Chapter XIX

The story now to be related very much resembles the story of Joseph and Potiphar, but not quite, inasmuch as it is not Joseph, but Potiphar, who is finally cast into prison.

It will be worth the trouble to listen how Valentine escaped from captivity. It is a wondrous story, though perfectly true, for Simplex records it in his memoirs.

Valentine's master, the mutton salesman, had a beautiful vineyard, and in the vineyard a pretty wooden hut which, being a Turk, he called his kiosk.

As the vintage time drew near, the Turk went every day into his vineyard, and made his slave accompany him.

The rain had very much damaged the garden paths, and he was anxious to have them put right again. He dare not trust the work to an ordinary day laborer, as such people generally require to be paid and eat the grapes as well; but his slave he could command to work for nothing, and let him touch a single berry if he dared! And at the end of every day's work he said to him: "Show me your tongue!" for the Eger grapes are so black that they dye the tongues of those who eat of them. Poor Valentine was often sick with longing, as he stood breaking stones in the melting heat with thousands of lovely grapes smiling on every side of him, and he was unable to pluck one of them!

Meanwhile his master would be sitting in the kiosk, and as the Turks are forbidden by their religion to drink wine publicly, he only drank on the sly, with not a human soul to keep him company.

Now the Turk had a very beautiful slave, or wife, which with the Moslems is pretty much the same thing. She was called Jigerdilla, which signifies "the piercer of hearts." She was a Circassian. He had purchased her at Buda from a slave-dealer who had brought a whole shipload of female slaves from Stamboul. The only difference between a wife and a slave is that the slave works, the wife doesn't; Jigerdilla did not work.

The Turkish damsel had, from the very first, taken a fancy to the handsome, stately Hungarian whom her husband had brought into the house as a slave; but it was impossible to begin to intrigue with him there, because too many eyes were on the watch. But whenever she followed her husband into the vineyard, she could speak more freely with Valentine, especially when the meat seller had so well applied himself to the good red wine that they had to prop him up between them all the way.

Kermes Ibrahim--the butcher was called Kermes from his red beard--used sometimes bid his slave sing while he worked, not only because singing makes a man work lustily, but also, and especially, because he would thereby be preserved from the temptation of plucking the grapes. No man can sing and eat at the same time.

Sometimes, when Ibrahim was overpowered by sleep and lay stretched out full length on his carpet, Jigerdilla would join in Valentine's songs, and it is no small encouragement on a lady's part when she accompanies a gentleman's song with her own voice.

But as soon as Jigerdilla began to accompany his songs, Valentine stopped short.

"Why do you leave off?" she asked him.

"Because you've begun, and I'm afraid you'll awaken Ibrahim, and he'll beat me for it."

"Fear nothing! Ibrahim sleeps soundly. I have mixed opium with his tobacco. If you fired off cannons close to his ear he would not awake. We might kiss each other over his body, and still he would not awake."

Valentine made as though he did not understand.

Then Jigerdilla began to sing a popular ballad all about love. Even in those times such ditties used to be sung, but on the sly, in the woods or the meadows; for within the walled cities the clergy forbade them, preached whole series of sermons against them, called them "flower songs," said that they only served to corrupt good manners.

And it certainly is very strange what liberties are taken in singing. If a gentleman said to a pretty woman in simple prose, "My dear, prithee give me a couple of kisses!" she would, there and then, give him an answer with her hand which would make his eyes flash fire; but if he sang the self-same sentence in an elegant manner, the lady would forthwith sit her down at the piano and play the accompaniment. And, again, if a pretty woman were to say to a gentleman, in the presence of her husband, "Taste and see how sweet my kiss is!" the husband would instantly cry vengeance, and send for sword and pistols; but when madame sings the same words in a fine soprano voice before a whole roomful of people, the husband himself is the first to applaud and cry, "Da capo!"

And Jigerdilla could sing those enticing songs so seductively that it was impossible to listen to her and remain cold.

But Valentine manfully hardened his heart, and would not accompany her.

"Can't you sing these songs, then?" asked Jigerdilla derisively.

"I know one or two of them, and have sung them quite often enough. It was for nothing but that that I was expelled from college. But I have vowed that not a single flower song shall cross my lips so long as I am in captivity."

