Chapter XIV

Which goes to prove that the society of great folks is not always a thing to be desired.

The reason why pretty, unhappy Michal no longer heard the field-trumpet in the courtyard was because Pirka had already sent off Simplex to seek the beloved of Michal's heart; for the old witch had already discovered that this beloved was Simplex's bosom friend--but that was all. For the trumpeter, like the prudent German he was (an Hungarian, who always carries his heart on his sleeve, would have blabbed out everything straight off), did indeed let her know that Michal had been married against her will; but he shrewdly mentioned no names, and put her off with a few lines when she pressed him too closely. Let her find out the truth for herself! What else was she a witch for?

But wicked Pirka knew quite enough already to ruin the poor innocent creature altogether. For 'tis not so much because they themselves are already sold to Beelzebub that such hags lay traps for young ladies, but because they well know that they may fleece to their heart's content, all whom they have once got into their clutches.

So she gave four of her eight ducats to Simplex to buy him food on his journey, and told him which was the best way to take, for the trumpeter had told her this much, that Michal's sweetheart lived in Transylvania.

Simplex was a good, honest fellow, and he had frequented the schools long enough to know that the Consistory would probably quash a union which had been fraudulently contracted; and in the present case the fraud was patent to everyone, for the wooer who had introduced himself as a clergyman turned out to be a common hangman. Simplex meant to inform his bosom friend at once, when Valentine might, if he liked, take steps to annul the marriage and make the lady his own lawful wife in the proper way.

And no doubt it was just because Simplex was thus following the path of truth and justice that he was so wondrously delivered from the extraordinary dangers which befell him on the way--dangers from which, perhaps, he would never have escaped at all if he had simply set out with the evil intention of discovering Michal's sweetheart, as the witch had supposed when she sent him off.

So he shouldered his trumpet, and had scarcely proceeded more than an hour's journey through a deep valley, known as the Wolf's Dale, which lies between rocks so steep and narrow that it is as much as two mules can do to pass each other therein, when two wild shapes suddenly pounced out upon him from an ambush, and whirling their axes over their heads, dictatorially cried:

"Halt!"

The honest trumpeter could not possibly be expected to know who these people were, for at that time the militia used to dress exactly like robbers so as to be better able to capture those gentry. They wore sheepskin caps on their heads; their shirts, which had first been soaked through with grease and then smoked dry in a chimney, were as black as ink; belts bristling with knives girded their loins; they were shod with bast shoes, and in their hands they carried muskets and long-handled axes.

The waylayers told the trumpeter to wait till their comrades came up and decided what was to be done with him; if he uttered a syllable in the meantime, he would immediately be cut to pieces. Then they whistled, and down from the rocks sprang four similar wild figures, who took the trumpeter into custody and haled him along with them.

They forced him to crawl up the steep sides of the narrow rocky gorge, by means of holes hewn therein at regular intervals, and serving as footholds and resting-places to venturesome climbers. It was just like mounting a chimney. Here and there still larger holes gaped forth from the rocky walls, from the depths of which a frightful growling resounded. But Simplex's companions bade him fear nothing. These were only bears' dens, they said. Mother Bruin was too much engaged at this season in suckling her young to bestow much attention on those who did not wantonly attack her. Yet Simplex, for all that, had not the slightest wish to make the acquaintance of a monster which is, perhaps, a still more dreadful enemy than even a robber. He knew the habits of the terrible beast, which, when it meets a man on a narrow path, rises on its hind legs and crushes him to death in its embrace.

On reaching the top of this perilous ladder, Simplex saw before him a spacious plateau surrounded by steep rocks. This was the robbers' lair.

Huge pine-trees stretched down their branches from the rocks, thus forming a sort of natural canopy over the valley. Out of the cleft of a granite rock gurgled a merry little brook, half dammed up by two huge jagged stones. The object of this dam Simplex learned later on.

