Chapter XIII: What Happened After That (2)

"Then, by the General's command, I received a nice clean Honved uniform (I had to retain my brown countenance for some time longer), and besides that I had an open passport enjoining upon all to give me every facility to reach Debreczin as quickly as possible.

"On the evening of the following day I arrived at Debreczin, and on descending from my sledge, proceeded at once to the General's. He was a mild, soft-featured gentleman, with a close-clipped beard and moustache. He didn't even wear a General's uniform. Nobody would have guessed his rank from the look of him. After reading through my letter of introduction, he looked me straight and sharply in the face.

"'You are Captain Tihamér Rengetegi, eh?'

"If I had only been intent on my own interest, I might have told him quite frankly that I had no right either to the name or the uniform of a soldier; but how could I betray my faithful consort who was smuggled away in the hovel at Hetény?

"'Yes, General, I am.'

"'Who made you captain?'

"'The War Minister.'

"'For deeds of valour?'

"'During the siege of Vienna I twice carried despatches through the besieging camp from the Hungarian Government to General Bem.'"

Here I intervened: "That is not true; I know very well through whom the Hungarian Government got those despatches."

"Anyhow, my friend boasted of it as his own deed," said Bessy; after which she resumed her narration.

"'Good!' said the General; 'now give me the despatch.'

"The information was written in a secret cipher.

"'I must decipher this first. There will be a meeting to-night of the Committee of National Defence. Early to-morrow morning you will appear before me. Now go to the "White Horse." Speak to nobody. Keep your room!'

"Nevertheless, an hour afterwards he sent for me.

"He led me into his inner room, for he allowed himself the luxury of a double-roomed apartment at Debreczin. Two other ministers, Paul Nyáry and Joseph Patay, were not so fortunate. They had to be content with a double room between them.

"The General was now very gentle with me. He made me sit down at table, and poured me out some tea. He offered me a cigar too, and although I ought not to have done so, I lighted it. It nipped my tongue a good deal, but I had to show them that I was a man.

"Then he made me tell them how I had got out of the fortress, and how I had forced my way through the hostile camp. My relation made a great impression. When I was dismissed, they pressed my hand and assured me that my good and boldly executed service should be rewarded. They further commanded me to come to them early the next day.

"I appeared next day at his headquarters in full parade, and they admitted me before any one else.

"Again they made me sit down in the inner apartment, and drew the bolt before the door of the outer room.

"Stretched out on the table was a large military map which embraced Upper Hungary and Galicia. 'You have brought very important information with you from Comorn,' said he, in a low voice. 'Considering the time when you set out, you have arrived here with astonishing rapidity. You must now take the reply back, which will contain the directions of the Council of War and the appointment of the new Commandant, who will be gazetted to-night. Can you make your way back to the fortress with this despatch?'

"'I'll try.'

"'You must get back without fail. What's your plan?'

"'To go back by the same road in the same manner and the same disguise is impossible. The wolves tore two of my comrades to pieces, the Croats captured the third, and as he may have confessed everything, they would recognise me at once if I appeared before their eyes as I am now. Besides, there is no conceivable reason why gipsies should wish to leave the open plain in order to get into a bombarded town. This despatch can only be conveyed to Comorn by a woman who is _obliged_ to go there on some unimpeachable business, and is provided with an Austrian safe-conduct.'

"The General clapped his hands together in amazement.

"'And do you know of any woman who would undertake such a thing?'

"'Certainly I do.'

"'Where? What's her name?'

"'That's my secret, General. The difficulty of getting into the fortress is also very much increased by the fact that the appointment of Richard Guyon as the new Commandant has already become generally known.'

"The General leaped furiously from his seat.

"'Who, then, has made this public?'

"'It is here in the official gazette,' I replied, drawing out of my pocket that morning's issue of the _Közlöny_.

"The General tugged his short moustache still shorter.

"'Well, well! I see that we Magyars have yet to learn the art of keeping a secret. The enemy knows it now, but the Comorn folks do _not_ know it.'