The Turk had in his garden a fine and costly plum tree, and in those days plum trees were accounted curiosities. The fruit upon it was round and red as a rose. Gardeners call them bonameras.

Ibrahim was proud of this tree. He had told Valentine beforehand, that if he dared to pluck a single plum, he would break every bone in his body. He had destined all the fruit for the table of the pasha.

One afternoon, Jigerdilla again accompanied her lord into the garden. She again mingled opium with his tobacco so as to make him dead-drunk, and then, as Valentine still refused to sing a flower song with her, she threw herself on the grass in a pet, and pretended to fall asleep.

The sun was shining fiercely, and so great was Valentine's thirst that his tongue cleaved to the very roof of his mouth. The grapes he dare not touch, for their juice left a black stain behind it, but the rosy red plums smiled at him so enticingly. They, at any rate, were not numbered. So fancying that no one saw him, he ventured to steal up to the tree, drew down a branch, and ate of the plums that were reserved for the pasha's table.

"The pasha would get the fever if he ate so many. Why should he have them all?"

Suddenly he heard behind him a mocking peal of laughter--Jigerdilla had been on the watch all the time--and in his terror he started back so violently, that he snapped off the branch of the plum tree which he had pulled down toward him.

"Ha, ha, Valentine! Now you can look forward to something pleasant."

Back he went to his work very much ashamed, and he now worked with such zeal that he finished in one hour what it usually took him two to do. But Jigerdilla gave him no peace. She made ribald songs upon him, pelted him with green nuts, and mocked him in all sorts of ways.

And Valentine felt just like a child who has been naughty and expects to be beaten for it. The Turk had often said that he would not give a branch of this tree for a hundred denarii. How many blows with a whip would he reckon to a denarius?

When it was evening the butcher awoke. He fell to drinking again, and he drank so much that his wife and his slave had to prop him up on his way back to the house.

As he passed by the bonamera tree, he perceived that a branch had been broken off.

At this sight he immediately became quite sober.

"Who did that?" he roared, tearing his whip from his girdle, while his eyes rolled about as if he were the brother of the hippopotamus whose hide had supplied the lashes of his whip.

But before Valentine could say a word, Jigerdilla had already exclaimed:

"I did it. What does it matter if there be one paltry branch more or less?"

The only misfortune which happened in consequence was this: Ibrahim raised his whip without more ado, and belabored the back of his dear wife with the full force of his fury, and perhaps he would have flayed her from her head to her heels had he not accidently stumbled and fallen on his nose, when the blood spurted out so violently that he had enough to do to stop it till he got home.

But in the meantime, Jigerdilla had endured sufficient stripes to convince Valentine that hot indeed must be the passion felt for him by this woman, who was ready to take a slave's fault on her own shoulders, and suffer the punishment which ought to have been his.

At noon, next day, all three went into the vineyard together.

When Ibrahim had gone to sleep as usual, Jigerdilla called Valentine to her.

"I still feel sore from yesterday's stripes," she said. Then she gave him a silver box of ointment.

"I can't reach the wounds on my shoulder. Rub them for me with this balsam."

With that she let her dress glide down over her shoulders so that Valentine could see her naked, snow-white neck and back; but he also saw great red wheals, as thick as his finger, stretching right across the velvety skin.

Valentine rubbed them well with the fragrant balsam, and then asked Jigerdilla if her wounds felt a little easier.

"I should get well much more quickly if only you would kiss them!"

Valentine recoiled at these words.

"How should I kiss the shoulders of a strange woman who is also my master's wife?"

"Your master is sleeping, he sees nothing."

"But God sees."

The Turkish lady looked around in astonishment.

"I see no one!"

"God is present everywhere, though invisible."

"If He is invisible, His whip must also be invisible, and He therefore cannot beat me with it."

"Nay, but His invisible whip can beat right sorely. Look at me! I have not done but only thought of doing something which God forbids, and for that one sin I now bear these fetters."

"I would take off your chains every night. I know where Ibrahim keeps the keys of them--in his girdle. You shall only be a slave by day. At night you shall be free, and the ransom would not be dear, we could easily agree about it; you could pay it off in kisses."