The first glance at the spectacle now before him made his eyes twinkle. This natural chamber was occupied by more than a hundred robbers. Most of them were sitting round a caldron, which hung simmering over a large fire, on a iron tripod. One of the robbers served as cook, another as scullion. The former was cutting up a sheep, with which he filled the caldron, while the latter stirred the mess round and round, adding milk instead of water and frequent handfuls of saffron, cinnamon, and cloves. Truly a bandits' banquet! Others were squatting on barrels and playing dice. All of them spoke very low. No one attempted to attack the caldron beforehand, or stave in one of the many casks of wine, beer, and brandy lying about the place. The discipline among them was perfect.

In the midst of the rocky place, bales of goods were piled one on top of the other, just as they are exhibited for sale at fairs and in market-places. Aloft on this costly throne sat the three robber chieftains.

They were dressed precisely like their comrades, yet each had his distinguishing marks, so that Simplex, who had often heard them described by the country people, was able to identify them at a glance.

The first of the robber chieftains was Hafran, whose love of pomp was notorious. His girdle had a fringe of gold ducats, and from the corners of his hat hung strings of rose nobles, the largest coin then in vogue. His fingers were covered with gold rings, and the sheath and handle of his sword sparkled with precious stones. His gigantic stature was an additional and unmistakable distinction.

The second chieftain was Bajus. He prided himself on a huge mustache, each end of which terminated in a rose noble. Whenever he wanted to drink or speak, he had first to stroke back both ends of his mustache behind his ears.

The third chieftain was Janko. His body was small and thin; no one would have taken him for a man of monstrous strength. Yet he could leap from a sitting posture on to the shoulders of the tallest man, and had even been known to mount a galloping horse, or a wagon going at full speed, at a single bound. In wrestling, he could have given odds to Samson himself.

Him, too, Simplex recognized by the hellebore he was munching. For Janko, like the son of Cambyses, had made a practice of chewing hellebore from his youth upward, thus securing himself against the chance of being poisoned; though his own mouth thereby became so poisonous that all the women whom he kissed fainted instantly, and all the men whom he bit died. Even now the leaves of a large bunch of hellebore were sticking out of his mouth all the time he talked to Simplex, to whom he put these questions:

"Who are you? What's your name? Whence do you come? Whither are you going? Whom do you serve?"

Simplex put on as nonchalant an air as he was capable of, for fear is a grievous fault in the eyes of such bandits, but they are always indulgently disposed toward a man of pluck.

"I am an orphan from Silesia," said he. "I've never had either father or mother. I don't even know what name I received at my baptism, but my comrades call me Simplex because they say I am so very simple. I come from Keszmár, where Master Matthias, the town crier, has been teaching me the trumpet, and I am on my way to Saros, where I hope to enter the service of some great lord who loves music."

The robber chieftain fixed a piercing look on the speaker and never once left off chewing his hellebore.

"If you come from Keszmár you must have passed the kopanitscha of Hamar on your way. Did you see the wife of the kopanitschar?"

"Yes, and a wondrously lovely little creature she is."

At these words the eyes of the robber sparkled.

"That woman is my sweetheart! Did you see her husband?"

"Yes, and a very polite old man he is."

"Well, if you know them, go back to them once more. I'll pay your traveling expenses"--here he proudly jingled the ducats in his girdle. "Tell them that they are both on my bad books; the woman because she a little time ago drank mead and danced till morning with the headman of Leta at the church consecration there; the man because he lately guided the son of the vihodar of Zeb and his wife over the mountains, and thus helped them to escape us. Tell them that I mean to pay them a visit shortly. The woman must then put on her best humor, and the man must not show his face at all. For if I once kiss the woman's lips and bite the man's cheek, the pair of them will have had enough of me for some time to come." At these words the robber spat out the hellebore, and Simplex perceived that his mouth and teeth were perfectly yellow. "That is the message you must deliver to them, trumpeter. For the present, however, you will remain with us; eat and drink as much as your stomach can hold, and then show us what you can do with the trumpet. We'll pay for it, of course."

Poor Simplex rejoiced exceedingly at escaping so well, and having the prospect of turning an honest penny besides, he loudly and solemnly protested that he would faithfully deliver the robber's message.