"'I have already hit upon a good idea of enabling the mandate of the Council of War to reach their hands.'

"'By a carrier-pigeon or a balloon, I suppose?'

"'A foreign passport is necessary for my plan.'

"'That you shall have--an English passport _viséd_ by the Embassy. In whose name?'

"'In the lady's.'

"'Then you must give us the lady's name.'

"Then I gave him my real name as the lawful wife of Muki Bagotay.

"'And you? Will you get into the fortress?'

"'Possibly, as that lady's coachman--possibly not at all; but the despatch will get in, anyhow.'

"'And how will this lady of yours manage to hide the despatch? I can tell you beforehand, that even if your lady were provided with a safe-conduct from the Princess Windischgrätz[86] herself, and so got right through the hostile camp into the invested fortress, the Austrians would indeed welcome her most courteously; but they would at the same time say to her: "Would your little ladyship be so good as to step into that side-chamber; there you will find a complete set of lady's clothes, would you be so kind as to put them on--if they are a little more abundant than your own, that doesn't matter? The toilet you have brought with you may remain here, down even to the shoes and stockings; whenever you like to come back again, you can re-exchange your clothes." For they know that it is possible to write on chemises with invisible ink and reproduce the writing by means of chemical re-agents. It is also possible for the heels of your boots to have secret openings, in which a letter written on straw-paper might be inserted. They might also retain the comb with which you fasten up your hair, for a valuable message might be written thereupon in microscopic letters.'

[Footnote 86: The wife of the Austrian Commander-in-chief.--TR.]

"'All this they may do if they like, and yet this lady of mine will convey the despatch into the fortress.'

"'I should like to know her secret.'

"''Tis a very simple one. She will learn the whole despatch by heart from beginning to end.'

"The General began to laugh.

"'Oho ho! My dear friend, you don't suppose that we would entrust our couriers with a despatch in good Hungarian for the enemy to snap it up on the way, and thus learn all about our military operations. It may also be deliberately betrayed. In the times in which we now live men are quick enough to discover excuses for _changing their saddles_. This despatch contains all our secrets: where we are strong, where we are weak, where we want to assume the offensive, where we are obliged to stand on the defensive. Such a despatch would be worth 200,000 florins to the enemy at the very least.'

"'I can assure you, General, that neither I nor this lady will betray it.'

"'You couldn't if you would, for the whole despatch is in cipher. Take it, and look at it. Do you understand a word of it? Can any one possibly learn it by heart?'

"The writing which he placed in my hand was composed of a jumble of letters grouped into words--characters whose contents could scarcely be called language at all. I nevertheless assured the General that this lady of mine would learn the despatch off by heart all the same.

"''Tis impossible.'

"'Nothing is impossible. Once, when we were actors ...'

"'Then you were actors? And this lady was an actress too, eh?'

"'Yes. Once our whole company went to Eszek, and there we acted a whole piece in the Croatian tongue without understanding a word of its meaning. A man is like a starling. If he repeats a thing a hundred times it remains in his head although he does not understand it.'

"'Look here, then! Read but two lines of this despatch a hundred times over, half an hour will do, and see if it remains in your head.'

"I consented. A quarter of an hour had not yet elapsed when I said that I was ready. I gave the General the despatch back again, and asked for ink and paper. And then slowly, meditatively, I wrote down the contents of those two lines letter by letter.

"'You've got a marvellous headpiece,' said the General, in amazement. 'And has that lady of yours just such a marvellously retentive capacity as you have?'

"'Just the same.'

"'Then I consider the stratagem as feasible.'"

Here I could not help leaping to my feet. "What!" cried I, "you actually undertook to learn by heart a whole despatch written in cipher?"