"But that would be a sin before God!"

"How can it offend God if a man kisses a woman?"

"Because that would be breaking His commandment, which forbids a man to lust after that which belongs to another."

"Come now, tell me!" cried Jigerdilla, suddenly giving another turn to the conversation, "how could you quietly look on yesterday, while Ibrahim whipped me instead of you? Why did you not seize his arm and confess that it was you who did the mischief?"

"I'll tell you why. I did not keep silence for fear of the blows, but because I was afraid that Ibrahim would have killed you if I had told the truth."

"And what made you fear that Ibrahim would have killed me?"

"Because you took my fault on your shoulders."

"And what conclusion could Ibrahim draw from that?"

But this Valentine would not tell her.

Jigerdilla, however, helped him out.

"He might have thought," continued she, "that I belong more to you than to him. And why, indeed, might I not belong wholly to you?"

"Because you are his."

"It is true. He bought me for five hundred ducats; but if you gave him one thousand ducats for me he would hand me over to you, for he is greedy, and fond of money."

Valentine laughed heartily at these words.

"Whence would a poor devil like me get one thousand ducats?"

"Wait a bit, and I'll tell you something which I've never told to anybody else. Sit down by me! Nay! sit so that you can look into my eyes. When Ibrahim bought this vineyard, the kiosk already stood there, and in the kiosk was an oven. During vintage time, Ibrahim often took it into his head to sleep in the open air, and I had to bake bread for him. Once, as I was taking the loaves out of the oven, I found a ducat sticking to one of them. I said nothing about it, but waited till it was night, when I took up a knife and ripped up the floor of the oven. The whole of the underlying mortar was full of ducats. I suppose that when the town was taken by the Turks, some rich proprietor or other hid them there, and afterward perished in the war. I did not take away the treasure, but left it there, spread fresh mortar over it, and made a fire upon it to burn the mortar hard. The treasure is there now. I said nothing to Ibrahim about it, for if he got the money he would only drink the more and beat me oftener; nay, he would bring fresh wives into the house, and I should have trouble and strife enough. So I'll give the whole treasure to you. You can then ransom yourself and purchase me, and you'll have enough left for both of us to live comfortably together."

Valentine was in a sad difficulty. What was he to do? Fate gave him the chance of securing a pretty woman and a lot of money besides. At last he summoned his religion to his assistance.

"It is impossible, my good lady," said he apologetically; "the men of my faith do not buy women with money. No, our women, following the bent of their hearts, freely give their hands to the men of their own choice. And the men who marry them pay them for their devotion, not with gifts and gold, but with equal devotion and sympathy."

At these words Jigerdilla smote her hands together.

"Then your religion will suit me very well. If in your country such things are not matters of cash and barter, but free-will offerings, that is just what I should like. I'll follow you of my own free will. I'll fly with you, learn to know your God, go to your church, and take in baptism whatever name you like to give me."

Valentine ought to have found the offer very tempting. Had Dame Sarah been at his side she would certainly have said:

"Look, my son, now you've got fortune by the forelock, hold on fast with both hands and never let go again. You'll get a wondrously beautiful young woman, with large black eyes and a small red mouth, and a whole oven full of ducats besides; and (which is the main thing after all) you'll be saving an erring, unbelieving soul for an eternal salvation, and will thus obtain for yourself a claim upon Paradise." And it would have been the most natural thing in the world to have thought so.

But Valentine was very far indeed from thinking so. So long as the image of Michal lived in his heart, he saw in every other woman, however beautiful, only an evil spirit of temptation to which one has only to say, "Depart hence!" and it will instantly vanish into the air.

He loved another.

But he did not tell Jigerdilla so.

Instead of that he pulled a very wry face, bowed himself humbly, and said:

"How could I be such a villain as to seduce my master's wife?"

At this, Jigerdilla, fairly beside herself with rage, tore off her slipper, struck Valentine in the face, and cried:

"Be off, slave! Take your spade and set about your work!"

