisable, his turban was awry upon his forehead, his eyes, full of dull melancholy, stared stonily in front of him, his dress was untidy and dishevelled, his sword was girded to his side, but its handle was broken. Nobody had prevented him from rushing through the numerous halls into the Diván, and when he entered the ulemas parted before him in holy horror. When the youth reached the middle of the room, he stood there glancing round upon the viziers with folded arms, just as if he were counting how many of them there were, one by one they all stood up before him--nay, even the Sultan did so, and awaited his words tremblingly. Everyone in the East regards the insane with awe and reverence, and if a crazy fakir were to stop the greatest of the Caliphs in the way and say to him: "Dismount from thy horse, and change garments with me," he would not dare to offer any opposition, but would fulfil his desire, for a strange spirit is in the man and God has sent it. How will it be then when the terrible spirit of madness descends upon such a valiant warrior, such a distinguished soldier as Feriz Beg, who, when only six-and-twenty, had fought a hundred triumphant battles, and frequently put to shame the grey beards with his wisdom. And lo! suddenly he goes mad, and stops people in the street, and speaks such words of terror to them that they cannot sleep after it. The youth, with quiet, gentle eyes and a sorrowful countenance passes in review the faces of all who are present, and heartrending was the expression of deep unutterable anguish in his voice when he spoke. "Pardon me, high and mighty lords, for appearing among you without an invitation--I who have now no business at all in the world anywhere. The world in which I lived is dead, it has withdrawn to Heaven far from me; all those who possessed my heart are now high above my head, and now, I have no heart and no feeling: neither love, nor valour, nor the desire of fame and glory; in my veins the blood flows backwards and forwards so that oftentimes I rush roaring against the walls round about me and tear carpets and pillows which have never offended me; and now again the blood stands still within me, my arteries do not beat at all, so that I lie stiff and staring like a dead man. I beg you all, ye high and mighty lords, who in a brief time will go to Paradise, to take a message from me thither." The high lords listened horror-stricken to the calm way in which the youth uttered these words, and they saw each other's faces growing pale. Feriz paid no attention to their horrified expressions. "Tell to them whom I love, and with whom my heart is, to give me back my heart, for without it I am very poor. I perceive not the fragrance of the rose, wine is not sweet to my lips, neither fire nor the rays of the sun have any warmth, and the note of the bugle-horn and the neighing of my charger find no response in me. High and mighty lords, tell this to those who are above if I myself go not thither shortly." There were present, besides Mustafa, Rezlán Pasha, Ajas Beg, Rifát Aga, Kara Ogli the Kapudan Pasha, and many more who promised themselves a long life. The Grand Seignior had always made a particular favourite of Feriz, and he now addressed him in a gentle, fatherly voice. "My dear son, go back home; my viziers are preparing to subdue the world with unconquerable armies. Go with them, in the din of battle thou wilt find again thy heroic heart and be cured of thy sickness." An extraordinary smile passed across the face of Feriz, he waved aside the idea with his hand and bent his head forwards, which is a way the Turks have of expressing decided negation. "This war cannot be a triumphant war, for men are the cause thereof. Allah will bring it to nought. Ye draw the sword at the invitation of murderers, deceivers, and traitors. I have broken the hilt of my own sword in order that I may not draw it forth. They have killed those whom I love, how can I fight in that army which was formed for them who were the occasion of the ruin of my beloved?" At this thought the blood flew to the youth's face, the spirit of madness flamed up in his eyes, he rose to his full height before the Sultan, and he cried with a loud, audacious voice: "Thou wilt lose the war for which thou dost now prepare, for thy viziers are incapable, thy soldiers are cowards, thy allies are traitors, thy wise men are fools, thy priests are hypocrites, and thou thyself art an oath-breaker." Then, as if he were suddenly sorry of what he had said to the Sultan, he bent humbly over him and taking hold of the edge of his garment raised it up and kissed it--and then, regarding him with genuine sympathy, murmured softly: "Poor Sultan!--so young, so young--and yet thou must die." And thereupon, with hanging head, he turned away and prepared to go out. None stayed him. On reaching the door, he fumbled for his sword, and perceiving when he touched it that the hilt was missing, he suddenly turned back again, and exclaimed in a low whisper: "Think not that it will rust in its sheath. The time will come when I shall again draw it, and it will drink its fill of blood. When those who now urge us on to war shall turn against us, when those who now stand in line with us shall face us with hostile banners, then also will I return, though then ye will no longer be present. But ye shall look on from Paradise above. So it will be: ye shall look on ... Poor young Sultan!" Having whispered these prophetic words, the mad youth withdrew, and the gentlemen in the Diván were so much disturbed by his words that, with faces bent to the earth, they prayed Allah that He would turn aside from them the evil prophesy and not suffer to be broken asunder the weapons they had drawn for the increase of His glory. CHAPTER XXIX. PLEASANT SURPRISES. All the chief generals, all the border pashas, had received the Sultan's orders to gather their hosts together and lead them against the armies of the King of the Romans, and besiege the places which were the pretext of the rupture--to wit, the fortresses of Fülek, Böszörmény, and Nagy Kallá. At the same time the Government of Transylvania also received permission to attack Hungary with its armies, as had already been decided at the Diet of Szamosújvár. Vast preparations were everywhere made. The Magyar race is very hard to move to war, but once in a quarrel it does not waste very much time in splitting straws. Teleki, too, had attained at last to the dream of his life and the object of all his endeavours, for which he had knowingly sacrificed his own peace of mind, and the lives of so many good patriots--he was the generalissimo of the armies of Transylvania. The Hungarian exiles in Transylvania hailed him as their deliverer, and he saw himself a good big step nearer to the place of Esterházy--the place of Palatine of Hungary. And why not? Why should he not stand among the foremost statesmen of his age? All the way to the camp at Fülek he was the object of flattery and congratulation; the Hungarians gathered in troops beneath his banner, colonels and captains belauded him. As for the worthy Prince, he did not show himself at all, but sat in his tent and read his books, and when he felt tired he took his watch to pieces and put it together again. At Fülek the Transylvanian army joined the camp of Kara Mustafa. Teleki dressed up the Prince in his best robes, and trotted with him and his suite to the tent of the Grand Vizier with growing pride when he heard the guards blow their trumpets at their approach, and the Grand Vizier as a special favour admitted them straightway to his presence, allowed them to kiss his hand, made the magnates sit down, and praised them for their zeal and fidelity, giving each of them a new caftan; and when they were thus nicely tricked out, he dismissed them with an escort of an aga, a dragoman, and twelve cavasses to see the whole Turkish camp to their hearts' content. Teleki regarded this permission as a very good omen. Turkish generals are wont to be very sensitive on this point, and it is a great favour on their part when they allow foreigners to view their camps. The dragoman took the Hungarian gentlemen everywhere. He told them which aga was encamped on this hill and which on that, how many soldiers made up a squadron of horse, and how many guns, and how many lances were in every company. He pointed out to them the long pavilion made of deal boards in which the gunpowder lay in big heaps, and gigantic cannon balls were piled up into pyramids, and round mortars covered with pitchy cloths, and gigantic culverines, and siege-guns, and iron howitzers lay on wooden rollers. The accumulated war material would have sufficed for the conquest of the world. The gentlemen sightseers returned to their tents with the utmost satisfaction, and, overjoyed at what he had seen, the Prince gave a great banquet, to which all the Hungarian gentlemen in his army were also invited. The tables were placed beneath a quickly-improvised baldachin; and at the end of an excellent dinner the noble feasters began to make merry, everyone at length saw his long-deferred hopes on the point of fulfilment, and none more so than Michael Teleki. One toast followed another, and the healths of the Prince and of Teleki were interwoven with the healths of everyone else present, so that worthy Apafi began to think that it would really be a very good thing if he were King of Hungary, while Teleki held his head as high as if he were already sitting in the seat of the Palatine. Just when the revellers were at their merriest, a loud burst of martial music resounded from the plain outside, and a great din was audible as if the Turkish armies were saluting a Prince who had just arrived. The merry gentry at once leaped from their seats and hurried to the entrance of the tent to see the ally who was received with such rejoicing, and a cry of amazement and consternation burst from their lips at the spectacle which met their eyes. Emeric Tököly had arrived at the head of a host of ten thousand Magyars from Upper Hungary. His army consisted of splendid picked warriors on horseback, hussars in gold-braided dolmans, wolf-skin pelisses, and shakos with falcon feathers. Tököly himself rode at the head of his host with princely pomp; his escort consisted of the first magnates of Hungary, jewel-bedizened cavaliers in fur mantles trimmed with swansdown, among whom Tököly himself was only conspicuous by his manly beauty and princely distinction. The face of Teleki darkened at the sight, while the faces of all who surrounded him were suddenly illuminated by an indescribable joy, and their enthusiasm burst forth in _eljens_ of such penetrating enthusiasm at the sight of the young hero that Teleki felt himself near to fainting. Ah! it was in a very different voice that they had recently cried "_Viva!_" to him, it was a very different sort of smile with which they had been wont to greet _him_. Meanwhile Tököly had reached the front of the marshalled Turkish army, which was drawn up in two rows right up to the pavilion of the Grand Vizier, allowing the youth and his suite to pass through between them amidst a ceremonious abasement of their horse-tail banners. The young general had only passed half through their ranks when the Grand Vizier came to meet him in a state carriage drawn by six white horses. From the hill on which Teleki stood he could see everything quite plainly. On reaching the carriage of the Grand Vizier, Tököly leaped quickly from his horse, whereupon Kara Mustafa also descended from his carriage, and, hastening to the young general, embraced him and kissed him repeatedly on the forehead, made him take a seat in the carriage beside him, and thus conveyed him to his tent amidst joyful acclamations. Teleki had to look on at all this! That was very different from the reception accorded to him and the Prince of Transylvania. He looked around him--gladness, a radiant smile shone on every face. Oh! those smiles were so many dagger-thrusts in his heart! In half an hour's time Tököly emerged from the tent of the Grand Vizier. His head was encircled by a diamond diadem which the Sultan had sent for all the way to Belgrade, and in his hand was a princely sceptre. When he remounted and galloped away close beside the tents of the Transylvanians, the Hungarians in Teleki's company could restrain themselves no longer, but rushed towards Tököly and covered his hands, his feet, his garments, with kisses, took him from his horse on to their shoulders, and carried him in their arms back to camp. Teleki could endure the sight no more; he fled into his tent, and, throwing himself on his camp-bedstead, wept like a child. The whole edifice which he had reared so industriously, so doggedly, amidst innumerable perils, during the arduous course of a long life--for which he had sacrificed relations, friends, and all the great and wise men of a kingdom, and pledged away the repose of his very soul--had suddenly collapsed at the appearance of a mere youth, whose only merit was the exaggerated fame of a few successful engagements! It was the heaviest blow he had ever staggered under. Oh! Fortune is indeed ingenious in her disappointments. Evening came, and still Teleki had not quitted his tent. Then the Prince went to see him. Teleki wanted to hear nothing, but the Prince told him everything. "Hearken, Mr. Michael Teleki! The Hungarian gentlemen have not come back to us, but remain with Tököly. And Tököly also, it appears, doesn't want to have much to do with us, for instead of encamping with us he has withdrawn to the furthest end of the Turkish army, and has pitched his tents there." Teleki groaned beneath the pain which the distilled venom of these words poured into his heart. "Apparently, Mr. Michael Teleki, we have been building castles in the air," continued Apafi with jovial frankness. "We are evidently not of the stuff of which Kings and Palatines of Hungary are made. I cannot but think of the cat in the fable, who pulled the chestnuts out of the fire with the claws of others." Teleki shivered as if with an ague. Apafi continued in his own peculiar vein of cynicism: "Really, my dear Mr. Michael Teleki, I should like it much better if we were sitting at home, and Denis Banfy and Paul Béldi and the other wise gentlemen were sitting beside me, and I were listening to what they might advise." Teleki clenched his fists and stamped his feet, as much as to say: "I would not allow that." Then with a bitter smile he watched the Prince as he paced up and down the tent, and said with a cold, metallic voice: "One swallow does not make a summer. If ten or twelve worthless fellows desert to Tököly, much good may it do him! The army of the real Hungarian heroes will not follow their example, and when it can fight beneath the banner of a Prince it will not fling itself into the arms of a homeless adventurer." "Then it would be as well if your Excellency spoke to them at once, for methinks that this night the whole lot of them may turn tail." Teleki seemed impressed by these words. He immediately ordered his drabants to go to the captains of the army collected from Hungary who had joined Apafi at Fülek, and invite them to a conference in his tent at once. The officers so summoned, with a good deal of humming and hahing, met together in Teleki's tent, and there the Minister harangued them for two good hours, proving to demonstration what a lot of good they might expect from cleaving to Apafi, and what a lot of evil if they allowed themselves to be deluded by Tököly, till the poor fellows were quite tired out and cried: "Hurrah!" in order that he might let them go the sooner. But that same night they all fled to the camp of Tököly. None remained with Apafi but his faithful Transylvanians. But even now Teleki could not familiarise himself with the idea of playing a subordinate part here, but staked everything on a last, desperate cast--he went to the Grand Vizier. He announced himself, and was admitted. The Grand Vizier was alone in his tent with his dragoman, and when he saw Teleki he tried to make his unpleasant face more repulsive than it was by nature, and inquired very viciously: "Who art thou? Who sent thee hither? What dost thou want?" "I, sir, am the general of the Transylvanian armies, Michael Teleki; you know me very well, only yesterday I was here with the Prince." Just as if the two speakers did not understand each other's language, the dragoman had to interpret their questions and answers. "I hope," replied the Grand Vizier, "thou dost not expect me to recognise at sight the names of all the petty princes and generals whom I have ever cast eyes on? My master, the mighty Sultan, has so many tributary princes in Europe, Asia, and Africa, that their numbers are incalculable, and all of them are superior men to thee, how canst thou expect me to recognise thee among so many?" Teleki swallowed the insult, and seeing that the Grand Vizier was anxious to pick a quarrel with him, he came straight to the point. "Gracious sir, I have something very important to say to you if you will grant me a private interview." The Grand Vizier pretended to fly into a rage at these words. "Art thou mad or drunk that thou wouldst have a private interview with me, although I don't understand Hungarian and thou dost not understand Turkish, or perchance thou wouldst like me to learn Hungarian to please thee? Ye learn Latin, I suppose, though no living being speaks it? And ye learn German and French and Greek, yet ye stop short at the language of the Turks, though the Turks are your masters and protectors! For a hundred and fifty years our armies have passed through your territories, yet how many of you have learned Turkish? 'Tis true our soldiers have learnt Hungarian, for thy language is as sticky as resin on a growing tree. Therefore, if thou art fool enough to ask me for a private interview--go home and learn Turkish first!" Teleki bowed low, went home and learnt Turkish--that is to say, he packed up a couple of thousand thalers in a sack--and, accompanied by two porters to carry them, returned once more to the tent of the Grand Vizier. And now the Grand Vizier understood everything which the magnate wished to say. The dragoman interpreted everything beautifully. He said the Sultan was building a fortress on the ice when he entrusted the fate of the Hungarians to such a flighty youth as Emeric Tököly. How could a young man, who was such a bad manager of his own property, manage the affairs of a whole kingdom? And so fond was he of being his own master, that he suffered himself to be exiled from Transylvania with the loss of all his property rather than submit to the will of his lawful Prince. The man who had already rebelled against two rulers would certainly not be very loyal to a third; while Apafi, on the other hand, had all his life long been a most faithful vassal of the Sublime Porte, and, modest, humble man as he was, would be far more useful than Tököly, whom the Porte would always be obliged to help with men and money, whereas the latter would always be able to help with men and money the Porte and its meritorious viziers--_uti figura docet_. Mustafa listened to the long oration, took the money, and replied that he would see what could be done. Teleki was not quite clear about the impression his words had made, but he did not remain in uncertainty for long; for scarcely had he reached the tent of the Prince than a defterdar with twelve cavasses came after him, and signified that he was commanded by the Grand Vizier immediately to seize Michael Teleki, fling him into irons, and bring him before a council of pashas. Michael Teleki turned pale at these words. The faithless dragoman had told everything to Tököly, who had demanded satisfaction from the Grand Vizier, who, without the least scruple of conscience, was now ready to present to another the head of the very man from whom he had accepted presents only an hour before. The magnate now gave himself up for lost, but the Prince approached him, and tapping him on the shoulder, said: "If I were the man your Excellency is pleased to believe me and make other people believe too--that is to say, a coward yielding to every sort of compulsion--in an hour's time your Excellency would not have a head remaining on your shoulders. But everyone shall see that they have been deceived in me." Then, turning towards the defterdar, he said to him in a firm, determined voice: "Go back to your master, and say to him that Michael Teleki is the generalissimo of my armies and under my protection, and at the present moment I have him in my tent. Let anyone therefore who has any complaint against him, notify the same to me, and I will sit in judgment over him. But let none dare to lay a hand upon him within the walls of my tent, for I swear by the most Holy Trinity that I will break open the head of any such person with my cudgel. I would be ready to go over to the enemy with my whole army at once rather than permit so much as a mouse belonging to my household to be caught within my tent by a foreign cat, let alone the disgrace of handing over my generalissimo!" The defterdar duly delivered the message of the enraged Prince to the Grand Vizier. Emeric Tököly was with him at the time, and the two gentlemen on hearing the vigorous assertion of the Prince agreed that after all Michael Apafi was really a very worthy man, and sending back the defterdar, instructed him to say with the utmost politeness and all due regard for the Prince that so long as Michael Teleki remained in the Prince's tent not a hair of his head should be crumpled; but he was to look to it that he did not step out of the tent, for in that case the cavasses who were looking out for him would pounce upon him at once and treat him as never a Transylvanian generalissimo was treated before; and now, too, he had only the Prince to thank for his life. Teleki was annihilated. Nothing could have wounded his ambitious soul so deeply as the consciousness that the Prince was protecting him. To think that this man, whom the whole kingdom regarded as cowardly and incapable, could be great when he himself had suddenly become so very small! His nimbus of wisdom, power, and valour had vanished, and he saw that the man whom he had only consulted for the sake of obtaining his signature to prearranged plans was wiser and more powerful and more valiant than he. Peering through the folds of the tent he could see that, faithful to the threatening message, the cavasses were prowling around the tent and telling the loutish soldiers that if Teleki stepped out they would seize him forthwith. The Szeklers laughed and shouted with joy thereat. Then the magnate began to reflect whether it would not be best if he drew his sword, and rushing out, slash away at them till he himself were cut to pieces. What a ridiculous ending that would be! Towards evening Emeric Tököly paid a visit to the Prince. He approached the old man with the respect of a child, did obeisance, and would have kissed his hand, but Apafi would not permit it, but embraced him, kissed him on the forehead repeatedly, and made him sit down beside him on the bear-skin of his camp-bed. The young leader feelingly begged the old man's pardon for all the trouble that he had caused him and Transylvania. "It is I who ought to beg pardon of your Excellency," said Apafi in a submissive voice. "Not at all, your Highness and dear Father. I know that you have always loved me, but evil counsellors have whispered such scandalous things to you about me that you were bound to hate me--but God requite them for it if I cannot." "Be magnanimous towards them, my dear son; forgive them, for my sake." Tököly was silent. He knew that Teleki was in the tent, he saw him, but he would not take any notice of him. At last, without even looking towards him, he said, in the most passionate, threatening voice: "Look, ye, Teleki, you have practised all sorts of devices against me, but if you put your nose outside the tent of the Prince you will eat his bread no more. You would be in my power now, and here your head would lie, but for his Highness whom I look upon as a father." Michael Teleki was silent, but future events were to prove that he had heard very well what was now spoken. After surrendering the fortress of Fülek to the Turks, the Transylvanian gentlemen returned home with their army; and Michael Teleki, when he got home, paid a visit to the church where lay the ashes of Denis Banfy, and hiding his face on the tomb, he wept bitterly over the noble patriot whom he had sacrificed to his ambitious plans. CHAPTER XXX. A MAN ABANDONED BY HIS GUARDIAN-ANGEL. One blow followed hard upon another. In the following year the Sultan assembled a formidable host against Vienna, and the Transylvanian bands also had to go. Teleki would have avoided the war, but his representations and pretexts fell not upon listening ears. They asked him why he, who had hitherto urged on the campaign, wanted to withdraw from it now that it was in full swing? If he had liked the beginning, the end also should please him. But the end was exceedingly bitter. The formidable host surrounding Vienna was scattered in a single night by the heroic sword of Sobieski, the gigantic military enterprise was ruined. The Transylvanian forces took no part in these operations. During the siege of Vienna they had been left at Raab, and Teleki did not let the opportunity pass. While the stupid Turks were fighting in the trenches, he entered into communication with the German commander at Raab and attached himself to the winning side. Everything which the insane Feriz had prophesied in the Diván was literally fulfilled. The Turkish armies were everywhere routed. They lost the fortresses of Grand Visegrad and Érsekújvár one after the other. The fortress of Nograd was struck by lightning, which fired the powder-magazine and blew up the garrison. Finally Buda was besieged and captured in the sight of the Grand Vizier, and after a domination of one hundred and fifty years, the half-moons were hauled down from the bastions and crosses re-occupied their places. And all those who were present at the Diván fulfilled, one by one, the prophecy that they should see Paradise before long. Rislán Pasha fell beneath the walls of Buda at the head of the Janissaries, the Vizier of Buda was throttled by order of Kara Mustafa after the battle was lost, Rifa Aga was drowned in the Danube among the fugitives, Kara Ogli fell defending the ramparts of Buda, Tököly killed Ajas Pasha at the Sultan's command; and, after the fall of Buda, Olaj Beg brought to Kara Mustafa for his own use the silken cord and the purple purse. It was the last purse which Kara Mustafa ever saw, for after his decapitation his head was put inside it. And, finally, the people of Stambul, maddened by so many losses and reinforced by the rebellious Janissaries, rushed upon the Seraglio, cut down the counsellors of the Sultan, and threw the Sultan himself into the same dungeon in which he had let his own brother languish for thirty-nine years. The brother was now set on the throne, and the dethroned Sultan died in the dungeon. And this also was fulfilled that those who had stirred up the Turks to begin the war turned against them at the end of it. Transylvania deposited its oath of homage in the hands of Caraffa, and Michael Teleki, who became a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, opened the gates of the towns and fortresses to German garrisons. The Prince paid the victors thirteen thousand florins, which it took heavy wagons two weeks to convey from Fogaras to Nagyszeben. But Michael Teleki, in addition to his countly escutcheon, got a present of a silver table service which cost ten thousand florins. So Transylvania became imperial territory, and its alliance with the Porte was dissolved. And then it was that God called to Himself the last lovable figure in our history, the virtuous and magnanimous Anna Bornemissza. Only after her death did Apafi feel what his wife had been to him, his guardian-angel, his consoler in all his sorrows, the brightest part of his life, and when that light set, everything around him was doubly dark. Every misfortune, every trouble, now weighed doubly heavy on his mind and heart; he had no longer any refuge against persecuting sorrow. He fled from one town to another like a hunted wild beast which can find no refuge from the dart which transfixes it. At last he barricaded himself in his room, which he did not quit for six weeks; and if visitors came to see him he complained to them like a child: "I am starving to death. I have lost everything. It is a year since I got a farthing from my estates or my mines or my salt-works. If the farrier comes I cannot pay him his bill for my mantle, for I haven't got a stiver. What will become of my son when I am gone, poor little Prince? There's not enough to send him to school." He began to get quite crazy, and could neither eat, drink, nor sleep. The whole day he would stride up and down his room, and utter strange things in a loud voice. What troubled him most was that he must die of hunger. At last those about him hit upon a remedy. Every day they laid purses of money before him and said: "This sum Stephen Apor has sent from your property, and that amount Paul Inezedi has collected from your salt-works. Why should your Highness be anxious when there is such lots of money?" And the next day they presented the same purses to him over again, and invented some fresh story. And this simple deceit somewhat pacified the poor old man, but the old worries had so affected his mind, never very strong at any time, that he could never recover his former spirits. He grew duller and more stupid every day, and often when he lay down he would sleep a couple of days at a stretch. And at last the Almighty had mercy upon him and called him away from this vale of tears; and he went to that land where the Turks plunder not, and there is no warfare. CHAPTER XXXI. THE NEWLY-DRAWN SWORD. The German armies were now in complete possession of Transylvania, the Turks were everywhere driven back and trampled down, the hereditary Prince of Bavaria took Belgrade by storm and put twelve thousand Janissaries to the edge of the sword. Thus the gate of the Turkish Empire was broken open, and the victoriously advancing host, under the Prince of Baden, crushed the remains of the Turkish army at Nish. Then Bulgaria and Albania were subjugated, the sea shore was reached, and only the Hæmus Mountains stood between the invaders and Stambul. The deluge left nothing untouched, even little Wallachia, whose fortunate situation, wild mountains, and villainous roads had hitherto saved it from invasion, saw the approach of the conquering banners. Old S---- was still the Prince, and he now gave a brilliant example of the dexterity of Wallachian diplomacy, which at the same time illustrates the simplicity of his character. The armies invading Wallachia were entrusted to the care of General Heissler, who consequently wrote to Prince S---- informing him that he was advancing on Bucharest through the Transylvanian Alps with ten thousand men, therefore he was to provide winter quarters and provisions for his army, as he intended to winter there. At exactly the same time the Tartar Khan gave the Prince to understand that he intended to invade Moldavia in order that he might follow the movements of the Transylvanian army close at hand. The Prince liked the one proposition as little as the other, so he sent the Tartar Khan's letter to General Heissler bidding him beware, as a great force was coming against him, and he sent Heissler's letter to the Tartar Khan advising him in a friendly sort of way not to move too far as Heissler was now advancing in his rear. Consequently both armies turned aside from the Principality, and Wallachia had to support neither the Germans nor the Tartars. This is the diplomacy of little states. * * * * * Amidst the wildly romantic hills of Lebanon is a pleasant valley for which Nature herself has a peculiar preference. Amidst the gigantic mountains which encircle a vast hollow on every side of it, rises a roundish mound. On level ground it would be accounted a hill, but in the midst of such a range of snowy giants it emerges only like a tiny heap of earth, and to this day nothing grows on it but the cedar--the finest, darkest, most widely spreading specimens of that noble and fragrant tree are here to be found. A foaming mountain stream gurgles down it on both sides, a little wooden bridge connects the opposing banks, and in the midst of the bridge a rock projecting from the water clings to the mountain side. Far away among the blue forests shine forth the white roofless little houses of the city of Edena, which, built against the mountain side, peer forth like some card-built castle, and still farther away through gaps in the hills the Syrian sea is visible. Here in former days on the heights stood the romantic and poetical kiosk of Feriz Beg. The youth, with dogged persistence, continued to live for years in this sublime solitude with the din of battle all around him. The prophecy which he had once pronounced in the Diván was whispered abroad among the people, ran through the army, and as every one of his sayings was severally fulfilled, the more widely there spread in the hearts of the soldiers the superstitious belief that till he seized his sword they would everywhere be defeated, but when he should again appear on the battlefield the fortune of war would turn and become favourable once more to the Ottoman arms. Long ago the Diván had wished to profit by this blind belief, and countless embassies had been sent to the youthful hermit in his solitude announcing the fall of generals, the loss of battles, the pressure of peril. Nothing could move Feriz. To all these tidings he replied: "Thus it must come to pass! Doves do not spring from serpents' eggs. Your rulers are those who took it upon them to wipe out a sacred oath from the patient pages, who tore up and burnt and scattered to the winds the vow that was made before God, and now ye likewise shall be wiped from the page of history and your memory shall be laden with reproaches. Learn ye, therefore, that it is dangerous to play with the name of Allah, and though many of you grow so high that his head touches the Heavens--yet he is but a man, and the earth moves beneath his feet, and presently he shall fall and perish." The men perceived that these words were not so bad as they seemed to be at first sight, and after every fresh defeat, more and more of his old acquaintances came to see him and begged and prayed him to seize his sword once more and let himself be chosen leader of the host. He sternly rejected every offer. No allurement was capable of making him change his resolution. "When the time comes for me to draw my sword," he said, "I will come without asking. That time will come none the quicker for anyone's beseeching, but come it will one day and not tarry." And, indeed, the advent of that time had become a matter of necessity for the Ottoman Empire. The banners of the German Empire were waving in the very heart of Turkey; the Poles had recovered Podolia, the Venetians were on the Turkish islands, and at last Transylvania also broke with the Porte and opened her fortresses to the enemies of the Padishah. The new Sultan collected fresh armies, military enthusiasm was stimulated by great rewards, fresh alliances were formed, and among the new allies the one who enjoyed the greatest confidence was Emeric Tököly, who was proclaimed Prince of Transylvania, and orders were given to the Tartar Khan and the Prince of Moldavia to support him with their forces. Tököly, always avid of fame and glory, threw himself heart and soul into this new enterprise, but it was only when he saw the army with which he was to conquer Transylvania that he had misgivings. His soldiers were good for robbing and burning, they had been used to that for a long time, but when it came to fighting there was no power on earth capable of keeping them together. What could he make of soldiers whose sole knowledge of the art of warfare consisted in running backwards and forwards, whose most sensible weapon was the dart, and who, whenever they heard a gun go off, stuffed up their ears and bolted like so many mice? And with these ragamuffins he was expected to fight regular, highly-disciplined troops. Suddenly an idea occurred to him. He sat down and wrote a letter and delivered it to a swift courier, enjoining him not to rest or tarry till he had placed it in the proper hands. This letter was addressed to Feriz Beg. In it Tököly informed him of the course of events in Transylvania, and it concluded thus: "Behold, what you prophesied has come to pass, those who began the war along with us now continue the war against us. Remember that you held out the promise of joining us when such a time came; fulfil your promise." Feriz Beg got this letter early in the morning, and the moment after he had read it he ordered his stableman instantly to saddle his war-charger, he chose from among his swords those which smote the heaviest, exchanged his grey mantle for a splendid and costly costume, gave a great banquet to all his retainers, and bade them make merry, for in an hour's time, he would be off to the wars. * * * * * The imperial army was making itself quite at home in Albania. Beautiful scenery and beautiful women smiled upon the victors; there was money also and to spare. And soon came the rumour that a gigantic Tartar host was approaching the Albanian mountains, in number exceeding sixty thousand. The imperial army was no more than nine thousand; but they only laughed at the rumour, they had seen far larger armies fly before them. The pick of the Turkish host, the Spahis, the Janissaries, had cast down their arms before them in thousands; while it was the talk of the bazaars that all that the Tartars were good for was to devastate conquered territory. Besides, reinforcements were expected from Hungary, where the Prince of Baden was encamped beneath Nándor-Fehérvár with a numerous army. The leader of the Albanian forces was the Prince of Hanover. He was a pupil of the lately deceased Piccolomini, and though he inherited his valour he was scarcely his equal in wisdom. On hearing of the approach of the Tartar army he assembled his captains and held a council of war. The enemy was assumed to be the old mob which used to turn tail at the first cannon-shot, and could not be overtaken because of the superior swiftness of its horses. And indeed it was the old mob, but a new spirit now inspired it; it followed a new leader whom the enemy had never put to flight or beaten, and that leader was Feriz Beg. Tököly's letter had speedily brought the young hero all the way from Syria to Stambul to offer his sword and his genius to the new Sultan, and the Sultan had charged him to lead the Tartar hordes against the imperial army. When Feriz, from the top of a hill, saw the forces of the Prince of Hanover all wedged together in a compact mass on the plain before him like a huge living machine only awaiting a propelling hand to set it in motion, he quickly sent the Tartars who were with him back into the fir-woods that they might well cover their darts with the tar and turpentine exuding from the trees, and this done, he sent them to gallop round the Prince's camp and take up their position well within range. The Prince observed the movement but left them alone; oftentimes had the Turks attempted a simple assault upon the German camp; oftentimes had their threefold superior forces surrounded the small, well-ordered camp and assaulted it from every side, and the Germans used always politely to allow them to come within range of their guns and then discharge all their artillery at once--and generally that was the end of the whole affair. Feriz, however, made no assault upon them, but got his Tartars to surround them, commanding them to set their darts on fire and discharge them into the air so that they might fall down into the German camp. According to this plan they could fire at the enemy at a much greater distance off than the enemy could fire upon them, for the dart, flying in a curve could reach further than the straight-going musket balls of those days, and wherever it fell its sharp point inflicted a wound, whereas the bullet was often spent before it reached its mark. Suddenly a flaming flood of darts darkened the air and the burning resinous bolts fell from all sides into the crowded ranks of the imperial army; the points of the darts fastened in the backs of the horses, the burning drops fell upon the faces and garments of the warriors, burning through the texture and inflicting grievous wounds; the horses began to rear violently at this unexpected attack; the gunners, cursing and swearing, began to discharge their guns anyhow at the enemy; nobody paid any attention to the orders of the general, discipline was quite at an end; the burning darts were destructive of all military tactics, for there was no refuge from them, and every dart struck its man. Then Feriz Beg blew with the trumpets, and suddenly the imperial troops were attacked from all sides. They were unable to repel the attack in the regular way, but intermingled with their assailants, fought man to man. The picked German troopers quitted themselves like men, not one of them departed without taking another with him to the next world, but the Turks outnumbered them, and just when the Prince's army was exhausted by the attacks of the Tartars, Feriz brought forward his well-rested reserves, who burned with the desire to wash out the shame of former defeats. The Prince of Hanover fell on the battle-field with the rest of his army. Not one escaped to tell the tale. This was the first victory which turned the fortunes of war once more in favour of the Turks after so many defeats. CHAPTER XXXII. THE LAST DAY. It was well known in Transylvania that the Porte had proclaimed Tököly Prince and given into his hands armies wherewith he might invade the Principality and conquer it, so General Heissler gave orders to the counties and the Szeklers to rise up in defence of the realm, which they accordingly did. The Hungarian forces were commanded by Balthasar Mackási and Michael Teleki himself; the leader of the Germans was Heissler, with Generals Noscher and Magni, and Colonel Doria under him, all of them heroic soldiers of fortune, who, all the way from Vienna to Wallachia, had never seen the Turks otherwise than as corpses or fugitives. When Tököly was approaching through Wallachia with his forces, Heissler quickly closed all the passes, and placed three regiments at the Iron Gates, while he himself took up a position in the Pass of Bozza, and there pitched his camp amidst the mountains. The encamped forces were merry and sprightly enough, there was lots to eat and drink of all sorts, and the Szeklers were quite close to their wives and houses, so that they did not feel a bit homesick--only Teleki was perpetually dissatisfied. He would have liked the forces to be marching continually from one pass to another and sentinels to be standing on guard night and day on every footpath which led into the kingdom. The third week after the camp had been pitched at Bozza he suddenly said to the general with a very anxious face: "Sir, what if Tököly were to appear at some other gate of the kingdom while we are lying here?" "Every avenue is closed against him," answered Heissler. "But suppose he got in before we came here?" "The trouble then would not be how he got in but how he could get out again." But Teleki wanted to show that he also knew something of the science of warfare, so he said with the grave face of an habitual counsellor: "I do not think it expedient that we worthy soldiers should be crammed up into a corner of the kingdom. In my opinion it would be much safer if, after guarding every pass, we took up a position equi-distant between Törcsvár and Bozza." Now for once Teleki was right, but for that very reason Heissler was all the more put out. It was intolerable that a lay-general should suggest something to him which he could not gainsay. And the worst of it was Teleki would not leave the general alone. "I am participating in nothing here," said he, "make use of me, give me something to do, and I will do it--occupation is what I want." "I'll give it you at once," said Heissler, and putting his arm through Teleki's he led him to his tent, there made him sit down beside him at a round table, sent one of the yawning guards to summon Noscher, Magni, Doria and the other generals, made them sit down by the side of Teleki, sat down at the table himself, and drawing a pack of cards from his pocket, gave it to Teleki with the words: "Here's some occupation for you--you deal!" "What, sir!" burst forth Teleki, quite upset by the jest, "play at cards when the enemy stands before us?" "How can we be better employed when the enemy is _not_ before us? Do you know how to play at landsknecht?" "I do not." "Then we'll teach you." And they did teach him, for in a couple of hours they had won from him a couple of hundred ducats, whereupon Teleki, on the pretext that he had no more money, retired from the game. It was not the loss of a little money which vexed him so much as the scant respect paid to his counsels. The other gentlemen continued the game. Heissler suddenly by a grand coup won all the ready-money of the other generals, so that at last there was a great heap of thalers and ducats in front of him, and his three-cornered hat was filled to the brim with money. The losing party tried to console itself with jests. "Well, well! lucky at cards, luckless in love!" "Eh!" said Heissler, sweeping together his winnings, "I have only had one love in my life, and that is on a battlefield, but there I have always been lucky." At that moment a rapid galloping was heard, and after a brief parley with the guard outside, a dusty dragoon courier entered the tent and whispered breathlessly in Heissler's ear: "Tököly's advance guard is before Törcsvár, it attacked and cut down the troops posted in the pass, only the Szeklers still hold out; if we don't come quickly the pass will be taken." Heissler suddenly swept the cards from the table, and snatching up his hat so that the money in it rolled away in every direction, he clapped it on his head, and drawing his sword exclaimed: "To horse, gentlemen! Quick! Towards Törcsvár! We shall arrive in good time, I know!" "Well! wasn't I right?" growled Teleki. "Oh, there's no harm done! Blow the trumpets, we must strike our tents; let the camp fires burn, and at the third sound of the trumpet let everyone advance towards Törcsvár. A company and a couple of mortars will be enough to guard the pass. All right now, Mr. Michael Teleki!" Then he also took horse. Teleki too hastened back to his levies, and soon the whole host was trotting on in the dark towards Törcsvár. It was the 19th August, such a silent summer night that not a leaf was stirring. Against the beautiful starry sky rose the majestic snowy Alps which encircle Transylvania within their mighty chain; everything was still, only now and then through the melancholy night resounded the din and bustle of the warriors hurrying towards Törcsvár. Here in the mountain-chasm a wide opening is visible which presently contracts so much that two carriages can scarce advance along it abreast. The road goes deep down between two rocks, and if a few hundred resolute and determined men planted themselves in that place, they could hold it against the largest armies. On the other side of Moldavia, looking downwards, could be seen the camp-fires of the hosts of Tököly, who was encamped on the farther side of the Alps, occupying a vast extent of ground. In front all was dark. After the first surprise caused by some hundreds of dragoons who had penetrated into Moldavia, the Szeklers had quickly blocked the pass by felling trees across it, retired to the mountain summits, and received the advancing Tartars with such showers of stones that they were compelled to desist from any further advance and turn back again. Great commotion was observable in the Turkish camp. The Tartars were roasting a whole ox on a huge spit, and cut pieces off it while it was roasting; some jovial Wallachians, a little elated by wine, began dancing their national dances; on a hill the Hungarian hussars were blaring their _farogatos_, whose penetrating voices frequently pierced the most distant recess of the snowy Alps. But just because the camp had begun making merry the outposts had been carefully disposed. The leaders of the host were youths in age but veterans in military experience; they were keeping watch for everyone. They met as they were going their rounds and, without observing it, strayed somewhat from the camp and advanced without a word along a mountain path. At last Feriz broke the silence by remarking gravely to Tököly: "Is it not desperating to see a mountain before you and not be able to fly?" "Especially when your desires are on the other side of that mountain." "What are your desires?" said Feriz bitterly, "in comparison with mine; you have only a thirst for glory, I have a thirst for blood." "But mine is a still stronger impulse," said Tököly; "I have a wife." "Ah! I understand, and you want to see your wife? I also should like to see her if I am not slain. And is the lady worthy of you?" "One must have lived very far from this kingdom not to have heard of her," said Tököly proudly. "My name has not given such glory to Helen as her name has to me. When everyone in Hungary laid down their arms, and I myself fled from the kingdom, she herself remained in the fortress of Munkács and defended it as valiantly as any man could do. Helen stood like a man upon the bastions amidst the whirring of the bullets and the thunder of the guns, extinguished the bombs cast into the fortress with huge moistened buffalo-skins, fired off the cannons against the besiegers with her own hands, and cut down the soldiers who attempted to storm the walls, spiked their guns, and burnt their tents." At this Feriz grew enthusiastic. "We will save this brave woman; is she still defending herself?" "No. My chief confidant--a man whom I trusted would carry out my ideas, a man whom I found a beggar and made a gentleman--betrayed her, and they now hold her captive. Believe me, Feriz, if they gave her back to me I would perchance for ever forget my dream of glory and renounce the crown I seek, but to win her back I'll go through hell itself, and you will see that I shall go through this mountain chain also, for though I have not the strength to fly over it, I have the patience to crawl over it." Feriz Beg sighed gloomily. "Alas! I have no one for whose sake I might hasten into battle." Early next morning Tököly came over to Feriz's quarters and told him that he had just received tidings that Heissler had arrived during the night, having galloped without stopping through Szent Peter to Törcsvár. Teleki, too, was with him. That name seemed to electrify the young Turk. He leapt quickly from his couch, and, seizing his sword, raised it towards Heaven and cried with a savage expression which had never been on his face before: "I thank thee, Allah, that thou hast delivered him into my hands!" The two young generals then consulted together in private for about an hour, after sending everyone out of their tent. Then they came forth and reviewed their forces. Feriz selected his best Janissaries and Spahis, Tököly the Hungarian hussars and the swiftest of the Tartars, and with this little army, numbering about six thousand, they marched off without saying whither. The vast camp meanwhile was intrusted to the care of the Prince of Moldavia, who was charged to stand face to face night and day over against the Transylvanian army, and not move from the spot. Meanwhile the two young leaders, with their picked band, made their way among the hills by the dark, sylvan mountain paths, whose wilderness no human foot had ever yet trod. Anyone looking down upon them from the rocks above would have called their enterprise foolhardy. Now they had to crawl down precipitous slopes on their hands and knees; now gigantic rocks barred their way, which enclosed them within a narrow, mountainous gorge whence there was no exit; here and there they had to cling on to the roots of the stout shrubs growing out of the crevices of the rocks, or pull themselves up, man by man, and horse by horse, by means of ropes fastened to the trunks of trees. In these regions nought dwelt but savage birds of prey, and the startled golden eagle looked down in wonder from his stony lair at the panting, toiling host--what did such a multitude of men seek in that desolate wilderness? * * * * * The Transylvanian gentlemen from the vantage-point of a lofty mountain ridge watched the two opposing hosts facing each other in front of the defiles. Now the Szeklers would burst forth from the woods on the straying Tartars and drive them back to their tents, and now like a disturbing swarm of wasps the Tartars and Wallachians would force the Szeklers back to the very borders of the forest. It was great fun to watch all this from the lofty ridge where stood Heissler, Doria, and Teleki observing the manly sport through long telescopes. Suddenly the sentinels brought to Heissler a Wallachian who had given the pickets to understand that he had brought a message from the Prince of Wallachia to the commander-in-chief. "No doubt it is to tell you once more not to go into Wallachia again, for the enemy has eaten it up," said Teleki, turning to Heissler, who had got to the bottom of the Prince's former craftiness. "What is your master's message?" he said, turning towards the Wallachian. "He sends his respects, and bids you be on your guard against Tököly, for he has a large army and is very crafty; but instead of opposing him in the direction of Wallachia you would do better if you saw to it that he did not break into Transylvania, and you ought to beware of this all the more as only three days ago he departed from the main host along with his chief Sirdar, with a picked army of six thousand men, which has since vanished as completely as if the earth had swallowed it up." "What did I say?" remarked Heissler, with a smile to Teleki. "You may go back, my son, from whence you came," he said to the Szekler. But Teleki shook his head at this. "It is quite possible," said he, "that while we are halting here, Tököly may issue forth somewhere behind our very backs." Heissler pointed at the snow-capped mountains. "Can anything but a bird get through those?" "If Tököly lead the way--yes." "Your Excellency has a great respect for that gentleman." "Truly, Mr. General, I should advise you to summon hither the regiments left at the iron gate, and bring up some more cannons." Heissler did not even reply, but beckoned to him to be silent. At that instant a wild yell suddenly struck upon the ear of the general, and looking back towards Zernyest he saw a large column of smoke rising heavenwards, while the outposts came galloping up towards the camp. "What is that?" "Tököly has got through the mountains!" was the terrifying report, "the Tartars have burnt Toháir and plundered the camp." "To horse, to arms, every man!" roared Heissler, and drawing his sword leaped upon his horse. Doria, Noscher, and Magni quickly marshalled their squadrons, Macskári quickly got together his squadrons, and descended into the plain. They had scarce got into battle array when they were joined by the boyar Balacsán, the refugee Moldavian nobleman, who kept on foot two regiments of the Hungarians and Wallachians at his own expense. The cry of the ravaging Tartars was now audible close at hand in the village of Toháir, which was blazing away under the very eyes of the Transylvanian hosts. Balacsán's soldiers, eager for the fray, begged leave of Heissler to drive them from the village, and rushing upon them with a wild yell, quickly drove the Tartars back through the burning streets; while Heissler, with the main body of the army, galloped towards Zernyest with the greatest haste. He also succeeded in occupying it before Tököly had reached it. Here the soldiers rested after their tiring gallop. Heissler distributed wine and brandy among them, then marshalled them, and sent to the front the military chaplains. Two Jesuits, crucifix in hand, confessed all the German soldiers, and the Rev. Mr. Gernyeszeg preached a pious discourse to the Calvinists. Meanwhile Tököly's army had advanced upon Zernyest. On one side of him were the snowy Alps, on the other a reed-grown morass, which in the hot days of August was quite dried up and could easily be crossed. As soon as the Szeklers saw the Turks, with their characteristic pigheadedness they seized their pikes and would have rushed upon them with their usual war-cry: "Jesus! Help, Jesus! Help!" Their leaders drove them back by beating them with their sword-blades, and exhausted the whole vocabulary of abuse and condemnation before they could prevent them prematurely from beginning the battle. Teleki meanwhile summoned to his side his trusty servant, and as he was dressed in a black habit--for they were still in mourning for the Prince--with few jewels on it, he detached his diamond aigrette and gold chain, and adding his signet-ring to them, gave them to the servant that he might take them before the battle to Gernyeszeg, and give them to his daughter, Dame Michael Vay. The old servant would have asked why he did this, but Teleki turned away from him and beckoned him to go away. Then he had his favourite charger, Kálmán, brought forth, and after stroking its neck tenderly, trotted off to the front of his forces and addressed them in these words: "My brave Transylvanians, now is the time to fight together valiantly for glory and liberty in the service of his Imperial Majesty in order to deliver our country, our wives and children, from Turkish bondage and the tyranny of that evil ally of theirs, Tököly, for otherwise you and your descendants have nought but eternal slavery to expect. Grieve not for me if I, your general, fall on the field of battle. Behold, I bring my white beard among you, and am ready to die." While he was saying these words his adjutant, Macskári, came to him and began to explain that the Transylvanians had been placed in the rear and were grumbling loudly at having been so set aside. On hearing this Teleki at once galloped up to Heissler. "Sir," said he, "you are a bad judge of the Hungarian temperament in warfare if you place them in the rear; the Szekler, in particular, has a great aptitude for the assault, but don't expect help from him if you keep him waiting in the rear till the front ranks are broken." Generals, on the eve of a battle are, very naturally, somewhat impatient of advice, especially if it be delivered by a civilian. Heissler therefore snubbed the minister somewhat unmercifully, whereupon Teleki galloped back to his men without saying another word. Meanwhile the Turkish army had slowly begun to move; on the left wing a regiment of Tartars stealthily entered the reeds of the morass and began to surround the right wing of the Transylvanians; but their experienced general, perceiving their approach from the undulatory movement of the reed-stalks, speedily ordered Doria to advance against them with six squadrons of dragoons, whereupon Teleki also sent thirteen regiments of Szeklers against them under Michael Henter, and soon the two stealthily crouching hosts could be seen in collision. The Szeklers, with a wild yell, rushed upon the Tartars, who turned tail after the first onset, and fled still deeper among the reeds. Doria pursued them everywhere, the discharge of the artillery fired the reeds in several places, and they began to burn over the heads of the combatants. At that moment Tököly suddenly blew the trumpets and advanced into the plain with thirty-two squadrons, who rushed upon the foe with a sky-rending howl. There was a roll of musketry as the assailants drew near, and nine of the thirty-two squadrons bit the dust, hundreds of riders fell from their horses. But the rest did not turn back as they used to do. Feriz Beg was leading them, they saw his sword flashing in front of them, and felt sure of victory. At the moment of the firing a bullet had struck the youth in the breast; but he regarded it not, he only saw Teleki before him, dressed in black. He recognised him from afar, and galloped straight towards him. Beneath the savage assault of the Turkish horsemen the German dragoons gave way in a moment, their ranks were scattered; against the slim darts of the Spahis and the light csakanyis of the hussars the straight sword and the heavy cuirass were but a poor defence. The first line was cast back upon the second, and when General Noscher was struck down by a dart in the forehead, the centre also was broken. The Szeklers simply looked on at the battle from the rear. "What think you, comrades," they said to one another, "if they only brought us here to look on, wouldn't it be better to look on from yonder hill?" And with that they shouldered their pikes, and without doing the slightest harm to the Turks, went off in a body. The cavalry, who still had some stomach in them, on perceiving the flight of the infantry, also suddenly lost heart, and giving their horses the reins, scampered off in every direction. Heissler thus was left alone on the battle-field, and up to the last moment strenuously endeavoured to retrieve the fortunes of the day. All in vain. Balacsán fell before his very eyes on the left wing, and shortly afterwards, General Magni staggered towards him scarce recognisable, for he had a fearful slash right across his head, which covered his face with blood, and his left arm was pierced by a dart. It was not about himself that he was anxious, however, for he grasped Heissler's bridle and dragged him away. Heissler, full of desperation, fought against his own men, who carried him from the field by force. At last he reached the top of a hillock and, looking back, perceived one division still fighting on the battlefield. It was the picked division of Doria who, in its pursuit of the Tartars, had been cut off from the rest of the army, and seeing that it was isolated had hastily formed into a square and stood against the whole of the victorious host, fighting obstinately and refusing to surrender. This was too much for Heissler. He tore himself loose from his escort, and returned alone to the battlefield. A few stray horsemen followed him, and he tried to cut his way to Doria through the intervening hussars. A tall and handsome cavalier intercepted him. "Surrender, general, it is no shame to you. I am Emeric Tököly." Heissler returned no answer but galloped straight at him, and, whirling his sword above his head, aimed a blow at the Hungarian leader. Tököly called to those around him to stand back. Alone he fought against so worthy an enemy till a violent blow broke in twain the sword of the German general, and he was obliged to surrender. Meanwhile Doria's division was overborne by superior forces; he himself fell beneath his horse, which was shot under him, and was taken prisoner. The rest fled. Michael Teleki fled likewise, trusting in his good steed Kálmán. He heard behind him the cries of his pursuers; there was one form in particular that he did not wish to have behind him, and it seemed to Teleki as if he were about to see this form. This was the chief sirdar, Feriz Beg. Mortally wounded though he was, he did not forget his mortal anger, and though his blood flowed in streams, he still felt strength enough in his arm to shed the blood of his enemy. Suddenly Michael directed his flight towards a field of wheat, when his horse stumbled and fell with him. Here Feriz Beg overtook the minister, and whirling around his sword, exclaimed: "That blow is from Denis Banfy!" Teleki raised his sword to defend himself, but at that name his hand shook and he received a slash across the face, whereupon his sword fell from his hand; but he still held his hand before his streaming eyes and only heard these words: "This blow is for Paul Béldi! This blow is for the children of Paul Béldi! This blow is for Transylvania!" That last blow was the heaviest of all! Teleki sank down on the ground a corpse. Feriz Beg gazed upwards with a look of transport, sighed deeply, and then drooped suddenly over his horse's neck. He was dead. * * * * * Next day when they found Teleki among the slain, and brought him to Tököly, the young Prince cried: "Heh! bald head! bald head! if you had never lived in Transylvania so much blood would not have flowed here." Thus the prophecy of Magyari was fulfilled. Then Tököly ordered the naked, plundered corpse to be clothed in garments of his own and sent to his widow at Görgéncy. In exchange for the captured generals, Heissler and Doria, Tököly got back his wife Helen. This was his greatest gain from the war. Both of them now sleep far away from their native land in the valley of Nicomedia. THE END. _Jarrold and Sons, Limited, The Empire Press, Norwich._ Dr. Maurus Jókai's Novels _The Green Book_ _Black Diamonds_ _Pretty Michal_ _The Lion of Janina_ _A Hungarian Nabob_ _Dr. Dumany's Wife_ _The Poor Plutocrats_ _The Nameless Castle_ _Debts of Honor_ _The Day of Wrath_ _Eyes Like the Sea_ _Halil the Pedlar (The White Rose)_ _'Midst the Wild Carpathians_ _The Slaves of the Padishah._ NEW & RECENT FICTION. _Crown 8vo, 6s._ =The Slaves of the Padishah=, or, "The Turks in Hungary." By MAURUS JÓKAI. =The Daughter of the Dawn.= By REGINALD HODDER. Illustrated by HAROLD PIFFARD. ='Neath the Hoof of the Tartar=, or, "The Scourge of God." By BARON NICHOLAS JÓSIKA. Translated by SELINA GAYE. With Preface by R. NISBET BAIN. =The Golden Dwarf.= By R. NORMAN SILVER. =More Tales from Tolstoi.= Translated from the Russian by R. NISBET BAIN. With Biography brought up to date. =Distant Lamps.= By JESSIE REUSS. =The Jest of Fate.= By PAUL LAWRENCE DUNBAR. =Over Stony Ways:= A Romance of Tennyson-Land. By EMILY M. BRYANT. =Liege Lady.= By LILIAN S. ARNOLD. FOURTH EDITION. =Tales from Tolstoi.= Translated from the Russian by R. NISBET BAIN. With Biography of COUNT LEO TOLSTOI. SIXTH EDITION. =Tales from Gorky.= Translated from the Russian of MAXIM GORKY by R. NISBET BAIN. =Halil the Pedlar.= By MAURUS JÓKAI. Translated by R. NISBET BAIN. =Autumn Glory.= By RENÉ BAZIN. Translated by ELLEN WAUGH. LONDON: JARROLD & SONS, 10 & 11, Warwick Lane, E.C. Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors present in the original edition have been corrected. The advertisements were moved from the front of the book to the back. A period was added after "Distant Lamps". In Chapter I, "deposited it in front of the Divan" was changed to "deposited it in front of the Diván". In Chapter III, "Feriz Beg grew quiet furious at Tököly's cold repose" was changed to "Feriz Beg grew quite furious at Tököly's cold repose". In Chapter IV, a quotation mark was added after "commandants of the fortress of Szathmár". In Chapter V, "as to everyone of which he was able to prove" was changed to "as to every one of which he was able to prove", "found everthing wasted and ravaged" was changed to "found everything wasted and ravaged", and "we are have not come here for you to pepper us" was changed to "we have not come here for you to pepper us". In Chapter VI, "s ized his shaggy little horse" was changed to "seized his shaggy little horse". In Chapter VII, "he had put the Szathmàrians" was changed to "he had put the Szathmárians", "for the Szathmàr army" was changed to "for the Szathmár army", "he had only required of Kàszonyi" was changed to "he had only required of Kászonyi", and "kept them well supplied them with drinking-water" was changed to "kept them well supplied with drinking-water". In Chapter VIII, a malformed ellipsis in "That damsel's name is Azrael ... Allah is mighty!" was corrected. In Chapter IX, "they ward of with their bosoms" was changed to "they ward off with their bosoms", and "a female Ibbis" was changed to "a female Iblis". In Chapter X, a quotation mark was removed before "Eh, eh! worthy Beg, thou must needs have been drinking". In Chapter XI, a quotation mark was added before "the camp is now aroused". In Chapter XII, "Ersekújvar" was changed to "Érsekújvár". In Chapter XIII, "a dirty Turkish cavasse in sordid rags, entered the courtyard" was changed to "a dirty Turkish cavasse in sordid rags entered the courtyard", "without stopping from Szamosujvár" was changed to "without stopping from Szamosújvár", and "she reached Szamosujvár in the early morning" was changed to "she reached Szamosújvár in the early morning". In Chapter XIV, "the panic of Nagyened" was changed to "the panic of Nagyenyed", and "for Béldi lives at Bodolá" was changed to "for Béldi lives at Bodola". In Chapter XV, "well aquainted with the mood of an eastern Despot" was changed to "well acquainted with the mood of an eastern Despot", "for him it to level towns to the ground" was changed to "for him to level towns to the ground", and a malformed ellipsis in "Mercy! ... Mercy!" was corrected. In Chapter XVI, "the time when Haissar was burnt" was changed to "the time when Hiassar was burnt", "I sware by Allah it is not to be done" was changed to "I swear by Allah it is not to be done", "whispered in her hear with malicious joy" was changed to "whispered in her ear with malicious joy", "in all probabilty been helped" was changed to "in all probability been helped", and "sorry matted coveyance" was changed to "sorry matted conveyance". In Chapter XIX, a period was added after the chapter number, "Rest to night?" was changed to "Rest to-night?", and "plunged over into the abss" was changed to "plunged over into the abyss". In Chapter XX, "the muderris in his official capacity" was changed to "the müderris in his official capacity". In Chapter XXI, a period was changed to a question mark after "where have you put it", and "reached Michael Teleki at Gernyizeg" was changed to "reached Michael Teleki at Gernyeszeg". In Chapter XXII, a period was changed to a comma after "shaking his chains". In Chapter XXIV, "demanded an audience of the noble Danó Sôlymosi" was changed to "demanded an audience of the noble Danó Sólymosi". In Chapter XXV, "You, Züfikar, my son" was changed to "You, Zülfikar, my son", and "Körtörely, the old hound" was changed to "Körtövely, the old hound". In Chapter XXVII, "Thus Aranki's letter" was changed to "Thus Aranka's letter", a missing period was added after "as if nothing had happened", and a missing quotation mark was added after "we cannot now withdraw our feet". In Chapter XXX, "Ersekujvár" was changed to "Érsekújvár", and "During the seige of Vienna" was changed to "During the siege of Vienna". In Chapter XXXI, "always arid of fame and glory" was changed to "always avid of fame and glory". In Chapter XXXII, a period was added after the chapter number, and a period was changed to a question mark after "And is the lady worthy of you". The original text contained numerous inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation, frequently reflecting inconsistent Anglicization of Hungarian names. In some cases, when the translator's preferred form was obvious, the spelling has been modified to reflect the dominant usage or to conform with the original Hungarian text; in many cases, where no single spelling was obviously preferred, inconsistent spellings have been retained. 
345	----	DRACULA DRACULA _by_ Bram Stoker [Illustration: colophon] NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP _Publishers_ Copyright, 1897, in the United States of America, according to Act of Congress, by Bram Stoker [_All rights reserved._] PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y. TO MY DEAR FRIEND HOMMY-BEG CONTENTS CHAPTER I Page Jonathan Harker's Journal 1 CHAPTER II Jonathan Harker's Journal 14 CHAPTER III Jonathan Harker's Journal 26 CHAPTER IV Jonathan Harker's Journal 38 CHAPTER V Letters--Lucy and Mina 51 CHAPTER VI Mina Murray's Journal 59 CHAPTER VII Cutting from "The Dailygraph," 8 August 71 CHAPTER VIII Mina Murray's Journal 84 CHAPTER IX Mina Murray's Journal 98 CHAPTER X Mina Murray's Journal 111 CHAPTER XI Lucy Westenra's Diary 124 CHAPTER XII Dr. Seward's Diary 136 CHAPTER XIII Dr. Seward's Diary 152 CHAPTER XIV Mina Harker's Journal 167 CHAPTER XV Dr. Seward's Diary 181 CHAPTER XVI Dr. Seward's Diary 194 CHAPTER XVII Dr. Seward's Diary 204 CHAPTER XVIII Dr. Seward's Diary 216 CHAPTER XIX Jonathan Harker's Journal 231 CHAPTER XX Jonathan Harker's Journal 243 CHAPTER XXI Dr. Seward's Diary 256 CHAPTER XXII Jonathan Harker's Journal 269 CHAPTER XXIII Dr. Seward's Diary 281 CHAPTER XXIV Dr. Seward's Phonograph Diary, spoken by Van Helsing 294 CHAPTER XXV Dr. Seward's Diary 308 CHAPTER XXVI Dr. Seward's Diary 322 CHAPTER XXVII Mina Harker's Journal 338 DRACULA CHAPTER I JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL (_Kept in shorthand._) _3 May. Bistritz._--Left Munich at 8:35 P. M., on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible. The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East; the most western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish rule. We left in pretty good time, and came after nightfall to Klausenburgh. Here I stopped for the night at the Hotel Royale. I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty. (_Mem._, get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter, and he said it was called "paprika hendl," and that, as it was a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians. I found my smattering of German very useful here; indeed, I don't know how I should be able to get on without it. Having had some time at my disposal when in London, I had visited the British Museum, and made search among the books and maps in the library regarding Transylvania; it had struck me that some foreknowledge of the country could hardly fail to have some importance in dealing with a nobleman of that country. I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe. I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare with our own Ordnance Survey maps; but I found that Bistritz, the post town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well-known place. I shall enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when I talk over my travels with Mina. In the population of Transylvania there are four distinct nationalities: Saxons in the South, and mixed with them the Wallachs, who are the descendants of the Dacians; Magyars in the West, and Szekelys in the East and North. I am going among the latter, who claim to be descended from Attila and the Huns. This may be so, for when the Magyars conquered the country in the eleventh century they found the Huns settled in it. I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting. (_Mem._, I must ask the Count all about them.) I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams. There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe, and was still thirsty. Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then. I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was "mamaliga," and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call "impletata." (_Mem._, get recipe for this also.) I had to hurry breakfast, for the train started a little before eight, or rather it ought to have done so, for after rushing to the station at 7:30 I had to sit in the carriage for more than an hour before we began to move. It seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunctual are the trains. What ought they to be in China? All day long we seemed to dawdle through a country which was full of beauty of every kind. Sometimes we saw little towns or castles on the top of steep hills such as we see in old missals; sometimes we ran by rivers and streams which seemed from the wide stony margin on each side of them to be subject to great floods. It takes a lot of water, and running strong, to sweep the outside edge of a river clear. At every station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds, and in all sorts of attire. Some of them were just like the peasants at home or those I saw coming through France and Germany, with short jackets and round hats and home-made trousers; but others were very picturesque. The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were very clumsy about the waist. They had all full white sleeves of some kind or other, and most of them had big belts with a lot of strips of something fluttering from them like the dresses in a ballet, but of course there were petticoats under them. The strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who were more barbarian than the rest, with their big cow-boy hats, great baggy dirty-white trousers, white linen shirts, and enormous heavy leather belts, nearly a foot wide, all studded over with brass nails. They wore high boots, with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair and heavy black moustaches. They are very picturesque, but do not look prepossessing. On the stage they would be set down at once as some old Oriental band of brigands. They are, however, I am told, very harmless and rather wanting in natural self-assertion. It was on the dark side of twilight when we got to Bistritz, which is a very interesting old place. Being practically on the frontier--for the Borgo Pass leads from it into Bukovina--it has had a very stormy existence, and it certainly shows marks of it. Fifty years ago a series of great fires took place, which made terrible havoc on five separate occasions. At the very beginning of the seventeenth century it underwent a siege of three weeks and lost 13,000 people, the casualties of war proper being assisted by famine and disease. Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel, which I found, to my great delight, to be thoroughly old-fashioned, for of course I wanted to see all I could of the ways of the country. I was evidently expected, for when I got near the door I faced a cheery-looking elderly woman in the usual peasant dress--white undergarment with long double apron, front, and back, of coloured stuff fitting almost too tight for modesty. When I came close she bowed and said, "The Herr Englishman?" "Yes," I said, "Jonathan Harker." She smiled, and gave some message to an elderly man in white shirt-sleeves, who had followed her to the door. He went, but immediately returned with a letter:-- "My Friend.--Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well to-night. At three to-morrow the diligence will start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage will await you and will bring you to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land. "Your friend, "DRACULA." _4 May._--I found that my landlord had got a letter from the Count, directing him to secure the best place on the coach for me; but on making inquiries as to details he seemed somewhat reticent, and pretended that he could not understand my German. This could not be true, because up to then he had understood it perfectly; at least, he answered my questions exactly as if he did. He and his wife, the old lady who had received me, looked at each other in a frightened sort of way. He mumbled out that the money had been sent in a letter, and that was all he knew. When I asked him if he knew Count Dracula, and could tell me anything of his castle, both he and his wife crossed themselves, and, saying that they knew nothing at all, simply refused to speak further. It was so near the time of starting that I had no time to ask any one else, for it was all very mysterious and not by any means comforting. Just before I was leaving, the old lady came up to my room and said in a very hysterical way: "Must you go? Oh! young Herr, must you go?" She was in such an excited state that she seemed to have lost her grip of what German she knew, and mixed it all up with some other language which I did not know at all. I was just able to follow her by asking many questions. When I told her that I must go at once, and that I was engaged on important business, she asked again: "Do you know what day it is?" I answered that it was the fourth of May. She shook her head as she said again: "Oh, yes! I know that! I know that, but do you know what day it is?" On my saying that I did not understand, she went on: "It is the eve of St. George's Day. Do you not know that to-night, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to?" She was in such evident distress that I tried to comfort her, but without effect. Finally she went down on her knees and implored me not to go; at least to wait a day or two before starting. It was all very ridiculous but I did not feel comfortable. However, there was business to be done, and I could allow nothing to interfere with it. I therefore tried to raise her up, and said, as gravely as I could, that I thanked her, but my duty was imperative, and that I must go. She then rose and dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix from her neck offered it to me. I did not know what to do, for, as an English Churchman, I have been taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous, and yet it seemed so ungracious to refuse an old lady meaning so well and in such a state of mind. She saw, I suppose, the doubt in my face, for she put the rosary round my neck, and said, "For your mother's sake," and went out of the room. I am writing up this part of the diary whilst I am waiting for the coach, which is, of course, late; and the crucifix is still round my neck. Whether it is the old lady's fear, or the many ghostly traditions of this place, or the crucifix itself, I do not know, but I am not feeling nearly as easy in my mind as usual. If this book should ever reach Mina before I do, let it bring my good-bye. Here comes the coach! * * * * * _5 May. The Castle._--The grey of the morning has passed, and the sun is high over the distant horizon, which seems jagged, whether with trees or hills I know not, for it is so far off that big things and little are mixed. I am not sleepy, and, as I am not to be called till I awake, naturally I write till sleep comes. There are many odd things to put down, and, lest who reads them may fancy that I dined too well before I left Bistritz, let me put down my dinner exactly. I dined on what they called "robber steak"--bits of bacon, onion, and beef, seasoned with red pepper, and strung on sticks and roasted over the fire, in the simple style of the London cat's meat! The wine was Golden Mediasch, which produces a queer sting on the tongue, which is, however, not disagreeable. I had only a couple of glasses of this, and nothing else. When I got on the coach the driver had not taken his seat, and I saw him talking with the landlady. They were evidently talking of me, for every now and then they looked at me, and some of the people who were sitting on the bench outside the door--which they call by a name meaning "word-bearer"--came and listened, and then looked at me, most of them pityingly. I could hear a lot of words often repeated, queer words, for there were many nationalities in the crowd; so I quietly got my polyglot dictionary from my bag and looked them out. I must say they were not cheering to me, for amongst them were "Ordog"--Satan, "pokol"--hell, "stregoica"--witch, "vrolok" and "vlkoslak"--both of which mean the same thing, one being Slovak and the other Servian for something that is either were-wolf or vampire. (_Mem._, I must ask the Count about these superstitions) When we started, the crowd round the inn door, which had by this time swelled to a considerable size, all made the sign of the cross and pointed two fingers towards me. With some difficulty I got a fellow-passenger to tell me what they meant; he would not answer at first, but on learning that I was English, he explained that it was a charm or guard against the evil eye. This was not very pleasant for me, just starting for an unknown place to meet an unknown man; but every one seemed so kind-hearted, and so sorrowful, and so sympathetic that I could not but be touched. I shall never forget the last glimpse which I had of the inn-yard and its crowd of picturesque figures, all crossing themselves, as they stood round the wide archway, with its background of rich foliage of oleander and orange trees in green tubs clustered in the centre of the yard. Then our driver, whose wide linen drawers covered the whole front of the box-seat--"gotza" they call them--cracked his big whip over his four small horses, which ran abreast, and we set off on our journey. I soon lost sight and recollection of ghostly fears in the beauty of the scene as we drove along, although had I known the language, or rather languages, which my fellow-passengers were speaking, I might not have been able to throw them off so easily. Before us lay a green sloping land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the road. There was everywhere a bewildering mass of fruit blossom--apple, plum, pear, cherry; and as we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals. In and out amongst these green hills of what they call here the "Mittel Land" ran the road, losing itself as it swept round the grassy curve, or was shut out by the straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the hillsides like tongues of flame. The road was rugged, but still we seemed to fly over it with a feverish haste. I could not understand then what the haste meant, but the driver was evidently bent on losing no time in reaching Borgo Prund. I was told that this road is in summertime excellent, but that it had not yet been put in order after the winter snows. In this respect it is different from the general run of roads in the Carpathians, for it is an old tradition that they are not to be kept in too good order. Of old the Hospadars would not repair them, lest the Turk should think that they were preparing to bring in foreign troops, and so hasten the war which was always really at loading point. Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves. Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly. Here and there seemed mighty rifts in the mountains, through which, as the sun began to sink, we saw now and again the white gleam of falling water. One of my companions touched my arm as we swept round the base of a hill and opened up the lofty, snow-covered peak of a mountain, which seemed, as we wound on our serpentine way, to be right before us:-- "Look! Isten szek!"--"God's seat!"--and he crossed himself reverently. As we wound on our endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower behind us, the shadows of the evening began to creep round us. This was emphasised by the fact that the snowy mountain-top still held the sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pink. Here and there we passed Cszeks and Slovaks, all in picturesque attire, but I noticed that goitre was painfully prevalent. By the roadside were many crosses, and as we swept by, my companions all crossed themselves. Here and there was a peasant man or woman kneeling before a shrine, who did not even turn round as we approached, but seemed in the self-surrender of devotion to have neither eyes nor ears for the outer world. There were many things new to me: for instance, hay-ricks in the trees, and here and there very beautiful masses of weeping birch, their white stems shining like silver through the delicate green of the leaves. Now and again we passed a leiter-wagon--the ordinary peasant's cart--with its long, snake-like vertebra, calculated to suit the inequalities of the road. On this were sure to be seated quite a group of home-coming peasants, the Cszeks with their white, and the Slovaks with their coloured, sheepskins, the latter carrying lance-fashion their long staves, with axe at end. As the evening fell it began to get very cold, and the growing twilight seemed to merge into one dark mistiness the gloom of the trees, oak, beech, and pine, though in the valleys which ran deep between the spurs of the hills, as we ascended through the Pass, the dark firs stood out here and there against the background of late-lying snow. Sometimes, as the road was cut through the pine woods that seemed in the darkness to be closing down upon us, great masses of greyness, which here and there bestrewed the trees, produced a peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies engendered earlier in the evening, when the falling sunset threw into strange relief the ghost-like clouds which amongst the Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly through the valleys. Sometimes the hills were so steep that, despite our driver's haste, the horses could only go slowly. I wished to get down and walk up them, as we do at home, but the driver would not hear of it. "No, no," he said; "you must not walk here; the dogs are too fierce"; and then he added, with what he evidently meant for grim pleasantry--for he looked round to catch the approving smile of the rest--"and you may have enough of such matters before you go to sleep." The only stop he would make was a moment's pause to light his lamps. When it grew dark there seemed to be some excitement amongst the passengers, and they kept speaking to him, one after the other, as though urging him to further speed. He lashed the horses unmercifully with his long whip, and with wild cries of encouragement urged them on to further exertions. Then through the darkness I could see a sort of patch of grey light ahead of us, as though there were a cleft in the hills. The excitement of the passengers grew greater; the crazy coach rocked on its great leather springs, and swayed like a boat tossed on a stormy sea. I had to hold on. The road grew more level, and we appeared to fly along. Then the mountains seemed to come nearer to us on each side and to frown down upon us; we were entering on the Borgo Pass. One by one several of the passengers offered me gifts, which they pressed upon me with an earnestness which would take no denial; these were certainly of an odd and varied kind, but each was given in simple good faith, with a kindly word, and a blessing, and that strange mixture of fear-meaning movements which I had seen outside the hotel at Bistritz--the sign of the cross and the guard against the evil eye. Then, as we flew along, the driver leaned forward, and on each side the passengers, craning over the edge of the coach, peered eagerly into the darkness. It was evident that something very exciting was either happening or expected, but though I asked each passenger, no one would give me the slightest explanation. This state of excitement kept on for some little time; and at last we saw before us the Pass opening out on the eastern side. There were dark, rolling clouds overhead, and in the air the heavy, oppressive sense of thunder. It seemed as though the mountain range had separated two atmospheres, and that now we had got into the thunderous one. I was now myself looking out for the conveyance which was to take me to the Count. Each moment I expected to see the glare of lamps through the blackness; but all was dark. The only light was the flickering rays of our own lamps, in which the steam from our hard-driven horses rose in a white cloud. We could see now the sandy road lying white before us, but there was on it no sign of a vehicle. The passengers drew back with a sigh of gladness, which seemed to mock my own disappointment. I was already thinking what I had best do, when the driver, looking at his watch, said to the others something which I could hardly hear, it was spoken so quietly and in so low a tone; I thought it was "An hour less than the time." Then turning to me, he said in German worse than my own:-- "There is no carriage here. The Herr is not expected after all. He will now come on to Bukovina, and return to-morrow or the next day; better the next day." Whilst he was speaking the horses began to neigh and snort and plunge wildly, so that the driver had to hold them up. Then, amongst a chorus of screams from the peasants and a universal crossing of themselves, a calèche, with four horses, drove up behind us, overtook us, and drew up beside the coach. I could see from the flash of our lamps, as the rays fell on them, that the horses were coal-black and splendid animals. They were driven by a tall man, with a long brown beard and a great black hat, which seemed to hide his face from us. I could only see the gleam of a pair of very bright eyes, which seemed red in the lamplight, as he turned to us. He said to the driver:-- "You are early to-night, my friend." The man stammered in reply:-- "The English Herr was in a hurry," to which the stranger replied:-- "That is why, I suppose, you wished him to go on to Bukovina. You cannot deceive me, my friend; I know too much, and my horses are swift." As he spoke he smiled, and the lamplight fell on a hard-looking mouth, with very red lips and sharp-looking teeth, as white as ivory. One of my companions whispered to another the line from Burger's "Lenore":-- "Denn die Todten reiten schnell"-- ("For the dead travel fast.") The strange driver evidently heard the words, for he looked up with a gleaming smile. The passenger turned his face away, at the same time putting out his two fingers and crossing himself. "Give me the Herr's luggage," said the driver; and with exceeding alacrity my bags were handed out and put in the calèche. Then I descended from the side of the coach, as the calèche was close alongside, the driver helping me with a hand which caught my arm in a grip of steel; his strength must have been prodigious. Without a word he shook his reins, the horses turned, and we swept into the darkness of the Pass. As I looked back I saw the steam from the horses of the coach by the light of the lamps, and projected against it the figures of my late companions crossing themselves. Then the driver cracked his whip and called to his horses, and off they swept on their way to Bukovina. As they sank into the darkness I felt a strange chill, and a lonely feeling came over me; but a cloak was thrown over my shoulders, and a rug across my knees, and the driver said in excellent German:-- "The night is chill, mein Herr, and my master the Count bade me take all care of you. There is a flask of slivovitz (the plum brandy of the country) underneath the seat, if you should require it." I did not take any, but it was a comfort to know it was there all the same. I felt a little strangely, and not a little frightened. I think had there been any alternative I should have taken it, instead of prosecuting that unknown night journey. The carriage went at a hard pace straight along, then we made a complete turn and went along another straight road. It seemed to me that we were simply going over and over the same ground again; and so I took note of some salient point, and found that this was so. I would have liked to have asked the driver what this all meant, but I really feared to do so, for I thought that, placed as I was, any protest would have had no effect in case there had been an intention to delay. By-and-by, however, as I was curious to know how time was passing, I struck a match, and by its flame looked at my watch; it was within a few minutes of midnight. This gave me a sort of shock, for I suppose the general superstition about midnight was increased by my recent experiences. I waited with a sick feeling of suspense. Then a dog began to howl somewhere in a farmhouse far down the road--a long, agonised wailing, as if from fear. The sound was taken up by another dog, and then another and another, till, borne on the wind which now sighed softly through the Pass, a wild howling began, which seemed to come from all over the country, as far as the imagination could grasp it through the gloom of the night. At the first howl the horses began to strain and rear, but the driver spoke to them soothingly, and they quieted down, but shivered and sweated as though after a runaway from sudden fright. Then, far off in the distance, from the mountains on each side of us began a louder and a sharper howling--that of wolves--which affected both the horses and myself in the same way--for I was minded to jump from the calèche and run, whilst they reared again and plunged madly, so that the driver had to use all his great strength to keep them from bolting. In a few minutes, however, my own ears got accustomed to the sound, and the horses so far became quiet that the driver was able to descend and to stand before them. He petted and soothed them, and whispered something in their ears, as I have heard of horse-tamers doing, and with extraordinary effect, for under his caresses they became quite manageable again, though they still trembled. The driver again took his seat, and shaking his reins, started off at a great pace. This time, after going to the far side of the Pass, he suddenly turned down a narrow roadway which ran sharply to the right. Soon we were hemmed in with trees, which in places arched right over the roadway till we passed as through a tunnel; and again great frowning rocks guarded us boldly on either side. Though we were in shelter, we could hear the rising wind, for it moaned and whistled through the rocks, and the branches of the trees crashed together as we swept along. It grew colder and colder still, and fine, powdery snow began to fall, so that soon we and all around us were covered with a white blanket. The keen wind still carried the howling of the dogs, though this grew fainter as we went on our way. The baying of the wolves sounded nearer and nearer, as though they were closing round on us from every side. I grew dreadfully afraid, and the horses shared my fear. The driver, however, was not in the least disturbed; he kept turning his head to left and right, but I could not see anything through the darkness. Suddenly, away on our left, I saw a faint flickering blue flame. The driver saw it at the same moment; he at once checked the horses, and, jumping to the ground, disappeared into the darkness. I did not know what to do, the less as the howling of the wolves grew closer; but while I wondered the driver suddenly appeared again, and without a word took his seat, and we resumed our journey. I think I must have fallen asleep and kept dreaming of the incident, for it seemed to be repeated endlessly, and now looking back, it is like a sort of awful nightmare. Once the flame appeared so near the road, that even in the darkness around us I could watch the driver's motions. He went rapidly to where the blue flame arose--it must have been very faint, for it did not seem to illumine the place around it at all--and gathering a few stones, formed them into some device. Once there appeared a strange optical effect: when he stood between me and the flame he did not obstruct it, for I could see its ghostly flicker all the same. This startled me, but as the effect was only momentary, I took it that my eyes deceived me straining through the darkness. Then for a time there were no blue flames, and we sped onwards through the gloom, with the howling of the wolves around us, as though they were following in a moving circle. At last there came a time when the driver went further afield than he had yet gone, and during his absence, the horses began to tremble worse than ever and to snort and scream with fright. I could not see any cause for it, for the howling of the wolves had ceased altogether; but just then the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared behind the jagged crest of a beetling, pine-clad rock, and by its light I saw around us a ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling red tongues, with long, sinewy limbs and shaggy hair. They were a hundred times more terrible in the grim silence which held them than even when they howled. For myself, I felt a sort of paralysis of fear. It is only when a man feels himself face to face with such horrors that he can understand their true import. All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moonlight had had some peculiar effect on them. The horses jumped about and reared, and looked helplessly round with eyes that rolled in a way painful to see; but the living ring of terror encompassed them on every side; and they had perforce to remain within it. I called to the coachman to come, for it seemed to me that our only chance was to try to break out through the ring and to aid his approach. I shouted and beat the side of the calèche, hoping by the noise to scare the wolves from that side, so as to give him a chance of reaching the trap. How he came there, I know not, but I heard his voice raised in a tone of imperious command, and looking towards the sound, saw him stand in the roadway. As he swept his long arms, as though brushing aside some impalpable obstacle, the wolves fell back and back further still. Just then a heavy cloud passed across the face of the moon, so that we were again in darkness. When I could see again the driver was climbing into the calèche, and the wolves had disappeared. This was all so strange and uncanny that a dreadful fear came upon me, and I was afraid to speak or move. The time seemed interminable as we swept on our way, now in almost complete darkness, for the rolling clouds obscured the moon. We kept on ascending, with occasional periods of quick descent, but in the main always ascending. Suddenly, I became conscious of the fact that the driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the courtyard of a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the moonlit sky. CHAPTER II JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL--_continued_ _5 May._--I must have been asleep, for certainly if I had been fully awake I must have noticed the approach of such a remarkable place. In the gloom the courtyard looked of considerable size, and as several dark ways led from it under great round arches, it perhaps seemed bigger than it really is. I have not yet been able to see it by daylight. When the calèche stopped, the driver jumped down and held out his hand to assist me to alight. Again I could not but notice his prodigious strength. His hand actually seemed like a steel vice that could have crushed mine if he had chosen. Then he took out my traps, and placed them on the ground beside me as I stood close to a great door, old and studded with large iron nails, and set in a projecting doorway of massive stone. I could see even in the dim light that the stone was massively carved, but that the carving had been much worn by time and weather. As I stood, the driver jumped again into his seat and shook the reins; the horses started forward, and trap and all disappeared down one of the dark openings. I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do. Of bell or knocker there was no sign; through these frowning walls and dark window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate. The time I waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts and fears crowding upon me. What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of people? What sort of grim adventure was it on which I had embarked? Was this a customary incident in the life of a solicitor's clerk sent out to explain the purchase of a London estate to a foreigner? Solicitor's clerk! Mina would not like that. Solicitor--for just before leaving London I got word that my examination was successful; and I am now a full-blown solicitor! I began to rub my eyes and pinch myself to see if I were awake. It all seemed like a horrible nightmare to me, and I expected that I should suddenly awake, and find myself at home, with the dawn struggling in through the windows, as I had now and again felt in the morning after a day of overwork. But my flesh answered the pinching test, and my eyes were not to be deceived. I was indeed awake and among the Carpathians. All I could do now was to be patient, and to wait the coming of the morning. Just as I had come to this conclusion I heard a heavy step approaching behind the great door, and saw through the chinks the gleam of a coming light. Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the great door swung back. Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver lamp, in which the flame burned without chimney or globe of any kind, throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught of the open door. The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation:-- "Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!" He made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone. The instant, however, that I had stepped over the threshold, he moved impulsively forward, and holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed as cold as ice--more like the hand of a dead than a living man. Again he said:-- "Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely; and leave something of the happiness you bring!" The strength of the handshake was so much akin to that which I had noticed in the driver, whose face I had not seen, that for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person to whom I was speaking; so to make sure, I said interrogatively:-- "Count Dracula?" He bowed in a courtly way as he replied:-- "I am Dracula; and I bid you welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house. Come in; the night air is chill, and you must need to eat and rest." As he was speaking, he put the lamp on a bracket on the wall, and stepping out, took my luggage; he had carried it in before I could forestall him. I protested but he insisted:-- "Nay, sir, you are my guest. It is late, and my people are not available. Let me see to your comfort myself." He insisted on carrying my traps along the passage, and then up a great winding stair, and along another great passage, on whose stone floor our steps rang heavily. At the end of this he threw open a heavy door, and I rejoiced to see within a well-lit room in which a table was spread for supper, and on whose mighty hearth a great fire of logs, freshly replenished, flamed and flared. The Count halted, putting down my bags, closed the door, and crossing the room, opened another door, which led into a small octagonal room lit by a single lamp, and seemingly without a window of any sort. Passing through this, he opened another door, and motioned me to enter. It was a welcome sight; for here was a great bedroom well lighted and warmed with another log fire,--also added to but lately, for the top logs were fresh--which sent a hollow roar up the wide chimney. The Count himself left my luggage inside and withdrew, saying, before he closed the door:-- "You will need, after your journey, to refresh yourself by making your toilet. I trust you will find all you wish. When you are ready, come into the other room, where you will find your supper prepared." The light and warmth and the Count's courteous welcome seemed to have dissipated all my doubts and fears. Having then reached my normal state, I discovered that I was half famished with hunger; so making a hasty toilet, I went into the other room. I found supper already laid out. My host, who stood on one side of the great fireplace, leaning against the stonework, made a graceful wave of his hand to the table, and said:-- "I pray you, be seated and sup how you please. You will, I trust, excuse me that I do not join you; but I have dined already, and I do not sup." I handed to him the sealed letter which Mr. Hawkins had entrusted to me. He opened it and read it gravely; then, with a charming smile, he handed it to me to read. One passage of it, at least, gave me a thrill of pleasure. "I must regret that an attack of gout, from which malady I am a constant sufferer, forbids absolutely any travelling on my part for some time to come; but I am happy to say I can send a sufficient substitute, one in whom I have every possible confidence. He is a young man, full of energy and talent in his own way, and of a very faithful disposition. He is discreet and silent, and has grown into manhood in my service. He shall be ready to attend on you when you will during his stay, and shall take your instructions in all matters." The Count himself came forward and took off the cover of a dish, and I fell to at once on an excellent roast chicken. This, with some cheese and a salad and a bottle of old Tokay, of which I had two glasses, was my supper. During the time I was eating it the Count asked me many questions as to my journey, and I told him by degrees all I had experienced. By this time I had finished my supper, and by my host's desire had drawn up a chair by the fire and begun to smoke a cigar which he offered me, at the same time excusing himself that he did not smoke. I had now an opportunity of observing him, and found him of a very marked physiognomy. His face was a strong--a very strong--aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor. Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine; but seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse--broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal. The Count, evidently noticing it, drew back; and with a grim sort of smile, which showed more than he had yet done his protuberant teeth, sat himself down again on his own side of the fireplace. We were both silent for a while; and as I looked towards the window I saw the first dim streak of the coming dawn. There seemed a strange stillness over everything; but as I listened I heard as if from down below in the valley the howling of many wolves. The Count's eyes gleamed, and he said:-- "Listen to them--the children of the night. What music they make!" Seeing, I suppose, some expression in my face strange to him, he added:-- "Ah, sir, you dwellers in the city cannot enter into the feelings of the hunter." Then he rose and said:-- "But you must be tired. Your bedroom is all ready, and to-morrow you shall sleep as late as you will. I have to be away till the afternoon; so sleep well and dream well!" With a courteous bow, he opened for me himself the door to the octagonal room, and I entered my bedroom.... I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me! * * * * * _7 May._--It is again early morning, but I have rested and enjoyed the last twenty-four hours. I slept till late in the day, and awoke of my own accord. When I had dressed myself I went into the room where we had supped, and found a cold breakfast laid out, with coffee kept hot by the pot being placed on the hearth. There was a card on the table, on which was written:-- "I have to be absent for a while. Do not wait for me.