"No, my sweet friend! I won't deceive you as I deceived that other man. The whole thing was a delusion. The cryptograms which reached the Commandant of the fortress were entrusted to Rengetegi, that he might unpod them with a secret key. He communicated this key to me. One had only to know a single word whose consecutive letters repeat all the characters of the alphabet in different series. The whole thing only required a little calculation; there was no need to rack one's brains about it. With the assistance of the secret key I first of all deciphered the cipher, and then I retransferred it into its original rigmarole."

"But are you aware," I interrupted, "that if the General had found you out, he would have had you shot on the spot?"

"I suspected as much. But he suspected nothing. He was really a good, worthy man. He said that things being as they were, he could safely confide the despatch to my hands.

"After that he pointed out to me on the military map the route I ought to take through Galicia, by which I should possibly avoid falling in with the enemy's squadrons. My passport in the name of Madame János Bagotay he filled up with his own hand. I begged him to leave a blank space for the personal description of my travelling companion.

"When this was ready he gave me a portfolio full of Austrian bank-notes, besides a hundred louis d'ors and a handful of silver money.

"Then he pressed my hand, and said: 'The last line of this despatch announces the promotion of Captain Rengetegi to the rank of major.'"

At this both Bessy and I laughed heartily, and then she merrily resumed her story as follows:--

"My return journey was in a much more lordly fashion. Everywhere relays were waiting for me. In a couple of days I reached Vienna. While still in Comorn, I had learnt that my mother had gone there for refuge, and still kept up her intimacy with a certain high official in the Imperial army. He was in the service of the War Minister there. It was not difficult to find him. I will leave you to picture to yourself the scene of our meeting. My mother loves acting, but she is a bad player, she never knows her part. She would have liked to have cried and fainted when I came rushing in, but she got no further than sobbing. I was all the better able to play my part. I hastened to excuse her for her behaviour at our last meeting. I took all the blame on myself. I ought to have remembered, I said, that it was not the proper thing to cling on to my mother's carriage when the infuriated populace was seeking her life. Then I went on to the motive of my coming there. The Hungarian Governmental Commission at Comorn had ordered that every Austrian bank-note which could be laid hands upon was to be burnt in the middle of the market-place. My mother had 40,000 florins in bank-notes, which the Orphanage Fund had retained from my patrimony. This amount had been lent out to various persons at interest. These persons, as soon as they heard of the order of the Governmental Commission, had hastened to deposit their German bank-notes--not in the fortress, but in the town bank, that they might at least get back their securities; and thus it was _our_ money that would be burnt. That was why I had come at such a break-neck pace, I said. If my mother would give me a power of attorney for the purpose, I would immediately return, and as I had great influence with the Commandant, I would so manage that our money instead of being burnt should be handed over to me. After that I would settle with my mother. She also had money locked up there which I would get handed over to me.

"This proposition made an impression.

"I had already informed my mother by letter of all this when communications were freer than now, but she, as all nervous people do with their letters, the moment she recognised my handwriting in the address, put it away without opening it. She fancied it was full of maudlin penitence. Now, however, when I called her attention to this letter, she took it out and opened it, and almost fainted with terror when she saw the annexed official communication of the Governmental Commission, and learnt therefrom that the term fixed for the bonfire of the Austrian bank-notes would be reached in three days.

"Then there was such a scampering to her good friend the high official, and to all sorts of high commanding officers, in order to procure for me a safe-conduct; then she got me a power of attorney neatly written out, by means of which I could reclaim her money, and then she said: 'Now, don't wait a moment, my darling girl, but jump into a fiacre and gallop off to Comorn.'

"I found my journey back much freer from obstacles than my coming away. The self-same major of cuirassiers who would have had me flogged as a gipsy leader was now full of courtesy towards me. After reading my letter of introduction, in which the object of my journey was mentioned, he could not have the slightest doubt that I was about purely private business which was very pressing. He did not even have me searched. I could have smuggled into the fortress anything I liked.

"When I had passed through the besieging lines, I turned off from the highway in the direction of Hetény, that I might seek out my captive.