Meanwhile the sheep's flesh in the great caldron was quite done, and the robbers sat down to eat. The caldron was lowered on to the outspread skins, which served as tablecloth and napkin, and the robbers carved for themselves with their huge clasp-knives. But if their meat was coarse and their table rude, their drinking vessels were magnificent. They consisted of gold and silver chalices and pocals, the spoil of many a church and castle, and as often as a robber took a draught he drank to the memory of some comrade or other who had ended a glorious career on the wheel, gallows, or stake, winding up with a full recital of the deceased's exploits--_e. g._, how many men he had killed, how many robberies he had achieved, what lady of quality had been his doxy, and how at the last he had manfully endured all manner of torments rather than betray his comrades.

And after each toast Simplex had to blow a long flourish.

And as the feast proceeded, the robbers became more and more communicative. They began to boast loudly of their own heroic deeds; how, for instance, they had plundered great caravans, attacked noblemen's castles, and extirpated everyone therein in a different sort of way; how they had filled a Jew's mouth with molten lead, and nearly died with laughter at the queer faces he pulled; how they had forced a rich miser by torture to discover his hidden treasure; how they had tied the captured militiamen to the branches of trees and then torn them limb from limb; and how they had set fire to a church in which a lot of peasants had taken refuge and burnt them all alive. Everyone vied with his neighbor in boasting, and tried to make himself out more ferocious than the rest. And Simplex blew incessantly with his trumpet, so as to hear as little as possible of their ghastly stories.

The robbers forced him also to eat and drink with them, and well for him it was that he had learnt in his student days to hold a full skin. For he was well aware that so long as he could keep on trumpeting he was safe. It fared with him as with the piper in the story, who piped to the wolf to save himself from being eaten up.

Meanwhile night had set in; the rocky chamber was lit only by the heaps of smoldering logs; the robbers began to dance a wild dance, and Simplex was forced to mount upon a barrel and play for them with all his might. They stamped with their feet, roared, howled, fired off their guns, and so deftly hurled their axes at the barrel on which Simplex was standing that they all stuck fast in it without hurting a hair of his head.

He, poor wretch! dared not spring off for the life of him. It was a perfect pandemonium.

At last Hafran commanded Simplex to sound an alarm.

Simplex blew him an alarm accordingly.

"You rascal!" cried the robber captain, "it was with just such an alarm as that that they startled us at the Devil's Castle; were you the devil's trumpeter on that occasion?"

Perhaps the drink which Simplex had already taken had flown to his head, perhaps he thought it might go worse with him if he did not make a clean breast of it, at any rate he replied:

"Yes, 'twas I!"

"The devil it was!" cried Hafran furiously. "I'll cut you in two this very instant. Don't you know that you drove us into the very jaws of the devil with your d----d trumpet, and that forty of our comrades went straight to hell in consequence! Stay where you are on that barrel, that I may cut you in two at a blow!"

With that he drew his broad palash from its sheath, and grasped it with both hands.

But this time Simplex did not take the matter as a joke, but sprang down from the barrel and fled to his protector, Janko, who, laughing with hideous glee, warded off with his sword the strokes which Hafran aimed at poor Simplex, all the while opening wide his yellow-stained jaws, which with their yellow fangs looked like the jaws of a lion.

"Serve you all right!" cried he as he warded off Hafran's blows. "What! fifty of you to be scared by a single trumpeter! Let him be in peace! He has to carry a message to my sweetheart. Whoever touches him is a dead man!"

At this the wrath of Hafran against Simplex subsided, but he insisted on his leaping over his bare palash, and little as Simplex felt inclined to jump into the air just then, he had to do it; and the jest so took the fancy of the robbers that they one and all made the trumpeter jump over their swords likewise, till at last he became so tired that he threw himself prone on the ground and allowed himself to be beaten with the flats of their swords rather than jump over them any more.

Meanwhile Janko had gone to sleep. It was his custom to slumber in a sitting position, but he slept so deeply that not even a roaring lion could have awakened him.

Gradually also the remaining robbers fell down one by one heavy with drink.

Only Bajus remained sober.

It was a wise provision of the robbers that one of their leaders should always remain sober; he drank nothing but mead mixed with water, and mounted guard over the whole band when they had drunk their fill.

