The World's Greatest Books - Volume 5 Part 35

At first Athanas kissed Timea very heartily, but when he learnt that his vessel was lost, and all Timea's property, except the thousand ducats, and the wheat sacks--now spoilt by water--he altered his tune.

He and his wife Sophie decided that Timea should live with them as an adopted child, and at the same time attend on their daughter Athalie as a waiting-maid. Athalie and her mother treated the poor girl with scornful contempt.

As for Timar, Athanas turned on him savagely, as though the captain could have prevented the wreck!

On the advice of his friend, Lieutenant Katschuka, who was betrothed to Athalie, Timar purchased the sunken grain next day when it was put up for auction, buying the whole cargo for 10,000 gulden. "You will do the poor orphan a good turn if you buy it," said the lieutenant. "Otherwise, the value of the cargo will all go in salvage."

Timar at once made arrangements for hauling up the sacks, and for the immediate drying and grinding of the corn, and all day labourers were at work on the wreck.

At nightfall Timar, left alone, noticed one sack differently marked from the rest--marked with a red crescent! Within this was a long leathern bag. He broke it open and found it full of diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires richly set in girdles and bracelets and rings. A whole heap of unset diamonds were in an agate box. The whole treasure was worth at least 1,000,000 gulden. The St. Barbara had carried a million on board!

"To whom does this treasure belong?"

Timar put the question to himself, and answered it.

"Why, whom should it belong to but you? You bought the sunken cargo, just as it is, with the sacks and the grain. If the treasurer stole the jewels from the sultan, the sultan probably stole them in his campaigns."

"And Timea?"

"Timea would not know how to use the treasure, and her adopted father would absorb it, and get rid of nine-tenths of it. What would be the result if Timea gets it? She would be a rich lady, and would not cast a look at you from her height. Now things are the other way--you will be a rich man and she a poor girl. You do not want the treasure for yourself.

You will invest it profitably, and when you have earned with the first million a second and a third, you will go to the poor girl and say, 'There, take it--it is all yours; and take me, too.' You only wish to become rich in order to make her happy."

The moon and the waves cried to Timar, "You are rich--you are a made man!"

But when it was dark an inward voice whispered,

"You are a thief!"

From that day all Timar's undertakings flourished, and step by step he reached the summit of an ordinary successful business man's ambition-- the t.i.tle of n.o.bility. At the same time Brazovics, who had treated Timar with brutal inconsiderateness because of the wreck of the St. Barbara, went steadily down-hill, borrowing and embezzling trust monies in his fall.

Lieutenant Katschuka had declared all along that he could not marry Athalie without a dowry, and when the wedding day arrived, Brazovics, unable to face his creditors, and knowing himself bankrupt, penniless, and fraudulent, committed suicide. Katschuka immediately declared the engagement at an end. In his heart he had long wearied of Athalie, and looked with desire on Timea. The orphan girl from the first had loved the lieutenant with silent, unspoken affection.

When the Brazovics' house was put up for sale Timar bought it outright, furniture and all, and then said to Timea, "From this day forth you are the mistress of this house. Everything in it belongs to you, all is inscribed in your name. Accept it from me. You are the owner of the house, and if there is a little shelter for me in your heart, and you did not refuse my hand--then I should be only too happy."

Timea gave her hand to Timar, and said in a low, firm voice, "I accept you as my husband, and will be a faithful and obedient wife."

This man had always been so good to her. He had never made sport of her nor flattered her, and he had saved her life on the Danube when the St.

Barbara was sinking. He had given her all her heart could desire except one thing, and that belonged to another.

_III.--The Ownerless Island_

On his betrothal to Timea a great burden was lifted from the soul of Timar. Since the day when the treasure of Ali Tschorbadschi had enabled him to achieve power and riches, Timar had been haunted by the voice of self-accusation; "This money does not belong to you--it was the property of an orphan. You are a man of gold! You are a thief!"