"After the first delights of meeting each other again were over, I told him the whole story which I have just been telling you. I must say that I had a much more appreciative audience than you are. At the sensational scenes, he flung himself on the ground ... and with folded, uplifted hands implored the wolves not to devour me. He swore that if he caught the Ban of Croatia he would dance the life out of him for making me fiddle so unmercifully. When I dictated to him the despatch I had learnt by heart, by means of the secret key, the last lines of which contained his promotion to the rank of major, he exclaimed, with an irresistible burst of grateful emotion: 'My Queen! my Zenobia!' I had made him a major; he made me a queen. We were quits.

"'And now let us hasten to the fortress,' I said, 'for I have urgent business there. I want to save my property. Our house has been burnt already; if our money is burnt too, we shall be beggars.' This made him hasten.

"'I must, however,' said he, 'devise something to round off my expedition, something of the quality of a heroic deed.'

"And by the time we reached the fortress he _had_ devised something.

"The return of the courier with the despatch of the Hungarian Commander-in-chief created an extraordinary sensation in the fortress and spread even to the town. The Commandant immediately proclaimed that Captain Tihamér Rengetegi had been promoted to the rank of Major by the Hungarian War Minister for extraordinary services.

"A banquet in honour of the returning hero followed. All the officers were present. The ladies also took part in it. I was there too. Never had I seen Bálványossi (I beg his pardon, Rengetegi) play his part in so masterly a manner as on that evening. He was the gipsy leader who, with three others, fiddled his way right through every hostile camp. And what amusing adventures befell him on the road! I believe he laid under contribution every book of gipsy anecdote that was ever published. And when he came to that ghastly scene with the wolves--that was indeed a drastic description. The reality was nothing like so horrible as his account of it. The ladies swooned, the men were horror-stricken, only I was inclined to laugh. And when the guerillas turned up, how valiant my Rengetegi became all at once! He took horse and started off in pursuit of the cuirassiers. (To him they were cuirassiers!) It would have been beneath his dignity to have chased mere hussars.... By way of climax came the splendid description of how he cut his way through the besieging host. In the dark night, amidst a blinding blackness of midnight snow-storm, he cut his way on horseback through the Austrian foreposts, leaping over trenches and earth-works, with the bullets skimming about his ears right and left. His horse was shot dead beneath him, but ever equal to the occasion, he hastily fastened on his skates, and skated with the rapidity of lightning over the frozen Zsitva and the Csiliz, and two other rivers the names of which I never heard of before. Thus at last he reached the fortress. Every one was enchanted with the narration. The ladies rose _en masse_ and kissed him, and improvised a laurel-wreath for his brows out of muscatel leaves.

"To save appearances, I also went up to him that I might condole with and congratulate him upon all the exploits and sufferings he had gone through, when all at once my friend turned quite stiff and rigid, gave me a cold bow, pursed his lips, and turned up the whites of his eyes.

"'Madame!' said he, 'I have a word or two to say to you also. Where were you, may I ask, while I was jeopardizing my life a hundred times every day for my country? Can you tell me how you were occupying your days all this while?'

"I was confounded. Language died away on my lips. The blood rushed to my face. I felt that every one was now looking at me. Naturally nobody in Comorn had seen me all this time.

"'If what the world whispers turns out to be true, and you have in the meantime been to Vienna--but no! I will not believe it.'

"His magnanimity offended me even more than his indictment.

"'What is it to you whence I come or whither I go?' I replied, turning my back upon him and beginning to talk to the young officers, like one who has nothing to be ashamed of.

"Shortly afterwards I quitted the banqueting-room. I hadn't reached the end of the long pavilion corridor in the fortress when Rengetegi came running after me.

"'What on earth possessed you to calumniate and accuse me before the whole company,' I said to him, 'just as if I were a traitor, or I don't know what?'

"'Tsitt! Zenobia, my Queen. Let us understand each other. It was in your own interest that I had to feign jealousy and rage. Let us go into my room and I'll explain everything.'