* * * * *

It was already midnight; the moon came forth from behind the rocks and shone among the dark pine branches.

"Up, you rogues!" cried Bajus, "the banquet is over. Make ready to depart elsewhere, that we may all be on the right spot at the right moment in the morning."

At this command all the fires were extinguished one after the other. When it was quite dark they began to deliberate in whispers which of their plans should be carried out first.

One plan was to attack the Iglo annual fair in the broad daylight, set the town on fire, plunder the merchants, and sack the town-hall.

Their second plan was to steal their way into the lair of the vihodar of Zeb through a secret subterranean passage, capture him and his son alive, and make them suffer all the tortures which they had inflicted on their comrades; as for the young woman, they would cast lots for her.

For a long time they could not come to any agreement.

At last they resolved to attack the Iglo fair; the vihodar they would leave to some subsequent occasion, especially as they would first of all have to gain over Barbara Pirka, for otherwise that evil witch was quite capable of throttling all the assailants one after the other single-handed.

Simplex listened, and his teeth chattered with fear. What he heard filled him with joy and terror at the same time--joy because he had now an additional argument for moving his bosom friend to rescue Michal from her frightful position; terror lest the robbers might suddenly remember that they were betraying their horrible secrets to one who was not of their band. And if they should remember, what would become of him?

He would have given anything to have been able to creep inside the crevices of the rocks near which he was cowering, so that the robbers might not perceive him.

All at once the moon, which had now risen, shone full on the spot where Simplex stood, and Hafran perceived him.

"What shall we do to prevent this fellow from betraying us?" cried he, and with that he took him by the collar and dragged him into the midst of them.

"Strike him dead!" cried Bajus.

Poor Simplex was greatly terrified; he began to piteously implore them not to do him any harm.

"Silence, fellow!" cried Hafran; "a stout-hearted lad must not blubber. He must stand firm even when the skin is being flayed from his body. Whine, and you are a dead man! We'll have no cowards here! Tremble if you dare!"

"Strike him dead!" repeated Bajus, who was quite sober.

"That'll never do," said Hafran. "We promised Janko that we would not kill the trumpeter. Besides, the fellow has played well and entertained us finely. He has made good again all the harm he did with his cursed trumpet at the Devil's Castle. At the same time we must not let him go away before us, or he will betray us to the county train-bands. Let us take him a little way down the road and smash one of his legs, so that he may not be able to go any further. In the morning some wayfarer or other will be sure to find him and take care of him. What do you say?"

But this proposition was anything but satisfactory to Simplex; not at any price would he hear of having his leg broken.

"Come, come, lad!" cried Hafran, soothingly. "Don't be scared at such a trifle! A small fracture is an everyday occurrence. The shepherdess in the hut by the roadside will put it in splints for you, mutter a charm over it, and you'll be able to dance a jig with it in no time. Here are twelve dollars to pay your expenses in the meantime; you wouldn't get as much as that from the county if you went to law about it."

And they seized poor Simplex by both arms to drag him to the place where his leg was to be shattered. Then despair suggested the saving thought of begging the robbers to allow him to blow his own funeral march, and holding the funnel of his trumpet to the ear of the sleeping Janko he blew with such force that the robber chieftain started up from his sleep and leapt his own height in the air.

"Janko! they want to kill me! Don't allow it, Janko!" cried the agonized wretch.

Janko yawned and stretched himself. Then he roughly repulsed the mob which surrounded him, and wrapped Simplex in his mantle.

"Fear nothing, my lad! I'll not let them hurt you!"

But the rest became more and more importunate.

"Are you mad, Janko? Will you let him saddle us with the gendarmes while we are all drunk? They will fall upon us while we are sound asleep, and then where shall we be? We must either kill him or break his leg."

"We'll do neither the one nor the other," said Janko; "we'll buy him off. D--n it! let's be gentlemen! What are you most in need of, my lad? I see your clothes are in rags. You'd better have it out in good stout cloth."

With that he lifted up one of the bales of goods and opened it. It contained scarlet cloth.

He began to measure it with his arm.