--D." I set to and enjoyed a hearty meal. When I had done, I looked for a bell, so that I might let the servants know I had finished; but I could not find one. There are certainly odd deficiencies in the house, considering the extraordinary evidences of wealth which are round me. The table service is of gold, and so beautifully wrought that it must be of immense value. The curtains and upholstery of the chairs and sofas and the hangings of my bed are of the costliest and most beautiful fabrics, and must have been of fabulous value when they were made, for they are centuries old, though in excellent order. I saw something like them in Hampton Court, but there they were worn and frayed and moth-eaten. But still in none of the rooms is there a mirror. There is not even a toilet glass on my table, and I had to get the little shaving glass from my bag before I could either shave or brush my hair. I have not yet seen a servant anywhere, or heard a sound near the castle except the howling of wolves. Some time after I had finished my meal--I do not know whether to call it breakfast or dinner, for it was between five and six o'clock when I had it--I looked about for something to read, for I did not like to go about the castle until I had asked the Count's permission. There was absolutely nothing in the room, book, newspaper, or even writing materials; so I opened another door in the room and found a sort of library. The door opposite mine I tried, but found it locked. In the library I found, to my great delight, a vast number of English books, whole shelves full of them, and bound volumes of magazines and newspapers. A table in the centre was littered with English magazines and newspapers, though none of them were of very recent date. The books were of the most varied kind--history, geography, politics, political economy, botany, geology, law--all relating to England and English life and customs and manners. There were even such books of reference as the London Directory, the "Red" and "Blue" books, Whitaker's Almanac, the Army and Navy Lists, and--it somehow gladdened my heart to see it--the Law List. Whilst I was looking at the books, the door opened, and the Count entered. He saluted me in a hearty way, and hoped that I had had a good night's rest. Then he went on:-- "I am glad you found your way in here, for I am sure there is much that will interest you. These companions"--and he laid his hand on some of the books--"have been good friends to me, and for some years past, ever since I had the idea of going to London, have given me many, many hours of pleasure. Through them I have come to know your great England; and to know her is to love her. I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is. But alas! as yet I only know your tongue through books. To you, my friend, I look that I know it to speak." "But, Count," I said, "you know and speak English thoroughly!" He bowed gravely. "I thank you, my friend, for your all too-flattering estimate, but yet I fear that I am but a little way on the road I would travel. True, I know the grammar and the words, but yet I know not how to speak them." "Indeed," I said, "you speak excellently." "Not so," he answered. "Well, I know that, did I move and speak in your London, none there are who would not know me for a stranger. That is not enough for me. Here I am noble; I am _boyar_; the common people know me, and I am master. But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one; men know him not--and to know not is to care not for. I am content if I am like the rest, so that no man stops if he see me, or pause in his speaking if he hear my words, 'Ha, ha! a stranger!' I have been so long master that I would be master still--or at least that none other should be master of me. You come to me not alone as agent of my friend Peter Hawkins, of Exeter, to tell me all about my new estate in London. You shall, I trust, rest here with me awhile, so that by our talking I may learn the English intonation; and I would that you tell me when I make error, even of the smallest, in my speaking. I am sorry that I had to be away so long to-day; but you will, I know, forgive one who has so many important affairs in hand." Of course I said all I could about being willing, and asked if I might come into that room when I chose. He answered: "Yes, certainly," and added:-- "You may go anywhere you wish in the castle, except where the doors are locked, where of course you will not wish to go. There is reason that all things are as they are, and did you see with my eyes and know with my knowledge, you would perhaps better understand." I said I was sure of this, and then he went on:-- "We are in Transylvania; and Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things. Nay, from what you have told me of your experiences already, you know something of what strange things there may be." This led to much conversation; and as it was evident that he wanted to talk, if only for talking's sake, I asked him many questions regarding things that had already happened to me or come within my notice. Sometimes he sheered off the subject, or turned the conversation by pretending not to understand; but generally he answered all I asked most frankly. Then as time went on, and I had got somewhat bolder, I asked him of some of the strange things of the preceding night, as, for instance, why the coachman went to the places where he had seen the blue flames. He then explained to me that it was commonly believed that on a certain night of the year--last night, in fact, when all evil spirits are supposed to have unchecked sway--a blue flame is seen over any place where treasure has been concealed. "That treasure has been hidden," he went on, "in the region through which you came last night, there can be but little doubt; for it was the ground fought over for centuries by the Wallachian, the Saxon, and the Turk. Why, there is hardly a foot of soil in all this region that has not been enriched by the blood of men, patriots or invaders. In old days there were stirring times, when the Austrian and the Hungarian came up in hordes, and the patriots went out to meet them--men and women, the aged and the children too--and waited their coming on the rocks above the passes, that they might sweep destruction on them with their artificial avalanches. When the invader was triumphant he found but little, for whatever there was had been sheltered in the friendly soil." "But how," said I, "can it have remained so long undiscovered, when there is a sure index to it if men will but take the trouble to look?" The Count smiled, and as his lips ran back over his gums, the long, sharp, canine teeth showed out strangely; he answered:-- "Because your peasant is at heart a coward and a fool! Those flames only appear on one night; and on that night no man of this land will, if he can help it, stir without his doors. And, dear sir, even if he did he would not know what to do. Why, even the peasant that you tell me of who marked the place of the flame would not know where to look in daylight even for his own work. Even you would not, I dare be sworn, be able to find these places again?" "There you are right," I said. "I know no more than the dead where even to look for them." Then we drifted into other matters. "Come," he said at last, "tell me of London and of the house which you have procured for me." With an apology for my remissness, I went into my own room to get the papers from my bag. Whilst I was placing them in order I heard a rattling of china and silver in the next room, and as I passed through, noticed that the table had been cleared and the lamp lit, for it was by this time deep into the dark. The lamps were also lit in the study or library, and I found the Count lying on the sofa, reading, of all things in the world, an English Bradshaw's Guide. When I came in he cleared the books and papers from the table; and with him I went into plans and deeds and figures of all sorts. He was interested in everything, and asked me a myriad questions about the place and its surroundings. He clearly had studied beforehand all he could get on the subject of the neighbourhood, for he evidently at the end knew very much more than I did. When I remarked this, he answered:-- "Well, but, my friend, is it not needful that I should? When I go there I shall be all alone, and my friend Harker Jonathan--nay, pardon me, I fall into my country's habit of putting your patronymic first--my friend Jonathan Harker will not be by my side to correct and aid me. He will be in Exeter, miles away, probably working at papers of the law with my other friend, Peter Hawkins. So!" We went thoroughly into the business of the purchase of the estate at Purfleet. When I had told him the facts and got his signature to the necessary papers, and had written a letter with them ready to post to Mr. Hawkins, he began to ask me how I had come across so suitable a place. I read to him the notes which I had made at the time, and which I inscribe here:-- "At Purfleet, on a by-road, I came across just such a place as seemed to be required, and where was displayed a dilapidated notice that the place was for sale. It is surrounded by a high wall, of ancient structure, built of heavy stones, and has not been repaired for a large number of years. The closed gates are of heavy old oak and iron, all eaten with rust. "The estate is called Carfax, no doubt a corruption of the old _Quatre Face_, as the house is four-sided, agreeing with the cardinal points of the compass. It contains in all some twenty acres, quite surrounded by the solid stone wall above mentioned. There are many trees on it, which make it in places gloomy, and there is a deep, dark-looking pond or small lake, evidently fed by some springs, as the water is clear and flows away in a fair-sized stream. The house is very large and of all periods back, I should say, to mediæval times, for one part is of stone immensely thick, with only a few windows high up and heavily barred with iron. It looks like part of a keep, and is close to an old chapel or church. I could not enter it, as I had not the key of the door leading to it from the house, but I have taken with my kodak views of it from various points. The house has been added to, but in a very straggling way, and I can only guess at the amount of ground it covers, which must be very great. There are but few houses close at hand, one being a very large house only recently added to and formed into a private lunatic asylum. It is not, however, visible from the grounds." When I had finished, he said:-- "I am glad that it is old and big. I myself am of an old family, and to live in a new house would kill me. A house cannot be made habitable in a day; and, after all, how few days go to make up a century. I rejoice also that there is a chapel of old times. We Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may lie amongst the common dead. I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters which please the young and gay. I am no longer young; and my heart, through weary years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth. Moreover, the walls of my castle are broken; the shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements. I love the shade and the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I may." Somehow his words and his look did not seem to accord, or else it was that his cast of face made his smile look malignant and saturnine. Presently, with an excuse, he left me, asking me to put all my papers together. He was some little time away, and I began to look at some of the books around me. One was an atlas, which I found opened naturally at England, as if that map had been much used. On looking at it I found in certain places little rings marked, and on examining these I noticed that one was near London on the east side, manifestly where his new estate was situated; the other two were Exeter, and Whitby on the Yorkshire coast. It was the better part of an hour when the Count returned. "Aha!" he said; "still at your books? Good! But you must not work always. Come; I am informed that your supper is ready." He took my arm, and we went into the next room, where I found an excellent supper ready on the table. The Count again excused himself, as he had dined out on his being away from home. But he sat as on the previous night, and chatted whilst I ate. After supper I smoked, as on the last evening, and the Count stayed with me, chatting and asking questions on every conceivable subject, hour after hour. I felt that it was getting very late indeed, but I did not say anything, for I felt under obligation to meet my host's wishes in every way. I was not sleepy, as the long sleep yesterday had fortified me; but I could not help experiencing that chill which comes over one at the coming of the dawn, which is like, in its way, the turn of the tide. They say that people who are near death die generally at the change to the dawn or at the turn of the tide; any one who has when tired, and tied as it were to his post, experienced this change in the atmosphere can well believe it. All at once we heard the crow of a cock coming up with preternatural shrillness through the clear morning air; Count Dracula, jumping to his feet, said:-- "Why, there is the morning again! How remiss I am to let you stay up so long. You must make your conversation regarding my dear new country of England less interesting, so that I may not forget how time flies by us," and, with a courtly bow, he quickly left me. I went into my own room and drew the curtains, but there was little to notice; my window opened into the courtyard, all I could see was the warm grey of quickening sky. So I pulled the curtains again, and have written of this day. * * * * * _8 May._--I began to fear as I wrote in this book that I was getting too diffuse; but now I am glad that I went into detail from the first, for there is something so strange about this place and all in it that I cannot but feel uneasy. I wish I were safe out of it, or that I had never come. It may be that this strange night-existence is telling on me; but would that that were all! If there were any one to talk to I could bear it, but there is no one. I have only the Count to speak with, and he!--I fear I am myself the only living soul within the place. Let me be prosaic so far as facts can be; it will help me to bear up, and imagination must not run riot with me. If it does I am lost. Let me say at once how I stand--or seem to. I only slept a few hours when I went to bed, and feeling that I could not sleep any more, got up. I had hung my shaving glass by the window, and was just beginning to shave. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder, and heard the Count's voice saying to me, "Good-morning." I started, for it amazed me that I had not seen him, since the reflection of the glass covered the whole room behind me. In starting I had cut myself slightly, but did not notice it at the moment. Having answered the Count's salutation, I turned to the glass again to see how I had been mistaken. This time there could be no error, for the man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder. But there was no reflection of him in the mirror! The whole room behind me was displayed; but there was no sign of a man in it, except myself. This was startling, and, coming on the top of so many strange things, was beginning to increase that vague feeling of uneasiness which I always have when the Count is near; but at the instant I saw that the cut had bled a little, and the blood was trickling over my chin. I laid down the razor, turning as I did so half round to look for some sticking plaster. When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away, and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there. "Take care," he said, "take care how you cut yourself. It is more dangerous than you think in this country." Then seizing the shaving glass, he went on: "And this is the wretched thing that has done the mischief. It is a foul bauble of man's vanity. Away with it!" and opening the heavy window with one wrench of his terrible hand, he flung out the glass, which was shattered into a thousand pieces on the stones of the courtyard far below. Then he withdrew without a word. It is very annoying, for I do not see how I am to shave, unless in my watch-case or the bottom of the shaving-pot, which is fortunately of metal. When I went into the dining-room, breakfast was prepared; but I could not find the Count anywhere. So I breakfasted alone. It is strange that as yet I have not seen the Count eat or drink. He must be a very peculiar man! After breakfast I did a little exploring in the castle. I went out on the stairs, and found a room looking towards the South. The view was magnificent, and from where I stood there was every opportunity of seeing it. The castle is on the very edge of a terrible precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything! As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green tree tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm. Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests. But I am not in heart to describe beauty, for when I had seen the view I explored further; doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked and bolted. In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is there an available exit. The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner! CHAPTER III JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL--_continued_ When I found that I was a prisoner a sort of wild feeling came over me. I rushed up and down the stairs, trying every door and peering out of every window I could find; but after a little the conviction of my helplessness overpowered all other feelings. When I look back after a few hours I think I must have been mad for the time, for I behaved much as a rat does in a trap. When, however, the conviction had come to me that I was helpless I sat down quietly--as quietly as I have ever done anything in my life--and began to think over what was best to be done. I am thinking still, and as yet have come to no definite conclusion. Of one thing only am I certain; that it is no use making my ideas known to the Count. He knows well that I am imprisoned; and as he has done it himself, and has doubtless his own motives for it, he would only deceive me if I trusted him fully with the facts. So far as I can see, my only plan will be to keep my knowledge and my fears to myself, and my eyes open. I am, I know, either being deceived, like a baby, by my own fears, or else I am in desperate straits; and if the latter be so, I need, and shall need, all my brains to get through. I had hardly come to this conclusion when I heard the great door below shut, and knew that the Count had returned. He did not come at once into the library, so I went cautiously to my own room and found him making the bed. This was odd, but only confirmed what I had all along thought--that there were no servants in the house. When later I saw him through the chink of the hinges of the door laying the table in the dining-room, I was assured of it; for if he does himself all these menial offices, surely it is proof that there is no one else to do them. This gave me a fright, for if there is no one else in the castle, it must have been the Count himself who was the driver of the coach that brought me here. This is a terrible thought; for if so, what does it mean that he could control the wolves, as he did, by only holding up his hand in silence. How was it that all the people at Bistritz and on the coach had some terrible fear for me? What meant the giving of the crucifix, of the garlic, of the wild rose, of the mountain ash? Bless that good, good woman who hung the crucifix round my neck! for it is a comfort and a strength to me whenever I touch it. It is odd that a thing which I have been taught to regard with disfavour and as idolatrous should in a time of loneliness and trouble be of help. Is it that there is something in the essence of the thing itself, or that it is a medium, a tangible help, in conveying memories of sympathy and comfort? Some time, if it may be, I must examine this matter and try to make up my mind about it. In the meantime I must find out all I can about Count Dracula, as it may help me to understand. To-night he may talk of himself, if I turn the conversation that way. I must be very careful, however, not to awake his suspicion. * * * * * _Midnight._--I have had a long talk with the Count. I asked him a few questions on Transylvania history, and he warmed up to the subject wonderfully. In his speaking of things and people, and especially of battles, he spoke as if he had been present at them all. This he afterwards explained by saying that to a _boyar_ the pride of his house and name is his own pride, that their glory is his glory, that their fate is his fate. Whenever he spoke of his house he always said "we," and spoke almost in the plural, like a king speaking. I wish I could put down all he said exactly as he said it, for to me it was most fascinating. It seemed to have in it a whole history of the country. He grew excited as he spoke, and walked about the room pulling his great white moustache and grasping anything on which he laid his hands as though he would crush it by main strength. One thing he said which I shall put down as nearly as I can; for it tells in its way the story of his race:-- "We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship. Here, in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe bore down from Iceland the fighting spirit which Thor and Wodin gave them, which their Berserkers displayed to such fell intent on the seaboards of Europe, ay, and of Asia and Africa too, till the peoples thought that the were-wolves themselves had come. Here, too, when they came, they found the Huns, whose warlike fury had swept the earth like a living flame, till the dying peoples held that in their veins ran the blood of those old witches, who, expelled from Scythia had mated with the devils in the desert. Fools, fools! What devil or what witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins?" He held up his arms. "Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race; that we were proud; that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back? Is it strange that when Arpad and his legions swept through the Hungarian fatherland he found us here when he reached the frontier; that the Honfoglalas was completed there? And when the Hungarian flood swept eastward, the Szekelys were claimed as kindred by the victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries was trusted the guarding of the frontier of Turkey-land; ay, and more than that, endless duty of the frontier guard, for, as the Turks say, 'water sleeps, and enemy is sleepless.' Who more gladly than we throughout the Four Nations received the 'bloody sword,' or at its warlike call flocked quicker to the standard of the King? When was redeemed that great shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova, when the flags of the Wallach and the Magyar went down beneath the Crescent? Who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them! Was it not this Dracula, indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkey-land; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph! They said that he thought only of himself. Bah! what good are peasants without a leader? Where ends the war without a brain and heart to conduct it? Again, when, after the battle of Mohács, we threw off the Hungarian yoke, we of the Dracula blood were amongst their leaders, for our spirit would not brook that we were not free. Ah, young sir, the Szekelys--and the Dracula as their heart's blood, their brains, and their swords--can boast a record that mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach. The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonourable peace; and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told." It was by this time close on morning, and we went to bed. (_Mem._, this diary seems horribly like the beginning of the "Arabian Nights," for everything has to break off at cockcrow--or like the ghost of Hamlet's father.) * * * * * _12 May._--Let me begin with facts--bare, meagre facts, verified by books and figures, and of which there can be no doubt. I must not confuse them with experiences which will have to rest on my own observation, or my memory of them. Last evening when the Count came from his room he began by asking me questions on legal matters and on the doing of certain kinds of business. I had spent the day wearily over books, and, simply to keep my mind occupied, went over some of the matters I had been examined in at Lincoln's Inn. There was a certain method in the Count's inquiries, so I shall try to put them down in sequence; the knowledge may somehow or some time be useful to me. First, he asked if a man in England might have two solicitors or more. I told him he might have a dozen if he wished, but that it would not be wise to have more than one solicitor engaged in one transaction, as only one could act at a time, and that to change would be certain to militate against his interest. He seemed thoroughly to understand, and went on to ask if there would be any practical difficulty in having one man to attend, say, to banking, and another to look after shipping, in case local help were needed in a place far from the home of the banking solicitor. I asked him to explain more fully, so that I might not by any chance mislead him, so he said:-- "I shall illustrate. Your friend and mine, Mr. Peter Hawkins, from under the shadow of your beautiful cathedral at Exeter, which is far from London, buys for me through your good self my place at London. Good! Now here let me say frankly, lest you should think it strange that I have sought the services of one so far off from London instead of some one resident there, that my motive was that no local interest might be served save my wish only; and as one of London residence might, perhaps, have some purpose of himself or friend to serve, I went thus afield to seek my agent, whose labours should be only to my interest. Now, suppose I, who have much of affairs, wish to ship goods, say, to Newcastle, or Durham, or Harwich, or Dover, might it not be that it could with more ease be done by consigning to one in these ports?" I answered that certainly it would be most easy, but that we solicitors had a system of agency one for the other, so that local work could be done locally on instruction from any solicitor, so that the client, simply placing himself in the hands of one man, could have his wishes carried out by him without further trouble. "But," said he, "I could be at liberty to direct myself. Is it not so?" "Of course," I replied; and "such is often done by men of business, who do not like the whole of their affairs to be known by any one person." "Good!" he said, and then went on to ask about the means of making consignments and the forms to be gone through, and of all sorts of difficulties which might arise, but by forethought could be guarded against. I explained all these things to him to the best of my ability, and he certainly left me under the impression that he would have made a wonderful solicitor, for there was nothing that he did not think of or foresee. For a man who was never in the country, and who did not evidently do much in the way of business, his knowledge and acumen were wonderful. When he had satisfied himself on these points of which he had spoken, and I had verified all as well as I could by the books available, he suddenly stood up and said:-- "Have you written since your first letter to our friend Mr. Peter Hawkins, or to any other?" It was with some bitterness in my heart that I answered that I had not, that as yet I had not seen any opportunity of sending letters to anybody. "Then write now, my young friend," he said, laying a heavy hand on my shoulder: "write to our friend and to any other; and say, if it will please you, that you shall stay with me until a month from now." "Do you wish me to stay so long?" I asked, for my heart grew cold at the thought. "I desire it much; nay, I will take no refusal. When your master, employer, what you will, engaged that someone should come on his behalf, it was understood that my needs only were to be consulted. I have not stinted. Is it not so?" What could I do but bow acceptance? It was Mr. Hawkins's interest, not mine, and I had to think of him, not myself; and besides, while Count Dracula was speaking, there was that in his eyes and in his bearing which made me remember that I was a prisoner, and that if I wished it I could have no choice. The Count saw his victory in my bow, and his mastery in the trouble of my face, for he began at once to use them, but in his own smooth, resistless way:-- "I pray you, my good young friend, that you will not discourse of things other than business in your letters. It will doubtless please your friends to know that you are well, and that you look forward to getting home to them. Is it not so?" As he spoke he handed me three sheets of note-paper and three envelopes. They were all of the thinnest foreign post, and looking at them, then at him, and noticing his quiet smile, with the sharp, canine teeth lying over the red underlip, I understood as well as if he had spoken that I should be careful what I wrote, for he would be able to read it. So I determined to write only formal notes now, but to write fully to Mr. Hawkins in secret, and also to Mina, for to her I could write in shorthand, which would puzzle the Count, if he did see it. When I had written my two letters I sat quiet, reading a book whilst the Count wrote several notes, referring as he wrote them to some books on his table. Then he took up my two and placed them with his own, and put by his writing materials, after which, the instant the door had closed behind him, I leaned over and looked at the letters, which were face down on the table. I felt no compunction in doing so, for under the circumstances I felt that I should protect myself in every way I could. One of the letters was directed to Samuel F. Billington, No. 7, The Crescent, Whitby, another to Herr Leutner, Varna; the third was to Coutts & Co., London, and the fourth to Herren Klopstock & Billreuth, bankers, Buda-Pesth. The second and fourth were unsealed. I was just about to look at them when I saw the door-handle move. I sank back in my seat, having just had time to replace the letters as they had been and to resume my book before the Count, holding still another letter in his hand, entered the room. He took up the letters on the table and stamped them carefully, and then turning to me, said:-- "I trust you will forgive me, but I have much work to do in private this evening. You will, I hope, find all things as you wish." At the door he turned, and after a moment's pause said:-- "Let me advise you, my dear young friend--nay, let me warn you with all seriousness, that should you leave these rooms you will not by any chance go to sleep in any other part of the castle. It is old, and has many memories, and there are bad dreams for those who sleep unwisely. Be warned! Should sleep now or ever overcome you, or be like to do, then haste to your own chamber or to these rooms, for your rest will then be safe. But if you be not careful in this respect, then"--He finished his speech in a gruesome way, for he motioned with his hands as if he were washing them. I quite understood; my only doubt was as to whether any dream could be more terrible than the unnatural, horrible net of gloom and mystery which seemed closing around me. * * * * * _Later._--I endorse the last words written, but this time there is no doubt in question. I shall not fear to sleep in any place where he is not. I have placed the crucifix over the head of my bed--I imagine that my rest is thus freer from dreams; and there it shall remain. When he left me I went to my room. After a little while, not hearing any sound, I came out and went up the stone stair to where I could look out towards the South. There was some sense of freedom in the vast expanse, inaccessible though it was to me, as compared with the narrow darkness of the courtyard. Looking out on this, I felt that I was indeed in prison, and I seemed to want a breath of fresh air, though it were of the night. I am beginning to feel this nocturnal existence tell on me. It is destroying my nerve. I start at my own shadow, and am full of all sorts of horrible imaginings. God knows that there is ground for my terrible fear in this accursed place! I looked out over the beautiful expanse, bathed in soft yellow moonlight till it was almost as light as day. In the soft light the distant hills became melted, and the shadows in the valleys and gorges of velvety blackness. The mere beauty seemed to cheer me; there was peace and comfort in every breath I drew. As I leaned from the window my eye was caught by something moving a storey below me, and somewhat to my left, where I imagined, from the order of the rooms, that the windows of the Count's own room would look out. The window at which I stood was tall and deep, stone-mullioned, and though weatherworn, was still complete; but it was evidently many a day since the case had been there. I drew back behind the stonework, and looked carefully out. What I saw was the Count's head coming out from the window. I did not see the face, but I knew the man by the neck and the movement of his back and arms. In any case I could not mistake the hands which I had had so many opportunities of studying. I was at first interested and somewhat amused, for it is wonderful how small a matter will interest and amuse a man when he is a prisoner. But my very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over that dreadful abyss, _face down_ with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect of shadow; but I kept looking, and it could be no delusion. I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall. What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature is it in the semblance of man? I feel the dread of this horrible place overpowering me; I am in fear--in awful fear--and there is no escape for me; I am encompassed about with terrors that I dare not think of.... * * * * * _15 May._--Once more have I seen the Count go out in his lizard fashion. He moved downwards in a sidelong way, some hundred feet down, and a good deal to the left. He vanished into some hole or window. When his head had disappeared, I leaned out to try and see more, but without avail--the distance was too great to allow a proper angle of sight. I knew he had left the castle now, and thought to use the opportunity to explore more than I had dared to do as yet. I went back to the room, and taking a lamp, tried all the doors. They were all locked, as I had expected, and the locks were comparatively new; but I went down the stone stairs to the hall where I had entered originally. I found I could pull back the bolts easily enough and unhook the great chains; but the door was locked, and the key was gone! That key must be in the Count's room; I must watch should his door be unlocked, so that I may get it and escape. I went on to make a thorough examination of the various stairs and passages, and to try the doors that opened from them. One or two small rooms near the hall were open, but there was nothing to see in them except old furniture, dusty with age and moth-eaten. At last, however, I found one door at the top of the stairway which, though it seemed to be locked, gave a little under pressure. I tried it harder, and found that it was not really locked, but that the resistance came from the fact that the hinges had fallen somewhat, and the heavy door rested on the floor. Here was an opportunity which I might not have again, so I exerted myself, and with many efforts forced it back so that I could enter. I was now in a wing of the castle further to the right than the rooms I knew and a storey lower down. From the windows I could see that the suite of rooms lay along to the south of the castle, the windows of the end room looking out both west and south. On the latter side, as well as to the former, there was a great precipice. The castle was built on the corner of a great rock, so that on three sides it was quite impregnable, and great windows were placed here where sling, or bow, or culverin could not reach, and consequently light and comfort, impossible to a position which had to be guarded, were secured. To the west was a great valley, and then, rising far away, great jagged mountain fastnesses, rising peak on peak, the sheer rock studded with mountain ash and thorn, whose roots clung in cracks and crevices and crannies of the stone. This was evidently the portion of the castle occupied by the ladies in bygone days, for the furniture had more air of comfort than any I had seen. The windows were curtainless, and the yellow moonlight, flooding in through the diamond panes, enabled one to see even colours, whilst it softened the wealth of dust which lay over all and disguised in some measure the ravages of time and the moth. My lamp seemed to be of little effect in the brilliant moonlight, but I was glad to have it with me, for there was a dread loneliness in the place which chilled my heart and made my nerves tremble. Still, it was better than living alone in the rooms which I had come to hate from the presence of the Count, and after trying a little to school my nerves, I found a soft quietude come over me. Here I am, sitting at a little oak table where in old times possibly some fair lady sat to pen, with much thought and many blushes, her ill-spelt love-letter, and writing in my diary in shorthand all that has happened since I closed it last. It is nineteenth century up-to-date with a vengeance. And yet, unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere "modernity" cannot kill. * * * * * _Later: the Morning of 16 May._--God preserve my sanity, for to this I am reduced. Safety and the assurance of safety are things of the past. Whilst I live on here there is but one thing to hope for, that I may not go mad, if, indeed, I be not mad already. If I be sane, then surely it is maddening to think that of all the foul things that lurk in this hateful place the Count is the least dreadful to me; that to him alone I can look for safety, even though this be only whilst I can serve his purpose. Great God! merciful God! Let me be calm, for out of that way lies madness indeed. I begin to get new lights on certain things which have puzzled me. Up to now I never quite knew what Shakespeare meant when he made Hamlet say:-- "My tablets! quick, my tablets! 'Tis meet that I put it down," etc., for now, feeling as though my own brain were unhinged or as if the shock had come which must end in its undoing, I turn to my diary for repose. The habit of entering accurately must help to soothe me. The Count's mysterious warning frightened me at the time; it frightens me more now when I think of it, for in future he has a fearful hold upon me. I shall fear to doubt what he may say! When I had written in my diary and had fortunately replaced the book and pen in my pocket I felt sleepy. The Count's warning came into my mind, but I took a pleasure in disobeying it. The sense of sleep was upon me, and with it the obstinacy which sleep brings as outrider. The soft moonlight soothed, and the wide expanse without gave a sense of freedom which refreshed me. I determined not to return to-night to the gloom-haunted rooms, but to sleep here, where, of old, ladies had sat and sung and lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad for their menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars. I drew a great couch out of its place near the corner, so that as I lay, I could look at the lovely view to east and south, and unthinking of and uncaring for the dust, composed myself for sleep. I suppose I must have fallen asleep; I hope so, but I fear, for all that followed was startlingly real--so real that now sitting here in the broad, full sunlight of the morning, I cannot in the least believe that it was all sleep. I was not alone. The room was the same, unchanged in any way since I came into it; I could see along the floor, in the brilliant moonlight, my own footsteps marked where I had disturbed the long accumulation of dust. In the moonlight opposite me were three young women, ladies by their dress and manner. I thought at the time that I must be dreaming when I saw them, for, though the moonlight was behind them, they threw no shadow on the floor. They came close to me, and looked at me for some time, and then whispered together. Two were dark, and had high aquiline noses, like the Count, and great dark, piercing eyes that seemed to be almost red when contrasted with the pale yellow moon. The other was fair, as fair as can be, with great wavy masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires. I seemed somehow to know her face, and to know it in connection with some dreamy fear, but I could not recollect at the moment how or where. All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this down, lest some day it should meet Mina's eyes and cause her pain; but it is the truth. They whispered together, and then they all three laughed--such a silvery, musical laugh, but as hard as though the sound never could have come through the softness of human lips. It was like the intolerable, tingling sweetness of water-glasses when played on by a cunning hand. The fair girl shook her head coquettishly, and the other two urged her on. One said:-- "Go on! You are first, and we shall follow; yours is the right to begin." The other added:-- "He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all." I lay quiet, looking out under my eyelashes in an agony of delightful anticipation. The fair girl advanced and bent over me till I could feel the movement of her breath upon me. Sweet it was in one sense, honey-sweet, and sent the same tingling through the nerves as her voice, but with a bitter underlying the sweet, a bitter offensiveness, as one smells in blood. I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed about to fasten on my throat. Then she paused, and I could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked her teeth and lips, and could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the skin of my throat began to tingle as one's flesh does when the hand that is to tickle it approaches nearer--nearer. I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super-sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstasy and waited--waited with beating heart. But at that instant, another sensation swept through me as quick as lightning. I was conscious of the presence of the Count, and of his being as if lapped in a storm of fury. As my eyes opened involuntarily I saw his strong hand grasp the slender neck of the fair woman and with giant's power draw it back, the blue eyes transformed with fury, the white teeth champing with rage, and the fair cheeks blazing red with passion. But the Count! Never did I imagine such wrath and fury, even to the demons of the pit. His eyes were positively blazing. The red light in them was lurid, as if the flames of hell-fire blazed behind them. His face was deathly pale, and the lines of it were hard like drawn wires; the thick eyebrows that met over the nose now seemed like a heaving bar of white-hot metal. With a fierce sweep of his arm, he hurled the woman from him, and then motioned to the others, as though he were beating them back; it was the same imperious gesture that I had seen used to the wolves. In a voice which, though low and almost in a whisper seemed to cut through the air and then ring round the room he said:-- "How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware how you meddle with him, or you'll have to deal with me." The fair girl, with a laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him:-- "You yourself never loved; you never love!" On this the other women joined, and such a mirthless, hard, soulless laughter rang through the room that it almost made me faint to hear; it seemed like the pleasure of fiends. Then the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively, and said in a soft whisper:-- "Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so? Well, now I promise you that when I am done with him you shall kiss him at your will. Now go! go! I must awaken him, for there is work to be done." "Are we to have nothing to-night?" said one of them, with a low laugh, as she pointed to the bag which he had thrown upon the floor, and which moved as though there were some living thing within it. For answer he nodded his head. One of the women jumped forward and opened it. If my ears did not deceive me there was a gasp and a low wail, as of a half-smothered child. The women closed round, whilst I was aghast with horror; but as I looked they disappeared, and with them the dreadful bag. There was no door near them, and they could not have passed me without my noticing. They simply seemed to fade into the rays of the moonlight and pass out through the window, for I could see outside the dim, shadowy forms for a moment before they entirely faded away. Then the horror overcame me, and I sank down unconscious. CHAPTER IV JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL--_continued_ I awoke in my own bed. If it be that I had not dreamt, the Count must have carried me here. I tried to satisfy myself on the subject, but could not arrive at any unquestionable result. To be sure, there were certain small evidences, such as that my clothes were folded and laid by in a manner which was not my habit. My watch was still unwound, and I am rigorously accustomed to wind it the last thing before going to bed, and many such details. But these things are no proof, for they may have been evidences that my mind was not as usual, and, from some cause or another, I had certainly been much upset. I must watch for proof. Of one thing I am glad: if it was that the Count carried me here and undressed me, he must have been hurried in his task, for my pockets are intact. I am sure this diary would have been a mystery to him which he would not have brooked. He would have taken or destroyed it. As I look round this room, although it has been to me so full of fear, it is now a sort of sanctuary, for nothing can be more dreadful than those awful women, who were--who _are_--waiting to suck my blood. * * * * * _18 May._--I have been down to look at that room again in daylight, for I _must_ know the truth. When I got to the doorway at the top of the stairs I found it closed. It had been so forcibly driven against the jamb that part of the woodwork was splintered. I could see that the bolt of the lock had not been shot, but the door is fastened from the inside. I fear it was no dream, and must act on this surmise. * * * * * _19 May._--I am surely in the toils. Last night the Count asked me in the suavest tones to write three letters, one saying that my work here was nearly done, and that I should start for home within a few days, another that I was starting on the next morning from the time of the letter, and the third that I had left the castle and arrived at Bistritz. I would fain have rebelled, but felt that in the present state of things it would be madness to quarrel openly with the Count whilst I am so absolutely in his power; and to refuse would be to excite his suspicion and to arouse his anger. He knows that I know too much, and that I must not live, lest I be dangerous to him; my only chance is to prolong my opportunities. Something may occur which will give me a chance to escape. I saw in his eyes something of that gathering wrath which was manifest when he hurled that fair woman from him. He explained to me that posts were few and uncertain, and that my writing now would ensure ease of mind to my friends; and he assured me with so much impressiveness that he would countermand the later letters, which would be held over at Bistritz until due time in case chance would admit of my prolonging my stay, that to oppose him would have been to create new suspicion. I therefore pretended to fall in with his views, and asked him what dates I should put on the letters. He calculated a minute, and then said:-- "The first should be June 12, the second June 19, and the third June 29." I know now the span of my life. God help me! * * * * * _28 May._--There is a chance of escape, or at any rate of being able to send word home. A band of Szgany have come to the castle, and are encamped in the courtyard. These Szgany are gipsies; I have notes of them in my book. They are peculiar to this part of the world, though allied to the ordinary gipsies all the world over. There are thousands of them in Hungary and Transylvania, who are almost outside all law. They attach themselves as a rule to some great noble or _boyar_, and call themselves by his name. They are fearless and without religion, save superstition, and they talk only their own varieties of the Romany tongue. I shall write some letters home, and shall try to get them to have them posted. I have already spoken them through my window to begin acquaintanceship. They took their hats off and made obeisance and many signs, which, however, I could not understand any more than I could their spoken language.... * * * * * I have written the letters. Mina's is in shorthand, and I simply ask Mr. Hawkins to communicate with her. To her I have explained my situation, but without the horrors which I may only surmise. It would shock and frighten her to death were I to expose my heart to her. Should the letters not carry, then the Count shall not yet know my secret or the extent of my knowledge.... * * * * * I have given the letters; I threw them through the bars of my window with a gold piece, and made what signs I could to have them posted. The man who took them pressed them to his heart and bowed, and then put them in his cap. I could do no more. I stole back to the study, and began to read. As the Count did not come in, I have written here.... * * * * * The Count has come. He sat down beside me, and said in his smoothest voice as he opened two letters:-- "The Szgany has given me these, of which, though I know not whence they come, I shall, of course, take care. See!"--he must have looked at it--"one is from you, and to my friend Peter Hawkins; the other"--here he caught sight of the strange symbols as he opened the envelope, and the dark look came into his face, and his eyes blazed wickedly--"the other is a vile thing, an outrage upon friendship and hospitality! It is not signed. Well! so it cannot matter to us." And he calmly held letter and envelope in the flame of the lamp till they were consumed. Then he went on:-- "The letter to Hawkins--that I shall, of course, send on, since it is yours. Your letters are sacred to me. Your pardon, my friend, that unknowingly I did break the seal. Will you not cover it again?" He held out the letter to me, and with a courteous bow handed me a clean envelope. I could only redirect it and hand it to him in silence. When he went out of the room I could hear the key turn softly. A minute later I went over and tried it, and the door was locked. When, an hour or two after, the Count came quietly into the room, his coming awakened me, for I had gone to sleep on the sofa. He was very courteous and very cheery in his manner, and seeing that I had been sleeping, he said:-- "So, my friend, you are tired? Get to bed. There is the surest rest. I may not have the pleasure to talk to-night, since there are many labours to me; but you will sleep, I pray." I passed to my room and went to bed, and, strange to say, slept without dreaming. Despair has its own calms. * * * * * _31 May._--This morning when I woke I thought I would provide myself with some paper and envelopes from my bag and keep them in my pocket, so that I might write in case I should get an opportunity, but again a surprise, again a shock! Every scrap of paper was gone, and with it all my notes, my memoranda, relating to railways and travel, my letter of credit, in fact all that might be useful to me were I once outside the castle. I sat and pondered awhile, and then some thought occurred to me, and I made search of my portmanteau and in the wardrobe where I had placed my clothes. The suit in which I had travelled was gone, and also my overcoat and rug; I could find no trace of them anywhere. This looked like some new scheme of villainy.... * * * * * _17 June._--This morning, as I was sitting on the edge of my bed cudgelling my brains, I heard without a cracking of whips and pounding and scraping of horses' feet up the rocky path beyond the courtyard. With joy I hurried to the window, and saw drive into the yard two great leiter-wagons, each drawn by eight sturdy horses, and at the head of each pair a Slovak, with his wide hat, great nail-studded belt, dirty sheepskin, and high boots. They had also their long staves in hand. I ran to the door, intending to descend and try and join them through the main hall, as I thought that way might be opened for them. Again a shock: my door was fastened on the outside. Then I ran to the window and cried to them. They looked up at me stupidly and pointed, but just then the "hetman" of the Szgany came out, and seeing them pointing to my window, said something, at which they laughed. Henceforth no effort of mine, no piteous cry or agonised entreaty, would make them even look at me. They resolutely turned away. The leiter-wagons contained great, square boxes, with handles of thick rope; these were evidently empty by the ease with which the Slovaks handled them, and by their resonance as they were roughly moved. When they were all unloaded and packed in a great heap in one corner of the yard, the Slovaks were given some money by the Szgany, and spitting on it for luck, lazily went each to his horse's head. Shortly afterwards, I heard the cracking of their whips die away in the distance. * * * * * _24 June, before morning._--Last night the Count left me early, and locked himself into his own room. As soon as I dared I ran up the winding stair, and looked out of the window, which opened south. I thought I would watch for the Count, for there is something going on. The Szgany are quartered somewhere in the castle and are doing work of some kind. I know it, for now and then I hear a far-away muffled sound as of mattock and spade, and, whatever it is, it must be the end of some ruthless villainy. I had been at the window somewhat less than half an hour, when I saw something coming out of the Count's window. I drew back and watched carefully, and saw the whole man emerge. It was a new shock to me to find that he had on the suit of clothes which I had worn whilst travelling here, and slung over his shoulder the terrible bag which I had seen the women take away. There could be no doubt as to his quest, and in my garb, too! This, then, is his new scheme of evil: that he will allow others to see me, as they think, so that he may both leave evidence that I have been seen in the towns or villages posting my own letters, and that any wickedness which he may do shall by the local people be attributed to me. It makes me rage to think that this can go on, and whilst I am shut up here, a veritable prisoner, but without that protection of the law which is even a criminal's right and consolation. I thought I would watch for the Count's return, and for a long time sat doggedly at the window. Then I began to notice that there were some quaint little specks floating in the rays of the moonlight. They were like the tiniest grains of dust, and they whirled round and gathered in clusters in a nebulous sort of way. I watched them with a sense of soothing, and a sort of calm stole over me. I leaned back in the embrasure in a more comfortable position, so that I could enjoy more fully the aërial gambolling. Something made me start up, a low, piteous howling of dogs somewhere far below in the valley, which was hidden from my sight. Louder it seemed to ring in my ears, and the floating motes of dust to take new shapes to the sound as they danced in the moonlight. I felt myself struggling to awake to some call of my instincts; nay, my very soul was struggling, and my half-remembered sensibilities were striving to answer the call. I was becoming hypnotised! Quicker and quicker danced the dust; the moonbeams seemed to quiver as they went by me into the mass of gloom beyond. More and more they gathered till they seemed to take dim phantom shapes. And then I started, broad awake and in full possession of my senses, and ran screaming from the place. The phantom shapes, which were becoming gradually materialised from the moonbeams, were those of the three ghostly women to whom I was doomed. I fled, and felt somewhat safer in my own room, where there was no moonlight and where the lamp was burning brightly. When a couple of hours had passed I heard something stirring in the Count's room, something like a sharp wail quickly suppressed; and then there was silence, deep, awful silence, which chilled me. With a beating heart, I tried the door; but I was locked in my prison, and could do nothing. I sat down and simply cried. As I sat I heard a sound in the courtyard without--the agonised cry of a woman. I rushed to the window, and throwing it up, peered out between the bars. There, indeed, was a woman with dishevelled hair, holding her hands over her heart as one distressed with running. She was leaning against a corner of the gateway. When she saw my face at the window she threw herself forward, and shouted in a voice laden with menace:-- "Monster, give me my child!" She threw herself on her knees, and raising up her hands, cried the same words in tones which wrung my heart. Then she tore her hair and beat her breast, and abandoned herself to all the violences of extravagant emotion. Finally, she threw herself forward, and, though I could not see her, I could hear the beating of her naked hands against the door. Somewhere high overhead, probably on the tower, I heard the voice of the Count calling in his harsh, metallic whisper. His call seemed to be answered from far and wide by the howling of wolves. Before many minutes had passed a pack of them poured, like a pent-up dam when liberated, through the wide entrance into the courtyard. There was no cry from the woman, and the howling of the wolves was but short. Before long they streamed away singly, licking their lips. I could not pity her, for I knew now what had become of her child, and she was better dead. What shall I do? what can I do? How can I escape from this dreadful thing of night and gloom and fear? * * * * * _25 June, morning._--No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and how dear to his heart and eye the morning can be. When the sun grew so high this morning that it struck the top of the great gateway opposite my window, the high spot which it touched seemed to me as if the dove from the ark had lighted there. My fear fell from me as if it had been a vaporous garment which dissolved in the warmth. I must take action of some sort whilst the courage of the day is upon me. Last night one of my post-dated letters went to post, the first of that fatal series which is to blot out the very traces of my existence from the earth. Let me not think of it. Action! It has always been at night-time that I have been molested or threatened, or in some way in danger or in fear. I have not yet seen the Count in the daylight. Can it be that he sleeps when others wake, that he may be awake whilst they sleep? If I could only get into his room! But there is no possible way. The door is always locked, no way for me. Yes, there is a way, if one dares to take it. Where his body has gone why may not another body go? I have seen him myself crawl from his window. Why should not I imitate him, and go in by his window? The chances are desperate, but my need is more desperate still. I shall risk it. At the worst it can only be death; and a man's death is not a calf's, and the dreaded Hereafter may still be open to me. God help me in my task! Good-bye, Mina, if I fail; good-bye, my faithful friend and second father; good-bye, all, and last of all Mina! * * * * * _Same day, later._--I have made the effort, and God, helping me, have come safely back to this room. I must put down every detail in order. I went whilst my courage was fresh straight to the window on the south side, and at once got outside on the narrow ledge of stone which runs around the building on this side. The stones are big and roughly cut, and the mortar has by process of time been washed away between them. I took off my boots, and ventured out on the desperate way. I looked down once, so as to make sure that a sudden glimpse of the awful depth would not overcome me, but after that kept my eyes away from it. I knew pretty well the direction and distance of the Count's window, and made for it as well as I could, having regard to the opportunities available. I did not feel dizzy--I suppose I was too excited--and the time seemed ridiculously short till I found myself standing on the window-sill and trying to raise up the sash. I was filled with agitation, however, when I bent down and slid feet foremost in through the window. Then I looked around for the Count, but, with surprise and gladness, made a discovery. The room was empty! It was barely furnished with odd things, which seemed to have never been used; the furniture was something the same style as that in the south rooms, and was covered with dust. I looked for the key, but it was not in the lock, and I could not find it anywhere. The only thing I found was a great heap of gold in one corner--gold of all kinds, Roman, and British, and Austrian, and Hungarian, and Greek and Turkish money, covered with a film of dust, as though it had lain long in the ground. None of it that I noticed was less than three hundred years old. There were also chains and ornaments, some jewelled, but all of them old and stained. At one corner of the room was a heavy door. I tried it, for, since I could not find the key of the room or the key of the outer door, which was the main object of my search, I must make further examination, or all my efforts would be in vain. It was open, and led through a stone passage to a circular stairway, which went steeply down. I descended, minding carefully where I went, for the stairs were dark, being only lit by loopholes in the heavy masonry. At the bottom there was a dark, tunnel-like passage, through which came a deathly, sickly odour, the odour of old earth newly turned. As I went through the passage the smell grew closer and heavier. At last I pulled open a heavy door which stood ajar, and found myself in an old, ruined chapel, which had evidently been used as a graveyard. The roof was broken, and in two places were steps leading to vaults, but the ground had recently been dug over, and the earth placed in great wooden boxes, manifestly those which had been brought by the Slovaks. There was nobody about, and I made search for any further outlet, but there was none. Then I went over every inch of the ground, so as not to lose a chance. I went down even into the vaults, where the dim light struggled, although to do so was a dread to my very soul. Into two of these I went, but saw nothing except fragments of old coffins and piles of dust; in the third, however, I made a discovery. There, in one of the great boxes, of which there were fifty in all, on a pile of newly dug earth, lay the Count! He was either dead or asleep, I could not say which--for the eyes were open and stony, but without the glassiness of death--and the cheeks had the warmth of life through all their pallor; the lips were as red as ever. But there was no sign of movement, no pulse, no breath, no beating of the heart. I bent over him, and tried to find any sign of life, but in vain. He could not have lain there long, for the earthy smell would have passed away in a few hours. By the side of the box was its cover, pierced with holes here and there. I thought he might have the keys on him, but when I went to search I saw the dead eyes, and in them, dead though they were, such a look of hate, though unconscious of me or my presence, that I fled from the place, and leaving the Count's room by the window, crawled again up the castle wall. Regaining my room, I threw myself panting upon the bed and tried to think.... * * * * * _29 June._--To-day is the date of my last letter, and the Count has taken steps to prove that it was genuine, for again I saw him leave the castle by the same window, and in my clothes. As he went down the wall, lizard fashion, I wished I had a gun or some lethal weapon, that I might destroy him; but I fear that no weapon wrought alone by man's hand would have any effect on him. I dared not wait to see him return, for I feared to see those weird sisters. I came back to the library, and read there till I fell asleep. I was awakened by the Count, who looked at me as grimly as a man can look as he said:-- "To-morrow, my friend, we must part. You return to your beautiful England, I to some work which may have such an end that we may never meet. Your letter home has been despatched; to-morrow I shall not be here, but all shall be ready for your journey. In the morning come the Szgany, who have some labours of their own here, and also come some Slovaks. When they have gone, my carriage shall come for you, and shall bear you to the Borgo Pass to meet the diligence from Bukovina to Bistritz. But I am in hopes that I shall see more of you at Castle Dracula." I suspected him, and determined to test his sincerity. Sincerity! It seems like a profanation of the word to write it in connection with such a monster, so asked him point-blank:-- "Why may I not go to-night?" "Because, dear sir, my coachman and horses are away on a mission." "But I would walk with pleasure. I want to get away at once." He smiled, such a soft, smooth, diabolical smile that I knew there was some trick behind his smoothness. He said:-- "And your baggage?" "I do not care about it. I can send for it some other time." The Count stood up, and said, with a sweet courtesy which made me rub my eyes, it seemed so real:-- "You English have a saying which is close to my heart, for its spirit is that which rules our _boyars_: 'Welcome the coming; speed the parting guest.' Come with me, my dear young friend. Not an hour shall you wait in my house against your will, though sad am I at your going, and that you so suddenly desire it. Come!" With a stately gravity, he, with the lamp, preceded me down the stairs and along the hall. Suddenly he stopped. "Hark!" Close at hand came the howling of many wolves. It was almost as if the sound sprang up at the rising of his hand, just as the music of a great orchestra seems to leap under the bâton of the conductor. After a pause of a moment, he proceeded, in his stately way, to the door, drew back the ponderous bolts, unhooked the heavy chains, and began to draw it open. To my intense astonishment I saw that it was unlocked. Suspiciously, I looked all round, but could see no key of any kind. As the door began to open, the howling of the wolves without grew louder and angrier; their red jaws, with champing teeth, and their blunt-clawed feet as they leaped, came in through the opening door. I knew then that to struggle at the moment against the Count was useless. With such allies as these at his command, I could do nothing. But still the door continued slowly to open, and only the Count's body stood in the gap. Suddenly it struck me that this might be the moment and means of my doom; I was to be given to the wolves, and at my own instigation. There was a diabolical wickedness in the idea great enough for the Count, and as a last chance I cried out:-- "Shut the door; I shall wait till morning!" and covered my face with my hands to hide my tears of bitter disappointment. With one sweep of his powerful arm, the Count threw the door shut, and the great bolts clanged and echoed through the hall as they shot back into their places. In silence we returned to the library, and after a minute or two I went to my own room. The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his hand to me; with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of. When I was in my room and about to lie down, I thought I heard a whispering at my door. I went to it softly and listened. Unless my ears deceived me, I heard the voice of the Count:-- "Back, back, to your own place! Your time is not yet come. Wait! Have patience! To-night is mine. To-morrow night is yours!" There was a low, sweet ripple of laughter, and in a rage I threw open the door, and saw without the three terrible women licking their lips. As I appeared they all joined in a horrible laugh, and ran away. I came back to my room and threw myself on my knees. It is then so near the end? To-morrow! to-morrow! Lord, help me, and those to whom I am dear! * * * * * _30 June, morning._--These may be the last words I ever write in this diary. I slept till just before the dawn, and when I woke threw myself on my knees, for I determined that if Death came he should find me ready. At last I felt that subtle change in the air, and knew that the morning had come. Then came the welcome cock-crow, and I felt that I was safe. With a glad heart, I opened my door and ran down to the hall. I had seen that the door was unlocked, and now escape was before me. With hands that trembled with eagerness, I unhooked the chains and drew back the massive bolts. But the door would not move. Despair seized me. I pulled, and pulled, at the door, and shook it till, massive as it was, it rattled in its casement. I could see the bolt shot. It had been locked after I left the Count. Then a wild desire took me to obtain that key at any risk, and I determined then and there to scale the wall again and gain the Count's room. He might kill me, but death now seemed the happier choice of evils. Without a pause I rushed up to the east window, and scrambled down the wall, as before, into the Count's room. It was empty, but that was as I expected. I could not see a key anywhere, but the heap of gold remained. I went through the door in the corner and down the winding stair and along the dark passage to the old chapel. I knew now well enough where to find the monster I sought. The great box was in the same place, close against the wall, but the lid was laid on it, not fastened down, but with the nails ready in their places to be hammered home. I knew I must reach the body for the key, so I raised the lid, and laid it back against the wall; and then I saw something which filled my very soul with horror. There lay the Count, but looking as if his youth had been half renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey; the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gorged with blood. He lay like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion. I shuddered as I bent over to touch him, and every sense in me revolted at the contact; but I had to search, or I was lost. The coming night might see my own body a banquet in a similar way to those horrid three. I felt all over the body, but no sign could I find of the key. Then I stopped and looked at the Count. There was a mocking smile on the bloated face which seemed to drive me mad. This was the being I was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the helpless. The very thought drove me mad. A terrible desire came upon me to rid the world of such a monster. There was no lethal weapon at hand, but I seized a shovel which the workmen had been using to fill the cases, and lifting it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the hateful face. But as I did so the head turned, and the eyes fell full upon me, with all their blaze of basilisk horror. The sight seemed to paralyse me, and the shovel turned in my hand and glanced from the face, merely making a deep gash above the forehead. The shovel fell from my hand across the box, and as I pulled it away the flange of the blade caught the edge of the lid which fell over again, and hid the horrid thing from my sight. The last glimpse I had was of the bloated face, blood-stained and fixed with a grin of malice which would have held its own in the nethermost hell. I thought and thought what should be my next move, but my brain seemed on fire, and I waited with a despairing feeling growing over me. As I waited I heard in the distance a gipsy song sung by merry voices coming closer, and through their song the rolling of heavy wheels and the cracking of whips; the Szgany and the Slovaks of whom the Count had spoken were coming. With a last look around and at the box which contained the vile body, I ran from the place and gained the Count's room, determined to rush out at the moment the door should be opened. With strained ears, I listened, and heard downstairs the grinding of the key in the great lock and the falling back of the heavy door. There must have been some other means of entry, or some one had a key for one of the locked doors. Then there came the sound of many feet tramping and dying away in some passage which sent up a clanging echo. I turned to run down again towards the vault, where I might find the new entrance; but at the moment there seemed to come a violent puff of wind, and the door to the winding stair blew to with a shock that set the dust from the lintels flying. When I ran to push it open, I found that it was hopelessly fast. I was again a prisoner, and the net of doom was closing round me more closely. As I write there is in the passage below a sound of many tramping feet and the crash of weights being set down heavily, doubtless the boxes, with their freight of earth. There is a sound of hammering; it is the box being nailed down. Now I can hear the heavy feet tramping again along the hall, with many other idle feet coming behind them. The door is shut, and the chains rattle; there is a grinding of the key in the lock; I can hear the key withdraw: then another door opens and shuts; I hear the creaking of lock and bolt. Hark! in the courtyard and down the rocky way the roll of heavy wheels, the crack of whips, and the chorus of the Szgany as they pass into the distance. I am alone in the castle with those awful women. Faugh! Mina is a woman, and there is nought in common. They are devils of the Pit! I shall not remain alone with them; I shall try to scale the castle wall farther than I have yet attempted. I shall take some of the gold with me, lest I want it later. I may find a way from this dreadful place. And then away for home! away to the quickest and nearest train! away from this cursed spot, from this cursed land, where the devil and his children still walk with earthly feet! At least God's mercy is better than that of these monsters, and the precipice is steep and high. At its foot a man may sleep--as a man. Good-bye, all! Mina! CHAPTER V _Letter from Miss Mina Murray to Miss Lucy Westenra._ "_9 May._ "My dearest Lucy,-- "Forgive my long delay in writing, but I have been simply overwhelmed with work. The life of an assistant schoolmistress is sometimes trying. I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air. I have been working very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan's studies, and I have been practising shorthand very assiduously. When we are married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well enough I can take down what he wants to say in this way and write it out for him on the typewriter, at which also I am practising very hard. He and I sometimes write letters in shorthand, and he is keeping a stenographic journal of his travels abroad. When I am with you I shall keep a diary in the same way. I don't mean one of those two-pages-to-the-week-with-Sunday-squeezed-in-a-corner diaries, but a sort of journal which I can write in whenever I feel inclined. I do not suppose there will be much of interest to other people; but it is not intended for them. I may show it to Jonathan some day if there is in it anything worth sharing, but it is really an exercise book. I shall try to do what I see lady journalists do: interviewing and writing descriptions and trying to remember conversations. I am told that, with a little practice, one can remember all that goes on or that one hears said during a day. However, we shall see. I will tell you of my little plans when we meet. I have just had a few hurried lines from Jonathan from Transylvania. He is well, and will be returning in about a week. I am longing to hear all his news. It must be so nice to see strange countries. I wonder if we--I mean Jonathan and I--shall ever see them together. There is the ten o'clock bell ringing. Good-bye. "Your loving "MINA. "Tell me all the news when you write. You have not told me anything for a long time. I hear rumours, and especially of a tall, handsome, curly-haired man???" _Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray_. "_17, Chatham Street_, "_Wednesday_. "My dearest Mina,-- "I must say you tax me _very_ unfairly with being a bad correspondent. I wrote to you _twice_ since we parted, and your last letter was only your _second_. Besides, I have nothing to tell you. There is really nothing to interest you. Town is very pleasant just now, and we go a good deal to picture-galleries and for walks and rides in the park. As to the tall, curly-haired man, I suppose it was the one who was with me at the last Pop. Some one has evidently been telling tales. That was Mr. Holmwood. He often comes to see us, and he and mamma get on very well together; they have so many things to talk about in common. We met some time ago a man that would just _do for you_, if you were not already engaged to Jonathan. He is an excellent _parti_, being handsome, well off, and of good birth. He is a doctor and really clever. Just fancy! He is only nine-and-twenty, and he has an immense lunatic asylum all under his own care. Mr. Holmwood introduced him to me, and he called here to see us, and often comes now. I think he is one of the most resolute men I ever saw, and yet the most calm. He seems absolutely imperturbable. I can fancy what a wonderful power he must have over his patients. He has a curious habit of looking one straight in the face, as if trying to read one's thoughts. He tries this on very much with me, but I flatter myself he has got a tough nut to crack. I know that from my glass. Do you ever try to read your own face? _I do_, and I can tell you it is not a bad study, and gives you more trouble than you can well fancy if you have never tried it. He says that I afford him a curious psychological study, and I humbly think I do. I do not, as you know, take sufficient interest in dress to be able to describe the new fashions. Dress is a bore. That is slang again, but never mind; Arthur says that every day. There, it is all out. Mina, we have told all our secrets to each other since we were _children_; we have slept together and eaten together, and laughed and cried together; and now, though I have spoken, I would like to speak more. Oh, Mina, couldn't you guess? I love him. I am blushing as I write, for although I _think_ he loves me, he has not told me so in words. But oh, Mina, I love him; I love him; I love him! There, that does me good. I wish I were with you, dear, sitting by the fire undressing, as we used to sit; and I would try to tell you what I feel. I do not know how I am writing this even to you. I am afraid to stop, or I should tear up the letter, and I don't want to stop, for I _do_ so want to tell you all. Let me hear from you _at once_, and tell me all that you think about it. Mina, I must stop. Good-night. Bless me in your prayers; and, Mina, pray for my happiness. "LUCY. "P.S.--I need not tell you this is a secret. Good-night again. "L." _Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray_. "_24 May_. "My dearest Mina,-- "Thanks, and thanks, and thanks again for your sweet letter. It was so nice to be able to tell you and to have your sympathy. "My dear, it never rains but it pours. How true the old proverbs are. Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet I never had a proposal till to-day, not a real proposal, and to-day I have had three. Just fancy! THREE proposals in one day! Isn't it awful! I feel sorry, really and truly sorry, for two of the poor fellows. Oh, Mina, I am so happy that I don't know what to do with myself. And three proposals! But, for goodness' sake, don't tell any of the girls, or they would be getting all sorts of extravagant ideas and imagining themselves injured and slighted if in their very first day at home they did not get six at least. Some girls are so vain! You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and are going to settle down soon soberly into old married women, can despise vanity. Well, I must tell you about the three, but you must keep it a secret, dear, from _every one_, except, of course, Jonathan. You will tell him, because I would, if I were in your place, certainly tell Arthur. A woman ought to tell her husband everything--don't you think so, dear?--and I must be fair. Men like women, certainly their wives, to be quite as fair as they are; and women, I am afraid, are not always quite as fair as they should be. Well, my dear, number One came just before lunch. I told you of him, Dr. John Seward, the lunatic-asylum man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead. He was very cool outwardly, but was nervous all the same. He had evidently been schooling himself as to all sorts of little things, and remembered them; but he almost managed to sit down on his silk hat, which men don't generally do when they are cool, and then when he wanted to appear at ease he kept playing with a lancet in a way that made me nearly scream. He spoke to me, Mina, very straightforwardly. He told me how dear I was to him, though he had known me so little, and what his life would be with me to help and cheer him. He was going to tell me how unhappy he would be if I did not care for him, but when he saw me cry he said that he was a brute and would not add to my present trouble. Then he broke off and asked if I could love him in time; and when I shook my head his hands trembled, and then with some hesitation he asked me if I cared already for any one else. He put it very nicely, saying that he did not want to wring my confidence from me, but only to know, because if a woman's heart was free a man might have hope. And then, Mina, I felt a sort of duty to tell him that there was some one. I only told him that much, and then he stood up, and he looked very strong and very grave as he took both my hands in his and said he hoped I would be happy, and that if I ever wanted a friend I must count him one of my best. Oh, Mina dear, I can't help crying: and you must excuse this letter being all blotted. Being proposed to is all very nice and all that sort of thing, but it isn't at all a happy thing when you have to see a poor fellow, whom you know loves you honestly, going away and looking all broken-hearted, and to know that, no matter what he may say at the moment, you are passing quite out of his life. My dear, I must stop here at present, I feel so miserable, though I am so happy. "_Evening._ "Arthur has just gone, and I feel in better spirits than when I left off, so I can go on telling you about the day. Well, my dear, number Two came after lunch. He is such a nice fellow, an American from Texas, and he looks so young and so fresh that it seems almost impossible that he has been to so many places and has had such adventures. I sympathise with poor Desdemona when she had such a dangerous stream poured in her ear, even by a black man. I suppose that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him. I know now what I would do if I were a man and wanted to make a girl love me. No, I don't, for there was Mr. Morris telling us his stories, and Arthur never told any, and yet---- My dear, I am somewhat previous. Mr. Quincey P. Morris found me alone. It seems that a man always does find a girl alone. No, he doesn't, for Arthur tried twice to _make_ a chance, and I helping him all I could; I am not ashamed to say it now. I must tell you beforehand that Mr. Morris doesn't always speak slang--that is to say, he never does so to strangers or before them, for he is really well educated and has exquisite manners--but he found out that it amused me to hear him talk American slang, and whenever I was present, and there was no one to be shocked, he said such funny things. I am afraid, my dear, he has to invent it all, for it fits exactly into whatever else he has to say. But this is a way slang has. I do not know myself if I shall ever speak slang; I do not know if Arthur likes it, as I have never heard him use any as yet. Well, Mr. Morris sat down beside me and looked as happy and jolly as he could, but I could see all the same that he was very nervous. He took my hand in his, and said ever so sweetly:-- "'Miss Lucy, I know I ain't good enough to regulate the fixin's of your little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is you will go join them seven young women with the lamps when you quit. Won't you just hitch up alongside of me and let us go down the long road together, driving in double harness?' "Well, he did look so good-humoured and so jolly that it didn't seem half so hard to refuse him as it did poor Dr. Seward; so I said, as lightly as I could, that I did not know anything of hitching, and that I wasn't broken to harness at all yet. Then he said that he had spoken in a light manner, and he hoped that if he had made a mistake in doing so on so grave, so momentous, an occasion for him, I would forgive him. He really did look serious when he was saying it, and I couldn't help feeling a bit serious too--I know, Mina, you will think me a horrid flirt--though I couldn't help feeling a sort of exultation that he was number two in one day. And then, my dear, before I could say a word he began pouring out a perfect torrent of love-making, laying his very heart and soul at my feet. He looked so earnest over it that I shall never again think that a man must be playful always, and never earnest, because he is merry at times. I suppose he saw something in my face which checked him, for he suddenly stopped, and said with a sort of manly fervour that I could have loved him for if I had been free:-- "'Lucy, you are an honest-hearted girl, I know. I should not be here speaking to you as I am now if I did not believe you clean grit, right through to the very depths of your soul. Tell me, like one good fellow to another, is there any one else that you care for? And if there is I'll never trouble you a hair's breadth again, but will be, if you will let me, a very faithful friend.' "My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them? Here was I almost making fun of this great-hearted, true gentleman. I burst into tears--I am afraid, my dear, you will think this a very sloppy letter in more ways than one--and I really felt very badly. Why can't they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it. I am glad to say that, though I was crying, I was able to look into Mr. Morris's brave eyes, and I told him out straight:-- "'Yes, there is some one I love, though he has not told me yet that he even loves me.' I was right to speak to him so frankly, for quite a light came into his face, and he put out both his hands and took mine--I think I put them into his--and said in a hearty way:-- "'That's my brave girl. It's better worth being late for a chance of winning you than being in time for any other girl in the world. Don't cry, my dear. If it's for me, I'm a hard nut to crack; and I take it standing up. If that other fellow doesn't know his happiness, well, he'd better look for it soon, or he'll have to deal with me. Little girl, your honesty and pluck have made me a friend, and that's rarer than a lover; it's more unselfish anyhow. My dear, I'm going to have a pretty lonely walk between this and Kingdom Come. Won't you give me one kiss? It'll be something to keep off the darkness now and then. You can, you know, if you like, for that other good fellow--he must be a good fellow, my dear, and a fine fellow, or you could not love him--hasn't spoken yet.' That quite won me, Mina, for it _was_ brave and sweet of him, and noble, too, to a rival--wasn't it?--and he so sad; so I leant over and kissed him. He stood up with my two hands in his, and as he looked down into my face--I am afraid I was blushing very much--he said:-- "'Little girl, I hold your hand, and you've kissed me, and if these things don't make us friends nothing ever will. Thank you for your sweet honesty to me, and good-bye.' He wrung my hand, and taking up his hat, went straight out of the room without looking back, without a tear or a quiver or a pause; and I am crying like a baby. Oh, why must a man like that be made unhappy when there are lots of girls about who would worship the very ground he trod on? I know I would if I were free--only I don't want to be free. My dear, this quite upset me, and I feel I cannot write of happiness just at once, after telling you of it; and I don't wish to tell of the number three until it can be all happy. "Ever your loving "LUCY. "P.S.--Oh, about number Three--I needn't tell you of number Three, need I? Besides, it was all so confused; it seemed only a moment from his coming into the room till both his arms were round me, and he was kissing me. I am very, very happy, and I don't know what I have done to deserve it. I must only try in the future to show that I am not ungrateful to God for all His goodness to me in sending to me such a lover, such a husband, and such a friend. "Good-bye." _Dr. Seward's Diary._ (Kept in phonograph) _25 May._--Ebb tide in appetite to-day. Cannot eat, cannot rest, so diary instead. Since my rebuff of yesterday I have a sort of empty feeling; nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to be worth the doing.... As I knew that the only cure for this sort of thing was work, I went down amongst the patients. I picked out one who has afforded me a study of much interest. He is so quaint that I am determined to understand him as well as I can. To-day I seemed to get nearer than ever before to the heart of his mystery. I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a view to making myself master of the facts of his hallucination. In my manner of doing it there was, I now see, something of cruelty. I seemed to wish to keep him to the point of his madness--a thing which I avoid with the patients as I would the mouth of hell. (_Mem._, under what circumstances would I _not_ avoid the pit of hell?) _Omnia Romæ venalia sunt._ Hell has its price! _verb. sap._ If there be anything behind this instinct it will be valuable to trace it afterwards _accurately_, so I had better commence to do so, therefore-- R. M. Renfield, ætat 59.--Sanguine temperament; great physical strength; morbidly excitable; periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplished finish; a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal; when duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only accident or a series of accidents can balance it. _Letter, Quincey P. Morris to Hon. Arthur Holmwood._ "_25 May._ "My dear Art,-- "We've told yarns by the camp-fire in the prairies; and dressed one another's wounds after trying a landing at the Marquesas; and drunk healths on the shore of Titicaca. There are more yarns to be told, and other wounds to be healed, and another health to be drunk. Won't you let this be at my camp-fire to-morrow night? I have no hesitation in asking you, as I know a certain lady is engaged to a certain dinner-party, and that you are free. There will only be one other, our old pal at the Korea, Jack Seward. He's coming, too, and we both want to mingle our weeps over the wine-cup, and to drink a health with all our hearts to the happiest man in all the wide world, who has won the noblest heart that God has made and the best worth winning. We promise you a hearty welcome, and a loving greeting, and a health as true as your own right hand. We shall both swear to leave you at home if you drink too deep to a certain pair of eyes. Come! "Yours, as ever and always, "QUINCEY P. MORRIS." _Telegram from Arthur Holmwood to Quincey P. Morris._ "_26 May._ "Count me in every time. I bear messages which will make both your ears tingle. "ART." CHAPTER VI MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL _24 July. Whitby._--Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter and lovelier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent in which they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little river, the Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near the harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through which the view seems somehow further away than it really is. The valley is beautifully green, and it is so steep that when you are on the high land on either side you look right across it, unless you are near enough to see down. The houses of the old town--the side away from us--are all red-roofed, and seem piled up one over the other anyhow, like the pictures we see of Nuremberg. Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of "Marmion," where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits; there is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows. Between it and the town there is another church, the parish one, round which is a big graveyard, all full of tombstones. This is to my mind the nicest spot in Whitby, for it lies right over the town, and has a full view of the harbour and all up the bay to where the headland called Kettleness stretches out into the sea. It descends so steeply over the harbour that part of the bank has fallen away, and some of the graves have been destroyed. In one place part of the stonework of the graves stretches out over the sandy pathway far below. There are walks, with seats beside them, through the churchyard; and people go and sit there all day long looking at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze. I shall come and sit here very often myself and work. Indeed, I am writing now, with my book on my knee, and listening to the talk of three old men who are sitting beside me. They seem to do nothing all day but sit up here and talk. The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long granite wall stretching out into the sea, with a curve outwards at the end of it, in the middle of which is a lighthouse. A heavy sea-wall runs along outside of it. On the near side, the sea-wall makes an elbow crooked inversely, and its end too has a lighthouse. Between the two piers there is a narrow opening into the harbour, which then suddenly widens. It is nice at high water; but when the tide is out it shoals away to nothing, and there is merely the stream of the Esk, running between banks of sand, with rocks here and there. Outside the harbour on this side there rises for about half a mile a great reef, the sharp edge of which runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse. At the end of it is a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad weather, and sends in a mournful sound on the wind. They have a legend here that when a ship is lost bells are heard out at sea. I must ask the old man about this; he is coming this way.... He is a funny old man. He must be awfully old, for his face is all gnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree. He tells me that he is nearly a hundred, and that he was a sailor in the Greenland fishing fleet when Waterloo was fought. He is, I am afraid, a very sceptical person, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Lady at the abbey he said very brusquely:-- "I wouldn't fash masel' about them, miss. Them things be all wore out. Mind, I don't say that they never was, but I do say that they wasn't in my time. They be all very well for comers and trippers, an' the like, but not for a nice young lady like you. Them feet-folks from York and Leeds that be always eatin' cured herrin's an' drinkin' tea an' lookin' out to buy cheap jet would creed aught. I wonder masel' who'd be bothered tellin' lies to them--even the newspapers, which is full of fool-talk." I thought he would be a good person to learn interesting things from, so I asked him if he would mind telling me something about the whale-fishing in the old days. He was just settling himself to begin when the clock struck six, whereupon he laboured to get up, and said:-- "I must gang ageeanwards home now, miss. My grand-daughter doesn't like to be kept waitin' when the tea is ready, for it takes me time to crammle aboon the grees, for there be a many of 'em; an', miss, I lack belly-timber sairly by the clock." He hobbled away, and I could see him hurrying, as well as he could, down the steps. The steps are a great feature on the place. They lead from the town up to the church, there are hundreds of them--I do not know how many--and they wind up in a delicate curve; the slope is so gentle that a horse could easily walk up and down them. I think they must originally have had something to do with the abbey. I shall go home too. Lucy went out visiting with her mother, and as they were only duty calls, I did not go. They will be home by this. * * * * * _1 August._--I came up here an hour ago with Lucy, and we had a most interesting talk with my old friend and the two others who always come and join him. He is evidently the Sir Oracle of them, and I should think must have been in his time a most dictatorial person. He will not admit anything, and downfaces everybody. If he can't out-argue them he bullies them, and then takes their silence for agreement with his views. Lucy was looking sweetly pretty in her white lawn frock; she has got a beautiful colour since she has been here. I noticed that the old men did not lose any time in coming up and sitting near her when we sat down. She is so sweet with old people; I think they all fell in love with her on the spot. Even my old man succumbed and did not contradict her, but gave me double share instead. I got him on the subject of the legends, and he went off at once into a sort of sermon. I must try to remember it and put it down:-- "It be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel; that's what it be, an' nowt else. These bans an' wafts an' boh-ghosts an' barguests an' bogles an' all anent them is only fit to set bairns an' dizzy women a-belderin'. They be nowt but air-blebs. They, an' all grims an' signs an' warnin's, be all invented by parsons an' illsome beuk-bodies an' railway touters to skeer an' scunner hafflin's, an' to get folks to do somethin' that they don't other incline to. It makes me ireful to think o' them. Why, it's them that, not content with printin' lies on paper an' preachin' them out of pulpits, does want to be cuttin' them on the tombstones. Look here all around you in what airt ye will; all them steans, holdin' up their heads as well as they can out of their pride, is acant--simply tumblin' down with the weight o' the lies wrote on them, 'Here lies the body' or 'Sacred to the memory' wrote on all of them, an' yet in nigh half of them there bean't no bodies at all; an' the memories of them bean't cared a pinch of snuff about, much less sacred. Lies all of them, nothin' but lies of one kind or another! My gog, but it'll be a quare scowderment at the Day of Judgment when they come tumblin' up in their death-sarks, all jouped together an' tryin' to drag their tombsteans with them to prove how good they was; some of them trimmlin' and ditherin', with their hands that dozzened an' slippy from lyin' in the sea that they can't even keep their grup o' them." I could see from the old fellow's self-satisfied air and the way in which he looked round for the approval of his cronies that he was "showing off," so I put in a word to keep him going:-- "Oh, Mr. Swales, you can't be serious. Surely these tombstones are not all wrong?" "Yabblins! There may be a poorish few not wrong, savin' where they make out the people too good; for there be folk that do think a balm-bowl be like the sea, if only it be their own. The whole thing be only lies. Now look you here; you come here a stranger, an' you see this kirk-garth." I nodded, for I thought it better to assent, though I did not quite understand his dialect. I knew it had something to do with the church. He went on: "And you consate that all these steans be aboon folk that be happed here, snod an' snog?" I assented again. "Then that be just where the lie comes in. Why, there be scores of these lay-beds that be toom as old Dun's 'bacca-box on Friday night." He nudged one of his companions, and they all laughed. "And my gog! how could they be otherwise? Look at that one, the aftest abaft the bier-bank: read it!" I went over and read:-- "Edward Spencelagh, master mariner, murdered by pirates off the coast of Andres, April, 1854, æt. 30." When I came back Mr. Swales went on:-- "Who brought him home, I wonder, to hap him here? Murdered off the coast of Andres! an' you consated his body lay under! Why, I could name ye a dozen whose bones lie in the Greenland seas above"--he pointed northwards--"or where the currents may have drifted them. There be the steans around ye. Ye can, with your young eyes, read the small-print of the lies from here. This Braithwaite Lowrey--I knew his father, lost in the _Lively_ off Greenland in '20; or Andrew Woodhouse, drowned in the same seas in 1777; or John Paxton, drowned off Cape Farewell a year later; or old John Rawlings, whose grandfather sailed with me, drowned in the Gulf of Finland in '50. Do ye think that all these men will have to make a rush to Whitby when the trumpet sounds? I have me antherums aboot it! I tell ye that when they got here they'd be jommlin' an' jostlin' one another that way that it 'ud be like a fight up on the ice in the old days, when we'd be at one another from daylight to dark, an' tryin' to tie up our cuts by the light of the aurora borealis." This was evidently local pleasantry, for the old man cackled over it, and his cronies joined in with gusto. "But," I said, "surely you are not quite correct, for you start on the assumption that all the poor people, or their spirits, will have to take their tombstones with them on the Day of Judgment. Do you think that will be really necessary?" "Well, what else be they tombstones for? Answer me that, miss!" "To please their relatives, I suppose." "To please their relatives, you suppose!" This he said with intense scorn. "How will it pleasure their relatives to know that lies is wrote over them, and that everybody in the place knows that they be lies?" He pointed to a stone at our feet which had been laid down as a slab, on which the seat was rested, close to the edge of the cliff. "Read the lies on that thruff-stean," he said. The letters were upside down to me from where I sat, but Lucy was more opposite to them, so she leant over and read:-- "Sacred to the memory of George Canon, who died, in the hope of a glorious resurrection, on July, 29, 1873, falling from the rocks at Kettleness. This tomb was erected by his sorrowing mother to her dearly beloved son. 'He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.' Really, Mr. Swales, I don't see anything very funny in that!" She spoke her comment very gravely and somewhat severely. "Ye don't see aught funny! Ha! ha! But that's because ye don't gawm the sorrowin' mother was a hell-cat that hated him because he was acrewk'd--a regular lamiter he was--an' he hated her so that he committed suicide in order that she mightn't get an insurance she put on his life. He blew nigh the top of his head off with an old musket that they had for scarin' the crows with. 'Twarn't for crows then, for it brought the clegs and the dowps to him. That's the way he fell off the rocks. And, as to hopes of a glorious resurrection, I've often heard him say masel' that he hoped he'd go to hell, for his mother was so pious that she'd be sure to go to heaven, an' he didn't want to addle where she was. Now isn't that stean at any rate"--he hammered it with his stick as he spoke--"a pack of lies? and won't it make Gabriel keckle when Geordie comes pantin' up the grees with the tombstean balanced on his hump, and asks it to be took as evidence!" I did not know what to say, but Lucy turned the conversation as she said, rising up:-- "Oh, why did you tell us of this? It is my favourite seat, and I cannot leave it; and now I find I must go on sitting over the grave of a suicide." "That won't harm ye, my pretty; an' it may make poor Geordie gladsome to have so trim a lass sittin' on his lap. That won't hurt ye. Why, I've sat here off an' on for nigh twenty years past, an' it hasn't done me no harm. Don't ye fash about them as lies under ye, or that doesn' lie there either! It'll be time for ye to be getting scart when ye see the tombsteans all run away with, and the place as bare as a stubble-field. There's the clock, an' I must gang. My service to ye, ladies!" And off he hobbled. Lucy and I sat awhile, and it was all so beautiful before us that we took hands as we sat; and she told me all over again about Arthur and their coming marriage. That made me just a little heart-sick, for I haven't heard from Jonathan for a whole month. * * * * * _The same day._ I came up here alone, for I am very sad. There was no letter for me. I hope there cannot be anything the matter with Jonathan. The clock has just struck nine. I see the lights scattered all over the town, sometimes in rows where the streets are, and sometimes singly; they run right up the Esk and die away in the curve of the valley. To my left the view is cut off by a black line of roof of the old house next the abbey. The sheep and lambs are bleating in the fields away behind me, and there is a clatter of a donkey's hoofs up the paved road below. The band on the pier is playing a harsh waltz in good time, and further along the quay there is a Salvation Army meeting in a back street. Neither of the bands hears the other, but up here I hear and see them both. I wonder where Jonathan is and if he is thinking of me! I wish he were here. _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _5 June._--The case of Renfield grows more interesting the more I get to understand the man. He has certain qualities very largely developed; selfishness, secrecy, and purpose. I wish I could get at what is the object of the latter. He seems to have some settled scheme of his own, but what it is I do not yet know. His redeeming quality is a love of animals, though, indeed, he has such curious turns in it that I sometimes imagine he is only abnormally cruel. His pets are of odd sorts. Just now his hobby is catching flies. He has at present such a quantity that I have had myself to expostulate. To my astonishment, he did not break out into a fury, as I expected, but took the matter in simple seriousness. He thought for a moment, and then said: "May I have three days? I shall clear them away." Of course, I said that would do. I must watch him. * * * * * _18 June._--He has turned his mind now to spiders, and has got several very big fellows in a box. He keeps feeding them with his flies, and the number of the latter is becoming sensibly diminished, although he has used half his food in attracting more flies from outside to his room. * * * * * _1 July._--His spiders are now becoming as great a nuisance as his flies, and to-day I told him that he must get rid of them. He looked very sad at this, so I said that he must clear out some of them, at all events. He cheerfully acquiesced in this, and I gave him the same time as before for reduction. He disgusted me much while with him, for when a horrid blow-fly, bloated with some carrion food, buzzed into the room, he caught it, held it exultantly for a few moments between his finger and thumb, and, before I knew what he was going to do, put it in his mouth and ate it. I scolded him for it, but he argued quietly that it was very good and very wholesome; that it was life, strong life, and gave life to him. This gave me an idea, or the rudiment of one. I must watch how he gets rid of his spiders. He has evidently some deep problem in his mind, for he keeps a little note-book in which he is always jotting down something. Whole pages of it are filled with masses of figures, generally single numbers added up in batches, and then the totals added in batches again, as though he were "focussing" some account, as the auditors put it. * * * * * _8 July._--There is a method in his madness, and the rudimentary idea in my mind is growing. It will be a whole idea soon, and then, oh, unconscious cerebration! you will have to give the wall to your conscious brother. I kept away from my friend for a few days, so that I might notice if there were any change. Things remain as they were except that he has parted with some of his pets and got a new one. He has managed to get a sparrow, and has already partially tamed it. His means of taming is simple, for already the spiders have diminished. Those that do remain, however, are well fed, for he still brings in the flies by tempting them with his food. * * * * * _19 July._--We are progressing. My friend has now a whole colony of sparrows, and his flies and spiders are almost obliterated. When I came in he ran to me and said he wanted to ask me a great favour--a very, very great favour; and as he spoke he fawned on me like a dog. I asked him what it was, and he said, with a sort of rapture in his voice and bearing:-- "A kitten, a nice little, sleek playful kitten, that I can play with, and teach, and feed--and feed--and feed!" I was not unprepared for this request, for I had noticed how his pets went on increasing in size and vivacity, but I did not care that his pretty family of tame sparrows should be wiped out in the same manner as the flies and the spiders; so I said I would see about it, and asked him if he would not rather have a cat than a kitten. His eagerness betrayed him as he answered:-- "Oh, yes, I would like a cat! I only asked for a kitten lest you should refuse me a cat. No one would refuse me a kitten, would they?" I shook my head, and said that at present I feared it would not be possible, but that I would see about it. His face fell, and I could see a warning of danger in it, for there was a sudden fierce, sidelong look which meant killing. The man is an undeveloped homicidal maniac. I shall test him with his present craving and see how it will work out; then I shall know more. * * * * * _10 p. m._--I have visited him again and found him sitting in a corner brooding. When I came in he threw himself on his knees before me and implored me to let him have a cat; that his salvation depended upon it. I was firm, however, and told him that he could not have it, whereupon he went without a word, and sat down, gnawing his fingers, in the corner where I had found him. I shall see him in the morning early. * * * * * _20 July._--Visited Renfield very early, before the attendant went his rounds. Found him up and humming a tune. He was spreading out his sugar, which he had saved, in the window, and was manifestly beginning his fly-catching again; and beginning it cheerfully and with a good grace. I looked around for his birds, and not seeing them, asked him where they were. He replied, without turning round, that they had all flown away. There were a few feathers about the room and on his pillow a drop of blood. I said nothing, but went and told the keeper to report to me if there were anything odd about him during the day. * * * * * _11 a. m._--The attendant has just been to me to say that Renfield has been very sick and has disgorged a whole lot of feathers. "My belief is, doctor," he said, "that he has eaten his birds, and that he just took and ate them raw!" * * * * * _11 p. m._--I gave Renfield a strong opiate to-night, enough to make even him sleep, and took away his pocket-book to look at it. The thought that has been buzzing about my brain lately is complete, and the theory proved. My homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind. I shall have to invent a new classification for him, and call him a zoöphagous (life-eating) maniac; what he desires is to absorb as many lives as he can, and he has laid himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way. He gave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then wanted a cat to eat the many birds. What would have been his later steps? It would almost be worth while to complete the experiment. It might be done if there were only a sufficient cause. Men sneered at vivisection, and yet look at its results to-day! Why not advance science in its most difficult and vital aspect--the knowledge of the brain? Had I even the secret of one such mind--did I hold the key to the fancy of even one lunatic--I might advance my own branch of science to a pitch compared with which Burdon-Sanderson's physiology or Ferrier's brain-knowledge would be as nothing. If only there were a sufficient cause! I must not think too much of this, or I may be tempted; a good cause might turn the scale with me, for may not I too be of an exceptional brain, congenitally? How well the man reasoned; lunatics always do within their own scope. I wonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at only one. He has closed the account most accurately, and to-day begun a new record. How many of us begin a new record with each day of our lives? To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new hope, and that truly I began a new record. So it will be until the Great Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger account with a balance to profit or loss. Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I be angry with my friend whose happiness is yours; but I must only wait on hopeless and work. Work! work! If I only could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend there--a good, unselfish cause to make me work--that would be indeed happiness. _Mina Murray's Journal._ _26 July._--I am anxious, and it soothes me to express myself here; it is like whispering to one's self and listening at the same time. And there is also something about the shorthand symbols that makes it different from writing. I am unhappy about Lucy and about Jonathan. I had not heard from Jonathan for some time, and was very concerned; but yesterday dear Mr. Hawkins, who is always so kind, sent me a letter from him. I had written asking him if he had heard, and he said the enclosed had just been received. It is only a line dated from Castle Dracula, and says that he is just starting for home. That is not like Jonathan; I do not understand it, and it makes me uneasy. Then, too, Lucy, although she is so well, has lately taken to her old habit of walking in her sleep. Her mother has spoken to me about it, and we have decided that I am to lock the door of our room every night. Mrs. Westenra has got an idea that sleep-walkers always go out on roofs of houses and along the edges of cliffs and then get suddenly wakened and fall over with a despairing cry that echoes all over the place. Poor dear, she is naturally anxious about Lucy, and she tells me that her husband, Lucy's father, had the same habit; that he would get up in the night and dress himself and go out, if he were not stopped. Lucy is to be married in the autumn, and she is already planning out her dresses and how her house is to be arranged. I sympathise with her, for I do the same, only Jonathan and I will start in life in a very simple way, and shall have to try to make both ends meet. Mr. Holmwood--he is the Hon. Arthur Holmwood, only son of Lord Godalming--is coming up here very shortly--as soon as he can leave town, for his father is not very well, and I think dear Lucy is counting the moments till he comes. She wants to take him up to the seat on the churchyard cliff and show him the beauty of Whitby. I daresay it is the waiting which disturbs her; she will be all right when he arrives. * * * * * _27 July._--No news from Jonathan. I am getting quite uneasy about him, though why I should I do not know; but I do wish that he would write, if it were only a single line. Lucy walks more than ever, and each night I am awakened by her moving about the room. Fortunately, the weather is so hot that she cannot get cold; but still the anxiety and the perpetually being wakened is beginning to tell on me, and I am getting nervous and wakeful myself. Thank God, Lucy's health keeps up. Mr. Holmwood has been suddenly called to Ring to see his father, who has been taken seriously ill. Lucy frets at the postponement of seeing him, but it does not touch her looks; she is a trifle stouter, and her cheeks are a lovely rose-pink. She has lost that anæmic look which she had. I pray it will all last. * * * * * _3 August._--Another week gone, and no news from Jonathan, not even to Mr. Hawkins, from whom I have heard. Oh, I do hope he is not ill. He surely would have written. I look at that last letter of his, but somehow it does not satisfy me. It does not read like him, and yet it is his writing. There is no mistake of that. Lucy has not walked much in her sleep the last week, but there is an odd concentration about her which I do not understand; even in her sleep she seems to be watching me. She tries the door, and finding it locked, goes about the room searching for the key. _6 August._--Another three days, and no news. This suspense is getting dreadful. If I only knew where to write to or where to go to, I should feel easier; but no one has heard a word of Jonathan since that last letter. I must only pray to God for patience. Lucy is more excitable than ever, but is otherwise well. Last night was very threatening, and the fishermen say that we are in for a storm. I must try to watch it and learn the weather signs. To-day is a grey day, and the sun as I write is hidden in thick clouds, high over Kettleness. Everything is grey--except the green grass, which seems like emerald amongst it; grey earthy rock; grey clouds, tinged with the sunburst at the far edge, hang over the grey sea, into which the sand-points stretch like grey fingers. The sea is tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar, muffled in the sea-mists drifting inland. The horizon is lost in a grey mist. All is vastness; the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and there is a "brool" over the sea that sounds like some presage of doom. Dark figures are on the beach here and there, sometimes half shrouded in the mist, and seem "men like trees walking." The fishing-boats are racing for home, and rise and dip in the ground swell as they sweep into the harbour, bending to the scuppers. Here comes old Mr. Swales. He is making straight for me, and I can see, by the way he lifts his hat, that he wants to talk.... I have been quite touched by the change in the poor old man. When he sat down beside me, he said in a very gentle way:-- "I want to say something to you, miss." I could see he was not at ease, so I took his poor old wrinkled hand in mine and asked him to speak fully; so he said, leaving his hand in mine:-- "I'm afraid, my deary, that I must have shocked you by all the wicked things I've been sayin' about the dead, and such like, for weeks past; but I didn't mean them, and I want ye to remember that when I'm gone. We aud folks that be daffled, and with one foot abaft the krok-hooal, don't altogether like to think of it, and we don't want to feel scart of it; an' that's why I've took to makin' light of it, so that I'd cheer up my own heart a bit. But, Lord love ye, miss, I ain't afraid of dyin', not a bit; only I don't want to die if I can help it. My time must be nigh at hand now, for I be aud, and a hundred years is too much for any man to expect; and I'm so nigh it that the Aud Man is already whettin' his scythe. Ye see, I can't get out o' the habit of caffin' about it all at once; the chafts will wag as they be used to. Some day soon the Angel of Death will sound his trumpet for me. But don't ye dooal an' greet, my deary!"--for he saw that I was crying--"if he should come this very night I'd not refuse to answer his call. For life be, after all, only a waitin' for somethin' else than what we're doin'; and death be all that we can rightly depend on. But I'm content, for it's comin' to me, my deary, and comin' quick. It may be comin' while we be lookin' and wonderin'. Maybe it's in that wind out over the sea that's bringin' with it loss and wreck, and sore distress, and sad hearts. Look! look!" he cried suddenly. "There's something in that wind and in the hoast beyont that sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells like death. It's in the air; I feel it comin'. Lord, make me answer cheerful when my call comes!" He held up his arms devoutly, and raised his hat. His mouth moved as though he were praying. After a few minutes' silence, he got up, shook hands with me, and blessed me, and said good-bye, and hobbled off. It all touched me, and upset me very much. I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his spy-glass under his arm. He stopped to talk with me, as he always does, but all the time kept looking at a strange ship. "I can't make her out," he said; "she's a Russian, by the look of her; but she's knocking about in the queerest way. She doesn't know her mind a bit; she seems to see the storm coming, but can't decide whether to run up north in the open, or to put in here. Look there again! She is steered mighty strangely, for she doesn't mind the hand on the wheel; changes about with every puff of wind. We'll hear more of her before this time to-morrow." CHAPTER VII CUTTING FROM "THE DAILYGRAPH," 8 AUGUST (_Pasted in Mina Murray's Journal._) From a Correspondent. _Whitby_. One of the greatest and suddenest storms on record has just been experienced here, with results both strange and unique. The weather had been somewhat sultry, but not to any degree uncommon in the month of August. Saturday evening was as fine as was ever known, and the great body of holiday-makers laid out yesterday for visits to Mulgrave Woods, Robin Hood's Bay, Rig Mill, Runswick, Staithes, and the various trips in the neighbourhood of Whitby. The steamers _Emma_ and _Scarborough_ made trips up and down the coast, and there was an unusual amount of "tripping" both to and from Whitby. The day was unusually fine till the afternoon, when some of the gossips who frequent the East Cliff churchyard, and from that commanding eminence watch the wide sweep of sea visible to the north and east, called attention to a sudden show of "mares'-tails" high in the sky to the north-west. The wind was then blowing from the south-west in the mild degree which in barometrical language is ranked "No. 2: light breeze." The coastguard on duty at once made report, and one old fisherman, who for more than half a century has kept watch on weather signs from the East Cliff, foretold in an emphatic manner the coming of a sudden storm. The approach of sunset was so very beautiful, so grand in its masses of splendidly-coloured clouds, that there was quite an assemblage on the walk along the cliff in the old churchyard to enjoy the beauty. Before the sun dipped below the black mass of Kettleness, standing boldly athwart the western sky, its downward way was marked by myriad clouds of every sunset-colour--flame, purple, pink, green, violet, and all the tints of gold; with here and there masses not large, but of seemingly absolute blackness, in all sorts of shapes, as well outlined as colossal silhouettes. The experience was not lost on the painters, and doubtless some of the sketches of the "Prelude to the Great Storm" will grace the R. A. and R. I. walls in May next. More than one captain made up his mind then and there that his "cobble" or his "mule," as they term the different classes of boats, would remain in the harbour till the storm had passed. The wind fell away entirely during the evening, and at midnight there was a dead calm, a sultry heat, and that prevailing intensity which, on the approach of thunder, affects persons of a sensitive nature. There were but few lights in sight at sea, for even the coasting steamers, which usually "hug" the shore so closely, kept well to seaward, and but few fishing-boats were in sight. The only sail noticeable was a foreign schooner with all sails set, which was seemingly going westwards. The foolhardiness or ignorance of her officers was a prolific theme for comment whilst she remained in sight, and efforts were made to signal her to reduce sail in face of her danger. Before the night shut down she was seen with sails idly flapping as she gently rolled on the undulating swell of the sea, "As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean." Shortly before ten o'clock the stillness of the air grew quite oppressive, and the silence was so marked that the bleating of a sheep inland or the barking of a dog in the town was distinctly heard, and the band on the pier, with its lively French air, was like a discord in the great harmony of nature's silence. A little after midnight came a strange sound from over the sea, and high overhead the air began to carry a strange, faint, hollow booming. Then without warning the tempest broke. With a rapidity which, at the time, seemed incredible, and even afterwards is impossible to realize, the whole aspect of nature at once became convulsed. The waves rose in growing fury, each overtopping its fellow, till in a very few minutes the lately glassy sea was like a roaring and devouring monster. White-crested waves beat madly on the level sands and rushed up the shelving cliffs; others broke over the piers, and with their spume swept the lanthorns of the lighthouses which rise from the end of either pier of Whitby Harbour. The wind roared like thunder, and blew with such force that it was with difficulty that even strong men kept their feet, or clung with grim clasp to the iron stanchions. It was found necessary to clear the entire piers from the mass of onlookers, or else the fatalities of the night would have been increased manifold. To add to the difficulties and dangers of the time, masses of sea-fog came drifting inland--white, wet clouds, which swept by in ghostly fashion, so dank and damp and cold that it needed but little effort of imagination to think that the spirits of those lost at sea were touching their living brethren with the clammy hands of death, and many a one shuddered as the wreaths of sea-mist swept by. At times the mist cleared, and the sea for some distance could be seen in the glare of the lightning, which now came thick and fast, followed by such sudden peals of thunder that the whole sky overhead seemed trembling under the shock of the footsteps of the storm. Some of the scenes thus revealed were of immeasurable grandeur and of absorbing interest--the sea, running mountains high, threw skywards with each wave mighty masses of white foam, which the tempest seemed to snatch at and whirl away into space; here and there a fishing-boat, with a rag of sail, running madly for shelter before the blast; now and again the white wings of a storm-tossed sea-bird. On the summit of the East Cliff the new searchlight was ready for experiment, but had not yet been tried. The officers in charge of it got it into working order, and in the pauses of the inrushing mist swept with it the surface of the sea. Once or twice its service was most effective, as when a fishing-boat, with gunwale under water, rushed into the harbour, able, by the guidance of the sheltering light, to avoid the danger of dashing against the piers. As each boat achieved the safety of the port there was a shout of joy from the mass of people on shore, a shout which for a moment seemed to cleave the gale and was then swept away in its rush. Before long the searchlight discovered some distance away a schooner with all sails set, apparently the same vessel which had been noticed earlier in the evening. The wind had by this time backed to the east, and there was a shudder amongst the watchers on the cliff as they realized the terrible danger in which she now was. Between her and the port lay the great flat reef on which so many good ships have from time to time suffered, and, with the wind blowing from its present quarter, it would be quite impossible that she should fetch the entrance of the harbour. It was now nearly the hour of high tide, but the waves were so great that in their troughs the shallows of the shore were almost visible, and the schooner, with all sails set, was rushing with such speed that, in the words of one old salt, "she must fetch up somewhere, if it was only in hell." Then came another rush of sea-fog, greater than any hitherto--a mass of dank mist, which seemed to close on all things like a grey pall, and left available to men only the organ of hearing, for the roar of the tempest, and the crash of the thunder, and the booming of the mighty billows came through the damp oblivion even louder than before. The rays of the searchlight were kept fixed on the harbour mouth across the East Pier, where the shock was expected, and men waited breathless. The wind suddenly shifted to the north-east, and the remnant of the sea-fog melted in the blast; and then, _mirabile dictu_, between the piers, leaping from wave to wave as it rushed at headlong speed, swept the strange schooner before the blast, with all sail set, and gained the safety of the harbour. The searchlight followed her, and a shudder ran through all who saw her, for lashed to the helm was a corpse, with drooping head, which swung horribly to and fro at each motion of the ship. No other form could be seen on deck at all. A great awe came on all as they realised that the ship, as if by a miracle, had found the harbour, unsteered save by the hand of a dead man! However, all took place more quickly than it takes to write these words. The schooner paused not, but rushing across the harbour, pitched herself on that accumulation of sand and gravel washed by many tides and many storms into the south-east corner of the pier jutting under the East Cliff, known locally as Tate Hill Pier. There was of course a considerable concussion as the vessel drove up on the sand heap. Every spar, rope, and stay was strained, and some of the "top-hammer" came crashing down. But, strangest of all, the very instant the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from below, as if shot up by the concussion, and running forward, jumped from the bow on the sand. Making straight for the steep cliff, where the churchyard hangs over the laneway to the East Pier so steeply that some of the flat tombstones--"thruff-steans" or "through-stones," as they call them in the Whitby vernacular--actually project over where the sustaining cliff has fallen away, it disappeared in the darkness, which seemed intensified just beyond the focus of the searchlight. It so happened that there was no one at the moment on Tate Hill Pier, as all those whose houses are in close proximity were either in bed or were out on the heights above. Thus the coastguard on duty on the eastern side of the harbour, who at once ran down to the little pier, was the first to climb on board. The men working the searchlight, after scouring the entrance of the harbour without seeing anything, then turned the light on the derelict and kept it there. The coastguard ran aft, and when he came beside the wheel, bent over to examine it, and recoiled at once as though under some sudden emotion. This seemed to pique general curiosity, and quite a number of people began to run. It is a good way round from the West Cliff by the Drawbridge to Tate Hill Pier, but your correspondent is a fairly good runner, and came well ahead of the crowd. When I arrived, however, I found already assembled on the pier a crowd, whom the coastguard and police refused to allow to come on board. By the courtesy of the chief boatman, I was, as your correspondent, permitted to climb on deck, and was one of a small group who saw the dead seaman whilst actually lashed to the wheel. It was no wonder that the coastguard was surprised, or even awed, for not often can such a sight have been seen. The man was simply fastened by his hands, tied one over the other, to a spoke of the wheel. Between the inner hand and the wood was a crucifix, the set of beads on which it was fastened being around both wrists and wheel, and all kept fast by the binding cords. The poor fellow may have been seated at one time, but the flapping and buffeting of the sails had worked through the rudder of the wheel and dragged him to and fro, so that the cords with which he was tied had cut the flesh to the bone. Accurate note was made of the state of things, and a doctor--Surgeon J. M. Caffyn, of 33, East Elliot Place--who came immediately after me, declared, after making examination, that the man must have been dead for quite two days. In his pocket was a bottle, carefully corked, empty save for a little roll of paper, which proved to be the addendum to the log. The coastguard said the man must have tied up his own hands, fastening the knots with his teeth. The fact that a coastguard was the first on board may save some complications, later on, in the Admiralty Court; for coastguards cannot claim the salvage which is the right of the first civilian entering on a derelict. Already, however, the legal tongues are wagging, and one young law student is loudly asserting that the rights of the owner are already completely sacrificed, his property being held in contravention of the statutes of mortmain, since the tiller, as emblemship, if not proof, of delegated possession, is held in a _dead hand_. It is needless to say that the dead steersman has been reverently removed from the place where he held his honourable watch and ward till death--a steadfastness as noble as that of the young Casabianca--and placed in the mortuary to await inquest. Already the sudden storm is passing, and its fierceness is abating; crowds are scattering homeward, and the sky is beginning to redden over the Yorkshire wolds. I shall send, in time for your next issue, further details of the derelict ship which found her way so miraculously into harbour in the storm. _Whitby_ _9 August._--The sequel to the strange arrival of the derelict in the storm last night is almost more startling than the thing itself. It turns out that the schooner is a Russian from Varna, and is called the _Demeter_. She is almost entirely in ballast of silver sand, with only a small amount of cargo--a number of great wooden boxes filled with mould. This cargo was consigned to a Whitby solicitor, Mr. S. F. Billington, of 7, The Crescent, who this morning went aboard and formally took possession of the goods consigned to him. The Russian consul, too, acting for the charter-party, took formal possession of the ship, and paid all harbour dues, etc. Nothing is talked about here to-day except the strange coincidence; the officials of the Board of Trade have been most exacting in seeing that every compliance has been made with existing regulations. As the matter is to be a "nine days' wonder," they are evidently determined that there shall be no cause of after complaint. A good deal of interest was abroad concerning the dog which landed when the ship struck, and more than a few of the members of the S. P. C. A., which is very strong in Whitby, have tried to befriend the animal. To the general disappointment, however, it was not to be found; it seems to have disappeared entirely from the town. It may be that it was frightened and made its way on to the moors, where it is still hiding in terror. There are some who look with dread on such a possibility, lest later on it should in itself become a danger, for it is evidently a fierce brute. Early this morning a large dog, a half-bred mastiff belonging to a coal merchant close to Tate Hill Pier, was found dead in the roadway opposite to its master's yard. It had been fighting, and manifestly had had a savage opponent, for its throat was torn away, and its belly was slit open as if with a savage claw. * * * * * _Later._--By the kindness of the Board of Trade inspector, I have been permitted to look over the log-book of the _Demeter_, which was in order up to within three days, but contained nothing of special interest except as to facts of missing men. The greatest interest, however, is with regard to the paper found in the bottle, which was to-day produced at the inquest; and a more strange narrative than the two between them unfold it has not been my lot to come across. As there is no motive for concealment, I am permitted to use them, and accordingly send you a rescript, simply omitting technical details of seamanship and supercargo. It almost seems as though the captain had been seized with some kind of mania before he had got well into blue water, and that this had developed persistently throughout the voyage. Of course my statement must be taken _cum grano_, since I am writing from the dictation of a clerk of the Russian consul, who kindly translated for me, time being short. LOG OF THE "DEMETER." _Varna to Whitby._ _Written 18 July, things so strange happening, that I shall keep accurate note henceforth till we land._ * * * * * On 6 July we finished taking in cargo, silver sand and boxes of earth. At noon set sail. East wind, fresh. Crew, five hands ... two mates, cook, and myself (captain). * * * * * On 11 July at dawn entered Bosphorus. Boarded by Turkish Customs officers. Backsheesh. All correct. Under way at 4 p. m. * * * * * On 12 July through Dardanelles. More Customs officers and flagboat of guarding squadron. Backsheesh again. Work of officers thorough, but quick. Want us off soon. At dark passed into Archipelago. * * * * * On 13 July passed Cape Matapan. Crew dissatisfied about something. Seemed scared, but would not speak out. * * * * * On 14 July was somewhat anxious about crew. Men all steady fellows, who sailed with me before. Mate could not make out what was wrong; they only told him there was _something_, and crossed themselves. Mate lost temper with one of them that day and struck him. Expected fierce quarrel, but all was quiet. * * * * * On 16 July mate reported in the morning that one of crew, Petrofsky, was missing. Could not account for it. Took larboard watch eight bells last night; was relieved by Abramoff, but did not go to bunk. Men more downcast than ever. All said they expected something of the kind, but would not say more than there was _something_ aboard. Mate getting very impatient with them; feared some trouble ahead. * * * * * On 17 July, yesterday, one of the men, Olgaren, came to my cabin, and in an awestruck way confided to me that he thought there was a strange man aboard the ship. He said that in his watch he had been sheltering behind the deck-house, as there was a rain-storm, when he saw a tall, thin man, who was not like any of the crew, come up the companion-way, and go along the deck forward, and disappear. He followed cautiously, but when he got to bows found no one, and the hatchways were all closed. He was in a panic of superstitious fear, and I am afraid the panic may spread. To allay it, I shall to-day search entire ship carefully from stem to stern. * * * * * Later in the day I got together the whole crew, and told them, as they evidently thought there was some one in the ship, we would search from stem to stern. First mate angry; said it was folly, and to yield to such foolish ideas would demoralise the men; said he would engage to keep them out of trouble with a handspike. I let him take the helm, while the rest began thorough search, all keeping abreast, with lanterns: we left no corner unsearched. As there were only the big wooden boxes, there were no odd corners where a man could hide. Men much relieved when search over, and went back to work cheerfully. First mate scowled, but said nothing. * * * * * _22 July_.--Rough weather last three days, and all hands busy with sails--no time to be frightened. Men seem to have forgotten their dread. Mate cheerful again, and all on good terms. Praised men for work in bad weather. Passed Gibralter and out through Straits. All well. * * * * * _24 July_.--There seems some doom over this ship. Already a hand short, and entering on the Bay of Biscay with wild weather ahead, and yet last night another man lost--disappeared. Like the first, he came off his watch and was not seen again. Men all in a panic of fear; sent a round robin, asking to have double watch, as they fear to be alone. Mate angry. Fear there will be some trouble, as either he or the men will do some violence. * * * * * _28 July_.--Four days in hell, knocking about in a sort of maelstrom, and the wind a tempest. No sleep for any one. Men all worn out. Hardly know how to set a watch, since no one fit to go on. Second mate volunteered to steer and watch, and let men snatch a few hours' sleep. Wind abating; seas still terrific, but feel them less, as ship is steadier. * * * * * _29 July_.--Another tragedy. Had single watch to-night, as crew too tired to double. When morning watch came on deck could find no one except steersman. Raised outcry, and all came on deck. Thorough search, but no one found. Are now without second mate, and crew in a panic. Mate and I agreed to go armed henceforth and wait for any sign of cause. * * * * * _30 July_.--Last night. Rejoiced we are nearing England. Weather fine, all sails set. Retired worn out; slept soundly; awaked by mate telling me that both man of watch and steersman missing. Only self and mate and two hands left to work ship. * * * * * _1 August_.--Two days of fog, and not a sail sighted. Had hoped when in the English Channel to be able to signal for help or get in somewhere. Not having power to work sails, have to run before wind. Dare not lower, as could not raise them again. We seem to be drifting to some terrible doom. Mate now more demoralised than either of men. His stronger nature seems to have worked inwardly against himself. Men are beyond fear, working stolidly and patiently, with minds made up to worst. They are Russian, he Roumanian. * * * * * _2 August, midnight_.--Woke up from few minutes' sleep by hearing a cry, seemingly outside my port. Could see nothing in fog. Rushed on deck, and ran against mate. Tells me heard cry and ran, but no sign of man on watch. One more gone. Lord, help us! Mate says we must be past Straits of Dover, as in a moment of fog lifting he saw North Foreland, just as he heard the man cry out. If so we are now off in the North Sea, and only God can guide us in the fog, which seems to move with us; and God seems to have deserted us. * * * * * _3 August_.--At midnight I went to relieve the man at the wheel, and when I got to it found no one there. The wind was steady, and as we ran before it there was no yawing. I dared not leave it, so shouted for the mate. After a few seconds he rushed up on deck in his flannels. He looked wild-eyed and haggard, and I greatly fear his reason has given way. He came close to me and whispered hoarsely, with his mouth to my ear, as though fearing the very air might hear: "_It_ is here; I know it, now. On the watch last night I saw It, like a man, tall and thin, and ghastly pale. It was in the bows, and looking out. I crept behind It, and gave It my knife; but the knife went through It, empty as the air." And as he spoke he took his knife and drove it savagely into space. Then he went on: "But It is here, and I'll find It. It is in the hold, perhaps in one of those boxes. I'll unscrew them one by one and see. You work the helm." And, with a warning look and his finger on his lip, he went below. There was springing up a choppy wind, and I could not leave the helm. I saw him come out on deck again with a tool-chest and a lantern, and go down the forward hatchway. He is mad, stark, raving mad, and it's no use my trying to stop him. He can't hurt those big boxes: they are invoiced as "clay," and to pull them about is as harmless a thing as he can do. So here I stay, and mind the helm, and write these notes. I can only trust in God and wait till the fog clears. Then, if I can't steer to any harbour with the wind that is, I shall cut down sails and lie by, and signal for help.... * * * * * It is nearly all over now. Just as I was beginning to hope that the mate would come out calmer--for I heard him knocking away at something in the hold, and work is good for him--there came up the hatchway a sudden, startled scream, which made my blood run cold, and up on the deck he came as if shot from a gun--a raging madman, with his eyes rolling and his face convulsed with fear. "Save me! save me!" he cried, and then looked round on the blanket of fog. His horror turned to despair, and in a steady voice he said: "You had better come too, captain, before it is too late. _He_ is there. I know the secret now. The sea will save me from Him, and it is all that is left!" Before I could say a word, or move forward to seize him, he sprang on the bulwark and deliberately threw himself into the sea. I suppose I know the secret too, now. It was this madman who had got rid of the men one by one, and now he has followed them himself. God help me! How am I to account for all these horrors when I get to port? _When_ I get to port! Will that ever be? * * * * * _4 August._--Still fog, which the sunrise cannot pierce. I know there is sunrise because I am a sailor, why else I know not. I dared not go below, I dared not leave the helm; so here all night I stayed, and in the dimness of the night I saw It--Him! God forgive me, but the mate was right to jump overboard. It was better to die like a man; to die like a sailor in blue water no man can object. But I am captain, and I must not leave my ship. But I shall baffle this fiend or monster, for I shall tie my hands to the wheel when my strength begins to fail, and along with them I shall tie that which He--It!--dare not touch; and then, come good wind or foul, I shall save my soul, and my honour as a captain. I am growing weaker, and the night is coming on. If He can look me in the face again, I may not have time to act.... If we are wrecked, mayhap this bottle may be found, and those who find it may understand; if not, ... well, then all men shall know that I have been true to my trust. God and the Blessed Virgin and the saints help a poor ignorant soul trying to do his duty.... * * * * * Of course the verdict was an open one. There is no evidence to adduce; and whether or not the man himself committed the murders there is now none to say. The folk here hold almost universally that the captain is simply a hero, and he is to be given a public funeral. Already it is arranged that his body is to be taken with a train of boats up the Esk for a piece and then brought back to Tate Hill Pier and up the abbey steps; for he is to be buried in the churchyard on the cliff. The owners of more than a hundred boats have already given in their names as wishing to follow him to the grave. No trace has ever been found of the great dog; at which there is much mourning, for, with public opinion in its present state, he would, I believe, be adopted by the town. To-morrow will see the funeral; and so will end this one more "mystery of the sea." _Mina Murray's Journal._ _8 August._--Lucy was very restless all night, and I, too, could not sleep. The storm was fearful, and as it boomed loudly among the chimney-pots, it made me shudder. When a sharp puff came it seemed to be like a distant gun. Strangely enough, Lucy did not wake; but she got up twice and dressed herself. Fortunately, each time I awoke in time and managed to undress her without waking her, and got her back to bed. It is a very strange thing, this sleep-walking, for as soon as her will is thwarted in any physical way, her intention, if there be any, disappears, and she yields herself almost exactly to the routine of her life. Early in the morning we both got up and went down to the harbour to see if anything had happened in the night. There were very few people about, and though the sun was bright, and the air clear and fresh, the big, grim-looking waves, that seemed dark themselves because the foam that topped them was like snow, forced themselves in through the narrow mouth of the harbour--like a bullying man going through a crowd. Somehow I felt glad that Jonathan was not on the sea last night, but on land. But, oh, is he on land or sea? Where is he, and how? I am getting fearfully anxious about him. If I only knew what to do, and could do anything! * * * * * _10 August._--The funeral of the poor sea-captain to-day was most touching. Every boat in the harbour seemed to be there, and the coffin was carried by captains all the way from Tate Hill Pier up to the churchyard. Lucy came with me, and we went early to our old seat, whilst the cortège of boats went up the river to the Viaduct and came down again. We had a lovely view, and saw the procession nearly all the way. The poor fellow was laid to rest quite near our seat so that we stood on it when the time came and saw everything. Poor Lucy seemed much upset. She was restless and uneasy all the time, and I cannot but think that her dreaming at night is telling on her. She is quite odd in one thing: she will not admit to me that there is any cause for restlessness; or if there be, she does not understand it herself. There is an additional cause in that poor old Mr. Swales was found dead this morning on our seat, his neck being broken. He had evidently, as the doctor said, fallen back in the seat in some sort of fright, for there was a look of fear and horror on his face that the men said made them shudder. Poor dear old man! Perhaps he had seen Death with his dying eyes! Lucy is so sweet and sensitive that she feels influences more acutely than other people do. Just now she was quite upset by a little thing which I did not much heed, though I am myself very fond of animals. One of the men who came up here often to look for the boats was followed by his dog. The dog is always with him. They are both quiet persons, and I never saw the man angry, nor heard the dog bark. During the service the dog would not come to its master, who was on the seat with us, but kept a few yards off, barking and howling. Its master spoke to it gently, and then harshly, and then angrily; but it would neither come nor cease to make a noise. It was in a sort of fury, with its eyes savage, and all its hairs bristling out like a cat's tail when puss is on the war-path. Finally the man, too, got angry, and jumped down and kicked the dog, and then took it by the scruff of the neck and half dragged and half threw it on the tombstone on which the seat is fixed. The moment it touched the stone the poor thing became quiet and fell all into a tremble. It did not try to get away, but crouched down, quivering and cowering, and was in such a pitiable state of terror that I tried, though without effect, to comfort it. Lucy was full of pity, too, but she did not attempt to touch the dog, but looked at it in an agonised sort of way. I greatly fear that she is of too super-sensitive a nature to go through the world without trouble. She will be dreaming of this to-night, I am sure. The whole agglomeration of things--the ship steered into port by a dead man; his attitude, tied to the wheel with a crucifix and beads; the touching funeral; the dog, now furious and now in terror--will all afford material for her dreams. I think it will be best for her to go to bed tired out physically, so I shall take her for a long walk by the cliffs to Robin Hood's Bay and back. She ought not to have much inclination for sleep-walking then. CHAPTER VIII MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL _Same day, 11 o'clock p. m._--Oh, but I am tired! If it were not that I had made my diary a duty I should not open it to-night. We had a lovely walk. Lucy, after a while, was in gay spirits, owing, I think, to some dear cows who came nosing towards us in a field close to the lighthouse, and frightened the wits out of us. I believe we forgot everything except, of course, personal fear, and it seemed to wipe the slate clean and give us a fresh start. We had a capital "severe tea" at Robin Hood's Bay in a sweet little old-fashioned inn, with a bow-window right over the seaweed-covered rocks of the strand. I believe we should have shocked the "New Woman" with our appetites. Men are more tolerant, bless them! Then we walked home with some, or rather many, stoppages to rest, and with our hearts full of a constant dread of wild bulls. Lucy was really tired, and we intended to creep off to bed as soon as we could. The young curate came in, however, and Mrs. Westenra asked him to stay for supper. Lucy and I had both a fight for it with the dusty miller; I know it was a hard fight on my part, and I am quite heroic. I think that some day the bishops must get together and see about breeding up a new class of curates, who don't take supper, no matter how they may be pressed to, and who will know when girls are tired. Lucy is asleep and breathing softly. She has more colour in her cheeks than usual, and looks, oh, so sweet. If Mr. Holmwood fell in love with her seeing her only in the drawing-room, I wonder what he would say if he saw her now. Some of the "New Women" writers will some day start an idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting. But I suppose the New Woman won't condescend in future to accept; she will do the proposing herself. And a nice job she will make of it, too! There's some consolation in that. I am so happy to-night, because dear Lucy seems better. I really believe she has turned the corner, and that we are over her troubles with dreaming. I should be quite happy if I only knew if Jonathan.... God bless and keep him. * * * * * _11 August, 3 a. m._--Diary again. No sleep now, so I may as well write. I am too agitated to sleep. We have had such an adventure, such an agonising experience. I fell asleep as soon as I had closed my diary.... Suddenly I became broad awake, and sat up, with a horrible sense of fear upon me, and of some feeling of emptiness around me. The room was dark, so I could not see Lucy's bed; I stole across and felt for her. The bed was empty. I lit a match and found that she was not in the room. The door was shut, but not locked, as I had left it. I feared to wake her mother, who has been more than usually ill lately, so threw on some clothes and got ready to look for her. As I was leaving the room it struck me that the clothes she wore might give me some clue to her dreaming intention. Dressing-gown would mean house; dress, outside. Dressing-gown and dress were both in their places. "Thank God," I said to myself, "she cannot be far, as she is only in her nightdress." I ran downstairs and looked in the sitting-room. Not there! Then I looked in all the other open rooms of the house, with an ever-growing fear chilling my heart. Finally I came to the hall door and found it open. It was not wide open, but the catch of the lock had not caught. The people of the house are careful to lock the door every night, so I feared that Lucy must have gone out as she was. There was no time to think of what might happen; a vague, overmastering fear obscured all details. I took a big, heavy shawl and ran out. The clock was striking one as I was in the Crescent, and there was not a soul in sight. I ran along the North Terrace, but could see no sign of the white figure which I expected. At the edge of the West Cliff above the pier I looked across the harbour to the East Cliff, in the hope or fear--I don't know which--of seeing Lucy in our favourite seat. There was a bright full moon, with heavy black, driving clouds, which threw the whole scene into a fleeting diorama of light and shade as they sailed across. For a moment or two I could see nothing, as the shadow of a cloud obscured St. Mary's Church and all around it. Then as the cloud passed I could see the ruins of the abbey coming into view; and as the edge of a narrow band of light as sharp as a sword-cut moved along, the church and the churchyard became gradually visible. Whatever my expectation was, it was not disappointed, for there, on our favourite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a half-reclining figure, snowy white. The coming of the cloud was too quick for me to see much, for shadow shut down on light almost immediately; but it seemed to me as though something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone, and bent over it. What it was, whether man or beast, I could not tell; I did not wait to catch another glance, but flew down the steep steps to the pier and along by the fish-market to the bridge, which was the only way to reach the East Cliff. The town seemed as dead, for not a soul did I see; I rejoiced that it was so, for I wanted no witness of poor Lucy's condition. The time and distance seemed endless, and my knees trembled and my breath came laboured as I toiled up the endless steps to the abbey. I must have gone fast, and yet it seemed to me as if my feet were weighted with lead, and as though every joint in my body were rusty. When I got almost to the top I could see the seat and the white figure, for I was now close enough to distinguish it even through the spells of shadow. There was undoubtedly something, long and black, bending over the half-reclining white figure. I called in fright, "Lucy! Lucy!" and something raised a head, and from where I was I could see a white face and red, gleaming eyes. Lucy did not answer, and I ran on to the entrance of the churchyard. As I entered, the church was between me and the seat, and for a minute or so I lost sight of her. When I came in view again the cloud had passed, and the moonlight struck so brilliantly that I could see Lucy half reclining with her head lying over the back of the seat. She was quite alone, and there was not a sign of any living thing about. When I bent over her I could see that she was still asleep. Her lips were parted, and she was breathing--not softly as usual with her, but in long, heavy gasps, as though striving to get her lungs full at every breath. As I came close, she put up her hand in her sleep and pulled the collar of her nightdress close around her throat. Whilst she did so there came a little shudder through her, as though she felt the cold. I flung the warm shawl over her, and drew the edges tight round her neck, for I dreaded lest she should get some deadly chill from the night air, unclad as she was. I feared to wake her all at once, so, in order to have my hands free that I might help her, I fastened the shawl at her throat with a big safety-pin; but I must have been clumsy in my anxiety and pinched or pricked her with it, for by-and-by, when her breathing became quieter, she put her hand to her throat again and moaned. When I had her carefully wrapped up I put my shoes on her feet and then began very gently to wake her. At first she did not respond; but gradually she became more and more uneasy in her sleep, moaning and sighing occasionally. At last, as time was passing fast, and, for many other reasons, I wished to get her home at once, I shook her more forcibly, till finally she opened her eyes and awoke. She did not seem surprised to see me, as, of course, she did not realise all at once where she was. Lucy always wakes prettily, and even at such a time, when her body must have been chilled with cold, and her mind somewhat appalled at waking unclad in a churchyard at night, she did not lose her grace. She trembled a little, and clung to me; when I told her to come at once with me home she rose without a word, with the obedience of a child. As we passed along, the gravel hurt my feet, and Lucy noticed me wince. She stopped and wanted to insist upon my taking my shoes; but I would not. However, when we got to the pathway outside the churchyard, where there was a puddle of water, remaining from the storm, I daubed my feet with mud, using each foot in turn on the other, so that as we went home, no one, in case we should meet any one, should notice my bare feet. Fortune favoured us, and we got home without meeting a soul. Once we saw a man, who seemed not quite sober, passing along a street in front of us; but we hid in a door till he had disappeared up an opening such as there are here, steep little closes, or "wynds," as they call them in Scotland. My heart beat so loud all the time that sometimes I thought I should faint. I was filled with anxiety about Lucy, not only for her health, lest she should suffer from the exposure, but for her reputation in case the story should get wind. When we got in, and had washed our feet, and had said a prayer of thankfulness together, I tucked her into bed. Before falling asleep she asked--even implored--me not to say a word to any one, even her mother, about her sleep-walking adventure. I hesitated at first to promise; but on thinking of the state of her mother's health, and how the knowledge of such a thing would fret her, and thinking, too, of how such a story might become distorted--nay, infallibly would--in case it should leak out, I thought it wiser to do so. I hope I did right. I have locked the door, and the key is tied to my wrist, so perhaps I shall not be again disturbed. Lucy is sleeping soundly; the reflex of the dawn is high and far over the sea.... * * * * * _Same day, noon._--All goes well. Lucy slept till I woke her and seemed not to have even changed her side. The adventure of the night does not seem to have harmed her; on the contrary, it has benefited her, for she looks better this morning than she has done for weeks. I was sorry to notice that my clumsiness with the safety-pin hurt her. Indeed, it might have been serious, for the skin of her throat was pierced. I must have pinched up a piece of loose skin and have transfixed it, for there are two little red points like pin-pricks, and on the band of her nightdress was a drop of blood. When I apologised and was concerned about it, she laughed and petted me, and said she did not even feel it. Fortunately it cannot leave a scar, as it is so tiny. * * * * * _Same day, night._--We passed a happy day. The air was clear, and the sun bright, and there was a cool breeze. We took our lunch to Mulgrave Woods, Mrs. Westenra driving by the road and Lucy and I walking by the cliff-path and joining her at the gate. I felt a little sad myself, for I could not but feel how _absolutely_ happy it would have been had Jonathan been with me. But there! I must only be patient. In the evening we strolled in the Casino Terrace, and heard some good music by Spohr and Mackenzie, and went to bed early. Lucy seems more restful than she has been for some time, and fell asleep at once. I shall lock the door and secure the key the same as before, though I do not expect any trouble to-night. * * * * * _12 August._--My expectations were wrong, for twice during the night I was wakened by Lucy trying to get out. She seemed, even in her sleep, to be a little impatient at finding the door shut, and went back to bed under a sort of protest. I woke with the dawn, and heard the birds chirping outside of the window. Lucy woke, too, and, I was glad to see, was even better than on the previous morning. All her old gaiety of manner seemed to have come back, and she came and snuggled in beside me and told me all about Arthur. I told her how anxious I was about Jonathan, and then she tried to comfort me. Well, she succeeded somewhat, for, though sympathy can't alter facts, it can help to make them more bearable. * * * * * _13 August._--Another quiet day, and to bed with the key on my wrist as before. Again I awoke in the night, and found Lucy sitting up in bed, still asleep, pointing to the window. I got up quietly, and pulling aside the blind, looked out. It was brilliant moonlight, and the soft effect of the light over the sea and sky--merged together in one great, silent mystery--was beautiful beyond words. Between me and the moonlight flitted a great bat, coming and going in great whirling circles. Once or twice it came quite close, but was, I suppose, frightened at seeing me, and flitted away across the harbour towards the abbey. When I came back from the window Lucy had lain down again, and was sleeping peacefully. She did not stir again all night. * * * * * _14 August._--On the East Cliff, reading and writing all day. Lucy seems to have become as much in love with the spot as I am, and it is hard to get her away from it when it is time to come home for lunch or tea or dinner. This afternoon she made a funny remark. We were coming home for dinner, and had come to the top of the steps up from the West Pier and stopped to look at the view, as we generally do. The setting sun, low down in the sky, was just dropping behind Kettleness; the red light was thrown over on the East Cliff and the old abbey, and seemed to bathe everything in a beautiful rosy glow. We were silent for a while, and suddenly Lucy murmured as if to herself:-- "His red eyes again! They are just the same." It was such an odd expression, coming _apropos_ of nothing, that it quite startled me. I slewed round a little, so as to see Lucy well without seeming to stare at her, and saw that she was in a half-dreamy state, with an odd look on her face that I could not quite make out; so I said nothing, but followed her eyes. She appeared to be looking over at our own seat, whereon was a dark figure seated alone. I was a little startled myself, for it seemed for an instant as if the stranger had great eyes like burning flames; but a second look dispelled the illusion. The red sunlight was shining on the windows of St. Mary's Church behind our seat, and as the sun dipped there was just sufficient change in the refraction and reflection to make it appear as if the light moved. I called Lucy's attention to the peculiar effect, and she became herself with a start, but she looked sad all the same; it may have been that she was thinking of that terrible night up there. We never refer to it; so I said nothing, and we went home to dinner. Lucy had a headache and went early to bed. I saw her asleep, and went out for a little stroll myself; I walked along the cliffs to the westward, and was full of sweet sadness, for I was thinking of Jonathan. When coming home--it was then bright moonlight, so bright that, though the front of our part of the Crescent was in shadow, everything could be well seen--I threw a glance up at our window, and saw Lucy's head leaning out. I thought that perhaps she was looking out for me, so I opened my handkerchief and waved it. She did not notice or make any movement whatever. Just then, the moonlight crept round an angle of the building, and the light fell on the window. There distinctly was Lucy with her head lying up against the side of the window-sill and her eyes shut. She was fast asleep, and by her, seated on the window-sill, was something that looked like a good-sized bird. I was afraid she might get a chill, so I ran upstairs, but as I came into the room she was moving back to her bed, fast asleep, and breathing heavily; she was holding her hand to her throat, as though to protect it from cold. I did not wake her, but tucked her up warmly; I have taken care that the door is locked and the window securely fastened. She looks so sweet as she sleeps; but she is paler than is her wont, and there is a drawn, haggard look under her eyes which I do not like. I fear she is fretting about something. I wish I could find out what it is. * * * * * _15 August._--Rose later than usual. Lucy was languid and tired, and slept on after we had been called. We had a happy surprise at breakfast. Arthur's father is better, and wants the marriage to come off soon. Lucy is full of quiet joy, and her mother is glad and sorry at once. Later on in the day she told me the cause. She is grieved to lose Lucy as her very own, but she is rejoiced that she is soon to have some one to protect her. Poor dear, sweet lady! She confided to me that she has got her death-warrant. She has not told Lucy, and made me promise secrecy; her doctor told her that within a few months, at most, she must die, for her heart is weakening. At any time, even now, a sudden shock would be almost sure to kill her. Ah, we were wise to keep from her the affair of the dreadful night of Lucy's sleep-walking. * * * * * _17 August._--No diary for two whole days. I have not had the heart to write. Some sort of shadowy pall seems to be coming over our happiness. No news from Jonathan, and Lucy seems to be growing weaker, whilst her mother's hours are numbering to a close. I do not understand Lucy's fading away as she is doing. She eats well and sleeps well, and enjoys the fresh air; but all the time the roses in her cheeks are fading, and she gets weaker and more languid day by day; at night I hear her gasping as if for air. I keep the key of our door always fastened to my wrist at night, but she gets up and walks about the room, and sits at the open window. Last night I found her leaning out when I woke up, and when I tried to wake her I could not; she was in a faint. When I managed to restore her she was as weak as water, and cried silently between long, painful struggles for breath. When I asked her how she came to be at the window she shook her head and turned away. I trust her feeling ill may not be from that unlucky prick of the safety-pin. I looked at her throat just now as she lay asleep, and the tiny wounds seem not to have healed. They are still open, and, if anything, larger than before, and the edges of them are faintly white. They are like little white dots with red centres. Unless they heal within a day or two, I shall insist on the doctor seeing about them. _Letter, Samuel F. Billington & Son, Solicitors, Whitby, to Messrs. Carter, Paterson & Co., London._ "_17 August._ "Dear Sirs,-- "Herewith please receive invoice of goods sent by Great Northern Railway. Same are to be delivered at Carfax, near Purfleet, immediately on receipt at goods station King's Cross. The house is at present empty, but enclosed please find keys, all of which are labelled. "You will please deposit the boxes, fifty in number, which form the consignment, in the partially ruined building forming part of the house and marked 'A' on rough diagram enclosed. Your agent will easily recognise the locality, as it is the ancient chapel of the mansion. The goods leave by the train at 9:30 to-night, and will be due at King's Cross at 4:30 to-morrow afternoon. As our client wishes the delivery made as soon as possible, we shall be obliged by your having teams ready at King's Cross at the time named and forthwith conveying the goods to destination. In order to obviate any delays possible through any routine requirements as to payment in your departments, we enclose cheque herewith for ten pounds (£10), receipt of which please acknowledge. Should the charge be less than this amount, you can return balance; if greater, we shall at once send cheque for difference on hearing from you. You are to leave the keys on coming away in the main hall of the house, where the proprietor may get them on his entering the house by means of his duplicate key. "Pray do not take us as exceeding the bounds of business courtesy in pressing you in all ways to use the utmost expedition. _"We are, dear Sirs, "Faithfully yours, "SAMUEL F. BILLINGTON & SON."_ _Letter, Messrs. Carter, Paterson & Co., London, to Messrs. Billington & Son, Whitby._ "_21 August._ "Dear Sirs,-- "We beg to acknowledge £10 received and to return cheque £1 17s. 9d, amount of overplus, as shown in receipted account herewith. Goods are delivered in exact accordance with instructions, and keys left in parcel in main hall, as directed. "We are, dear Sirs, "Yours respectfully. "_Pro_ CARTER, PATERSON & CO." _Mina Murray's Journal._ _18 August._--I am happy to-day, and write sitting on the seat in the churchyard. Lucy is ever so much better. Last night she slept well all night, and did not disturb me once. The roses seem coming back already to her cheeks, though she is still sadly pale and wan-looking. If she were in any way anæmic I could understand it, but she is not. She is in gay spirits and full of life and cheerfulness. All the morbid reticence seems to have passed from her, and she has just reminded me, as if I needed any reminding, of _that_ night, and that it was here, on this very seat, I found her asleep. As she told me she tapped playfully with the heel of her boot on the stone slab and said:-- "My poor little feet didn't make much noise then! I daresay poor old Mr. Swales would have told me that it was because I didn't want to wake up Geordie." As she was in such a communicative humour, I asked her if she had dreamed at all that night. Before she answered, that sweet, puckered look came into her forehead, which Arthur--I call him Arthur from her habit--says he loves; and, indeed, I don't wonder that he does. Then she went on in a half-dreaming kind of way, as if trying to recall it to herself:-- "I didn't quite dream; but it all seemed to be real. I only wanted to be here in this spot--I don't know why, for I was afraid of something--I don't know what. I remember, though I suppose I was asleep, passing through the streets and over the bridge. A fish leaped as I went by, and I leaned over to look at it, and I heard a lot of dogs howling--the whole town seemed as if it must be full of dogs all howling at once--as I went up the steps. Then I had a vague memory of something long and dark with red eyes, just as we saw in the sunset, and something very sweet and very bitter all around me at once; and then I seemed sinking into deep green water, and there was a singing in my ears, as I have heard there is to drowning men; and then everything seemed passing away from me; my soul seemed to go out from my body and float about the air. I seem to remember that once the West Lighthouse was right under me, and then there was a sort of agonising feeling, as if I were in an earthquake, and I came back and found you shaking my body. I saw you do it before I felt you." Then she began to laugh. It seemed a little uncanny to me, and I listened to her breathlessly. I did not quite like it, and thought it better not to keep her mind on the subject, so we drifted on to other subjects, and Lucy was like her old self again. When we got home the fresh breeze had braced her up, and her pale cheeks were really more rosy. Her mother rejoiced when she saw her, and we all spent a very happy evening together. * * * * * _19 August._--Joy, joy, joy! although not all joy. At last, news of Jonathan. The dear fellow has been ill; that is why he did not write. I am not afraid to think it or say it, now that I know. Mr. Hawkins sent me on the letter, and wrote himself, oh, so kindly. I am to leave in the morning and go over to Jonathan, and to help to nurse him if necessary, and to bring him home. Mr. Hawkins says it would not be a bad thing if we were to be married out there. I have cried over the good Sister's letter till I can feel it wet against my bosom, where it lies. It is of Jonathan, and must be next my heart, for he is _in_ my heart. My journey is all mapped out, and my luggage ready. I am only taking one change of dress; Lucy will bring my trunk to London and keep it till I send for it, for it may be that ... I must write no more; I must keep it to say to Jonathan, my husband. The letter that he has seen and touched must comfort me till we meet. _Letter, Sister Agatha, Hospital of St. Joseph and Ste. Mary, Buda-Pesth, to Miss Wilhelmina Murray._ "_12 August._ "Dear Madam,-- "I write by desire of Mr. Jonathan Harker, who is himself not strong enough to write, though progressing well, thanks to God and St. Joseph and Ste. Mary. He has been under our care for nearly six weeks, suffering from a violent brain fever. He wishes me to convey his love, and to say that by this post I write for him to Mr. Peter Hawkins, Exeter, to say, with his dutiful respects, that he is sorry for his delay, and that all of his work is completed. He will require some few weeks' rest in our sanatorium in the hills, but will then return. He wishes me to say that he has not sufficient money with him, and that he would like to pay for his staying here, so that others who need shall not be wanting for help. "Believe me, "Yours, with sympathy and all blessings, "SISTER AGATHA. "P. S.--My patient being asleep, I open this to let you know something more. He has told me all about you, and that you are shortly to be his wife. All blessings to you both! He has had some fearful shock--so says our doctor--and in his delirium his ravings have been dreadful; of wolves and poison and blood; of ghosts and demons; and I fear to say of what. Be careful with him always that there may be nothing to excite him of this kind for a long time to come; the traces of such an illness as his do not lightly die away. We should have written long ago, but we knew nothing of his friends, and there was on him nothing that any one could understand. He came in the train from Klausenburg, and the guard was told by the station-master there that he rushed into the station shouting for a ticket for home. Seeing from his violent demeanour that he was English, they gave him a ticket for the furthest station on the way thither that the train reached. "Be assured that he is well cared for. He has won all hearts by his sweetness and gentleness. He is truly getting on well, and I have no doubt will in a few weeks be all himself. But be careful of him for safety's sake. There are, I pray God and St. Joseph and Ste. Mary, many, many, happy years for you both." _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _19 August._--Strange and sudden change in Renfield last night. About eight o'clock he began to get excited and sniff about as a dog does when setting. The attendant was struck by his manner, and knowing my interest in him, encouraged him to talk. He is usually respectful to the attendant and at times servile; but to-night, the man tells me, he was quite haughty. Would not condescend to talk with him at all. All he would say was:-- "I don't want to talk to you: you don't count now; the Master is at hand." The attendant thinks it is some sudden form of religious mania which has seized him. If so, we must look out for squalls, for a strong man with homicidal and religious mania at once might be dangerous. The combination is a dreadful one. At nine o'clock I visited him myself. His attitude to me was the same as that to the attendant; in his sublime self-feeling the difference between myself and attendant seemed to him as nothing. It looks like religious mania, and he will soon think that he himself is God. These infinitesimal distinctions between man and man are too paltry for an Omnipotent Being. How these madmen give themselves away! The real God taketh heed lest a sparrow fall; but the God created from human vanity sees no difference between an eagle and a sparrow. Oh, if men only knew! For half an hour or more Renfield kept getting excited in greater and greater degree. I did not pretend to be watching him, but I kept strict observation all the same. All at once that shifty look came into his eyes which we always see when a madman has seized an idea, and with it the shifty movement of the head and back which asylum attendants come to know so well. He became quite quiet, and went and sat on the edge of his bed resignedly, and looked into space with lack-lustre eyes. I thought I would find out if his apathy were real or only assumed, and tried to lead him to talk of his pets, a theme which had never failed to excite his attention. At first he made no reply, but at length said testily:-- "Bother them all! I don't care a pin about them." "What?" I said. "You don't mean to tell me you don't care about spiders?" (Spiders at present are his hobby and the note-book is filling up with columns of small figures.) To this he answered enigmatically:-- "The bride-maidens rejoice the eyes that wait the coming of the bride; but when the bride draweth nigh, then the maidens shine not to the eyes that are filled." He would not explain himself, but remained obstinately seated on his bed all the time I remained with him. I am weary to-night and low in spirits. I cannot but think of Lucy, and how different things might have been. If I don't sleep at once, chloral, the modern Morpheus--C_{2}HCl_{3}O. H_{2}O! I must be careful not to let it grow into a habit. No, I shall take none to-night! I have thought of Lucy, and I shall not dishonour her by mixing the two. If need be, to-night shall be sleepless.... * * * * * _Later._--Glad I made the resolution; gladder that I kept to it. I had lain tossing about, and had heard the clock strike only twice, when the night-watchman came to me, sent up from the ward, to say that Renfield had escaped. I threw on my clothes and ran down at once; my patient is too dangerous a person to be roaming about. Those ideas of his might work out dangerously with strangers. The attendant was waiting for me. He said he had seen him not ten minutes before, seemingly asleep in his bed, when he had looked through the observation-trap in the door. His attention was called by the sound of the window being wrenched out. He ran back and saw his feet disappear through the window, and had at once sent up for me. He was only in his night-gear, and cannot be far off. The attendant thought it would be more useful to watch where he should go than to follow him, as he might lose sight of him whilst getting out of the building by the door. He is a bulky man, and couldn't get through the window. I am thin, so, with his aid, I got out, but feet foremost, and, as we were only a few feet above ground, landed unhurt. The attendant told me the patient had gone to the left, and had taken a straight line, so I ran as quickly as I could. As I got through the belt of trees I saw a white figure scale the high wall which separates our grounds from those of the deserted house. I ran back at once, told the watchman to get three or four men immediately and follow me into the grounds of Carfax, in case our friend might be dangerous. I got a ladder myself, and crossing the wall, dropped down on the other side. I could see Renfield's figure just disappearing behind the angle of the house, so I ran after him. On the far side of the house I found him pressed close against the old ironbound oak door of the chapel. He was talking, apparently to some one, but I was afraid to go near enough to hear what he was saying, lest I might frighten him, and he should run off. Chasing an errant swarm of bees is nothing to following a naked lunatic, when the fit of escaping is upon him! After a few minutes, however, I could see that he did not take note of anything around him, and so ventured to draw nearer to him--the more so as my men had now crossed the wall and were closing him in. I heard him say:-- "I am here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave, and You will reward me, for I shall be faithful. I have worshipped You long and afar off. Now that You are near, I await Your commands, and You will not pass me by, will You, dear Master, in Your distribution of good things?" He _is_ a selfish old beggar anyhow. He thinks of the loaves and fishes even when he believes he is in a Real Presence. His manias make a startling combination. When we closed in on him he fought like a tiger. He is immensely strong, for he was more like a wild beast than a man. I never saw a lunatic in such a paroxysm of rage before; and I hope I shall not again. It is a mercy that we have found out his strength and his danger in good time. With strength and determination like his, he might have done wild work before he was caged. He is safe now at any rate. Jack Sheppard himself couldn't get free from the strait-waistcoat that keeps him restrained, and he's chained to the wall in the padded room. His cries are at times awful, but the silences that follow are more deadly still, for he means murder in every turn and movement. Just now he spoke coherent words for the first time:-- "I shall be patient, Master. It is coming--coming--coming!" So I took the hint, and came too. I was too excited to sleep, but this diary has quieted me, and I feel I shall get some sleep to-night. CHAPTER IX _Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra._ "_Buda-Pesth, 24 August._ "My dearest Lucy,-- "I know you will be anxious to hear all that has happened since we parted at the railway station at Whitby. Well, my dear, I got to Hull all right, and caught the boat to Hamburg, and then the train on here. I feel that I can hardly recall anything of the journey, except that I knew I was coming to Jonathan, and, that as I should have to do some nursing, I had better get all the sleep I could.... I found my dear one, oh, so thin and pale and weak-looking. All the resolution has gone out of his dear eyes, and that quiet dignity which I told you was in his face has vanished. He is only a wreck of himself, and he does not remember anything that has happened to him for a long time past. At least, he wants me to believe so, and I shall never ask. He has had some terrible shock, and I fear it might tax his poor brain if he were to try to recall it. Sister Agatha, who is a good creature and a born nurse, tells me that he raved of dreadful things whilst he was off his head. I wanted her to tell me what they were; but she would only cross herself, and say she would never tell; that the ravings of the sick were the secrets of God, and that if a nurse through her vocation should hear them, she should respect her trust. She is a sweet, good soul, and the next day, when she saw I was troubled, she opened up the subject again, and after saying that she could never mention what my poor dear raved about, added: 'I can tell you this much, my dear: that it was not about anything which he has done wrong himself; and you, as his wife to be, have no cause to be concerned. He has not forgotten you or what he owes to you. His fear was of great and terrible things, which no mortal can treat of.' I do believe the dear soul thought I might be jealous lest my poor dear should have fallen in love with any other girl. The idea of _my_ being jealous about Jonathan! And yet, my dear, let me whisper, I felt a thrill of joy through me when I _knew_ that no other woman was a cause of trouble. I am now sitting by his bedside, where I can see his face while he sleeps. He is waking!... "When he woke he asked me for his coat, as he wanted to get something from the pocket; I asked Sister Agatha, and she brought all his things. I saw that amongst them was his note-book, and was going to ask him to let me look at it--for I knew then that I might find some clue to his trouble--but I suppose he must have seen my wish in my eyes, for he sent me over to the window, saying he wanted to be quite alone for a moment. Then he called me back, and when I came he had his hand over the note-book, and he said to me very solemnly:-- "'Wilhelmina'--I knew then that he was in deadly earnest, for he has never called me by that name since he asked me to marry him--'you know, dear, my ideas of the trust between husband and wife: there should be no secret, no concealment. I have had a great shock, and when I try to think of what it is I feel my head spin round, and I do not know if it was all real or the dreaming of a madman. You know I have had brain fever, and that is to be mad. The secret is here, and I do not want to know it. I want to take up my life here, with our marriage.' For, my dear, we had decided to be married as soon as the formalities are complete. 'Are you willing, Wilhelmina, to share my ignorance? Here is the book. Take it and keep it, read it if you will, but never let me know; unless, indeed, some solemn duty should come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, sane or mad, recorded here.' He fell back exhausted, and I put the book under his pillow, and kissed him. I have asked Sister Agatha to beg the Superior to let our wedding be this afternoon, and am waiting her reply.... * * * * * "She has come and told me that the chaplain of the English mission church has been sent for. We are to be married in an hour, or as soon after as Jonathan awakes.... * * * * * "Lucy, the time has come and gone. I feel very solemn, but very, very happy. Jonathan woke a little after the hour, and all was ready, and he sat up in bed, propped up with pillows. He answered his 'I will' firmly and strongly. I could hardly speak; my heart was so full that even those words seemed to choke me. The dear sisters were so kind. Please God, I shall never, never forget them, nor the grave and sweet responsibilities I have taken upon me. I must tell you of my wedding present. When the chaplain and the sisters had left me alone with my husband--oh, Lucy, it is the first time I have written the words 'my husband'--left me alone with my husband, I took the book from under his pillow, and wrapped it up in white paper, and tied it with a little bit of pale blue ribbon which was round my neck, and sealed it over the knot with sealing-wax, and for my seal I used my wedding ring. Then I kissed it and showed it to my husband, and told him that I would keep it so, and then it would be an outward and visible sign for us all our lives that we trusted each other; that I would never open it unless it were for his own dear sake or for the sake of some stern duty. Then he took my hand in his, and oh, Lucy, it was the first time he took _his wife's_ hand, and said that it was the dearest thing in all the wide world, and that he would go through all the past again to win it, if need be. The poor dear meant to have said a part of the past, but he cannot think of time yet, and I shall not wonder if at first he mixes up not only the month, but the year. "Well, my dear, what could I say? I could only tell him that I was the happiest woman in all the wide world, and that I had nothing to give him except myself, my life, and my trust, and that with these went my love and duty for all the days of my life. And, my dear, when he kissed me, and drew me to him with his poor weak hands, it was like a very solemn pledge between us.... "Lucy dear, do you know why I tell you all this? It is not only because it is all sweet to me, but because you have been, and are, very dear to me. It was my privilege to be your friend and guide when you came from the schoolroom to prepare for the world of life. I want you to see now, and with the eyes of a very happy wife, whither duty has led me; so that in your own married life you too may be all happy as I am. My dear, please Almighty God, your life may be all it promises: a long day of sunshine, with no harsh wind, no forgetting duty, no distrust. I must not wish you no pain, for that can never be; but I do hope you will be _always_ as happy as I am _now_. Good-bye, my dear. I shall post this at once, and, perhaps, write you very soon again. I must stop, for Jonathan is waking--I must attend to my husband! "Your ever-loving "MINA HARKER." _Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Harker._ "_Whitby, 30 August._ "My dearest Mina,-- "Oceans of love and millions of kisses, and may you soon be in your own home with your husband. I wish you could be coming home soon enough to stay with us here. The strong air would soon restore Jonathan; it has quite restored me. I have an appetite like a cormorant, am full of life, and sleep well. You will be glad to know that I have quite given up walking in my sleep. I think I have not stirred out of my bed for a week, that is when I once got into it at night. Arthur says I am getting fat. By the way, I forgot to tell you that Arthur is here. We have such walks and drives, and rides, and rowing, and tennis, and fishing together; and I love him more than ever. He _tells_ me that he loves me more, but I doubt that, for at first he told me that he couldn't love me more than he did then. But this is nonsense. There he is, calling to me. So no more just at present from your loving "LUCY. "P. S.--Mother sends her love. She seems better, poor dear. "P. P. S.--We are to be married on 28 September." _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _20 August._--The case of Renfield grows even more interesting. He has now so far quieted that there are spells of cessation from his passion. For the first week after his attack he was perpetually violent. Then one night, just as the moon rose, he grew quiet, and kept murmuring to himself: "Now I can wait; now I can wait." The attendant came to tell me, so I ran down at once to have a look at him. He was still in the strait-waistcoat and in the padded room, but the suffused look had gone from his face, and his eyes had something of their old pleading--I might almost say, "cringing"--softness. I was satisfied with his present condition, and directed him to be relieved. The attendants hesitated, but finally carried out my wishes without protest. It was a strange thing that the patient had humour enough to see their distrust, for, coming close to me, he said in a whisper, all the while looking furtively at them:-- "They think I could hurt you! Fancy _me_ hurting _you_! The fools!" It was soothing, somehow, to the feelings to find myself dissociated even in the mind of this poor madman from the others; but all the same I do not follow his thought. Am I to take it that I have anything in common with him, so that we are, as it were, to stand together; or has he to gain from me some good so stupendous that my well-being is needful to him? I must find out later on. To-night he will not speak. Even the offer of a kitten or even a full-grown cat will not tempt him. He will only say: "I don't take any stock in cats. I have more to think of now, and I can wait; I can wait." After a while I left him. The attendant tells me that he was quiet until just before dawn, and that then he began to get uneasy, and at length violent, until at last he fell into a paroxysm which exhausted him so that he swooned into a sort of coma. * * * * * ... Three nights has the same thing happened--violent all day then quiet from moonrise to sunrise. I wish I could get some clue to the cause. It would almost seem as if there was some influence which came and went. Happy thought! We shall to-night play sane wits against mad ones. He escaped before without our help; to-night he shall escape with it. We shall give him a chance, and have the men ready to follow in case they are required.... * * * * * _23 August._--"The unexpected always happens." How well Disraeli knew life. Our bird when he found the cage open would not fly, so all our subtle arrangements were for nought. At any rate, we have proved one thing; that the spells of quietness last a reasonable time. We shall in future be able to ease his bonds for a few hours each day. I have given orders to the night attendant merely to shut him in the padded room, when once he is quiet, until an hour before sunrise. The poor soul's body will enjoy the relief even if his mind cannot appreciate it. Hark! The unexpected again! I am called; the patient has once more escaped. * * * * * _Later._--Another night adventure. Renfield artfully waited until the attendant was entering the room to inspect. Then he dashed out past him and flew down the passage. I sent word for the attendants to follow. Again he went into the grounds of the deserted house, and we found him in the same place, pressed against the old chapel door. When he saw me he became furious, and had not the attendants seized him in time, he would have tried to kill me. As we were holding him a strange thing happened. He suddenly redoubled his efforts, and then as suddenly grew calm. I looked round instinctively, but could see nothing. Then I caught the patient's eye and followed it, but could trace nothing as it looked into the moonlit sky except a big bat, which was flapping its silent and ghostly way to the west. Bats usually wheel and flit about, but this one seemed to go straight on, as if it knew where it was bound for or had some intention of its own. The patient grew calmer every instant, and presently said:-- "You needn't tie me; I shall go quietly!" Without trouble we came back to the house. I feel there is something ominous in his calm, and shall not forget this night.... _Lucy Westenra's Diary_ _Hillingham, 24 August._--I must imitate Mina, and keep writing things down. Then we can have long talks when we do meet. I wonder when it will be. I wish she were with me again, for I feel so unhappy. Last night I seemed to be dreaming again just as I was at Whitby. Perhaps it is the change of air, or getting home again. It is all dark and horrid to me, for I can remember nothing; but I am full of vague fear, and I feel so weak and worn out. When Arthur came to lunch he looked quite grieved when he saw me, and I hadn't the spirit to try to be cheerful. I wonder if I could sleep in mother's room to-night. I shall make an excuse and try. * * * * * _25 August._--Another bad night. Mother did not seem to take to my proposal. She seems not too well herself, and doubtless she fears to worry me. I tried to keep awake, and succeeded for a while; but when the clock struck twelve it waked me from a doze, so I must have been falling asleep. There was a sort of scratching or flapping at the window, but I did not mind it, and as I remember no more, I suppose I must then have fallen asleep. More bad dreams. I wish I could remember them. This morning I am horribly weak. My face is ghastly pale, and my throat pains me. It must be something wrong with my lungs, for I don't seem ever to get air enough. I shall try to cheer up when Arthur comes, or else I know he will be miserable to see me so. _Letter, Arthur Holmwood to Dr. Seward._ "_Albemarle Hotel, 31 August._ "My dear Jack,-- "I want you to do me a favour. Lucy is ill; that is, she has no special disease, but she looks awful, and is getting worse every day. I have asked her if there is any cause; I do not dare to ask her mother, for to disturb the poor lady's mind about her daughter in her present state of health would be fatal. Mrs. Westenra has confided to me that her doom is spoken--disease of the heart--though poor Lucy does not know it yet. I am sure that there is something preying on my dear girl's mind. I am almost distracted when I think of her; to look at her gives me a pang. I told her I should ask you to see her, and though she demurred at first--I know why, old fellow--she finally consented. It will be a painful task for you, I know, old friend, but it is for _her_ sake, and I must not hesitate to ask, or you to act. You are to come to lunch at Hillingham to-morrow, two o'clock, so as not to arouse any suspicion in Mrs. Westenra, and after lunch Lucy will take an opportunity of being alone with you. I shall come in for tea, and we can go away together; I am filled with anxiety, and want to consult with you alone as soon as I can after you have seen her. Do not fail! "ARTHUR." _Telegram, Arthur Holmwood to Seward._ "_1 September._ "Am summoned to see my father, who is worse. Am writing. Write me fully by to-night's post to Ring. Wire me if necessary." _Letter from Dr. Seward to Arthur Holmwood._ "_2 September._ "My dear old fellow,-- "With regard to Miss Westenra's health I hasten to let you know at once that in my opinion there is not any functional disturbance or any malady that I know of. At the same time, I am not by any means satisfied with her appearance; she is woefully different from what she was when I saw her last. Of course you must bear in mind that I did not have full opportunity of examination such as I should wish; our very friendship makes a little difficulty which not even medical science or custom can bridge over. I had better tell you exactly what happened, leaving you to draw, in a measure, your own conclusions. I shall then say what I have done and propose doing. "I found Miss Westenra in seemingly gay spirits. Her mother was present, and in a few seconds I made up my mind that she was trying all she knew to mislead her mother and prevent her from being anxious. I have no doubt she guesses, if she does not know, what need of caution there is. We lunched alone, and as we all exerted ourselves to be cheerful, we got, as some kind of reward for our labours, some real cheerfulness amongst us. Then Mrs. Westenra went to lie down, and Lucy was left with me. We went into her boudoir, and till we got there her gaiety remained, for the servants were coming and going. As soon as the door was closed, however, the mask fell from her face, and she sank down into a chair with a great sigh, and hid her eyes with her hand. When I saw that her high spirits had failed, I at once took advantage of her reaction to make a diagnosis. She said to me very sweetly:-- "'I cannot tell you how I loathe talking about myself.' I reminded her that a doctor's confidence was sacred, but that you were grievously anxious about her. She caught on to my meaning at once, and settled that matter in a word. 'Tell Arthur everything you choose. I do not care for myself, but all for him!' So I am quite free. "I could easily see that she is somewhat bloodless, but I could not see the usual anæmic signs, and by a chance I was actually able to test the quality of her blood, for in opening a window which was stiff a cord gave way, and she cut her hand slightly with broken glass. It was a slight matter in itself, but it gave me an evident chance, and I secured a few drops of the blood and have analysed them. The qualitative analysis gives a quite normal condition, and shows, I should infer, in itself a vigorous state of health. In other physical matters I was quite satisfied that there is no need for anxiety; but as there must be a cause somewhere, I have come to the conclusion that it must be something mental. She complains of difficulty in breathing satisfactorily at times, and of heavy, lethargic sleep, with dreams that frighten her, but regarding which she can remember nothing. She says that as a child she used to walk in her sleep, and that when in Whitby the habit came back, and that once she walked out in the night and went to East Cliff, where Miss Murray found her; but she assures me that of late the habit has not returned. I am in doubt, and so have done the best thing I know of; I have written to my old friend and master, Professor Van Helsing, of Amsterdam, who knows as much about obscure diseases as any one in the world. I have asked him to come over, and as you told me that all things were to be at your charge, I have mentioned to him who you are and your relations to Miss Westenra. This, my dear fellow, is in obedience to your wishes, for I am only too proud and happy to do anything I can for her. Van Helsing would, I know, do anything for me for a personal reason, so, no matter on what ground he comes, we must accept his wishes. He is a seemingly arbitrary man, but this is because he knows what he is talking about better than any one else. He is a philosopher and a metaphysician, and one of the most advanced scientists of his day; and he has, I believe, an absolutely open mind. This, with an iron nerve, a temper of the ice-brook, an indomitable resolution, self-command, and toleration exalted from virtues to blessings, and the kindliest and truest heart that beats--these form his equipment for the noble work that he is doing for mankind--work both in theory and practice, for his views are as wide as his all-embracing sympathy. I tell you these facts that you may know why I have such confidence in him. I have asked him to come at once. I shall see Miss Westenra to-morrow again. She is to meet me at the Stores, so that I may not alarm her mother by too early a repetition of my call. "Yours always, "JOHN SEWARD." _Letter, Abraham Van Helsing, M. D., D. Ph., D. Lit., etc., etc., to Dr. Seward._ "_2 September._ "My good Friend,-- "When I have received your letter I am already coming to you. By good fortune I can leave just at once, without wrong to any of those who have trusted me. Were fortune other, then it were bad for those who have trusted, for I come to my friend when he call me to aid those he holds dear. Tell your friend that when that time you suck from my wound so swiftly the poison of the gangrene from that knife that our other friend, too nervous, let slip, you did more for him when he wants my aids and you call for them than all his great fortune could do. But it is pleasure added to do for him, your friend; it is to you that I come. Have then rooms for me at the Great Eastern Hotel, so that I may be near to hand, and please it so arrange that we may see the young lady not too late on to-morrow, for it is likely that I may have to return here that night. But if need be I shall come again in three days, and stay longer if it must. Till then good-bye, my friend John. "VAN HELSING." _Letter, Dr. Seward to Hon. Arthur Holmwood._ "_3 September._ "My dear Art,-- "Van Helsing has come and gone. He came on with me to Hillingham, and found that, by Lucy's discretion, her mother was lunching out, so that we were alone with her. Van Helsing made a very careful examination of the patient. He is to report to me, and I shall advise you, for of course I was not present all the time. He is, I fear, much concerned, but says he must think. When I told him of our friendship and how you trust to me in the matter, he said: 'You must tell him all you think. Tell him what I think, if you can guess it, if you will. Nay, I am not jesting. This is no jest, but life and death, perhaps more.' I asked what he meant by that, for he was very serious. This was when we had come back to town, and he was having a cup of tea before starting on his return to Amsterdam. He would not give me any further clue. You must not be angry with me, Art, because his very reticence means that all his brains are working for her good. He will speak plainly enough when the time comes, be sure. So I told him I would simply write an account of our visit, just as if I were doing a descriptive special article for _The Daily Telegraph_. He seemed not to notice, but remarked that the smuts in London were not quite so bad as they used to be when he was a student here. I am to get his report to-morrow if he can possibly make it. In any case I am to have a letter. "Well, as to the visit. Lucy was more cheerful than on the day I first saw her, and certainly looked better. She had lost something of the ghastly look that so upset you, and her breathing was normal. She was very sweet to the professor (as she always is), and tried to make him feel at ease; though I could see that the poor girl was making a hard struggle for it. I believe Van Helsing saw it, too, for I saw the quick look under his bushy brows that I knew of old. Then he began to chat of all things except ourselves and diseases and with such an infinite geniality that I could see poor Lucy's pretense of animation merge into reality. Then, without any seeming change, he brought the conversation gently round to his visit, and suavely said:-- "'My dear young miss, I have the so great pleasure because you are so much beloved. That is much, my dear, ever were there that which I do not see. They told me you were down in the spirit, and that you were of a ghastly pale. To them I say: "Pouf!"' And he snapped his fingers at me and went on: 'But you and I shall show them how wrong they are. How can he'--and he pointed at me with the same look and gesture as that with which once he pointed me out to his class, on, or rather after, a particular occasion which he never fails to remind me of--'know anything of a young ladies? He has his madams to play with, and to bring them back to happiness, and to those that love them. It is much to do, and, oh, but there are rewards, in that we can bestow such happiness. But the young ladies! He has no wife nor daughter, and the young do not tell themselves to the young, but to the old, like me, who have known so many sorrows and the causes of them. So, my dear, we will send him away to smoke the cigarette in the garden, whiles you and I have little talk all to ourselves.' I took the hint, and strolled about, and presently the professor came to the window and called me in. He looked grave, but said: 'I have made careful examination, but there is no functional cause. With you I agree that there has been much blood lost; it has been, but is not. But the conditions of her are in no way anæmic. I have asked her to send me her maid, that I may ask just one or two question, that so I may not chance to miss nothing. I know well what she will say. And yet there is cause; there is always cause for everything. I must go back home and think. You must send to me the telegram every day; and if there be cause I shall come again. The disease--for not to be all well is a disease--interest me, and the sweet young dear, she interest me too. She charm me, and for her, if not for you or disease, I come.' "As I tell you, he would not say a word more, even when we were alone. And so now, Art, you know all I know. I shall keep stern watch. I trust your poor father is rallying. It must be a terrible thing to you, my dear old fellow, to be placed in such a position between two people who are both so dear to you. I know your idea of duty to your father, and you are right to stick to it; but, if need be, I shall send you word to come at once to Lucy; so do not be over-anxious unless you hear from me." _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _4 September._--Zoöphagous patient still keeps up our interest in him. He had only one outburst and that was yesterday at an unusual time. Just before the stroke of noon he began to grow restless. The attendant knew the symptoms, and at once summoned aid. Fortunately the men came at a run, and were just in time, for at the stroke of noon he became so violent that it took all their strength to hold him. In about five minutes, however, he began to get more and more quiet, and finally sank into a sort of melancholy, in which state he has remained up to now. The attendant tells me that his screams whilst in the paroxysm were really appalling; I found my hands full when I got in, attending to some of the other patients who were frightened by him. Indeed, I can quite understand the effect, for the sounds disturbed even me, though I was some distance away. It is now after the dinner-hour of the asylum, and as yet my patient sits in a corner brooding, with a dull, sullen, woe-begone look in his face, which seems rather to indicate than to show something directly. I cannot quite understand it. * * * * * _Later._--Another change in my patient. At five o'clock I looked in on him, and found him seemingly as happy and contented as he used to be. He was catching flies and eating them, and was keeping note of his capture by making nail-marks on the edge of the door between the ridges of padding. When he saw me, he came over and apologised for his bad conduct, and asked me in a very humble, cringing way to be led back to his own room and to have his note-book again. I thought it well to humour him: so he is back in his room with the window open. He has the sugar of his tea spread out on the window-sill, and is reaping quite a harvest of flies. He is not now eating them, but putting them into a box, as of old, and is already examining the corners of his room to find a spider. I tried to get him to talk about the past few days, for any clue to his thoughts would be of immense help to me; but he would not rise. For a moment or two he looked very sad, and said in a sort of far-away voice, as though saying it rather to himself than to me:-- "All over! all over! He has deserted me. No hope for me now unless I do it for myself!" Then suddenly turning to me in a resolute way, he said: "Doctor, won't you be very good to me and let me have a little more sugar? I think it would be good for me." "And the flies?" I said. "Yes! The flies like it, too, and I like the flies; therefore I like it." And there are people who know so little as to think that madmen do not argue. I procured him a double supply, and left him as happy a man as, I suppose, any in the world. I wish I could fathom his mind. * * * * * _Midnight._--Another change in him. I had been to see Miss Westenra, whom I found much better, and had just returned, and was standing at our own gate looking at the sunset, when once more I heard him yelling. As his room is on this side of the house, I could hear it better than in the morning. It was a shock to me to turn from the wonderful smoky beauty of a sunset over London, with its lurid lights and inky shadows and all the marvellous tints that come on foul clouds even as on foul water, and to realise all the grim sternness of my own cold stone building, with its wealth of breathing misery, and my own desolate heart to endure it all. I reached him just as the sun was going down, and from his window saw the red disc sink. As it sank he became less and less frenzied; and just as it dipped he slid from the hands that held him, an inert mass, on the floor. It is wonderful, however, what intellectual recuperative power lunatics have, for within a few minutes he stood up quite calmly and looked around him. I signalled to the attendants not to hold him, for I was anxious to see what he would do. He went straight over to the window and brushed out the crumbs of sugar; then he took his fly-box, and emptied it outside, and threw away the box; then he shut the window, and crossing over, sat down on his bed. All this surprised me, so I asked him: "Are you not going to keep flies any more?" "No," said he; "I am sick of all that rubbish!" He certainly is a wonderfully interesting study. I wish I could get some glimpse of his mind or of the cause of his sudden passion. Stop; there may be a clue after all, if we can find why to-day his paroxysms came on at high noon and at sunset. Can it be that there is a malign influence of the sun at periods which affects certain natures--as at times the moon does others? We shall see. _Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam._ "_4 September._--Patient still better to-day." _Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam._ "_5 September._--Patient greatly improved. Good appetite; sleeps naturally; good spirits; colour coming back." _Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam._ "_6 September._--Terrible change for the worse. Come at once; do not lose an hour. I hold over telegram to Holmwood till have seen you." CHAPTER X _Letter, Dr. Seward to Hon. Arthur Holmwood._ "_6 September._ "My dear Art,-- "My news to-day is not so good. Lucy this morning had gone back a bit. There is, however, one good thing which has arisen from it; Mrs. Westenra was naturally anxious concerning Lucy, and has consulted me professionally about her. I took advantage of the opportunity, and told her that my old master, Van Helsing, the great specialist, was coming to stay with me, and that I would put her in his charge conjointly with myself; so now we can come and go without alarming her unduly, for a shock to her would mean sudden death, and this, in Lucy's weak condition, might be disastrous to her. We are hedged in with difficulties, all of us, my poor old fellow; but, please God, we shall come through them all right. If any need I shall write, so that, if you do not hear from me, take it for granted that I am simply waiting for news. In haste Yours ever, "JOHN SEWARD." _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _7 September._--The first thing Van Helsing said to me when we met at Liverpool Street was:-- "Have you said anything to our young friend the lover of her?" "No," I said. "I waited till I had seen you, as I said in my telegram. I wrote him a letter simply telling him that you were coming, as Miss Westenra was not so well, and that I should let him know if need be." "Right, my friend," he said, "quite right! Better he not know as yet; perhaps he shall never know. I pray so; but if it be needed, then he shall know all. And, my good friend John, let me caution you. You deal with the madmen. All men are mad in some way or the other; and inasmuch as you deal discreetly with your madmen, so deal with God's madmen, too--the rest of the world. You tell not your madmen what you do nor why you do it; you tell them not what you think. So you shall keep knowledge in its place, where it may rest--where it may gather its kind around it and breed. You and I shall keep as yet what we know here, and here." He touched me on the heart and on the forehead, and then touched himself the same way. "I have for myself thoughts at the present. Later I shall unfold to you." "Why not now?" I asked. "It may do some good; we may arrive at some decision." He stopped and looked at me, and said:-- "My friend John, when the corn is grown, even before it has ripened--while the milk of its mother-earth is in him, and the sunshine has not yet begun to paint him with his gold, the husbandman he pull the ear and rub him between his rough hands, and blow away the green chaff, and say to you: 'Look! he's good corn; he will make good crop when the time comes.'" I did not see the application, and told him so. For reply he reached over and took my ear in his hand and pulled it playfully, as he used long ago to do at lectures, and said: "The good husbandman tell you so then because he knows, but not till then. But you do not find the good husbandman dig up his planted corn to see if he grow; that is for the children who play at husbandry, and not for those who take it as of the work of their life. See you now, friend John? I have sown my corn, and Nature has her work to do in making it sprout; if he sprout at all, there's some promise; and I wait till the ear begins to swell." He broke off, for he evidently saw that I understood. Then he went on, and very gravely:-- "You were always a careful student, and your case-book was ever more full than the rest. You were only student then; now you are master, and I trust that good habit have not fail. Remember, my friend, that knowledge is stronger than memory, and we should not trust the weaker. Even if you have not kept the good practise, let me tell you that this case of our dear miss is one that may be--mind, I say _may be_--of such interest to us and others that all the rest may not make him kick the beam, as your peoples say. Take then good note of it. Nothing is too small. I counsel you, put down in record even your doubts and surmises. Hereafter it may be of interest to you to see how true you guess. We learn from failure, not from success!" When I described Lucy's symptoms--the same as before, but infinitely more marked--he looked very grave, but said nothing. He took with him a bag in which were many instruments and drugs, "the ghastly paraphernalia of our beneficial trade," as he once called, in one of his lectures, the equipment of a professor of the healing craft. When we were shown in, Mrs. Westenra met us. She was alarmed, but not nearly so much as I expected to find her. Nature in one of her beneficent moods has ordained that even death has some antidote to its own terrors. Here, in a case where any shock may prove fatal, matters are so ordered that, from some cause or other, the things not personal--even the terrible change in her daughter to whom she is so attached--do not seem to reach her. It is something like the way Dame Nature gathers round a foreign body an envelope of some insensitive tissue which can protect from evil that which it would otherwise harm by contact. If this be an ordered selfishness, then we should pause before we condemn any one for the vice of egoism, for there may be deeper root for its causes than we have knowledge of. I used my knowledge of this phase of spiritual pathology, and laid down a rule that she should not be present with Lucy or think of her illness more than was absolutely required. She assented readily, so readily that I saw again the hand of Nature fighting for life. Van Helsing and I were shown up to Lucy's room. If I was shocked when I saw her yesterday, I was horrified when I saw her to-day. She was ghastly, chalkily pale; the red seemed to have gone even from her lips and gums, and the bones of her face stood out prominently; her breathing was painful to see or hear. Van Helsing's face grew set as marble, and his eyebrows converged till they almost touched over his nose. Lucy lay motionless, and did not seem to have strength to speak, so for a while we were all silent. Then Van Helsing beckoned to me, and we went gently out of the room. The instant we had closed the door he stepped quickly along the passage to the next door, which was open. Then he pulled me quickly in with him and closed the door. "My God!" he said; "this is dreadful. There is no time to be lost. She will die for sheer want of blood to keep the heart's action as it should be. There must be transfusion of blood at once. Is it you or me?" "I am younger and stronger, Professor. It must be me." "Then get ready at once. I will bring up my bag. I am prepared." I went downstairs with him, and as we were going there was a knock at the hall-door. When we reached the hall the maid had just opened the door, and Arthur was stepping quickly in. He rushed up to me, saying in an eager whisper:-- "Jack, I was so anxious. I read between the lines of your letter, and have been in an agony. The dad was better, so I ran down here to see for myself. Is not that gentleman Dr. Van Helsing? I am so thankful to you, sir, for coming." When first the Professor's eye had lit upon him he had been angry at his interruption at such a time; but now, as he took in his stalwart proportions and recognised the strong young manhood which seemed to emanate from him, his eyes gleamed. Without a pause he said to him gravely as he held out his hand:-- "Sir, you have come in time. You are the lover of our dear miss. She is bad, very, very bad. Nay, my child, do not go like that." For he suddenly grew pale and sat down in a chair almost fainting. "You are to help her. You can do more than any that live, and your courage is your best help." "What can I do?" asked Arthur hoarsely. "Tell me, and I shall do it. My life is hers, and I would give the last drop of blood in my body for her." The Professor has a strongly humorous side, and I could from old knowledge detect a trace of its origin in his answer:-- "My young sir, I do not ask so much as that--not the last!" "What shall I do?" There was fire in his eyes, and his open nostril quivered with intent. Van Helsing slapped him on the shoulder. "Come!" he said. "You are a man, and it is a man we want. You are better than me, better than my friend John." Arthur looked bewildered, and the Professor went on by explaining in a kindly way:-- "Young miss is bad, very bad. She wants blood, and blood she must have or die. My friend John and I have consulted; and we are about to perform what we call transfusion of blood--to transfer from full veins of one to the empty veins which pine for him. John was to give his blood, as he is the more young and strong than me"--here Arthur took my hand and wrung it hard in silence--"but, now you are here, you are more good than us, old or young, who toil much in the world of thought. Our nerves are not so calm and our blood not so bright than yours!" Arthur turned to him and said:-- "If you only knew how gladly I would die for her you would understand----" He stopped, with a sort of choke in his voice. "Good boy!" said Van Helsing. "In the not-so-far-off you will be happy that you have done all for her you love. Come now and be silent. You shall kiss her once before it is done, but then you must go; and you must leave at my sign. Say no word to Madame; you know how it is with her! There must be no shock; any knowledge of this would be one. Come!" We all went up to Lucy's room. Arthur by direction remained outside. Lucy turned her head and looked at us, but said nothing. She was not asleep, but she was simply too weak to make the effort. Her eyes spoke to us; that was all. Van Helsing took some things from his bag and laid them on a little table out of sight. Then he mixed a narcotic, and coming over to the bed, said cheerily:-- "Now, little miss, here is your medicine. Drink it off, like a good child. See, I lift you so that to swallow is easy. Yes." She had made the effort with success. It astonished me how long the drug took to act. This, in fact, marked the extent of her weakness. The time seemed endless until sleep began to flicker in her eyelids. At last, however, the narcotic began to manifest its potency; and she fell into a deep sleep. When the Professor was satisfied he called Arthur into the room, and bade him strip off his coat. Then he added: "You may take that one little kiss whiles I bring over the table. Friend John, help to me!" So neither of us looked whilst he bent over her. Van Helsing turning to me, said: "He is so young and strong and of blood so pure that we need not defibrinate it." Then with swiftness, but with absolute method, Van Helsing performed the operation. As the transfusion went on something like life seemed to come back to poor Lucy's cheeks, and through Arthur's growing pallor the joy of his face seemed absolutely to shine. After a bit I began to grow anxious, for the loss of blood was telling on Arthur, strong man as he was. It gave me an idea of what a terrible strain Lucy's system must have undergone that what weakened Arthur only partially restored her. But the Professor's face was set, and he stood watch in hand and with his eyes fixed now on the patient and now on Arthur. I could hear my own heart beat. Presently he said in a soft voice: "Do not stir an instant. It is enough. You attend him; I will look to her." When all was over I could see how much Arthur was weakened. I dressed the wound and took his arm to bring him away, when Van Helsing spoke without turning round--the man seems to have eyes in the back of his head:-- "The brave lover, I think, deserve another kiss, which he shall have presently." And as he had now finished his operation, he adjusted the pillow to the patient's head. As he did so the narrow black velvet band which she seems always to wear round her throat, buckled with an old diamond buckle which her lover had given her, was dragged a little up, and showed a red mark on her throat. Arthur did not notice it, but I could hear the deep hiss of indrawn breath which is one of Van Helsing's ways of betraying emotion. He said nothing at the moment, but turned to me, saying: "Now take down our brave young lover, give him of the port wine, and let him lie down a while. He must then go home and rest, sleep much and eat much, that he may be recruited of what he has so given to his love. He must not stay here. Hold! a moment. I may take it, sir, that you are anxious of result. Then bring it with you that in all ways the operation is successful. You have saved her life this time, and you can go home and rest easy in mind that all that can be is. I shall tell her all when she is well; she shall love you none the less for what you have done. Good-bye." When Arthur had gone I went back to the room. Lucy was sleeping gently, but her breathing was stronger; I could see the counterpane move as her breast heaved. By the bedside sat Van Helsing, looking at her intently. The velvet band again covered the red mark. I asked the Professor in a whisper:-- "What do you make of that mark on her throat?" "What do you make of it?" "I have not examined it yet," I answered, and then and there proceeded to loose the band. Just over the external jugular vein there were two punctures, not large, but not wholesome-looking. There was no sign of disease, but the edges were white and worn-looking, as if by some trituration. It at once occurred to me that this wound, or whatever it was, might be the means of that manifest loss of blood; but I abandoned the idea as soon as formed, for such a thing could not be. The whole bed would have been drenched to a scarlet with the blood which the girl must have lost to leave such a pallor as she had before the transfusion. "Well?" said Van Helsing. "Well," said I, "I can make nothing of it." The Professor stood up. "I must go back to Amsterdam to-night," he said. "There are books and things there which I want. You must remain here all the night, and you must not let your sight pass from her." "Shall I have a nurse?" I asked. "We are the best nurses, you and I. You keep watch all night; see that she is well fed, and that nothing disturbs her. You must not sleep all the night. Later on we can sleep, you and I. I shall be back as soon as possible. And then we may begin." "May begin?" I said. "What on earth do you mean?" "We shall see!" he answered, as he hurried out. He came back a moment later and put his head inside the door and said with warning finger held up:-- "Remember, she is your charge. If you leave her, and harm befall, you shall not sleep easy hereafter!" _Dr. Seward's Diary--continued._ _8 September._--I sat up all night with Lucy. The opiate worked itself off towards dusk, and she waked naturally; she looked a different being from what she had been before the operation. Her spirits even were good, and she was full of a happy vivacity, but I could see evidences of the absolute prostration which she had undergone. When I told Mrs. Westenra that Dr. Van Helsing had directed that I should sit up with her she almost pooh-poohed the idea, pointing out her daughter's renewed strength and excellent spirits. I was firm, however, and made preparations for my long vigil. When her maid had prepared her for the night I came in, having in the meantime had supper, and took a seat by the bedside. She did not in any way make objection, but looked at me gratefully whenever I caught her eye. After a long spell she seemed sinking off to sleep, but with an effort seemed to pull herself together and shook it off. This was repeated several times, with greater effort and with shorter pauses as the time moved on. It was apparent that she did not want to sleep, so I tackled the subject at once:-- "You do not want to go to sleep?" "No; I am afraid." "Afraid to go to sleep! Why so? It is the boon we all crave for." "Ah, not if you were like me--if sleep was to you a presage of horror!" "A presage of horror! What on earth do you mean?" "I don't know; oh, I don't know. And that is what is so terrible. All this weakness comes to me in sleep; until I dread the very thought." "But, my dear girl, you may sleep to-night. I am here watching you, and I can promise that nothing will happen." "Ah, I can trust you!" I seized the opportunity, and said: "I promise you that if I see any evidence of bad dreams I will wake you at once." "You will? Oh, will you really? How good you are to me. Then I will sleep!" And almost at the word she gave a deep sigh of relief, and sank back, asleep. All night long I watched by her. She never stirred, but slept on and on in a deep, tranquil, life-giving, health-giving sleep. Her lips were slightly parted, and her breast rose and fell with the regularity of a pendulum. There was a smile on her face, and it was evident that no bad dreams had come to disturb her peace of mind. In the early morning her maid came, and I left her in her care and took myself back home, for I was anxious about many things. I sent a short wire to Van Helsing and to Arthur, telling them of the excellent result of the operation. My own work, with its manifold arrears, took me all day to clear off; it was dark when I was able to inquire about my zoöphagous patient. The report was good; he had been quite quiet for the past day and night. A telegram came from Van Helsing at Amsterdam whilst I was at dinner, suggesting that I should be at Hillingham to-night, as it might be well to be at hand, and stating that he was leaving by the night mail and would join me early in the morning. * * * * * _9 September_.