"When we were alone together he locked the door and then explained things nicely.

"'It concerns your money.'

"'Aha!'

"'Amidst all this laudation, appreciation, and ovation, and all the other flummery, I did not lose sight of the _main chance_. I told the Governor privately that if he wished to reward me in any way, he might do me the favour not to give to the flames the property deposited in the bank to the credit of the damsel who was so near to my heart, but allow me to bring it back to her. The austere patriot was as inexorable as Brutus. "Never!" said he. "We will burn what we have laid hands upon, even though it were the property of my own father. We can make no exception. What would those poor devils say whose paltry ten or twenty florins we surrender to the flames of the _auto-da-fé_ if we allowed the forty or fifty thousand florins of the rich to fly away? Burn they shall!" This he said with a very wrathful voice. Then he added in a milder tone: "However, I'll confide the burning of them to you."'

"Now I began to understand.

"'A quarrel between us therefore has become an absolute necessity. We must fly into a rage with each other. The _auto-da-fé_ will take place in a couple of days. The bonfire will be in the centre of the public square. I shall throw the bundles of bank-notes one by one among the spluttering faggots. You must be close by the booths of the bread-sellers, and break out into curses. You remember the cursing scene from _Deborah_? Very well, it may be useful. After the _auto-da-fé_ there must be a lively scene between us. We must cast our mutual souvenirs at each other's feet. I'll throw at you the embroidered cushion which you worked for my birthday, and inside it will be the money belonging to you and your mamma which I have rescued. Then be off as quick as you can to Vienna.'

"'But how about the packet that you have to burn?'

"'Leave that to me; a few copies of the _Comorn News_ will give every bit as brisk a flame.'

"Everything happened according to his instructions. I saved our property, and you must admit that my friend and I displayed considerable prudence on this occasion. We did nobody any wrong: I only recovered what was my own.

"Then we fell out together publicly, as preconcerted. My friend Rengetegi played Othello in a masterly manner. Then as our acquaintances could not succeed in reconciling us, we solemnly separated and I went back to Vienna.

"On the way back I again fell in with the Austrian major. I showed him the money I brought with me, naturally without letting him know how I came by it. He became so friendly as even to entrust me with a letter to an old acquaintance of his in Vienna, who was none other than my mother's colonel....

"You may imagine the friendly reception which awaited me when I returned to Vienna and gave my mother her money. She folded me in her arms, covered me with kisses, bedewed me with tears, and called me her darling child. What still remained to me of my patrimony, about 40,000 florins, I placed in the Vienna savings-bank. The rest of my dower was in the hands of Muki Bagotay, with the exception of what we spent while we lived together. This also I contrived to get back again--but how?

"In the spring, when the fortune of the war changed, Comorn was relieved, and I hastened off home again. I told my mother that I was urgently bent upon building up again our burnt house--only the roof had been burnt off, the walls remained standing. She approved of my resolution, and was very proud of having such a sensible and enterprising daughter. I immediately set about rebuilding our house, taking advantage of the time which elapsed from the raising of the first to the beginning of the second siege. During my stay at Vienna I moved continually in military circles, and I saw quite plainly what was coming. But why reopen my wounds? All my illusions were over. I had learnt to know my hero at close quarters, behind the scenes, I might say. This 'lord of creation' used to whine before his tailor for a respite with his account till next pay-day, and immediately afterwards would ascend his triumphal car drawn by captive kings and declaim to the populace of conquered Constantinople. But in one particular thing Major Rengetegi really extorted my admiration, I mean by his strategical science."

"Ah!" cried I.

