Manasseh Part 17

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 Mana.s.seh 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 hards.h.i.+ps 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 pa.s.sed. 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-gla.s.s 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 hors.e.m.e.n make nothing of das.h.i.+ng 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 Mana.s.seh.

"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 pa.s.ses. 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 cl.u.s.ters 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 rea.s.sure 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 a.s.sumed 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 a.s.serted. "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 Mana.s.seh, 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 Mana.s.seh 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sageway, 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 pa.s.sage became so straitened that only three fathoms' s.p.a.ce 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 Mana.s.seh, 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 pa.s.s 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."

Mana.s.seh 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."

Mana.s.seh now knew that dangers surrounded them, and that they must pa.s.s 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 a.s.sured Blanka that she would find it most delightful to camp there by a blazing fire; he and Mana.s.seh would take turns watching while she slept, her head pillowed on a fragrant bundle of hay.

They pa.s.sed through the giant gateway, and clambered up to Balyika Cave, a s.p.a.cious 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. Mana.s.seh 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 Mana.s.seh held the briers aside with two of them and laid the third as a bridge for Blanka to pa.s.s 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. Mana.s.seh 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 c.o.c.k 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 Mana.s.seh 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 guardians.h.i.+p 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 f.a.gots in its centre. Near the fire stood a table, neatly spread with a white cloth, on which were placed gla.s.ses 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 pa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.sage 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 gla.s.s 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 st.u.r.dy 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 pa.s.sion 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 succ.u.mbed 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 Mana.s.seh, after a.s.suring 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," a.s.sented 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 s.n.a.t.c.h of a prayer, was fast asleep in a twinkling. Mana.s.seh 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 wors.h.i.+p the G.o.d of our fathers as a G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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.