--I was pretty tired and worn out when I got to Hillingham. For two nights I had hardly had a wink of sleep, and my brain was beginning to feel that numbness which marks cerebral exhaustion. Lucy was up and in cheerful spirits. When she shook hands with me she looked sharply in my face and said:-- "No sitting up to-night for you. You are worn out. I am quite well again; indeed, I am; and if there is to be any sitting up, it is I who will sit up with you." I would not argue the point, but went and had my supper. Lucy came with me, and, enlivened by her charming presence, I made an excellent meal, and had a couple of glasses of the more than excellent port. Then Lucy took me upstairs, and showed me a room next her own, where a cozy fire was burning. "Now," she said, "you must stay here. I shall leave this door open and my door too. You can lie on the sofa for I know that nothing would induce any of you doctors to go to bed whilst there is a patient above the horizon. If I want anything I shall call out, and you can come to me at once." I could not but acquiesce, for I was "dog-tired," and could not have sat up had I tried. So, on her renewing her promise to call me if she should want anything, I lay on the sofa, and forgot all about everything. _Lucy Westenra's Diary._ _9 September._--I feel so happy to-night. I have been so miserably weak, that to be able to think and move about is like feeling sunshine after a long spell of east wind out of a steel sky. Somehow Arthur feels very, very close to me. I seem to feel his presence warm about me. I suppose it is that sickness and weakness are selfish things and turn our inner eyes and sympathy on ourselves, whilst health and strength give Love rein, and in thought and feeling he can wander where he wills. I know where my thoughts are. If Arthur only knew! My dear, my dear, your ears must tingle as you sleep, as mine do waking. Oh, the blissful rest of last night! How I slept, with that dear, good Dr. Seward watching me. And to-night I shall not fear to sleep, since he is close at hand and within call. Thank everybody for being so good to me! Thank God! Good-night, Arthur. _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _10 September._--I was conscious of the Professor's hand on my head, and started awake all in a second. That is one of the things that we learn in an asylum, at any rate. "And how is our patient?" "Well, when I left her, or rather when she left me," I answered. "Come, let us see," he said. And together we went into the room. The blind was down, and I went over to raise it gently, whilst Van Helsing stepped, with his soft, cat-like tread, over to the bed. As I raised the blind, and the morning sunlight flooded the room, I heard the Professor's low hiss of inspiration, and knowing its rarity, a deadly fear shot through my heart. As I passed over he moved back, and his exclamation of horror, "Gott in Himmel!" needed no enforcement from his agonised face. He raised his hand and pointed to the bed, and his iron face was drawn and ashen white. I felt my knees begin to tremble. There on the bed, seemingly in a swoon, lay poor Lucy, more horribly white and wan-looking than ever. Even the lips were white, and the gums seemed to have shrunken back from the teeth, as we sometimes see in a corpse after a prolonged illness. Van Helsing raised his foot to stamp in anger, but the instinct of his life and all the long years of habit stood to him, and he put it down again softly. "Quick!" he said. "Bring the brandy." I flew to the dining-room, and returned with the decanter. He wetted the poor white lips with it, and together we rubbed palm and wrist and heart. He felt her heart, and after a few moments of agonising suspense said:-- "It is not too late. It beats, though but feebly. All our work is undone; we must begin again. There is no young Arthur here now; I have to call on you yourself this time, friend John." As he spoke, he was dipping into his bag and producing the instruments for transfusion; I had taken off my coat and rolled up my shirt-sleeve. There was no possibility of an opiate just at present, and no need of one; and so, without a moment's delay, we began the operation. After a time--it did not seem a short time either, for the draining away of one's blood, no matter how willingly it be given, is a terrible feeling--Van Helsing held up a warning finger. "Do not stir," he said, "but I fear that with growing strength she may wake; and that would make danger, oh, so much danger. But I shall precaution take. I shall give hypodermic injection of morphia." He proceeded then, swiftly and deftly, to carry out his intent. The effect on Lucy was not bad, for the faint seemed to merge subtly into the narcotic sleep. It was with a feeling of personal pride that I could see a faint tinge of colour steal back into the pallid cheeks and lips. No man knows, till he experiences it, what it is to feel his own life-blood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves. The Professor watched me critically. "That will do," he said. "Already?" I remonstrated. "You took a great deal more from Art." To which he smiled a sad sort of smile as he replied:-- "He is her lover, her _fiancé_. You have work, much work, to do for her and for others; and the present will suffice." When we stopped the operation, he attended to Lucy, whilst I applied digital pressure to my own incision. I laid down, whilst I waited his leisure to attend to me, for I felt faint and a little sick. By-and-by he bound up my wound, and sent me downstairs to get a glass of wine for myself. As I was leaving the room, he came after me, and half whispered:-- "Mind, nothing must be said of this. If our young lover should turn up unexpected, as before, no word to him. It would at once frighten him and enjealous him, too. There must be none. So!" When I came back he looked at me carefully, and then said:-- "You are not much the worse. Go into the room, and lie on your sofa, and rest awhile; then have much breakfast, and come here to me." I followed out his orders, for I knew how right and wise they were. I had done my part, and now my next duty was to keep up my strength. I felt very weak, and in the weakness lost something of the amazement at what had occurred. I fell asleep on the sofa, however, wondering over and over again how Lucy had made such a retrograde movement, and how she could have been drained of so much blood with no sign anywhere to show for it. I think I must have continued my wonder in my dreams, for, sleeping and waking, my thoughts always came back to the little punctures in her throat and the ragged, exhausted appearance of their edges--tiny though they were. Lucy slept well into the day, and when she woke she was fairly well and strong, though not nearly so much so as the day before. When Van Helsing had seen her, he went out for a walk, leaving me in charge, with strict injunctions that I was not to leave her for a moment. I could hear his voice in the hall, asking the way to the nearest telegraph office. Lucy chatted with me freely, and seemed quite unconscious that anything had happened. I tried to keep her amused and interested. When her mother came up to see her, she did not seem to notice any change whatever, but said to me gratefully:-- "We owe you so much, Dr. Seward, for all you have done, but you really must now take care not to overwork yourself. You are looking pale yourself. You want a wife to nurse and look after you a bit; that you do!" As she spoke, Lucy turned crimson, though it was only momentarily, for her poor wasted veins could not stand for long such an unwonted drain to the head. The reaction came in excessive pallor as she turned imploring eyes on me. I smiled and nodded, and laid my finger on my lips; with a sigh, she sank back amid her pillows. Van Helsing returned in a couple of hours, and presently said to me: "Now you go home, and eat much and drink enough. Make yourself strong. I stay here to-night, and I shall sit up with little miss myself. You and I must watch the case, and we must have none other to know. I have grave reasons. No, do not ask them; think what you will. Do not fear to think even the most not-probable. Good-night." In the hall two of the maids came to me, and asked if they or either of them might not sit up with Miss Lucy. They implored me to let them; and when I said it was Dr. Van Helsing's wish that either he or I should sit up, they asked me quite piteously to intercede with the "foreign gentleman." I was much touched by their kindness. Perhaps it is because I am weak at present, and perhaps because it was on Lucy's account, that their devotion was manifested; for over and over again have I seen similar instances of woman's kindness. I got back here in time for a late dinner; went my rounds--all well; and set this down whilst waiting for sleep. It is coming. * * * * * _11 September._--This afternoon I went over to Hillingham. Found Van Helsing in excellent spirits, and Lucy much better. Shortly after I had arrived, a big parcel from abroad came for the Professor. He opened it with much impressment--assumed, of course--and showed a great bundle of white flowers. "These are for you, Miss Lucy," he said. "For me? Oh, Dr. Van Helsing!" "Yes, my dear, but not for you to play with. These are medicines." Here Lucy made a wry face. "Nay, but they are not to take in a decoction or in nauseous form, so you need not snub that so charming nose, or I shall point out to my friend Arthur what woes he may have to endure in seeing so much beauty that he so loves so much distort. Aha, my pretty miss, that bring the so nice nose all straight again. This is medicinal, but you do not know how. I put him in your window, I make pretty wreath, and hang him round your neck, so that you sleep well. Oh yes! they, like the lotus flower, make your trouble forgotten. It smell so like the waters of Lethe, and of that fountain of youth that the Conquistadores sought for in the Floridas, and find him all too late." Whilst he was speaking, Lucy had been examining the flowers and smelling them. Now she threw them down, saying, with half-laughter, and half-disgust:-- "Oh, Professor, I believe you are only putting up a joke on me. Why, these flowers are only common garlic." To my surprise, Van Helsing rose up and said with all his sternness, his iron jaw set and his bushy eyebrows meeting:-- "No trifling with me! I never jest! There is grim purpose in all I do; and I warn you that you do not thwart me. Take care, for the sake of others if not for your own." Then seeing poor Lucy scared, as she might well be, he went on more gently: "Oh, little miss, my dear, do not fear me. I only do for your good; but there is much virtue to you in those so common flowers. See, I place them myself in your room. I make myself the wreath that you are to wear. But hush! no telling to others that make so inquisitive questions. We must obey, and silence is a part of obedience; and obedience is to bring you strong and well into loving arms that wait for you. Now sit still awhile. Come with me, friend John, and you shall help me deck the room with my garlic, which is all the way from Haarlem, where my friend Vanderpool raise herb in his glass-houses all the year. I had to telegraph yesterday, or they would not have been here." We went into the room, taking the flowers with us. The Professor's actions were certainly odd and not to be found in any pharmacopoeia that I ever heard of. First he fastened up the windows and latched them securely; next, taking a handful of the flowers, he rubbed them all over the sashes, as though to ensure that every whiff of air that might get in would be laden with the garlic smell. Then with the wisp he rubbed all over the jamb of the door, above, below, and at each side, and round the fireplace in the same way. It all seemed grotesque to me, and presently I said:-- "Well, Professor, I know you always have a reason for what you do, but this certainly puzzles me. It is well we have no sceptic here, or he would say that you were working some spell to keep out an evil spirit." "Perhaps I am!" he answered quietly as he began to make the wreath which Lucy was to wear round her neck. We then waited whilst Lucy made her toilet for the night, and when she was in bed he came and himself fixed the wreath of garlic round her neck. The last words he said to her were:-- "Take care you do not disturb it; and even if the room feel close, do not to-night open the window or the door." "I promise," said Lucy, "and thank you both a thousand times for all your kindness to me! Oh, what have I done to be blessed with such friends?" As we left the house in my fly, which was waiting, Van Helsing said:-- "To-night I can sleep in peace, and sleep I want--two nights of travel, much reading in the day between, and much anxiety on the day to follow, and a night to sit up, without to wink. To-morrow in the morning early you call for me, and we come together to see our pretty miss, so much more strong for my 'spell' which I have work. Ho! ho!" He seemed so confident that I, remembering my own confidence two nights before and with the baneful result, felt awe and vague terror. It must have been my weakness that made me hesitate to tell it to my friend, but I felt it all the more, like unshed tears. CHAPTER XI _Lucy Westenra's Diary._ _12 September._--How good they all are to me. I quite love that dear Dr. Van Helsing. I wonder why he was so anxious about these flowers. He positively frightened me, he was so fierce. And yet he must have been right, for I feel comfort from them already. Somehow, I do not dread being alone to-night, and I can go to sleep without fear. I shall not mind any flapping outside the window. Oh, the terrible struggle that I have had against sleep so often of late; the pain of the sleeplessness, or the pain of the fear of sleep, with such unknown horrors as it has for me! How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams. Well, here I am to-night, hoping for sleep, and lying like Ophelia in the play, with "virgin crants and maiden strewments." I never liked garlic before, but to-night it is delightful! There is peace in its smell; I feel sleep coming already. Good-night, everybody. _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _13 September._--Called at the Berkeley and found Van Helsing, as usual, up to time. The carriage ordered from the hotel was waiting. The Professor took his bag, which he always brings with him now. Let all be put down exactly. Van Helsing and I arrived at Hillingham at eight o'clock. It was a lovely morning; the bright sunshine and all the fresh feeling of early autumn seemed like the completion of nature's annual work. The leaves were turning to all kinds of beautiful colours, but had not yet begun to drop from the trees. When we entered we met Mrs. Westenra coming out of the morning room. She is always an early riser. She greeted us warmly and said:-- "You will be glad to know that Lucy is better. The dear child is still asleep. I looked into her room and saw her, but did not go in, lest I should disturb her." The Professor smiled, and looked quite jubilant. He rubbed his hands together, and said:-- "Aha! I thought I had diagnosed the case. My treatment is working," to which she answered:-- "You must not take all the credit to yourself, doctor. Lucy's state this morning is due in part to me." "How you do mean, ma'am?" asked the Professor. "Well, I was anxious about the dear child in the night, and went into her room. She was sleeping soundly--so soundly that even my coming did not wake her. But the room was awfully stuffy. There were a lot of those horrible, strong-smelling flowers about everywhere, and she had actually a bunch of them round her neck. I feared that the heavy odour would be too much for the dear child in her weak state, so I took them all away and opened a bit of the window to let in a little fresh air. You will be pleased with her, I am sure." She moved off into her boudoir, where she usually breakfasted early. As she had spoken, I watched the Professor's face, and saw it turn ashen grey. He had been able to retain his self-command whilst the poor lady was present, for he knew her state and how mischievous a shock would be; he actually smiled on her as he held open the door for her to pass into her room. But the instant she had disappeared he pulled me, suddenly and forcibly, into the dining-room and closed the door. Then, for the first time in my life, I saw Van Helsing break down. He raised his hands over his head in a sort of mute despair, and then beat his palms together in a helpless way; finally he sat down on a chair, and putting his hands before his face, began to sob, with loud, dry sobs that seemed to come from the very racking of his heart. Then he raised his arms again, as though appealing to the whole universe. "God! God! God!" he said. "What have we done, what has this poor thing done, that we are so sore beset? Is there fate amongst us still, sent down from the pagan world of old, that such things must be, and in such way? This poor mother, all unknowing, and all for the best as she think, does such thing as lose her daughter body and soul; and we must not tell her, we must not even warn her, or she die, and then both die. Oh, how we are beset! How are all the powers of the devils against us!" Suddenly he jumped to his feet. "Come," he said, "come, we must see and act. Devils or no devils, or all the devils at once, it matters not; we fight him all the same." He went to the hall-door for his bag; and together we went up to Lucy's room. Once again I drew up the blind, whilst Van Helsing went towards the bed. This time he did not start as he looked on the poor face with the same awful, waxen pallor as before. He wore a look of stern sadness and infinite pity. "As I expected," he murmured, with that hissing inspiration of his which meant so much. Without a word he went and locked the door, and then began to set out on the little table the instruments for yet another operation of transfusion of blood. I had long ago recognised the necessity, and begun to take off my coat, but he stopped me with a warning hand. "No!" he said. "To-day you must operate. I shall provide. You are weakened already." As he spoke he took off his coat and rolled up his shirt-sleeve. Again the operation; again the narcotic; again some return of colour to the ashy cheeks, and the regular breathing of healthy sleep. This time I watched whilst Van Helsing recruited himself and rested. Presently he took an opportunity of telling Mrs. Westenra that she must not remove anything from Lucy's room without consulting him; that the flowers were of medicinal value, and that the breathing of their odour was a part of the system of cure. Then he took over the care of the case himself, saying that he would watch this night and the next and would send me word when to come. After another hour Lucy waked from her sleep, fresh and bright and seemingly not much the worse for her terrible ordeal. What does it all mean? I am beginning to wonder if my long habit of life amongst the insane is beginning to tell upon my own brain. _Lucy Westenra's Diary._ _17 September._--Four days and nights of peace. I am getting so strong again that I hardly know myself. It is as if I had passed through some long nightmare, and had just awakened to see the beautiful sunshine and feel the fresh air of the morning around me. I have a dim half-remembrance of long, anxious times of waiting and fearing; darkness in which there was not even the pain of hope to make present distress more poignant: and then long spells of oblivion, and the rising back to life as a diver coming up through a great press of water. Since, however, Dr. Van Helsing has been with me, all this bad dreaming seems to have passed away; the noises that used to frighten me out of my wits--the flapping against the windows, the distant voices which seemed so close to me, the harsh sounds that came from I know not where and commanded me to do I know not what--have all ceased. I go to bed now without any fear of sleep. I do not even try to keep awake. I have grown quite fond of the garlic, and a boxful arrives for me every day from Haarlem. To-night Dr. Van Helsing is going away, as he has to be for a day in Amsterdam. But I need not be watched; I am well enough to be left alone. Thank God for mother's sake, and dear Arthur's, and for all our friends who have been so kind! I shall not even feel the change, for last night Dr. Van Helsing slept in his chair a lot of the time. I found him asleep twice when I awoke; but I did not fear to go to sleep again, although the boughs or bats or something napped almost angrily against the window-panes. _"The Pall Mall Gazette," 18 September._ THE ESCAPED WOLF. PERILOUS ADVENTURE OF OUR INTERVIEWER. _Interview with the Keeper in the Zoölogical Gardens._ After many inquiries and almost as many refusals, and perpetually using the words "Pall Mall Gazette" as a sort of talisman, I managed to find the keeper of the section of the Zoölogical Gardens in which the wolf department is included. Thomas Bilder lives in one of the cottages in the enclosure behind the elephant-house, and was just sitting down to his tea when I found him. Thomas and his wife are hospitable folk, elderly, and without children, and if the specimen I enjoyed of their hospitality be of the average kind, their lives must be pretty comfortable. The keeper would not enter on what he called "business" until the supper was over, and we were all satisfied. Then when the table was cleared, and he had lit his pipe, he said:-- "Now, sir, you can go on and arsk me what you want. You'll excoose me refoosin' to talk of perfeshunal subjects afore meals. I gives the wolves and the jackals and the hyenas in all our section their tea afore I begins to arsk them questions." "How do you mean, ask them questions?" I queried, wishful to get him into a talkative humour. "'Ittin' of them over the 'ead with a pole is one way; scratchin' of their hears is another, when gents as is flush wants a bit of a show-orf to their gals. I don't so much mind the fust--the 'ittin' with a pole afore I chucks in their dinner; but I waits till they've 'ad their sherry and kawffee, so to speak, afore I tries on with the ear-scratchin'. Mind you," he added philosophically, "there's a deal of the same nature in us as in them theer animiles. Here's you a-comin' and arskin' of me questions about my business, and I that grumpy-like that only for your bloomin' 'arf-quid I'd 'a' seen you blowed fust 'fore I'd answer. Not even when you arsked me sarcastic-like if I'd like you to arsk the Superintendent if you might arsk me questions. Without offence did I tell yer to go to 'ell?" "You did." "An' when you said you'd report me for usin' of obscene language that was 'ittin' me over the 'ead; but the 'arf-quid made that all right. I weren't a-goin' to fight, so I waited for the food, and did with my 'owl as the wolves, and lions, and tigers does. But, Lor' love yer 'art, now that the old 'ooman has stuck a chunk of her tea-cake in me, an' rinsed me out with her bloomin' old teapot, and I've lit hup, you may scratch my ears for all you're worth, and won't git even a growl out of me. Drive along with your questions. I know what yer a-comin' at, that 'ere escaped wolf." "Exactly. I want you to give me your view of it. Just tell me how it happened; and when I know the facts I'll get you to say what you consider was the cause of it, and how you think the whole affair will end." "All right, guv'nor. This 'ere is about the 'ole story. That 'ere wolf what we called Bersicker was one of three grey ones that came from Norway to Jamrach's, which we bought off him four years ago. He was a nice well-behaved wolf, that never gave no trouble to talk of. I'm more surprised at 'im for wantin' to get out nor any other animile in the place. But, there, you can't trust wolves no more nor women." "Don't you mind him, sir!" broke in Mrs. Tom, with a cheery laugh. "'E's got mindin' the animiles so long that blest if he ain't like a old wolf 'isself! But there ain't no 'arm in 'im." "Well, sir, it was about two hours after feedin' yesterday when I first hear my disturbance. I was makin' up a litter in the monkey-house for a young puma which is ill; but when I heard the yelpin' and 'owlin' I kem away straight. There was Bersicker a-tearin' like a mad thing at the bars as if he wanted to get out. There wasn't much people about that day, and close at hand was only one man, a tall, thin chap, with a 'ook nose and a pointed beard, with a few white hairs runnin' through it. He had a 'ard, cold look and red eyes, and I took a sort of mislike to him, for it seemed as if it was 'im as they was hirritated at. He 'ad white kid gloves on 'is 'ands, and he pointed out the animiles to me and says: 'Keeper, these wolves seem upset at something.' "'Maybe it's you,' says I, for I did not like the airs as he give 'isself. He didn't git angry, as I 'oped he would, but he smiled a kind of insolent smile, with a mouth full of white, sharp teeth. 'Oh no, they wouldn't like me,' 'e says. "'Ow yes, they would,' says I, a-imitatin' of him. 'They always likes a bone or two to clean their teeth on about tea-time, which you 'as a bagful.' "Well, it was a odd thing, but when the animiles see us a-talkin' they lay down, and when I went over to Bersicker he let me stroke his ears same as ever. That there man kem over, and blessed but if he didn't put in his hand and stroke the old wolf's ears too! "'Tyke care,' says I. 'Bersicker is quick.' "'Never mind,' he says. 'I'm used to 'em!' "'Are you in the business yourself?' I says, tyking off my 'at, for a man what trades in wolves, anceterer, is a good friend to keepers. "'No' says he, 'not exactly in the business, but I 'ave made pets of several.' And with that he lifts his 'at as perlite as a lord, and walks away. Old Bersicker kep' a-lookin' arter 'im till 'e was out of sight, and then went and lay down in a corner and wouldn't come hout the 'ole hevening. Well, larst night, so soon as the moon was hup, the wolves here all began a-'owling. There warn't nothing for them to 'owl at. There warn't no one near, except some one that was evidently a-callin' a dog somewheres out back of the gardings in the Park road. Once or twice I went out to see that all was right, and it was, and then the 'owling stopped. Just before twelve o'clock I just took a look round afore turnin' in, an', bust me, but when I kem opposite to old Bersicker's cage I see the rails broken and twisted about and the cage empty. And that's all I know for certing." "Did any one else see anything?" "One of our gard'ners was a-comin' 'ome about that time from a 'armony, when he sees a big grey dog comin' out through the garding 'edges. At least, so he says, but I don't give much for it myself, for if he did 'e never said a word about it to his missis when 'e got 'ome, and it was only after the escape of the wolf was made known, and we had been up all night-a-huntin' of the Park for Bersicker, that he remembered seein' anything. My own belief was that the 'armony 'ad got into his 'ead." "Now, Mr. Bilder, can you account in any way for the escape of the wolf?" "Well, sir," he said, with a suspicious sort of modesty, "I think I can; but I don't know as 'ow you'd be satisfied with the theory." "Certainly I shall. If a man like you, who knows the animals from experience, can't hazard a good guess at any rate, who is even to try?" "Well then, sir, I accounts for it this way; it seems to me that 'ere wolf escaped--simply because he wanted to get out." From the hearty way that both Thomas and his wife laughed at the joke I could see that it had done service before, and that the whole explanation was simply an elaborate sell. I couldn't cope in badinage with the worthy Thomas, but I thought I knew a surer way to his heart, so I said:-- "Now, Mr. Bilder, we'll consider that first half-sovereign worked off, and this brother of his is waiting to be claimed when you've told me what you think will happen." "Right y'are, sir," he said briskly. "Ye'll excoose me, I know, for a-chaffin' of ye, but the old woman here winked at me, which was as much as telling me to go on." "Well, I never!" said the old lady. "My opinion is this: that 'ere wolf is a-'idin' of, somewheres. The gard'ner wot didn't remember said he was a-gallopin' northward faster than a horse could go; but I don't believe him, for, yer see, sir, wolves don't gallop no more nor dogs does, they not bein' built that way. Wolves is fine things in a storybook, and I dessay when they gets in packs and does be chivyin' somethin' that's more afeared than they is they can make a devil of a noise and chop it up, whatever it is. But, Lor' bless you, in real life a wolf is only a low creature, not half so clever or bold as a good dog; and not half a quarter so much fight in 'im. This one ain't been used to fightin' or even to providin' for hisself, and more like he's somewhere round the Park a-'idin' an' a-shiverin' of, and, if he thinks at all, wonderin' where he is to get his breakfast from; or maybe he's got down some area and is in a coal-cellar. My eye, won't some cook get a rum start when she sees his green eyes a-shining at her out of the dark! If he can't get food he's bound to look for it, and mayhap he may chance to light on a butcher's shop in time. If he doesn't, and some nursemaid goes a-walkin' orf with a soldier, leavin' of the hinfant in the perambulator--well, then I shouldn't be surprised if the census is one babby the less. That's all." I was handing him the half-sovereign, when something came bobbing up against the window, and Mr. Bilder's face doubled its natural length with surprise. "God bless me!" he said. "If there ain't old Bersicker come back by 'isself!" He went to the door and opened it; a most unnecessary proceeding it seemed to me. I have always thought that a wild animal never looks so well as when some obstacle of pronounced durability is between us; a personal experience has intensified rather than diminished that idea. After all, however, there is nothing like custom, for neither Bilder nor his wife thought any more of the wolf than I should of a dog. The animal itself was as peaceful and well-behaved as that father of all picture-wolves--Red Riding Hood's quondam friend, whilst moving her confidence in masquerade. The whole scene was an unutterable mixture of comedy and pathos. The wicked wolf that for half a day had paralysed London and set all the children in the town shivering in their shoes, was there in a sort of penitent mood, and was received and petted like a sort of vulpine prodigal son. Old Bilder examined him all over with most tender solicitude, and when he had finished with his penitent said:-- "There, I knew the poor old chap would get into some kind of trouble; didn't I say it all along? Here's his head all cut and full of broken glass. 'E's been a-gettin' over some bloomin' wall or other. It's a shyme that people are allowed to top their walls with broken bottles. This 'ere's what comes of it. Come along, Bersicker." He took the wolf and locked him up in a cage, with a piece of meat that satisfied, in quantity at any rate, the elementary conditions of the fatted calf, and went off to report. I came off, too, to report the only exclusive information that is given to-day regarding the strange escapade at the Zoo. _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _17 September._--I was engaged after dinner in my study posting up my books, which, through press of other work and the many visits to Lucy, had fallen sadly into arrear. Suddenly the door was burst open, and in rushed my patient, with his face distorted with passion. I was thunderstruck, for such a thing as a patient getting of his own accord into the Superintendent's study is almost unknown. Without an instant's pause he made straight at me. He had a dinner-knife in his hand, and, as I saw he was dangerous, I tried to keep the table between us. He was too quick and too strong for me, however; for before I could get my balance he had struck at me and cut my left wrist rather severely. Before he could strike again, however, I got in my right and he was sprawling on his back on the floor. My wrist bled freely, and quite a little pool trickled on to the carpet. I saw that my friend was not intent on further effort, and occupied myself binding up my wrist, keeping a wary eye on the prostrate figure all the time. When the attendants rushed in, and we turned our attention to him, his employment positively sickened me. He was lying on his belly on the floor licking up, like a dog, the blood which had fallen from my wounded wrist. He was easily secured, and, to my surprise, went with the attendants quite placidly, simply repeating over and over again: "The blood is the life! The blood is the life!" I cannot afford to lose blood just at present; I have lost too much of late for my physical good, and then the prolonged strain of Lucy's illness and its horrible phases is telling on me. I am over-excited and weary, and I need rest, rest, rest. Happily Van Helsing has not summoned me, so I need not forego my sleep; to-night I could not well do without it. _Telegram, Van Helsing, Antwerp, to Seward, Carfax._ (Sent to Carfax, Sussex, as no county given; delivered late by twenty-two hours.) "_17 September._--Do not fail to be at Hillingham to-night. If not watching all the time frequently, visit and see that flowers are as placed; very important; do not fail. Shall be with you as soon as possible after arrival." _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _18 September._--Just off for train to London. The arrival of Van Helsing's telegram filled me with dismay. A whole night lost, and I know by bitter experience what may happen in a night. Of course it is possible that all may be well, but what _may_ have happened? Surely there is some horrible doom hanging over us that every possible accident should thwart us in all we try to do. I shall take this cylinder with me, and then I can complete my entry on Lucy's phonograph. _Memorandum left by Lucy Westenra._ _17 September. Night._--I write this and leave it to be seen, so that no one may by any chance get into trouble through me. This is an exact record of what took place to-night. I feel I am dying of weakness, and have barely strength to write, but it must be done if I die in the doing. I went to bed as usual, taking care that the flowers were placed as Dr. Van Helsing directed, and soon fell asleep. I was waked by the flapping at the window, which had begun after that sleep-walking on the cliff at Whitby when Mina saved me, and which now I know so well. I was not afraid, but I did wish that Dr. Seward was in the next room--as Dr. Van Helsing said he would be--so that I might have called him. I tried to go to sleep, but could not. Then there came to me the old fear of sleep, and I determined to keep awake. Perversely sleep would try to come then when I did not want it; so, as I feared to be alone, I opened my door and called out: "Is there anybody there?" There was no answer. I was afraid to wake mother, and so closed my door again. Then outside in the shrubbery I heard a sort of howl like a dog's, but more fierce and deeper. I went to the window and looked out, but could see nothing, except a big bat, which had evidently been buffeting its wings against the window. So I went back to bed again, but determined not to go to sleep. Presently the door opened, and mother looked in; seeing by my moving that I was not asleep, came in, and sat by me. She said to me even more sweetly and softly than her wont:-- "I was uneasy about you, darling, and came in to see that you were all right." I feared she might catch cold sitting there, and asked her to come in and sleep with me, so she came into bed, and lay down beside me; she did not take off her dressing gown, for she said she would only stay a while and then go back to her own bed. As she lay there in my arms, and I in hers, the flapping and buffeting came to the window again. She was startled and a little frightened, and cried out: "What is that?" I tried to pacify her, and at last succeeded, and she lay quiet; but I could hear her poor dear heart still beating terribly. After a while there was the low howl again out in the shrubbery, and shortly after there was a crash at the window, and a lot of broken glass was hurled on the floor. The window blind blew back with the wind that rushed in, and in the aperture of the broken panes there was the head of a great, gaunt grey wolf. Mother cried out in a fright, and struggled up into a sitting posture, and clutched wildly at anything that would help her. Amongst other things, she clutched the wreath of flowers that Dr. Van Helsing insisted on my wearing round my neck, and tore it away from me. For a second or two she sat up, pointing at the wolf, and there was a strange and horrible gurgling in her throat; then she fell over--as if struck with lightning, and her head hit my forehead and made me dizzy for a moment or two. The room and all round seemed to spin round. I kept my eyes fixed on the window, but the wolf drew his head back, and a whole myriad of little specks seemed to come blowing in through the broken window, and wheeling and circling round like the pillar of dust that travellers describe when there is a simoon in the desert. I tried to stir, but there was some spell upon me, and dear mother's poor body, which seemed to grow cold already--for her dear heart had ceased to beat--weighed me down; and I remembered no more for a while. The time did not seem long, but very, very awful, till I recovered consciousness again. Somewhere near, a passing bell was tolling; the dogs all round the neighbourhood were howling; and in our shrubbery, seemingly just outside, a nightingale was singing. I was dazed and stupid with pain and terror and weakness, but the sound of the nightingale seemed like the voice of my dead mother come back to comfort me. The sounds seemed to have awakened the maids, too, for I could hear their bare feet pattering outside my door. I called to them, and they came in, and when they saw what had happened, and what it was that lay over me on the bed, they screamed out. The wind rushed in through the broken window, and the door slammed to. They lifted off the body of my dear mother, and laid her, covered up with a sheet, on the bed after I had got up. They were all so frightened and nervous that I directed them to go to the dining-room and have each a glass of wine. The door flew open for an instant and closed again. The maids shrieked, and then went in a body to the dining-room; and I laid what flowers I had on my dear mother's breast. When they were there I remembered what Dr. Van Helsing had told me, but I didn't like to remove them, and, besides, I would have some of the servants to sit up with me now. I was surprised that the maids did not come back. I called them, but got no answer, so I went to the dining-room to look for them. My heart sank when I saw what had happened. They all four lay helpless on the floor, breathing heavily. The decanter of sherry was on the table half full, but there was a queer, acrid smell about. I was suspicious, and examined the decanter. It smelt of laudanum, and looking on the sideboard, I found that the bottle which mother's doctor uses for her--oh! did use--was empty. What am I to do? what am I to do? I am back in the room with mother. I cannot leave her, and I am alone, save for the sleeping servants, whom some one has drugged. Alone with the dead! I dare not go out, for I can hear the low howl of the wolf through the broken window. The air seems full of specks, floating and circling in the draught from the window, and the lights burn blue and dim. What am I to do? God shield me from harm this night! I shall hide this paper in my breast, where they shall find it when they come to lay me out. My dear mother gone! It is time that I go too. Good-bye, dear Arthur, if I should not survive this night. God keep you, dear, and God help me! CHAPTER XII DR. SEWARD'S DIARY _18 September._--I drove at once to Hillingham and arrived early. Keeping my cab at the gate, I went up the avenue alone. I knocked gently and rang as quietly as possible, for I feared to disturb Lucy or her mother, and hoped to only bring a servant to the door. After a while, finding no response, I knocked and rang again; still no answer. I cursed the laziness of the servants that they should lie abed at such an hour--for it was now ten o'clock--and so rang and knocked again, but more impatiently, but still without response. Hitherto I had blamed only the servants, but now a terrible fear began to assail me. Was this desolation but another link in the chain of doom which seemed drawing tight around us? Was it indeed a house of death to which I had come, too late? I knew that minutes, even seconds of delay, might mean hours of danger to Lucy, if she had had again one of those frightful relapses; and I went round the house to try if I could find by chance an entry anywhere. I could find no means of ingress. Every window and door was fastened and locked, and I returned baffled to the porch. As I did so, I heard the rapid pit-pat of a swiftly driven horse's feet. They stopped at the gate, and a few seconds later I met Van Helsing running up the avenue. When he saw me, he gasped out:-- "Then it was you, and just arrived. How is she? Are we too late? Did you not get my telegram?" I answered as quickly and coherently as I could that I had only got his telegram early in the morning, and had not lost a minute in coming here, and that I could not make any one in the house hear me. He paused and raised his hat as he said solemnly:-- "Then I fear we are too late. God's will be done!" With his usual recuperative energy, he went on: "Come. If there be no way open to get in, we must make one. Time is all in all to us now." We went round to the back of the house, where there was a kitchen window. The Professor took a small surgical saw from his case, and handing it to me, pointed to the iron bars which guarded the window. I attacked them at once and had very soon cut through three of them. Then with a long, thin knife we pushed back the fastening of the sashes and opened the window. I helped the Professor in, and followed him. There was no one in the kitchen or in the servants' rooms, which were close at hand. We tried all the rooms as we went along, and in the dining-room, dimly lit by rays of light through the shutters, found four servant-women lying on the floor. There was no need to think them dead, for their stertorous breathing and the acrid smell of laudanum in the room left no doubt as to their condition. Van Helsing and I looked at each other, and as we moved away he said: "We can attend to them later." Then we ascended to Lucy's room. For an instant or two we paused at the door to listen, but there was no sound that we could hear. With white faces and trembling hands, we opened the door gently, and entered the room. How shall I describe what we saw? On the bed lay two women, Lucy and her mother. The latter lay farthest in, and she was covered with a white sheet, the edge of which had been blown back by the draught through the broken window, showing the drawn, white face, with a look of terror fixed upon it. By her side lay Lucy, with face white and still more drawn. The flowers which had been round her neck we found upon her mother's bosom, and her throat was bare, showing the two little wounds which we had noticed before, but looking horribly white and mangled. Without a word the Professor bent over the bed, his head almost touching poor Lucy's breast; then he gave a quick turn of his head, as of one who listens, and leaping to his feet, he cried out to me:-- "It is not yet too late! Quick! quick! Bring the brandy!" I flew downstairs and returned with it, taking care to smell and taste it, lest it, too, were drugged like the decanter of sherry which I found on the table. The maids were still breathing, but more restlessly, and I fancied that the narcotic was wearing off. I did not stay to make sure, but returned to Van Helsing. He rubbed the brandy, as on another occasion, on her lips and gums and on her wrists and the palms of her hands. He said to me:-- "I can do this, all that can be at the present. You go wake those maids. Flick them in the face with a wet towel, and flick them hard. Make them get heat and fire and a warm bath. This poor soul is nearly as cold as that beside her. She will need be heated before we can do anything more." I went at once, and found little difficulty in waking three of the women. The fourth was only a young girl, and the drug had evidently affected her more strongly, so I lifted her on the sofa and let her sleep. The others were dazed at first, but as remembrance came back to them they cried and sobbed in a hysterical manner. I was stern with them, however, and would not let them talk. I told them that one life was bad enough to lose, and that if they delayed they would sacrifice Miss Lucy. So, sobbing and crying, they went about their way, half clad as they were, and prepared fire and water. Fortunately, the kitchen and boiler fires were still alive, and there was no lack of hot water. We got a bath and carried Lucy out as she was and placed her in it. Whilst we were busy chafing her limbs there was a knock at the hall door. One of the maids ran off, hurried on some more clothes, and opened it. Then she returned and whispered to us that there was a gentleman who had come with a message from Mr. Holmwood. I bade her simply tell him that he must wait, for we could see no one now. She went away with the message, and, engrossed with our work, I clean forgot all about him. I never saw in all my experience the Professor work in such deadly earnest. I knew--as he knew--that it was a stand-up fight with death, and in a pause told him so. He answered me in a way that I did not understand, but with the sternest look that his face could wear:-- "If that were all, I would stop here where we are now, and let her fade away into peace, for I see no light in life over her horizon." He went on with his work with, if possible, renewed and more frenzied vigour. Presently we both began to be conscious that the heat was beginning to be of some effect. Lucy's heart beat a trifle more audibly to the stethoscope, and her lungs had a perceptible movement. Van Helsing's face almost beamed, and as we lifted her from the bath and rolled her in a hot sheet to dry her he said to me:-- "The first gain is ours! Check to the King!" We took Lucy into another room, which had by now been prepared, and laid her in bed and forced a few drops of brandy down her throat. I noticed that Van Helsing tied a soft silk handkerchief round her throat. She was still unconscious, and was quite as bad as, if not worse than, we had ever seen her. Van Helsing called in one of the women, and told her to stay with her and not to take her eyes off her till we returned, and then beckoned me out of the room. "We must consult as to what is to be done," he said as we descended the stairs. In the hall he opened the dining-room door, and we passed in, he closing the door carefully behind him. The shutters had been opened, but the blinds were already down, with that obedience to the etiquette of death which the British woman of the lower classes always rigidly observes. The room was, therefore, dimly dark. It was, however, light enough for our purposes. Van Helsing's sternness was somewhat relieved by a look of perplexity. He was evidently torturing his mind about something, so I waited for an instant, and he spoke:-- "What are we to do now? Where are we to turn for help? We must have another transfusion of blood, and that soon, or that poor girl's life won't be worth an hour's purchase. You are exhausted already; I am exhausted too. I fear to trust those women, even if they would have courage to submit. What are we to do for some one who will open his veins for her?" "What's the matter with me, anyhow?" The voice came from the sofa across the room, and its tones brought relief and joy to my heart, for they were those of Quincey Morris. Van Helsing started angrily at the first sound, but his face softened and a glad look came into his eyes as I cried out: "Quincey Morris!" and rushed towards him with outstretched hands. "What brought you here?" I cried as our hands met. "I guess Art is the cause." He handed me a telegram:-- "Have not heard from Seward for three days, and am terribly anxious. Cannot leave. Father still in same condition. Send me word how Lucy is. Do not delay.--HOLMWOOD." "I think I came just in the nick of time. You know you have only to tell me what to do." Van Helsing strode forward, and took his hand, looking him straight in the eyes as he said:-- "A brave man's blood is the best thing on this earth when a woman is in trouble. You're a man and no mistake. Well, the devil may work against us for all he's worth, but God sends us men when we want them." Once again we went through that ghastly operation. I have not the heart to go through with the details. Lucy had got a terrible shock and it told on her more than before, for though plenty of blood went into her veins, her body did not respond to the treatment as well as on the other occasions. Her struggle back into life was something frightful to see and hear. However, the action of both heart and lungs improved, and Van Helsing made a subcutaneous injection of morphia, as before, and with good effect. Her faint became a profound slumber. The Professor watched whilst I went downstairs with Quincey Morris, and sent one of the maids to pay off one of the cabmen who were waiting. I left Quincey lying down after having a glass of wine, and told the cook to get ready a good breakfast. Then a thought struck me, and I went back to the room where Lucy now was. When I came softly in, I found Van Helsing with a sheet or two of note-paper in his hand. He had evidently read it, and was thinking it over as he sat with his hand to his brow. There was a look of grim satisfaction in his face, as of one who has had a doubt solved. He handed me the paper saying only: "It dropped from Lucy's breast when we carried her to the bath." When I had read it, I stood looking at the Professor, and after a pause asked him: "In God's name, what does it all mean? Was she, or is she, mad; or what sort of horrible danger is it?" I was so bewildered that I did not know what to say more. Van Helsing put out his hand and took the paper, saying:-- "Do not trouble about it now. Forget it for the present. You shall know and understand it all in good time; but it will be later. And now what is it that you came to me to say?" This brought me back to fact, and I was all myself again. "I came to speak about the certificate of death. If we do not act properly and wisely, there may be an inquest, and that paper would have to be produced. I am in hopes that we need have no inquest, for if we had it would surely kill poor Lucy, if nothing else did. I know, and you know, and the other doctor who attended her knows, that Mrs. Westenra had disease of the heart, and we can certify that she died of it. Let us fill up the certificate at once, and I shall take it myself to the registrar and go on to the undertaker." "Good, oh my friend John! Well thought of! Truly Miss Lucy, if she be sad in the foes that beset her, is at least happy in the friends that love her. One, two, three, all open their veins for her, besides one old man. Ah yes, I know, friend John; I am not blind! I love you all the more for it! Now go." In the hall I met Quincey Morris, with a telegram for Arthur telling him that Mrs. Westenra was dead; that Lucy also had been ill, but was now going on better; and that Van Helsing and I were with her. I told him where I was going, and he hurried me out, but as I was going said:-- "When you come back, Jack, may I have two words with you all to ourselves?" I nodded in reply and went out. I found no difficulty about the registration, and arranged with the local undertaker to come up in the evening to measure for the coffin and to make arrangements. When I got back Quincey was waiting for me. I told him I would see him as soon as I knew about Lucy, and went up to her room. She was still sleeping, and the Professor seemingly had not moved from his seat at her side. From his putting his finger to his lips, I gathered that he expected her to wake before long and was afraid of forestalling nature. So I went down to Quincey and took him into the breakfast-room, where the blinds were not drawn down, and which was a little more cheerful, or rather less cheerless, than the other rooms. When we were alone, he said to me:-- "Jack Seward, I don't want to shove myself in anywhere where I've no right to be; but this is no ordinary case. You know I loved that girl and wanted to marry her; but, although that's all past and gone, I can't help feeling anxious about her all the same. What is it that's wrong with her? The Dutchman--and a fine old fellow he is; I can see that--said, that time you two came into the room, that you must have _another_ transfusion of blood, and that both you and he were exhausted. Now I know well that you medical men speak _in camera_, and that a man must not expect to know what they consult about in private. But this is no common matter, and, whatever it is, I have done my part. Is not that so?" "That's so," I said, and he went on:-- "I take it that both you and Van Helsing had done already what I did to-day. Is not that so?" "That's so." "And I guess Art was in it too. When I saw him four days ago down at his own place he looked queer. I have not seen anything pulled down so quick since I was on the Pampas and had a mare that I was fond of go to grass all in a night. One of those big bats that they call vampires had got at her in the night, and what with his gorge and the vein left open, there wasn't enough blood in her to let her stand up, and I had to put a bullet through her as she lay. Jack, if you may tell me without betraying confidence, Arthur was the first, is not that so?" As he spoke the poor fellow looked terribly anxious. He was in a torture of suspense regarding the woman he loved, and his utter ignorance of the terrible mystery which seemed to surround her intensified his pain. His very heart was bleeding, and it took all the manhood of him--and there was a royal lot of it, too--to keep him from breaking down. I paused before answering, for I felt that I must not betray anything which the Professor wished kept secret; but already he knew so much, and guessed so much, that there could be no reason for not answering, so I answered in the same phrase: "That's so." "And how long has this been going on?" "About ten days." "Ten days! Then I guess, Jack Seward, that that poor pretty creature that we all love has had put into her veins within that time the blood of four strong men. Man alive, her whole body wouldn't hold it." Then, coming close to me, he spoke in a fierce half-whisper: "What took it out?" I shook my head. "That," I said, "is the crux. Van Helsing is simply frantic about it, and I am at my wits' end. I can't even hazard a guess. There has been a series of little circumstances which have thrown out all our calculations as to Lucy being properly watched. But these shall not occur again. Here we stay until all be well--or ill." Quincey held out his hand. "Count me in," he said. "You and the Dutchman will tell me what to do, and I'll do it." When she woke late in the afternoon, Lucy's first movement was to feel in her breast, and, to my surprise, produced the paper which Van Helsing had given me to read. The careful Professor had replaced it where it had come from, lest on waking she should be alarmed. Her eye then lit on Van Helsing and on me too, and gladdened. Then she looked around the room, and seeing where she was, shuddered; she gave a loud cry, and put her poor thin hands before her pale face. We both understood what that meant--that she had realised to the full her mother's death; so we tried what we could to comfort her. Doubtless sympathy eased her somewhat, but she was very low in thought and spirit, and wept silently and weakly for a long time. We told her that either or both of us would now remain with her all the time, and that seemed to comfort her. Towards dusk she fell into a doze. Here a very odd thing occurred. Whilst still asleep she took the paper from her breast and tore it in two. Van Helsing stepped over and took the pieces from her. All the same, however, she went on with the action of tearing, as though the material were still in her hands; finally she lifted her hands and opened them as though scattering the fragments. Van Helsing seemed surprised, and his brows gathered as if in thought, but he said nothing. * * * * * _19 September._--All last night she slept fitfully, being always afraid to sleep, and something weaker when she woke from it. The Professor and I took it in turns to watch, and we never left her for a moment unattended. Quincey Morris said nothing about his intention, but I knew that all night long he patrolled round and round the house. When the day came, its searching light showed the ravages in poor Lucy's strength. She was hardly able to turn her head, and the little nourishment which she could take seemed to do her no good. At times she slept, and both Van Helsing and I noticed the difference in her, between sleeping and waking. Whilst asleep she looked stronger, although more haggard, and her breathing was softer; her open mouth showed the pale gums drawn back from the teeth, which thus looked positively longer and sharper than usual; when she woke the softness of her eyes evidently changed the expression, for she looked her own self, although a dying one. In the afternoon she asked for Arthur, and we telegraphed for him. Quincey went off to meet him at the station. When he arrived it was nearly six o'clock, and the sun was setting full and warm, and the red light streamed in through the window and gave more colour to the pale cheeks. When he saw her, Arthur was simply choking with emotion, and none of us could speak. In the hours that had passed, the fits of sleep, or the comatose condition that passed for it, had grown more frequent, so that the pauses when conversation was possible were shortened. Arthur's presence, however, seemed to act as a stimulant; she rallied a little, and spoke to him more brightly than she had done since we arrived. He too pulled himself together, and spoke as cheerily as he could, so that the best was made of everything. It was now nearly one o'clock, and he and Van Helsing are sitting with her. I am to relieve them in a quarter of an hour, and I am entering this on Lucy's phonograph. Until six o'clock they are to try to rest. I fear that to-morrow will end our watching, for the shock has been too great; the poor child cannot rally. God help us all. _Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra._ (Unopened by her.) "_17 September._ "My dearest Lucy,-- "It seems _an age_ since I heard from you, or indeed since I wrote. You will pardon me, I know, for all my faults when you have read all my budget of news. Well, I got my husband back all right; when we arrived at Exeter there was a carriage waiting for us, and in it, though he had an attack of gout, Mr. Hawkins. He took us to his house, where there were rooms for us all nice and comfortable, and we dined together. After dinner Mr. Hawkins said:-- "'My dears, I want to drink your health and prosperity; and may every blessing attend you both. I know you both from children, and have, with love and pride, seen you grow up. Now I want you to make your home here with me. I have left to me neither chick nor child; all are gone, and in my will I have left you everything.' I cried, Lucy dear, as Jonathan and the old man clasped hands. Our evening was a very, very happy one. "So here we are, installed in this beautiful old house, and from both my bedroom and the drawing-room I can see the great elms of the cathedral close, with their great black stems standing out against the old yellow stone of the cathedral and I can hear the rooks overhead cawing and cawing and chattering and gossiping all day, after the manner of rooks--and humans. I am busy, I need not tell you, arranging things and housekeeping. Jonathan and Mr. Hawkins are busy all day; for, now that Jonathan is a partner, Mr. Hawkins wants to tell him all about the clients. "How is your dear mother getting on? I wish I could run up to town for a day or two to see you, dear, but I dare not go yet, with so much on my shoulders; and Jonathan wants looking after still. He is beginning to put some flesh on his bones again, but he was terribly weakened by the long illness; even now he sometimes starts out of his sleep in a sudden way and awakes all trembling until I can coax him back to his usual placidity. However, thank God, these occasions grow less frequent as the days go on, and they will in time pass away altogether, I trust. And now I have told you my news, let me ask yours. When are you to be married, and where, and who is to perform the ceremony, and what are you to wear, and is it to be a public or a private wedding? Tell me all about it, dear; tell me all about everything, for there is nothing which interests you which will not be dear to me. Jonathan asks me to send his 'respectful duty,' but I do not think that is good enough from the junior partner of the important firm Hawkins & Harker; and so, as you love me, and he loves me, and I love you with all the moods and tenses of the verb, I send you simply his 'love' instead. Good-bye, my dearest Lucy, and all blessings on you. "Yours, "MINA HARKER." _Report from Patrick Hennessey, M. D., M. R. C. S. L. K. Q. C. P. I., etc., etc., to John Seward, M. D._ "_20 September._ "My dear Sir,-- "In accordance with your wishes, I enclose report of the conditions of everything left in my charge.... With regard to patient, Renfield, there is more to say. He has had another outbreak, which might have had a dreadful ending, but which, as it fortunately happened, was unattended with any unhappy results. This afternoon a carrier's cart with two men made a call at the empty house whose grounds abut on ours--the house to which, you will remember, the patient twice ran away. The men stopped at our gate to ask the porter their way, as they were strangers. I was myself looking out of the study window, having a smoke after dinner, and saw one of them come up to the house. As he passed the window of Renfield's room, the patient began to rate him from within, and called him all the foul names he could lay his tongue to. The man, who seemed a decent fellow enough, contented himself by telling him to "shut up for a foul-mouthed beggar," whereon our man accused him of robbing him and wanting to murder him and said that he would hinder him if he were to swing for it. I opened the window and signed to the man not to notice, so he contented himself after looking the place over and making up his mind as to what kind of a place he had got to by saying: 'Lor' bless yer, sir, I wouldn't mind what was said to me in a bloomin' madhouse. I pity ye and the guv'nor for havin' to live in the house with a wild beast like that.' Then he asked his way civilly enough, and I told him where the gate of the empty house was; he went away, followed by threats and curses and revilings from our man. I went down to see if I could make out any cause for his anger, since he is usually such a well-behaved man, and except his violent fits nothing of the kind had ever occurred. I found him, to my astonishment, quite composed and most genial in his manner. I tried to get him to talk of the incident, but he blandly asked me questions as to what I meant, and led me to believe that he was completely oblivious of the affair. It was, I am sorry to say, however, only another instance of his cunning, for within half an hour I heard of him again. This time he had broken out through the window of his room, and was running down the avenue. I called to the attendants to follow me, and ran after him, for I feared he was intent on some mischief. My fear was justified when I saw the same cart which had passed before coming down the road, having on it some great wooden boxes. The men were wiping their foreheads, and were flushed in the face, as if with violent exercise. Before I could get up to him the patient rushed at them, and pulling one of them off the cart, began to knock his head against the ground. If I had not seized him just at the moment I believe he would have killed the man there and then. The other fellow jumped down and struck him over the head with the butt-end of his heavy whip. It was a terrible blow; but he did not seem to mind it, but seized him also, and struggled with the three of us, pulling us to and fro as if we were kittens. You know I am no light weight, and the others were both burly men. At first he was silent in his fighting; but as we began to master him, and the attendants were putting a strait-waistcoat on him, he began to shout: 'I'll frustrate them! They shan't rob me! they shan't murder me by inches! I'll fight for my Lord and Master!' and all sorts of similar incoherent ravings. It was with very considerable difficulty that they got him back to the house and put him in the padded room. One of the attendants, Hardy, had a finger broken. However, I set it all right; and he is going on well. "The two carriers were at first loud in their threats of actions for damages, and promised to rain all the penalties of the law on us. Their threats were, however, mingled with some sort of indirect apology for the defeat of the two of them by a feeble madman. They said that if it had not been for the way their strength had been spent in carrying and raising the heavy boxes to the cart they would have made short work of him. They gave as another reason for their defeat the extraordinary state of drouth to which they had been reduced by the dusty nature of their occupation and the reprehensible distance from the scene of their labours of any place of public entertainment. I quite understood their drift, and after a stiff glass of grog, or rather more of the same, and with each a sovereign in hand, they made light of the attack, and swore that they would encounter a worse madman any day for the pleasure of meeting so 'bloomin' good a bloke' as your correspondent. I took their names and addresses, in case they might be needed. They are as follows:--Jack Smollet, of Dudding's Rents, King George's Road, Great Walworth, and Thomas Snelling, Peter Farley's Row, Guide Court, Bethnal Green. They are both in the employment of Harris & Sons, Moving and Shipment Company, Orange Master's Yard, Soho. "I shall report to you any matter of interest occurring here, and shall wire you at once if there is anything of importance. "Believe me, dear Sir, "Yours faithfully, "PATRICK HENNESSEY." _Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra_. (Unopened by her.) "_18 September._ "My dearest Lucy,-- "Such a sad blow has befallen us. Mr. Hawkins has died very suddenly. Some may not think it so sad for us, but we had both come to so love him that it really seems as though we had lost a father. I never knew either father or mother, so that the dear old man's death is a real blow to me. Jonathan is greatly distressed. It is not only that he feels sorrow, deep sorrow, for the dear, good man who has befriended him all his life, and now at the end has treated him like his own son and left him a fortune which to people of our modest bringing up is wealth beyond the dream of avarice, but Jonathan feels it on another account. He says the amount of responsibility which it puts upon him makes him nervous. He begins to doubt himself. I try to cheer him up, and _my_ belief in _him_ helps him to have a belief in himself. But it is here that the grave shock that he experienced tells upon him the most. Oh, it is too hard that a sweet, simple, noble, strong nature such as his--a nature which enabled him by our dear, good friend's aid to rise from clerk to master in a few years--should be so injured that the very essence of its strength is gone. Forgive me, dear, if I worry you with my troubles in the midst of your own happiness; but, Lucy dear, I must tell some one, for the strain of keeping up a brave and cheerful appearance to Jonathan tries me, and I have no one here that I can confide in. I dread coming up to London, as we must do the day after to-morrow; for poor Mr. Hawkins left in his will that he was to be buried in the grave with his father. As there are no relations at all, Jonathan will have to be chief mourner. I shall try to run over to see you, dearest, if only for a few minutes. Forgive me for troubling you. With all blessings, "Your loving "MINA HARKER." _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _20 September._--Only resolution and habit can let me make an entry to-night. I am too miserable, too low-spirited, too sick of the world and all in it, including life itself, that I would not care if I heard this moment the flapping of the wings of the angel of death. And he has been flapping those grim wings to some purpose of late--Lucy's mother and Arthur's father, and now.... Let me get on with my work. I duly relieved Van Helsing in his watch over Lucy. We wanted Arthur to go to rest also, but he refused at first. It was only when I told him that we should want him to help us during the day, and that we must not all break down for want of rest, lest Lucy should suffer, that he agreed to go. Van Helsing was very kind to him. "Come, my child," he said; "come with me. You are sick and weak, and have had much sorrow and much mental pain, as well as that tax on your strength that we know of. You must not be alone; for to be alone is to be full of fears and alarms. Come to the drawing-room, where there is a big fire, and there are two sofas. You shall lie on one, and I on the other, and our sympathy will be comfort to each other, even though we do not speak, and even if we sleep." Arthur went off with him, casting back a longing look on Lucy's face, which lay in her pillow, almost whiter than the lawn. She lay quite still, and I looked round the room to see that all was as it should be. I could see that the Professor had carried out in this room, as in the other, his purpose of using the garlic; the whole of the window-sashes reeked with it, and round Lucy's neck, over the silk handkerchief which Van Helsing made her keep on, was a rough chaplet of the same odorous flowers. Lucy was breathing somewhat stertorously, and her face was at its worst, for the open mouth showed the pale gums. Her teeth, in the dim, uncertain light, seemed longer and sharper than they had been in the morning. In particular, by some trick of the light, the canine teeth looked longer and sharper than the rest. I sat down by her, and presently she moved uneasily. At the same moment there came a sort of dull flapping or buffeting at the window. I went over to it softly, and peeped out by the corner of the blind. There was a full moonlight, and I could see that the noise was made by a great bat, which wheeled round--doubtless attracted by the light, although so dim--and every now and again struck the window with its wings. When I came back to my seat, I found that Lucy had moved slightly, and had torn away the garlic flowers from her throat. I replaced them as well as I could, and sat watching her. Presently she woke, and I gave her food, as Van Helsing had prescribed. She took but a little, and that languidly. There did not seem to be with her now the unconscious struggle for life and strength that had hitherto so marked her illness. It struck me as curious that the moment she became conscious she pressed the garlic flowers close to her. It was certainly odd that whenever she got into that lethargic state, with the stertorous breathing, she put the flowers from her; but that when she waked she clutched them close. There was no possibility of making any mistake about this, for in the long hours that followed, she had many spells of sleeping and waking and repeated both actions many times. At six o'clock Van Helsing came to relieve me. Arthur had then fallen into a doze, and he mercifully let him sleep on. When he saw Lucy's face I could hear the sissing indraw of his breath, and he said to me in a sharp whisper: "Draw up the blind; I want light!" Then he bent down, and, with his face almost touching Lucy's, examined her carefully. He removed the flowers and lifted the silk handkerchief from her throat. As he did so he started back, and I could hear his ejaculation, "Mein Gott!" as it was smothered in his throat. I bent over and looked, too, and as I noticed some queer chill came over me. The wounds on the throat had absolutely disappeared. For fully five minutes Van Helsing stood looking at her, with his face at its sternest. Then he turned to me and said calmly:-- "She is dying. It will not be long now. It will be much difference, mark me, whether she dies conscious or in her sleep. Wake that poor boy, and let him come and see the last; he trusts us, and we have promised him." I went to the dining-room and waked him. He was dazed for a moment, but when he saw the sunlight streaming in through the edges of the shutters he thought he was late, and expressed his fear. I assured him that Lucy was still asleep, but told him as gently as I could that both Van Helsing and I feared that the end was near. He covered his face with his hands, and slid down on his knees by the sofa, where he remained, perhaps a minute, with his head buried, praying, whilst his shoulders shook with grief. I took him by the hand and raised him up. "Come," I said, "my dear old fellow, summon all your fortitude: it will be best and easiest for her." When we came into Lucy's room I could see that Van Helsing had, with his usual forethought, been putting matters straight and making everything look as pleasing as possible. He had even brushed Lucy's hair, so that it lay on the pillow in its usual sunny ripples. When we came into the room she opened her eyes, and seeing him, whispered softly:-- "Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come!" He was stooping to kiss her, when Van Helsing motioned him back. "No," he whispered, "not yet! Hold her hand; it will comfort her more." So Arthur took her hand and knelt beside her, and she looked her best, with all the soft lines matching the angelic beauty of her eyes. Then gradually her eyes closed, and she sank to sleep. For a little bit her breast heaved softly, and her breath came and went like a tired child's. And then insensibly there came the strange change which I had noticed in the night. Her breathing grew stertorous, the mouth opened, and the pale gums, drawn back, made the teeth look longer and sharper than ever. In a sort of sleep-waking, vague, unconscious way she opened her eyes, which were now dull and hard at once, and said in a soft, voluptuous voice, such as I had never heard from her lips:-- "Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come! Kiss me!" Arthur bent eagerly over to kiss her; but at that instant Van Helsing, who, like me, had been startled by her voice, swooped upon him, and catching him by the neck with both hands, dragged him back with a fury of strength which I never thought he could have possessed, and actually hurled him almost across the room. "Not for your life!" he said; "not for your living soul and hers!" And he stood between them like a lion at bay. Arthur was so taken aback that he did not for a moment know what to do or say; and before any impulse of violence could seize him he realised the place and the occasion, and stood silent, waiting. I kept my eyes fixed on Lucy, as did Van Helsing, and we saw a spasm as of rage flit like a shadow over her face; the sharp teeth champed together. Then her eyes closed, and she breathed heavily. Very shortly after she opened her eyes in all their softness, and putting out her poor, pale, thin hand, took Van Helsing's great brown one; drawing it to her, she kissed it. "My true friend," she said, in a faint voice, but with untellable pathos, "My true friend, and his! Oh, guard him, and give me peace!" "I swear it!" he said solemnly, kneeling beside her and holding up his hand, as one who registers an oath. Then he turned to Arthur, and said to him: "Come, my child, take her hand in yours, and kiss her on the forehead, and only once." Their eyes met instead of their lips; and so they parted. Lucy's eyes closed; and Van Helsing, who had been watching closely, took Arthur's arm, and drew him away. And then Lucy's breathing became stertorous again, and all at once it ceased. "It is all over," said Van Helsing. "She is dead!" I took Arthur by the arm, and led him away to the drawing-room, where he sat down, and covered his face with his hands, sobbing in a way that nearly broke me down to see. I went back to the room, and found Van Helsing looking at poor Lucy, and his face was sterner than ever. Some change had come over her body. Death had given back part of her beauty, for her brow and cheeks had recovered some of their flowing lines; even the lips had lost their deadly pallor. It was as if the blood, no longer needed for the working of the heart, had gone to make the harshness of death as little rude as might be. "We thought her dying whilst she slept, And sleeping when she died." I stood beside Van Helsing, and said:-- "Ah, well, poor girl, there is peace for her at last. It is the end!" He turned to me, and said with grave solemnity:-- "Not so; alas! not so. It is only the beginning!" When I asked him what he meant, he only shook his head and answered:-- "We can do nothing as yet. Wait and see." CHAPTER XIII DR. SEWARD'S DIARY--_continued_. The funeral was arranged for the next succeeding day, so that Lucy and her mother might be buried together. I attended to all the ghastly formalities, and the urbane undertaker proved that his staff were afflicted--or blessed--with something of his own obsequious suavity. Even the woman who performed the last offices for the dead remarked to me, in a confidential, brother-professional way, when she had come out from the death-chamber:-- "She makes a very beautiful corpse, sir. It's quite a privilege to attend on her. It's not too much to say that she will do credit to our establishment!" I noticed that Van Helsing never kept far away. This was possible from the disordered state of things in the household. There were no relatives at hand; and as Arthur had to be back the next day to attend at his father's funeral, we were unable to notify any one who should have been bidden. Under the circumstances, Van Helsing and I took it upon ourselves to examine papers, etc. He insisted upon looking over Lucy's papers himself. I asked him why, for I feared that he, being a foreigner, might not be quite aware of English legal requirements, and so might in ignorance make some unnecessary trouble. He answered me:-- "I know; I know. You forget that I am a lawyer as well as a doctor. But this is not altogether for the law. You knew that, when you avoided the coroner. I have more than him to avoid. There may be papers more--such as this." As he spoke he took from his pocket-book the memorandum which had been in Lucy's breast, and which she had torn in her sleep. "When you find anything of the solicitor who is for the late Mrs. Westenra, seal all her papers, and write him to-night. For me, I watch here in the room and in Miss Lucy's old room all night, and I myself search for what may be. It is not well that her very thoughts go into the hands of strangers." I went on with my part of the work, and in another half hour had found the name and address of Mrs. Westenra's solicitor and had written to him. All the poor lady's papers were in order; explicit directions regarding the place of burial were given. I had hardly sealed the letter, when, to my surprise, Van Helsing walked into the room, saying:-- "Can I help you, friend John? I am free, and if I may, my service is to you." "Have you got what you looked for?" I asked, to which he replied:-- "I did not look for any specific thing. I only hoped to find, and find I have, all that there was--only some letters and a few memoranda, and a diary new begun. But I have them here, and we shall for the present say nothing of them. I shall see that poor lad to-morrow evening, and, with his sanction, I shall use some." When we had finished the work in hand, he said to me:-- "And now, friend John, I think we may to bed. We want sleep, both you and I, and rest to recuperate. To-morrow we shall have much to do, but for the to-night there is no need of us. Alas!" Before turning in we went to look at poor Lucy. The undertaker had certainly done his work well, for the room was turned into a small _chapelle ardente_. There was a wilderness of beautiful white flowers, and death was made as little repulsive as might be. The end of the winding-sheet was laid over the face; when the Professor bent over and turned it gently back, we both started at the beauty before us, the tall wax candles showing a sufficient light to note it well. All Lucy's loveliness had come back to her in death, and the hours that had passed, instead of leaving traces of "decay's effacing fingers," had but restored the beauty of life, till positively I could not believe my eyes that I was looking at a corpse. The Professor looked sternly grave. He had not loved her as I had, and there was no need for tears in his eyes. He said to me: "Remain till I return," and left the room. He came back with a handful of wild garlic from the box waiting in the hall, but which had not been opened, and placed the flowers amongst the others on and around the bed. Then he took from his neck, inside his collar, a little gold crucifix, and placed it over the mouth. He restored the sheet to its place, and we came away. I was undressing in my own room, when, with a premonitory tap at the door, he entered, and at once began to speak:-- "To-morrow I want you to bring me, before night, a set of post-mortem knives." "Must we make an autopsy?" I asked. "Yes and no. I want to operate, but not as you think. Let me tell you now, but not a word to another. I want to cut off her head and take out her heart. Ah! you a surgeon, and so shocked! You, whom I have seen with no tremble of hand or heart, do operations of life and death that make the rest shudder. Oh, but I must not forget, my dear friend John, that you loved her; and I have not forgotten it, for it is I that shall operate, and you must only help. I would like to do it to-night, but for Arthur I must not; he will be free after his father's funeral to-morrow, and he will want to see her--to see _it_. Then, when she is coffined ready for the next day, you and I shall come when all sleep. We shall unscrew the coffin-lid, and shall do our operation: and then replace all, so that none know, save we alone." "But why do it at all? The girl is dead. Why mutilate her poor body without need? And if there is no necessity for a post-mortem and nothing to gain by it--no good to her, to us, to science, to human knowledge--why do it? Without such it is monstrous." For answer he put his hand on my shoulder, and said, with infinite tenderness:-- "Friend John, I pity your poor bleeding heart; and I love you the more because it does so bleed. If I could, I would take on myself the burden that you do bear. But there are things that you know not, but that you shall know, and bless me for knowing, though they are not pleasant things. John, my child, you have been my friend now many years, and yet did you ever know me to do any without good cause? I may err--I am but man; but I believe in all I do. Was it not for these causes that you send for me when the great trouble came? Yes! Were you not amazed, nay horrified, when I would not let Arthur kiss his love--though she was dying--and snatched him away by all my strength? Yes! And yet you saw how she thanked me, with her so beautiful dying eyes, her voice, too, so weak, and she kiss my rough old hand and bless me? Yes! And did you not hear me swear promise to her, that so she closed her eyes grateful? Yes! "Well, I have good reason now for all I want to do. You have for many years trust me; you have believe me weeks past, when there be things so strange that you might have well doubt. Believe me yet a little, friend John. If you trust me not, then I must tell what I think; and that is not perhaps well. And if I work--as work I shall, no matter trust or no trust--without my friend trust in me, I work with heavy heart and feel, oh! so lonely when I want all help and courage that may be!" He paused a moment and went on solemnly: "Friend John, there are strange and terrible days before us. Let us not be two, but one, that so we work to a good end. Will you not have faith in me?" I took his hand, and promised him. I held my door open as he went away, and watched him go into his room and close the door. As I stood without moving, I saw one of the maids pass silently along the passage--she had her back towards me, so did not see me--and go into the room where Lucy lay. The sight touched me. Devotion is so rare, and we are so grateful to those who show it unasked to those we love. Here was a poor girl putting aside the terrors which she naturally had of death to go watch alone by the bier of the mistress whom she loved, so that the poor clay might not be lonely till laid to eternal rest.... * * * * * I must have slept long and soundly, for it was broad daylight when Van Helsing waked me by coming into my room. He came over to my bedside and said:-- "You need not trouble about the knives; we shall not do it." "Why not?" I asked. For his solemnity of the night before had greatly impressed me. "Because," he said sternly, "it is too late--or too early. See!" Here he held up the little golden crucifix. "This was stolen in the night." "How, stolen," I asked in wonder, "since you have it now?" "Because I get it back from the worthless wretch who stole it, from the woman who robbed the dead and the living. Her punishment will surely come, but not through me; she knew not altogether what she did and thus unknowing, she only stole. Now we must wait." He went away on the word, leaving me with a new mystery to think of, a new puzzle to grapple with. The forenoon was a dreary time, but at noon the solicitor came: Mr. Marquand, of Wholeman, Sons, Marquand & Lidderdale. He was very genial and very appreciative of what we had done, and took off our hands all cares as to details. During lunch he told us that Mrs. Westenra had for some time expected sudden death from her heart, and had put her affairs in absolute order; he informed us that, with the exception of a certain entailed property of Lucy's father's which now, in default of direct issue, went back to a distant branch of the family, the whole estate, real and personal, was left absolutely to Arthur Holmwood. When he had told us so much he went on:-- "Frankly we did our best to prevent such a testamentary disposition, and pointed out certain contingencies that might leave her daughter either penniless or not so free as she should be to act regarding a matrimonial alliance. Indeed, we pressed the matter so far that we almost came into collision, for she asked us if we were or were not prepared to carry out her wishes. Of course, we had then no alternative but to accept. We were right in principle, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred we should have proved, by the logic of events, the accuracy of our judgment. Frankly, however, I must admit that in this case any other form of disposition would have rendered impossible the carrying out of her wishes. For by her predeceasing her daughter the latter would have come into possession of the property, and, even had she only survived her mother by five minutes, her property would, in case there were no will--and a will was a practical impossibility in such a case--have been treated at her decease as under intestacy. In which case Lord Godalming, though so dear a friend, would have had no claim in the world; and the inheritors, being remote, would not be likely to abandon their just rights, for sentimental reasons regarding an entire stranger. I assure you, my dear sirs, I am rejoiced at the result, perfectly rejoiced." He was a good fellow, but his rejoicing at the one little part--in which he was officially interested--of so great a tragedy, was an object-lesson in the limitations of sympathetic understanding. He did not remain long, but said he would look in later in the day and see Lord Godalming. His coming, however, had been a certain comfort to us, since it assured us that we should not have to dread hostile criticism as to any of our acts. Arthur was expected at five o'clock, so a little before that time we visited the death-chamber. It was so in very truth, for now both mother and daughter lay in it. The undertaker, true to his craft, had made the best display he could of his goods, and there was a mortuary air about the place that lowered our spirits at once. Van Helsing ordered the former arrangement to be adhered to, explaining that, as Lord Godalming was coming very soon, it would be less harrowing to his feelings to see all that was left of his _fiancée_ quite alone. The undertaker seemed shocked at his own stupidity and exerted himself to restore things to the condition in which we left them the night before, so that when Arthur came such shocks to his feelings as we could avoid were saved. Poor fellow! He looked desperately sad and broken; even his stalwart manhood seemed to have shrunk somewhat under the strain of his much-tried emotions. He had, I knew, been very genuinely and devotedly attached to his father; and to lose him, and at such a time, was a bitter blow to him. With me he was warm as ever, and to Van Helsing he was sweetly courteous; but I could not help seeing that there was some constraint with him. The Professor noticed it, too, and motioned me to bring him upstairs. I did so, and left him at the door of the room, as I felt he would like to be quite alone with her, but he took my arm and led me in, saying huskily:-- "You loved her too, old fellow; she told me all about it, and there was no friend had a closer place in her heart than you. I don't know how to thank you for all you have done for her. I can't think yet...." Here he suddenly broke down, and threw his arms round my shoulders and laid his head on my breast, crying:-- "Oh, Jack! Jack! What shall I do! The whole of life seems gone from me all at once, and there is nothing in the wide world for me to live for." I comforted him as well as I could. In such cases men do not need much expression. A grip of the hand, the tightening of an arm over the shoulder, a sob in unison, are expressions of sympathy dear to a man's heart. I stood still and silent till his sobs died away, and then I said softly to him:-- "Come and look at her." Together we moved over to the bed, and I lifted the lawn from her face. God! how beautiful she was. Every hour seemed to be enhancing her loveliness. It frightened and amazed me somewhat; and as for Arthur, he fell a-trembling, and finally was shaken with doubt as with an ague. At last, after a long pause, he said to me in a faint whisper:-- "Jack, is she really dead?" I assured him sadly that it was so, and went on to suggest--for I felt that such a horrible doubt should not have life for a moment longer than I could help--that it often happened that after death faces became softened and even resolved into their youthful beauty; that this was especially so when death had been preceded by any acute or prolonged suffering. It seemed to quite do away with any doubt, and, after kneeling beside the couch for a while and looking at her lovingly and long, he turned aside. I told him that that must be good-bye, as the coffin had to be prepared; so he went back and took her dead hand in his and kissed it, and bent over and kissed her forehead. He came away, fondly looking back over his shoulder at her as he came. I left him in the drawing-room, and told Van Helsing that he had said good-bye; so the latter went to the kitchen to tell the undertaker's men to proceed with the preparations and to screw up the coffin. When he came out of the room again I told him of Arthur's question, and he replied:-- "I am not surprised. Just now I doubted for a moment myself!" We all dined together, and I could see that poor Art was trying to make the best of things. Van Helsing had been silent all dinner-time; but when we had lit our cigars he said-- "Lord----"; but Arthur interrupted him:-- "No, no, not that, for God's sake! not yet at any rate. Forgive me, sir: I did not mean to speak offensively; it is only because my loss is so recent." The Professor answered very sweetly:-- "I only used that name because I was in doubt. I must not call you 'Mr.,' and I have grown to love you--yes, my dear boy, to love you--as Arthur." Arthur held out his hand, and took the old man's warmly. "Call me what you will," he said. "I hope I may always have the title of a friend. And let me say that I am at a loss for words to thank you for your goodness to my poor dear." He paused a moment, and went on: "I know that she understood your goodness even better than I do; and if I was rude or in any way wanting at that time you acted so--you remember"--the Professor nodded--"you must forgive me." He answered with a grave kindness:-- "I know it was hard for you to quite trust me then, for to trust such violence needs to understand; and I take it that you do not--that you cannot--trust me now, for you do not yet understand. And there may be more times when I shall want you to trust when you cannot--and may not--and must not yet understand. But the time will come when your trust shall be whole and complete in me, and when you shall understand as though the sunlight himself shone through. Then you shall bless me from first to last for your own sake, and for the sake of others and for her dear sake to whom I swore to protect." "And, indeed, indeed, sir," said Arthur warmly, "I shall in all ways trust you. I know and believe you have a very noble heart, and you are Jack's friend, and you were hers. You shall do what you like." The Professor cleared his throat a couple of times, as though about to speak, and finally said:-- "May I ask you something now?" "Certainly." "You know that Mrs. Westenra left you all her property?" "No, poor dear; I never thought of it." "And as it is all yours, you have a right to deal with it as you will. I want you to give me permission to read all Miss Lucy's papers and letters. Believe me, it is no idle curiosity. I have a motive of which, be sure, she would have approved. I have them all here. I took them before we knew that all was yours, so that no strange hand might touch them--no strange eye look through words into her soul. I shall keep them, if I may; even you may not see them yet, but I shall keep them safe. No word shall be lost; and in the good time I shall give them back to you. It's a hard thing I ask, but you will do it, will you not, for Lucy's sake?" Arthur spoke out heartily, like his old self:-- "Dr. Van Helsing, you may do what you will. I feel that in saying this I am doing what my dear one would have approved. I shall not trouble you with questions till the time comes." The old Professor stood up as he said solemnly:-- "And you are right. There will be pain for us all; but it will not be all pain, nor will this pain be the last. We and you too--you most of all, my dear boy--will have to pass through the bitter water before we reach the sweet. But we must be brave of heart and unselfish, and do our duty, and all will be well!" I slept on a sofa in Arthur's room that night. Van Helsing did not go to bed at all. He went to and fro, as if patrolling the house, and was never out of sight of the room where Lucy lay in her coffin, strewn with the wild garlic flowers, which sent, through the odour of lily and rose, a heavy, overpowering smell into the night. _Mina Harker's Journal._ _22 September._--In the train to Exeter. Jonathan sleeping. It seems only yesterday that the last entry was made, and yet how much between then, in Whitby and all the world before me, Jonathan away and no news of him; and now, married to Jonathan, Jonathan a solicitor, a partner, rich, master of his business, Mr. Hawkins dead and buried, and Jonathan with another attack that may harm him. Some day he may ask me about it. Down it all goes. I am rusty in my shorthand--see what unexpected prosperity does for us--so it may be as well to freshen it up again with an exercise anyhow.... The service was very simple and very solemn. There were only ourselves and the servants there, one or two old friends of his from Exeter, his London agent, and a gentleman representing Sir John Paxton, the President of the Incorporated Law Society. Jonathan and I stood hand in hand, and we felt that our best and dearest friend was gone from us.... We came back to town quietly, taking a 'bus to Hyde Park Corner. Jonathan thought it would interest me to go into the Row for a while, so we sat down; but there were very few people there, and it was sad-looking and desolate to see so many empty chairs. It made us think of the empty chair at home; so we got up and walked down Piccadilly. Jonathan was holding me by the arm, the way he used to in old days before I went to school. I felt it very improper, for you can't go on for some years teaching etiquette and decorum to other girls without the pedantry of it biting into yourself a bit; but it was Jonathan, and he was my husband, and we didn't know anybody who saw us--and we didn't care if they did--so on we walked. I was looking at a very beautiful girl, in a big cart-wheel hat, sitting in a victoria outside Guiliano's, when I felt Jonathan clutch my arm so tight that he hurt me, and he said under his breath: "My God!" I am always anxious about Jonathan, for I fear that some nervous fit may upset him again; so I turned to him quickly, and asked him what it was that disturbed him. He was very pale, and his eyes seemed bulging out as, half in terror and half in amazement, he gazed at a tall, thin man, with a beaky nose and black moustache and pointed beard, who was also observing the pretty girl. He was looking at her so hard that he did not see either of us, and so I had a good view of him. His face was not a good face; it was hard, and cruel, and sensual, and his big white teeth, that looked all the whiter because his lips were so red, were pointed like an animal's. Jonathan kept staring at him, till I was afraid he would notice. I feared he might take it ill, he looked so fierce and nasty. I asked Jonathan why he was disturbed, and he answered, evidently thinking that I knew as much about it as he did: "Do you see who it is?" "No, dear," I said; "I don't know him; who is it?" His answer seemed to shock and thrill me, for it was said as if he did not know that it was to me, Mina, to whom he was speaking:-- "It is the man himself!" The poor dear was evidently terrified at something--very greatly terrified; I do believe that if he had not had me to lean on and to support him he would have sunk down. He kept staring; a man came out of the shop with a small parcel, and gave it to the lady, who then drove off. The dark man kept his eyes fixed on her, and when the carriage moved up Piccadilly he followed in the same direction, and hailed a hansom. Jonathan kept looking after him, and said, as if to himself:-- "I believe it is the Count, but he has grown young. My God, if this be so! Oh, my God! my God! If I only knew! if I only knew!" He was distressing himself so much that I feared to keep his mind on the subject by asking him any questions, so I remained silent. I drew him away quietly, and he, holding my arm, came easily. We walked a little further, and then went in and sat for a while in the Green Park. It was a hot day for autumn, and there was a comfortable seat in a shady place. After a few minutes' staring at nothing, Jonathan's eyes closed, and he went quietly into a sleep, with his head on my shoulder. I thought it was the best thing for him, so did not disturb him. In about twenty minutes he woke up, and said to me quite cheerfully:-- "Why, Mina, have I been asleep! Oh, do forgive me for being so rude. Come, and we'll have a cup of tea somewhere." He had evidently forgotten all about the dark stranger, as in his illness he had forgotten all that this episode had reminded him of. I don't like this lapsing into forgetfulness; it may make or continue some injury to the brain. I must not ask him, for fear I shall do more harm than good; but I must somehow learn the facts of his journey abroad. The time is come, I fear, when I must open that parcel, and know what is written. Oh, Jonathan, you will, I know, forgive me if I do wrong, but it is for your own dear sake. * * * * * _Later._--A sad home-coming in every way--the house empty of the dear soul who was so good to us; Jonathan still pale and dizzy under a slight relapse of his malady; and now a telegram from Van Helsing, whoever he may be:-- "You will be grieved to hear that Mrs. Westenra died five days ago, and that Lucy died the day before yesterday. They were both buried to-day." Oh, what a wealth of sorrow in a few words! Poor Mrs. Westenra! poor Lucy! Gone, gone, never to return to us! And poor, poor Arthur, to have lost such sweetness out of his life! God help us all to bear our troubles. _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _22 September._--It is all over. Arthur has gone back to Ring, and has taken Quincey Morris with him. What a fine fellow is Quincey! I believe in my heart of hearts that he suffered as much about Lucy's death as any of us; but he bore himself through it like a moral Viking. If America can go on breeding men like that, she will be a power in the world indeed. Van Helsing is lying down, having a rest preparatory to his journey. He goes over to Amsterdam to-night, but says he returns to-morrow night; that he only wants to make some arrangements which can only be made personally. He is to stop with me then, if he can; he says he has work to do in London which may take him some time. Poor old fellow! I fear that the strain of the past week has broken down even his iron strength. All the time of the burial he was, I could see, putting some terrible restraint on himself. When it was all over, we were standing beside Arthur, who, poor fellow, was speaking of his part in the operation where his blood had been transfused to his Lucy's veins; I could see Van Helsing's face grow white and purple by turns. Arthur was saying that he felt since then as if they two had been really married and that she was his wife in the sight of God. None of us said a word of the other operations, and none of us ever shall. Arthur and Quincey went away together to the station, and Van Helsing and I came on here. The moment we were alone in the carriage he gave way to a regular fit of hysterics. He has denied to me since that it was hysterics, and insisted that it was only his sense of humour asserting itself under very terrible conditions. He laughed till he cried, and I had to draw down the blinds lest any one should see us and misjudge; and then he cried, till he laughed again; and laughed and cried together, just as a woman does. I tried to be stern with him, as one is to a woman under the circumstances; but it had no effect. Men and women are so different in manifestations of nervous strength or weakness! Then when his face grew grave and stern again I asked him why his mirth, and why at such a time. His reply was in a way characteristic of him, for it was logical and forceful and mysterious. He said:-- "Ah, you don't comprehend, friend John. Do not think that I am not sad, though I laugh. See, I have cried even when the laugh did choke me. But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the laugh he come just the same. Keep it always with you that laughter who knock at your door and say, 'May I come in?' is not the true laughter. No! he is a king, and he come when and how he like. He ask no person; he choose no time of suitability. He say, 'I am here.' Behold, in example I grieve my heart out for that so sweet young girl; I give my blood for her, though I am old and worn; I give my time, my skill, my sleep; I let my other sufferers want that so she may have all. And yet I can laugh at her very grave--laugh when the clay from the spade of the sexton drop upon her coffin and say 'Thud! thud!' to my heart, till it send back the blood from my cheek. My heart bleed for that poor boy--that dear boy, so of the age of mine own boy had I been so blessed that he live, and with his hair and eyes the same. There, you know now why I love him so. And yet when he say things that touch my husband-heart to the quick, and make my father-heart yearn to him as to no other man--not even to you, friend John, for we are more level in experiences than father and son--yet even at such moment King Laugh he come to me and shout and bellow in my ear, 'Here I am! here I am!' till the blood come dance back and bring some of the sunshine that he carry with him to my cheek. Oh, friend John, it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles; and yet when King Laugh come he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall--all dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him. And believe me, friend John, that he is good to come, and kind. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come; and, like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again; and we bear to go on with our labour, what it may be." I did not like to wound him by pretending not to see his idea; but, as I did not yet understand the cause of his laughter, I asked him. As he answered me his face grew stern, and he said in quite a different tone:-- "Oh, it was the grim irony of it all--this so lovely lady garlanded with flowers, that looked so fair as life, till one by one we wondered if she were truly dead; she laid in that so fine marble house in that lonely churchyard, where rest so many of her kin, laid there with the mother who loved her, and whom she loved; and that sacred bell going 'Toll! toll! toll!' so sad and slow; and those holy men, with the white garments of the angel, pretending to read books, and yet all the time their eyes never on the page; and all of us with the bowed head. And all for what? She is dead; so! Is it not?" "Well, for the life of me, Professor," I said, "I can't see anything to laugh at in all that. Why, your explanation makes it a harder puzzle than before. But even if the burial service was comic, what about poor Art and his trouble? Why, his heart was simply breaking." "Just so. Said he not that the transfusion of his blood to her veins had made her truly his bride?" "Yes, and it was a sweet and comforting idea for him." "Quite so. But there was a difficulty, friend John. If so that, then what about the others? Ho, ho! Then this so sweet maid is a polyandrist, and me, with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by Church's law, though no wits, all gone--even I, who am faithful husband to this now-no-wife, am bigamist." "I don't see where the joke comes in there either!" I said; and I did not feel particularly pleased with him for saying such things. He laid his hand on my arm, and said:-- "Friend John, forgive me if I pain. I showed not my feeling to others when it would wound, but only to you, my old friend, whom I can trust. If you could have looked into my very heart then when I want to laugh; if you could have done so when the laugh arrived; if you could do so now, when King Laugh have pack up his crown, and all that is to him--for he go far, far away from me, and for a long, long time--maybe you would perhaps pity me the most of all." I was touched by the tenderness of his tone, and asked why. "Because I know!" And now we are all scattered; and for many a long day loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings. Lucy lies in the tomb of her kin, a lordly death-house in a lonely churchyard, away from teeming London; where the air is fresh, and the sun rises over Hampstead Hill, and where wild flowers grow of their own accord. So I can finish this diary; and God only knows if I shall ever begin another. If I do, or if I even open this again, it will be to deal with different people and different themes; for here at the end, where the romance of my life is told, ere I go back to take up the thread of my life-work, I say sadly and without hope, "FINIS." _"The Westminster Gazette," 25 September._ A HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY. The neighbourhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised with a series of events which seem to run on lines parallel to those of what was known to the writers of headlines as "The Kensington Horror," or "The Stabbing Woman," or "The Woman in Black." During the past two or three days several cases have occurred of young children straying from home or neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath. In all these cases the children were too young to give any properly intelligible account of themselves, but the consensus of their excuses is that they had been with a "bloofer lady." It has always been late in the evening when they have been missed, and on two occasions the children have not been found until early in the following morning. It is generally supposed in the neighbourhood that, as the first child missed gave as his reason for being away that a "bloofer lady" had asked him to come for a walk, the others had picked up the phrase and used it as occasion served. This is the more natural as the favourite game of the little ones at present is luring each other away by wiles. A correspondent writes us that to see some of the tiny tots pretending to be the "bloofer lady" is supremely funny. Some of our caricaturists might, he says, take a lesson in the irony of grotesque by comparing the reality and the picture. It is only in accordance with general principles of human nature that the "bloofer lady" should be the popular rôle at these _al fresco_ performances. Our correspondent naïvely says that even Ellen Terry could not be so winningly attractive as some of these grubby-faced little children pretend--and even imagine themselves--to be. There is, however, possibly a serious side to the question, for some of the children, indeed all who have been missed at night, have been slightly torn or wounded in the throat. The wounds seem such as might be made by a rat or a small dog, and although of not much importance individually, would tend to show that whatever animal inflicts them has a system or method of its own. The police of the division have been instructed to keep a sharp look-out for straying children, especially when very young, in and around Hampstead Heath, and for any stray dog which may be about. _"The Westminster Gazette," 25 September._ _Extra Special._ THE HAMPSTEAD HORROR. ANOTHER CHILD INJURED. _The "Bloofer Lady."_ We have just received intelligence that another child, missed last night, was only discovered late in the morning under a furze bush at the Shooter's Hill side of Hampstead Heath, which is, perhaps, less frequented than the other parts. It has the same tiny wound in the throat as has been noticed in other cases. It was terribly weak, and looked quite emaciated. It too, when partially restored, had the common story to tell of being lured away by the "bloofer lady." CHAPTER XIV MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL _23 September_.--Jonathan is better after a bad night. I am so glad that he has plenty of work to do, for that keeps his mind off the terrible things; and oh, I am rejoiced that he is not now weighed down with the responsibility of his new position. I knew he would be true to himself, and now how proud I am to see my Jonathan rising to the height of his advancement and keeping pace in all ways with the duties that come upon him. He will be away all day till late, for he said he could not lunch at home. My household work is done, so I shall take his foreign journal, and lock myself up in my room and read it.... _24 September_.--I hadn't the heart to write last night; that terrible record of Jonathan's upset me so. Poor dear! How he must have suffered, whether it be true or only imagination. I wonder if there is any truth in it at all. Did he get his brain fever, and then write all those terrible things, or had he some cause for it all? I suppose I shall never know, for I dare not open the subject to him.... And yet that man we saw yesterday! He seemed quite certain of him.... Poor fellow! I suppose it was the funeral upset him and sent his mind back on some train of thought.... He believes it all himself. I remember how on our wedding-day he said: "Unless some solemn duty come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, mad or sane." There seems to be through it all some thread of continuity.... That fearful Count was coming to London.... If it should be, and he came to London, with his teeming millions.... There may be a solemn duty; and if it come we must not shrink from it.... I shall be prepared. I shall get my typewriter this very hour and begin transcribing. Then we shall be ready for other eyes if required. And if it be wanted; then, perhaps, if I am ready, poor Jonathan may not be upset, for I can speak for him and never let him be troubled or worried with it at all. If ever Jonathan quite gets over the nervousness he may want to tell me of it all, and I can ask him questions and find out things, and see how I may comfort him. _Letter, Van Helsing to Mrs. Harker._ "_24 September._ (_Confidence_) "Dear Madam,-- "I pray you to pardon my writing, in that I am so far friend as that I sent to you sad news of Miss Lucy Westenra's death. By the kindness of Lord Godalming, I am empowered to read her letters and papers, for I am deeply concerned about certain matters vitally important. In them I find some letters from you, which show how great friends you were and how you love her. Oh, Madam Mina, by that love, I implore you, help me. It is for others' good that I ask--to redress great wrong, and to lift much and terrible troubles--that may be more great than you can know. May it be that I see you? You can trust me. I am friend of Dr. John Seward and of Lord Godalming (that was Arthur of Miss Lucy). I must keep it private for the present from all. I should come to Exeter to see you at once if you tell me I am privilege to come, and where and when. I implore your pardon, madam. I have read your letters to poor Lucy, and know how good you are and how your husband suffer; so I pray you, if it may be, enlighten him not, lest it may harm. Again your pardon, and forgive me. "VAN HELSING." _Telegram, Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing._ "_25 September._--Come to-day by quarter-past ten train if you can catch it. Can see you any time you call. "WILHELMINA HARKER." MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL. _25 September._--I cannot help feeling terribly excited as the time draws near for the visit of Dr. Van Helsing, for somehow I expect that it will throw some light upon Jonathan's sad experience; and as he attended poor dear Lucy in her last illness, he can tell me all about her. That is the reason of his coming; it is concerning Lucy and her sleep-walking, and not about Jonathan. Then I shall never know the real truth now! How silly I am. That awful journal gets hold of my imagination and tinges everything with something of its own colour. Of course it is about Lucy. That habit came back to the poor dear, and that awful night on the cliff must have made her ill. I had almost forgotten in my own affairs how ill she was afterwards. She must have told him of her sleep-walking adventure on the cliff, and that I knew all about it; and now he wants me to tell him what she knows, so that he may understand. I hope I did right in not saying anything of it to Mrs. Westenra; I should never forgive myself if any act of mine, were it even a negative one, brought harm on poor dear Lucy. I hope, too, Dr. Van Helsing will not blame me; I have had so much trouble and anxiety of late that I feel I cannot bear more just at present. I suppose a cry does us all good at times--clears the air as other rain does. Perhaps it was reading the journal yesterday that upset me, and then Jonathan went away this morning to stay away from me a whole day and night, the first time we have been parted since our marriage. I do hope the dear fellow will take care of himself, and that nothing will occur to upset him. It is two o'clock, and the doctor will be here soon now. I shall say nothing of Jonathan's journal unless he asks me. I am so glad I have type-written out my own journal, so that, in case he asks about Lucy, I can hand it to him; it will save much questioning. * * * * * _Later._--He has come and gone. Oh, what a strange meeting, and how it all makes my head whirl round! I feel like one in a dream. Can it be all possible, or even a part of it? If I had not read Jonathan's journal first, I should never have accepted even a possibility. Poor, poor, dear Jonathan! How he must have suffered. Please the good God, all this may not upset him again. I shall try to save him from it; but it may be even a consolation and a help to him--terrible though it be and awful in its consequences--to know for certain that his eyes and ears and brain did not deceive him, and that it is all true. It may be that it is the doubt which haunts him; that when the doubt is removed, no matter which--waking or dreaming--may prove the truth, he will be more satisfied and better able to bear the shock. Dr. Van Helsing must be a good man as well as a clever one if he is Arthur's friend and Dr. Seward's, and if they brought him all the way from Holland to look after Lucy. I feel from having seen him that he _is_ good and kind and of a noble nature. When he comes to-morrow I shall ask him about Jonathan; and then, please God, all this sorrow and anxiety may lead to a good end. I used to think I would like to practise interviewing; Jonathan's friend on "The Exeter News" told him that memory was everything in such work--that you must be able to put down exactly almost every word spoken, even if you had to refine some of it afterwards. Here was a rare interview; I shall try to record it _verbatim_. It was half-past two o'clock when the knock came. I took my courage _à deux mains_ and waited. In a few minutes Mary opened the door, and announced "Dr. Van Helsing." I rose and bowed, and he came towards me; a man of medium weight, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise of the head strikes one at once as indicative of thought and power; the head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face, clean-shaven, shows a hard, square chin, a large, resolute, mobile mouth, a good-sized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big, bushy brows come down and the mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart; such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyes are set widely apart, and are quick and tender or stern with the man's moods. He said to me:-- "Mrs. Harker, is it not?" I bowed assent. "That was Miss Mina Murray?" Again I assented. "It is Mina Murray that I came to see that was friend of that poor dear child Lucy Westenra. Madam Mina, it is on account of the dead I come." "Sir," I said, "you could have no better claim on me than that you were a friend and helper of Lucy Westenra." And I held out my hand. He took it and said tenderly:-- "Oh, Madam Mina, I knew that the friend of that poor lily girl must be good, but I had yet to learn----" He finished his speech with a courtly bow. I asked him what it was that he wanted to see me about, so he at once began:-- "I have read your letters to Miss Lucy. Forgive me, but I had to begin to inquire somewhere, and there was none to ask. I know that you were with her at Whitby. She sometimes kept a diary--you need not look surprised, Madam Mina; it was begun after you had left, and was in imitation of you--and in that diary she traces by inference certain things to a sleep-walking in which she puts down that you saved her. In great perplexity then I come to you, and ask you out of your so much kindness to tell me all of it that you can remember." "I can tell you, I think, Dr. Van Helsing, all about it." "Ah, then you have good memory for facts, for details? It is not always so with young ladies." "No, doctor, but I wrote it all down at the time. I can show it to you if you like." "Oh, Madam Mina, I will be grateful; you will do me much favour." I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit--I suppose it is some of the taste of the original apple that remains still in our mouths--so I handed him the shorthand diary. He took it with a grateful bow, and said:-- "May I read it?" "If you wish," I answered as demurely as I could. He opened it, and for an instant his face fell. Then he stood up and bowed. "Oh, you so clever woman!" he said. "I knew long that Mr. Jonathan was a man of much thankfulness; but see, his wife have all the good things. And will you not so much honour me and so help me as to read it for me? Alas! I know not the shorthand." By this time my little joke was over, and I was almost ashamed; so I took the typewritten copy from my workbasket and handed it to him. "Forgive me," I said: "I could not help it; but I had been thinking that it was of dear Lucy that you wished to ask, and so that you might not have time to wait--not on my account, but because I know your time must be precious--I have written it out on the typewriter for you." He took it and his eyes glistened. "You are so good," he said. "And may I read it now? I may want to ask you some things when I have read." "By all means," I said, "read it over whilst I order lunch; and then you can ask me questions whilst we eat." He bowed and settled himself in a chair with his back to the light, and became absorbed in the papers, whilst I went to see after lunch chiefly in order that he might not be disturbed. When I came back, I found him walking hurriedly up and down the room, his face all ablaze with excitement. He rushed up to me and took me by both hands. "Oh, Madam Mina," he said, "how can I say what I owe to you? This paper is as sunshine. It opens the gate to me. I am daze, I am dazzle, with so much light, and yet clouds roll in behind the light every time. But that you do not, cannot, comprehend. Oh, but I am grateful to you, you so clever woman. Madam"--he said this very solemnly--"if ever Abraham Van Helsing can do anything for you or yours, I trust you will let me know. It will be pleasure and delight if I may serve you as a friend; as a friend, but all I have ever learned, all I can ever do, shall be for you and those you love. There are darknesses in life, and there are lights; you are one of the lights. You will have happy life and good life, and your husband will be blessed in you." "But, doctor, you praise me too much, and--and you do not know me." "Not know you--I, who am old, and who have studied all my life men and women; I, who have made my specialty the brain and all that belongs to him and all that follow from him! And I have read your diary that you have so goodly written for me, and which breathes out truth in every line. I, who have read your so sweet letter to poor Lucy of your marriage and your trust, not know you! Oh, Madam Mina, good women tell all their lives, and by day and by hour and by minute, such things that angels can read; and we men who wish to know have in us something of angels' eyes. Your husband is noble nature, and you are noble too, for you trust, and trust cannot be where there is mean nature. And your husband--tell me of him. Is he quite well? Is all that fever gone, and is he strong and hearty?" I saw here an opening to ask him about Jonathan, so I said:-- "He was almost recovered, but he has been greatly upset by Mr. Hawkins's death." He interrupted:-- "Oh, yes, I know, I know. I have read your last two letters." I went on:-- "I suppose this upset him, for when we were in town on Thursday last he had a sort of shock." "A shock, and after brain fever so soon! That was not good. What kind of a shock was it?" "He thought he saw some one who recalled something terrible, something which led to his brain fever." And here the whole thing seemed to overwhelm me in a rush. The pity for Jonathan, the horror which he experienced, the whole fearful mystery of his diary, and the fear that has been brooding over me ever since, all came in a tumult. I suppose I was hysterical, for I threw myself on my knees and held up my hands to him, and implored him to make my husband well again. He took my hands and raised me up, and made me sit on the sofa, and sat by me; he held my hand in his, and said to me with, oh, such infinite sweetness:-- "My life is a barren and lonely one, and so full of work that I have not had much time for friendships; but since I have been summoned to here by my friend John Seward I have known so many good people and seen such nobility that I feel more than ever--and it has grown with my advancing years--the loneliness of my life. Believe, me, then, that I come here full of respect for you, and you have given me hope--hope, not in what I am seeking of, but that there are good women still left to make life happy--good women, whose lives and whose truths may make good lesson for the children that are to be. I am glad, glad, that I may here be of some use to you; for if your husband suffer, he suffer within the range of my study and experience. I promise you that I will gladly do _all_ for him that I can--all to make his life strong and manly, and your life a happy one. Now you must eat. You are overwrought and perhaps over-anxious. Husband Jonathan would not like to see you so pale; and what he like not where he love, is not to his good. Therefore for his sake you must eat and smile. You have told me all about Lucy, and so now we shall not speak of it, lest it distress. I shall stay in Exeter to-night, for I want to think much over what you have told me, and when I have thought I will ask you questions, if I may. And then, too, you will tell me of husband Jonathan's trouble so far as you can, but not yet. You must eat now; afterwards you shall tell me all." After lunch, when we went back to the drawing-room, he said to me:-- "And now tell me all about him." When it came to speaking to this great learned man, I began to fear that he would think me a weak fool, and Jonathan a madman--that journal is all so strange--and I hesitated to go on. But he was so sweet and kind, and he had promised to help, and I trusted him, so I said:-- "Dr. Van Helsing, what I have to tell you is so queer that you must not laugh at me or at my husband. I have been since yesterday in a sort of fever of doubt; you must be kind to me, and not think me foolish that I have even half believed some very strange things." He reassured me by his manner as well as his words when he said:-- "Oh, my dear, if you only know how strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it be. I have tried to keep an open mind; and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane." "Thank you, thank you, a thousand times! You have taken a weight off my mind. If you will let me, I shall give you a paper to read. It is long, but I have typewritten it out. It will tell you my trouble and Jonathan's. It is the copy of his journal when abroad, and all that happened. I dare not say anything of it; you will read for yourself and judge. And then when I see you, perhaps, you will be very kind and tell me what you think." "I promise," he said as I gave him the papers; "I shall in the morning, so soon as I can, come to see you and your husband, if I may." "Jonathan will be here at half-past eleven, and you must come to lunch with us and see him then; you could catch the quick 3:34 train, which will leave you at Paddington before eight." He was surprised at my knowledge of the trains off-hand, but he does not know that I have made up all the trains to and from Exeter, so that I may help Jonathan in case he is in a hurry. So he took the papers with him and went away, and I sit here thinking--thinking I don't know what. * * * * * _Letter (by hand), Van Helsing to Mrs. Harker._ "_25 September, 6 o'clock._ "Dear Madam Mina,-- "I have read your husband's so wonderful diary. You may sleep without doubt. Strange and terrible as it is, it is _true_! I will pledge my life on it. It may be worse for others; but for him and you there is no dread. He is a noble fellow; and let me tell you from experience of men, that one who would do as he did in going down that wall and to that room--ay, and going a second time--is not one to be injured in permanence by a shock. His brain and his heart are all right; this I swear, before I have even seen him; so be at rest. I shall have much to ask him of other things. I am blessed that to-day I come to see you, for I have learn all at once so much that again I am dazzle--dazzle more than ever, and I must think. "Yours the most faithful, "ABRAHAM VAN HELSING." _Letter, Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing._ "_25 September, 6:30 p. m._ "My dear Dr. Van Helsing,-- "A thousand thanks for your kind letter, which has taken a great weight off my mind. And yet, if it be true, what terrible things there are in the world, and what an awful thing if that man, that monster, be really in London! I fear to think. I have this moment, whilst writing, had a wire from Jonathan, saying that he leaves by the 6:25 to-night from Launceston and will be here at 10:18, so that I shall have no fear to-night. Will you, therefore, instead of lunching with us, please come to breakfast at eight o'clock, if this be not too early for you? You can get away, if you are in a hurry, by the 10:30 train, which will bring you to Paddington by 2:35. Do not answer this, as I shall take it that, if I do not hear, you will come to breakfast. "Believe me, "Your faithful and grateful friend, "MINA HARKER." _Jonathan Harker's Journal._ _26 September._--I thought never to write in this diary again, but the time has come. When I got home last night Mina had supper ready, and when we had supped she told me of Van Helsing's visit, and of her having given him the two diaries copied out, and of how anxious she has been about me. She showed me in the doctor's letter that all I wrote down was true. It seems to have made a new man of me. It was the doubt as to the reality of the whole thing that knocked me over. I felt impotent, and in the dark, and distrustful. But, now that I _know_, I am not afraid, even of the Count. He has succeeded after all, then, in his design in getting to London, and it was he I saw. He has got younger, and how? Van Helsing is the man to unmask him and hunt him out, if he is anything like what Mina says. We sat late, and talked it all over. Mina is dressing, and I shall call at the hotel in a few minutes and bring him over.... He was, I think, surprised to see me. When I came into the room where he was, and introduced myself, he took me by the shoulder, and turned my face round to the light, and said, after a sharp scrutiny:-- "But Madam Mina told me you were ill, that you had had a shock." It was so funny to hear my wife called "Madam Mina" by this kindly, strong-faced old man. I smiled, and said:-- "I _was_ ill, I _have_ had a shock; but you have cured me already." "And how?" "By your letter to Mina last night. I was in doubt, and then everything took a hue of unreality, and I did not know what to trust, even the evidence of my own senses. Not knowing what to trust, I did not know what to do; and so had only to keep on working in what had hitherto been the groove of my life. The groove ceased to avail me, and I mistrusted myself. Doctor, you don't know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself. No, you don't; you couldn't with eyebrows like yours." He seemed pleased, and laughed as he said:-- "So! You are physiognomist. I learn more here with each hour. I am with so much pleasure coming to you to breakfast; and, oh, sir, you will pardon praise from an old man, but you are blessed in your wife." I would listen to him go on praising Mina for a day, so I simply nodded and stood silent. "She is one of God's women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist--and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so sceptical and selfish. And you, sir--I have read all the letters to poor Miss Lucy, and some of them speak of you, so I know you since some days from the knowing of others; but I have seen your true self since last night. You will give me your hand, will you not? And let us be friends for all our lives." We shook hands, and he was so earnest and so kind that it made me quite choky. "And now," he said, "may I ask you for some more help? I have a great task to do, and at the beginning it is to know. You can help me here. Can you tell me what went before your going to Transylvania? Later on I may ask more help, and of a different kind; but at first this will do." "Look here, sir," I said, "does what you have to do concern the Count?" "It does," he said solemnly. "Then I am with you heart and soul. As you go by the 10:30 train, you will not have time to read them; but I shall get the bundle of papers. You can take them with you and read them in the train." After breakfast I saw him to the station. When we were parting he said:-- "Perhaps you will come to town if I send to you, and take Madam Mina too." "We shall both come when you will," I said. I had got him the morning papers and the London papers of the previous night, and while we were talking at the carriage window, waiting for the train to start, he was turning them over. His eyes suddenly seemed to catch something in one of them, "The Westminster Gazette"--I knew it by the colour--and he grew quite white. He read something intently, groaning to himself: "Mein Gott! Mein Gott! So soon! so soon!" I do not think he remembered me at the moment. Just then the whistle blew, and the train moved off. This recalled him to himself, and he leaned out of the window and waved his hand, calling out: "Love to Madam Mina; I shall write so soon as ever I can." _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _26 September._--Truly there is no such thing as finality. Not a week since I said "Finis," and yet here I am starting fresh again, or rather going on with the same record. Until this afternoon I had no cause to think of what is done. Renfield had become, to all intents, as sane as he ever was. He was already well ahead with his fly business; and he had just started in the spider line also; so he had not been of any trouble to me. I had a letter from Arthur, written on Sunday, and from it I gather that he is bearing up wonderfully well. Quincey Morris is with him, and that is much of a help, for he himself is a bubbling well of good spirits. Quincey wrote me a line too, and from him I hear that Arthur is beginning to recover something of his old buoyancy; so as to them all my mind is at rest. As for myself, I was settling down to my work with the enthusiasm which I used to have for it, so that I might fairly have said that the wound which poor Lucy left on me was becoming cicatrised. Everything is, however, now reopened; and what is to be the end God only knows. I have an idea that Van Helsing thinks he knows, too, but he will only let out enough at a time to whet curiosity. He went to Exeter yesterday, and stayed there all night. To-day he came back, and almost bounded into the room at about half-past five o'clock, and thrust last night's "Westminster Gazette" into my hand. "What do you think of that?" he asked as he stood back and folded his arms. I looked over the paper, for I really did not know what he meant; but he took it from me and pointed out a paragraph about children being decoyed away at Hampstead. It did not convey much to me, until I reached a passage where it described small punctured wounds on their throats. An idea struck me, and I looked up. "Well?" he said. "It is like poor Lucy's." "And what do you make of it?" "Simply that there is some cause in common. Whatever it was that injured her has injured them." I did not quite understand his answer:-- "That is true indirectly, but not directly." "How do you mean, Professor?" I asked. I was a little inclined to take his seriousness lightly--for, after all, four days of rest and freedom from burning, harrowing anxiety does help to restore one's spirits--but when I saw his face, it sobered me. Never, even in the midst of our despair about poor Lucy, had he looked more stern. "Tell me!" I said. "I can hazard no opinion. I do not know what to think, and I have no data on which to found a conjecture." "Do you mean to tell me, friend John, that you have no suspicion as to what poor Lucy died of; not after all the hints given, not only by events, but by me?" "Of nervous prostration following on great loss or waste of blood." "And how the blood lost or waste?" I shook my head. He stepped over and sat down beside me, and went on:-- "You are clever man, friend John; you reason well, and your wit is bold; but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are; that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplate by men's eyes, because they know--or think they know--some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new; and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young--like the fine ladies at the opera. I suppose now you do not believe in corporeal transference. No? Nor in materialisation. No? Nor in astral bodies. No? Nor in the reading of thought. No? Nor in hypnotism----" "Yes," I said. "Charcot has proved that pretty well." He smiled as he went on: "Then you are satisfied as to it. Yes? And of course then you understand how it act, and can follow the mind of the great Charcot--alas that he is no more!--into the very soul of the patient that he influence. No? Then, friend John, am I to take it that you simply accept fact, and are satisfied to let from premise to conclusion be a blank? No? Then tell me--for I am student of the brain--how you accept the hypnotism and reject the thought reading. Let me tell you, my friend, that there are things done to-day in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very men who discovered electricity--who would themselves not so long before have been burned as wizards. There are always mysteries in life. Why was it that Methuselah lived nine hundred years, and 'Old Parr' one hundred and sixty-nine, and yet that poor Lucy, with four men's blood in her poor veins, could not live even one day? For, had she live one more day, we could have save her. Do you know all the mystery of life and death? Do you know the altogether of comparative anatomy and can say wherefore the qualities of brutes are in some men, and not in others? Can you tell me why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one great spider lived for centuries in the tower of the old Spanish church and grew and grew, till, on descending, he could drink the oil of all the church lamps? Can you tell me why in the Pampas, ay and elsewhere, there are bats that come at night and open the veins of cattle and horses and suck dry their veins; how in some islands of the Western seas there are bats which hang on the trees all day, and those who have seen describe as like giant nuts or pods, and that when the sailors sleep on the deck, because that it is hot, flit down on them, and then--and then in the morning are found dead men, white as even Miss Lucy was?" "Good God, Professor!" I said, starting up. "Do you mean to tell me that Lucy was bitten by such a bat; and that such a thing is here in London in the nineteenth century?" He waved his hand for silence, and went on:-- "Can you tell me why the tortoise lives more long than generations of men; why the elephant goes on and on till he have seen dynasties; and why the parrot never die only of bite of cat or dog or other complaint? Can you tell me why men believe in all ages and places that there are some few who live on always if they be permit; that there are men and women who cannot die? We all know--because science has vouched for the fact--that there have been toads shut up in rocks for thousands of years, shut in one so small hole that only hold him since the youth of the world. Can you tell me how the Indian fakir can make himself to die and have been buried, and his grave sealed and corn sowed on it, and the corn reaped and be cut and sown and reaped and cut again, and then men come and take away the unbroken seal and that there lie the Indian fakir, not dead, but that rise up and walk amongst them as before?" Here I interrupted him. I was getting bewildered; he so crowded on my mind his list of nature's eccentricities and possible impossibilities that my imagination was getting fired. I had a dim idea that he was teaching me some lesson, as long ago he used to do in his study at Amsterdam; but he used then to tell me the thing, so that I could have the object of thought in mind all the time. But now I was without this help, yet I wanted to follow him, so I said:-- "Professor, let me be your pet student again. Tell me the thesis, so that I may apply your knowledge as you go on. At present I am going in my mind from point to point as a mad man, and not a sane one, follows an idea. I feel like a novice lumbering through a bog in a mist, jumping from one tussock to another in the mere blind effort to move on without knowing where I am going." "That is good image," he said. "Well, I shall tell you. My thesis is this: I want you to believe." "To believe what?" "To believe in things that you cannot. Let me illustrate. I heard once of an American who so defined faith: 'that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue.' For one, I follow that man. He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of a big truth, like a small rock does a railway truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep him, and we value him; but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe." "Then you want me not to let some previous conviction injure the receptivity of my mind with regard to some strange matter. Do I read your lesson aright?" "Ah, you are my favourite pupil still. It is worth to teach you. Now that you are willing to understand, you have taken the first step to understand. You think then that those so small holes in the children's throats were made by the same that made the hole in Miss Lucy?" "I suppose so." He stood up and said solemnly:-- "Then you are wrong. Oh, would it were so! but alas! no. It is worse, far, far worse." "In God's name, Professor Van Helsing, what do you mean?" I cried. He threw himself with a despairing gesture into a chair, and placed his elbows on the table, covering his face with his hands as he spoke:-- "They were made by Miss Lucy!" CHAPTER XV DR. SEWARD'S DIARY--_continued_. For a while sheer anger mastered me; it was as if he had during her life struck Lucy on the face. I smote the table hard and rose up as I said to him:-- "Dr. Van Helsing, are you mad?" He raised his head and looked at me, and somehow the tenderness of his face calmed me at once. "Would I were!" he said. "Madness were easy to bear compared with truth like this. Oh, my friend, why, think you, did I go so far round, why take so long to tell you so simple a thing? Was it because I hate you and have hated you all my life? Was it because I wished to give you pain? Was it that I wanted, now so late, revenge for that time when you saved my life, and from a fearful death? Ah no!" "Forgive me," said I. He went on:-- "My friend, it was because I wished to be gentle in the breaking to you, for I know you have loved that so sweet lady. But even yet I do not expect you to believe. It is so hard to accept at once any abstract truth, that we may doubt such to be possible when we have always believed the 'no' of it; it is more hard still to accept so sad a concrete truth, and of such a one as Miss Lucy. To-night I go to prove it. Dare you come with me?" This staggered me. A man does not like to prove such a truth; Byron excepted from the category, jealousy. "And prove the very truth he most abhorred." He saw my hesitation, and spoke:-- "The logic is simple, no madman's logic this time, jumping from tussock to tussock in a misty bog. If it be not true, then proof will be relief; at worst it will not harm. If it be true! Ah, there is the dread; yet very dread should help my cause, for in it is some need of belief. Come, I tell you what I propose: first, that we go off now and see that child in the hospital. Dr. Vincent, of the North Hospital, where the papers say the child is, is friend of mine, and I think of yours since you were in class at Amsterdam. He will let two scientists see his case, if he will not let two friends. We shall tell him nothing, but only that we wish to learn. And then----" "And then?" He took a key from his pocket and held it up. "And then we spend the night, you and I, in the churchyard where Lucy lies. This is the key that lock the tomb. I had it from the coffin-man to give to Arthur." My heart sank within me, for I felt that there was some fearful ordeal before us. I could do nothing, however, so I plucked up what heart I could and said that we had better hasten, as the afternoon was passing.... We found the child awake. It had had a sleep and taken some food, and altogether was going on well. Dr. Vincent took the bandage from its throat, and showed us the punctures. There was no mistaking the similarity to those which had been on Lucy's throat. They were smaller, and the edges looked fresher; that was all. We asked Vincent to what he attributed them, and he replied that it must have been a bite of some animal, perhaps a rat; but, for his own part, he was inclined to think that it was one of the bats which are so numerous on the northern heights of London. "Out of so many harmless ones," he said, "there may be some wild specimen from the South of a more malignant species. Some sailor may have brought one home, and it managed to escape; or even from the Zoölogical Gardens a young one may have got loose, or one be bred there from a vampire. These things do occur, you know. Only ten days ago a wolf got out, and was, I believe, traced up in this direction. For a week after, the children were playing nothing but Red Riding Hood on the Heath and in every alley in the place until this 'bloofer lady' scare came along, since when it has been quite a gala-time with them. Even this poor little mite, when he woke up to-day, asked the nurse if he might go away. When she asked him why he wanted to go, he said he wanted to play with the 'bloofer lady.'" "I hope," said Van Helsing, "that when you are sending the child home you will caution its parents to keep strict watch over it. These fancies to stray are most dangerous; and if the child were to remain out another night, it would probably be fatal. But in any case I suppose you will not let it away for some days?" "Certainly not, not for a week at least; longer if the wound is not healed." Our visit to the hospital took more time than we had reckoned on, and the sun had dipped before we came out. When Van Helsing saw how dark it was, he said:-- "There is no hurry. It is more late than I thought. Come, let us seek somewhere that we may eat, and then we shall go on our way." We dined at "Jack Straw's Castle" along with a little crowd of bicyclists and others who were genially noisy. About ten o'clock we started from the inn. It was then very dark, and the scattered lamps made the darkness greater when we were once outside their individual radius. The Professor had evidently noted the road we were to go, for he went on unhesitatingly; but, as for me, I was in quite a mixup as to locality. As we went further, we met fewer and fewer people, till at last we were somewhat surprised when we met even the patrol of horse police going their usual suburban round. At last we reached the wall of the churchyard, which we climbed over. With some little difficulty--for it was very dark, and the whole place seemed so strange to us--we found the Westenra tomb. The Professor took the key, opened the creaky door, and standing back, politely, but quite unconsciously, motioned me to precede him. There was a delicious irony in the offer, in the courtliness of giving preference on such a ghastly occasion. My companion followed me quickly, and cautiously drew the door to, after carefully ascertaining that the lock was a falling, and not a spring, one. In the latter case we should have been in a bad plight. Then he fumbled in his bag, and taking out a matchbox and a piece of candle, proceeded to make a light. The tomb in the day-time, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough; but now, some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns; when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance; when time-discoloured stone, and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass, and clouded silver-plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been imagined. It conveyed irresistibly the idea that life--animal life--was not the only thing which could pass away. Van Helsing went about his work systematically. Holding his candle so that he could read the coffin plates, and so holding it that the sperm dropped in white patches which congealed as they touched the metal, he made assurance of Lucy's coffin. Another search in his bag, and he took out a turnscrew. "What are you going to do?" I asked. "To open the coffin. You shall yet be convinced." Straightway he began taking out the screws, and finally lifted off the lid, showing the casing of lead beneath. The sight was almost too much for me. It seemed to be as much an affront to the dead as it would have been to have stripped off her clothing in her sleep whilst living; I actually took hold of his hand to stop him. He only said: "You shall see," and again fumbling in his bag, took out a tiny fret-saw. Striking the turnscrew through the lead with a swift downward stab, which made me wince, he made a small hole, which was, however, big enough to admit the point of the saw. I had expected a rush of gas from the week-old corpse. We doctors, who have had to study our dangers, have to become accustomed to such things, and I drew back towards the door. But the Professor never stopped for a moment; he sawed down a couple of feet along one side of the lead coffin, and then across, and down the other side. Taking the edge of the loose flange, he bent it back towards the foot of the coffin, and holding up the candle into the aperture, motioned to me to look. I drew near and looked. The coffin was empty. It was certainly a surprise to me, and gave me a considerable shock, but Van Helsing was unmoved. He was now more sure than ever of his ground, and so emboldened to proceed in his task. "Are you satisfied now, friend John?" he asked. I felt all the dogged argumentativeness of my nature awake within me as I answered him:-- "I am satisfied that Lucy's body is not in that coffin; but that only proves one thing." "And what is that, friend John?" "That it is not there." "That is good logic," he said, "so far as it goes. But how do you--how can you--account for it not being there?" "Perhaps a body-snatcher," I suggested. "Some of the undertaker's people may have stolen it." I felt that I was speaking folly, and yet it was the only real cause which I could suggest. The Professor sighed. "Ah well!" he said, "we must have more proof. Come with me." He put on the coffin-lid again, gathered up all his things and placed them in the bag, blew out the light, and placed the candle also in the bag. We opened the door, and went out. Behind us he closed the door and locked it. He handed me the key, saying: "Will you keep it? You had better be assured." I laughed--it was not a very cheerful laugh, I am bound to say--as I motioned him to keep it. "A key is nothing," I said; "there may be duplicates; and anyhow it is not difficult to pick a lock of that kind." He said nothing, but put the key in his pocket. Then he told me to watch at one side of the churchyard whilst he would watch at the other. I took up my place behind a yew-tree, and I saw his dark figure move until the intervening headstones and trees hid it from my sight. It was a lonely vigil. Just after I had taken my place I heard a distant clock strike twelve, and in time came one and two. I was chilled and unnerved, and angry with the Professor for taking me on such an errand and with myself for coming. I was too cold and too sleepy to be keenly observant, and not sleepy enough to betray my trust so altogether I had a dreary, miserable time. Suddenly, as I turned round, I thought I saw something like a white streak, moving between two dark yew-trees at the side of the churchyard farthest from the tomb; at the same time a dark mass moved from the Professor's side of the ground, and hurriedly went towards it. Then I too moved; but I had to go round headstones and railed-off tombs, and I stumbled over graves. The sky was overcast, and somewhere far off an early cock crew. A little way off, beyond a line of scattered juniper-trees, which marked the pathway to the church, a white, dim figure flitted in the direction of the tomb. The tomb itself was hidden by trees, and I could not see where the figure disappeared. I heard the rustle of actual movement where I had first seen the white figure, and coming over, found the Professor holding in his arms a tiny child. When he saw me he held it out to me, and said:-- "Are you satisfied now?" "No," I said, in a way that I felt was aggressive. "Do you not see the child?" "Yes, it is a child, but who brought it here? And is it wounded?" I asked. "We shall see," said the Professor, and with one impulse we took our way out of the churchyard, he carrying the sleeping child. When we had got some little distance away, we went into a clump of trees, and struck a match, and looked at the child's throat. It was without a scratch or scar of any kind. "Was I right?" I asked triumphantly. "We were just in time," said the Professor thankfully. We had now to decide what we were to do with the child, and so consulted about it. If we were to take it to a police-station we should have to give some account of our movements during the night; at least, we should have had to make some statement as to how we had come to find the child. So finally we decided that we would take it to the Heath, and when we heard a policeman coming, would leave it where he could not fail to find it; we would then seek our way home as quickly as we could. All fell out well. At the edge of Hampstead Heath we heard a policeman's heavy tramp, and laying the child on the pathway, we waited and watched until he saw it as he flashed his lantern to and fro. We heard his exclamation of astonishment, and then we went away silently. By good chance we got a cab near the "Spaniards," and drove to town. I cannot sleep, so I make this entry. But I must try to get a few hours' sleep, as Van Helsing is to call for me at noon. He insists that I shall go with him on another expedition. * * * * * _27 September._--It was two o'clock before we found a suitable opportunity for our attempt. The funeral held at noon was all completed, and the last stragglers of the mourners had taken themselves lazily away, when, looking carefully from behind a clump of alder-trees, we saw the sexton lock the gate after him. We knew then that we were safe till morning did we desire it; but the Professor told me that we should not want more than an hour at most. Again I felt that horrid sense of the reality of things, in which any effort of imagination seemed out of place; and I realised distinctly the perils of the law which we were incurring in our unhallowed work. Besides, I felt it was all so useless. Outrageous as it was to open a leaden coffin, to see if a woman dead nearly a week were really dead, it now seemed the height of folly to open the tomb again, when we knew, from the evidence of our own eyesight, that the coffin was empty. I shrugged my shoulders, however, and rested silent, for Van Helsing had a way of going on his own road, no matter who remonstrated. He took the key, opened the vault, and again courteously motioned me to precede. The place was not so gruesome as last night, but oh, how unutterably mean-looking when the sunshine streamed in. Van Helsing walked over to Lucy's coffin, and I followed. He bent over and again forced back the leaden flange; and then a shock of surprise and dismay shot through me. There lay Lucy, seemingly just as we had seen her the night before her funeral. She was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever; and I could not believe that she was dead. The lips were red, nay redder than before; and on the cheeks was a delicate bloom. "Is this a juggle?" I said to him. "Are you convinced now?" said the Professor in response, and as he spoke he put over his hand, and in a way that made me shudder, pulled back the dead lips and showed the white teeth. "See," he went on, "see, they are even sharper than before. With this and this"--and he touched one of the canine teeth and that below it--"the little children can be bitten. Are you of belief now, friend John?" Once more, argumentative hostility woke within me. I _could_ not accept such an overwhelming idea as he suggested; so, with an attempt to argue of which I was even at the moment ashamed, I said:-- "She may have been placed here since last night." "Indeed? That is so, and by whom?" "I do not know. Some one has done it." "And yet she has been dead one week. Most peoples in that time would not look so." I had no answer for this, so was silent. Van Helsing did not seem to notice my silence; at any rate, he showed neither chagrin nor triumph. He was looking intently at the face of the dead woman, raising the eyelids and looking at the eyes, and once more opening the lips and examining the teeth. Then he turned to me and said:-- "Here, there is one thing which is different from all recorded; here is some dual life that is not as the common. She was bitten by the vampire when she was in a trance, sleep-walking--oh, you start; you do not know that, friend John, but you shall know it all later--and in trance could he best come to take more blood. In trance she died, and in trance she is Un-Dead, too. So it is that she differ from all other. Usually when the Un-Dead sleep at home"--as he spoke he made a comprehensive sweep of his arm to designate what to a vampire was "home"--"their face show what they are, but this so sweet that was when she not Un-Dead she go back to the nothings of the common dead. There is no malign there, see, and so it make hard that I must kill her in her sleep." This turned my blood cold, and it began to dawn upon me that I was accepting Van Helsing's theories; but if she were really dead, what was there of terror in the idea of killing her? He looked up at me, and evidently saw the change in my face, for he said almost joyously:-- "Ah, you believe now?" I answered: "Do not press me too hard all at once. I am willing to accept. How will you do this bloody work?" "I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I shall drive a stake through her body." It made me shudder to think of so mutilating the body of the woman whom I had loved. And yet the feeling was not so strong as I had expected. I was, in fact, beginning to shudder at the presence of this being, this Un-Dead, as Van Helsing called it, and to loathe it. Is it possible that love is all subjective, or all objective? I waited a considerable time for Van Helsing to begin, but he stood as if wrapped in thought. Presently he closed the catch of his bag with a snap, and said:-- "I have been thinking, and have made up my mind as to what is best. If I did simply follow my inclining I would do now, at this moment, what is to be done; but there are other things to follow, and things that are thousand times more difficult in that them we do not know. This is simple. She have yet no life taken, though that is of time; and to act now would be to take danger from her for ever. But then we may have to want Arthur, and how shall we tell him of this? If you, who saw the wounds on Lucy's throat, and saw the wounds so similar on the child's at the hospital; if you, who saw the coffin empty last night and full to-day with a woman who have not change only to be more rose and more beautiful in a whole week, after she die--if you know of this and know of the white figure last night that brought the child to the churchyard, and yet of your own senses you did not believe, how, then, can I expect Arthur, who know none of those things, to believe? He doubted me when I took him from her kiss when she was dying. I know he has forgiven me because in some mistaken idea I have done things that prevent him say good-bye as he ought; and he may think that in some more mistaken idea this woman was buried alive; and that in most mistake of all we have killed her. He will then argue back that it is we, mistaken ones, that have killed her by our ideas; and so he will be much unhappy always. Yet he never can be sure; and that is the worst of all. And he will sometimes think that she he loved was buried alive, and that will paint his dreams with horrors of what she must have suffered; and again, he will think that we may be right, and that his so beloved was, after all, an Un-Dead. No! I told him once, and since then I learn much. Now, since I know it is all true, a hundred thousand times more do I know that he must pass through the bitter waters to reach the sweet. He, poor fellow, must have one hour that will make the very face of heaven grow black to him; then we can act for good all round and send him peace. My mind is made up. Let us go. You return home for to-night to your asylum, and see that all be well. As for me, I shall spend the night here in this churchyard in my own way. To-morrow night you will come to me to the Berkeley Hotel at ten of the clock. I shall send for Arthur to come too, and also that so fine young man of America that gave his blood. Later we shall all have work to do. I come with you so far as Piccadilly and there dine, for I must be back here before the sun set." So we locked the tomb and came away, and got over the wall of the churchyard, which was not much of a task, and drove back to Piccadilly. _Note left by Van Helsing in his portmanteau, Berkeley Hotel directed to John Seward, M. D._ (Not delivered.) "_27 September._ "Friend John,-- "I write this in case anything should happen. I go alone to watch in that churchyard. It pleases me that the Un-Dead, Miss Lucy, shall not leave to-night, that so on the morrow night she may be more eager. Therefore I shall fix some things she like not--garlic and a crucifix--and so seal up the door of the tomb. She is young as Un-Dead, and will heed. Moreover, these are only to prevent her coming out; they may not prevail on her wanting to get in; for then the Un-Dead is desperate, and must find the line of least resistance, whatsoever it may be. I shall be at hand all the night from sunset till after the sunrise, and if there be aught that may be learned I shall learn it. For Miss Lucy or from her, I have no fear; but that other to whom is there that she is Un-Dead, he have now the power to seek her tomb and find shelter. He is cunning, as I know from Mr. Jonathan and from the way that all along he have fooled us when he played with us for Miss Lucy's life, and we lost; and in many ways the Un-Dead are strong. He have always the strength in his hand of twenty men; even we four who gave our strength to Miss Lucy it also is all to him. Besides, he can summon his wolf and I know not what. So if it be that he come thither on this night he shall find me; but none other shall--until it be too late. But it may be that he will not attempt the place. There is no reason why he should; his hunting ground is more full of game than the churchyard where the Un-Dead woman sleep, and the one old man watch. "Therefore I write this in case.... Take the papers that are with this, the diaries of Harker and the rest, and read them, and then find this great Un-Dead, and cut off his head and burn his heart or drive a stake through it, so that the world may rest from him. "If it be so, farewell. "VAN HELSING." _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _28 September._--It is wonderful what a good night's sleep will do for one. Yesterday I was almost willing to accept Van Helsing's monstrous ideas; but now they seem to start out lurid before me as outrages on common sense. I have no doubt that he believes it all. I wonder if his mind can have become in any way unhinged. Surely there must be _some_ rational explanation of all these mysterious things. Is it possible that the Professor can have done it himself? He is so abnormally clever that if he went off his head he would carry out his intent with regard to some fixed idea in a wonderful way. I am loath to think it, and indeed it would be almost as great a marvel as the other to find that Van Helsing was mad; but anyhow I shall watch him carefully. I may get some light on the mystery. * * * * * _29 September, morning._.... Last night, at a little before ten o'clock, Arthur and Quincey came into Van Helsing's room; he told us all that he wanted us to do, but especially addressing himself to Arthur, as if all our wills were centred in his. He began by saying that he hoped we would all come with him too, "for," he said, "there is a grave duty to be done there. You were doubtless surprised at my letter?" This query was directly addressed to Lord Godalming. "I was. It rather upset me for a bit. There has been so much trouble around my house of late that I could do without any more. I have been curious, too, as to what you mean. Quincey and I talked it over; but the more we talked, the more puzzled we got, till now I can say for myself that I'm about up a tree as to any meaning about anything." "Me too," said Quincey Morris laconically. "Oh," said the Professor, "then you are nearer the beginning, both of you, than friend John here, who has to go a long way back before he can even get so far as to begin." It was evident that he recognised my return to my old doubting frame of mind without my saying a word. Then, turning to the other two, he said with intense gravity:-- "I want your permission to do what I think good this night. It is, I know, much to ask; and when you know what it is I propose to do you will know, and only then, how much. Therefore may I ask that you promise me in the dark, so that afterwards, though you may be angry with me for a time--I must not disguise from myself the possibility that such may be--you shall not blame yourselves for anything." "That's frank anyhow," broke in Quincey. "I'll answer for the Professor. I don't quite see his drift, but I swear he's honest; and that's good enough for me." "I thank you, sir," said Van Helsing proudly. "I have done myself the honour of counting you one trusting friend, and such endorsement is dear to me." He held out a hand, which Quincey took. Then Arthur spoke out:-- "Dr. Van Helsing, I don't quite like to 'buy a pig in a poke,' as they say in Scotland, and if it be anything in which my honour as a gentleman or my faith as a Christian is concerned, I cannot make such a promise. If you can assure me that what you intend does not violate either of these two, then I give my consent at once; though for the life of me, I cannot understand what you are driving at." "I accept your limitation," said Van Helsing, "and all I ask of you is that if you feel it necessary to condemn any act of mine, you will first consider it well and be satisfied that it does not violate your reservations." "Agreed!" said Arthur; "that is only fair. And now that the _pourparlers_ are over, may I ask what it is we are to do?" "I want you to come with me, and to come in secret, to the churchyard at Kingstead." Arthur's face fell as he said in an amazed sort of way:-- "Where poor Lucy is buried?" The Professor bowed. Arthur went on: "And when there?" "To enter the tomb!" Arthur stood up. "Professor, are you in earnest; or it is some monstrous joke? Pardon me, I see that you are in earnest." He sat down again, but I could see that he sat firmly and proudly, as one who is on his dignity. There was silence until he asked again:-- "And when in the tomb?" "To open the coffin." "This is too much!" he said, angrily rising again. "I am willing to be patient in all things that are reasonable; but in this--this desecration of the grave--of one who----" He fairly choked with indignation. The Professor looked pityingly at him. "If I could spare you one pang, my poor friend," he said, "God knows I would. But this night our feet must tread in thorny paths; or later, and for ever, the feet you love must walk in paths of flame!" Arthur looked up with set white face and said:-- "Take care, sir, take care!" "Would it not be well to hear what I have to say?" said Van Helsing. "And then you will at least know the limit of my purpose. Shall I go on?" "That's fair enough," broke in Morris. After a pause Van Helsing went on, evidently with an effort:-- "Miss Lucy is dead; is it not so? Yes! Then there can be no wrong to her. But if she be not dead----" Arthur jumped to his feet. "Good God!" he cried. "What do you mean? Has there been any mistake; has she been buried alive?" He groaned in anguish that not even hope could soften. "I did not say she was alive, my child; I did not think it. I go no further than to say that she might be Un-Dead." "Un-Dead! Not alive! What do you mean? Is this all a nightmare, or what is it?" "There are mysteries which men can only guess at, which age by age they may solve only in part. Believe me, we are now on the verge of one. But I have not done. May I cut off the head of dead Miss Lucy?" "Heavens and earth, no!" cried Arthur in a storm of passion. "Not for the wide world will I consent to any mutilation of her dead body. Dr. Van Helsing, you try me too far. What have I done to you that you should torture me so? What did that poor, sweet girl do that you should want to cast such dishonour on her grave? Are you mad that speak such things, or am I mad to listen to them? Don't dare to think more of such a desecration; I shall not give my consent to anything you do. I have a duty to do in protecting her grave from outrage; and, by God, I shall do it!" Van Helsing rose up from where he had all the time been seated, and said, gravely and sternly:-- "My Lord Godalming, I, too, have a duty to do, a duty to others, a duty to you, a duty to the dead; and, by God, I shall do it! All I ask you now is that you come with me, that you look and listen; and if when later I make the same request you do not be more eager for its fulfilment even than I am, then--then I shall do my duty, whatever it may seem to me. And then, to follow of your Lordship's wishes I shall hold myself at your disposal to render an account to you, when and where you will." His voice broke a little, and he went on with a voice full of pity:-- "But, I beseech you, do not go forth in anger with me. In a long life of acts which were often not pleasant to do, and which sometimes did wring my heart, I have never had so heavy a task as now. Believe me that if the time comes for you to change your mind towards me, one look from you will wipe away all this so sad hour, for I would do what a man can to save you from sorrow. Just think. For why should I give myself so much of labour and so much of sorrow? I have come here from my own land to do what I can of good; at the first to please my friend John, and then to help a sweet young lady, whom, too, I came to love. For her--I am ashamed to say so much, but I say it in kindness--I gave what you gave; the blood of my veins; I gave it, I, who was not, like you, her lover, but only her physician and her friend. I gave to her my nights and days--before death, after death; and if my death can do her good even now, when she is the dead Un-Dead, she shall have it freely." He said this with a very grave, sweet pride, and Arthur was much affected by it. He took the old man's hand and said in a broken voice:-- "Oh, it is hard to think of it, and I cannot understand; but at least I shall go with you and wait." CHAPTER XVI DR. SEWARD'S DIARY--_continued_ It was just a quarter before twelve o'clock when we got into the churchyard over the low wall. The night was dark with occasional gleams of moonlight between the rents of the heavy clouds that scudded across the sky. We all kept somehow close together, with Van Helsing slightly in front as he led the way. When we had come close to the tomb I looked well at Arthur, for I feared that the proximity to a place laden with so sorrowful a memory would upset him; but he bore himself well. I took it that the very mystery of the proceeding was in some way a counteractant to his grief. The Professor unlocked the door, and seeing a natural hesitation amongst us for various reasons, solved the difficulty by entering first himself. The rest of us followed, and he closed the door. He then lit a dark lantern and pointed to the coffin. Arthur stepped forward hesitatingly; Van Helsing said to me:-- "You were with me here yesterday. Was the body of Miss Lucy in that coffin?" "It was." The Professor turned to the rest saying:-- "You hear; and yet there is no one who does not believe with me." He took his screwdriver and again took off the lid of the coffin. Arthur looked on, very pale but silent; when the lid was removed he stepped forward. He evidently did not know that there was a leaden coffin, or, at any rate, had not thought of it. When he saw the rent in the lead, the blood rushed to his face for an instant, but as quickly fell away again, so that he remained of a ghastly whiteness; he was still silent. Van Helsing forced back the leaden flange, and we all looked in and recoiled. The coffin was empty! For several minutes no one spoke a word. The silence was broken by Quincey Morris:-- "Professor, I answered for you. Your word is all I want. I wouldn't ask such a thing ordinarily--I wouldn't so dishonour you as to imply a doubt; but this is a mystery that goes beyond any honour or dishonour. Is this your doing?" "I swear to you by all that I hold sacred that I have not removed nor touched her. What happened was this: Two nights ago my friend Seward and I came here--with good purpose, believe me. I opened that coffin, which was then sealed up, and we found it, as now, empty. We then waited, and saw something white come through the trees. The next day we came here in day-time, and she lay there. Did she not, friend John?" "Yes." "That night we were just in time. One more so small child was missing, and we find it, thank God, unharmed amongst the graves. Yesterday I came here before sundown, for at sundown the Un-Dead can move. I waited here all the night till the sun rose, but I saw nothing. It was most probable that it was because I had laid over the clamps of those doors garlic, which the Un-Dead cannot bear, and other things which they shun. Last night there was no exodus, so to-night before the sundown I took away my garlic and other things. And so it is we find this coffin empty. But bear with me. So far there is much that is strange. Wait you with me outside, unseen and unheard, and things much stranger are yet to be. So"--here he shut the dark slide of his lantern--"now to the outside." He opened the door, and we filed out, he coming last and locking the door behind him. Oh! but it seemed fresh and pure in the night air after the terror of that vault. How sweet it was to see the clouds race by, and the passing gleams of the moonlight between the scudding clouds crossing and passing--like the gladness and sorrow of a man's life; how sweet it was to breathe the fresh air, that had no taint of death and decay; how humanising to see the red lighting of the sky beyond the hill, and to hear far away the muffled roar that marks the life of a great city. Each in his own way was solemn and overcome. Arthur was silent, and was, I could see, striving to grasp the purpose and the inner meaning of the mystery. I was myself tolerably patient, and half inclined again to throw aside doubt and to accept Van Helsing's conclusions. Quincey Morris was phlegmatic in the way of a man who accepts all things, and accepts them in the spirit of cool bravery, with hazard of all he has to stake. Not being able to smoke, he cut himself a good-sized plug of tobacco and began to chew. As to Van Helsing, he was employed in a definite way. First he took from his bag a mass of what looked like thin, wafer-like biscuit, which was carefully rolled up in a white napkin; next he took out a double-handful of some whitish stuff, like dough or putty. He crumbled the wafer up fine and worked it into the mass between his hands. This he then took, and rolling it into thin strips, began to lay them into the crevices between the door and its setting in the tomb. I was somewhat puzzled at this, and being close, asked him what it was that he was doing. Arthur and Quincey drew near also, as they too were curious. He answered:-- "I am closing the tomb, so that the Un-Dead may not enter." "And is that stuff you have put there going to do it?" asked Quincey. "Great Scott! Is this a game?" "It is." "What is that which you are using?" This time the question was by Arthur. Van Helsing reverently lifted his hat as he answered:-- "The Host. I brought it from Amsterdam. I have an Indulgence." It was an answer that appalled the most sceptical of us, and we felt individually that in the presence of such earnest purpose as the Professor's, a purpose which could thus use the to him most sacred of things, it was impossible to distrust. In respectful silence we took the places assigned to us close round the tomb, but hidden from the sight of any one approaching. I pitied the others, especially Arthur. I had myself been apprenticed by my former visits to this watching horror; and yet I, who had up to an hour ago repudiated the proofs, felt my heart sink within me. Never did tombs look so ghastly white; never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funereal gloom; never did tree or grass wave or rustle so ominously; never did bough creak so mysteriously; and never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a woeful presage through the night. There was a long spell of silence, a big, aching void, and then from the Professor a keen "S-s-s-s!" He pointed; and far down the avenue of yews we saw a white figure advance--a dim white figure, which held something dark at its breast. The figure stopped, and at the moment a ray of moonlight fell upon the masses of driving clouds and showed in startling prominence a dark-haired woman, dressed in the cerements of the grave. We could not see the face, for it was bent down over what we saw to be a fair-haired child. There was a pause and a sharp little cry, such as a child gives in sleep, or a dog as it lies before the fire and dreams. We were starting forward, but the Professor's warning hand, seen by us as he stood behind a yew-tree, kept us back; and then as we looked the white figure moved forwards again. It was now near enough for us to see clearly, and the moonlight still held. My own heart grew cold as ice, and I could hear the gasp of Arthur, as we recognised the features of Lucy Westenra. Lucy Westenra, but yet how changed. The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness. Van Helsing stepped out, and, obedient to his gesture, we all advanced too; the four of us ranged in a line before the door of the tomb. Van Helsing raised his lantern and drew the slide; by the concentrated light that fell on Lucy's face we could see that the lips were crimson with fresh blood, and that the stream had trickled over her chin and stained the purity of her lawn death-robe. We shuddered with horror. I could see by the tremulous light that even Van Helsing's iron nerve had failed. Arthur was next to me, and if I had not seized his arm and held him up, he would have fallen. When Lucy--I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her shape--saw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives when taken unawares; then her eyes ranged over us. Lucy's eyes in form and colour; but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that moment the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing; had she then to be killed, I could have done it with savage delight. As she looked, her eyes blazed with unholy light, and the face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile. Oh, God, how it made me shudder to see it! With a careless motion, she flung to the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone. The child gave a sharp cry, and lay there moaning. There was a cold-bloodedness in the act which wrung a groan from Arthur; when she advanced to him with outstretched arms and a wanton smile he fell back and hid his face in his hands. She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace, said:-- "Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!" There was something diabolically sweet in her tones--something of the tingling of glass when struck--which rang through the brains even of us who heard the words addressed to another. As for Arthur, he seemed under a spell; moving his hands from his face, he opened wide his arms. She was leaping for them, when Van Helsing sprang forward and held between them his little golden crucifix. She recoiled from it, and, with a suddenly distorted face, full of rage, dashed past him as if to enter the tomb. When within a foot or two of the door, however, she stopped, as if arrested by some irresistible force. Then she turned, and her face was shown in the clear burst of moonlight and by the lamp, which had now no quiver from Van Helsing's iron nerves. Never did I see such baffled malice on a face; and never, I trust, shall such ever be seen again by mortal eyes. The beautiful colour became livid, the eyes seemed to throw out sparks of hell-fire, the brows were wrinkled as though the folds of the flesh were the coils of Medusa's snakes, and the lovely, blood-stained mouth grew to an open square, as in the passion masks of the Greeks and Japanese. If ever a face meant death--if looks could kill--we saw it at that moment. And so for full half a minute, which seemed an eternity, she remained between the lifted crucifix and the sacred closing of her means of entry. Van Helsing broke the silence by asking Arthur:-- "Answer me, oh my friend! Am I to proceed in my work?" Arthur threw himself on his knees, and hid his face in his hands, as he answered:-- "Do as you will, friend; do as you will. There can be no horror like this ever any more;" and he groaned in spirit. Quincey and I simultaneously moved towards him, and took his arms. We could hear the click of the closing lantern as Van Helsing held it down; coming close to the tomb, he began to remove from the chinks some of the sacred emblem which he had placed there. We all looked on in horrified amazement as we saw, when he stood back, the woman, with a corporeal body as real at that moment as our own, pass in through the interstice where scarce a knife-blade could have gone. We all felt a glad sense of relief when we saw the Professor calmly restoring the strings of putty to the edges of the door. When this was done, he lifted the child and said: "Come now, my friends; we can do no more till to-morrow. There is a funeral at noon, so here we shall all come before long after that. The friends of the dead will all be gone by two, and when the sexton lock the gate we shall remain. Then there is more to do; but not like this of to-night. As for this little one, he is not much harm, and by to-morrow night he shall be well. We shall leave him where the police will find him, as on the other night; and then to home." Coming close to Arthur, he said:-- "My friend Arthur, you have had a sore trial; but after, when you look back, you will see how it was necessary. You are now in the bitter waters, my child. By this time to-morrow you will, please God, have passed them, and have drunk of the sweet waters; so do not mourn overmuch. Till then I shall not ask you to forgive me." Arthur and Quincey came home with me, and we tried to cheer each other on the way. We had left the child in safety, and were tired; so we all slept with more or less reality of sleep. * * * * * _29 September, night._--A little before twelve o'clock we three--Arthur, Quincey Morris, and myself--called for the Professor. It was odd to notice that by common consent we had all put on black clothes. Of course, Arthur wore black, for he was in deep mourning, but the rest of us wore it by instinct. We got to the churchyard by half-past one, and strolled about, keeping out of official observation, so that when the gravediggers had completed their task and the sexton under the belief that every one had gone, had locked the gate, we had the place all to ourselves. Van Helsing, instead of his little black bag, had with him a long leather one, something like a cricketing bag; it was manifestly of fair weight. When we were alone and had heard the last of the footsteps die out up the road, we silently, and as if by ordered intention, followed the Professor to the tomb. He unlocked the door, and we entered, closing it behind us. Then he took from his bag the lantern, which he lit, and also two wax candles, which, when lighted, he stuck, by melting their own ends, on other coffins, so that they might give light sufficient to work by. When he again lifted the lid off Lucy's coffin we all looked--Arthur trembling like an aspen--and saw that the body lay there in all its death-beauty. But there was no love in my own heart, nothing but loathing for the foul Thing which had taken Lucy's shape without her soul. I could see even Arthur's face grow hard as he looked. Presently he said to Van Helsing:-- "Is this really Lucy's body, or only a demon in her shape?" "It is her body, and yet not it. But wait a while, and you all see her as she was, and is." She seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there; the pointed teeth, the bloodstained, voluptuous mouth--which it made one shudder to see--the whole carnal and unspiritual appearance, seeming like a devilish mockery of Lucy's sweet purity. Van Helsing, with his usual methodicalness, began taking the various contents from his bag and placing them ready for use. First he took out a soldering iron and some plumbing solder, and then a small oil-lamp, which gave out, when lit in a corner of the tomb, gas which burned at fierce heat with a blue flame; then his operating knives, which he placed to hand; and last a round wooden stake, some two and a half or three inches thick and about three feet long. One end of it was hardened by charring in the fire, and was sharpened to a fine point. With this stake came a heavy hammer, such as in households is used in the coal-cellar for breaking the lumps. To me, a doctor's preparations for work of any kind are stimulating and bracing, but the effect of these things on both Arthur and Quincey was to cause them a sort of consternation. They both, however, kept their courage, and remained silent and quiet. When all was ready, Van Helsing said:-- "Before we do anything, let me tell you this; it is out of the lore and experience of the ancients and of all those who have studied the powers of the Un-Dead. When they become such, there comes with the change the curse of immortality; they cannot die, but must go on age after age adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world; for all that die from the preying of the Un-Dead becomes themselves Un-Dead, and prey on their kind. And so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the ripples from a stone thrown in the water. Friend Arthur, if you had met that kiss which you know of before poor Lucy die; or again, last night when you open your arms to her, you would in time, when you had died, have become _nosferatu_, as they call it in Eastern Europe, and would all time make more of those Un-Deads that so have fill us with horror. The career of this so unhappy dear lady is but just begun. Those children whose blood she suck are not as yet so much the worse; but if she live on, Un-Dead, more and more they lose their blood and by her power over them they come to her; and so she draw their blood with that so wicked mouth. But if she die in truth, then all cease; the tiny wounds of the throats disappear, and they go back to their plays unknowing ever of what has been. But of the most blessed of all, when this now Un-Dead be made to rest as true dead, then the soul of the poor lady whom we love shall again be free. Instead of working wickedness by night and growing more debased in the assimilating of it by day, she shall take her place with the other Angels. So that, my friend, it will be a blessed hand for her that shall strike the blow that sets her free. To this I am willing; but is there none amongst us who has a better right? Will it be no joy to think of hereafter in the silence of the night when sleep is not: 'It was my hand that sent her to the stars; it was the hand of him that loved her best; the hand that of all she would herself have chosen, had it been to her to choose?' Tell me if there be such a one amongst us?" We all looked at Arthur. He saw, too, what we all did, the infinite kindness which suggested that his should be the hand which would restore Lucy to us as a holy, and not an unholy, memory; he stepped forward and said bravely, though his hand trembled, and his face was as pale as snow:-- "My true friend, from the bottom of my broken heart I thank you. Tell me what I am to do, and I shall not falter!" Van Helsing laid a hand on his shoulder, and said:-- "Brave lad! A moment's courage, and it is done. This stake must be driven through her. It will be a fearful ordeal--be not deceived in that--but it will be only a short time, and you will then rejoice more than your pain was great; from this grim tomb you will emerge as though you tread on air. But you must not falter when once you have begun. Only think that we, your true friends, are round you, and that we pray for you all the time." "Go on," said Arthur hoarsely. "Tell me what I am to do." "Take this stake in your left hand, ready to place the point over the heart, and the hammer in your right. Then when we begin our prayer for the dead--I shall read him, I have here the book, and the others shall follow--strike in God's name, that so all may be well with the dead that we love and that the Un-Dead pass away." Arthur took the stake and the hammer, and when once his mind was set on action his hands never trembled nor even quivered. Van Helsing opened his missal and began to read, and Quincey and I followed as well as we could. Arthur placed the point over the heart, and as I looked I could see its dint in the white flesh. Then he struck with all his might. The Thing in the coffin writhed; and a hideous, blood-curdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed together till the lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam. But Arthur never faltered. He looked like a figure of Thor as his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake, whilst the blood from the pierced heart welled and spurted up around it. His face was set, and high duty seemed to shine through it; the sight of it gave us courage so that our voices seemed to ring through the little vault. And then the writhing and quivering of the body became less, and the teeth seemed to champ, and the face to quiver. Finally it lay still. The terrible task was over. The hammer fell from Arthur's hand. He reeled and would have fallen had we not caught him. The great drops of sweat sprang from his forehead, and his breath came in broken gasps. It had indeed been an awful strain on him; and had he not been forced to his task by more than human considerations he could never have gone through with it. For a few minutes we were so taken up with him that we did not look towards the coffin. When we did, however, a murmur of startled surprise ran from one to the other of us. We gazed so eagerly that Arthur rose, for he had been seated on the ground, and came and looked too; and then a glad, strange light broke over his face and dispelled altogether the gloom of horror that lay upon it. There, in the coffin lay no longer the foul Thing that we had so dreaded and grown to hate that the work of her destruction was yielded as a privilege to the one best entitled to it, but Lucy as we had seen her in her life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity. True that there were there, as we had seen them in life, the traces of care and pain and waste; but these were all dear to us, for they marked her truth to what we knew. One and all we felt that the holy calm that lay like sunshine over the wasted face and form was only an earthly token and symbol of the calm that was to reign for ever. Van Helsing came and laid his hand on Arthur's shoulder, and said to him:-- "And now, Arthur my friend, dear lad, am I not forgiven?" The reaction of the terrible strain came as he took the old man's hand in his, and raising it to his lips, pressed it, and said:-- "Forgiven! God bless you that you have given my dear one her soul again, and me peace." He put his hands on the Professor's shoulder, and laying his head on his breast, cried for a while silently, whilst we stood unmoving. When he raised his head Van Helsing said to him:-- "And now, my child, you may kiss her. Kiss her dead lips if you will, as she would have you to, if for her to choose. For she is not a grinning devil now--not any more a foul Thing for all eternity. No longer she is the devil's Un-Dead. She is God's true dead, whose soul is with Him!" Arthur bent and kissed her, and then we sent him and Quincey out of the tomb; the Professor and I sawed the top off the stake, leaving the point of it in the body. Then we cut off the head and filled the mouth with garlic. We soldered up the leaden coffin, screwed on the coffin-lid, and gathering up our belongings, came away. When the Professor locked the door he gave the key to Arthur. Outside the air was sweet, the sun shone, and the birds sang, and it seemed as if all nature were tuned to a different pitch. There was gladness and mirth and peace everywhere, for we were at rest ourselves on one account, and we were glad, though it was with a tempered joy. Before we moved away Van Helsing said:-- "Now, my friends, one step of our work is done, one the most harrowing to ourselves. But there remains a greater task: to find out the author of all this our sorrow and to stamp him out. I have clues which we can follow; but it is a long task, and a difficult, and there is danger in it, and pain. Shall you not all help me? We have learned to believe, all of us--is it not so? And since so, do we not see our duty? Yes! And do we not promise to go on to the bitter end?" Each in turn, we took his hand, and the promise was made. Then said the Professor as we moved off:-- "Two nights hence you shall meet with me and dine together at seven of the clock with friend John. I shall entreat two others, two that you know not as yet; and I shall be ready to all our work show and our plans unfold. Friend John, you come with me home, for I have much to consult about, and you can help me. To-night I leave for Amsterdam, but shall return to-morrow night. And then begins our great quest. But first I shall have much to say, so that you may know what is to do and to dread. Then our promise shall be made to each other anew; for there is a terrible task before us, and once our feet are on the ploughshare we must not draw back." CHAPTER XVII DR. SEWARD'S DIARY--_continued_ When we arrived at the Berkeley Hotel, Van Helsing found a telegram waiting for him:-- "Am coming up by train. Jonathan at Whitby. Important news.--MINA HARKER." The Professor was delighted. "Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina," he said, "pearl among women! She arrive, but I cannot stay. She must go to your house, friend John. You must meet her at the station. Telegraph her _en route_, so that she may be prepared." When the wire was despatched he had a cup of tea; over it he told me of a diary kept by Jonathan Harker when abroad, and gave me a typewritten copy of it, as also of Mrs. Harker's diary at Whitby. "Take these," he said, "and study them well. When I have returned you will be master of all the facts, and we can then better enter on our inquisition. Keep them safe, for there is in them much of treasure. You will need all your faith, even you who have had such an experience as that of to-day. What is here told," he laid his hand heavily and gravely on the packet of papers as he spoke, "may be the beginning of the end to you and me and many another; or it may sound the knell of the Un-Dead who walk the earth. Read all, I pray you, with the open mind; and if you can add in any way to the story here told do so, for it is all-important. You have kept diary of all these so strange things; is it not so? Yes! Then we shall go through all these together when we meet." He then made ready for his departure, and shortly after drove off to Liverpool Street. I took my way to Paddington, where I arrived about fifteen minutes before the train came in. The crowd melted away, after the bustling fashion common to arrival platforms; and I was beginning to feel uneasy, lest I might miss my guest, when a sweet-faced, dainty-looking girl stepped up to me, and, after a quick glance, said: "Dr. Seward, is it not?" "And you are Mrs. Harker!" I answered at once; whereupon she held out her hand. "I knew you from the description of poor dear Lucy; but----" She stopped suddenly, and a quick blush overspread her face. The blush that rose to my own cheeks somehow set us both at ease, for it was a tacit answer to her own. I got her luggage, which included a typewriter, and we took the Underground to Fenchurch Street, after I had sent a wire to my housekeeper to have a sitting-room and bedroom prepared at once for Mrs. Harker. In due time we arrived. She knew, of course, that the place was a lunatic asylum, but I could see that she was unable to repress a shudder when we entered. She told me that, if she might, she would come presently to my study, as she had much to say. So here I am finishing my entry in my phonograph diary whilst I await her. As yet I have not had the chance of looking at the papers which Van Helsing left with me, though they lie open before me. I must get her interested in something, so that I may have an opportunity of reading them. She does not know how precious time is, or what a task we have in hand. I must be careful not to frighten her. Here she is! _Mina Harker's Journal._ _29 September._--After I had tidied myself, I went down to Dr. Seward's study. At the door I paused a moment, for I thought I heard him talking with some one. As, however, he had pressed me to be quick, I knocked at the door, and on his calling out, "Come in," I entered. To my intense surprise, there was no one with him. He was quite alone, and on the table opposite him was what I knew at once from the description to be a phonograph. I had never seen one, and was much interested. "I hope I did not keep you waiting," I said; "but I stayed at the door as I heard you talking, and thought there was some one with you." "Oh," he replied with a smile, "I was only entering my diary." "Your diary?" I asked him in surprise. "Yes," he answered. "I keep it in this." As he spoke he laid his hand on the phonograph. I felt quite excited over it, and blurted out:-- "Why, this beats even shorthand! May I hear it say something?" "Certainly," he replied with alacrity, and stood up to put it in train for speaking. Then he paused, and a troubled look overspread his face. "The fact is," he began awkwardly, "I only keep my diary in it; and as it is entirely--almost entirely--about my cases, it may be awkward--that is, I mean----" He stopped, and I tried to help him out of his embarrassment:-- "You helped to attend dear Lucy at the end. Let me hear how she died; for all that I know of her, I shall be very grateful. She was very, very dear to me." To my surprise, he answered, with a horrorstruck look in his face:-- "Tell you of her death? Not for the wide world!" "Why not?" I asked, for some grave, terrible feeling was coming over me. Again he paused, and I could see that he was trying to invent an excuse. At length he stammered out:-- "You see, I do not know how to pick out any particular part of the diary." Even while he was speaking an idea dawned upon him, and he said with unconscious simplicity, in a different voice, and with the naïveté of a child: "That's quite true, upon my honour. Honest Indian!" I could not but smile, at which he grimaced. "I gave myself away that time!" he said. "But do you know that, although I have kept the diary for months past, it never once struck me how I was going to find any particular part of it in case I wanted to look it up?" By this time my mind was made up that the diary of a doctor who attended Lucy might have something to add to the sum of our knowledge of that terrible Being, and I said boldly:-- "Then, Dr. Seward, you had better let me copy it out for you on my typewriter." He grew to a positively deathly pallor as he said:-- "No! no! no! For all the world, I wouldn't let you know that terrible story!" Then it was terrible; my intuition was right! For a moment I thought, and as my eyes ranged the room, unconsciously looking for something or some opportunity to aid me, they lit on a great batch of typewriting on the table. His eyes caught the look in mine, and, without his thinking, followed their direction. As they saw the parcel he realised my meaning. "You do not know me," I said. "When you have read those papers--my own diary and my husband's also, which I have typed--you will know me better. I have not faltered in giving every thought of my own heart in this cause; but, of course, you do not know me--yet; and I must not expect you to trust me so far." He is certainly a man of noble nature; poor dear Lucy was right about him. He stood up and opened a large drawer, in which were arranged in order a number of hollow cylinders of metal covered with dark wax, and said:-- "You are quite right. I did not trust you because I did not know you. But I know you now; and let me say that I should have known you long ago. I know that Lucy told you of me; she told me of you too. May I make the only atonement in my power? Take the cylinders and hear them--the first half-dozen of them are personal to me, and they will not horrify you; then you will know me better. Dinner will by then be ready. In the meantime I shall read over some of these documents, and shall be better able to understand certain things." He carried the phonograph himself up to my sitting-room and adjusted it for me. Now I shall learn something pleasant, I am sure; for it will tell me the other side of a true love episode of which I know one side already.... _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _29 September._--I was so absorbed in that wonderful diary of Jonathan Harker and that other of his wife that I let the time run on without thinking. Mrs. Harker was not down when the maid came to announce dinner, so I said: "She is possibly tired; let dinner wait an hour," and I went on with my work. I had just finished Mrs. Harker's diary, when she came in. She looked sweetly pretty, but very sad, and her eyes were flushed with crying. This somehow moved me much. Of late I have had cause for tears, God knows! but the relief of them was denied me; and now the sight of those sweet eyes, brightened with recent tears, went straight to my heart. So I said as gently as I could:-- "I greatly fear I have distressed you." "Oh, no, not distressed me," she replied, "but I have been more touched than I can say by your grief. That is a wonderful machine, but it is cruelly true. It told me, in its very tones, the anguish of your heart. It was like a soul crying out to Almighty God. No one must hear them spoken ever again! See, I have tried to be useful. I have copied out the words on my typewriter, and none other need now hear your heart beat, as I did." "No one need ever know, shall ever know," I said in a low voice. She laid her hand on mine and said very gravely:-- "Ah, but they must!" "Must! But why?" I asked. "Because it is a part of the terrible story, a part of poor dear Lucy's death and all that led to it; because in the struggle which we have before us to rid the earth of this terrible monster we must have all the knowledge and all the help which we can get. I think that the cylinders which you gave me contained more than you intended me to know; but I can see that there are in your record many lights to this dark mystery. You will let me help, will you not? I know all up to a certain point; and I see already, though your diary only took me to 7 September, how poor Lucy was beset, and how her terrible doom was being wrought out. Jonathan and I have been working day and night since Professor Van Helsing saw us. He is gone to Whitby to get more information, and he will be here to-morrow to help us. We need have no secrets amongst us; working together and with absolute trust, we can surely be stronger than if some of us were in the dark." She looked at me so appealingly, and at the same time manifested such courage and resolution in her bearing, that I gave in at once to her wishes. "You shall," I said, "do as you like in the matter. God forgive me if I do wrong! There are terrible things yet to learn of; but if you have so far travelled on the road to poor Lucy's death, you will not be content, I know, to remain in the dark. Nay, the end--the very end--may give you a gleam of peace. Come, there is dinner. We must keep one another strong for what is before us; we have a cruel and dreadful task. When you have eaten you shall learn the rest, and I shall answer any questions you ask--if there be anything which you do not understand, though it was apparent to us who were present." _Mina Harker's Journal._ _29 September._--After dinner I came with Dr. Seward to his study. He brought back the phonograph from my room, and I took my typewriter. He placed me in a comfortable chair, and arranged the phonograph so that I could touch it without getting up, and showed me how to stop it in case I should want to pause. Then he very thoughtfully took a chair, with his back to me, so that I might be as free as possible, and began to read. I put the forked metal to my ears and listened. When the terrible story of Lucy's death, and--and all that followed, was done, I lay back in my chair powerless. Fortunately I am not of a fainting disposition. When Dr. Seward saw me he jumped up with a horrified exclamation, and hurriedly taking a case-bottle from a cupboard, gave me some brandy, which in a few minutes somewhat restored me. My brain was all in a whirl, and only that there came through all the multitude of horrors, the holy ray of light that my dear, dear Lucy was at last at peace, I do not think I could have borne it without making a scene. It is all so wild, and mysterious, and strange that if I had not known Jonathan's experience in Transylvania I could not have believed. As it was, I didn't know what to believe, and so got out of my difficulty by attending to something else. I took the cover off my typewriter, and said to Dr. Seward:-- "Let me write this all out now. We must be ready for Dr. Van Helsing when he comes. I have sent a telegram to Jonathan to come on here when he arrives in London from Whitby. In this matter dates are everything, and I think that if we get all our material ready, and have every item put in chronological order, we shall have done much. You tell me that Lord Godalming and Mr. Morris are coming too. Let us be able to tell him when they come." He accordingly set the phonograph at a slow pace, and I began to typewrite from the beginning of the seventh cylinder. I used manifold, and so took three copies of the diary, just as I had done with all the rest. It was late when I got through, but Dr. Seward went about his work of going his round of the patients; when he had finished he came back and sat near me, reading, so that I did not feel too lonely whilst I worked. How good and thoughtful he is; the world seems full of good men--even if there _are_ monsters in it. Before I left him I remembered what Jonathan put in his diary of the Professor's perturbation at reading something in an evening paper at the station at Exeter; so, seeing that Dr. Seward keeps his newspapers, I borrowed the files of "The Westminster Gazette" and "The Pall Mall Gazette," and took them to my room. I remember how much "The Dailygraph" and "The Whitby Gazette," of which I had made cuttings, helped us to understand the terrible events at Whitby when Count Dracula landed, so I shall look through the evening papers since then, and perhaps I shall get some new light. I am not sleepy, and the work will help to keep me quiet. _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _30 September._--Mr. Harker arrived at nine o'clock. He had got his wife's wire just before starting. He is uncommonly clever, if one can judge from his face, and full of energy. If this journal be true--and judging by one's own wonderful experiences, it must be--he is also a man of great nerve. That going down to the vault a second time was a remarkable piece of daring. After reading his account of it I was prepared to meet a good specimen of manhood, but hardly the quiet, business-like gentleman who came here to-day. * * * * * _Later._--After lunch Harker and his wife went back to their own room, and as I passed a while ago I heard the click of the typewriter. They are hard at it. Mrs. Harker says that they are knitting together in chronological order every scrap of evidence they have. Harker has got the letters between the consignee of the boxes at Whitby and the carriers in London who took charge of them. He is now reading his wife's typescript of my diary. I wonder what they make out of it. Here it is.... Strange that it never struck me that the very next house might be the Count's hiding-place! Goodness knows that we had enough clues from the conduct of the patient Renfield! The bundle of letters relating to the purchase of the house were with the typescript. Oh, if we had only had them earlier we might have saved poor Lucy! Stop; that way madness lies! Harker has gone back, and is again collating his material. He says that by dinner-time they will be able to show a whole connected narrative. He thinks that in the meantime I should see Renfield, as hitherto he has been a sort of index to the coming and going of the Count. I hardly see this yet, but when I get at the dates I suppose I shall. What a good thing that Mrs. Harker put my cylinders into type! We never could have found the dates otherwise.... I found Renfield sitting placidly in his room with his hands folded, smiling benignly. At the moment he seemed as sane as any one I ever saw. I sat down and talked with him on a lot of subjects, all of which he treated naturally. He then, of his own accord, spoke of going home, a subject he has never mentioned to my knowledge during his sojourn here. In fact, he spoke quite confidently of getting his discharge at once. I believe that, had I not had the chat with Harker and read the letters and the dates of his outbursts, I should have been prepared to sign for him after a brief time of observation. As it is, I am darkly suspicious. All those outbreaks were in some way linked with the proximity of the Count. What then does this absolute content mean? Can it be that his instinct is satisfied as to the vampire's ultimate triumph? Stay; he is himself zoöphagous, and in his wild ravings outside the chapel door of the deserted house he always spoke of "master." This all seems confirmation of our idea. However, after a while I came away; my friend is just a little too sane at present to make it safe to probe him too deep with questions. He might begin to think, and then--! So I came away. I mistrust these quiet moods of his; so I have given the attendant a hint to look closely after him, and to have a strait-waistcoat ready in case of need. _Jonathan Harker's Journal._ _29 September, in train to London._--When I received Mr. Billington's courteous message that he would give me any information in his power I thought it best to go down to Whitby and make, on the spot, such inquiries as I wanted. It was now my object to trace that horrid cargo of the Count's to its place in London. Later, we may be able to deal with it. Billington junior, a nice lad, met me at the station, and brought me to his father's house, where they had decided that I must stay the night. They are hospitable, with true Yorkshire hospitality: give a guest everything, and leave him free to do as he likes. They all knew that I was busy, and that my stay was short, and Mr. Billington had ready in his office all the papers concerning the consignment of boxes. It gave me almost a turn to see again one of the letters which I had seen on the Count's table before I knew of his diabolical plans. Everything had been carefully thought out, and done systematically and with precision. He seemed to have been prepared for every obstacle which might be placed by accident in the way of his intentions being carried out. To use an Americanism, he had "taken no chances," and the absolute accuracy with which his instructions were fulfilled, was simply the logical result of his care. I saw the invoice, and took note of it: "Fifty cases of common earth, to be used for experimental purposes." Also the copy of letter to Carter Paterson, and their reply; of both of these I got copies. This was all the information Mr. Billington could give me, so I went down to the port and saw the coastguards, the Customs officers and the harbour-master. They had all something to say of the strange entry of the ship, which is already taking its place in local tradition; but no one could add to the simple description "Fifty cases of common earth." I then saw the station-master, who kindly put me in communication with the men who had actually received the boxes. Their tally was exact with the list, and they had nothing to add except that the boxes were "main and mortal heavy," and that shifting them was dry work. One of them added that it was hard lines that there wasn't any gentleman "such-like as yourself, squire," to show some sort of appreciation of their efforts in a liquid form; another put in a rider that the thirst then generated was such that even the time which had elapsed had not completely allayed it. Needless to add, I took care before leaving to lift, for ever and adequately, this source of reproach. * * * * * _30 September._--The station-master was good enough to give me a line to his old companion the station-master at King's Cross, so that when I arrived there in the morning I was able to ask him about the arrival of the boxes. He, too, put me at once in communication with the proper officials, and I saw that their tally was correct with the original invoice. The opportunities of acquiring an abnormal thirst had been here limited; a noble use of them had, however, been made, and again I was compelled to deal with the result in an _ex post facto_ manner. From thence I went on to Carter Paterson's central office, where I met with the utmost courtesy. They looked up the transaction in their day-book and letter-book, and at once telephoned to their King's Cross office for more details. By good fortune, the men who did the teaming were waiting for work, and the official at once sent them over, sending also by one of them the way-bill and all the papers connected with the delivery of the boxes at Carfax. Here again I found the tally agreeing exactly; the carriers' men were able to supplement the paucity of the written words with a few details. These were, I shortly found, connected almost solely with the dusty nature of the job, and of the consequent thirst engendered in the operators. On my affording an opportunity, through the medium of the currency of the realm, of the allaying, at a later period, this beneficial evil, one of the men remarked:-- "That 'ere 'ouse, guv'nor, is the rummiest I ever was in. Blyme! but it ain't been touched sence a hundred years. There was dust that thick in the place that you might have slep' on it without 'urtin' of yer bones; an' the place was that neglected that yer might 'ave smelled ole Jerusalem in it. But the ole chapel--that took the cike, that did! Me and my mate, we thort we wouldn't never git out quick enough. Lor', I wouldn't take less nor a quid a moment to stay there arter dark." Having been in the house, I could well believe him; but if he knew what I know, he would, I think, have raised his terms. Of one thing I am now satisfied: that _all_ the boxes which arrived at Whitby from Varna in the _Demeter_ were safely deposited in the old chapel at Carfax. There should be fifty of them there, unless any have since been removed--as from Dr. Seward's diary I fear. I shall try to see the carter who took away the boxes from Carfax when Renfield attacked them. By following up this clue we may learn a good deal. * * * * * _Later._--Mina and I have worked all day, and we have put all the papers into order. _Mina Harker's Journal_ _30 September._--I am so glad that I hardly know how to contain myself. It is, I suppose, the reaction from the haunting fear which I have had: that this terrible affair and the reopening of his old wound might act detrimentally on Jonathan. I saw him leave for Whitby with as brave a face as I could, but I was sick with apprehension. The effort has, however, done him good. He was never so resolute, never so strong, never so full of volcanic energy, as at present. It is just as that dear, good Professor Van Helsing said: he is true grit, and he improves under strain that would kill a weaker nature. He came back full of life and hope and determination; we have got everything in order for to-night. I feel myself quite wild with excitement. I suppose one ought to pity any thing so hunted as is the Count. That is just it: this Thing is not human--not even beast. To read Dr. Seward's account of poor Lucy's death, and what followed, is enough to dry up the springs of pity in one's heart. * * * * * _Later._--Lord Godalming and Mr. Morris arrived earlier than we expected. Dr. Seward was out on business, and had taken Jonathan with him, so I had to see them. It was to me a painful meeting, for it brought back all poor dear Lucy's hopes of only a few months ago. Of course they had heard Lucy speak of me, and it seemed that Dr. Van Helsing, too, has been quite "blowing my trumpet," as Mr. Morris expressed it. Poor fellows, neither of them is aware that I know all about the proposals they made to Lucy. They did not quite know what to say or do, as they were ignorant of the amount of my knowledge; so they had to keep on neutral subjects. However, I thought the matter over, and came to the conclusion that the best thing I could do would be to post them in affairs right up to date. I knew from Dr. Seward's diary that they had been at Lucy's death--her real death--and that I need not fear to betray any secret before the time. So I told them, as well as I could, that I had read all the papers and diaries, and that my husband and I, having typewritten them, had just finished putting them in order. I gave them each a copy to read in the library. When Lord Godalming got his and turned it over--it does make a pretty good pile--he said:-- "Did you write all this, Mrs. Harker?" I nodded, and he went on:-- "I don't quite see the drift of it; but you people are all so good and kind, and have been working so earnestly and so energetically, that all I can do is to accept your ideas blindfold and try to help you. I have had one lesson already in accepting facts that should make a man humble to the last hour of his life. Besides, I know you loved my poor Lucy--" Here he turned away and covered his face with his hands. I could hear the tears in his voice. Mr. Morris, with instinctive delicacy, just laid a hand for a moment on his shoulder, and then walked quietly out of the room. I suppose there is something in woman's nature that makes a man free to break down before her and express his feelings on the tender or emotional side without feeling it derogatory to his manhood; for when Lord Godalming found himself alone with me he sat down on the sofa and gave way utterly and openly. I sat down beside him and took his hand. I hope he didn't think it forward of me, and that if he ever thinks of it afterwards he never will have such a thought. There I wrong him; I _know_ he never will--he is too true a gentleman. I said to him, for I could see that his heart was breaking:-- "I loved dear Lucy, and I know what she was to you, and what you were to her. She and I were like sisters; and now she is gone, will you not let me be like a sister to you in your trouble? I know what sorrows you have had, though I cannot measure the depth of them. If sympathy and pity can help in your affliction, won't you let me be of some little service--for Lucy's sake?" In an instant the poor dear fellow was overwhelmed with grief. It seemed to me that all that he had of late been suffering in silence found a vent at once. He grew quite hysterical, and raising his open hands, beat his palms together in a perfect agony of grief. He stood up and then sat down again, and the tears rained down his cheeks. I felt an infinite pity for him, and opened my arms unthinkingly. With a sob he laid his head on my shoulder and cried like a wearied child, whilst he shook with emotion. We women have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above smaller matters when the mother-spirit is invoked; I felt this big sorrowing man's head resting on me, as though it were that of the baby that some day may lie on my bosom, and I stroked his hair as though he were my own child. I never thought at the time how strange it all was. After a little bit his sobs ceased, and he raised himself with an apology, though he made no disguise of his emotion. He told me that for days and nights past--weary days and sleepless nights--he had been unable to speak with any one, as a man must speak in his time of sorrow. There was no woman whose sympathy could be given to him, or with whom, owing to the terrible circumstance with which his sorrow was surrounded, he could speak freely. "I know now how I suffered," he said, as he dried his eyes, "but I do not know even yet--and none other can ever know--how much your sweet sympathy has been to me to-day. I shall know better in time; and believe me that, though I am not ungrateful now, my gratitude will grow with my understanding. You will let me be like a brother, will you not, for all our lives--for dear Lucy's sake?" "For dear Lucy's sake," I said as we clasped hands. "Ay, and for your own sake," he added, "for if a man's esteem and gratitude are ever worth the winning, you have won mine to-day. If ever the future should bring to you a time when you need a man's help, believe me, you will not call in vain. God grant that no such time may ever come to you to break the sunshine of your life; but if it should ever come, promise me that you will let me know." He was so earnest, and his sorrow was so fresh, that I felt it would comfort him, so I said:-- "I promise." As I came along the corridor I saw Mr. Morris looking out of a window. He turned as he heard my footsteps. "How is Art?" he said. Then noticing my red eyes, he went on: "Ah, I see you have been comforting him. Poor old fellow! he needs it. No one but a woman can help a man when he is in trouble of the heart; and he had no one to comfort him." He bore his own trouble so bravely that my heart bled for him. I saw the manuscript in his hand, and I knew that when he read it he would realise how much I knew; so I said to him:-- "I wish I could comfort all who suffer from the heart. Will you let me be your friend, and will you come to me for comfort if you need it? You will know, later on, why I speak." He saw that I was in earnest, and stooping, took my hand, and raising it to his lips, kissed it. It seemed but poor comfort to so brave and unselfish a soul, and impulsively I bent over and kissed him. The tears rose in his eyes, and there was a momentary choking in his throat; he said quite calmly:-- "Little girl, you will never regret that true-hearted kindness, so long as ever you live!" Then he went into the study to his friend. "Little girl!"