Then she covered herself once more with her veil that the bumpkin might not see her face again, and her contempt for him was so great that she did not even think it worth while to fear that the craven would abuse the secret that he had learnt. "He who dare not touch his master's wife will certainly never dare to lay a hand on his master's treasure."

Then, with a good deal of unnecessary bustle, she bounced out of the vineyard, first stopping to bestow on the slumbering Ibrahim a kick sufficiently vicious to awaken him.

The Turk, thus roughly aroused from his narcotic sleep, began first of all to throw his arms and legs about; then he revolved five or six times on his axis, and finally rolled over a little hillock into the garden below. There he lay for some time, dreaming on with wide-open eyes and addressing the paradisaical shapes which the opium had conjured up before him. Then he stared blankly into the world around him; began blinking with his eyes and plunging with his knees, and at last raised himself on his elbows and bellowed for his slave.

Valentine hastened up to him.

"Where is my wife?"

"Am I your wife's keeper? Perhaps she has gone home."

"I dreamt that she had been nibbling again at my plums. These women are so greedy. But I know that you, Valentine, have not eaten of my plums. Nor shall you do so, you dog! These plums are like the fruit of the tuba tree which stands in Paradise, and which you can never taste, you _giaour_, you swine, you! What have you done with my wife? It would be as well if I plucked all these plums and sent them to the pasha. What do you think he'll give me for them? Do you think that I can climb up that tree? What! I tell you I can fly up it like a squirrel."

Opium smokers in their drunken reveries always fancy themselves strong and agile. Yet the worthy man could not stand, much less fly.

So Valentine helped Ibrahim to climb the plum tree. The Turk was determined to pluck every one of the plums himself; the hand of a slave should never profane the dessert of the pasha.

And the poor slave was all the time thinking to himself that when he got home with his lord, Jigerdilla would treat him exactly as Potiphar's wife treated Joseph. A woman has no need to betake herself to the Old Testament to learn how to avenge herself on the man who has slighted her advances.

She will certainly get him beaten to death by her husband.

And to make the resemblance between the two cases more complete, there was a vision to be interpreted.

"What is the meaning of the dreams I've just been dreaming?" growled Ibrahim, in the tree. "I dreamt that a hen pounced down upon an eagle and flew away with him--not the eagle with the hen, but the hen with the eagle."

"Just you come down from that tree and I'll let you know all about it," thought Valentine to himself, and while Ibrahim was plucking the plums, he took out of his master's discarded girdle the key of his own fetters and quickly freed his feet. Then he planted himself close beside the tree.

Ibrahim was so busily engaged in plucking his fruit, and so lost in admiration at his beautiful bonameras, that it quite escaped him that the sun was going down, and that they had begun to sound the retreat in the fortress. Now this signified that everyone was to leave off laboring in his field or vineyard, for at the third signal the gates were closed, and whoever then remained outside had to stay there all night. Only at the third signal did Kermes reflect that it was growing late, and begin to climb down from the plum tree. First he handed to Valentine the basket-load of bonameras, and then he slowly began to let himself down, and begged his slave to help him.

And Valentine did help him, for just when Ibrahim was hanging with both hands to a branch between heaven and earth, Valentine threw the basket at him, plums and all, tore him to the ground, bound his hands to his back, and kicked him into the kiosk. The neighbors observed nothing of all this, for they were much too intent upon getting to the town themselves before the gates were closed, to notice what others were doing.

Valentine next locked the door of the kiosk and set about tearing up the mortar flooring.

Jigerdilla had spoken truly; there was no lack of ducats. Valentine did not let the opportunity escape him, but swept all the gold pieces together and put them into Ibrahim's knapsack. Then he donned the Turk's kaftan, turban, and girdle, compelling him to put on his own slave's clothes; and when it grew dusk, he threw a rope round his neck, and said to him:

"Now we are going to Onod, and if you dare to utter a word by the way, I'll break your own ax to pieces over your bald pate!" And as Ibrahim Kermes was very anxious about his beautiful ax, and still more so about his skull, he allowed himself, with true Mohammedan resignation, to be driven through the alley between the vineyards into the wood and from thence into the next village. There Valentine hired from the Christian magistrate a four-horse wagon, and drove with his captive master to Onod, where he arrived early next morning safe and sound.