"There you have five ells of cloth for your coat and vest. Hafran, you measure him as much from your share for his hose, and you, Bajus, give him of yours for a mantle."

They fell to cursing, and curses fell as thick as hailstones; but Janko left them no peace till Hafran had clipped him off five ells of green Turkish cloth for his hose, and Bajus had contributed just as much blue English cloth for his mantle.

"But now he must give back the twelve dollars," remarked Bajus; "if his leg is not to be broken, he won't require money for mending it."

"Not so," said Janko; "when a gentlemen has given a musician money he does not ask it back again."

"Well, all right; but at any rate you must also give him six dollars as we have done."

But Janko could not be made to see this at all.

"Why should I give him money when you've given him some already?

"Then I'll smash one of his legs, for I mean to have value for my money."

The poor trumpeter tried to put an end to the dispute by instantly volunteering to return the twelve dollars; but it had like to have gone ill with him in consequence, for he thereby so deeply wounded Hafran's pride that the robber chief at once fired his gun at him. Fortunately Simplex ducked so nimbly that only his cap was grazed.

"What do you take us for, you bumpkin? A gentleman does not ask his money back again from a musician. Either Janko must give you as much as I have given you, or I will strike you dead."

So this struggle between ferocity and magnanimity plunged the poor trumpeter into a dilemma from which there seemed absolutely no escape. The robbers whirled their axes over his head.

"Listen to me," cried Janko suddenly, "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll dig a deep ditch, and make the trumpeter get into it. Then we'll clap an empty barrel over him and peg it down fast, so that he won't be able to see in what direction we have gone. He must sleep in the ditch to-day, but to-morrow he may free himself with his ax and go his way."

This wise accommodation pleased all parties. The robbers forthwith dug a deep hole in the earth, put Simplex inside it, clapped over him a cask, the bottom of which had previously been knocked out, and charged him as he valued his life not to stir from the spot till dawn of day.

He did exactly as he was bid, and that was very wise of him, for when everything was perfectly still, and he might well have fancied the robbers were miles away, a shot suddenly cracked quite close to him and the bullet perforated the cask. It was a warning that he was being watched. So there he sat, and there is no knowing how long he might have remained without budging had not a fresh danger supervened; the hole in which he sat suddenly began to fill with water. Higher and higher rose the tide till it reached his very mouth, and he was forced to pull himself up to the top of the cask to escape drowning. At last he plucked up courage to look through the hole which the bullet had made, and he then saw that the whole of the rocky chamber had been converted into a watershed, and not a living soul was anywhere visible.

Then he smashed in the side of the cask with his ax, scrambled out of the hole, which was now completely filled with water, and immediately grasped the meaning of the robbers' stratagem.

With the above-mentioned improvised weir they had dammed up the mountain stream, and used its bed as a short cut into the next valley, for it was passable so long as the water was confined within the rocky chasm; when the water had risen high enough to overflow into its bed again, it would of course blot out all traces of their passage.

But Simplex, without bestowing much thought upon this feat, thanked the Almighty for so miraculously delivering him from so great a danger; which deliverance, moreover, strengthened him in the belief that the errand on which he was bound was a righteous one.

Thereupon, with much fear and trembling, he clambered down the rock-hewn way by which he had ascended, not forgetting to shout a good-morning into the hole of the mother bear as he passed.

He naturally omitted to return to the kopanitscha and deliver Janko's message to the pretty hostess; but he did tell an oil-merchant, whom he met on the way, the frightful things which had happened to him and bade him deliver the message at the kopanitscha, as it was all on his way. The oil-merchant, on the other hand, gave him a piece of good advice; to wit, that when he came to the town of Saros he should hand over the bundle which he was carrying on his back to the mayor, for the plundered merchants had advertised their wares broadcast, and if people saw and recognized their stolen cloth on his person they would measure him a jacket which he would not get rid of his whole life long.

And worthy Simplex followed the advice which was given him. No sooner had he arrived at Saros than he handed over the costly cloth stuffs to the town authorities, and the merchants rewarded him with a ducat and let him go on his way unmolested, as he himself in his extant memoirs modestly informs us.