--the very words he had used to Lucy, and oh, but he proved himself a friend! CHAPTER XVIII DR. SEWARD'S DIARY _30 September._--I got home at five o'clock, and found that Godalming and Morris had not only arrived, but had already studied the transcript of the various diaries and letters which Harker and his wonderful wife had made and arranged. Harker had not yet returned from his visit to the carriers' men, of whom Dr. Hennessey had written to me. Mrs. Harker gave us a cup of tea, and I can honestly say that, for the first time since I have lived in it, this old house seemed like _home_. When we had finished, Mrs. Harker said:-- "Dr. Seward, may I ask a favour? I want to see your patient, Mr. Renfield. Do let me see him. What you have said of him in your diary interests me so much!" She looked so appealing and so pretty that I could not refuse her, and there was no possible reason why I should; so I took her with me. When I went into the room, I told the man that a lady would like to see him; to which he simply answered: "Why?" "She is going through the house, and wants to see every one in it," I answered. "Oh, very well," he said; "let her come in, by all means; but just wait a minute till I tidy up the place." His method of tidying was peculiar: he simply swallowed all the flies and spiders in the boxes before I could stop him. It was quite evident that he feared, or was jealous of, some interference. When he had got through his disgusting task, he said cheerfully: "Let the lady come in," and sat down on the edge of his bed with his head down, but with his eyelids raised so that he could see her as she entered. For a moment I thought that he might have some homicidal intent; I remembered how quiet he had been just before he attacked me in my own study, and I took care to stand where I could seize him at once if he attempted to make a spring at her. She came into the room with an easy gracefulness which would at once command the respect of any lunatic--for easiness is one of the qualities mad people most respect. She walked over to him, smiling pleasantly, and held out her hand. "Good-evening, Mr. Renfield," said she. "You see, I know you, for Dr. Seward has told me of you." He made no immediate reply, but eyed her all over intently with a set frown on his face. This look gave way to one of wonder, which merged in doubt; then, to my intense astonishment, he said:-- "You're not the girl the doctor wanted to marry, are you? You can't be, you know, for she's dead." Mrs. Harker smiled sweetly as she replied:-- "Oh no! I have a husband of my own, to whom I was married before I ever saw Dr. Seward, or he me. I am Mrs. Harker." "Then what are you doing here?" "My husband and I are staying on a visit with Dr. Seward." "Then don't stay." "But why not?" I thought that this style of conversation might not be pleasant to Mrs. Harker, any more than it was to me, so I joined in:-- "How did you know I wanted to marry any one?" His reply was simply contemptuous, given in a pause in which he turned his eyes from Mrs. Harker to me, instantly turning them back again:-- "What an asinine question!" "I don't see that at all, Mr. Renfield," said Mrs. Harker, at once championing me. He replied to her with as much courtesy and respect as he had shown contempt to me:-- "You will, of course, understand, Mrs. Harker, that when a man is so loved and honoured as our host is, everything regarding him is of interest in our little community. Dr. Seward is loved not only by his household and his friends, but even by his patients, who, being some of them hardly in mental equilibrium, are apt to distort causes and effects. Since I myself have been an inmate of a lunatic asylum, I cannot but notice that the sophistic tendencies of some of its inmates lean towards the errors of _non causa_ and _ignoratio elenchi_." I positively opened my eyes at this new development. Here was my own pet lunatic--the most pronounced of his type that I had ever met with--talking elemental philosophy, and with the manner of a polished gentleman. I wonder if it was Mrs. Harker's presence which had touched some chord in his memory. If this new phase was spontaneous, or in any way due to her unconscious influence, she must have some rare gift or power. We continued to talk for some time; and, seeing that he was seemingly quite reasonable, she ventured, looking at me questioningly as she began, to lead him to his favourite topic. I was again astonished, for he addressed himself to the question with the impartiality of the completest sanity; he even took himself as an example when he mentioned certain things. "Why, I myself am an instance of a man who had a strange belief. Indeed, it was no wonder that my friends were alarmed, and insisted on my being put under control. I used to fancy that life was a positive and perpetual entity, and that by consuming a multitude of live things, no matter how low in the scale of creation, one might indefinitely prolong life. At times I held the belief so strongly that I actually tried to take human life. The doctor here will bear me out that on one occasion I tried to kill him for the purpose of strengthening my vital powers by the assimilation with my own body of his life through the medium of his blood--relying, of course, upon the Scriptural phrase, 'For the blood is the life.' Though, indeed, the vendor of a certain nostrum has vulgarised the truism to the very point of contempt. Isn't that true, doctor?" I nodded assent, for I was so amazed that I hardly knew what to either think or say; it was hard to imagine that I had seen him eat up his spiders and flies not five minutes before. Looking at my watch, I saw that I should go to the station to meet Van Helsing, so I told Mrs. Harker that it was time to leave. She came at once, after saying pleasantly to Mr. Renfield: "Good-bye, and I hope I may see you often, under auspices pleasanter to yourself," to which, to my astonishment, he replied:-- "Good-bye, my dear. I pray God I may never see your sweet face again. May He bless and keep you!" When I went to the station to meet Van Helsing I left the boys behind me. Poor Art seemed more cheerful than he has been since Lucy first took ill, and Quincey is more like his own bright self than he has been for many a long day. Van Helsing stepped from the carriage with the eager nimbleness of a boy. He saw me at once, and rushed up to me, saying:-- "Ah, friend John, how goes all? Well? So! I have been busy, for I come here to stay if need be. All affairs are settled with me, and I have much to tell. Madam Mina is with you? Yes. And her so fine husband? And Arthur and my friend Quincey, they are with you, too? Good!" As I drove to the house I told him of what had passed, and of how my own diary had come to be of some use through Mrs. Harker's suggestion; at which the Professor interrupted me:-- "Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has man's brain--a brain that a man should have were he much gifted--and a woman's heart. The good God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good combination. Friend John, up to now fortune has made that woman of help to us; after to-night she must not have to do with this so terrible affair. It is not good that she run a risk so great. We men are determined--nay, are we not pledged?--to destroy this monster; but it is no part for a woman. Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her in so much and so many horrors; and hereafter she may suffer--both in waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams. And, besides, she is young woman and not so long married; there may be other things to think of some time, if not now. You tell me she has wrote all, then she must consult with us; but to-morrow she say good-bye to this work, and we go alone." I agreed heartily with him, and then I told him what we had found in his absence: that the house which Dracula had bought was the very next one to my own. He was amazed, and a great concern seemed to come on him. "Oh that we had known it before!" he said, "for then we might have reached him in time to save poor Lucy. However, 'the milk that is spilt cries not out afterwards,' as you say. We shall not think of that, but go on our way to the end." Then he fell into a silence that lasted till we entered my own gateway. Before we went to prepare for dinner he said to Mrs. Harker:-- "I am told, Madam Mina, by my friend John that you and your husband have put up in exact order all things that have been, up to this moment." "Not up to this moment, Professor," she said impulsively, "but up to this morning." "But why not up to now? We have seen hitherto how good light all the little things have made. We have told our secrets, and yet no one who has told is the worse for it." Mrs. Harker began to blush, and taking a paper from her pockets, she said:-- "Dr. Van Helsing, will you read this, and tell me if it must go in. It is my record of to-day. I too have seen the need of putting down at present everything, however trivial; but there is little in this except what is personal. Must it go in?" The Professor read it over gravely, and handed it back, saying:-- "It need not go in if you do not wish it; but I pray that it may. It can but make your husband love you the more, and all us, your friends, more honour you--as well as more esteem and love." She took it back with another blush and a bright smile. And so now, up to this very hour, all the records we have are complete and in order. The Professor took away one copy to study after dinner, and before our meeting, which is fixed for nine o'clock. The rest of us have already read everything; so when we meet in the study we shall all be informed as to facts, and can arrange our plan of battle with this terrible and mysterious enemy. _Mina Harker's Journal._ _30 September._--When we met in Dr. Seward's study two hours after dinner, which had been at six o'clock, we unconsciously formed a sort of board or committee. Professor Van Helsing took the head of the table, to which Dr. Seward motioned him as he came into the room. He made me sit next to him on his right, and asked me to act as secretary; Jonathan sat next to me. Opposite us were Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr. Morris--Lord Godalming being next the Professor, and Dr. Seward in the centre. The Professor said:-- "I may, I suppose, take it that we are all acquainted with the facts that are in these papers." We all expressed assent, and he went on:-- "Then it were, I think good that I tell you something of the kind of enemy with which we have to deal. I shall then make known to you something of the history of this man, which has been ascertained for me. So we then can discuss how we shall act, and can take our measure according. "There are such beings as vampires; some of us have evidence that they exist. Even had we not the proof of our own unhappy experience, the teachings and the records of the past give proof enough for sane peoples. I admit that at the first I was sceptic. Were it not that through long years I have train myself to keep an open mind, I could not have believe until such time as that fact thunder on my ear. 'See! see! I prove; I prove.' Alas! Had I known at the first what now I know--nay, had I even guess at him--one so precious life had been spared to many of us who did love her. But that is gone; and we must so work, that other poor souls perish not, whilst we can save. The _nosferatu_ do not die like the bee when he sting once. He is only stronger; and being stronger, have yet more power to work evil. This vampire which is amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men; he is of cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages; he have still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply, the divination by the dead, and all the dead that he can come nigh to are for him at command; he is brute, and more than brute; he is devil in callous, and the heart of him is not; he can, within limitations, appear at will when, and where, and in any of the forms that are to him; he can, within his range, direct the elements; the storm, the fog, the thunder; he can command all the meaner things: the rat, and the owl, and the bat--the moth, and the fox, and the wolf; he can grow and become small; and he can at times vanish and come unknown. How then are we to begin our strike to destroy him? How shall we find his where; and having found it, how can we destroy? My friends, this is much; it is a terrible task that we undertake, and there may be consequence to make the brave shudder. For if we fail in this our fight he must surely win; and then where end we? Life is nothings; I heed him not. But to fail here, is not mere life or death. It is that we become as him; that we henceforward become foul things of the night like him--without heart or conscience, preying on the bodies and the souls of those we love best. To us for ever are the gates of heaven shut; for who shall open them to us again? We go on for all time abhorred by all; a blot on the face of God's sunshine; an arrow in the side of Him who died for man. But we are face to face with duty; and in such case must we shrink? For me, I say, no; but then I am old, and life, with his sunshine, his fair places, his song of birds, his music and his love, lie far behind. You others are young. Some have seen sorrow; but there are fair days yet in store. What say you?" Whilst he was speaking, Jonathan had taken my hand. I feared, oh so much, that the appalling nature of our danger was overcoming him when I saw his hand stretch out; but it was life to me to feel its touch--so strong, so self-reliant, so resolute. A brave man's hand can speak for itself; it does not even need a woman's love to hear its music. When the Professor had done speaking my husband looked in my eyes, and I in his; there was no need for speaking between us. "I answer for Mina and myself," he said. "Count me in, Professor," said Mr. Quincey Morris, laconically as usual. "I am with you," said Lord Godalming, "for Lucy's sake, if for no other reason." Dr. Seward simply nodded. The Professor stood up and, after laying his golden crucifix on the table, held out his hand on either side. I took his right hand, and Lord Godalming his left; Jonathan held my right with his left and stretched across to Mr. Morris. So as we all took hands our solemn compact was made. I felt my heart icy cold, but it did not even occur to me to draw back. We resumed our places, and Dr. Van Helsing went on with a sort of cheerfulness which showed that the serious work had begun. It was to be taken as gravely, and in as businesslike a way, as any other transaction of life:-- "Well, you know what we have to contend against; but we, too, are not without strength. We have on our side power of combination--a power denied to the vampire kind; we have sources of science; we are free to act and think; and the hours of the day and the night are ours equally. In fact, so far as our powers extend, they are unfettered, and we are free to use them. We have self-devotion in a cause, and an end to achieve which is not a selfish one. These things are much. "Now let us see how far the general powers arrayed against us are restrict, and how the individual cannot. In fine, let us consider the limitations of the vampire in general, and of this one in particular. "All we have to go upon are traditions and superstitions. These do not at the first appear much, when the matter is one of life and death--nay of more than either life or death. Yet must we be satisfied; in the first place because we have to be--no other means is at our control--and secondly, because, after all, these things--tradition and superstition--are everything. Does not the belief in vampires rest for others--though not, alas! for us--on them? A year ago which of us would have received such a possibility, in the midst of our scientific, sceptical, matter-of-fact nineteenth century? We even scouted a belief that we saw justified under our very eyes. Take it, then, that the vampire, and the belief in his limitations and his cure, rest for the moment on the same base. For, let me tell you, he is known everywhere that men have been. In old Greece, in old Rome; he flourish in Germany all over, in France, in India, even in the Chernosese; and in China, so far from us in all ways, there even is he, and the peoples fear him at this day. He have follow the wake of the berserker Icelander, the devil-begotten Hun, the Slav, the Saxon, the Magyar. So far, then, we have all we may act upon; and let me tell you that very much of the beliefs are justified by what we have seen in our own so unhappy experience. The vampire live on, and cannot die by mere passing of the time; he can flourish when that he can fatten on the blood of the living. Even more, we have seen amongst us that he can even grow younger; that his vital faculties grow strenuous, and seem as though they refresh themselves when his special pabulum is plenty. But he cannot flourish without this diet; he eat not as others. Even friend Jonathan, who lived with him for weeks, did never see him to eat, never! He throws no shadow; he make in the mirror no reflect, as again Jonathan observe. He has the strength of many of his hand--witness again Jonathan when he shut the door against the wolfs, and when he help him from the diligence too. He can transform himself to wolf, as we gather from the ship arrival in Whitby, when he tear open the dog; he can be as bat, as Madam Mina saw him on the window at Whitby, and as friend John saw him fly from this so near house, and as my friend Quincey saw him at the window of Miss Lucy. He can come in mist which he create--that noble ship's captain proved him of this; but, from what we know, the distance he can make this mist is limited, and it can only be round himself. He come on moonlight rays as elemental dust--as again Jonathan saw those sisters in the castle of Dracula. He become so small--we ourselves saw Miss Lucy, ere she was at peace, slip through a hairbreadth space at the tomb door. He can, when once he find his way, come out from anything or into anything, no matter how close it be bound or even fused up with fire--solder you call it. He can see in the dark--no small power this, in a world which is one half shut from the light. Ah, but hear me through. He can do all these things, yet he is not free. Nay; he is even more prisoner than the slave of the galley, than the madman in his cell. He cannot go where he lists; he who is not of nature has yet to obey some of nature's laws--why we know not. He may not enter anywhere at the first, unless there be some one of the household who bid him to come; though afterwards he can come as he please. His power ceases, as does that of all evil things, at the coming of the day. Only at certain times can he have limited freedom. If he be not at the place whither he is bound, he can only change himself at noon or at exact sunrise or sunset. These things are we told, and in this record of ours we have proof by inference. Thus, whereas he can do as he will within his limit, when he have his earth-home, his coffin-home, his hell-home, the place unhallowed, as we saw when he went to the grave of the suicide at Whitby; still at other time he can only change when the time come. It is said, too, that he can only pass running water at the slack or the flood of the tide. Then there are things which so afflict him that he has no power, as the garlic that we know of; and as for things sacred, as this symbol, my crucifix, that was amongst us even now when we resolve, to them he is nothing, but in their presence he take his place far off and silent with respect. There are others, too, which I shall tell you of, lest in our seeking we may need them. The branch of wild rose on his coffin keep him that he move not from it; a sacred bullet fired into the coffin kill him so that he be true dead; and as for the stake through him, we know already of its peace; or the cut-off head that giveth rest. We have seen it with our eyes. "Thus when we find the habitation of this man-that-was, we can confine him to his coffin and destroy him, if we obey what we know. But he is clever. I have asked my friend Arminius, of Buda-Pesth University, to make his record; and, from all the means that are, he tell me of what he has been. He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land. If it be so, then was he no common man; for in that time, and for centuries after, he was spoken of as the cleverest and the most cunning, as well as the bravest of the sons of the 'land beyond the forest.' That mighty brain and that iron resolution went with him to his grave, and are even now arrayed against us. The Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and again were scions who were held by their coevals to have had dealings with the Evil One. They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due. In the records are such words as 'stregoica'--witch, 'ordog,' and 'pokol'--Satan and hell; and in one manuscript this very Dracula is spoken of as 'wampyr,' which we all understand too well. There have been from the loins of this very one great men and good women, and their graves make sacred the earth where alone this foulness can dwell. For it is not the least of its terrors that this evil thing is rooted deep in all good; in soil barren of holy memories it cannot rest." Whilst they were talking Mr. Morris was looking steadily at the window, and he now got up quietly, and went out of the room. There was a little pause, and then the Professor went on:-- "And now we must settle what we do. We have here much data, and we must proceed to lay out our campaign. We know from the inquiry of Jonathan that from the castle to Whitby came fifty boxes of earth, all of which were delivered at Carfax; we also know that at least some of these boxes have been removed. It seems to me, that our first step should be to ascertain whether all the rest remain in the house beyond that wall where we look to-day; or whether any more have been removed. If the latter, we must trace----" Here we were interrupted in a very startling way. Outside the house came the sound of a pistol-shot; the glass of the window was shattered with a bullet, which, ricochetting from the top of the embrasure, struck the far wall of the room. I am afraid I am at heart a coward, for I shrieked out. The men all jumped to their feet; Lord Godalming flew over to the window and threw up the sash. As he did so we heard Mr. Morris's voice without:-- "Sorry! I fear I have alarmed you. I shall come in and tell you about it." A minute later he came in and said:-- "It was an idiotic thing of me to do, and I ask your pardon, Mrs. Harker, most sincerely; I fear I must have frightened you terribly. But the fact is that whilst the Professor was talking there came a big bat and sat on the window-sill. I have got such a horror of the damned brutes from recent events that I cannot stand them, and I went out to have a shot, as I have been doing of late of evenings, whenever I have seen one. You used to laugh at me for it then, Art." "Did you hit it?" asked Dr. Van Helsing. "I don't know; I fancy not, for it flew away into the wood." Without saying any more he took his seat, and the Professor began to resume his statement:-- "We must trace each of these boxes; and when we are ready, we must either capture or kill this monster in his lair; or we must, so to speak, sterilise the earth, so that no more he can seek safety in it. Thus in the end we may find him in his form of man between the hours of noon and sunset, and so engage with him when he is at his most weak. "And now for you, Madam Mina, this night is the end until all be well. You are too precious to us to have such risk. When we part to-night, you no more must question. We shall tell you all in good time. We are men and are able to bear; but you must be our star and our hope, and we shall act all the more free that you are not in the danger, such as we are." All the men, even Jonathan, seemed relieved; but it did not seem to me good that they should brave danger and, perhaps, lessen their safety--strength being the best safety--through care of me; but their minds were made up, and, though it was a bitter pill for me to swallow, I could say nothing, save to accept their chivalrous care of me. Mr. Morris resumed the discussion:-- "As there is no time to lose, I vote we have a look at his house right now. Time is everything with him; and swift action on our part may save another victim." I own that my heart began to fail me when the time for action came so close, but I did not say anything, for I had a greater fear that if I appeared as a drag or a hindrance to their work, they might even leave me out of their counsels altogether. They have now gone off to Carfax, with means to get into the house. Manlike, they had told me to go to bed and sleep; as if a woman can sleep when those she loves are in danger! I shall lie down and pretend to sleep, lest Jonathan have added anxiety about me when he returns. _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _1 October, 4 a. m._--Just as we were about to leave the house, an urgent message was brought to me from Renfield to know if I would see him at once, as he had something of the utmost importance to say to me. I told the messenger to say that I would attend to his wishes in the morning; I was busy just at the moment. The attendant added:-- "He seems very importunate, sir. I have never seen him so eager. I don't know but what, if you don't see him soon, he will have one of his violent fits." I knew the man would not have said this without some cause, so I said: "All right; I'll go now"; and I asked the others to wait a few minutes for me, as I had to go and see my "patient." "Take me with you, friend John," said the Professor. "His case in your diary interest me much, and it had bearing, too, now and again on _our_ case. I should much like to see him, and especial when his mind is disturbed." "May I come also?" asked Lord Godalming. "Me too?" said Quincey Morris. "May I come?" said Harker. I nodded, and we all went down the passage together. We found him in a state of considerable excitement, but far more rational in his speech and manner than I had ever seen him. There was an unusual understanding of himself, which was unlike anything I had ever met with in a lunatic; and he took it for granted that his reasons would prevail with others entirely sane. We all four went into the room, but none of the others at first said anything. His request was that I would at once release him from the asylum and send him home. This he backed up with arguments regarding his complete recovery, and adduced his own existing sanity. "I appeal to your friends," he said, "they will, perhaps, not mind sitting in judgment on my case. By the way, you have not introduced me." I was so much astonished, that the oddness of introducing a madman in an asylum did not strike me at the moment; and, besides, there was a certain dignity in the man's manner, so much of the habit of equality, that I at once made the introduction: "Lord Godalming; Professor Van Helsing; Mr. Quincey Morris, of Texas; Mr. Renfield." He shook hands with each of them, saying in turn:-- "Lord Godalming, I had the honour of seconding your father at the Windham; I grieve to know, by your holding the title, that he is no more. He was a man loved and honoured by all who knew him; and in his youth was, I have heard, the inventor of a burnt rum punch, much patronised on Derby night. Mr. Morris, you should be proud of your great state. Its reception into the Union was a precedent which may have far-reaching effects hereafter, when the Pole and the Tropics may hold alliance to the Stars and Stripes. The power of Treaty may yet prove a vast engine of enlargement, when the Monroe doctrine takes its true place as a political fable. What shall any man say of his pleasure at meeting Van Helsing? Sir, I make no apology for dropping all forms of conventional prefix. When an individual has revolutionised therapeutics by his discovery of the continuous evolution of brain-matter, conventional forms are unfitting, since they would seem to limit him to one of a class. You, gentlemen, who by nationality, by heredity, or by the possession of natural gifts, are fitted to hold your respective places in the moving world, I take to witness that I am as sane as at least the majority of men who are in full possession of their liberties. And I am sure that you, Dr. Seward, humanitarian and medico-jurist as well as scientist, will deem it a moral duty to deal with me as one to be considered as under exceptional circumstances." He made this last appeal with a courtly air of conviction which was not without its own charm. I think we were all staggered. For my own part, I was under the conviction, despite my knowledge of the man's character and history, that his reason had been restored; and I felt under a strong impulse to tell him that I was satisfied as to his sanity, and would see about the necessary formalities for his release in the morning. I thought it better to wait, however, before making so grave a statement, for of old I knew the sudden changes to which this particular patient was liable. So I contented myself with making a general statement that he appeared to be improving very rapidly; that I would have a longer chat with him in the morning, and would then see what I could do in the direction of meeting his wishes. This did not at all satisfy him, for he said quickly:-- "But I fear, Dr. Seward, that you hardly apprehend my wish. I desire to go at once--here--now--this very hour--this very moment, if I may. Time presses, and in our implied agreement with the old scytheman it is of the essence of the contract. I am sure it is only necessary to put before so admirable a practitioner as Dr. Seward so simple, yet so momentous a wish, to ensure its fulfilment." He looked at me keenly, and seeing the negative in my face, turned to the others, and scrutinised them closely. Not meeting any sufficient response, he went on:-- "Is it possible that I have erred in my supposition?" "You have," I said frankly, but at the same time, as I felt, brutally. There was a considerable pause, and then he said slowly:-- "Then I suppose I must only shift my ground of request. Let me ask for this concession--boon, privilege, what you will. I am content to implore in such a case, not on personal grounds, but for the sake of others. I am not at liberty to give you the whole of my reasons; but you may, I assure you, take it from me that they are good ones, sound and unselfish, and spring from the highest sense of duty. Could you look, sir, into my heart, you would approve to the full the sentiments which animate me. Nay, more, you would count me amongst the best and truest of your friends." Again he looked at us all keenly. I had a growing conviction that this sudden change of his entire intellectual method was but yet another form or phase of his madness, and so determined to let him go on a little longer, knowing from experience that he would, like all lunatics, give himself away in the end. Van Helsing was gazing at him with a look of utmost intensity, his bushy eyebrows almost meeting with the fixed concentration of his look. He said to Renfield in a tone which did not surprise me at the time, but only when I thought of it afterwards--for it was as of one addressing an equal:-- "Can you not tell frankly your real reason for wishing to be free to-night? I will undertake that if you will satisfy even me--a stranger, without prejudice, and with the habit of keeping an open mind--Dr. Seward will give you, at his own risk and on his own responsibility, the privilege you seek." He shook his head sadly, and with a look of poignant regret on his face. The Professor went on:-- "Come, sir, bethink yourself. You claim the privilege of reason in the highest degree, since you seek to impress us with your complete reasonableness. You do this, whose sanity we have reason to doubt, since you are not yet released from medical treatment for this very defect. If you will not help us in our effort to choose the wisest course, how can we perform the duty which you yourself put upon us? Be wise, and help us; and if we can we shall aid you to achieve your wish." He still shook his head as he said:-- "Dr. Van Helsing, I have nothing to say. Your argument is complete, and if I were free to speak I should not hesitate a moment; but I am not my own master in the matter. I can only ask you to trust me. If I am refused, the responsibility does not rest with me." I thought it was now time to end the scene, which was becoming too comically grave, so I went towards the door, simply saying:-- "Come, my friends, we have work to do. Good-night." As, however, I got near the door, a new change came over the patient. He moved towards me so quickly that for the moment I feared that he was about to make another homicidal attack. My fears, however, were groundless, for he held up his two hands imploringly, and made his petition in a moving manner. As he saw that the very excess of his emotion was militating against him, by restoring us more to our old relations, he became still more demonstrative. I glanced at Van Helsing, and saw my conviction reflected in his eyes; so I became a little more fixed in my manner, if not more stern, and motioned to him that his efforts were unavailing. I had previously seen something of the same constantly growing excitement in him when he had to make some request of which at the time he had thought much, such, for instance, as when he wanted a cat; and I was prepared to see the collapse into the same sullen acquiescence on this occasion. My expectation was not realised, for, when he found that his appeal would not be successful, he got into quite a frantic condition. He threw himself on his knees, and held up his hands, wringing them in plaintive supplication, and poured forth a torrent of entreaty, with the tears rolling down his cheeks, and his whole face and form expressive of the deepest emotion:-- "Let me entreat you, Dr. Seward, oh, let me implore you, to let me out of this house at once. Send me away how you will and where you will; send keepers with me with whips and chains; let them take me in a strait-waistcoat, manacled and leg-ironed, even to a gaol; but let me go out of this. You don't know what you do by keeping me here. I am speaking from the depths of my heart--of my very soul. You don't know whom you wrong, or how; and I may not tell. Woe is me! I may not tell. By all you hold sacred--by all you hold dear--by your love that is lost--by your hope that lives--for the sake of the Almighty, take me out of this and save my soul from guilt! Can't you hear me, man? Can't you understand? Will you never learn? Don't you know that I am sane and earnest now; that I am no lunatic in a mad fit, but a sane man fighting for his soul? Oh, hear me! hear me! Let me go! let me go! let me go!" I thought that the longer this went on the wilder he would get, and so would bring on a fit; so I took him by the hand and raised him up. "Come," I said sternly, "no more of this; we have had quite enough already. Get to your bed and try to behave more discreetly." He suddenly stopped and looked at me intently for several moments. Then, without a word, he rose and moving over, sat down on the side of the bed. The collapse had come, as on former occasion, just as I had expected. When I was leaving the room, last of our party, he said to me in a quiet, well-bred voice:-- "You will, I trust, Dr. Seward, do me the justice to bear in mind, later on, that I did what I could to convince you to-night." CHAPTER XIX JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL _1 October, 5 a. m._--I went with the party to the search with an easy mind, for I think I never saw Mina so absolutely strong and well. I am so glad that she consented to hold back and let us men do the work. Somehow, it was a dread to me that she was in this fearful business at all; but now that her work is done, and that it is due to her energy and brains and foresight that the whole story is put together in such a way that every point tells, she may well feel that her part is finished, and that she can henceforth leave the rest to us. We were, I think, all a little upset by the scene with Mr. Renfield. When we came away from his room we were silent till we got back to the study. Then Mr. Morris said to Dr. Seward:-- "Say, Jack, if that man wasn't attempting a bluff, he is about the sanest lunatic I ever saw. I'm not sure, but I believe that he had some serious purpose, and if he had, it was pretty rough on him not to get a chance." Lord Godalming and I were silent, but Dr. Van Helsing added:-- "Friend John, you know more of lunatics than I do, and I'm glad of it, for I fear that if it had been to me to decide I would before that last hysterical outburst have given him free. But we live and learn, and in our present task we must take no chance, as my friend Quincey would say. All is best as they are." Dr. Seward seemed to answer them both in a dreamy kind of way:-- "I don't know but that I agree with you. If that man had been an ordinary lunatic I would have taken my chance of trusting him; but he seems so mixed up with the Count in an indexy kind of way that I am afraid of doing anything wrong by helping his fads. I can't forget how he prayed with almost equal fervour for a cat, and then tried to tear my throat out with his teeth. Besides, he called the Count 'lord and master,' and he may want to get out to help him in some diabolical way. That horrid thing has the wolves and the rats and his own kind to help him, so I suppose he isn't above trying to use a respectable lunatic. He certainly did seem earnest, though. I only hope we have done what is best. These things, in conjunction with the wild work we have in hand, help to unnerve a man." The Professor stepped over, and laying his hand on his shoulder, said in his grave, kindly way:-- "Friend John, have no fear. We are trying to do our duty in a very sad and terrible case; we can only do as we deem best. What else have we to hope for, except the pity of the good God?" Lord Godalming had slipped away for a few minutes, but now he returned. He held up a little silver whistle, as he remarked:-- "That old place may be full of rats, and if so, I've got an antidote on call." Having passed the wall, we took our way to the house, taking care to keep in the shadows of the trees on the lawn when the moonlight shone out. When we got to the porch the Professor opened his bag and took out a lot of things, which he laid on the step, sorting them into four little groups, evidently one for each. Then he spoke:-- "My friends, we are going into a terrible danger, and we need arms of many kinds. Our enemy is not merely spiritual. Remember that he has the strength of twenty men, and that, though our necks or our windpipes are of the common kind--and therefore breakable or crushable--his are not amenable to mere strength. A stronger man, or a body of men more strong in all than him, can at certain times hold him; but they cannot hurt him as we can be hurt by him. We must, therefore, guard ourselves from his touch. Keep this near your heart"--as he spoke he lifted a little silver crucifix and held it out to me, I being nearest to him--"put these flowers round your neck"--here he handed to me a wreath of withered garlic blossoms--"for other enemies more mundane, this revolver and this knife; and for aid in all, these so small electric lamps, which you can fasten to your breast; and for all, and above all at the last, this, which we must not desecrate needless." This was a portion of Sacred Wafer, which he put in an envelope and handed to me. Each of the others was similarly equipped. "Now," he said, "friend John, where are the skeleton keys? If so that we can open the door, we need not break house by the window, as before at Miss Lucy's." Dr. Seward tried one or two skeleton keys, his mechanical dexterity as a surgeon standing him in good stead. Presently he got one to suit; after a little play back and forward the bolt yielded, and, with a rusty clang, shot back. We pressed on the door, the rusty hinges creaked, and it slowly opened. It was startlingly like the image conveyed to me in Dr. Seward's diary of the opening of Miss Westenra's tomb; I fancy that the same idea seemed to strike the others, for with one accord they shrank back. The Professor was the first to move forward, and stepped into the open door. "_In manus tuas, Domine!_" he said, crossing himself as he passed over the threshold. We closed the door behind us, lest when we should have lit our lamps we should possibly attract attention from the road. The Professor carefully tried the lock, lest we might not be able to open it from within should we be in a hurry making our exit. Then we all lit our lamps and proceeded on our search. The light from the tiny lamps fell in all sorts of odd forms, as the rays crossed each other, or the opacity of our bodies threw great shadows. I could not for my life get away from the feeling that there was some one else amongst us. I suppose it was the recollection, so powerfully brought home to me by the grim surroundings, of that terrible experience in Transylvania. I think the feeling was common to us all, for I noticed that the others kept looking over their shoulders at every sound and every new shadow, just as I felt myself doing. The whole place was thick with dust. The floor was seemingly inches deep, except where there were recent footsteps, in which on holding down my lamp I could see marks of hobnails where the dust was cracked. The walls were fluffy and heavy with dust, and in the corners were masses of spider's webs, whereon the dust had gathered till they looked like old tattered rags as the weight had torn them partly down. On a table in the hall was a great bunch of keys, with a time-yellowed label on each. They had been used several times, for on the table were several similar rents in the blanket of dust, similar to that exposed when the Professor lifted them. He turned to me and said:-- "You know this place, Jonathan. You have copied maps of it, and you know it at least more than we do. Which is the way to the chapel?" I had an idea of its direction, though on my former visit I had not been able to get admission to it; so I led the way, and after a few wrong turnings found myself opposite a low, arched oaken door, ribbed with iron bands. "This is the spot," said the Professor as he turned his lamp on a small map of the house, copied from the file of my original correspondence regarding the purchase. With a little trouble we found the key on the bunch and opened the door. We were prepared for some unpleasantness, for as we were opening the door a faint, malodorous air seemed to exhale through the gaps, but none of us ever expected such an odour as we encountered. None of the others had met the Count at all at close quarters, and when I had seen him he was either in the fasting stage of his existence in his rooms or, when he was gloated with fresh blood, in a ruined building open to the air; but here the place was small and close, and the long disuse had made the air stagnant and foul. There was an earthy smell, as of some dry miasma, which came through the fouler air. But as to the odour itself, how shall I describe it? It was not alone that it was composed of all the ills of mortality and with the pungent, acrid smell of blood, but it seemed as though corruption had become itself corrupt. Faugh! it sickens me to think of it. Every breath exhaled by that monster seemed to have clung to the place and intensified its loathsomeness. Under ordinary circumstances such a stench would have brought our enterprise to an end; but this was no ordinary case, and the high and terrible purpose in which we were involved gave us a strength which rose above merely physical considerations. After the involuntary shrinking consequent on the first nauseous whiff, we one and all set about our work as though that loathsome place were a garden of roses. We made an accurate examination of the place, the Professor saying as we began:-- "The first thing is to see how many of the boxes are left; we must then examine every hole and corner and cranny and see if we cannot get some clue as to what has become of the rest." A glance was sufficient to show how many remained, for the great earth chests were bulky, and there was no mistaking them. There were only twenty-nine left out of the fifty! Once I got a fright, for, seeing Lord Godalming suddenly turn and look out of the vaulted door into the dark passage beyond, I looked too, and for an instant my heart stood still. Somewhere, looking out from the shadow, I seemed to see the high lights of the Count's evil face, the ridge of the nose, the red eyes, the red lips, the awful pallor. It was only for a moment, for, as Lord Godalming said, "I thought I saw a face, but it was only the shadows," and resumed his inquiry, I turned my lamp in the direction, and stepped into the passage. There was no sign of any one; and as there were no corners, no doors, no aperture of any kind, but only the solid walls of the passage, there could be no hiding-place even for _him_. I took it that fear had helped imagination, and said nothing. A few minutes later I saw Morris step suddenly back from a corner, which he was examining. We all followed his movements with our eyes, for undoubtedly some nervousness was growing on us, and we saw a whole mass of phosphorescence, which twinkled like stars. We all instinctively drew back. The whole place was becoming alive with rats. For a moment or two we stood appalled, all save Lord Godalming, who was seemingly prepared for such an emergency. Rushing over to the great iron-bound oaken door, which Dr. Seward had described from the outside, and which I had seen myself, he turned the key in the lock, drew the huge bolts, and swung the door open. Then, taking his little silver whistle from his pocket, he blew a low, shrill call. It was answered from behind Dr. Seward's house by the yelping of dogs, and after about a minute three terriers came dashing round the corner of the house. Unconsciously we had all moved towards the door, and as we moved I noticed that the dust had been much disturbed: the boxes which had been taken out had been brought this way. But even in the minute that had elapsed the number of the rats had vastly increased. They seemed to swarm over the place all at once, till the lamplight, shining on their moving dark bodies and glittering, baleful eyes, made the place look like a bank of earth set with fireflies. The dogs dashed on, but at the threshold suddenly stopped and snarled, and then, simultaneously lifting their noses, began to howl in most lugubrious fashion. The rats were multiplying in thousands, and we moved out. Lord Godalming lifted one of the dogs, and carrying him in, placed him on the floor. The instant his feet touched the ground he seemed to recover his courage, and rushed at his natural enemies. They fled before him so fast that before he had shaken the life out of a score, the other dogs, who had by now been lifted in the same manner, had but small prey ere the whole mass had vanished. With their going it seemed as if some evil presence had departed, for the dogs frisked about and barked merrily as they made sudden darts at their prostrate foes, and turned them over and over and tossed them in the air with vicious shakes. We all seemed to find our spirits rise. Whether it was the purifying of the deadly atmosphere by the opening of the chapel door, or the relief which we experienced by finding ourselves in the open I know not; but most certainly the shadow of dread seemed to slip from us like a robe, and the occasion of our coming lost something of its grim significance, though we did not slacken a whit in our resolution. We closed the outer door and barred and locked it, and bringing the dogs with us, began our search of the house. We found nothing throughout except dust in extraordinary proportions, and all untouched save for my own footsteps when I had made my first visit. Never once did the dogs exhibit any symptom of uneasiness, and even when we returned to the chapel they frisked about as though they had been rabbit-hunting in a summer wood. The morning was quickening in the east when we emerged from the front. Dr. Van Helsing had taken the key of the hall-door from the bunch, and locked the door in orthodox fashion, putting the key into his pocket when he had done. "So far," he said, "our night has been eminently successful. No harm has come to us such as I feared might be and yet we have ascertained how many boxes are missing. More than all do I rejoice that this, our first--and perhaps our most difficult and dangerous--step has been accomplished without the bringing thereinto our most sweet Madam Mina or troubling her waking or sleeping thoughts with sights and sounds and smells of horror which she might never forget. One lesson, too, we have learned, if it be allowable to argue _a particulari_: that the brute beasts which are to the Count's command are yet themselves not amenable to his spiritual power; for look, these rats that would come to his call, just as from his castle top he summon the wolves to your going and to that poor mother's cry, though they come to him, they run pell-mell from the so little dogs of my friend Arthur. We have other matters before us, other dangers, other fears; and that monster--he has not used his power over the brute world for the only or the last time to-night. So be it that he has gone elsewhere. Good! It has given us opportunity to cry 'check' in some ways in this chess game, which we play for the stake of human souls. And now let us go home. The dawn is close at hand, and we have reason to be content with our first night's work. It may be ordained that we have many nights and days to follow, if full of peril; but we must go on, and from no danger shall we shrink." The house was silent when we got back, save for some poor creature who was screaming away in one of the distant wards, and a low, moaning sound from Renfield's room. The poor wretch was doubtless torturing himself, after the manner of the insane, with needless thoughts of pain. I came tiptoe into our own room, and found Mina asleep, breathing so softly that I had to put my ear down to hear it. She looks paler than usual. I hope the meeting to-night has not upset her. I am truly thankful that she is to be left out of our future work, and even of our deliberations. It is too great a strain for a woman to bear. I did not think so at first, but I know better now. Therefore I am glad that it is settled. There may be things which would frighten her to hear; and yet to conceal them from her might be worse than to tell her if once she suspected that there was any concealment. Henceforth our work is to be a sealed book to her, till at least such time as we can tell her that all is finished, and the earth free from a monster of the nether world. I daresay it will be difficult to begin to keep silence after such confidence as ours; but I must be resolute, and to-morrow I shall keep dark over to-night's doings, and shall refuse to speak of anything that has happened. I rest on the sofa, so as not to disturb her. * * * * * _1 October, later._--I suppose it was natural that we should have all overslept ourselves, for the day was a busy one, and the night had no rest at all. Even Mina must have felt its exhaustion, for though I slept till the sun was high, I was awake before her, and had to call two or three times before she awoke. Indeed, she was so sound asleep that for a few seconds she did not recognize me, but looked at me with a sort of blank terror, as one looks who has been waked out of a bad dream. She complained a little of being tired, and I let her rest till later in the day. We now know of twenty-one boxes having been removed, and if it be that several were taken in any of these removals we may be able to trace them all. Such will, of course, immensely simplify our labour, and the sooner the matter is attended to the better. I shall look up Thomas Snelling to-day. _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _1 October._--It was towards noon when I was awakened by the Professor walking into my room. He was more jolly and cheerful than usual, and it is quite evident that last night's work has helped to take some of the brooding weight off his mind. After going over the adventure of the night he suddenly said:-- "Your patient interests me much. May it be that with you I visit him this morning? Or if that you are too occupy, I can go alone if it may be. It is a new experience to me to find a lunatic who talk philosophy, and reason so sound." I had some work to do which pressed, so I told him that if he would go alone I would be glad, as then I should not have to keep him waiting; so I called an attendant and gave him the necessary instructions. Before the Professor left the room I cautioned him against getting any false impression from my patient. "But," he answered, "I want him to talk of himself and of his delusion as to consuming live things. He said to Madam Mina, as I see in your diary of yesterday, that he had once had such a belief. Why do you smile, friend John?" "Excuse me," I said, "but the answer is here." I laid my hand on the type-written matter. "When our sane and learned lunatic made that very statement of how he _used_ to consume life, his mouth was actually nauseous with the flies and spiders which he had eaten just before Mrs. Harker entered the room." Van Helsing smiled in turn. "Good!" he said. "Your memory is true, friend John. I should have remembered. And yet it is this very obliquity of thought and memory which makes mental disease such a fascinating study. Perhaps I may gain more knowledge out of the folly of this madman than I shall from the teaching of the most wise. Who knows?" I went on with my work, and before long was through that in hand. It seemed that the time had been very short indeed, but there was Van Helsing back in the study. "Do I interrupt?" he asked politely as he stood at the door. "Not at all," I answered. "Come in. My work is finished, and I am free. I can go with you now, if you like. "It is needless; I have seen him!" "Well?" "I fear that he does not appraise me at much. Our interview was short. When I entered his room he was sitting on a stool in the centre, with his elbows on his knees, and his face was the picture of sullen discontent. I spoke to him as cheerfully as I could, and with such a measure of respect as I could assume. He made no reply whatever. "Don't you know me?" I asked. His answer was not reassuring: "I know you well enough; you are the old fool Van Helsing. I wish you would take yourself and your idiotic brain theories somewhere else. Damn all thick-headed Dutchmen!" Not a word more would he say, but sat in his implacable sullenness as indifferent to me as though I had not been in the room at all. Thus departed for this time my chance of much learning from this so clever lunatic; so I shall go, if I may, and cheer myself with a few happy words with that sweet soul Madam Mina. Friend John, it does rejoice me unspeakable that she is no more to be pained, no more to be worried with our terrible things. Though we shall much miss her help, it is better so." "I agree with you with all my heart," I answered earnestly, for I did not want him to weaken in this matter. "Mrs. Harker is better out of it. Things are quite bad enough for us, all men of the world, and who have been in many tight places in our time; but it is no place for a woman, and if she had remained in touch with the affair, it would in time infallibly have wrecked her." So Van Helsing has gone to confer with Mrs. Harker and Harker; Quincey and Art are all out following up the clues as to the earth-boxes. I shall finish my round of work and we shall meet to-night. _Mina Harker's Journal._ _1 October._--It is strange to me to be kept in the dark as I am to-day; after Jonathan's full confidence for so many years, to see him manifestly avoid certain matters, and those the most vital of all. This morning I slept late after the fatigues of yesterday, and though Jonathan was late too, he was the earlier. He spoke to me before he went out, never more sweetly or tenderly, but he never mentioned a word of what had happened in the visit to the Count's house. And yet he must have known how terribly anxious I was. Poor dear fellow! I suppose it must have distressed him even more than it did me. They all agreed that it was best that I should not be drawn further into this awful work, and I acquiesced. But to think that he keeps anything from me! And now I am crying like a silly fool, when I _know_ it comes from my husband's great love and from the good, good wishes of those other strong men. That has done me good. Well, some day Jonathan will tell me all; and lest it should ever be that he should think for a moment that I kept anything from him, I still keep my journal as usual. Then if he has feared of my trust I shall show it to him, with every thought of my heart put down for his dear eyes to read. I feel strangely sad and low-spirited to-day. I suppose it is the reaction from the terrible excitement. Last night I went to bed when the men had gone, simply because they told me to. I didn't feel sleepy, and I did feel full of devouring anxiety. I kept thinking over everything that has been ever since Jonathan came to see me in London, and it all seems like a horrible tragedy, with fate pressing on relentlessly to some destined end. Everything that one does seems, no matter how right it may be, to bring on the very thing which is most to be deplored. If I hadn't gone to Whitby, perhaps poor dear Lucy would be with us now. She hadn't taken to visiting the churchyard till I came, and if she hadn't come there in the day-time with me she wouldn't have walked there in her sleep; and if she hadn't gone there at night and asleep, that monster couldn't have destroyed her as he did. Oh, why did I ever go to Whitby? There now, crying again! I wonder what has come over me to-day. I must hide it from Jonathan, for if he knew that I had been crying twice in one morning--I, who never cried on my own account, and whom he has never caused to shed a tear--the dear fellow would fret his heart out. I shall put a bold face on, and if I do feel weepy, he shall never see it. I suppose it is one of the lessons that we poor women have to learn.... I can't quite remember how I fell asleep last night. I remember hearing the sudden barking of the dogs and a lot of queer sounds, like praying on a very tumultuous scale, from Mr. Renfield's room, which is somewhere under this. And then there was silence over everything, silence so profound that it startled me, and I got up and looked out of the window. All was dark and silent, the black shadows thrown by the moonlight seeming full of a silent mystery of their own. Not a thing seemed to be stirring, but all to be grim and fixed as death or fate; so that a thin streak of white mist, that crept with almost imperceptible slowness across the grass towards the house, seemed to have a sentience and a vitality of its own. I think that the digression of my thoughts must have done me good, for when I got back to bed I found a lethargy creeping over me. I lay a while, but could not quite sleep, so I got out and looked out of the window again. The mist was spreading, and was now close up to the house, so that I could see it lying thick against the wall, as though it were stealing up to the windows. The poor man was more loud than ever, and though I could not distinguish a word he said, I could in some way recognise in his tones some passionate entreaty on his part. Then there was the sound of a struggle, and I knew that the attendants were dealing with him. I was so frightened that I crept into bed, and pulled the clothes over my head, putting my fingers in my ears. I was not then a bit sleepy, at least so I thought; but I must have fallen asleep, for, except dreams, I do not remember anything until the morning, when Jonathan woke me. I think that it took me an effort and a little time to realise where I was, and that it was Jonathan who was bending over me. My dream was very peculiar, and was almost typical of the way that waking thoughts become merged in, or continued in, dreams. I thought that I was asleep, and waiting for Jonathan to come back. I was very anxious about him, and I was powerless to act; my feet, and my hands, and my brain were weighted, so that nothing could proceed at the usual pace. And so I slept uneasily and thought. Then it began to dawn upon me that the air was heavy, and dank, and cold. I put back the clothes from my face, and found, to my surprise, that all was dim around. The gaslight which I had left lit for Jonathan, but turned down, came only like a tiny red spark through the fog, which had evidently grown thicker and poured into the room. Then it occurred to me that I had shut the window before I had come to bed. I would have got out to make certain on the point, but some leaden lethargy seemed to chain my limbs and even my will. I lay still and endured; that was all. I closed my eyes, but could still see through my eyelids. (It is wonderful what tricks our dreams play us, and how conveniently we can imagine.) The mist grew thicker and thicker and I could see now how it came in, for I could see it like smoke--or with the white energy of boiling water--pouring in, not through the window, but through the joinings of the door. It got thicker and thicker, till it seemed as if it became concentrated into a sort of pillar of cloud in the room, through the top of which I could see the light of the gas shining like a red eye. Things began to whirl through my brain just as the cloudy column was now whirling in the room, and through it all came the scriptural words "a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night." Was it indeed some such spiritual guidance that was coming to me in my sleep? But the pillar was composed of both the day and the night-guiding, for the fire was in the red eye, which at the thought got a new fascination for me; till, as I looked, the fire divided, and seemed to shine on me through the fog like two red eyes, such as Lucy told me of in her momentary mental wandering when, on the cliff, the dying sunlight struck the windows of St. Mary's Church. Suddenly the horror burst upon me that it was thus that Jonathan had seen those awful women growing into reality through the whirling mist in the moonlight, and in my dream I must have fainted, for all became black darkness. The last conscious effort which imagination made was to show me a livid white face bending over me out of the mist. I must be careful of such dreams, for they would unseat one's reason if there were too much of them. I would get Dr. Van Helsing or Dr. Seward to prescribe something for me which would make me sleep, only that I fear to alarm them. Such a dream at the present time would become woven into their fears for me. To-night I shall strive hard to sleep naturally. If I do not, I shall to-morrow night get them to give me a dose of chloral; that cannot hurt me for once, and it will give me a good night's sleep. Last night tired me more than if I had not slept at all. * * * * * _2 October 10 p. m._--Last night I slept, but did not dream. I must have slept soundly, for I was not waked by Jonathan coming to bed; but the sleep has not refreshed me, for to-day I feel terribly weak and spiritless. I spent all yesterday trying to read, or lying down dozing. In the afternoon Mr. Renfield asked if he might see me. Poor man, he was very gentle, and when I came away he kissed my hand and bade God bless me. Some way it affected me much; I am crying when I think of him. This is a new weakness, of which I must be careful. Jonathan would be miserable if he knew I had been crying. He and the others were out till dinner-time, and they all came in tired. I did what I could to brighten them up, and I suppose that the effort did me good, for I forgot how tired I was. After dinner they sent me to bed, and all went off to smoke together, as they said, but I knew that they wanted to tell each other of what had occurred to each during the day; I could see from Jonathan's manner that he had something important to communicate. I was not so sleepy as I should have been; so before they went I asked Dr. Seward to give me a little opiate of some kind, as I had not slept well the night before. He very kindly made me up a sleeping draught, which he gave to me, telling me that it would do me no harm, as it was very mild.... I have taken it, and am waiting for sleep, which still keeps aloof. I hope I have not done wrong, for as sleep begins to flirt with me, a new fear comes: that I may have been foolish in thus depriving myself of the power of waking. I might want it. Here comes sleep. Good-night. CHAPTER XX JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL _1 October, evening._--I found Thomas Snelling in his house at Bethnal Green, but unhappily he was not in a condition to remember anything. The very prospect of beer which my expected coming had opened to him had proved too much, and he had begun too early on his expected debauch. I learned, however, from his wife, who seemed a decent, poor soul, that he was only the assistant to Smollet, who of the two mates was the responsible person. So off I drove to Walworth, and found Mr. Joseph Smollet at home and in his shirtsleeves, taking a late tea out of a saucer. He is a decent, intelligent fellow, distinctly a good, reliable type of workman, and with a headpiece of his own. He remembered all about the incident of the boxes, and from a wonderful dog's-eared notebook, which he produced from some mysterious receptacle about the seat of his trousers, and which had hieroglyphical entries in thick, half-obliterated pencil, he gave me the destinations of the boxes. There were, he said, six in the cartload which he took from Carfax and left at 197, Chicksand Street, Mile End New Town, and another six which he deposited at Jamaica Lane, Bermondsey. If then the Count meant to scatter these ghastly refuges of his over London, these places were chosen as the first of delivery, so that later he might distribute more fully. The systematic manner in which this was done made me think that he could not mean to confine himself to two sides of London. He was now fixed on the far east of the northern shore, on the east of the southern shore, and on the south. The north and west were surely never meant to be left out of his diabolical scheme--let alone the City itself and the very heart of fashionable London in the south-west and west. I went back to Smollet, and asked him if he could tell us if any other boxes had been taken from Carfax. He replied:-- "Well, guv'nor, you've treated me wery 'an'some"--I had given him half a sovereign--"an' I'll tell yer all I know. I heard a man by the name of Bloxam say four nights ago in the 'Are an' 'Ounds, in Pincher's Alley, as 'ow he an' his mate 'ad 'ad a rare dusty job in a old 'ouse at Purfect. There ain't a-many such jobs as this 'ere, an' I'm thinkin' that maybe Sam Bloxam could tell ye summut." I asked if he could tell me where to find him. I told him that if he could get me the address it would be worth another half-sovereign to him. So he gulped down the rest of his tea and stood up, saying that he was going to begin the search then and there. At the door he stopped, and said:-- "Look 'ere, guv'nor, there ain't no sense in me a-keepin' you 'ere. I may find Sam soon, or I mayn't; but anyhow he ain't like to be in a way to tell ye much to-night. Sam is a rare one when he starts on the booze. If you can give me a envelope with a stamp on it, and put yer address on it, I'll find out where Sam is to be found and post it ye to-night. But ye'd better be up arter 'im soon in the mornin', or maybe ye won't ketch 'im; for Sam gets off main early, never mind the booze the night afore." This was all practical, so one of the children went off with a penny to buy an envelope and a sheet of paper, and to keep the change. When she came back, I addressed the envelope and stamped it, and when Smollet had again faithfully promised to post the address when found, I took my way to home. We're on the track anyhow. I am tired to-night, and want sleep. Mina is fast asleep, and looks a little too pale; her eyes look as though she had been crying. Poor dear, I've no doubt it frets her to be kept in the dark, and it may make her doubly anxious about me and the others. But it is best as it is. It is better to be disappointed and worried in such a way now than to have her nerve broken. The doctors were quite right to insist on her being kept out of this dreadful business. I must be firm, for on me this particular burden of silence must rest. I shall not ever enter on the subject with her under any circumstances. Indeed, it may not be a hard task, after all, for she herself has become reticent on the subject, and has not spoken of the Count or his doings ever since we told her of our decision. * * * * * _2 October, evening._--A long and trying and exciting day. By the first post I got my directed envelope with a dirty scrap of paper enclosed, on which was written with a carpenter's pencil in a sprawling hand:-- "Sam Bloxam, Korkrans, 4, Poters Cort, Bartel Street, Walworth. Arsk for the depite." I got the letter in bed, and rose without waking Mina. She looked heavy and sleepy and pale, and far from well. I determined not to wake her, but that, when I should return from this new search, I would arrange for her going back to Exeter. I think she would be happier in our own home, with her daily tasks to interest her, than in being here amongst us and in ignorance. I only saw Dr. Seward for a moment, and told him where I was off to, promising to come back and tell the rest so soon as I should have found out anything. I drove to Walworth and found, with some difficulty, Potter's Court. Mr. Smollet's spelling misled me, as I asked for Poter's Court instead of Potter's Court. However, when I had found the court, I had no difficulty in discovering Corcoran's lodging-house. When I asked the man who came to the door for the "depite," he shook his head, and said: "I dunno 'im. There ain't no such a person 'ere; I never 'eard of 'im in all my bloomin' days. Don't believe there ain't nobody of that kind livin' ere or anywheres." I took out Smollet's letter, and as I read it it seemed to me that the lesson of the spelling of the name of the court might guide me. "What are you?" I asked. "I'm the depity," he answered. I saw at once that I was on the right track; phonetic spelling had again misled me. A half-crown tip put the deputy's knowledge at my disposal, and I learned that Mr. Bloxam, who had slept off the remains of his beer on the previous night at Corcoran's, had left for his work at Poplar at five o'clock that morning. He could not tell me where the place of work was situated, but he had a vague idea that it was some kind of a "new-fangled ware'us"; and with this slender clue I had to start for Poplar. It was twelve o'clock before I got any satisfactory hint of such a building, and this I got at a coffee-shop, where some workmen were having their dinner. One of these suggested that there was being erected at Cross Angel Street a new "cold storage" building; and as this suited the condition of a "new-fangled ware'us," I at once drove to it. An interview with a surly gatekeeper and a surlier foreman, both of whom were appeased with the coin of the realm, put me on the track of Bloxam; he was sent for on my suggesting that I was willing to pay his day's wages to his foreman for the privilege of asking him a few questions on a private matter. He was a smart enough fellow, though rough of speech and bearing. When I had promised to pay for his information and given him an earnest, he told me that he had made two journeys between Carfax and a house in Piccadilly, and had taken from this house to the latter nine great boxes--"main heavy ones"--with a horse and cart hired by him for this purpose. I asked him if he could tell me the number of the house in Piccadilly, to which he replied:-- "Well, guv'nor, I forgits the number, but it was only a few doors from a big white church or somethink of the kind, not long built. It was a dusty old 'ouse, too, though nothin' to the dustiness of the 'ouse we tooked the bloomin' boxes from." "How did you get into the houses if they were both empty?" "There was the old party what engaged me a-waitin' in the 'ouse at Purfleet. He 'elped me to lift the boxes and put them in the dray. Curse me, but he was the strongest chap I ever struck, an' him a old feller, with a white moustache, one that thin you would think he couldn't throw a shadder." How this phrase thrilled through me! "Why, 'e took up 'is end o' the boxes like they was pounds of tea, and me a-puffin' an' a-blowin' afore I could up-end mine anyhow--an' I'm no chicken, neither." "How did you get into the house in Piccadilly?" I asked. "He was there too. He must 'a' started off and got there afore me, for when I rung of the bell he kem an' opened the door 'isself an' 'elped me to carry the boxes into the 'all." "The whole nine?" I asked. "Yus; there was five in the first load an' four in the second. It was main dry work, an' I don't so well remember 'ow I got 'ome." I interrupted him:-- "Were the boxes left in the hall?" "Yus; it was a big 'all, an' there was nothin' else in it." I made one more attempt to further matters:-- "You didn't have any key?" "Never used no key nor nothink. The old gent, he opened the door 'isself an' shut it again when I druv off. I don't remember the last time--but that was the beer." "And you can't remember the number of the house?" "No, sir. But ye needn't have no difficulty about that. It's a 'igh 'un with a stone front with a bow on it, an' 'igh steps up to the door. I know them steps, 'avin' 'ad to carry the boxes up with three loafers what come round to earn a copper. The old gent give them shillin's, an' they seein' they got so much, they wanted more; but 'e took one of them by the shoulder and was like to throw 'im down the steps, till the lot of them went away cussin'." I thought that with this description I could find the house, so, having paid my friend for his information, I started off for Piccadilly. I had gained a new painful experience; the Count could, it was evident, handle the earth-boxes himself. If so, time was precious; for, now that he had achieved a certain amount of distribution, he could, by choosing his own time, complete the task unobserved. At Piccadilly Circus I discharged my cab, and walked westward; beyond the Junior Constitutional I came across the house described, and was satisfied that this was the next of the lairs arranged by Dracula. The house looked as though it had been long untenanted. The windows were encrusted with dust, and the shutters were up. All the framework was black with time, and from the iron the paint had mostly scaled away. It was evident that up to lately there had been a large notice-board in front of the balcony; it had, however, been roughly torn away, the uprights which had supported it still remaining. Behind the rails of the balcony I saw there were some loose boards, whose raw edges looked white. I would have given a good deal to have been able to see the notice-board intact, as it would, perhaps, have given some clue to the ownership of the house. I remembered my experience of the investigation and purchase of Carfax, and I could not but feel that if I could find the former owner there might be some means discovered of gaining access to the house. There was at present nothing to be learned from the Piccadilly side, and nothing could be done; so I went round to the back to see if anything could be gathered from this quarter. The mews were active, the Piccadilly houses being mostly in occupation. I asked one or two of the grooms and helpers whom I saw around if they could tell me anything about the empty house. One of them said that he heard it had lately been taken, but he couldn't say from whom. He told me, however, that up to very lately there had been a notice-board of "For Sale" up, and that perhaps Mitchell, Sons, & Candy, the house agents, could tell me something, as he thought he remembered seeing the name of that firm on the board. I did not wish to seem too eager, or to let my informant know or guess too much, so, thanking him in the usual manner, I strolled away. It was now growing dusk, and the autumn night was closing in, so I did not lose any time. Having learned the address of Mitchell, Sons, & Candy from a directory at the Berkeley, I was soon at their office in Sackville Street. The gentleman who saw me was particularly suave in manner, but uncommunicative in equal proportion. Having once told me that the Piccadilly house--which throughout our interview he called a "mansion"--was sold, he considered my business as concluded. When I asked who had purchased it, he opened his eyes a thought wider, and paused a few seconds before replying:-- "It is sold, sir." "Pardon me," I said, with equal politeness, "but I have a special reason for wishing to know who purchased it." Again he paused longer, and raised his eyebrows still more. "It is sold, sir," was again his laconic reply. "Surely," I said, "you do not mind letting me know so much." "But I do mind," he answered. "The affairs of their clients are absolutely safe in the hands of Mitchell, Sons, & Candy." This was manifestly a prig of the first water, and there was no use arguing with him. I thought I had best meet him on his own ground, so I said:-- "Your clients, sir, are happy in having so resolute a guardian of their confidence. I am myself a professional man." Here I handed him my card. "In this instance I am not prompted by curiosity; I act on the part of Lord Godalming, who wishes to know something of the property which was, he understood, lately for sale." These words put a different complexion on affairs. He said:-- "I would like to oblige you if I could, Mr. Harker, and especially would I like to oblige his lordship. We once carried out a small matter of renting some chambers for him when he was the Honourable Arthur Holmwood. If you will let me have his lordship's address I will consult the House on the subject, and will, in any case, communicate with his lordship by to-night's post. It will be a pleasure if we can so far deviate from our rules as to give the required information to his lordship." I wanted to secure a friend, and not to make an enemy, so I thanked him, gave the address at Dr. Seward's and came away. It was now dark, and I was tired and hungry. I got a cup of tea at the Aërated Bread Company and came down to Purfleet by the next train. I found all the others at home. Mina was looking tired and pale, but she made a gallant effort to be bright and cheerful, it wrung my heart to think that I had had to keep anything from her and so caused her inquietude. Thank God, this will be the last night of her looking on at our conferences, and feeling the sting of our not showing our confidence. It took all my courage to hold to the wise resolution of keeping her out of our grim task. She seems somehow more reconciled; or else the very subject seems to have become repugnant to her, for when any accidental allusion is made she actually shudders. I am glad we made our resolution in time, as with such a feeling as this, our growing knowledge would be torture to her. I could not tell the others of the day's discovery till we were alone; so after dinner--followed by a little music to save appearances even amongst ourselves--I took Mina to her room and left her to go to bed. The dear girl was more affectionate with me than ever, and clung to me as though she would detain me; but there was much to be talked of and I came away. Thank God, the ceasing of telling things has made no difference between us. When I came down again I found the others all gathered round the fire in the study. In the train I had written my diary so far, and simply read it off to them as the best means of letting them get abreast of my own information; when I had finished Van Helsing said:-- "This has been a great day's work, friend Jonathan. Doubtless we are on the track of the missing boxes. If we find them all in that house, then our work is near the end. But if there be some missing, we must search until we find them. Then shall we make our final _coup_, and hunt the wretch to his real death." We all sat silent awhile and all at once Mr. Morris spoke:-- "Say! how are we going to get into that house?" "We got into the other," answered Lord Godalming quickly. "But, Art, this is different. We broke house at Carfax, but we had night and a walled park to protect us. It will be a mighty different thing to commit burglary in Piccadilly, either by day or night. I confess I don't see how we are going to get in unless that agency duck can find us a key of some sort; perhaps we shall know when you get his letter in the morning." Lord Godalming's brows contracted, and he stood up and walked about the room. By-and-by he stopped and said, turning from one to another of us:-- "Quincey's head is level. This burglary business is getting serious; we got off once all right; but we have now a rare job on hand--unless we can find the Count's key basket." As nothing could well be done before morning, and as it would be at least advisable to wait till Lord Godalming should hear from Mitchell's, we decided not to take any active step before breakfast time. For a good while we sat and smoked, discussing the matter in its various lights and bearings; I took the opportunity of bringing this diary right up to the moment. I am very sleepy and shall go to bed.... Just a line. Mina sleeps soundly and her breathing is regular. Her forehead is puckered up into little wrinkles, as though she thinks even in her sleep. She is still too pale, but does not look so haggard as she did this morning. To-morrow will, I hope, mend all this; she will be herself at home in Exeter. Oh, but I am sleepy! _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _1 October._--I am puzzled afresh about Renfield. His moods change so rapidly that I find it difficult to keep touch of them, and as they always mean something more than his own well-being, they form a more than interesting study. This morning, when I went to see him after his repulse of Van Helsing, his manner was that of a man commanding destiny. He was, in fact, commanding destiny--subjectively. He did not really care for any of the things of mere earth; he was in the clouds and looked down on all the weaknesses and wants of us poor mortals. I thought I would improve the occasion and learn something, so I asked him:-- "What about the flies these times?" He smiled on me in quite a superior sort of way--such a smile as would have become the face of Malvolio--as he answered me:-- "The fly, my dear sir, has one striking feature; its wings are typical of the aërial powers of the psychic faculties. The ancients did well when they typified the soul as a butterfly!" I thought I would push his analogy to its utmost logically, so I said quickly:-- "Oh, it is a soul you are after now, is it?" His madness foiled his reason, and a puzzled look spread over his face as, shaking his head with a decision which I had but seldom seen in him, he said:-- "Oh, no, oh no! I want no souls. Life is all I want." Here he brightened up; "I am pretty indifferent about it at present. Life is all right; I have all I want. You must get a new patient, doctor, if you wish to study zoöphagy!" This puzzled me a little, so I drew him on:-- "Then you command life; you are a god, I suppose?" He smiled with an ineffably benign superiority. "Oh no! Far be it from me to arrogate to myself the attributes of the Deity. I am not even concerned in His especially spiritual doings. If I may state my intellectual position I am, so far as concerns things purely terrestrial, somewhat in the position which Enoch occupied spiritually!" This was a poser to me. I could not at the moment recall Enoch's appositeness; so I had to ask a simple question, though I felt that by so doing I was lowering myself in the eyes of the lunatic:-- "And why with Enoch?" "Because he walked with God." I could not see the analogy, but did not like to admit it; so I harked back to what he had denied:-- "So you don't care about life and you don't want souls. Why not?" I put my question quickly and somewhat sternly, on purpose to disconcert him. The effort succeeded; for an instant he unconsciously relapsed into his old servile manner, bent low before me, and actually fawned upon me as he replied:-- "I don't want any souls, indeed, indeed! I don't. I couldn't use them if I had them; they would be no manner of use to me. I couldn't eat them or----" He suddenly stopped and the old cunning look spread over his face, like a wind-sweep on the surface of the water. "And doctor, as to life, what is it after all? When you've got all you require, and you know that you will never want, that is all. I have friends--good friends--like you, Dr. Seward"; this was said with a leer of inexpressible cunning. "I know that I shall never lack the means of life!" I think that through the cloudiness of his insanity he saw some antagonism in me, for he at once fell back on the last refuge of such as he--a dogged silence. After a short time I saw that for the present it was useless to speak to him. He was sulky, and so I came away. Later in the day he sent for me. Ordinarily I would not have come without special reason, but just at present I am so interested in him that I would gladly make an effort. Besides, I am glad to have anything to help to pass the time. Harker is out, following up clues; and so are Lord Godalming and Quincey. Van Helsing sits in my study poring over the record prepared by the Harkers; he seems to think that by accurate knowledge of all details he will light upon some clue. He does not wish to be disturbed in the work, without cause. I would have taken him with me to see the patient, only I thought that after his last repulse he might not care to go again. There was also another reason: Renfield might not speak so freely before a third person as when he and I were alone. I found him sitting out in the middle of the floor on his stool, a pose which is generally indicative of some mental energy on his part. When I came in, he said at once, as though the question had been waiting on his lips:-- "What about souls?" It was evident then that my surmise had been correct. Unconscious cerebration was doing its work, even with the lunatic. I determined to have the matter out. "What about them yourself?" I asked. He did not reply for a moment but looked all round him, and up and down, as though he expected to find some inspiration for an answer. "I don't want any souls!" he said in a feeble, apologetic way. The matter seemed preying on his mind, and so I determined to use it--to "be cruel only to be kind." So I said:-- "You like life, and you want life?" "Oh yes! but that is all right; you needn't worry about that!" "But," I asked, "how are we to get the life without getting the soul also?" This seemed to puzzle him, so I followed it up:-- "A nice time you'll have some time when you're flying out there, with the souls of thousands of flies and spiders and birds and cats buzzing and twittering and miauing all round you. You've got their lives, you know, and you must put up with their souls!" Something seemed to affect his imagination, for he put his fingers to his ears and shut his eyes, screwing them up tightly just as a small boy does when his face is being soaped. There was something pathetic in it that touched me; it also gave me a lesson, for it seemed that before me was a child--only a child, though the features were worn, and the stubble on the jaws was white. It was evident that he was undergoing some process of mental disturbance, and, knowing how his past moods had interpreted things seemingly foreign to himself, I thought I would enter into his mind as well as I could and go with him. The first step was to restore confidence, so I asked him, speaking pretty loud so that he would hear me through his closed ears:-- "Would you like some sugar to get your flies round again?" He seemed to wake up all at once, and shook his head. With a laugh he replied:-- "Not much! flies are poor things, after all!" After a pause he added, "But I don't want their souls buzzing round me, all the same." "Or spiders?" I went on. "Blow spiders! What's the use of spiders? There isn't anything in them to eat or"--he stopped suddenly, as though reminded of a forbidden topic. "So, so!" I thought to myself, "this is the second time he has suddenly stopped at the word 'drink'; what does it mean?" Renfield seemed himself aware of having made a lapse, for he hurried on, as though to distract my attention from it:-- "I don't take any stock at all in such matters. 'Rats and mice and such small deer,' as Shakespeare has it, 'chicken-feed of the larder' they might be called. I'm past all that sort of nonsense. You might as well ask a man to eat molecules with a pair of chop-sticks, as to try to interest me about the lesser carnivora, when I know of what is before me." "I see," I said. "You want big things that you can make your teeth meet in? How would you like to breakfast on elephant?" "What ridiculous nonsense you are talking!" He was getting too wide awake, so I thought I would press him hard. "I wonder," I said reflectively, "what an elephant's soul is like!" The effect I desired was obtained, for he at once fell from his high-horse and became a child again. "I don't want an elephant's soul, or any soul at all!" he said. For a few moments he sat despondently. Suddenly he jumped to his feet, with his eyes blazing and all the signs of intense cerebral excitement. "To hell with you and your souls!" he shouted. "Why do you plague me about souls? Haven't I got enough to worry, and pain, and distract me already, without thinking of souls!" He looked so hostile that I thought he was in for another homicidal fit, so I blew my whistle. The instant, however, that I did so he became calm, and said apologetically:-- "Forgive me, Doctor; I forgot myself. You do not need any help. I am so worried in my mind that I am apt to be irritable. If you only knew the problem I have to face, and that I am working out, you would pity, and tolerate, and pardon me. Pray do not put me in a strait-waistcoat. I want to think and I cannot think freely when my body is confined. I am sure you will understand!" He had evidently self-control; so when the attendants came I told them not to mind, and they withdrew. Renfield watched them go; when the door was closed he said, with considerable dignity and sweetness:-- "Dr. Seward, you have been very considerate towards me. Believe me that I am very, very grateful to you!" I thought it well to leave him in this mood, and so I came away. There is certainly something to ponder over in this man's state. Several points seem to make what the American interviewer calls "a story," if one could only get them in proper order. Here they are:-- Will not mention "drinking." Fears the thought of being burdened with the "soul" of anything. Has no dread of wanting "life" in the future. Despises the meaner forms of life altogether, though he dreads being haunted by their souls. Logically all these things point one way! he has assurance of some kind that he will acquire some higher life. He dreads the consequence--the burden of a soul. Then it is a human life he looks to! And the assurance--? Merciful God! the Count has been to him, and there is some new scheme of terror afoot! * * * * * _Later._--I went after my round to Van Helsing and told him my suspicion. He grew very grave; and, after thinking the matter over for a while asked me to take him to Renfield. I did so. As we came to the door we heard the lunatic within singing gaily, as he used to do in the time which now seems so long ago. When we entered we saw with amazement that he had spread out his sugar as of old; the flies, lethargic with the autumn, were beginning to buzz into the room. We tried to make him talk of the subject of our previous conversation, but he would not attend. He went on with his singing, just as though we had not been present. He had got a scrap of paper and was folding it into a note-book. We had to come away as ignorant as we went in. His is a curious case indeed; we must watch him to-night. _Letter, Mitchell, Sons and Candy to Lord Godalming._ _"1 October._ "My Lord, "We are at all times only too happy to meet your wishes. We beg, with regard to the desire of your Lordship, expressed by Mr. Harker on your behalf, to supply the following information concerning the sale and purchase of No. 347, Piccadilly. The original vendors are the executors of the late Mr. Archibald Winter-Suffield. The purchaser is a foreign nobleman, Count de Ville, who effected the purchase himself paying the purchase money in notes 'over the counter,' if your Lordship will pardon us using so vulgar an expression. Beyond this we know nothing whatever of him. "We are, my Lord, "Your Lordship's humble servants, "MITCHELL, SONS & CANDY." _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _2 October._--I placed a man in the corridor last night, and told him to make an accurate note of any sound he might hear from Renfield's room, and gave him instructions that if there should be anything strange he was to call me. After dinner, when we had all gathered round the fire in the study--Mrs. Harker having gone to bed--we discussed the attempts and discoveries of the day. Harker was the only one who had any result, and we are in great hopes that his clue may be an important one. Before going to bed I went round to the patient's room and looked in through the observation trap. He was sleeping soundly, and his heart rose and fell with regular respiration. This morning the man on duty reported to me that a little after midnight he was restless and kept saying his prayers somewhat loudly. I asked him if that was all; he replied that it was all he heard. There was something about his manner so suspicious that I asked him point blank if he had been asleep. He denied sleep, but admitted to having "dozed" for a while. It is too bad that men cannot be trusted unless they are watched. To-day Harker is out following up his clue, and Art and Quincey are looking after horses. Godalming thinks that it will be well to have horses always in readiness, for when we get the information which we seek there will be no time to lose. We must sterilise all the imported earth between sunrise and sunset; we shall thus catch the Count at his weakest, and without a refuge to fly to. Van Helsing is off to the British Museum looking up some authorities on ancient medicine. The old physicians took account of things which their followers do not accept, and the Professor is searching for witch and demon cures which may be useful to us later. I sometimes think we must be all mad and that we shall wake to sanity in strait-waistcoats. * * * * * _Later._--We have met again. We seem at last to be on the track, and our work of to-morrow may be the beginning of the end. I wonder if Renfield's quiet has anything to do with this. His moods have so followed the doings of the Count, that the coming destruction of the monster may be carried to him in some subtle way. If we could only get some hint as to what passed in his mind, between the time of my argument with him to-day and his resumption of fly-catching, it might afford us a valuable clue. He is now seemingly quiet for a spell.... Is he?