"You may well say 'ah!' I have read the campaigns of Napoleon I., I have read the campaigns of Charles XII., but in none of them could I discover so many ruses of war as my hero invented in order to triumphantly solve the problem--how a man in his capacity of superior officer may constantly be taking part in the most ticklish skirmishes without allowing his person to get into the way of any wandering bullet. He always knew how to hit upon some mission whereby he might manage to skedaddle out of danger. And if I now and then fluttered the red rag of _self-esteem_ before his eyes, he would reply: 'I have duties towards art; if they shoot away half my leg, how shall I be able to act on the stage again?' Yet, when the battle was over, who so great a hero as he! Others only mowed down the enemy, he thrashed them afterwards with a flail. 'Tis a dreadful thing when a woman discovers that her hero is a habitual liar, lying with the fiery burning conviction that no man will dare to doubt him, so that she has to make him swear to the truth of every word he utters.

"Meanwhile, I continued my house-building. Every sort of building material was very dear, and there was plenty of money too. Whence did all this money come? I'll tell you. The Russian hosts had already invaded the kingdom. The speculator-species perceived that the national cause was declining. The Hungarian armies were everywhere falling back. Then Klapka, by a brilliant victory, raised the second siege of Comorn and was within an ace of capturing the besieging host. The region was instantly alive with people, and a whole series of triumphs followed one after another. And now there flocked to Comorn from every part of the kingdom quite a tribe of panic-stricken speculators and jobbers, with bags full of Hungarian bank-notes, and bought everything that was for sale, at whatever price the sellers liked to ask. My Muki also took advantage of this lucky period to regulate his finances. He sold his herds at four times their real value, and paid the price, in Hungarian bank-notes, into the deposit bank at Comorn. It was my dowry paid back, he said. The bank hastened to place the amount in my hands; and I hastened to satisfy therewith my architects and builders, who did not let the money stick to their hands.

"Doesn't this remind you of the round game we used to play as children, when we lit a straw, and, sitting in a circle, passed it round from hand to hand; whoever was the last to hold it till the fire burned his hands, him we used to thump unmercifully--that was the forfeit? Just such a burning straw was the dowry paid back to me by my husband. The roof of my father's house was the straw end which remained in my hands. The amount which I deposited in the Vienna bank is all I have left in the world--except Tihamér Rengetegi. But not even he has remained mine, for he has changed into Bálványossi. And now here we are together. The playing of a common part unites us. From morn to eve every word we say to one another is a lie. It is not even true that any one is pursuing Rengetegi, for at the capitulation of Comorn he received his safe-conduct which guarantees his life and liberty. That is not what distresses him. But he wishes to deny the whole part he played during the Revolution, that as Bálványossi, the theatre-director, he may get the necessary concession. He is continually urging me to go to Miskolcz to the Government Commissioner and settle the business for him."

"I understand."

"No, you don't. It is none of those interventions which we see in romances and dramas, when a pretty woman goes to move a mighty tyrant with her tears, and sacrifice her charms to him as the price of the life and liberty of her persecuted husband. Oh no! my hero is no plagiarist! His ideas are all original. He wants me to go to the mighty gentleman and tell him that the Debreczin expedition, which has given rise to the whole of this heroic poem, is not his '_crime_,' but mine. I was the gipsy leader who played before the Ban Jellachich, and then escaped. It was I who carried the despatch to the Hungarian Government. In a word: I am to sacrifice myself on his account!"

"Fie! fie! And still you love this man!"

"What am I to do? I have nobody but him in the wide world; and besides, he is such a droll, amusing character. All day long we are either fighting or frolicking, and it is this variation which makes life so charming."

But for all that, she flung herself on the ground and hid her face in the green moss. She was in such a good humour!

"Sha'n't we give our friend a signal to come out of his hole?"

"He is quite comfortable--don't disturb him."

"I wonder you don't hit upon the very obvious idea of putting an end to this pantomimic game of hide and seek. You have a foreign passport. You could enter your friend in it under some such description as major-domo or travelling companion. You could take him with you to Naples or to Paris, and you could live without care on the interest of the fund deposited at the Vienna bank."

"I know that."

"Then why not do it?"

"Because I don't choose."

And as she said this she looked strangely at me with her enigmatically mysterious eyes, in which heaven and hell were blended together like starlight in darkness!