---- That wild yell seemed to come from his room.... * * * * * The attendant came bursting into my room and told me that Renfield had somehow met with some accident. He had heard him yell; and when he went to him found him lying on his face on the floor, all covered with blood. I must go at once.... CHAPTER XXI DR. SEWARD'S DIARY _3 October._--Let me put down with exactness all that happened, as well as I can remember it, since last I made an entry. Not a detail that I can recall must be forgotten; in all calmness I must proceed. When I came to Renfield's room I found him lying on the floor on his left side in a glittering pool of blood. When I went to move him, it became at once apparent that he had received some terrible injuries; there seemed none of that unity of purpose between the parts of the body which marks even lethargic sanity. As the face was exposed I could see that it was horribly bruised, as though it had been beaten against the floor--indeed it was from the face wounds that the pool of blood originated. The attendant who was kneeling beside the body said to me as we turned him over:-- "I think, sir, his back is broken. See, both his right arm and leg and the whole side of his face are paralysed." How such a thing could have happened puzzled the attendant beyond measure. He seemed quite bewildered, and his brows were gathered in as he said:-- "I can't understand the two things. He could mark his face like that by beating his own head on the floor. I saw a young woman do it once at the Eversfield Asylum before anyone could lay hands on her. And I suppose he might have broke his neck by falling out of bed, if he got in an awkward kink. But for the life of me I can't imagine how the two things occurred. If his back was broke, he couldn't beat his head; and if his face was like that before the fall out of bed, there would be marks of it." I said to him:-- "Go to Dr. Van Helsing, and ask him to kindly come here at once. I want him without an instant's delay." The man ran off, and within a few minutes the Professor, in his dressing gown and slippers, appeared. When he saw Renfield on the ground, he looked keenly at him a moment, and then turned to me. I think he recognised my thought in my eyes, for he said very quietly, manifestly for the ears of the attendant:-- "Ah, a sad accident! He will need very careful watching, and much attention. I shall stay with you myself; but I shall first dress myself. If you will remain I shall in a few minutes join you." The patient was now breathing stertorously and it was easy to see that he had suffered some terrible injury. Van Helsing returned with extraordinary celerity, bearing with him a surgical case. He had evidently been thinking and had his mind made up; for, almost before he looked at the patient, he whispered to me:-- "Send the attendant away. We must be alone with him when he becomes conscious, after the operation." So I said:-- "I think that will do now, Simmons. We have done all that we can at present. You had better go your round, and Dr. Van Helsing will operate. Let me know instantly if there be anything unusual anywhere." The man withdrew, and we went into a strict examination of the patient. The wounds of the face was superficial; the real injury was a depressed fracture of the skull, extending right up through the motor area. The Professor thought a moment and said:-- "We must reduce the pressure and get back to normal conditions, as far as can be; the rapidity of the suffusion shows the terrible nature of his injury. The whole motor area seems affected. The suffusion of the brain will increase quickly, so we must trephine at once or it may be too late." As he was speaking there was a soft tapping at the door. I went over and opened it and found in the corridor without, Arthur and Quincey in pajamas and slippers: the former spoke:-- "I heard your man call up Dr. Van Helsing and tell him of an accident. So I woke Quincey or rather called for him as he was not asleep. Things are moving too quickly and too strangely for sound sleep for any of us these times. I've been thinking that to-morrow night will not see things as they have been. We'll have to look back--and forward a little more than we have done. May we come in?" I nodded, and held the door open till they had entered; then I closed it again. When Quincey saw the attitude and state of the patient, and noted the horrible pool on the floor, he said softly:-- "My God! what has happened to him? Poor, poor devil!" I told him briefly, and added that we expected he would recover consciousness after the operation--for a short time, at all events. He went at once and sat down on the edge of the bed, with Godalming beside him; we all watched in patience. "We shall wait," said Van Helsing, "just long enough to fix the best spot for trephining, so that we may most quickly and perfectly remove the blood clot; for it is evident that the hæmorrhage is increasing." The minutes during which we waited passed with fearful slowness. I had a horrible sinking in my heart, and from Van Helsing's face I gathered that he felt some fear or apprehension as to what was to come. I dreaded the words that Renfield might speak. I was positively afraid to think; but the conviction of what was coming was on me, as I have read of men who have heard the death-watch. The poor man's breathing came in uncertain gasps. Each instant he seemed as though he would open his eyes and speak; but then would follow a prolonged stertorous breath, and he would relapse into a more fixed insensibility. Inured as I was to sick beds and death, this suspense grew, and grew upon me. I could almost hear the beating of my own heart; and the blood surging through my temples sounded like blows from a hammer. The silence finally became agonising. I looked at my companions, one after another, and saw from their flushed faces and damp brows that they were enduring equal torture. There was a nervous suspense over us all, as though overhead some dread bell would peal out powerfully when we should least expect it. At last there came a time when it was evident that the patient was sinking fast; he might die at any moment. I looked up at the Professor and caught his eyes fixed on mine. His face was sternly set as he spoke:-- "There is no time to lose. His words may be worth many lives; I have been thinking so, as I stood here. It may be there is a soul at stake! We shall operate just above the ear." Without another word he made the operation. For a few moments the breathing continued to be stertorous. Then there came a breath so prolonged that it seemed as though it would tear open his chest. Suddenly his eyes opened, and became fixed in a wild, helpless stare. This was continued for a few moments; then it softened into a glad surprise, and from the lips came a sigh of relief. He moved convulsively, and as he did so, said:-- "I'll be quiet, Doctor. Tell them to take off the strait-waistcoat. I have had a terrible dream, and it has left me so weak that I cannot move. What's wrong with my face? it feels all swollen, and it smarts dreadfully." He tried to turn his head; but even with the effort his eyes seemed to grow glassy again so I gently put it back. Then Van Helsing said in a quiet grave tone:-- "Tell us your dream, Mr. Renfield." As he heard the voice his face brightened, through its mutilation, and he said:-- "That is Dr. Van Helsing. How good it is of you to be here. Give me some water, my lips are dry; and I shall try to tell you. I dreamed"--he stopped and seemed fainting, I called quietly to Quincey--"The brandy--it is in my study--quick!" He flew and returned with a glass, the decanter of brandy and a carafe of water. We moistened the parched lips, and the patient quickly revived. It seemed, however, that his poor injured brain had been working in the interval, for, when he was quite conscious, he looked at me piercingly with an agonised confusion which I shall never forget, and said:-- "I must not deceive myself; it was no dream, but all a grim reality." Then his eyes roved round the room; as they caught sight of the two figures sitting patiently on the edge of the bed he went on:-- "If I were not sure already, I would know from them." For an instant his eyes closed--not with pain or sleep but voluntarily, as though he were bringing all his faculties to bear; when he opened them he said, hurriedly, and with more energy than he had yet displayed:-- "Quick, Doctor, quick. I am dying! I feel that I have but a few minutes; and then I must go back to death--or worse! Wet my lips with brandy again. I have something that I must say before I die; or before my poor crushed brain dies anyhow. Thank you! It was that night after you left me, when I implored you to let me go away. I couldn't speak then, for I felt my tongue was tied; but I was as sane then, except in that way, as I am now. I was in an agony of despair for a long time after you left me; it seemed hours. Then there came a sudden peace to me. My brain seemed to become cool again, and I realised where I was. I heard the dogs bark behind our house, but not where He was!" As he spoke, Van Helsing's eyes never blinked, but his hand came out and met mine and gripped it hard. He did not, however, betray himself; he nodded slightly and said: "Go on," in a low voice. Renfield proceeded:-- "He came up to the window in the mist, as I had seen him often before; but he was solid then--not a ghost, and his eyes were fierce like a man's when angry. He was laughing with his red mouth; the sharp white teeth glinted in the moonlight when he turned to look back over the belt of trees, to where the dogs were barking. I wouldn't ask him to come in at first, though I knew he wanted to--just as he had wanted all along. Then he began promising me things--not in words but by doing them." He was interrupted by a word from the Professor:-- "How?" "By making them happen; just as he used to send in the flies when the sun was shining. Great big fat ones with steel and sapphire on their wings; and big moths, in the night, with skull and cross-bones on their backs." Van Helsing nodded to him as he whispered to me unconsciously:-- "The _Acherontia Aitetropos of the Sphinges_--what you call the 'Death's-head Moth'?" The patient went on without stopping. "Then he began to whisper: 'Rats, rats, rats! Hundreds, thousands, millions of them, and every one a life; and dogs to eat them, and cats too. All lives! all red blood, with years of life in it; and not merely buzzing flies!' I laughed at him, for I wanted to see what he could do. Then the dogs howled, away beyond the dark trees in His house. He beckoned me to the window. I got up and looked out, and He raised his hands, and seemed to call out without using any words. A dark mass spread over the grass, coming on like the shape of a flame of fire; and then He moved the mist to the right and left, and I could see that there were thousands of rats with their eyes blazing red--like His, only smaller. He held up his hand, and they all stopped; and I thought he seemed to be saying: 'All these lives will I give you, ay, and many more and greater, through countless ages, if you will fall down and worship me!' And then a red cloud, like the colour of blood, seemed to close over my eyes; and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself opening the sash and saying to Him: 'Come in, Lord and Master!' The rats were all gone, but He slid into the room through the sash, though it was only open an inch wide--just as the Moon herself has often come in through the tiniest crack and has stood before me in all her size and splendour." His voice was weaker, so I moistened his lips with the brandy again, and he continued; but it seemed as though his memory had gone on working in the interval for his story was further advanced. I was about to call him back to the point, but Van Helsing whispered to me: "Let him go on. Do not interrupt him; he cannot go back, and maybe could not proceed at all if once he lost the thread of his thought." He proceeded:-- "All day I waited to hear from him, but he did not send me anything, not even a blow-fly, and when the moon got up I was pretty angry with him. When he slid in through the window, though it was shut, and did not even knock, I got mad with him. He sneered at me, and his white face looked out of the mist with his red eyes gleaming, and he went on as though he owned the whole place, and I was no one. He didn't even smell the same as he went by me. I couldn't hold him. I thought that, somehow, Mrs. Harker had come into the room." The two men sitting on the bed stood up and came over, standing behind him so that he could not see them, but where they could hear better. They were both silent, but the Professor started and quivered; his face, however, grew grimmer and sterner still. Renfield went on without noticing:-- "When Mrs. Harker came in to see me this afternoon she wasn't the same; it was like tea after the teapot had been watered." Here we all moved, but no one said a word; he went on:-- "I didn't know that she was here till she spoke; and she didn't look the same. I don't care for the pale people; I like them with lots of blood in them, and hers had all seemed to have run out. I didn't think of it at the time; but when she went away I began to think, and it made me mad to know that He had been taking the life out of her." I could feel that the rest quivered, as I did, but we remained otherwise still. "So when He came to-night I was ready for Him. I saw the mist stealing in, and I grabbed it tight. I had heard that madmen have unnatural strength; and as I knew I was a madman--at times anyhow--I resolved to use my power. Ay, and He felt it too, for He had to come out of the mist to struggle with me. I held tight; and I thought I was going to win, for I didn't mean Him to take any more of her life, till I saw His eyes. They burned into me, and my strength became like water. He slipped through it, and when I tried to cling to Him, He raised me up and flung me down. There was a red cloud before me, and a noise like thunder, and the mist seemed to steal away under the door." His voice was becoming fainter and his breath more stertorous. Van Helsing stood up instinctively. "We know the worst now," he said. "He is here, and we know his purpose. It may not be too late. Let us be armed--the same as we were the other night, but lose no time; there is not an instant to spare." There was no need to put our fear, nay our conviction, into words--we shared them in common. We all hurried and took from our rooms the same things that we had when we entered the Count's house. The Professor had his ready, and as we met in the corridor he pointed to them significantly as he said:-- "They never leave me; and they shall not till this unhappy business is over. Be wise also, my friends. It is no common enemy that we deal with. Alas! alas! that that dear Madam Mina should suffer!" He stopped; his voice was breaking, and I do not know if rage or terror predominated in my own heart. Outside the Harkers' door we paused. Art and Quincey held back, and the latter said:-- "Should we disturb her?" "We must," said Van Helsing grimly. "If the door be locked, I shall break it in." "May it not frighten her terribly? It is unusual to break into a lady's room!" Van Helsing said solemnly, "You are always right; but this is life and death. All chambers are alike to the doctor; and even were they not they are all as one to me to-night. Friend John, when I turn the handle, if the door does not open, do you put your shoulder down and shove; and you too, my friends. Now!" He turned the handle as he spoke, but the door did not yield. We threw ourselves against it; with a crash it burst open, and we almost fell headlong into the room. The Professor did actually fall, and I saw across him as he gathered himself up from hands and knees. What I saw appalled me. I felt my hair rise like bristles on the back of my neck, and my heart seemed to stand still. The moonlight was so bright that through the thick yellow blind the room was light enough to see. On the bed beside the window lay Jonathan Harker, his face flushed and breathing heavily as though in a stupor. Kneeling on the near edge of the bed facing outwards was the white-clad figure of his wife. By her side stood a tall, thin man, clad in black. His face was turned from us, but the instant we saw we all recognised the Count--in every way, even to the scar on his forehead. With his left hand he held both Mrs. Harker's hands, keeping them away with her arms at full tension; his right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man's bare breast which was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten's nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink. As we burst into the room, the Count turned his face, and the hellish look that I had heard described seemed to leap into it. His eyes flamed red with devilish passion; the great nostrils of the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the edge; and the white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blood-dripping mouth, champed together like those of a wild beast. With a wrench, which threw his victim back upon the bed as though hurled from a height, he turned and sprang at us. But by this time the Professor had gained his feet, and was holding towards him the envelope which contained the Sacred Wafer. The Count suddenly stopped, just as poor Lucy had done outside the tomb, and cowered back. Further and further back he cowered, as we, lifting our crucifixes, advanced. The moonlight suddenly failed, as a great black cloud sailed across the sky; and when the gaslight sprang up under Quincey's match, we saw nothing but a faint vapour. This, as we looked, trailed under the door, which with the recoil from its bursting open, had swung back to its old position. Van Helsing, Art, and I moved forward to Mrs. Harker, who by this time had drawn her breath and with it had given a scream so wild, so ear-piercing, so despairing that it seems to me now that it will ring in my ears till my dying day. For a few seconds she lay in her helpless attitude and disarray. Her face was ghastly, with a pallor which was accentuated by the blood which smeared her lips and cheeks and chin; from her throat trickled a thin stream of blood; her eyes were mad with terror. Then she put before her face her poor crushed hands, which bore on their whiteness the red mark of the Count's terrible grip, and from behind them came a low desolate wail which made the terrible scream seem only the quick expression of an endless grief. Van Helsing stepped forward and drew the coverlet gently over her body, whilst Art, after looking at her face for an instant despairingly, ran out of the room. Van Helsing whispered to me:-- "Jonathan is in a stupor such as we know the Vampire can produce. We can do nothing with poor Madam Mina for a few moments till she recovers herself; I must wake him!" He dipped the end of a towel in cold water and with it began to flick him on the face, his wife all the while holding her face between her hands and sobbing in a way that was heart-breaking to hear. I raised the blind, and looked out of the window. There was much moonshine; and as I looked I could see Quincey Morris run across the lawn and hide himself in the shadow of a great yew-tree. It puzzled me to think why he was doing this; but at the instant I heard Harker's quick exclamation as he woke to partial consciousness, and turned to the bed. On his face, as there might well be, was a look of wild amazement. He seemed dazed for a few seconds, and then full consciousness seemed to burst upon him all at once, and he started up. His wife was aroused by the quick movement, and turned to him with her arms stretched out, as though to embrace him; instantly, however, she drew them in again, and putting her elbows together, held her hands before her face, and shuddered till the bed beneath her shook. "In God's name what does this mean?" Harker cried out. "Dr. Seward, Dr. Van Helsing, what is it? What has happened? What is wrong? Mina, dear, what is it? What does that blood mean? My God, my God! has it come to this!" and, raising himself to his knees, he beat his hands wildly together. "Good God help us! help her! oh, help her!" With a quick movement he jumped from bed, and began to pull on his clothes,--all the man in him awake at the need for instant exertion. "What has happened? Tell me all about it!" he cried without pausing. "Dr. Van Helsing, you love Mina, I know. Oh, do something to save her. It cannot have gone too far yet. Guard her while I look for _him_!" His wife, through her terror and horror and distress, saw some sure danger to him: instantly forgetting her own grief, she seized hold of him and cried out:-- "No! no! Jonathan, you must not leave me. I have suffered enough to-night, God knows, without the dread of his harming you. You must stay with me. Stay with these friends who will watch over you!" Her expression became frantic as she spoke; and, he yielding to her, she pulled him down sitting on the bed side, and clung to him fiercely. Van Helsing and I tried to calm them both. The Professor held up his little golden crucifix, and said with wonderful calmness:-- "Do not fear, my dear. We are here; and whilst this is close to you no foul thing can approach. You are safe for to-night; and we must be calm and take counsel together." She shuddered and was silent, holding down her head on her husband's breast. When she raised it, his white night-robe was stained with blood where her lips had touched, and where the thin open wound in her neck had sent forth drops. The instant she saw it she drew back, with a low wail, and whispered, amidst choking sobs:-- "Unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh, that it should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have most cause to fear." To this he spoke out resolutely:-- "Nonsense, Mina. It is a shame to me to hear such a word. I would not hear it of you; and I shall not hear it from you. May God judge me by my deserts, and punish me with more bitter suffering than even this hour, if by any act or will of mine anything ever come between us!" He put out his arms and folded her to his breast; and for a while she lay there sobbing. He looked at us over her bowed head, with eyes that blinked damply above his quivering nostrils; his mouth was set as steel. After a while her sobs became less frequent and more faint, and then he said to me, speaking with a studied calmness which I felt tried his nervous power to the utmost:-- "And now, Dr. Seward, tell me all about it. Too well I know the broad fact; tell me all that has been." I told him exactly what had happened, and he listened with seeming impassiveness; but his nostrils twitched and his eyes blazed as I told how the ruthless hands of the Count had held his wife in that terrible and horrid position, with her mouth to the open wound in his breast. It interested me, even at that moment, to see, that, whilst the face of white set passion worked convulsively over the bowed head, the hands tenderly and lovingly stroked the ruffled hair. Just as I had finished, Quincey and Godalming knocked at the door. They entered in obedience to our summons. Van Helsing looked at me questioningly. I understood him to mean if we were to take advantage of their coming to divert if possible the thoughts of the unhappy husband and wife from each other and from themselves; so on nodding acquiescence to him he asked them what they had seen or done. To which Lord Godalming answered:-- "I could not see him anywhere in the passage, or in any of our rooms. I looked in the study but, though he had been there, he had gone. He had, however----" He stopped suddenly, looking at the poor drooping figure on the bed. Van Helsing said gravely:-- "Go on, friend Arthur. We want here no more concealments. Our hope now is in knowing all. Tell freely!" So Art went on:-- "He had been there, and though it could only have been for a few seconds, he made rare hay of the place. All the manuscript had been burned, and the blue flames were flickering amongst the white ashes; the cylinders of your phonograph too were thrown on the fire, and the wax had helped the flames." Here I interrupted. "Thank God there is the other copy in the safe!" His face lit for a moment, but fell again as he went on: "I ran downstairs then, but could see no sign of him. I looked into Renfield's room; but there was no trace there except----!" Again he paused. "Go on," said Harker hoarsely; so he bowed his head and moistening his lips with his tongue, added: "except that the poor fellow is dead." Mrs. Harker raised her head, looking from one to the other of us she said solemnly:-- "God's will be done!" I could not but feel that Art was keeping back something; but, as I took it that it was with a purpose, I said nothing. Van Helsing turned to Morris and asked:-- "And you, friend Quincey, have you any to tell?" "A little," he answered. "It may be much eventually, but at present I can't say. I thought it well to know if possible where the Count would go when he left the house. I did not see him; but I saw a bat rise from Renfield's window, and flap westward. I expected to see him in some shape go back to Carfax; but he evidently sought some other lair. He will not be back to-night; for the sky is reddening in the east, and the dawn is close. We must work to-morrow!" He said the latter words through his shut teeth. For a space of perhaps a couple of minutes there was silence, and I could fancy that I could hear the sound of our hearts beating; then Van Helsing said, placing his hand very tenderly on Mrs. Harker's head:-- "And now, Madam Mina--poor, dear, dear Madam Mina--tell us exactly what happened. God knows that I do not want that you be pained; but it is need that we know all. For now more than ever has all work to be done quick and sharp, and in deadly earnest. The day is close to us that must end all, if it may be so; and now is the chance that we may live and learn." The poor, dear lady shivered, and I could see the tension of her nerves as she clasped her husband closer to her and bent her head lower and lower still on his breast. Then she raised her head proudly, and held out one hand to Van Helsing who took it in his, and, after stooping and kissing it reverently, held it fast. The other hand was locked in that of her husband, who held his other arm thrown round her protectingly. After a pause in which she was evidently ordering her thoughts, she began:-- "I took the sleeping draught which you had so kindly given me, but for a long time it did not act. I seemed to become more wakeful, and myriads of horrible fancies began to crowd in upon my mind--all of them connected with death, and vampires; with blood, and pain, and trouble." Her husband involuntarily groaned as she turned to him and said lovingly: "Do not fret, dear. You must be brave and strong, and help me through the horrible task. If you only knew what an effort it is to me to tell of this fearful thing at all, you would understand how much I need your help. Well, I saw I must try to help the medicine to its work with my will, if it was to do me any good, so I resolutely set myself to sleep. Sure enough sleep must soon have come to me, for I remember no more. Jonathan coming in had not waked me, for he lay by my side when next I remember. There was in the room the same thin white mist that I had before noticed. But I forget now if you know of this; you will find it in my diary which I shall show you later. I felt the same vague terror which had come to me before and the same sense of some presence. I turned to wake Jonathan, but found that he slept so soundly that it seemed as if it was he who had taken the sleeping draught, and not I. I tried, but I could not wake him. This caused me a great fear, and I looked around terrified. Then indeed, my heart sank within me: beside the bed, as if he had stepped out of the mist--or rather as if the mist had turned into his figure, for it had entirely disappeared--stood a tall, thin man, all in black. I knew him at once from the description of the others. The waxen face; the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell in a thin white line; the parted red lips, with the sharp white teeth showing between; and the red eyes that I had seemed to see in the sunset on the windows of St. Mary's Church at Whitby. I knew, too, the red scar on his forehead where Jonathan had struck him. For an instant my heart stood still, and I would have screamed out, only that I was paralysed. In the pause he spoke in a sort of keen, cutting whisper, pointing as he spoke to Jonathan:-- "'Silence! If you make a sound I shall take him and dash his brains out before your very eyes.' I was appalled and was too bewildered to do or say anything. With a mocking smile, he placed one hand upon my shoulder and, holding me tight, bared my throat with the other, saying as he did so, 'First, a little refreshment to reward my exertions. You may as well be quiet; it is not the first time, or the second, that your veins have appeased my thirst!' I was bewildered, and, strangely enough, I did not want to hinder him. I suppose it is a part of the horrible curse that such is, when his touch is on his victim. And oh, my God, my God, pity me! He placed his reeking lips upon my throat!" Her husband groaned again. She clasped his hand harder, and looked at him pityingly, as if he were the injured one, and went on:-- "I felt my strength fading away, and I was in a half swoon. How long this horrible thing lasted I know not; but it seemed that a long time must have passed before he took his foul, awful, sneering mouth away. I saw it drip with the fresh blood!" The remembrance seemed for a while to overpower her, and she drooped and would have sunk down but for her husband's sustaining arm. With a great effort she recovered herself and went on:-- "Then he spoke to me mockingly, 'And so you, like the others, would play your brains against mine. You would help these men to hunt me and frustrate me in my designs! You know now, and they know in part already, and will know in full before long, what it is to cross my path. They should have kept their energies for use closer to home. Whilst they played wits against me--against me who commanded nations, and intrigued for them, and fought for them, hundreds of years before they were born--I was countermining them. And you, their best beloved one, are now to me, flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood; kin of my kin; my bountiful wine-press for a while; and shall be later on my companion and my helper. You shall be avenged in turn; for not one of them but shall minister to your needs. But as yet you are to be punished for what you have done. You have aided in thwarting me; now you shall come to my call. When my brain says "Come!" to you, you shall cross land or sea to do my bidding; and to that end this!' With that he pulled open his shirt, and with his long sharp nails opened a vein in his breast. When the blood began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his, holding them tight, and with the other seized my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound, so that I must either suffocate or swallow some of the---- Oh my God! my God! what have I done? What have I done to deserve such a fate, I who have tried to walk in meekness and righteousness all my days. God pity me! Look down on a poor soul in worse than mortal peril; and in mercy pity those to whom she is dear!" Then she began to rub her lips as though to cleanse them from pollution. As she was telling her terrible story, the eastern sky began to quicken, and everything became more and more clear. Harker was still and quiet; but over his face, as the awful narrative went on, came a grey look which deepened and deepened in the morning light, till when the first red streak of the coming dawn shot up, the flesh stood darkly out against the whitening hair. We have arranged that one of us is to stay within call of the unhappy pair till we can meet together and arrange about taking action. Of this I am sure: the sun rises to-day on no more miserable house in all the great round of its daily course. CHAPTER XXII JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL _3 October._--As I must do something or go mad, I write this diary. It is now six o'clock, and we are to meet in the study in half an hour and take something to eat; for Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward are agreed that if we do not eat we cannot work our best. Our best will be, God knows, required to-day. I must keep writing at every chance, for I dare not stop to think. All, big and little, must go down; perhaps at the end the little things may teach us most. The teaching, big or little, could not have landed Mina or me anywhere worse than we are to-day. However, we must trust and hope. Poor Mina told me just now, with the tears running down her dear cheeks, that it is in trouble and trial that our faith is tested--that we must keep on trusting; and that God will aid us up to the end. The end! oh my God! what end?... To work! To work! When Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward had come back from seeing poor Renfield, we went gravely into what was to be done. First, Dr. Seward told us that when he and Dr. Van Helsing had gone down to the room below they had found Renfield lying on the floor, all in a heap. His face was all bruised and crushed in, and the bones of the neck were broken. Dr. Seward asked the attendant who was on duty in the passage if he had heard anything. He said that he had been sitting down--he confessed to half dozing--when he heard loud voices in the room, and then Renfield had called out loudly several times, "God! God! God!" after that there was a sound of falling, and when he entered the room he found him lying on the floor, face down, just as the doctors had seen him. Van Helsing asked if he had heard "voices" or "a voice," and he said he could not say; that at first it had seemed to him as if there were two, but as there was no one in the room it could have been only one. He could swear to it, if required, that the word "God" was spoken by the patient. Dr. Seward said to us, when we were alone, that he did not wish to go into the matter; the question of an inquest had to be considered, and it would never do to put forward the truth, as no one would believe it. As it was, he thought that on the attendant's evidence he could give a certificate of death by misadventure in falling from bed. In case the coroner should demand it, there would be a formal inquest, necessarily to the same result. When the question began to be discussed as to what should be our next step, the very first thing we decided was that Mina should be in full confidence; that nothing of any sort--no matter how painful--should be kept from her. She herself agreed as to its wisdom, and it was pitiful to see her so brave and yet so sorrowful, and in such a depth of despair. "There must be no concealment," she said, "Alas! we have had too much already. And besides there is nothing in all the world that can give me more pain than I have already endured--than I suffer now! Whatever may happen, it must be of new hope or of new courage to me!" Van Helsing was looking at her fixedly as she spoke, and said, suddenly but quietly:-- "But dear Madam Mina, are you not afraid; not for yourself, but for others from yourself, after what has happened?" Her face grew set in its lines, but her eyes shone with the devotion of a martyr as she answered:-- "Ah no! for my mind is made up!" "To what?" he asked gently, whilst we were all very still; for each in our own way we had a sort of vague idea of what she meant. Her answer came with direct simplicity, as though she were simply stating a fact:-- "Because if I find in myself--and I shall watch keenly for it--a sign of harm to any that I love, I shall die!" "You would not kill yourself?" he asked, hoarsely. "I would; if there were no friend who loved me, who would save me such a pain, and so desperate an effort!" She looked at him meaningly as she spoke. He was sitting down; but now he rose and came close to her and put his hand on her head as he said solemnly: "My child, there is such an one if it were for your good. For myself I could hold it in my account with God to find such an euthanasia for you, even at this moment if it were best. Nay, were it safe! But my child----" For a moment he seemed choked, and a great sob rose in his throat; he gulped it down and went on:-- "There are here some who would stand between you and death. You must not die. You must not die by any hand; but least of all by your own. Until the other, who has fouled your sweet life, is true dead you must not die; for if he is still with the quick Un-Dead, your death would make you even as he is. No, you must live! You must struggle and strive to live, though death would seem a boon unspeakable. You must fight Death himself, though he come to you in pain or in joy; by the day, or the night; in safety or in peril! On your living soul I charge you that you do not die--nay, nor think of death--till this great evil be past." The poor dear grew white as death, and shock and shivered, as I have seen a quicksand shake and shiver at the incoming of the tide. We were all silent; we could do nothing. At length she grew more calm and turning to him said, sweetly, but oh! so sorrowfully, as she held out her hand:-- "I promise you, my dear friend, that if God will let me live, I shall strive to do so; till, if it may be in His good time, this horror may have passed away from me." She was so good and brave that we all felt that our hearts were strengthened to work and endure for her, and we began to discuss what we were to do. I told her that she was to have all the papers in the safe, and all the papers or diaries and phonographs we might hereafter use; and was to keep the record as she had done before. She was pleased with the prospect of anything to do--if "pleased" could be used in connection with so grim an interest. As usual Van Helsing had thought ahead of everyone else, and was prepared with an exact ordering of our work. "It is perhaps well," he said, "that at our meeting after our visit to Carfax we decided not to do anything with the earth-boxes that lay there. Had we done so, the Count must have guessed our purpose, and would doubtless have taken measures in advance to frustrate such an effort with regard to the others; but now he does not know our intentions. Nay, more, in all probability, he does not know that such a power exists to us as can sterilise his lairs, so that he cannot use them as of old. We are now so much further advanced in our knowledge as to their disposition that, when we have examined the house in Piccadilly, we may track the very last of them. To-day, then, is ours; and in it rests our hope. The sun that rose on our sorrow this morning guards us in its course. Until it sets to-night, that monster must retain whatever form he now has. He is confined within the limitations of his earthly envelope. He cannot melt into thin air nor disappear through cracks or chinks or crannies. If he go through a doorway, he must open the door like a mortal. And so we have this day to hunt out all his lairs and sterilise them. So we shall, if we have not yet catch him and destroy him, drive him to bay in some place where the catching and the destroying shall be, in time, sure." Here I started up for I could not contain myself at the thought that the minutes and seconds so preciously laden with Mina's life and happiness were flying from us, since whilst we talked action was impossible. But Van Helsing held up his hand warningly. "Nay, friend Jonathan," he said, "in this, the quickest way home is the longest way, so your proverb say. We shall all act and act with desperate quick, when the time has come. But think, in all probable the key of the situation is in that house in Piccadilly. The Count may have many houses which he has bought. Of them he will have deeds of purchase, keys and other things. He will have paper that he write on; he will have his book of cheques. There are many belongings that he must have somewhere; why not in this place so central, so quiet, where he come and go by the front or the back at all hour, when in the very vast of the traffic there is none to notice. We shall go there and search that house; and when we learn what it holds, then we do what our friend Arthur call, in his phrases of hunt 'stop the earths' and so we run down our old fox--so? is it not?" "Then let us come at once," I cried, "we are wasting the precious, precious time!" The Professor did not move, but simply said:-- "And how are we to get into that house in Piccadilly?" "Any way!" I cried. "We shall break in if need be." "And your police; where will they be, and what will they say?" I was staggered; but I knew that if he wished to delay he had a good reason for it. So I said, as quietly as I could:-- "Don't wait more than need be; you know, I am sure, what torture I am in." "Ah, my child, that I do; and indeed there is no wish of me to add to your anguish. But just think, what can we do, until all the world be at movement. Then will come our time. I have thought and thought, and it seems to me that the simplest way is the best of all. Now we wish to get into the house, but we have no key; is it not so?" I nodded. "Now suppose that you were, in truth, the owner of that house, and could not still get it; and think there was to you no conscience of the housebreaker, what would you do?" "I should get a respectable locksmith, and set him to work to pick the lock for me." "And your police, they would interfere, would they not?" "Oh, no! not if they knew the man was properly employed." "Then," he looked at me as keenly as he spoke, "all that is in doubt is the conscience of the employer, and the belief of your policemen as to whether or no that employer has a good conscience or a bad one. Your police must indeed be zealous men and clever--oh, so clever!--in reading the heart, that they trouble themselves in such matter. No, no, my friend Jonathan, you go take the lock off a hundred empty house in this your London, or of any city in the world; and if you do it as such things are rightly done, and at the time such things are rightly done, no one will interfere. I have read of a gentleman who owned a so fine house in London, and when he went for months of summer to Switzerland and lock up his house, some burglar came and broke window at back and got in. Then he went and made open the shutters in front and walk out and in through the door, before the very eyes of the police. Then he have an auction in that house, and advertise it, and put up big notice; and when the day come he sell off by a great auctioneer all the goods of that other man who own them. Then he go to a builder, and he sell him that house, making an agreement that he pull it down and take all away within a certain time. And your police and other authority help him all they can. And when that owner come back from his holiday in Switzerland he find only an empty hole where his house had been. This was all done _en règle_; and in our work we shall be _en règle_ too. We shall not go so early that the policemen who have then little to think of, shall deem it strange; but we shall go after ten o'clock, when there are many about, and such things would be done were we indeed owners of the house." I could not but see how right he was and the terrible despair of Mina's face became relaxed a thought; there was hope in such good counsel. Van Helsing went on:-- "When once within that house we may find more clues; at any rate some of us can remain there whilst the rest find the other places where there be more earth-boxes--at Bermondsey and Mile End." Lord Godalming stood up. "I can be of some use here," he said. "I shall wire to my people to have horses and carriages where they will be most convenient." "Look here, old fellow," said Morris, "it is a capital idea to have all ready in case we want to go horsebacking; but don't you think that one of your snappy carriages with its heraldic adornments in a byway of Walworth or Mile End would attract too much attention for our purposes? It seems to me that we ought to take cabs when we go south or east; and even leave them somewhere near the neighbourhood we are going to." "Friend Quincey is right!" said the Professor. "His head is what you call in plane with the horizon. It is a difficult thing that we go to do, and we do not want no peoples to watch us if so it may." Mina took a growing interest in everything and I was rejoiced to see that the exigency of affairs was helping her to forget for a time the terrible experience of the night. She was very, very pale--almost ghastly, and so thin that her lips were drawn away, showing her teeth in somewhat of prominence. I did not mention this last, lest it should give her needless pain; but it made my blood run cold in my veins to think of what had occurred with poor Lucy when the Count had sucked her blood. As yet there was no sign of the teeth growing sharper; but the time as yet was short, and there was time for fear. When we came to the discussion of the sequence of our efforts and of the disposition of our forces, there were new sources of doubt. It was finally agreed that before starting for Piccadilly we should destroy the Count's lair close at hand. In case he should find it out too soon, we should thus be still ahead of him in our work of destruction; and his presence in his purely material shape, and at his weakest, might give us some new clue. As to the disposal of forces, it was suggested by the Professor that, after our visit to Carfax, we should all enter the house in Piccadilly; that the two doctors and I should remain there, whilst Lord Godalming and Quincey found the lairs at Walworth and Mile End and destroyed them. It was possible, if not likely, the Professor urged, that the Count might appear in Piccadilly during the day, and that if so we might be able to cope with him then and there. At any rate, we might be able to follow him in force. To this plan I strenuously objected, and so far as my going was concerned, for I said that I intended to stay and protect Mina, I thought that my mind was made up on the subject; but Mina would not listen to my objection. She said that there might be some law matter in which I could be useful; that amongst the Count's papers might be some clue which I could understand out of my experience in Transylvania; and that, as it was, all the strength we could muster was required to cope with the Count's extraordinary power. I had to give in, for Mina's resolution was fixed; she said that it was the last hope for _her_ that we should all work together. "As for me," she said, "I have no fear. Things have been as bad as they can be; and whatever may happen must have in it some element of hope or comfort. Go, my husband! God can, if He wishes it, guard me as well alone as with any one present." So I started up crying out: "Then in God's name let us come at once, for we are losing time. The Count may come to Piccadilly earlier than we think." "Not so!" said Van Helsing, holding up his hand. "But why?" I asked. "Do you forget," he said, with actually a smile, "that last night he banqueted heavily, and will sleep late?" Did I forget! shall I ever--can I ever! Can any of us ever forget that terrible scene! Mina struggled hard to keep her brave countenance; but the pain overmastered her and she put her hands before her face, and shuddered whilst she moaned. Van Helsing had not intended to recall her frightful experience. He had simply lost sight of her and her part in the affair in his intellectual effort. When it struck him what he said, he was horrified at his thoughtlessness and tried to comfort her. "Oh, Madam Mina," he said, "dear, dear Madam Mina, alas! that I of all who so reverence you should have said anything so forgetful. These stupid old lips of mine and this stupid old head do not deserve so; but you will forget it, will you not?" He bent low beside her as he spoke; she took his hand, and looking at him through her tears, said hoarsely:-- "No, I shall not forget, for it is well that I remember; and with it I have so much in memory of you that is sweet, that I take it all together. Now, you must all be going soon. Breakfast is ready, and we must all eat that we may be strong." Breakfast was a strange meal to us all. We tried to be cheerful and encourage each other, and Mina was the brightest and most cheerful of us. When it was over, Van Helsing stood up and said:-- "Now, my dear friends, we go forth to our terrible enterprise. Are we all armed, as we were on that night when first we visited our enemy's lair; armed against ghostly as well as carnal attack?" We all assured him. "Then it is well. Now, Madam Mina, you are in any case _quite_ safe here until the sunset; and before then we shall return--if---- We shall return! But before we go let me see you armed against personal attack. I have myself, since you came down, prepared your chamber by the placing of things of which we know, so that He may not enter. Now let me guard yourself. On your forehead I touch this piece of Sacred Wafer in the name of the Father, the Son, and----" There was a fearful scream which almost froze our hearts to hear. As he had placed the Wafer on Mina's forehead, it had seared it--had burned into the flesh as though it had been a piece of white-hot metal. My poor darling's brain had told her the significance of the fact as quickly as her nerves received the pain of it; and the two so overwhelmed her that her overwrought nature had its voice in that dreadful scream. But the words to her thought came quickly; the echo of the scream had not ceased to ring on the air when there came the reaction, and she sank on her knees on the floor in an agony of abasement. Pulling her beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she wailed out:-- "Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgment Day." They all paused. I had thrown myself beside her in an agony of helpless grief, and putting my arms around held her tight. For a few minutes our sorrowful hearts beat together, whilst the friends around us turned away their eyes that ran tears silently. Then Van Helsing turned and said gravely; so gravely that I could not help feeling that he was in some way inspired, and was stating things outside himself:-- "It may be that you may have to bear that mark till God himself see fit, as He most surely shall, on the Judgment Day, to redress all wrongs of the earth and of His children that He has placed thereon. And oh, Madam Mina, my dear, my dear, may we who love you be there to see, when that red scar, the sign of God's knowledge of what has been, shall pass away, and leave your forehead as pure as the heart we know. For so surely as we live, that scar shall pass away when God sees right to lift the burden that is hard upon us. Till then we bear our Cross, as His Son did in obedience to His Will. It may be that we are chosen instruments of His good pleasure, and that we ascend to His bidding as that other through stripes and shame; through tears and blood; through doubts and fears, and all that makes the difference between God and man." There was hope in his words, and comfort; and they made for resignation. Mina and I both felt so, and simultaneously we each took one of the old man's hands and bent over and kissed it. Then without a word we all knelt down together, and, all holding hands, swore to be true to each other. We men pledged ourselves to raise the veil of sorrow from the head of her whom, each in his own way, we loved; and we prayed for help and guidance in the terrible task which lay before us. It was then time to start. So I said farewell to Mina, a parting which neither of us shall forget to our dying day; and we set out. To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old times one vampire meant many; just as their hideous bodies could only rest in sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for their ghastly ranks. We entered Carfax without trouble and found all things the same as on the first occasion. It was hard to believe that amongst so prosaic surroundings of neglect and dust and decay there was any ground for such fear as already we knew. Had not our minds been made up, and had there not been terrible memories to spur us on, we could hardly have proceeded with our task. We found no papers, or any sign of use in the house; and in the old chapel the great boxes looked just as we had seen them last. Dr. Van Helsing said to us solemnly as we stood before them:-- "And now, my friends, we have a duty here to do. We must sterilise this earth, so sacred of holy memories, that he has brought from a far distant land for such fell use. He has chosen this earth because it has been holy. Thus we defeat him with his own weapon, for we make it more holy still. It was sanctified to such use of man, now we sanctify it to God." As he spoke he took from his bag a screwdriver and a wrench, and very soon the top of one of the cases was thrown open. The earth smelled musty and close; but we did not somehow seem to mind, for our attention was concentrated on the Professor. Taking from his box a piece of the Sacred Wafer he laid it reverently on the earth, and then shutting down the lid began to screw it home, we aiding him as he worked. One by one we treated in the same way each of the great boxes, and left them as we had found them to all appearance; but in each was a portion of the Host. When we closed the door behind us, the Professor said solemnly:-- "So much is already done. If it may be that with all the others we can be so successful, then the sunset of this evening may shine on Madam Mina's forehead all white as ivory and with no stain!" As we passed across the lawn on our way to the station to catch our train we could see the front of the asylum. I looked eagerly, and in the window of my own room saw Mina. I waved my hand to her, and nodded to tell that our work there was successfully accomplished. She nodded in reply to show that she understood. The last I saw, she was waving her hand in farewell. It was with a heavy heart that we sought the station and just caught the train, which was steaming in as we reached the platform. I have written this in the train. * * * * * _Piccadilly, 12:30 o'clock._--Just before we reached Fenchurch Street Lord Godalming said to me:-- "Quincey and I will find a locksmith. You had better not come with us in case there should be any difficulty; for under the circumstances it wouldn't seem so bad for us to break into an empty house. But you are a solicitor and the Incorporated Law Society might tell you that you should have known better." I demurred as to my not sharing any danger even of odium, but he went on: "Besides, it will attract less attention if there are not too many of us. My title will make it all right with the locksmith, and with any policeman that may come along. You had better go with Jack and the Professor and stay in the Green Park, somewhere in sight of the house; and when you see the door opened and the smith has gone away, do you all come across. We shall be on the lookout for you, and shall let you in." "The advice is good!" said Van Helsing, so we said no more. Godalming and Morris hurried off in a cab, we following in another. At the corner of Arlington Street our contingent got out and strolled into the Green Park. My heart beat as I saw the house on which so much of our hope was centred, looming up grim and silent in its deserted condition amongst its more lively and spruce-looking neighbours. We sat down on a bench within good view, and began to smoke cigars so as to attract as little attention as possible. The minutes seemed to pass with leaden feet as we waited for the coming of the others. At length we saw a four-wheeler drive up. Out of it, in leisurely fashion, got Lord Godalming and Morris; and down from the box descended a thick-set working man with his rush-woven basket of tools. Morris paid the cabman, who touched his hat and drove away. Together the two ascended the steps, and Lord Godalming pointed out what he wanted done. The workman took off his coat leisurely and hung it on one of the spikes of the rail, saying something to a policeman who just then sauntered along. The policeman nodded acquiescence, and the man kneeling down placed his bag beside him. After searching through it, he took out a selection of tools which he produced to lay beside him in orderly fashion. Then he stood up, looked into the keyhole, blew into it, and turning to his employers, made some remark. Lord Godalming smiled, and the man lifted a good-sized bunch of keys; selecting one of them, he began to probe the lock, as if feeling his way with it. After fumbling about for a bit he tried a second, and then a third. All at once the door opened under a slight push from him, and he and the two others entered the hall. We sat still; my own cigar burnt furiously, but Van Helsing's went cold altogether. We waited patiently as we saw the workman come out and bring in his bag. Then he held the door partly open, steadying it with his knees, whilst he fitted a key to the lock. This he finally handed to Lord Godalming, who took out his purse and gave him something. The man touched his hat, took his bag, put on his coat and departed; not a soul took the slightest notice of the whole transaction. When the man had fairly gone, we three crossed the street and knocked at the door. It was immediately opened by Quincey Morris, beside whom stood Lord Godalming lighting a cigar. "The place smells so vilely," said the latter as we came in. It did indeed smell vilely--like the old chapel at Carfax--and with our previous experience it was plain to us that the Count had been using the place pretty freely. We moved to explore the house, all keeping together in case of attack; for we knew we had a strong and wily enemy to deal with, and as yet we did not know whether the Count might not be in the house. In the dining-room, which lay at the back of the hall, we found eight boxes of earth. Eight boxes only out of the nine, which we sought! Our work was not over, and would never be until we should have found the missing box. First we opened the shutters of the window which looked out across a narrow stone-flagged yard at the blank face of a stable, pointed to look like the front of a miniature house. There were no windows in it, so we were not afraid of being over-looked. We did not lose any time in examining the chests. With the tools which we had brought with us we opened them, one by one, and treated them as we had treated those others in the old chapel. It was evident to us that the Count was not at present in the house, and we proceeded to search for any of his effects. After a cursory glance at the rest of the rooms, from basement to attic, we came to the conclusion that the dining-room contained any effects which might belong to the Count; and so we proceeded to minutely examine them. They lay in a sort of orderly disorder on the great dining-room table. There were title deeds of the Piccadilly house in a great bundle; deeds of the purchase of the houses at Mile End and Bermondsey; note-paper, envelopes, and pens and ink. All were covered up in thin wrapping paper to keep them from the dust. There were also a clothes brush, a brush and comb, and a jug and basin--the latter containing dirty water which was reddened as if with blood. Last of all was a little heap of keys of all sorts and sizes, probably those belonging to the other houses. When we had examined this last find, Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris taking accurate notes of the various addresses of the houses in the East and the South, took with them the keys in a great bunch, and set out to destroy the boxes in these places. The rest of us are, with what patience we can, waiting their return--or the coming of the Count. CHAPTER XXIII DR. SEWARD'S DIARY _3 October._--The time seemed terrible long whilst we were waiting for the coming of Godalming and Quincey Morris. The Professor tried to keep our minds active by using them all the time. I could see his beneficent purpose, by the side glances which he threw from time to time at Harker. The poor fellow is overwhelmed in a misery that is appalling to see. Last night he was a frank, happy-looking man, with strong, youthful face, full of energy, and with dark brown hair. To-day he is a drawn, haggard old man, whose white hair matches well with the hollow burning eyes and grief-written lines of his face. His energy is still intact; in fact, he is like a living flame. This may yet be his salvation, for, if all go well, it will tide him over the despairing period; he will then, in a kind of way, wake again to the realities of life. Poor fellow, I thought my own trouble was bad enough, but his----! The Professor knows this well enough, and is doing his best to keep his mind active. What he has been saying was, under the circumstances, of absorbing interest. So well as I can remember, here it is:-- "I have studied, over and over again since they came into my hands, all the papers relating to this monster; and the more I have studied, the greater seems the necessity to utterly stamp him out. All through there are signs of his advance; not only of his power, but of his knowledge of it. As I learned from the researches of my friend Arminus of Buda-Pesth, he was in life a most wonderful man. Soldier, statesman, and alchemist--which latter was the highest development of the science-knowledge of his time. He had a mighty brain, a learning beyond compare, and a heart that knew no fear and no remorse. He dared even to attend the Scholomance, and there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay. Well, in him the brain powers survived the physical death; though it would seem that memory was not all complete. In some faculties of mind he has been, and is, only a child; but he is growing, and some things that were childish at the first are now of man's stature. He is experimenting, and doing it well; and if it had not been that we have crossed his path he would be yet--he may be yet if we fail--the father or furtherer of a new order of beings, whose road must lead through Death, not Life." Harker groaned and said, "And this is all arrayed against my darling! But how is he experimenting? The knowledge may help us to defeat him!" "He has all along, since his coming, been trying his power, slowly but surely; that big child-brain of his is working. Well for us, it is, as yet, a child-brain; for had he dared, at the first, to attempt certain things he would long ago have been beyond our power. However, he means to succeed, and a man who has centuries before him can afford to wait and to go slow. _Festina lente_ may well be his motto." "I fail to understand," said Harker wearily. "Oh, do be more plain to me! Perhaps grief and trouble are dulling my brain." The Professor laid his hand tenderly on his shoulder as he spoke:-- "Ah, my child, I will be plain. Do you not see how, of late, this monster has been creeping into knowledge experimentally. How he has been making use of the zoöphagous patient to effect his entry into friend John's home; for your Vampire, though in all afterwards he can come when and how he will, must at the first make entry only when asked thereto by an inmate. But these are not his most important experiments. Do we not see how at the first all these so great boxes were moved by others. He knew not then but that must be so. But all the time that so great child-brain of his was growing, and he began to consider whether he might not himself move the box. So he began to help; and then, when he found that this be all-right, he try to move them all alone. And so he progress, and he scatter these graves of him; and none but he know where they are hidden. He may have intend to bury them deep in the ground. So that he only use them in the night, or at such time as he can change his form, they do him equal well; and none may know these are his hiding-place! But, my child, do not despair; this knowledge come to him just too late! Already all of his lairs but one be sterilise as for him; and before the sunset this shall be so. Then he have no place where he can move and hide. I delayed this morning that so we might be sure. Is there not more at stake for us than for him? Then why we not be even more careful than him? By my clock it is one hour and already, if all be well, friend Arthur and Quincey are on their way to us. To-day is our day, and we must go sure, if slow, and lose no chance. See! there are five of us when those absent ones return." Whilst he was speaking we were startled by a knock at the hall door, the double postman's knock of the telegraph boy. We all moved out to the hall with one impulse, and Van Helsing, holding up his hand to us to keep silence, stepped to the door and opened it. The boy handed in a despatch. The Professor closed the door again, and, after looking at the direction, opened it and read aloud. "Look out for D. He has just now, 12:45, come from Carfax hurriedly and hastened towards the South. He seems to be going the round and may want to see you: Mina." There was a pause, broken by Jonathan Harker's voice:-- "Now, God be thanked, we shall soon meet!" Van Helsing turned to him quickly and said:-- "God will act in His own way and time. Do not fear, and do not rejoice as yet; for what we wish for at the moment may be our undoings." "I care for nothing now," he answered hotly, "except to wipe out this brute from the face of creation. I would sell my soul to do it!" "Oh, hush, hush, my child!" said Van Helsing. "God does not purchase souls in this wise; and the Devil, though he may purchase, does not keep faith. But God is merciful and just, and knows your pain and your devotion to that dear Madam Mina. Think you, how her pain would be doubled, did she but hear your wild words. Do not fear any of us, we are all devoted to this cause, and to-day shall see the end. The time is coming for action; to-day this Vampire is limit to the powers of man, and till sunset he may not change. It will take him time to arrive here--see, it is twenty minutes past one--and there are yet some times before he can hither come, be he never so quick. What we must hope for is that my Lord Arthur and Quincey arrive first." About half an hour after we had received Mrs. Harker's telegram, there came a quiet, resolute knock at the hall door. It was just an ordinary knock, such as is given hourly by thousands of gentlemen, but it made the Professor's heart and mine beat loudly. We looked at each other, and together moved out into the hall; we each held ready to use our various armaments--the spiritual in the left hand, the mortal in the right. Van Helsing pulled back the latch, and, holding the door half open, stood back, having both hands ready for action. The gladness of our hearts must have shown upon our faces when on the step, close to the door, we saw Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris. They came quickly in and closed the door behind them, the former saying, as they moved along the hall:-- "It is all right. We found both places; six boxes in each and we destroyed them all!" "Destroyed?" asked the Professor. "For him!" We were silent for a minute, and then Quincey said:-- "There's nothing to do but to wait here. If, however, he doesn't turn up by five o'clock, we must start off; for it won't do to leave Mrs. Harker alone after sunset." "He will be here before long now," said Van Helsing, who had been consulting his pocket-book. "_Nota bene_, in Madam's telegram he went south from Carfax, that means he went to cross the river, and he could only do so at slack of tide, which should be something before one o'clock. That he went south has a meaning for us. He is as yet only suspicious; and he went from Carfax first to the place where he would suspect interference least. You must have been at Bermondsey only a short time before him. That he is not here already shows that he went to Mile End next. This took him some time; for he would then have to be carried over the river in some way. Believe me, my friends, we shall not have long to wait now. We should have ready some plan of attack, so that we may throw away no chance. Hush, there is no time now. Have all your arms! Be ready!" He held up a warning hand as he spoke, for we all could hear a key softly inserted in the lock of the hall door. I could not but admire, even at such a moment, the way in which a dominant spirit asserted itself. In all our hunting parties and adventures in different parts of the world, Quincey Morris had always been the one to arrange the plan of action, and Arthur and I had been accustomed to obey him implicitly. Now, the old habit seemed to be renewed instinctively. With a swift glance around the room, he at once laid out our plan of attack, and, without speaking a word, with a gesture, placed us each in position. Van Helsing, Harker, and I were just behind the door, so that when it was opened the Professor could guard it whilst we two stepped between the incomer and the door. Godalming behind and Quincey in front stood just out of sight ready to move in front of the window. We waited in a suspense that made the seconds pass with nightmare slowness. The slow, careful steps came along the hall; the Count was evidently prepared for some surprise--at least he feared it. Suddenly with a single bound he leaped into the room, winning a way past us before any of us could raise a hand to stay him. There was something so panther-like in the movement--something so unhuman, that it seemed to sober us all from the shock of his coming. The first to act was Harker, who, with a quick movement, threw himself before the door leading into the room in the front of the house. As the Count saw us, a horrible sort of snarl passed over his face, showing the eye-teeth long and pointed; but the evil smile as quickly passed into a cold stare of lion-like disdain. His expression again changed as, with a single impulse, we all advanced upon him. It was a pity that we had not some better organised plan of attack, for even at the moment I wondered what we were to do. I did not myself know whether our lethal weapons would avail us anything. Harker evidently meant to try the matter, for he had ready his great Kukri knife and made a fierce and sudden cut at him. The blow was a powerful one; only the diabolical quickness of the Count's leap back saved him. A second less and the trenchant blade had shorne through his heart. As it was, the point just cut the cloth of his coat, making a wide gap whence a bundle of bank-notes and a stream of gold fell out. The expression of the Count's face was so hellish, that for a moment I feared for Harker, though I saw him throw the terrible knife aloft again for another stroke. Instinctively I moved forward with a protective impulse, holding the Crucifix and Wafer in my left hand. I felt a mighty power fly along my arm; and it was without surprise that I saw the monster cower back before a similar movement made spontaneously by each one of us. It would be impossible to describe the expression of hate and baffled malignity--of anger and hellish rage--which came over the Count's face. His waxen hue became greenish-yellow by the contrast of his burning eyes, and the red scar on the forehead showed on the pallid skin like a palpitating wound. The next instant, with a sinuous dive he swept under Harker's arm, ere his blow could fall, and, grasping a handful of the money from the floor, dashed across the room, threw himself at the window. Amid the crash and glitter of the falling glass, he tumbled into the flagged area below. Through the sound of the shivering glass I could hear the "ting" of the gold, as some of the sovereigns fell on the flagging. We ran over and saw him spring unhurt from the ground. He, rushing up the steps, crossed the flagged yard, and pushed open the stable door. There he turned and spoke to us:-- "You think to baffle me, you--with your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butcher's. You shall be sorry yet, each one of you! You think you have left me without a place to rest; but I have more. My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already; and through them you and others shall yet be mine--my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed. Bah!" With a contemptuous sneer, he passed quickly through the door, and we heard the rusty bolt creak as he fastened it behind him. A door beyond opened and shut. The first of us to speak was the Professor, as, realising the difficulty of following him through the stable, we moved toward the hall. "We have learnt something--much! Notwithstanding his brave words, he fears us; he fear time, he fear want! For if not, why he hurry so? His very tone betray him, or my ears deceive. Why take that money? You follow quick. You are hunters of wild beast, and understand it so. For me, I make sure that nothing here may be of use to him, if so that he return." As he spoke he put the money remaining into his pocket; took the title-deeds in the bundle as Harker had left them, and swept the remaining things into the open fireplace, where he set fire to them with a match. Godalming and Morris had rushed out into the yard, and Harker had lowered himself from the window to follow the Count. He had, however, bolted the stable door; and by the time they had forced it open there was no sign of him. Van Helsing and I tried to make inquiry at the back of the house; but the mews was deserted and no one had seen him depart. It was now late in the afternoon, and sunset was not far off. We had to recognise that our game was up; with heavy hearts we agreed with the Professor when he said:-- "Let us go back to Madam Mina--poor, poor dear Madam Mina. All we can do just now is done; and we can there, at least, protect her. But we need not despair. There is but one more earth-box, and we must try to find it; when that is done all may yet be well." I could see that he spoke as bravely as he could to comfort Harker. The poor fellow was quite broken down; now and again he gave a low groan which he could not suppress--he was thinking of his wife. With sad hearts we came back to my house, where we found Mrs. Harker waiting us, with an appearance of cheerfulness which did honour to her bravery and unselfishness. When she saw our faces, her own became as pale as death: for a second or two her eyes were closed as if she were in secret prayer; and then she said cheerfully:-- "I can never thank you all enough. Oh, my poor darling!" As she spoke, she took her husband's grey head in her hands and kissed it--"Lay your poor head here and rest it. All will yet be well, dear! God will protect us if He so will it in His good intent." The poor fellow groaned. There was no place for words in his sublime misery. We had a sort of perfunctory supper together, and I think it cheered us all up somewhat. It was, perhaps, the mere animal heat of food to hungry people--for none of us had eaten anything since breakfast--or the sense of companionship may have helped us; but anyhow we were all less miserable, and saw the morrow as not altogether without hope. True to our promise, we told Mrs. Harker everything which had passed; and although she grew snowy white at times when danger had seemed to threaten her husband, and red at others when his devotion to her was manifested, she listened bravely and with calmness. When we came to the part where Harker had rushed at the Count so recklessly, she clung to her husband's arm, and held it tight as though her clinging could protect him from any harm that might come. She said nothing, however, till the narration was all done, and matters had been brought right up to the present time. Then without letting go her husband's hand she stood up amongst us and spoke. Oh, that I could give any idea of the scene; of that sweet, sweet, good, good woman in all the radiant beauty of her youth and animation, with the red scar on her forehead, of which she was conscious, and which we saw with grinding of our teeth--remembering whence and how it came; her loving kindness against our grim hate; her tender faith against all our fears and doubting; and we, knowing that so far as symbols went, she with all her goodness and purity and faith, was outcast from God. "Jonathan," she said, and the word sounded like music on her lips it was so full of love and tenderness, "Jonathan dear, and you all my true, true friends, I want you to bear something in mind through all this dreadful time. I know that you must fight--that you must destroy even as you destroyed the false Lucy so that the true Lucy might live hereafter; but it is not a work of hate. That poor soul who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all. Just think what will be his joy when he, too, is destroyed in his worser part that his better part may have spiritual immortality. You must be pitiful to him, too, though it may not hold your hands from his destruction." As she spoke I could see her husband's face darken and draw together, as though the passion in him were shrivelling his being to its core. Instinctively the clasp on his wife's hand grew closer, till his knuckles looked white. She did not flinch from the pain which I knew she must have suffered, but looked at him with eyes that were more appealing than ever. As she stopped speaking he leaped to his feet, almost tearing his hand from hers as he spoke:-- "May God give him into my hand just for long enough to destroy that earthly life of him which we are aiming at. If beyond it I could send his soul for ever and ever to burning hell I would do it!" "Oh, hush! oh, hush! in the name of the good God. Don't say such things, Jonathan, my husband; or you will crush me with fear and horror. Just think, my dear--I have been thinking all this long, long day of it--that ... perhaps ... some day ... I, too, may need such pity; and that some other like you--and with equal cause for anger--may deny it to me! Oh, my husband! my husband, indeed I would have spared you such a thought had there been another way; but I pray that God may not have treasured your wild words, except as the heart-broken wail of a very loving and sorely stricken man. Oh, God, let these poor white hairs go in evidence of what he has suffered, who all his life has done no wrong, and on whom so many sorrows have come." We men were all in tears now. There was no resisting them, and we wept openly. She wept, too, to see that her sweeter counsels had prevailed. Her husband flung himself on his knees beside her, and putting his arms round her, hid his face in the folds of her dress. Van Helsing beckoned to us and we stole out of the room, leaving the two loving hearts alone with their God. Before they retired the Professor fixed up the room against any coming of the Vampire, and assured Mrs. Harker that she might rest in peace. She tried to school herself to the belief, and, manifestly for her husband's sake, tried to seem content. It was a brave struggle; and was, I think and believe, not without its reward. Van Helsing had placed at hand a bell which either of them was to sound in case of any emergency. When they had retired, Quincey, Godalming, and I arranged that we should sit up, dividing the night between us, and watch over the safety of the poor stricken lady. The first watch falls to Quincey, so the rest of us shall be off to bed as soon as we can. Godalming has already turned in, for his is the second watch. Now that my work is done I, too, shall go to bed. _Jonathan Harker's Journal._ _3-4 October, close to midnight._--I thought yesterday would never end. There was over me a yearning for sleep, in some sort of blind belief that to wake would be to find things changed, and that any change must now be for the better. Before we parted, we discussed what our next step was to be, but we could arrive at no result. All we knew was that one earth-box remained, and that the Count alone knew where it was. If he chooses to lie hidden, he may baffle us for years; and in the meantime!--the thought is too horrible, I dare not think of it even now. This I know: that if ever there was a woman who was all perfection, that one is my poor wronged darling. I love her a thousand times more for her sweet pity of last night, a pity that made my own hate of the monster seem despicable. Surely God will not permit the world to be the poorer by the loss of such a creature. This is hope to me. We are all drifting reefwards now, and faith is our only anchor. Thank God! Mina is sleeping, and sleeping without dreams. I fear what her dreams might be like, with such terrible memories to ground them in. She has not been so calm, within my seeing, since the sunset. Then, for a while, there came over her face a repose which was like spring after the blasts of March. I thought at the time that it was the softness of the red sunset on her face, but somehow now I think it has a deeper meaning. I am not sleepy myself, though I am weary--weary to death. However, I must try to sleep; for there is to-morrow to think of, and there is no rest for me until.... * * * * * _Later._--I must have fallen asleep, for I was awaked by Mina, who was sitting up in bed, with a startled look on her face. I could see easily, for we did not leave the room in darkness; she had placed a warning hand over my mouth, and now she whispered in my ear:-- "Hush! there is someone in the corridor!" I got up softly, and crossing the room, gently opened the door. Just outside, stretched on a mattress, lay Mr. Morris, wide awake. He raised a warning hand for silence as he whispered to me:-- "Hush! go back to bed; it is all right. One of us will be here all night. We don't mean to take any chances!" His look and gesture forbade discussion, so I came back and told Mina. She sighed and positively a shadow of a smile stole over her poor, pale face as she put her arms round me and said softly:-- "Oh, thank God for good brave men!" With a sigh she sank back again to sleep. I write this now as I am not sleepy, though I must try again. * * * * * _4 October, morning._--Once again during the night I was wakened by Mina. This time we had all had a good sleep, for the grey of the coming dawn was making the windows into sharp oblongs, and the gas flame was like a speck rather than a disc of light. She said to me hurriedly:-- "Go, call the Professor. I want to see him at once." "Why?" I asked. "I have an idea. I suppose it must have come in the night, and matured without my knowing it. He must hypnotise me before the dawn, and then I shall be able to speak. Go quick, dearest; the time is getting close." I went to the door. Dr. Seward was resting on the mattress, and, seeing me, he sprang to his feet. "Is anything wrong?" he asked, in alarm. "No," I replied; "but Mina wants to see Dr. Van Helsing at once." "I will go," he said, and hurried into the Professor's room. In two or three minutes later Van Helsing was in the room in his dressing-gown, and Mr. Morris and Lord Godalming were with Dr. Seward at the door asking questions. When the Professor saw Mina a smile--a positive smile ousted the anxiety of his face; he rubbed his hands as he said:-- "Oh, my dear Madam Mina, this is indeed a change. See! friend Jonathan, we have got our dear Madam Mina, as of old, back to us to-day!" Then turning to her, he said, cheerfully: "And what am I do for you? For at this hour you do not want me for nothings." "I want you to hypnotise me!" she said. "Do it before the dawn, for I feel that then I can speak, and speak freely. Be quick, for the time is short!" Without a word he motioned her to sit up in bed. Looking fixedly at her, he commenced to make passes in front of her, from over the top of her head downward, with each hand in turn. Mina gazed at him fixedly for a few minutes, during which my own heart beat like a trip hammer, for I felt that some crisis was at hand. Gradually her eyes closed, and she sat, stock still; only by the gentle heaving of her bosom could one know that she was alive. The Professor made a few more passes and then stopped, and I could see that his forehead was covered with great beads of perspiration. Mina opened her eyes; but she did not seem the same woman. There was a far-away look in her eyes, and her voice had a sad dreaminess which was new to me. Raising his hand to impose silence, the Professor motioned to me to bring the others in. They came on tip-toe, closing the door behind them, and stood at the foot of the bed, looking on. Mina appeared not to see them. The stillness was broken by Van Helsing's voice speaking in a low level tone which would not break the current of her thoughts:-- "Where are you?" The answer came in a neutral way:-- "I do not know. Sleep has no place it can call its own." For several minutes there was silence. Mina sat rigid, and the Professor stood staring at her fixedly; the rest of us hardly dared to breathe. The room was growing lighter; without taking his eyes from Mina's face, Dr. Van Helsing motioned me to pull up the blind. I did so, and the day seemed just upon us. A red streak shot up, and a rosy light seemed to diffuse itself through the room. On the instant the Professor spoke again:-- "Where are you now?" The answer came dreamily, but with intention; it were as though she were interpreting something. I have heard her use the same tone when reading her shorthand notes. "I do not know. It is all strange to me!" "What do you see?" "I can see nothing; it is all dark." "What do you hear?" I could detect the strain in the Professor's patient voice. "The lapping of water. It is gurgling by, and little waves leap. I can hear them on the outside." "Then you are on a ship?" We all looked at each other, trying to glean something each from the other. We were afraid to think. The answer came quick:-- "Oh, yes!" "What else do you hear?" "The sound of men stamping overhead as they run about. There is the creaking of a chain, and the loud tinkle as the check of the capstan falls into the rachet." "What are you doing?" "I am still--oh, so still. It is like death!" The voice faded away into a deep breath as of one sleeping, and the open eyes closed again. By this time the sun had risen, and we were all in the full light of day. Dr. Van Helsing placed his hands on Mina's shoulders, and laid her head down softly on her pillow. She lay like a sleeping child for a few moments, and then, with a long sigh, awoke and stared in wonder to see us all around her. "Have I been talking in my sleep?" was all she said. She seemed, however, to know the situation without telling, though she was eager to know what she had told. The Professor repeated the conversation, and she said:-- "Then there is not a moment to lose: it may not be yet too late!" Mr. Morris and Lord Godalming started for the door but the Professor's calm voice called them back:-- "Stay, my friends. That ship, wherever it was, was weighing anchor whilst she spoke. There are many ships weighing anchor at the moment in your so great Port of London. Which of them is it that you seek? God be thanked that we have once again a clue, though whither it may lead us we know not. We have been blind somewhat; blind after the manner of men, since when we can look back we see what we might have seen looking forward if we had been able to see what we might have seen! Alas, but that sentence is a puddle; is it not? We can know now what was in the Count's mind, when he seize that money, though Jonathan's so fierce knife put him in the danger that even he dread. He meant escape. Hear me, ESCAPE! He saw that with but one earth-box left, and a pack of men following like dogs after a fox, this London was no place for him. He have take his last earth-box on board a ship, and he leave the land. He think to escape, but no! we follow him. Tally Ho! as friend Arthur would say when he put on his red frock! Our old fox is wily; oh! so wily, and we must follow with wile. I, too, am wily and I think his mind in a little while. In meantime we may rest and in peace, for there are waters between us which he do not want to pass, and which he could not if he would--unless the ship were to touch the land, and then only at full or slack tide. See, and the sun is just rose, and all day to sunset is to us. Let us take bath, and dress, and have breakfast which we all need, and which we can eat comfortably since he be not in the same land with us." Mina looked at him appealingly as she asked:-- "But why need we seek him further, when he is gone away from us?" He took her hand and patted it as he replied:-- "Ask me nothings as yet. When we have breakfast, then I answer all questions." He would say no more, and we separated to dress. After breakfast Mina repeated her question. He looked at her gravely for a minute and then said sorrowfully:-- "Because my dear, dear Madam Mina, now more than ever must we find him even if we have to follow him to the jaws of Hell!" She grew paler as she asked faintly:-- "Why?" "Because," he answered solemnly, "he can live for centuries, and you are but mortal woman. Time is now to be dreaded--since once he put that mark upon your throat." I was just in time to catch her as she fell forward in a faint. CHAPTER XXIV DR. SEWARD'S PHONOGRAPH DIARY, SPOKEN BY VAN HELSING This to Jonathan Harker. You are to stay with your dear Madam Mina. We shall go to make our search--if I can call it so, for it is not search but knowing, and we seek confirmation only. But do you stay and take care of her to-day. This is your best and most holiest office. This day nothing can find him here. Let me tell you that so you will know what we four know already, for I have tell them. He, our enemy, have gone away; he have gone back to his Castle in Transylvania. I know it so well, as if a great hand of fire wrote it on the wall. He have prepare for this in some way, and that last earth-box was ready to ship somewheres. For this he took the money; for this he hurry at the last, lest we catch him before the sun go down. It was his last hope, save that he might hide in the tomb that he think poor Miss Lucy, being as he thought like him, keep open to him. But there was not of time. When that fail he make straight for his last resource--his last earth-work I might say did I wish _double entente_. He is clever, oh, so clever! he know that his game here was finish; and so he decide he go back home. He find ship going by the route he came, and he go in it. We go off now to find what ship, and whither bound; when we have discover that, we come back and tell you all. Then we will comfort you and poor dear Madam Mina with new hope. For it will be hope when you think it over: that all is not lost. This very creature that we pursue, he take hundreds of years to get so far as London; and yet in one day, when we know of the disposal of him we drive him out. He is finite, though he is powerful to do much harm and suffers not as we do. But we are strong, each in our purpose; and we are all more strong together. Take heart afresh, dear husband of Madam Mina. This battle is but begun, and in the end we shall win--so sure as that God sits on high to watch over His children. Therefore be of much comfort till we return. VAN HELSING. _Jonathan Harker's Journal._ _4 October._--When I read to Mina, Van Helsing's message in the phonograph, the poor girl brightened up considerably. Already the certainty that the Count is out of the country has given her comfort; and comfort is strength to her. For my own part, now that his horrible danger is not face to face with us, it seems almost impossible to believe in it. Even my own terrible experiences in Castle Dracula seem like a long-forgotten dream. Here in the crisp autumn air in the bright sunlight---- Alas! how can I disbelieve! In the midst of my thought my eye fell on the red scar on my poor darling's white forehead. Whilst that lasts, there can be no disbelief. And afterwards the very memory of it will keep faith crystal clear. Mina and I fear to be idle, so we have been over all the diaries again and again. Somehow, although the reality seems greater each time, the pain and the fear seem less. There is something of a guiding purpose manifest throughout, which is comforting. Mina says that perhaps we are the instruments of ultimate good. It may be! I shall try to think as she does. We have never spoken to each other yet of the future. It is better to wait till we see the Professor and the others after their investigations. The day is running by more quickly than I ever thought a day could run for me again. It is now three o'clock. _Mina Harker's Journal._ _5 October, 5 p. m._--Our meeting for report. Present: Professor Van Helsing, Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, Mr. Quincey Morris, Jonathan Harker, Mina Harker. Dr. Van Helsing described what steps were taken during the day to discover on what boat and whither bound Count Dracula made his escape:-- "As I knew that he wanted to get back to Transylvania, I felt sure that he must go by the Danube mouth; or by somewhere in the Black Sea, since by that way he come. It was a dreary blank that was before us. _Omne ignotum pro magnifico_; and so with heavy hearts we start to find what ships leave for the Black Sea last night. He was in sailing ship, since Madam Mina tell of sails being set. These not so important as to go in your list of the shipping in the _Times_, and so we go, by suggestion of Lord Godalming, to your Lloyd's, where are note of all ships that sail, however so small. There we find that only one Black-Sea-bound ship go out with the tide. She is the _Czarina Catherine_, and she sail from Doolittle's Wharf for Varna, and thence on to other parts and up the Danube. 'Soh!' said I, 'this is the ship whereon is the Count.' So off we go to Doolittle's Wharf, and there we find a man in an office of wood so small that the man look bigger than the office. From him we inquire of the goings of the _Czarina Catherine_. He swear much, and he red face and loud of voice, but he good fellow all the same; and when Quincey give him something from his pocket which crackle as he roll it up, and put it in a so small bag which he have hid deep in his clothing, he still better fellow and humble servant to us. He come with us, and ask many men who are rough and hot; these be better fellows too when they have been no more thirsty. They say much of blood and bloom, and of others which I comprehend not, though I guess what they mean; but nevertheless they tell us all things which we want to know. "They make known to us among them, how last afternoon at about five o'clock comes a man so hurry. A tall man, thin and pale, with high nose and teeth so white, and eyes that seem to be burning. That he be all in black, except that he have a hat of straw which suit not him or the time. That he scatter his money in making quick inquiry as to what ship sails for the Black Sea and for where. Some took him to the office and then to the ship, where he will not go aboard but halt at shore end of gang-plank, and ask that the captain come to him. The captain come, when told that he will be pay well; and though he swear much at the first he agree to term. Then the thin man go and some one tell him where horse and cart can be hired. He go there and soon he come again, himself driving cart on which a great box; this he himself lift down, though it take several to put it on truck for the ship. He give much talk to captain as to how and where his box is to be place; but the captain like it not and swear at him in many tongues, and tell him that if he like he can come and see where it shall be. But he say 'no'; that he come not yet, for that he have much to do. Whereupon the captain tell him that he had better be quick--with blood--for that his ship will leave the place--of blood--before the turn of the tide--with blood. Then the thin man smile and say that of course he must go when he think fit; but he will be surprise if he go quite so soon. The captain swear again, polyglot, and the thin man make him bow, and thank him, and say that he will so far intrude on his kindness as to come aboard before the sailing. Final the captain, more red than ever, and in more tongues tell him that he doesn't want no Frenchmen--with bloom upon them and also with blood--in his ship--with blood on her also. And so, after asking where there might be close at hand a ship where he might purchase ship forms, he departed. "No one knew where he went 'or bloomin' well cared,' as they said, for they had something else to think of--well with blood again; for it soon became apparent to all that the _Czarina Catherine_ would not sail as was expected. A thin mist began to creep up from the river, and it grew, and grew; till soon a dense fog enveloped the ship and all around her. The captain swore polyglot--very polyglot--polyglot with bloom and blood; but he could do nothing. The water rose and rose; and he began to fear that he would lose the tide altogether. He was in no friendly mood, when just at full tide, the thin man came up the gang-plank again and asked to see where his box had been stowed. Then the captain replied that he wished that he and his box--old and with much bloom and blood--were in hell. But the thin man did not be offend, and went down with the mate and saw where it was place, and came up and stood awhile on deck in fog. He must have come off by himself, for none notice him. Indeed they thought not of him; for soon the fog begin to melt away, and all was clear again. My friends of the thirst and the language that was of bloom and blood laughed, as they told how the captain's swears exceeded even his usual polyglot, and was more than ever full of picturesque, when on questioning other mariners who were on movement up and down on the river that hour, he found that few of them had seen any of fog at all, except where it lay round the wharf. However, the ship went out on the ebb tide; and was doubtless by morning far down the river mouth. She was by then, when they told us, well out to sea. "And so, my dear Madam Mina, it is that we have to rest for a time, for our enemy is on the sea, with the fog at his command, on his way to the Danube mouth. To sail a ship takes time, go she never so quick; and when we start we go on land more quick, and we meet him there. Our best hope is to come on him when in the box between sunrise and sunset; for then he can make no struggle, and we may deal with him as we should. There are days for us, in which we can make ready our plan. We know all about where he go; for we have seen the owner of the ship, who have shown us invoices and all papers that can be. The box we seek is to be landed in Varna, and to be given to an agent, one Ristics who will there present his credentials; and so our merchant friend will have done his part. When he ask if there be any wrong, for that so, he can telegraph and have inquiry made at Varna, we say 'no'; for what is to be done is not for police or of the customs. It must be done by us alone and in our own way." When Dr. Van Helsing had done speaking, I asked him if he were certain that the Count had remained on board the ship. He replied: "We have the best proof of that: your own evidence, when in the hypnotic trance this morning." I asked him again if it were really necessary that they should pursue the Count, for oh! I dread Jonathan leaving me, and I know that he would surely go if the others went. He answered in growing passion, at first quietly. As he went on, however, he grew more angry and more forceful, till in the end we could not but see wherein was at least some of that personal dominance which made him so long a master amongst men:-- "Yes, it is necessary--necessary--necessary! For your sake in the first, and then for the sake of humanity. This monster has done much harm already, in the narrow scope where he find himself, and in the short time when as yet he was only as a body groping his so small measure in darkness and not knowing. All this have I told these others; you, my dear Madam Mina, will learn it in the phonograph of my friend John, or in that of your husband. I have told them how the measure of leaving his own barren land--barren of peoples--and coming to a new land where life of man teems till they are like the multitude of standing corn, was the work of centuries. Were another of the Un-Dead, like him, to try to do what he has done, perhaps not all the centuries of the world that have been, or that will be, could aid him. With this one, all the forces of nature that are occult and deep and strong must have worked together in some wondrous way. The very place, where he have been alive, Un-Dead for all these centuries, is full of strangeness of the geologic and chemical world. There are deep caverns and fissures that reach none know whither. There have been volcanoes, some of whose openings still send out waters of strange properties, and gases that kill or make to vivify. Doubtless, there is something magnetic or electric in some of these combinations of occult forces which work for physical life in strange way; and in himself were from the first some great qualities. In a hard and warlike time he was celebrate that he have more iron nerve, more subtle brain, more braver heart, than any man. In him some vital principle have in strange way found their utmost; and as his body keep strong and grow and thrive, so his brain grow too. All this without that diabolic aid which is surely to him; for it have to yield to the powers that come from, and are, symbolic of good. And now this is what he is to us. He have infect you--oh, forgive me, my dear, that I must say such; but it is for good of you that I speak. He infect you in such wise, that even if he do no more, you have only to live--to live in your own old, sweet way; and so in time, death, which is of man's common lot and with God's sanction, shall make you like to him. This must not be! We have sworn together that it must not. Thus are we ministers of God's own wish: that the world, and men for whom His Son die, will not be given over to monsters, whose very existence would defame Him. He have allowed us to redeem one soul already, and we go out as the old knights of the Cross to redeem more. Like them we shall travel towards the sunrise; and like them, if we fall, we fall in good cause." He paused and I said:-- "But will not the Count take his rebuff wisely? Since he has been driven from England, will he not avoid it, as a tiger does the village from which he has been hunted?" "Aha!" he said, "your simile of the tiger good, for me, and I shall adopt him. Your man-eater, as they of India call the tiger who has once tasted blood of the human, care no more for the other prey, but prowl unceasing till he get him. This that we hunt from our village is a tiger, too, a man-eater, and he never cease to prowl. Nay, in himself he is not one to retire and stay afar. In his life, his living life, he go over the Turkey frontier and attack his enemy on his own ground; he be beaten back, but did he stay? No! He come again, and again, and again. Look at his persistence and endurance. With the child-brain that was to him he have long since conceive the idea of coming to a great city. What does he do? He find out the place of all the world most of promise for him. Then he deliberately set himself down to prepare for the task. He find in patience just how is his strength, and what are his powers. He study new tongues. He learn new social life; new environment of old ways, the politic, the law, the finance, the science, the habit of a new land and a new people who have come to be since he was. His glimpse that he have had, whet his appetite only and enkeen his desire. Nay, it help him to grow as to his brain; for it all prove to him how right he was at the first in his surmises. He have done this alone; all alone! from a ruin tomb in a forgotten land. What more may he not do when the greater world of thought is open to him. He that can smile at death, as we know him; who can flourish in the midst of diseases that kill off whole peoples. Oh, if such an one was to come from God, and not the Devil, what a force for good might he not be in this old world of ours. But we are pledged to set the world free. Our toil must be in silence, and our efforts all in secret; for in this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength. It would be at once his sheath and his armour, and his weapons to destroy us, his enemies, who are willing to peril even our own souls for the safety of one we love--for the good of mankind, and for the honour and glory of God." After a general discussion it was determined that for to-night nothing be definitely settled; that we should all sleep on the facts, and try to think out the proper conclusions. To-morrow, at breakfast, we are to meet again, and, after making our conclusions known to one another, we shall decide on some definite cause of action. * * * * * I feel a wonderful peace and rest to-night. It is as if some haunting presence were removed from me. Perhaps ... My surmise was not finished, could not be; for I caught sight in the mirror of the red mark upon my forehead; and I knew that I was still unclean. _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _5 October._--We all rose early, and I think that sleep did much for each and all of us. When we met at early breakfast there was more general cheerfulness than any of us had ever expected to experience again. It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. Let any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any way--even by death--and we fly back to first principles of hope and enjoyment. More than once as we sat around the table, my eyes opened in wonder whether the whole of the past days had not been a dream. It was only when I caught sight of the red blotch on Mrs. Harker's forehead that I was brought back to reality. Even now, when I am gravely revolving the matter, it is almost impossible to realise that the cause of all our trouble is still existent. Even Mrs. Harker seems to lose sight of her trouble for whole spells; it is only now and again, when something recalls it to her mind, that she thinks of her terrible scar. We are to meet here in my study in half an hour and decide on our course of action. I see only one immediate difficulty, I know it by instinct rather than reason: we shall all have to speak frankly; and yet I fear that in some mysterious way poor Mrs. Harker's tongue is tied. I _know_ that she forms conclusions of her own, and from all that has been I can guess how brilliant and how true they must be; but she will not, or cannot, give them utterance. I have mentioned this to Van Helsing, and he and I are to talk it over when we are alone. I suppose it is some of that horrid poison which has got into her veins beginning to work. The Count had his own purposes when he gave her what Van Helsing called "the Vampire's baptism of blood." Well, there may be a poison that distils itself out of good things; in an age when the existence of ptomaines is a mystery we should not wonder at anything! One thing I know: that if my instinct be true regarding poor Mrs. Harker's silences, then there is a terrible difficulty--an unknown danger--in the work before us. The same power that compels her silence may compel her speech. I dare not think further; for so I should in my thoughts dishonour a noble woman! Van Helsing is coming to my study a little before the others. I shall try to open the subject with him. * * * * * _Later._--When the Professor came in, we talked over the state of things. I could see that he had something on his mind which he wanted to say, but felt some hesitancy about broaching the subject. After beating about the bush a little, he said suddenly:-- "Friend John, there is something that you and I must talk of alone, just at the first at any rate. Later, we may have to take the others into our confidence"; then he stopped, so I waited; he went on:-- "Madam Mina, our poor, dear Madam Mina is changing." A cold shiver ran through me to find my worst fears thus endorsed. Van Helsing continued:-- "With the sad experience of Miss Lucy, we must this time be warned before things go too far. Our task is now in reality more difficult than ever, and this new trouble makes every hour of the direst importance. I can see the characteristics of the vampire coming in her face. It is now but very, very slight; but it is to be seen if we have eyes to notice without to prejudge. Her teeth are some sharper, and at times her eyes are more hard. But these are not all, there is to her the silence now often; as so it was with Miss Lucy. She did not speak, even when she wrote that which she wished to be known later. Now my fear is this. If it be that she can, by our hypnotic trance, tell what the Count see and hear, is it not more true that he who have hypnotise her first, and who have drink of her very blood and make her drink of his, should, if he will, compel her mind to disclose to him that which she know?" I nodded acquiescence; he went on:-- "Then, what we must do is to prevent this; we must keep her ignorant of our intent, and so she cannot tell what she know not. This is a painful task! Oh, so painful that it heart-break me to think of; but it must be. When to-day we meet, I must tell her that for reason which we will not to speak she must not more be of our council, but be simply guarded by us." He wiped his forehead, which had broken out in profuse perspiration at the thought of the pain which he might have to inflict upon the poor soul already so tortured. I knew that it would be some sort of comfort to him if I told him that I also had come to the same conclusion; for at any rate it would take away the pain of doubt. I told him, and the effect was as I expected. It is now close to the time of our general gathering. Van Helsing has gone away to prepare for the meeting, and his painful part of it. I really believe his purpose is to be able to pray alone. * * * * * _Later._--At the very outset of our meeting a great personal relief was experienced by both Van Helsing and myself. Mrs. Harker had sent a message by her husband to say that she would not join us at present, as she thought it better that we should be free to discuss our movements without her presence to embarrass us. The Professor and I looked at each other for an instant, and somehow we both seemed relieved. For my own part, I thought that if Mrs. Harker realised the danger herself, it was much pain as well as much danger averted. Under the circumstances we agreed, by a questioning look and answer, with finger on lip, to preserve silence in our suspicions, until we should have been able to confer alone again. We went at once into our Plan of Campaign. Van Helsing roughly put the facts before us first:-- "The _Czarina Catherine_ left the Thames yesterday morning. It will take her at the quickest speed she has ever made at least three weeks to reach Varna; but we can travel overland to the same place in three days. Now, if we allow for two days less for the ship's voyage, owing to such weather influences as we know that the Count can bring to bear; and if we allow a whole day and night for any delays which may occur to us, then we have a margin of nearly two weeks. Thus, in order to be quite safe, we must leave here on 17th at latest. Then we shall at any rate be in Varna a day before the ship arrives, and able to make such preparations as may be necessary. Of course we shall all go armed--armed against evil things, spiritual as well as physical." Here Quincey Morris added:-- "I understand that the Count comes from a wolf country, and it may be that he shall get there before us. I propose that we add Winchesters to our armament. I have a kind of belief in a Winchester when there is any trouble of that sort around. Do you remember, Art, when we had the pack after us at Tobolsk? What wouldn't we have given then for a repeater apiece!" "Good!" said Van Helsing, "Winchesters it shall be. Quincey's head is level at all times, but most so when there is to hunt, metaphor be more dishonour to science than wolves be of danger to man. In the meantime we can do nothing here; and as I think that Varna is not familiar to any of us, why not go there more soon? It is as long to wait here as there. To-night and to-morrow we can get ready, and then, if all be well, we four can set out on our journey." "We four?" said Harker interrogatively, looking from one to another of us. "Of course!" answered the Professor quickly, "you must remain to take care of your so sweet wife!" Harker was silent for awhile and then said in a hollow voice:-- "Let us talk of that part of it in the morning. I want to consult with Mina." I thought that now was the time for Van Helsing to warn him not to disclose our plans to her; but he took no notice. I looked at him significantly and coughed. For answer he put his finger on his lips and turned away. _Jonathan Harker's Journal._ _5 October, afternoon._--For some time after our meeting this morning I could not think. The new phases of things leave my mind in a state of wonder which allows no room for active thought. Mina's determination not to take any part in the discussion set me thinking; and as I could not argue the matter with her, I could only guess. I am as far as ever from a solution now. The way the others received it, too, puzzled me; the last time we talked of the subject we agreed that there was to be no more concealment of anything amongst us. Mina is sleeping now, calmly and sweetly like a little child. Her lips are curved and her face beams with happiness. Thank God, there are such moments still for her. * * * * * _Later._--How strange it all is. I sat watching Mina's happy sleep, and came as near to being happy myself as I suppose I shall ever be. As the evening drew on, and the earth took its shadows from the sun sinking lower, the silence of the room grew more and more solemn to me. All at once Mina opened her eyes, and looking at me tenderly, said:-- "Jonathan, I want you to promise me something on your word of honour. A promise made to me, but made holily in God's hearing, and not to be broken though I should go down on my knees and implore you with bitter tears. Quick, you must make it to me at once." "Mina," I said, "a promise like that, I cannot make at once. I may have no right to make it." "But, dear one," she said, with such spiritual intensity that her eyes were like pole stars, "it is I who wish it; and it is not for myself. You can ask Dr. Van Helsing if I am not right; if he disagrees you may do as you will. Nay, more, if you all agree, later, you are absolved from the promise." "I promise!" I said, and for a moment she looked supremely happy; though to me all happiness for her was denied by the red scar on her forehead. She said:-- "Promise me that you will not tell me anything of the plans formed for the campaign against the Count. Not by word, or inference, or implication; not at any time whilst this remains to me!" and she solemnly pointed to the scar. I saw that she was in earnest, and said solemnly:-- "I promise!" and as I said it I felt that from that instant a door had been shut between us. * * * * * _Later, midnight._--Mina has been bright and cheerful all the evening. So much so that all the rest seemed to take courage, as if infected somewhat with her gaiety; as a result even I myself felt as if the pall of gloom which weighs us down were somewhat lifted. We all retired early. Mina is now sleeping like a little child; it is a wonderful thing that her faculty of sleep remains to her in the midst of her terrible trouble. Thank God for it, for then at least she can forget her care. Perhaps her example may affect me as her gaiety did to-night. I shall try it. Oh! for a dreamless sleep. * * * * * _6 October, morning._--Another surprise. Mina woke me early, about the same time as yesterday, and asked me to bring Dr. Van Helsing. I thought that it was another occasion for hypnotism, and without question went for the Professor. He had evidently expected some such call, for I found him dressed in his room. His door was ajar, so that he could hear the opening of the door of our room. He came at once; as he passed into the room, he asked Mina if the others might come, too. "No," she said quite simply, "it will not be necessary. You can tell them just as well. I must go with you on your journey." Dr. Van Helsing was as startled as I was. After a moment's pause he asked:-- "But why?" "You must take me with you. I am safer with you, and you shall be safer, too." "But why, dear Madam Mina? You know that your safety is our solemnest duty. We go into danger, to which you are, or may be, more liable than any of us from--from circumstances--things that have been." He paused, embarrassed. As she replied, she raised her finger and pointed to her forehead:-- "I know. That is why I must go. I can tell you now, whilst the sun is coming up; I may not be able again. I know that when the Count wills me I must go. I know that if he tells me to come in secret, I must come by wile; by any device to hoodwink--even Jonathan." God saw the look that she turned on me as she spoke, and if there be indeed a Recording Angel that look is noted to her everlasting honour. I could only clasp her hand. I could not speak; my emotion was too great for even the relief of tears. She went on:-- "You men are brave and strong. You are strong in your numbers, for you can defy that which would break down the human endurance of one who had to guard alone. Besides, I may be of service, since you can hypnotise me and so learn that which even I myself do not know." Dr. Van Helsing said very gravely:-- "Madam Mina, you are, as always, most wise. You shall with us come; and together we shall do that which we go forth to achieve." When he had spoken, Mina's long spell of silence made me look at her. She had fallen back on her pillow asleep; she did not even wake when I had pulled up the blind and let in the sunlight which flooded the room. Van Helsing motioned to me to come with him quietly. We went to his room, and within a minute Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr. Morris were with us also. He told them what Mina had said, and went on:-- "In the morning we shall leave for Varna. We have now to deal with a new factor: Madam Mina. Oh, but her soul is true. It is to her an agony to tell us so much as she has done; but it is most right, and we are warned in time. There must be no chance lost, and in Varna we must be ready to act the instant when that ship arrives." "What shall we do exactly?" asked Mr. Morris laconically. The Professor paused before replying:-- "We shall at the first board that ship; then, when we have identified the box, we shall place a branch of the wild rose on it. This we shall fasten, for when it is there none can emerge; so at least says the superstition. And to superstition must we trust at the first; it was man's faith in the early, and it have its root in faith still. Then, when we get the opportunity that we seek, when none are near to see, we shall open the box, and--and all will be well." "I shall not wait for any opportunity," said Morris. "When I see the box I shall open it and destroy the monster, though there were a thousand men looking on, and if I am to be wiped out for it the next moment!" I grasped his hand instinctively and found it as firm as a piece of steel. I think he understood my look; I hope he did. "Good boy," said Dr. Van Helsing. "Brave boy. Quincey is all man. God bless him for it. My child, believe me none of us shall lag behind or pause from any fear. I do but say what we may do--what we must do. But, indeed, indeed we cannot say what we shall do. There are so many things which may happen, and their ways and their ends are so various that until the moment we may not say. We shall all be armed, in all ways; and when the time for the end has come, our effort shall not be lack. Now let us to-day put all our affairs in order. Let all things which touch on others dear to us, and who on us depend, be complete; for none of us can tell what, or when, or how, the end may be. As for me, my own affairs are regulate; and as I have nothing else to do, I shall go make arrangements for the travel. I shall have all tickets and so forth for our journey." There was nothing further to be said, and we parted. I shall now settle up all my affairs of earth, and be ready for whatever may come.... * * * * * _Later._--It is all done; my will is made, and all complete. Mina if she survive is my sole heir. If it should not be so, then the others who have been so good to us shall have remainder. It is now drawing towards the sunset; Mina's uneasiness calls my attention to it. I am sure that there is something on her mind which the time of exact sunset will reveal. These occasions are becoming harrowing times for us all, for each sunrise and sunset opens up some new danger--some new pain, which, however, may in God's will be means to a good end. I write all these things in the diary since my darling must not hear them now; but if it may be that she can see them again, they shall be ready. She is calling to me. CHAPTER XXV DR. SEWARD'S DIARY _11 October, Evening._--Jonathan Harker has asked me to note this, as he says he is hardly equal to the task, and he wants an exact record kept. I think that none of us were surprised when we were asked to see Mrs. Harker a little before the time of sunset. We have of late come to understand that sunrise and sunset are to her times of peculiar freedom; when her old self can be manifest without any controlling force subduing or restraining her, or inciting her to action. This mood or condition begins some half hour or more before actual sunrise or sunset, and lasts till either the sun is high, or whilst the clouds are still aglow with the rays streaming above the horizon. At first there is a sort of negative condition, as if some tie were loosened, and then the absolute freedom quickly follows; when, however, the freedom ceases the change-back or relapse comes quickly, preceded only by a spell of warning silence. To-night, when we met, she was somewhat constrained, and bore all the signs of an internal struggle. I put it down myself to her making a violent effort at the earliest instant she could do so. A very few minutes, however, gave her complete control of herself; then, motioning her husband to sit beside her on the sofa where she was half reclining, she made the rest of us bring chairs up close. Taking her husband's hand in hers began:-- "We are all here together in freedom, for perhaps the last time! I know, dear; I know that you will always be with me to the end." This was to her husband whose hand had, as we could see, tightened upon hers. "In the morning we go out upon our task, and God alone knows what may be in store for any of us. You are going to be so good to me as to take me with you. I know that all that brave earnest men can do for a poor weak woman, whose soul perhaps is lost--no, no, not yet, but is at any rate at stake--you will do. But you must remember that I am not as you are. There is a poison in my blood, in my soul, which may destroy me; which must destroy me, unless some relief comes to us. Oh, my friends, you know as well as I do, that my soul is at stake; and though I know there is one way out for me, you must not and I must not take it!" She looked appealingly to us all in turn, beginning and ending with her husband. "What is that way?" asked Van Helsing in a hoarse voice. "What is that way, which we must not--may not--take?" "That I may die now, either by my own hand or that of another, before the greater evil is entirely wrought. I know, and you know, that were I once dead you could and would set free my immortal spirit, even as you did my poor Lucy's. Were death, or the fear of death, the only thing that stood in the way I would not shrink to die here, now, amidst the friends who love me. But death is not all. I cannot believe that to die in such a case, when there is hope before us and a bitter task to be done, is God's will. Therefore, I, on my part, give up here the certainty of eternal rest, and go out into the dark where may be the blackest things that the world or the nether world holds!" We were all silent, for we knew instinctively that this was only a prelude. The faces of the others were set and Harker's grew ashen grey; perhaps he guessed better than any of us what was coming. She continued:-- "This is what I can give into the hotch-pot." I could not but note the quaint legal phrase which she used in such a place, and with all seriousness. "What will each of you give? Your lives I know," she went on quickly, "that is easy for brave men. Your lives are God's, and you can give them back to Him; but what will you give to me?" She looked again questioningly, but this time avoided her husband's face. Quincey seemed to understand; he nodded, and her face lit up. "Then I shall tell you plainly what I want, for there must be no doubtful matter in this connection between us now. You must promise me, one and all--even you, my beloved husband--that, should the time come, you will kill me." "What is that time?" The voice was Quincey's, but it was low and strained. "When you shall be convinced that I am so changed that it is better that I die that I may live. When I am thus dead in the flesh, then you will, without a moment's delay, drive a stake through me and cut off my head; or do whatever else may be wanting to give me rest!" Quincey was the first to rise after the pause. He knelt down before her and taking her hand in his said solemnly:-- "I'm only a rough fellow, who hasn't, perhaps, lived as a man should to win such a distinction, but I swear to you by all that I hold sacred and dear that, should the time ever come, I shall not flinch from the duty that you have set us. And I promise you, too, that I shall make all certain, for if I am only doubtful I shall take it that the time has come!" "My true friend!" was all she could say amid her fast-falling tears, as, bending over, she kissed his hand. "I swear the same, my dear Madam Mina!" said Van Helsing. "And I!" said Lord Godalming, each of them in turn kneeling to her to take the oath. I followed, myself. Then her husband turned to her wan-eyed and with a greenish pallor which subdued the snowy whiteness of his hair, and asked:-- "And must I, too, make such a promise, oh, my wife?" "You too, my dearest," she said, with infinite yearning of pity in her voice and eyes. "You must not shrink. You are nearest and dearest and all the world to me; our souls are knit into one, for all life and all time. Think, dear, that there have been times when brave men have killed their wives and their womenkind, to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy. Their hands did not falter any the more because those that they loved implored them to slay them. It is men's duty towards those whom they love, in such times of sore trial! And oh, my dear, if it is to be that I must meet death at any hand, let it be at the hand of him that loves me best. Dr. Van Helsing, I have not forgotten your mercy in poor Lucy's case to him who loved"--she stopped with a flying blush, and changed her phrase--"to him who had best right to give her peace. If that time shall come again, I look to you to make it a happy memory of my husband's life that it was his loving hand which set me free from the awful thrall upon me." "Again I swear!" came the Professor's resonant voice. Mrs. Harker smiled, positively smiled, as with a sigh of relief she leaned back and said:-- "And now one word of warning, a warning which you must never forget: this time, if it ever come, may come quickly and unexpectedly, and in such case you must lose no time in using your opportunity. At such a time I myself might be--nay! if the time ever comes, _shall be_--leagued with your enemy against you." "One more request;" she became very solemn as she said this, "it is not vital and necessary like the other, but I want you to do one thing for me, if you will." We all acquiesced, but no one spoke; there was no need to speak:-- "I want you to read the Burial Service." She was interrupted by a deep groan from her husband; taking his hand in hers, she held it over her heart, and continued: "You must read it over me some day. Whatever may be the issue of all this fearful state of things, it will be a sweet thought to all or some of us. You, my dearest, will I hope read it, for then it will be in your voice in my memory for ever--come what may!" "But oh, my dear one," he pleaded, "death is afar off from you." "Nay," she said, holding up a warning hand. "I am deeper in death at this moment than if the weight of an earthly grave lay heavy upon me!" "Oh, my wife, must I read it?" he said, before he began. "It would comfort me, my husband!" was all she said; and he began to read when she had got the book ready. "How can I--how could any one--tell of that strange scene, its solemnity, its gloom, its sadness, its horror; and, withal, its sweetness. Even a sceptic, who can see nothing but a travesty of bitter truth in anything holy or emotional, would have been melted to the heart had he seen that little group of loving and devoted friends kneeling round that stricken and sorrowing lady; or heard the tender passion of her husband's voice, as in tones so broken with emotion that often he had to pause, he read the simple and beautiful service from the Burial of the Dead. I--I cannot go on--words--and--v-voice--f-fail m-me!" * * * * * She was right in her instinct. Strange as it all was, bizarre as it may hereafter seem even to us who felt its potent influence at the time, it comforted us much; and the silence, which showed Mrs. Harker's coming relapse from her freedom of soul, did not seem so full of despair to any of us as we had dreaded. _Jonathan Harker's Journal._ _15 October, Varna._--We left Charing Cross on the morning of the 12th, got to Paris the same night, and took the places secured for us in the Orient Express. We travelled night and day, arriving here at about five o'clock. Lord Godalming went to the Consulate to see if any telegram had arrived for him, whilst the rest of us came on to this hotel--"the Odessus." The journey may have had incidents; I was, however, too eager to get on, to care for them. Until the _Czarina Catherine_ comes into port there will be no interest for me in anything in the wide world. Thank God! Mina is well, and looks to be getting stronger; her colour is coming back. She sleeps a great deal; throughout the journey she slept nearly all the time. Before sunrise and sunset, however, she is very wakeful and alert; and it has become a habit for Van Helsing to hypnotise her at such times. At first, some effort was needed, and he had to make many passes; but now, she seems to yield at once, as if by habit, and scarcely any action is needed. He seems to have power at these particular moments to simply will, and her thoughts obey him. He always asks her what she can see and hear. She answers to the first:-- "Nothing; all is dark." And to the second:-- "I can hear the waves lapping against the ship, and the water rushing by. Canvas and cordage strain and masts and yards creak. The wind is high--I can hear it in the shrouds, and the bow throws back the foam." It is evident that the _Czarina Catherine_ is still at sea, hastening on her way to Varna. Lord Godalming has just returned. He had four telegrams, one each day since we started, and all to the same effect: that the _Czarina Catherine_ had not been reported to Lloyd's from anywhere. He had arranged before leaving London that his agent should send him every day a telegram saying if the ship had been reported. He was to have a message even if she were not reported, so that he might be sure that there was a watch being kept at the other end of the wire. We had dinner and went to bed early. To-morrow we are to see the Vice-Consul, and to arrange, if we can, about getting on board the ship as soon as she arrives. Van Helsing says that our chance will be to get on the boat between sunrise and sunset. The Count, even if he takes the form of a bat, cannot cross the running water of his own volition, and so cannot leave the ship. As he dare not change to man's form without suspicion--which he evidently wishes to avoid--he must remain in the box. If, then, we can come on board after sunrise, he is at our mercy; for we can open the box and make sure of him, as we did of poor Lucy, before he wakes. What mercy he shall get from us will not count for much. We think that we shall not have much trouble with officials or the seamen. Thank God! this is the country where bribery can do anything, and we are well supplied with money. We have only to make sure that the ship cannot come into port between sunset and sunrise without our being warned, and we shall be safe. Judge Moneybag will settle this case, I think! * * * * * _16 October._--Mina's report still the same: lapping waves and rushing water, darkness and favouring winds. We are evidently in good time, and when we hear of the _Czarina Catherine_ we shall be ready. As she must pass the Dardanelles we are sure to have some report. * * * * * _17 October._--Everything is pretty well fixed now, I think, to welcome the Count on his return from his tour. Godalming told the shippers that he fancied that the box sent aboard might contain something stolen from a friend of his, and got a half consent that he might open it at his own risk. The owner gave him a paper telling the Captain to give him every facility in doing whatever he chose on board the ship, and also a similar authorisation to his agent at Varna. We have seen the agent, who was much impressed with Godalming's kindly manner to him, and we are all satisfied that whatever he can do to aid our wishes will be done. We have already arranged what to do in case we get the box open. If the Count is there, Van Helsing and Seward will cut off his head at once and drive a stake through his heart. Morris and Godalming and I shall prevent interference, even if we have to use the arms which we shall have ready. The Professor says that if we can so treat the Count's body, it will soon after fall into dust. In such case there would be no evidence against us, in case any suspicion of murder were aroused. But even if it were not, we should stand or fall by our act, and perhaps some day this very script may be evidence to come between some of us and a rope. For myself, I should take the chance only too thankfully if it were to come. We mean to leave no stone unturned to carry out our intent. We have arranged with certain officials that the instant the _Czarina Catherine_ is seen, we are to be informed by a special messenger. * * * * * _24 October._--A whole week of waiting. Daily telegrams to Godalming, but only the same story: "Not yet reported." Mina's morning and evening hypnotic answer is unvaried: lapping waves, rushing water, and creaking masts. _Telegram, October 24th._ _Rufus Smith, Lloyd's, London, to Lord Godalming, care of H. B. M. Vice-Consul, Varna._ "_Czarina Catherine_ reported this morning from Dardanelles." _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _25 October._--How I miss my phonograph! To write diary with a pen is irksome to me; but Van Helsing says I must. We were all wild with excitement yesterday when Godalming got his telegram from Lloyd's. I know now what men feel in battle when the call to action is heard. Mrs. Harker, alone of our party, did not show any signs of emotion. After all, it is not strange that she did not; for we took special care not to let her know anything about it, and we all tried not to show any excitement when we were in her presence. In old days she would, I am sure, have noticed, no matter how we might have tried to conceal it; but in this way she is greatly changed during the past three weeks. The lethargy grows upon her, and though she seems strong and well, and is getting back some of her colour, Van Helsing and I are not satisfied. We talk of her often; we have not, however, said a word to the others. It would break poor Harker's heart--certainly his nerve--if he knew that we had even a suspicion on the subject. Van Helsing examines, he tells me, her teeth very carefully, whilst she is in the hypnotic condition, for he says that so long as they do not begin to sharpen there is no active danger of a change in her. If this change should come, it would be necessary to take steps!... We both know what those steps would have to be, though we do not mention our thoughts to each other. We should neither of us shrink from the task--awful though it be to contemplate. "Euthanasia" is an excellent and a comforting word! I am grateful to whoever invented it. It is only about 24 hours' sail from the Dardanelles to here, at the rate the _Czarina Catherine_ has come from London. She should therefore arrive some time in the morning; but as she cannot possibly get in before then, we are all about to retire early. We shall get up at one o'clock, so as to be ready. * * * * * _25 October, Noon_.--No news yet of the ship's arrival. Mrs. Harker's hypnotic report this morning was the same as usual, so it is possible that we may get news at any moment. We men are all in a fever of excitement, except Harker, who is calm; his hands are cold as ice, and an hour ago I found him whetting the edge of the great Ghoorka knife which he now always carries with him. It will be a bad lookout for the Count if the edge of that "Kukri" ever touches his throat, driven by that stern, ice-cold hand! Van Helsing and I were a little alarmed about Mrs. Harker to-day. About noon she got into a sort of lethargy which we did not like; although we kept silence to the others, we were neither of us happy about it. She had been restless all the morning, so that we were at first glad to know that she was sleeping. When, however, her husband mentioned casually that she was sleeping so soundly that he could not wake her, we went to her room to see for ourselves. She was breathing naturally and looked so well and peaceful that we agreed that the sleep was better for her than anything else. Poor girl, she has so much to forget that it is no wonder that sleep, if it brings oblivion to her, does her good. * * * * * _Later._--Our opinion was justified, for when after a refreshing sleep of some hours she woke up, she seemed brighter and better than she had been for days. At sunset she made the usual hypnotic report. Wherever he may be in the Black Sea, the Count is hurrying to his destination. To his doom, I trust! * * * * * _26 October._--Another day and no tidings of the _Czarina Catherine_. She ought to be here by now. That she is still journeying _somewhere_ is apparent, for Mrs. Harker's hypnotic report at sunrise was still the same. It is possible that the vessel may be lying by, at times, for fog; some of the steamers which came in last evening reported patches of fog both to north and south of the port. We must continue our watching, as the ship may now be signalled any moment. * * * * * _27 October, Noon._--Most strange; no news yet of the ship we wait for. Mrs. Harker reported last night and this morning as usual: "lapping waves and rushing water," though she added that "the waves were very faint." The telegrams from London have been the same: "no further report." Van Helsing is terribly anxious, and told me just now that he fears the Count is escaping us. He added significantly:-- "I did not like that lethargy of Madam Mina's. Souls and memories can do strange things during trance." I was about to ask him more, but Harker just then came in, and he held up a warning hand. We must try to-night at sunset to make her speak more fully when in her hypnotic state. * * * * * _28 October._--Telegram. _Rufus Smith, London, to Lord Godalming, care H. B. M. Vice Consul, Varna._ "_Czarina Catherine_ reported entering Galatz at one o'clock to-day." _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _28 October._--When the telegram came announcing the arrival in Galatz I do not think it was such a shock to any of us as might have been expected. True, we did not know whence, or how, or when, the bolt would come; but I think we all expected that something strange would happen. The delay of arrival at Varna made us individually satisfied that things would not be just as we had expected; we only waited to learn where the change would occur. None the less, however, was it a surprise. I suppose that nature works on such a hopeful basis that we believe against ourselves that things will be as they ought to be, not as we should know that they will be. Transcendentalism is a beacon to the angels, even if it be a will-o'-the-wisp to man. It was an odd experience and we all took it differently. Van Helsing raised his hand over his head for a moment, as though in remonstrance with the Almighty; but he said not a word, and in a few seconds stood up with his face sternly set. Lord Godalming grew very pale, and sat breathing heavily. I was myself half stunned and looked in wonder at one after another. Quincey Morris tightened his belt with that quick movement which I knew so well; in our old wandering days it meant "action." Mrs. Harker grew ghastly white, so that the scar on her forehead seemed to burn, but she folded her hands meekly and looked up in prayer. Harker smiled--actually smiled--the dark, bitter smile of one who is without hope; but at the same time his action belied his words, for his hands instinctively sought the hilt of the great Kukri knife and rested there. "When does the next train start for Galatz?" said Van Helsing to us generally. "At 6:30 to-morrow morning!" We all started, for the answer came from Mrs. Harker. "How on earth do you know?" said Art. "You forget--or perhaps you do not know, though Jonathan does and so does Dr. Van Helsing--that I am the train fiend. At home in Exeter I always used to make up the time-tables, so as to be helpful to my husband. I found it so useful sometimes, that I always make a study of the time-tables now. I knew that if anything were to take us to Castle Dracula we should go by Galatz, or at any rate through Bucharest, so I learned the times very carefully. Unhappily there are not many to learn, as the only train to-morrow leaves as I say." "Wonderful woman!" murmured the Professor. "Can't we get a special?" asked Lord Godalming. Van Helsing shook his head: "I fear not. This land is very different from yours or mine; even if we did have a special, it would probably not arrive as soon as our regular train. Moreover, we have something to prepare. We must think. Now let us organize. You, friend Arthur, go to the train and get the tickets and arrange that all be ready for us to go in the morning. Do you, friend Jonathan, go to the agent of the ship and get from him letters to the agent in Galatz, with authority to make search the ship just as it was here. Morris Quincey, you see the Vice-Consul, and get his aid with his fellow in Galatz and all he can do to make our way smooth, so that no times be lost when over the Danube. John will stay with Madam Mina and me, and we shall consult. For so if time be long you may be delayed; and it will not matter when the sun set, since I am here with Madam to make report." "And I," said Mrs. Harker brightly, and more like her old self than she had been for many a long day, "shall try to be of use in all ways, and shall think and write for you as I used to do. Something is shifting from me in some strange way, and I feel freer than I have been of late!" The three younger men looked happier at the moment as they seemed to realise the significance of her words; but Van Helsing and I, turning to each other, met each a grave and troubled glance. We said nothing at the time, however. When the three men had gone out to their tasks Van Helsing asked Mrs. Harker to look up the copy of the diaries and find him the part of Harker's journal at the Castle. She went away to get it; when the door was shut upon her he said to me:-- "We mean the same! speak out!" "There is some change. It is a hope that makes me sick, for it may deceive us." "Quite so. Do you know why I asked her to get the manuscript?" "No!" said I, "unless it was to get an opportunity of seeing me alone." "You are in part right, friend John, but only in part. I want to tell you something. And oh, my friend, I am taking a great--a terrible--risk; but I believe it is right. In the moment when Madam Mina said those words that arrest both our understanding, an inspiration came to me. In the trance of three days ago the Count sent her his spirit to read her mind; or more like he took her to see him in his earth-box in the ship with water rushing, just as it go free at rise and set of sun. He learn then that we are here; for she have more to tell in her open life with eyes to see and ears to hear than he, shut, as he is, in his coffin-box. Now he make his most effort to escape us. At present he want her not. "He is sure with his so great knowledge that she will come at his call; but he cut her off--take her, as he can do, out of his own power, that so she come not to him. Ah! there I have hope that our man-brains that have been of man so long and that have not lost the grace of God, will come higher than his child-brain that lie in his tomb for centuries, that grow not yet to our stature, and that do only work selfish and therefore small. Here comes Madam Mina; not a word to her of her trance! She know it not; and it would overwhelm her and make despair just when we want all her hope, all her courage; when most we want all her great brain which is trained like man's brain, but is of sweet woman and have a special power which the Count give her, and which he may not take away altogether--though he think not so. Hush! let me speak, and you shall learn. Oh, John, my friend, we are in awful straits. I fear, as I never feared before. We can only trust the good God. Silence! here she comes!" I thought that the Professor was going to break down and have hysterics, just as he had when Lucy died, but with a great effort he controlled himself and was at perfect nervous poise when Mrs. Harker tripped into the room, bright and happy-looking and, in the doing of work, seemingly forgetful of her misery. As she came in, she handed a number of sheets of typewriting to Van Helsing. He looked over them gravely, his face brightening up as he read. Then holding the pages between his finger and thumb he said:-- "Friend John, to you with so much of experience already--and you, too, dear Madam Mina, that are young--here is a lesson: do not fear ever to think. A half-thought has been buzzing often in my brain, but I fear to let him loose his wings. Here now, with more knowledge, I go back to where that half-thought come from and I find that he be no half-thought at all; that be a whole thought, though so young that he is not yet strong to use his little wings. Nay, like the "Ugly Duck" of my friend Hans Andersen, he be no duck-thought at all, but a big swan-thought that sail nobly on big wings, when the time come for him to try them. See I read here what Jonathan have written:-- "That other of his race who, in a later age, again and again, brought his forces over The Great River into Turkey Land; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph." "What does this tell us? Not much? no! The Count's child-thought see nothing; therefore he speak so free. Your man-thought see nothing; my man-thought see nothing, till just now. No! But there comes another word from some one who speak without thought because she, too, know not what it mean--what it _might_ mean. Just as there are elements which rest, yet when in nature's course they move on their way and they touch--then pouf! and there comes a flash of light, heaven wide, that blind and kill and destroy some; but that show up all earth below for leagues and leagues. Is it not so? Well, I shall explain. To begin, have you ever study the philosophy of crime? 'Yes' and 'No.' You, John, yes; for it is a study of insanity. You, no, Madam Mina; for crime touch you not--not but once. Still, your mind works true, and argues not _a particulari ad universale_. There is this peculiarity in criminals. It is so constant, in all countries and at all times, that even police, who know not much from philosophy, come to know it empirically, that _it is_. That is to be empiric. The criminal always work at one crime--that is the true criminal who seems predestinate to crime, and who will of none other. This criminal has not full man-brain. He is clever and cunning and resourceful; but he be not of man-stature as to brain. He be of child-brain in much. Now this criminal of ours is predestinate to crime also; he, too, have child-brain, and it is of the child to do what he have done. The little bird, the little fish, the little animal learn not by principle, but empirically; and when he learn to do, then there is to him the ground to start from to do more. '_Dos pou sto_,' said Archimedes. 'Give me a fulcrum, and I shall move the world!' To do once, is the fulcrum whereby child-brain become man-brain; and until he have the purpose to do more, he continue to do the same again every time, just as he have done before! Oh, my dear, I see that your eyes are opened, and that to you the lightning flash show all the leagues," for Mrs. Harker began to clap her hands and her eyes sparkled. He went on:-- "Now you shall speak. Tell us two dry men of science what you see with those so bright eyes." He took her hand and held it whilst she spoke. His finger and thumb closed on her pulse, as I thought instinctively and unconsciously, as she spoke:-- "The Count is a criminal and of criminal type. Nordau and Lombroso would so classify him, and _quâ_ criminal he is of imperfectly formed mind. Thus, in a difficulty he has to seek resource in habit. His past is a clue, and the one page of it that we know--and that from his own lips--tells that once before, when in what Mr. Morris would call a 'tight place,' he went back to his own country from the land he had tried to invade, and thence, without losing purpose, prepared himself for a new effort. He came again better equipped for his work; and won. So he came to London to invade a new land. He was beaten, and when all hope of success was lost, and his existence in danger, he fled back over the sea to his home; just as formerly he had fled back over the Danube from Turkey Land." "Good, good! oh, you so clever lady!" said Van Helsing, enthusiastically, as he stooped and kissed her hand. A moment later he said to me, as calmly as though we had been having a sick-room consultation:-- "Seventy-two only; and in all this excitement. I have hope." Turning to her again, he said with keen expectation:-- "But go on. Go on! there is more to tell if you will. Be not afraid; John and I know. I do in any case, and shall tell you if you are right. Speak, without fear!" "I will try to; but you will forgive me if I seem egotistical." "Nay! fear not, you must be egotist, for it is of you that we think." "Then, as he is criminal he is selfish; and as his intellect is small and his action is based on selfishness, he confines himself to one purpose. That purpose is remorseless. As he fled back over the Danube, leaving his forces to be cut to pieces, so now he is intent on being safe, careless of all. So his own selfishness frees my soul somewhat from the terrible power which he acquired over me on that dreadful night. I felt it! Oh, I felt it! Thank God, for His great mercy! My soul is freer than it has been since that awful hour; and all that haunts me is a fear lest in some trance or dream he may have used my knowledge for his ends." The Professor stood up:-- "He has so used your mind; and by it he has left us here in Varna, whilst the ship that carried him rushed through enveloping fog up to Galatz, where, doubtless, he had made preparation for escaping from us. But his child-mind only saw so far; and it may be that, as ever is in God's Providence, the very thing that the evil-doer most reckoned on for his selfish good, turns out to be his chiefest harm. The hunter is taken in his own snare, as the great Psalmist says. For now that he think he is free from every trace of us all, and that he has escaped us with so many hours to him, then his selfish child-brain will whisper him to sleep. He think, too, that as he cut himself off from knowing your mind, there can be no knowledge of him to you; there is where he fail! That terrible baptism of blood which he give you makes you free to go to him in spirit, as you have as yet done in your times of freedom, when the sun rise and set. At such times you go by my volition and not by his; and this power to good of you and others, as you have won from your suffering at his hands. This is now all the more precious that he know it not, and to guard himself have even cut himself off from his knowledge of our where. We, however, are not selfish, and we believe that God is with us through all this blackness, and these many dark hours. We shall follow him; and we shall not flinch; even if we peril ourselves that we become like him. Friend John, this has been a great hour; and it have done much to advance us on our way. You must be scribe and write him all down, so that when the others return from their work you can give it to them; then they shall know as we do." And so I have written it whilst we wait their return, and Mrs. Harker has written with her typewriter all since she brought the MS. to us. CHAPTER XXVI DR. SEWARD'S DIARY _29 October._--This is written in the train from Varna to Galatz. Last night we all assembled a little before the time of sunset. Each of us had done his work as well as he could; so far as thought, and endeavour, and opportunity go, we are prepared for the whole of our journey, and for our work when we get to Galatz. When the usual time came round Mrs. Harker prepared herself for her hypnotic effort; and after a longer and more serious effort on the part of Van Helsing than has been usually necessary, she sank into the trance. Usually she speaks on a hint; but this time the Professor had to ask her questions, and to ask them pretty resolutely, before we could learn anything; at last her answer came:-- "I can see nothing; we are still; there are no waves lapping, but only a steady swirl of water softly running against the hawser. I can hear men's voices calling, near and far, and the roll and creak of oars in the rowlocks. A gun is fired somewhere; the echo of it seems far away. There is tramping of feet overhead, and ropes and chains are dragged along. What is this? There is a gleam of light; I can feel the air blowing upon me." Here she stopped. She had risen, as if impulsively, from where she lay on the sofa, and raised both her hands, palms upwards, as if lifting a weight. Van Helsing and I looked at each other with understanding. Quincey raised his eyebrows slightly and looked at her intently, whilst Harker's hand instinctively closed round the hilt of his Kukri. There was a long pause. We all knew that the time when she could speak was passing; but we felt that it was useless to say anything. Suddenly she sat up, and, as she opened her eyes, said sweetly:-- "Would none of you like a cup of tea? You must all be so tired!" We could only make her happy, and so acquiesced. She bustled off to get tea; when she had gone Van Helsing said:-- "You see, my friends. _He_ is close to land: he has left his earth-chest. But he has yet to get on shore. In the night he may lie hidden somewhere; but if he be not carried on shore, or if the ship do not touch it, he cannot achieve the land. In such case he can, if it be in the night, change his form and can jump or fly on shore, as he did at Whitby. But if the day come before he get on shore, then, unless he be carried he cannot escape. And if he be carried, then the customs men may discover what the box contain. Thus, in fine, if he escape not on shore to-night, or before dawn, there will be the whole day lost to him. We may then arrive in time; for if he escape not at night we shall come on him in daytime, boxed up and at our mercy; for he dare not be his true self, awake and visible, lest he be discovered." There was no more to be said, so we waited in patience until the dawn; at which time we might learn more from Mrs. Harker. Early this morning we listened, with breathless anxiety, for her response in her trance. The hypnotic stage was even longer in coming than before; and when it came the time remaining until full sunrise was so short that we began to despair. Van Helsing seemed to throw his whole soul into the effort; at last, in obedience to his will she made reply:-- "All is dark. I hear lapping water, level with me, and some creaking as of wood on wood." She paused, and the red sun shot up. We must wait till to-night. And so it is that we are travelling towards Galatz in an agony of expectation. We are due to arrive between two and three in the morning; but already, at Bucharest, we are three hours late, so we cannot possibly get in till well after sun-up. Thus we shall have two more hypnotic messages from Mrs. Harker; either or both may possibly throw more light on what is happening. * * * * * _Later._--Sunset has come and gone. Fortunately it came at a time when there was no distraction; for had it occurred whilst we were at a station, we might not have secured the necessary calm and isolation. Mrs. Harker yielded to the hypnotic influence even less readily than this morning. I am in fear that her power of reading the Count's sensations may die away, just when we want it most. It seems to me that her imagination is beginning to work. Whilst she has been in the trance hitherto she has confined herself to the simplest of facts. If this goes on it may ultimately mislead us. If I thought that the Count's power over her would die away equally with her power of knowledge it would be a happy thought; but I am afraid that it may not be so. When she did speak, her words were enigmatical:-- "Something is going out; I can feel it pass me like a cold wind. I can hear, far off, confused sounds--as of men talking in strange tongues, fierce-falling water, and the howling of wolves." She stopped and a shudder ran through her, increasing in intensity for a few seconds, till, at the end, she shook as though in a palsy. She said no more, even in answer to the Professor's imperative questioning. When she woke from the trance, she was cold, and exhausted, and languid; but her mind was all alert. She could not remember anything, but asked what she had said; when she was told, she pondered over it deeply for a long time and in silence. * * * * * _30 October, 7 a. m._--We are near Galatz now, and I may not have time to write later. Sunrise this morning was anxiously looked for by us all. Knowing of the increasing difficulty of procuring the hypnotic trance, Van Helsing began his passes earlier than usual. They produced no effect, however, until the regular time, when she yielded with a still greater difficulty, only a minute before the sun rose. The Professor lost no time in his questioning; her answer came with equal quickness:-- "All is dark. I hear water swirling by, level with my ears, and the creaking of wood on wood. Cattle low far off. There is another sound, a queer one like----" She stopped and grew white, and whiter still. "Go on; go on! Speak, I command you!" said Van Helsing in an agonised voice. At the same time there was despair in his eyes, for the risen sun was reddening even Mrs. Harker's pale face. She opened her eyes, and we all started as she said, sweetly and seemingly with the utmost unconcern:-- "Oh, Professor, why ask me to do what you know I can't? I don't remember anything." Then, seeing the look of amazement on our faces, she said, turning from one to the other with a troubled look:-- "What have I said? What have I done? I know nothing, only that I was lying here, half asleep, and heard you say go on! speak, I command you!' It seemed so funny to hear you order me about, as if I were a bad child!" "Oh, Madam Mina," he said, sadly, "it is proof, if proof be needed, of how I love and honour you, when a word for your good, spoken more earnest than ever, can seem so strange because it is to order her whom I am proud to obey!" The whistles are sounding; we are nearing Galatz. We are on fire with anxiety and eagerness. _Mina Harker's Journal._ _30 October._--Mr. Morris took me to the hotel where our rooms had been ordered by telegraph, he being the one who could best be spared, since he does not speak any foreign language. The forces were distributed much as they had been at Varna, except that Lord Godalming went to the Vice-Consul, as his rank might serve as an immediate guarantee of some sort to the official, we being in extreme hurry. Jonathan and the two doctors went to the shipping agent to learn particulars of the arrival of the _Czarina Catherine_. * * * * * _Later._--Lord Godalming has returned. The Consul is away, and the Vice-Consul sick; so the routine work has been attended to by a clerk. He was very obliging, and offered to do anything in his power. _Jonathan Harker's Journal._ _30 October._--At nine o'clock Dr. Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, and I called on Messrs. Mackenzie & Steinkoff, the agents of the London firm of Hapgood. They had received a wire from London, in answer to Lord Godalming's telegraphed request, asking us to show them any civility in their power. They were more than kind and courteous, and took us at once on board the _Czarina Catherine_, which lay at anchor out in the river harbour. There we saw the Captain, Donelson by name, who told us of his voyage. He said that in all his life he had never had so favourable a run. "Man!" he said, "but it made us afeard, for we expeckit that we should have to pay for it wi' some rare piece o' ill luck, so as to keep up the average. It's no canny to run frae London to the Black Sea wi' a wind ahint ye, as though the Deil himself were blawin' on yer sail for his ain purpose. An' a' the time we could no speer a thing. Gin we were nigh a ship, or a port, or a headland, a fog fell on us and travelled wi' us, till when after it had lifted and we looked out, the deil a thing could we see. We ran by Gibraltar wi'oot bein' able to signal; an' till we came to the Dardanelles and had to wait to get our permit to pass, we never were within hail o' aught. At first I inclined to slack off sail and beat about till the fog was lifted; but whiles, I thocht that if the Deil was minded to get us into the Black Sea quick, he was like to do it whether we would or no. If we had a quick voyage it would be no to our miscredit wi' the owners, or no hurt to our traffic; an' the Old Mon who had served his ain purpose wad be decently grateful to us for no hinderin' him." This mixture of simplicity and cunning, of superstition and commercial reasoning, aroused Van Helsing, who said:-- "Mine friend, that Devil is more clever than he is thought by some; and he know when he meet his match!" The skipper was not displeased with the compliment, and went on:-- "When we got past the Bosphorus the men began to grumble; some o' them, the Roumanians, came and asked me to heave overboard a big box which had been put on board by a queer lookin' old man just before we had started frae London. I had seen them speer at the fellow, and put out their twa fingers when they saw him, to guard against the evil eye. Man! but the supersteetion of foreigners is pairfectly rideeculous! I sent them aboot their business pretty quick; but as just after a fog closed in on us I felt a wee bit as they did anent something, though I wouldn't say it was agin the big box. Well, on we went, and as the fog didn't let up for five days I joost let the wind carry us; for if the Deil wanted to get somewheres--well, he would fetch it up a'reet. An' if he didn't, well, we'd keep a sharp lookout anyhow. Sure eneuch, we had a fair way and deep water all the time; and two days ago, when the mornin' sun came through the fog, we found ourselves just in the river opposite Galatz. The Roumanians were wild, and wanted me right or wrong to take out the box and fling it in the river. I had to argy wi' them aboot it wi' a handspike; an' when the last o' them rose off the deck wi' his head in his hand, I had convinced them that, evil eye or no evil eye, the property and the trust of my owners were better in my hands than in the river Danube. They had, mind ye, taken the box on the deck ready to fling in, and as it was marked Galatz _via_ Varna, I thocht I'd let it lie till we discharged in the port an' get rid o't althegither. We didn't do much clearin' that day, an' had to remain the nicht at anchor; but in the mornin', braw an' airly, an hour before sun-up, a man came aboard wi' an order, written to him from England, to receive a box marked for one Count Dracula. Sure eneuch the matter was one ready to his hand. He had his papers a' reet, an' glad I was to be rid o' the dam' thing, for I was beginnin' masel' to feel uneasy at it. If the Deil did have any luggage aboord the ship, I'm thinkin' it was nane ither than that same!" "What was the name of the man who took it?" asked Dr. Van Helsing with restrained eagerness. "I'll be tellin' ye quick!" he answered, and, stepping down to his cabin, produced a receipt signed "Immanuel Hildesheim." Burgen-strasse 16 was the address. We found out that this was all the Captain knew; so with thanks we came away. We found Hildesheim in his office, a Hebrew of rather the Adelphi Theatre type, with a nose like a sheep, and a fez. His arguments were pointed with specie--we doing the punctuation--and with a little bargaining he told us what he knew. This turned out to be simple but important. He had received a letter from Mr. de Ville of London, telling him to receive, if possible before sunrise so as to avoid customs, a box which would arrive at Galatz in the _Czarina Catherine_. This he was to give in charge to a certain Petrof Skinsky, who dealt with the Slovaks who traded down the river to the port. He had been paid for his work by an English bank note, which had been duly cashed for gold at the Danube International Bank. When Skinsky had come to him, he had taken him to the ship and handed over the box, so as to save porterage. That was all he knew. We then sought for Skinsky, but were unable to find him. One of his neighbours, who did not seem to bear him any affection, said that he had gone away two days before, no one knew whither. This was corroborated by his landlord, who had received by messenger the key of the house together with the rent due, in English money. This had been between ten and eleven o'clock last night. We were at a standstill again. Whilst we were talking one came running and breathlessly gasped out that the body of Skinsky had been found inside the wall of the churchyard of St. Peter, and that the throat had been torn open as if by some wild animal. Those we had been speaking with ran off to see the horror, the women crying out "This is the work of a Slovak!" We hurried away lest we should have been in some way drawn into the affair, and so detained. As we came home we could arrive at no definite conclusion. We were all convinced that the box was on its way, by water, to somewhere; but where that might be we would have to discover. With heavy hearts we came home to the hotel to Mina. When we met together, the first thing was to consult as to taking Mina again into our confidence. Things are getting desperate, and it is at least a chance, though a hazardous one. As a preliminary step, I was released from my promise to her. _Mina Harker's Journal._ _30 October, evening._--They were so tired and worn out and dispirited that there was nothing to be done till they had some rest; so I asked them all to lie down for half an hour whilst I should enter everything up to the moment. I feel so grateful to the man who invented the "Traveller's" typewriter, and to Mr. Morris for getting this one for me. I should have felt quite; astray doing the work if I had to write with a pen.... It is all done; poor dear, dear Jonathan, what he must have suffered, what must he be suffering now. He lies on the sofa hardly seeming to breathe, and his whole body appears in collapse. His brows are knit; his face is drawn with pain. Poor fellow, maybe he is thinking, and I can see his face all wrinkled up with the concentration of his thoughts. Oh! if I could only help at all.... I shall do what I can. I have asked Dr. Van Helsing, and he has got me all the papers that I have not yet seen.... Whilst they are resting, I shall go over all carefully, and perhaps I may arrive at some conclusion. I shall try to follow the Professor's example, and think without prejudice on the facts before me.... * * * * * I do believe that under God's providence I have made a discovery. I shall get the maps and look over them.... * * * * * I am more than ever sure that I am right. My new conclusion is ready, so I shall get our party together and read it. They can judge it; it is well to be accurate, and every minute is precious. _Mina Harker's Memorandum._ (Entered in her Journal.) _Ground of inquiry._--Count Dracula's problem is to get back to his own place. (_a_) He must be _brought back_ by some one. This is evident; for had he power to move himself as he wished he could go either as man, or wolf, or bat, or in some other way. He evidently fears discovery or interference, in the state of helplessness in which he must be--confined as he is between dawn and sunset in his wooden box. (_b_) _How is he to be taken?_--Here a process of exclusions may help us. By road, by rail, by water? 1. _By Road._--There are endless difficulties, especially in leaving the city. (_x_) There are people; and people are curious, and investigate. A hint, a surmise, a doubt as to what might be in the box, would destroy him. (_y_) There are, or there may be, customs and octroi officers to pass. (_z_) His pursuers might follow. This is his highest fear; and in order to prevent his being betrayed he has repelled, so far as he can, even his victim--me! 2. _By Rail._--There is no one in charge of the box. It would have to take its chance of being delayed; and delay would be fatal, with enemies on the track. True, he might escape at night; but what would he be, if left in a strange place with no refuge that he could fly to? This is not what he intends; and he does not mean to risk it. 3. _By Water._--Here is the safest way, in one respect, but with most danger in another. On the water he is powerless except at night; even then he can only summon fog and storm and snow and his wolves. But were he wrecked, the living water would engulf him, helpless; and he would indeed be lost. He could have the vessel drive to land; but if it were unfriendly land, wherein he was not free to move, his position would still be desperate. We know from the record that he was on the water; so what we have to do is to ascertain _what_ water. The first thing is to realise exactly what he has done as yet; we may, then, get a light on what his later task is to be. _Firstly._--We must differentiate between what he did in London as part of his general plan of action, when he was pressed for moments and had to arrange as best he could. _Secondly_ we must see, as well as we can surmise it from the facts we know of, what he has done here. As to the first, he evidently intended to arrive at Galatz, and sent invoice to Varna to deceive us lest we should ascertain his means of exit from England; his immediate and sole purpose then was to escape. The proof of this, is the letter of instructions sent to Immanuel Hildesheim to clear and take away the box _before sunrise_. There is also the instruction to Petrof Skinsky. These we must only guess at; but there must have been some letter or message, since Skinsky came to Hildesheim. That, so far, his plans were successful we know. The _Czarina Catherine_ made a phenomenally quick journey--so much so that Captain Donelson's suspicions were aroused; but his superstition united with his canniness played the Count's game for him, and he ran with his favouring wind through fogs and all till he brought up blindfold at Galatz. That the Count's arrangements were well made, has been proved. Hildesheim cleared the box, took it off, and gave it to Skinsky. Skinsky took it--and here we lose the trail. We only know that the box is somewhere on the water, moving along. The customs and the octroi, if there be any, have been avoided. Now we come to what the Count must have done after his arrival--_on land_, at Galatz. The box was given to Skinsky before sunrise. At sunrise the Count could appear in his own form. Here, we ask why Skinsky was chosen at all to aid in the work? In my husband's diary, Skinsky is mentioned as dealing with the Slovaks who trade down the river to the port; and the man's remark, that the murder was the work of a Slovak, showed the general feeling against his class. The Count wanted isolation. My surmise is, this: that in London the Count decided to get back to his castle by water, as the most safe and secret way. He was brought from the castle by Szgany, and probably they delivered their cargo to Slovaks who took the boxes to Varna, for there they were shipped for London. Thus the Count had knowledge of the persons who could arrange this service. When the box was on land, before sunrise or after sunset, he came out from his box, met Skinsky and instructed him what to do as to arranging the carriage of the box up some river. When this was done, and he knew that all was in train, he blotted out his traces, as he thought, by murdering his agent. I have examined the map and find that the river most suitable for the Slovaks to have ascended is either the Pruth or the Sereth. I read in the typescript that in my trance I heard cows low and water swirling level with my ears and the creaking of wood. The Count in his box, then, was on a river in an open boat--propelled probably either by oars or poles, for the banks are near and it is working against stream. There would be no such sound if floating down stream. Of course it may not be either the Sereth or the Pruth, but we may possibly investigate further. Now of these two, the Pruth is the more easily navigated, but the Sereth is, at Fundu, joined by the Bistritza which runs up round the Borgo Pass. The loop it makes is manifestly as close to Dracula's castle as can be got by water. _Mina Harker's Journal--continued._ When I had done reading, Jonathan took me in his arms and kissed me. The others kept shaking me by both hands, and Dr. Van Helsing said:-- "Our dear Madam Mina is once more our teacher. Her eyes have been where we were blinded. Now we are on the track once again, and this time we may succeed. Our enemy is at his most helpless; and if we can come on him by day, on the water, our task will be over. He has a start, but he is powerless to hasten, as he may not leave his box lest those who carry him may suspect; for them to suspect would be to prompt them to throw him in the stream where he perish. This he knows, and will not. Now men, to our Council of War; for, here and now, we must plan what each and all shall do." "I shall get a steam launch and follow him," said Lord Godalming. "And I, horses to follow on the bank lest by chance he land," said Mr. Morris. "Good!" said the Professor, "both good. But neither must go alone. There must be force to overcome force if need be; the Slovak is strong and rough, and he carries rude arms." All the men smiled, for amongst them they carried a small arsenal. Said Mr. Morris:-- "I have brought some Winchesters; they are pretty handy in a crowd, and there may be wolves. The Count, if you remember, took some other precautions; he made some requisitions on others that Mrs. Harker could not quite hear or understand. We must be ready at all points." Dr. Seward said:-- "I think I had better go with Quincey. We have been accustomed to hunt together, and we two, well armed, will be a match for whatever may come along. You must not be alone, Art. It may be necessary to fight the Slovaks, and a chance thrust--for I don't suppose these fellows carry guns--would undo all our plans. There must be no chances, this time; we shall, not rest until the Count's head and body have been separated, and we are sure that he cannot re-incarnate." He looked at Jonathan as he spoke, and Jonathan looked at me. I could see that the poor dear was torn about in his mind. Of course he wanted to be with me; but then the boat service would, most likely, be the one which would destroy the ... the ... the ... Vampire. (Why did I hesitate to write the word?) He was silent awhile, and during his silence Dr. Van Helsing spoke:-- "Friend Jonathan, this is to you for twice reasons. First, because you are young and brave and can fight, and all energies may be needed at the last; and again that it is your right to destroy him--that--which has wrought such woe to you and yours. Be not afraid for Madam Mina; she will be my care, if I may. I am old. My legs are not so quick to run as once; and I am not used to ride so long or to pursue as need be, or to fight with lethal weapons. But I can be of other service; I can fight in other way. And I can die, if need be, as well as younger men. Now let me say that what I would is this: while you, my Lord Godalming and friend Jonathan go in your so swift little steamboat up the river, and whilst John and Quincey guard the bank where perchance he might be landed, I will take Madam Mina right into the heart of the enemy's country. Whilst the old fox is tied in his box, floating on the running stream whence he cannot escape to land--where he dares not raise the lid of his coffin-box lest his Slovak carriers should in fear leave him to perish--we shall go in the track where Jonathan went,--from Bistritz over the Borgo, and find our way to the Castle of Dracula. Here, Madam Mina's hypnotic power will surely help, and we shall find our way--all dark and unknown otherwise--after the first sunrise when we are near that fateful place. There is much to be done, and other places to be made sanctify, so that that nest of vipers be obliterated." Here Jonathan interrupted him hotly:-- "Do you mean to say, Professor Van Helsing, that you would bring Mina, in her sad case and tainted as she is with that devil's illness, right into the jaws of his death-trap? Not for the world! Not for Heaven or Hell!" He became almost speechless for a minute, and then went on:-- "Do you know what the place is? Have you seen that awful den of hellish infamy--with the very moonlight alive with grisly shapes, and every speck of dust that whirls in the wind a devouring monster in embryo? Have you felt the Vampire's lips upon your throat?" Here he turned to me, and as his eyes lit on my forehead he threw up his arms with a cry: "Oh, my God, what have we done to have this terror upon us!" and he sank down on the sofa in a collapse of misery. The Professor's voice, as he spoke in clear, sweet tones, which seemed to vibrate in the air, calmed us all:-- "Oh, my friend, it is because I would save Madam Mina from that awful place that I would go. God forbid that I should take her into that place. There is work--wild work--to be done there, that her eyes may not see. We men here, all save Jonathan, have seen with their own eyes what is to be done before that place can be purify. Remember that we are in terrible straits. If the Count escape us this time--and he is strong and subtle and cunning--he may choose to sleep him for a century, and then in time our dear one"--he took my hand--"would come to him to keep him company, and would be as those others that you, Jonathan, saw. You have told us of their gloating lips; you heard their ribald laugh as they clutched the moving bag that the Count threw to them. You shudder; and well may it be. Forgive me that I make you so much pain, but it is necessary. My friend, is it not a dire need for the which I am giving, possibly my life? If it were that any one went into that place to stay, it is I who would have to go to keep them company." "Do as you will," said Jonathan, with a sob that shook him all over, "we are in the hands of God!" * * * * * _Later._--Oh, it did me good to see the way that these brave men worked. How can women help loving men when they are so earnest, and so true, and so brave! And, too, it made me think of the wonderful power of money! What can it not do when it is properly applied; and what might it do when basely used. I felt so thankful that Lord Godalming is rich, and that both he and Mr. Morris, who also has plenty of money, are willing to spend it so freely. For if they did not, our little expedition could not start, either so promptly or so well equipped, as it will within another hour. It is not three hours since it was arranged what part each of us was to do; and now Lord Godalming and Jonathan have a lovely steam launch, with steam up ready to start at a moment's notice. Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris have half a dozen good horses, well appointed. We have all the maps and appliances of various kinds that can be had. Professor Van Helsing and I are to leave by the 11:40 train to-night for Veresti, where we are to get a carriage to drive to the Borgo Pass. We are bringing a good deal of ready money, as we are to buy a carriage and horses. We shall drive ourselves, for we have no one whom we can trust in the matter. The Professor knows something of a great many languages, so we shall get on all right. We have all got arms, even for me a large-bore revolver; Jonathan would not be happy unless I was armed like the rest. Alas! I cannot carry one arm that the rest do; the scar on my forehead forbids that. Dear Dr. Van Helsing comforts me by telling me that I am fully armed as there may be wolves; the weather is getting colder every hour, and there are snow-flurries which come and go as warnings. * * * * * _Later._--It took all my courage to say good-bye to my darling. We may never meet again. Courage, Mina! the Professor is looking at you keenly; his look is a warning. There must be no tears now--unless it may be that God will let them fall in gladness. _Jonathan Harker's Journal._ _October 30. Night._--I am writing this in the light from the furnace door of the steam launch: Lord Godalming is firing up. He is an experienced hand at the work, as he has had for years a launch of his own on the Thames, and another on the Norfolk Broads. Regarding our plans, we finally decided that Mina's guess was correct, and that if any waterway was chosen for the Count's escape back to his Castle, the Sereth and then the Bistritza at its junction, would be the one. We took it, that somewhere about the 47th degree, north latitude, would be the place chosen for the crossing the country between the river and the Carpathians. We have no fear in running at good speed up the river at night; there is plenty of water, and the banks are wide enough apart to make steaming, even in the dark, easy enough. Lord Godalming tells me to sleep for a while, as it is enough for the present for one to be on watch. But I cannot sleep--how can I with the terrible danger hanging over my darling, and her going out into that awful place.... My only comfort is that we are in the hands of God. Only for that faith it would be easier to die than to live, and so be quit of all the trouble. Mr. Morris and Dr. Seward were off on their long ride before we started; they are to keep up the right bank, far enough off to get on higher lands where they can see a good stretch of river and avoid the following of its curves. They have, for the first stages, two men to ride and lead their spare horses--four in all, so as not to excite curiosity. When they dismiss the men, which shall be shortly, they shall themselves look after the horses. It may be necessary for us to join forces; if so they can mount our whole party. One of the saddles has a movable horn, and can be easily adapted for Mina, if required. It is a wild adventure we are on. Here, as we are rushing along through the darkness, with the cold from the river seeming to rise up and strike us; with all the mysterious voices of the night around us, it all comes home. We seem to be drifting into unknown places and unknown ways; into a whole world of dark and dreadful things. Godalming is shutting the furnace door.... * * * * * _31 October._--Still hurrying along. The day has come, and Godalming is sleeping. I am on watch. The morning is bitterly cold; the furnace heat is grateful, though we have heavy fur coats. As yet we have passed only a few open boats, but none of them had on board any box or package of anything like the size of the one we seek. The men were scared every time we turned our electric lamp on them, and fell on their knees and prayed. * * * * * _1 November, evening._--No news all day; we have found nothing of the kind we seek. We have now passed into the Bistritza; and if we are wrong in our surmise our chance is gone. We have over-hauled every boat, big and little. Early this morning, one crew took us for a Government boat, and treated us accordingly. We saw in this a way of smoothing matters, so at Fundu, where the Bistritza runs into the Sereth, we got a Roumanian flag which we now fly conspicuously. With every boat which we have over-hauled since then this trick has succeeded; we have had every deference shown to us, and not once any objection to whatever we chose to ask or do. Some of the Slovaks tell us that a big boat passed them, going at more than usual speed as she had a double crew on board. This was before they came to Fundu, so they could not tell us whether the boat turned into the Bistritza or continued on up the Sereth. At Fundu we could not hear of any such boat, so she must have passed there in the night. I am feeling very sleepy; the cold is perhaps beginning to tell upon me, and nature must have rest some time. Godalming insists that he shall keep the first watch. God bless him for all his goodness to poor dear Mina and me. * * * * * _2 November, morning._--It is broad daylight. That good fellow would not wake me. He says it would have been a sin to, for I slept peacefully and was forgetting my trouble. It seems brutally selfish to me to have slept so long, and let him watch all night; but he was quite right. I am a new man this morning; and, as I sit here and watch him sleeping, I can do all that is necessary both as to minding the engine, steering, and keeping watch. I can feel that my strength and energy are coming back to me. I wonder where Mina is now, and Van Helsing. They should have got to Veresti about noon on Wednesday. It would take them some time to get the carriage and horses; so if they had started and travelled hard, they would be about now at the Borgo Pass. God guide and help them! I am afraid to think what may happen. If we could only go faster! but we cannot; the engines are throbbing and doing their utmost. I wonder how Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris are getting on. There seem to be endless streams running down the mountains into this river, but as none of them are very large--at present, at all events, though they are terrible doubtless in winter and when the snow melts--the horsemen may not have met much obstruction. I hope that before we get to Strasba we may see them; for if by that time we have not overtaken the Count, it may be necessary to take counsel together what to do next. _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _2 November._--Three days on the road. No news, and no time to write it if there had been, for every moment is precious. We have had only the rest needful for the horses; but we are both bearing it wonderfully. Those adventurous days of ours are turning up useful. We must push on; we shall never feel happy till we get the launch in sight again. * * * * * _3 November._--We heard at Fundu that the launch had gone up the Bistritza. I wish it wasn't so cold. There are signs of snow coming; and if it falls heavy it will stop us. In such case we must get a sledge and go on, Russian fashion. * * * * * _4 November._--To-day we heard of the launch having been detained by an accident when trying to force a way up the rapids. The Slovak boats get up all right, by aid of a rope and steering with knowledge. Some went up only a few hours before. Godalming is an amateur fitter himself, and evidently it was he who put the launch in trim again. Finally, they got up the rapids all right, with local help, and are off on the chase afresh. I fear that the boat is not any better for the accident; the peasantry tell us that after she got upon smooth water again, she kept stopping every now and again so long as she was in sight. We must push on harder than ever; our help may be wanted soon. _Mina Harker's Journal._ _31 October._--Arrived at Veresti at noon. The Professor tells me that this morning at dawn he could hardly hypnotise me at all, and that all I could say was: "dark and quiet." He is off now buying a carriage and horses. He says that he will later on try to buy additional horses, so that we may be able to change them on the way. We have something more than 70 miles before us. The country is lovely, and most interesting; if only we were under different conditions, how delightful it would be to see it all. If Jonathan and I were driving through it alone what a pleasure it would be. To stop and see people, and learn something of their life, and to fill our minds and memories with all the colour and picturesqueness of the whole wild, beautiful country and the quaint people! But, alas!-- * * * * * _Later._--Dr. Van Helsing has returned. He has got the carriage and horses; we are to have some dinner, and to start in an hour. The landlady is putting us up a huge basket of provisions; it seems enough for a company of soldiers. The Professor encourages her, and whispers to me that it may be a week before we can get any good food again. He has been shopping too, and has sent home such a wonderful lot of fur coats and wraps, and all sorts of warm things. There will not be any chance of our being cold. * * * * * We shall soon be off. I am afraid to think what may happen to us. We are truly in the hands of God. He alone knows what may be, and I pray Him, with all the strength of my sad and humble soul, that He will watch over my beloved husband; that whatever may happen, Jonathan may know that I loved him and honoured him more than I can say, and that my latest and truest thought will be always for him. CHAPTER XXVII MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL _1 November._--All day long we have travelled, and at a good speed. The horses seem to know that they are being kindly treated, for they go willingly their full stage at best speed. We have now had so many changes and find the same thing so constantly that we are encouraged to think that the journey will be an easy one. Dr. Van Helsing is laconic; he tells the farmers that he is hurrying to Bistritz, and pays them well to make the exchange of horses. We get hot soup, or coffee, or tea; and off we go. It is a lovely country; full of beauties of all imaginable kinds, and the people are brave, and strong, and simple, and seem full of nice qualities. They are _very, very_ superstitious. In the first house where we stopped, when the woman who served us saw the scar on my forehead, she crossed herself and put out two fingers towards me, to keep off the evil eye. I believe they went to the trouble of putting an extra amount of garlic into our food; and I can't abide garlic. Ever since then I have taken care not to take off my hat or veil, and so have escaped their suspicions. We are travelling fast, and as we have no driver with us to carry tales, we go ahead of scandal; but I daresay that fear of the evil eye will follow hard behind us all the way. The Professor seems tireless; all day he would not take any rest, though he made me sleep for a long spell. At sunset time he hypnotised me, and he says that I answered as usual "darkness, lapping water and creaking wood"; so our enemy is still on the river. I am afraid to think of Jonathan, but somehow I have now no fear for him, or for myself. I write this whilst we wait in a farmhouse for the horses to be got ready. Dr. Van Helsing is sleeping, Poor dear, he looks very tired and old and grey, but his mouth is set as firmly as a conqueror's; even in his sleep he is instinct with resolution. When we have well started I must make him rest whilst I drive. I shall tell him that we have days before us, and we must not break down when most of all his strength will be needed.... All is ready; we are off shortly. * * * * * _2 November, morning._--I was successful, and we took turns driving all night; now the day is on us, bright though cold. There is a strange heaviness in the air--I say heaviness for want of a better word; I mean that it oppresses us both. It is very cold, and only our warm furs keep us comfortable. At dawn Van Helsing hypnotised me; he says I answered "darkness, creaking wood and roaring water," so the river is changing as they ascend. I do hope that my darling will not run any chance of danger--more than need be; but we are in God's hands. * * * * * _2 November, night._--All day long driving. The country gets wilder as we go, and the great spurs of the Carpathians, which at Veresti seemed so far from us and so low on the horizon, now seem to gather round us and tower in front. We both seem in good spirits; I think we make an effort each to cheer the other; in the doing so we cheer ourselves. Dr. Van Helsing says that by morning we shall reach the Borgo Pass. The houses are very few here now, and the Professor says that the last horse we got will have to go on with us, as we may not be able to change. He got two in addition to the two we changed, so that now we have a rude four-in-hand. The dear horses are patient and good, and they give us no trouble. We are not worried with other travellers, and so even I can drive. We shall get to the Pass in daylight; we do not want to arrive before. So we take it easy, and have each a long rest in turn. Oh, what will to-morrow bring to us? We go to seek the place where my poor darling suffered so much. God grant that we may be guided aright, and that He will deign to watch over my husband and those dear to us both, and who are in such deadly peril. As for me, I am not worthy in His sight. Alas! I am unclean to His eyes, and shall be until He may deign to let me stand forth in His sight as one of those who have not incurred His wrath. _Memorandum by Abraham Van Helsing._ _4 November._--This to my old and true friend John Seward, M.D., of Purfleet, London, in case I may not see him. It may explain. It is morning, and I write by a fire which all the night I have kept alive--Madam Mina aiding me. It is cold, cold; so cold that the grey heavy sky is full of snow, which when it falls will settle for all winter as the ground is hardening to receive it. It seems to have affected Madam Mina; she has been so heavy of head all day that she was not like herself. She sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps! She who is usual so alert, have done literally nothing all the day; she even have lost her appetite. She make no entry into her little diary, she who write so faithful at every pause. Something whisper to me that all is not well. However, to-night she is more _vif_. Her long sleep all day have refresh and restore her, for now she is all sweet and bright as ever. At sunset I try to hypnotise her, but alas! with no effect; the power has grown less and less with each day, and to-night it fail me altogether. Well, God's will be done--whatever it may be, and whithersoever it may lead! Now to the historical, for as Madam Mina write not in her stenography, I must, in my cumbrous old fashion, that so each day of us may not go unrecorded. We got to the Borgo Pass just after sunrise yesterday morning. When I saw the signs of the dawn I got ready for the hypnotism. We stopped our carriage, and got down so that there might be no disturbance. I made a couch with furs, and Madam Mina, lying down, yield herself as usual, but more slow and more short time than ever, to the hypnotic sleep. As before, came the answer: "darkness and the swirling of water." Then she woke, bright and radiant and we go on our way and soon reach the Pass. At this time and place, she become all on fire with zeal; some new guiding power be in her manifested, for she point to a road and say:-- "This is the way." "How know you it?" I ask. "Of course I know it," she answer, and with a pause, add: "Have not my Jonathan travelled it and wrote of his travel?" At first I think somewhat strange, but soon I see that there be only one such by-road. It is used but little, and very different from the coach road from the Bukovina to Bistritz, which is more wide and hard, and more of use. So we came down this road; when we meet other ways--not always were we sure that they were roads at all, for they be neglect and light snow have fallen--the horses know and they only. I give rein to them, and they go on so patient. By-and-by we find all the things which Jonathan have note in that wonderful diary of him. Then we go on for long, long hours and hours. At the first, I tell Madam Mina to sleep; she try, and she succeed. She sleep all the time; till at the last, I feel myself to suspicious grow, and attempt to wake her. But she sleep on, and I may not wake her though I try. I do not wish to try too hard lest I harm her; for I know that she have suffer much, and sleep at times be all-in-all to her. I think I drowse myself, for all of sudden I feel guilt, as though I have done something; I find myself bolt up, with the reins in my hand, and the good horses go along jog, jog, just as ever. I look down and find Madam Mina still sleep. It is now not far off sunset time, and over the snow the light of the sun flow in big yellow flood, so that we throw great long shadow on where the mountain rise so steep. For we are going up, and up; and all is oh! so wild and rocky, as though it were the end of the world. Then I arouse Madam Mina. This time she wake with not much trouble, and then I try to put her to hypnotic sleep. But she sleep not, being as though I were not. Still I try and try, till all at once I find her and myself in dark; so I look round, and find that the sun have gone down. Madam Mina laugh, and I turn and look at her. She is now quite awake, and look so well as I never saw her since that night at Carfax when we first enter the Count's house. I am amaze, and not at ease then; but she is so bright and tender and thoughtful for me that I forget all fear. I light a fire, for we have brought supply of wood with us, and she prepare food while I undo the horses and set them, tethered in shelter, to feed. Then when I return to the fire she have my supper ready. I go to help her; but she smile, and tell me that she have eat already--that she was so hungry that she would not wait. I like it not, and I have grave doubts; but I fear to affright her, and so I am silent of it. She help me and I eat alone; and then we wrap in fur and lie beside the fire, and I tell her to sleep while I watch. But presently I forget all of watching; and when I sudden remember that I watch, I find her lying quiet, but awake, and looking at me with so bright eyes. Once, twice more the same occur, and I get much sleep till before morning. When I wake I try to hypnotise her; but alas! though she shut her eyes obedient, she may not sleep. The sun rise up, and up, and up; and then sleep come to her too late, but so heavy that she will not wake. I have to lift her up, and place her sleeping in the carriage when I have harnessed the horses and made all ready. Madam still sleep, and she look in her sleep more healthy and more redder than before. And I like it not. And I am afraid, afraid, afraid!--I am afraid of all things--even to think but I must go on my way. The stake we play for is life and death, or more than these, and we must not flinch. * * * * * _5 November, morning._--Let me be accurate in everything, for though you and I have seen some strange things together, you may at the first think that I, Van Helsing, am mad--that the many horrors and the so long strain on nerves has at the last turn my brain. All yesterday we travel, ever getting closer to the mountains, and moving into a more and more wild and desert land. There are great, frowning precipices and much falling water, and Nature seem to have held sometime her carnival. Madam Mina still sleep and sleep; and though I did have hunger and appeased it, I could not waken her--even for food. I began to fear that the fatal spell of the place was upon her, tainted as she is with that Vampire baptism. "Well," said I to myself, "if it be that she sleep all the day, it shall also be that I do not sleep at night." As we travel on the rough road, for a road of an ancient and imperfect kind there was, I held down my head and slept. Again I waked with a sense of guilt and of time passed, and found Madam Mina still sleeping, and the sun low down. But all was indeed changed; the frowning mountains seemed further away, and we were near the top of a steep-rising hill, on summit of which was such a castle as Jonathan tell of in his diary. At once I exulted and feared; for now, for good or ill, the end was near. I woke Madam Mina, and again tried to hypnotise her; but alas! unavailing till too late. Then, ere the great dark came upon us--for even after down-sun the heavens reflected the gone sun on the snow, and all was for a time in a great twilight--I took out the horses and fed them in what shelter I could. Then I make a fire; and near it I make Madam Mina, now awake and more charming than ever, sit comfortable amid her rugs. I got ready food: but she would not eat, simply saying that she had not hunger. I did not press her, knowing her unavailingness. But I myself eat, for I must needs now be strong for all. Then, with the fear on me of what might be, I drew a ring so big for her comfort, round where Madam Mina sat; and over the ring I passed some of the wafer, and I broke it fine so that all was well guarded. She sat still all the time--so still as one dead; and she grew whiter and ever whiter till the snow was not more pale; and no word she said. But when I drew near, she clung to me, and I could know that the poor soul shook her from head to feet with a tremor that was pain to feel. I said to her presently, when she had grown more quiet:-- "Will you not come over to the fire?" for I wished to make a test of what she could. She rose obedient, but when she have made a step she stopped, and stood as one stricken. "Why not go on?" I asked. She shook her head, and, coming back, sat down in her place. Then, looking at me with open eyes, as of one waked from sleep, she said simply:-- "I cannot!" and remained silent. I rejoiced, for I knew that what she could not, none of those that we dreaded could. Though there might be danger to her body, yet her soul was safe! Presently the horses began to scream, and tore at their tethers till I came to them and quieted them. When they did feel my hands on them, they whinnied low as in joy, and licked at my hands and were quiet for a time. Many times through the night did I come to them, till it arrive to the cold hour when all nature is at lowest; and every time my coming was with quiet of them. In the cold hour the fire began to die, and I was about stepping forth to replenish it, for now the snow came in flying sweeps and with it a chill mist. Even in the dark there was a light of some kind, as there ever is over snow; and it seemed as though the snow-flurries and the wreaths of mist took shape as of women with trailing garments. All was in dead, grim silence only that the horses whinnied and cowered, as if in terror of the worst. I began to fear--horrible fears; but then came to me the sense of safety in that ring wherein I stood. I began, too, to think that my imaginings were of the night, and the gloom, and the unrest that I have gone through, and all the terrible anxiety. It was as though my memories of all Jonathan's horrid experience were befooling me; for the snow flakes and the mist began to wheel and circle round, till I could get as though a shadowy glimpse of those women that would have kissed him. And then the horses cowered lower and lower, and moaned in terror as men do in pain. Even the madness of fright was not to them, so that they could break away. I feared for my dear Madam Mina when these weird figures drew near and circled round. I looked at her, but she sat calm, and smiled at me; when I would have stepped to the fire to replenish it, she caught me and held me back, and whispered, like a voice that one hears in a dream, so low it was:-- "No! No! Do not go without. Here you are safe!" I turned to her, and looking in her eyes, said:-- "But you? It is for you that I fear!" whereat she laughed--a laugh, low and unreal, and said:-- "Fear for _me_! Why fear for me? None safer in all the world from them than I am," and as I wondered at the meaning of her words, a puff of wind made the flame leap up, and I see the red scar on her forehead. Then, alas! I knew. Did I not, I would soon have learned, for the wheeling figures of mist and snow came closer, but keeping ever without the Holy circle. Then they began to materialise till--if God have not take away my reason, for I saw it through my eyes--there were before me in actual flesh the same three women that Jonathan saw in the room, when they would have kissed his throat. I knew the swaying round forms, the bright hard eyes, the white teeth, the ruddy colour, the voluptuous lips. They smiled ever at poor dear Madam Mina; and as their laugh came through the silence of the night, they twined their arms and pointed to her, and said in those so sweet tingling tones that Jonathan said were of the intolerable sweetness of the water-glasses:-- "Come, sister. Come to us. Come! Come!" In fear I turned to my poor Madam Mina, and my heart with gladness leapt like flame; for oh! the terror in her sweet eyes, the repulsion, the horror, told a story to my heart that was all of hope. God be thanked she was not, yet, of them. I seized some of the firewood which was by me, and holding out some of the Wafer, advanced on them towards the fire. They drew back before me, and laughed their low horrid laugh. I fed the fire, and feared them not; for I knew that we were safe within our protections. They could not approach, me, whilst so armed, nor Madam Mina whilst she remained within the ring, which she could not leave no more than they could enter. The horses had ceased to moan, and lay still on the ground; the snow fell on them softly, and they grew whiter. I knew that there was for the poor beasts no more of terror. And so we remained till the red of the dawn to fall through the snow-gloom. I was desolate and afraid, and full of woe and terror; but when that beautiful sun began to climb the horizon life was to me again. At the first coming of the dawn the horrid figures melted in the whirling mist and snow; the wreaths of transparent gloom moved away towards the castle, and were lost. Instinctively, with the dawn coming, I turned to Madam Mina, intending to hypnotise her; but she lay in a deep and sudden sleep, from which I could not wake her. I tried to hypnotise through her sleep, but she made no response, none at all; and the day broke. I fear yet to stir. I have made my fire and have seen the horses, they are all dead. To-day I have much to do here, and I keep waiting till the sun is up high; for there may be places where I must go, where that sunlight, though snow and mist obscure it, will be to me a safety. I will strengthen me with breakfast, and then I will to my terrible work. Madam Mina still sleeps; and, God be thanked! she is calm in her sleep.... _Jonathan Harker's Journal._ _4 November, evening._--The accident to the launch has been a terrible thing for us. Only for it we should have overtaken the boat long ago; and by now my dear Mina would have been free. I fear to think of her, off on the wolds near that horrid place. We have got horses, and we follow on the track. I note this whilst Godalming is getting ready. We have our arms. The Szgany must look out if they mean fight. Oh, if only Morris and Seward were with us. We must only hope! If I write no more Good-bye, Mina! God bless and keep you. _Dr. Seward's Diary._ _5 November._--With the dawn we saw the body of Szgany before us dashing away from the river with their leiter-wagon. They surrounded it in a cluster, and hurried along as though beset. The snow is falling lightly and there is a strange excitement in the air. It may be our own feelings, but the depression is strange. Far off I hear the howling of wolves; the snow brings them down from the mountains, and there are dangers to all of us, and from all sides. The horses are nearly ready, and we are soon off. We ride to death of some one. God alone knows who, or where, or what, or when, or how it may be.... _Dr. Van Helsing's Memorandum._ _5 November, afternoon._--I am at least sane. Thank God for that mercy at all events, though the proving it has been dreadful. When I left Madam Mina sleeping within the Holy circle, I took my way to the castle. The blacksmith hammer which I took in the carriage from Veresti was useful; though the doors were all open I broke them off the rusty hinges, lest some ill-intent or ill-chance should close them, so that being entered I might not get out. Jonathan's bitter experience served me here. By memory of his diary I found my way to the old chapel, for I knew that here my work lay. The air was oppressive; it seemed as if there was some sulphurous fume, which at times made me dizzy. Either there was a roaring in my ears or I heard afar off the howl of wolves. Then I bethought me of my dear Madam Mina, and I was in terrible plight. The dilemma had me between his horns. Her, I had not dare to take into this place, but left safe from the Vampire in that Holy circle; and yet even there would be the wolf! I resolve me that my work lay here, and that as to the wolves we must submit, if it were God's will. At any rate it was only death and freedom beyond. So did I choose for her. Had it but been for myself the choice had been easy, the maw of the wolf were better to rest in than the grave of the Vampire! So I make my choice to go on with my work. I knew that there were at least three graves to find--graves that are inhabit; so I search, and search, and I find one of them. She lay in her Vampire sleep, so full of life and voluptuous beauty that I shudder as though I have come to do murder. Ah, I doubt not that in old time, when such things were, many a man who set forth to do such a task as mine, found at the last his heart fail him, and then his nerve. So he delay, and delay, and delay, till the mere beauty and the fascination of the wanton Un-Dead have hypnotise him; and he remain on and on, till sunset come, and the Vampire sleep be over. Then the beautiful eyes of the fair woman open and look love, and the voluptuous mouth present to a kiss--and man is weak. And there remain one more victim in the Vampire fold; one more to swell the grim and grisly ranks of the Un-Dead!... There is some fascination, surely, when I am moved by the mere presence of such an one, even lying as she lay in a tomb fretted with age and heavy with the dust of centuries, though there be that horrid odour such as the lairs of the Count have had. Yes, I was moved--I, Van Helsing, with all my purpose and with my motive for hate--I was moved to a yearning for delay which seemed to paralyse my faculties and to clog my very soul. It may have been that the need of natural sleep, and the strange oppression of the air were beginning to overcome me. Certain it was that I was lapsing into sleep, the open-eyed sleep of one who yields to a sweet fascination, when there came through the snow-stilled air a long, low wail, so full of woe and pity that it woke me like the sound of a clarion. For it was the voice of my dear Madam Mina that I heard. Then I braced myself again to my horrid task, and found by wrenching away tomb-tops one other of the sisters, the other dark one. I dared not pause to look on her as I had on her sister, lest once more I should begin to be enthrall; but I go on searching until, presently, I find in a high great tomb as if made to one much beloved that other fair sister which, like Jonathan I had seen to gather herself out of the atoms of the mist. She was so fair to look on, so radiantly beautiful, so exquisitely voluptuous, that the very instinct of man in me, which calls some of my sex to love and to protect one of hers, made my head whirl with new emotion. But God be thanked, that soul-wail of my dear Madam Mina had not died out of my ears; and, before the spell could be wrought further upon me, I had nerved myself to my wild work. By this time I had searched all the tombs in the chapel, so far as I could tell; and as there had been only three of these Un-Dead phantoms around us in the night, I took it that there were no more of active Un-Dead existent. There was one great tomb more lordly than all the rest; huge it was, and nobly proportioned. On it was but one word DRACULA. This then was the Un-Dead home of the King-Vampire, to whom so many more were due. Its emptiness spoke eloquent to make certain what I knew. Before I began to restore these women to their dead selves through my awful work, I laid in Dracula's tomb some of the Wafer, and so banished him from it, Un-Dead, for ever. Then began my terrible task, and I dreaded it. Had it been but one, it had been easy, comparative. But three! To begin twice more after I had been through a deed of horror; for if it was terrible with the sweet Miss Lucy, what would it not be with these strange ones who had survived through centuries, and who had been strengthened by the passing of the years; who would, if they could, have fought for their foul lives.... Oh, my friend John, but it was butcher work; had I not been nerved by thoughts of other dead, and of the living over whom hung such a pall of fear, I could not have gone on. I tremble and tremble even yet, though till all was over, God be thanked, my nerve did stand. Had I not seen the repose in the first place, and the gladness that stole over it just ere the final dissolution came, as realisation that the soul had been won, I could not have gone further with my butchery. I could not have endured the horrid screeching as the stake drove home; the plunging of writhing form, and lips of bloody foam. I should have fled in terror and left my work undone. But it is over! And the poor souls, I can pity them now and weep, as I think of them placid each in her full sleep of death for a short moment ere fading. For, friend John, hardly had my knife severed the head of each, before the whole body began to melt away and crumble in to its native dust, as though the death that should have come centuries agone had at last assert himself and say at once and loud "I am here!" Before I left the castle I so fixed its entrances that never more can the Count enter there Un-Dead. When I stepped into the circle where Madam Mina slept, she woke from her sleep, and, seeing, me, cried out in pain that I had endured too much. "Come!" she said, "come away from this awful place! Let us go to meet my husband who is, I know, coming towards us." She was looking thin and pale and weak; but her eyes were pure and glowed with fervour. I was glad to see her paleness and her illness, for my mind was full of the fresh horror of that ruddy vampire sleep. And so with trust and hope, and yet full of fear, we go eastward to meet our friends--and _him_--whom Madam Mina tell me that she _know_ are coming to meet us. _Mina Harker's Journal._ _6 November._--It was late in the afternoon when the Professor and I took our way towards the east whence I knew Jonathan was coming. We did not go fast, though the way was steeply downhill, for we had to take heavy rugs and wraps with us; we dared not face the possibility of being left without warmth in the cold and the snow. We had to take some of our provisions, too, for we were in a perfect desolation, and, so far as we could see through the snowfall, there was not even the sign of habitation. When we had gone about a mile, I was tired with the heavy walking and sat down to rest. Then we looked back and saw where the clear line of Dracula's castle cut the sky; for we were so deep under the hill whereon it was set that the angle of perspective of the Carpathian mountains was far below it. We saw it in all its grandeur, perched a thousand feet on the summit of a sheer precipice, and with seemingly a great gap between it and the steep of the adjacent mountain on any side. There was something wild and uncanny about the place. We could hear the distant howling of wolves. They were far off, but the sound, even though coming muffled through the deadening snowfall, was full of terror. I knew from the way Dr. Van Helsing was searching about that he was trying to seek some strategic point, where we would be less exposed in case of attack. The rough roadway still led downwards; we could trace it through the drifted snow. In a little while the Professor signalled to me, so I got up and joined him. He had found a wonderful spot, a sort of natural hollow in a rock, with an entrance like a doorway between two boulders. He took me by the hand and drew me in: "See!" he said, "here you will be in shelter; and if the wolves do come I can meet them one by one." He brought in our furs, and made a snug nest for me, and got out some provisions and forced them upon me. But I could not eat; to even try to do so was repulsive to me, and, much as I would have liked to please him, I could not bring myself to the attempt. He looked very sad, but did not reproach me. Taking his field-glasses from the case, he stood on the top of the rock, and began to search the horizon. Suddenly he called out:-- "Look! Madam Mina, look! look!" I sprang up and stood beside him on the rock; he handed me his glasses and pointed. The snow was now falling more heavily, and swirled about fiercely, for a high wind was beginning to blow. However, there were times when there were pauses between the snow flurries and I could see a long way round. From the height where we were it was possible to see a great distance; and far off, beyond the white waste of snow, I could see the river lying like a black ribbon in kinks and curls as it wound its way. Straight in front of us and not far off--in fact, so near that I wondered we had not noticed before--came a group of mounted men hurrying along. In the midst of them was a cart, a long leiter-wagon which swept from side to side, like a dog's tail wagging, with each stern inequality of the road. Outlined against the snow as they were, I could see from the men's clothes that they were peasants or gypsies of some kind. On the cart was a great square chest. My heart leaped as I saw it, for I felt that the end was coming. The evening was now drawing close, and well I knew that at sunset the Thing, which was till then imprisoned there, would take new freedom and could in any of many forms elude all pursuit. In fear I turned to the Professor; to my consternation, however, he was not there. An instant later, I saw him below me. Round the rock he had drawn a circle, such as we had found shelter in last night. When he had completed it he stood beside me again, saying:-- "At least you shall be safe here from _him_!" He took the glasses from me, and at the next lull of the snow swept the whole space below us. "See," he said, "they come quickly; they are flogging the horses, and galloping as hard as they can." He paused and went on in a hollow voice:-- "They are racing for the sunset. We may be too late. God's will be done!" Down came another blinding rush of driving snow, and the whole landscape was blotted out. It soon passed, however, and once more his glasses were fixed on the plain. Then came a sudden cry:-- "Look! Look! Look! See, two horsemen follow fast, coming up from the south. It must be Quincey and John. Take the glass. Look before the snow blots it all out!" I took it and looked. The two men might be Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris. I knew at all events that neither of them was Jonathan. At the same time I _knew_ that Jonathan was not far off; looking around I saw on the north side of the coming party two other men, riding at break-neck speed. One of them I knew was Jonathan, and the other I took, of course, to be Lord Godalming. They, too, were pursuing the party with the cart. When I told the Professor he shouted in glee like a schoolboy, and, after looking intently till a snow fall made sight impossible, he laid his Winchester rifle ready for use against the boulder at the opening of our shelter. "They are all converging," he said. "When the time comes we shall have gypsies on all sides." I got out my revolver ready to hand, for whilst we were speaking the howling of wolves came louder and closer. When the snow storm abated a moment we looked again. It was strange to see the snow falling in such heavy flakes close to us, and beyond, the sun shining more and more brightly as it sank down towards the far mountain tops. Sweeping the glass all around us I could see here and there dots moving singly and in twos and threes and larger numbers--the wolves were gathering for their prey. Every instant seemed an age whilst we waited. The wind came now in fierce bursts, and the snow was driven with fury as it swept upon us in circling eddies. At times we could not see an arm's length before us; but at others, as the hollow-sounding wind swept by us, it seemed to clear the air-space around us so that we could see afar off. We had of late been so accustomed to watch for sunrise and sunset, that we knew with fair accuracy when it would be; and we knew that before long the sun would set. It was hard to believe that by our watches it was less than an hour that we waited in that rocky shelter before the various bodies began to converge close upon us. The wind came now with fiercer and more bitter sweeps, and more steadily from the north. It seemingly had driven the snow clouds from us, for, with only occasional bursts, the snow fell. We could distinguish clearly the individuals of each party, the pursued and the pursuers. Strangely enough those pursued did not seem to realise, or at least to care, that they were pursued; they seemed, however, to hasten with redoubled speed as the sun dropped lower and lower on the mountain tops. Closer and closer they drew. The Professor and I crouched down behind our rock, and held our weapons ready; I could see that he was determined that they should not pass. One and all were quite unaware of our presence. All at once two voices shouted out to: "Halt!" One was my Jonathan's, raised in a high key of passion; the other Mr. Morris' strong resolute tone of quiet command. The gypsies may not have known the language, but there was no mistaking the tone, in whatever tongue the words were spoken. Instinctively they reined in, and at the instant Lord Godalming and Jonathan dashed up at one side and Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris on the other. The leader of the gypsies, a splendid-looking fellow who sat his horse like a centaur, waved them back, and in a fierce voice gave to his companions some word to proceed. They lashed the horses which sprang forward; but the four men raised their Winchester rifles, and in an unmistakable way commanded them to stop. At the same moment Dr. Van Helsing and I rose behind the rock and pointed our weapons at them. Seeing that they were surrounded the men tightened their reins and drew up. The leader turned to them and gave a word at which every man of the gypsy party drew what weapon he carried, knife or pistol, and held himself in readiness to attack. Issue was joined in an instant. The leader, with a quick movement of his rein, threw his horse out in front, and pointing first to the sun--now close down on the hill tops--and then to the castle, said something which I did not understand. For answer, all four men of our party threw themselves from their horses and dashed towards the cart. I should have felt terrible fear at seeing Jonathan in such danger, but that the ardour of battle must have been upon me as well as the rest of them; I felt no fear, but only a wild, surging desire to do something. Seeing the quick movement of our parties, the leader of the gypsies gave a command; his men instantly formed round the cart in a sort of undisciplined endeavour, each one shouldering and pushing the other in his eagerness to carry out the order. In the midst of this I could see that Jonathan on one side of the ring of men, and Quincey on the other, were forcing a way to the cart; it was evident that they were bent on finishing their task before the sun should set. Nothing seemed to stop or even to hinder them. Neither the levelled weapons nor the flashing knives of the gypsies in front, nor the howling of the wolves behind, appeared to even attract their attention. Jonathan's impetuosity, and the manifest singleness of his purpose, seemed to overawe those in front of him; instinctively they cowered, aside and let him pass. In an instant he had jumped upon the cart, and, with a strength which seemed incredible, raised the great box, and flung it over the wheel to the ground. In the meantime, Mr. Morris had had to use force to pass through his side of the ring of Szgany. All the time I had been breathlessly watching Jonathan I had, with the tail of my eye, seen him pressing desperately forward, and had seen the knives of the gypsies flash as he won a way through them, and they cut at him. He had parried with his great bowie knife, and at first I thought that he too had come through in safety; but as he sprang beside Jonathan, who had by now jumped from the cart, I could see that with his left hand he was clutching at his side, and that the blood was spurting through his fingers. He did not delay notwithstanding this, for as Jonathan, with desperate energy, attacked one end of the chest, attempting to prize off the lid with his great Kukri knife, he attacked the other frantically with his bowie. Under the efforts of both men the lid began to yield; the nails drew with a quick screeching sound, and the top of the box was thrown back. By this time the gypsies, seeing themselves covered by the Winchesters, and at the mercy of Lord Godalming and Dr. Seward, had given in and made no resistance. The sun was almost down on the mountain tops, and the shadows of the whole group fell long upon the snow. I saw the Count lying within the box upon the earth, some of which the rude falling from the cart had scattered over him. He was deathly pale, just like a waxen image, and the red eyes glared with the horrible vindictive look which I knew too well. As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph. But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat; whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart. It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumble into dust and passed from our sight. I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there. The Castle of Dracula now stood out against the red sky, and every stone of its broken battlements was articulated against the light of the setting sun. The gypsies, taking us as in some way the cause of the extraordinary disappearance of the dead man, turned, without a word, and rode away as if for their lives. Those who were unmounted jumped upon the leiter-wagon and shouted to the horsemen not to desert them. The wolves, which had withdrawn to a safe distance, followed in their wake, leaving us alone. Mr. Morris, who had sunk to the ground, leaned on his elbow, holding his hand pressed to his side; the blood still gushed through his fingers. I flew to him, for the Holy circle did not now keep me back; so did the two doctors. Jonathan knelt behind him and the wounded man laid back his head on his shoulder. With a sigh he took, with a feeble effort, my hand in that of his own which was unstained. He must have seen the anguish of my heart in my face, for he smiled at me and said:-- "I am only too happy to have been of any service! Oh, God!" he cried suddenly, struggling up to a sitting posture and pointing to me, "It was worth for this to die! Look! look!" The sun was now right down upon the mountain top, and the red gleams fell upon my face, so that it was bathed in rosy light. With one impulse the men sank on their knees and a deep and earnest "Amen" broke from all as their eyes followed the pointing of his finger. The dying man spoke:-- "Now God be thanked that all has not been in vain! See! the snow is not more stainless than her forehead! The curse has passed away!" And, to our bitter grief, with a smile and in silence, he died, a gallant gentleman. NOTE Seven years ago we all went through the flames; and the happiness of some of us since then is, we think, well worth the pain we endured. It is an added joy to Mina and to me that our boy's birthday is the same day as that on which Quincey Morris died. His mother holds, I know, the secret belief that some of our brave friend's spirit has passed into him. His bundle of names links all our little band of men together; but we call him Quincey. In the summer of this year we made a journey to Transylvania, and went over the old ground which was, and is, to us so full of vivid and terrible memories. It was almost impossible to believe that the things which we had seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears were living truths. Every trace of all that had been was blotted out. The castle stood as before, reared high above a waste of desolation. When we got home we were talking of the old time--which we could all look back on without despair, for Godalming and Seward are both happily married. I took the papers from the safe where they had been ever since our return so long ago. We were struck with the fact, that in all the mass of material of which the record is composed, there is hardly one authentic document; nothing but a mass of typewriting, except the later note-books of Mina and Seward and myself, and Van Helsing's memorandum. We could hardly ask any one, even did we wish to, to accept these as proofs of so wild a story. Van Helsing summed it all up as he said, with our boy on his knee:-- "We want no proofs; we ask none to believe us! This boy will some day know what a brave and gallant woman his mother is. Already he knows her sweetness and loving care; later on he will understand how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake." JONATHAN HARKER. THE END * * * * * _There's More to Follow!_ More stories of the sort you like; more, probably, by the author of this one; more than 500 titles all told by writers of world-wide reputation, in the Authors' Alphabetical List which you will find on the _reverse side_ of the wrapper of this book. 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Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK * * * * * Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: in a very simply way=> in a very simple way {pg 68} "The Westminister Gazette," 25 September.=> "The Westminster Gazette," 25 September. {pg 165} It have told him=> She must have told him {pg 169} from md sight=> from my sight {pg}184 Goldaming=> Godalming {pg 226} I I did not want to hinder him=> I did not want to hinder him {pg 267} They lay in a sort of or-orderly=> They lay in a sort of orderly {pg 279} Translyvania=> Transylvania {pg 294} this mrrning from Dardanelles=> this morning from Dardanelles {pg 313}