But now the defrauded orphan had received back her property. Only Timar forgot that he had demanded in exchange the girl's heart.

Timea promised to be a faithful and obedient wife, but on the wedding- day when Timar said, "Do you love me?" she only opened wide her eyes, and asked, "What is love?"

Timar found he had married a marble statue; and that all his riches would not buy his wife's love. He became wretched, conscious that his wife was unhappy, that he was the author of their mutual misery.

Then, in the early summer, Timar went off from Komorn to shoot water- fowl. He meant to go to the ownerless island at Ostrova--it was three years since that former visit.

Therese and Noemi welcomed him cordially at the island, and Timar forgot his troubles when he was with them. Therese told him her story; how her husband, ruined by the father of Theodor Krisstyan and by Athanas Brazovics, had committed suicide, and how, forsaken and friendless, she had brought her child to this island, which neither Austria nor Turkey claimed, and where no tax-collector called. With her own hands she had turned the wilderness into a paradise, and the only fear she had was that Theodor Krisstyan, who had discovered her retreat, might reveal it to the Turkish government.

Therese had no money and no use for it, but she exchanged fruit and honey for grain, salt, clothes, and hardware, and the people with whom she bartered were not inclined to gossip about her affairs.

So no news concerning the island ever went to Vienna, Komorn, or Constantinople, and the fact of Timar's great prosperity had not reached the islanders. He was welcomed as a hard-working man, and Therese did not know that Timar had been powerful enough to get a ninety years'

lease of the island from both Turkish and Austrian governments; perhaps no very difficult matter, as the existence of the island was unknown, and there were fees to be paid over the concession.

When he told her what he had done, Noemi threw her arms round his neck.

Theodor Krisstyan was furious, but Timar procured him a post in Brazil, and for a long time the disreputable spy was too far off to be troublesome.

And now on this island Timar found health and rest. It became his home, and for the summer months every year he would slip away from Komorn, and no one, not even Timea, guessed his secret. When he returned Timea's cold white face was still an unsolved riddle to her husband. She would greet him kindly, but never was there any token that she loved him.

Timar's ever-increasing business operations were excuse for his long absences, but all the same the double life he was leading made him ill.

He could not tell Timea of Therese and Noemi, and he could not tell them on the island that he was married.

Timea, on her side, devoted herself more and more to her husband's business in his absence, and when Major Katschuka once called and asked her if she could not arrange for a divorce, she answered gently, "My husband is the n.o.blest man in the world. Should I separate from him who has no one but me to love him? Am I to tell him that I hate him, I who owe everything to him, and who brought him no dowry but a loveless heart?"

Timar learnt from Athalie, who lived in Timea's house, of this reply, and felt more in despair than ever. He wanted Timea to be happy, she had never been his wife except in name, for he had been waiting for her love.

And he wanted to go away, and leave all his riches behind, and settle on the island. Now more than ever was he wanted on the island, for Therese had died of heart failure, and the years had made Noemi a woman.

_IV.--"My Name is n.o.body"_

It was winter, and Timar had gone off alone to a house that belonged to him near a frozen lake. He felt the time had come for flight, but whither?

Theodor Krisstyan had turned up again. In Brazil he had heard a story of Ali Tschorbadschi's jewels from an old criminal from Turkey, and he had returned to blackmail Timar. But he did not find him till Timar was at the frozen lake.

Krisstyan's story was not true. Timar knew that the accusations were false as he listened to the vagabond's indictment. He had not "killed"

Timea's father, nor "stolen" his treasure. But he had played a false game, and his position was a false one. Krisstyan demanded a change of raiment, and Timar let him take clothes and s.h.i.+rts. But at last the blackmailer's demands became too insolent, and Timar drove him out of the house.

And now it seemed to Timar that his own career was finished. This ruffian Krisstyan could expose the foundation of his wealth, and how could he live discredited before the world?

On the frozen water there were great fissures between the blocks of ice.

Within the waves of the lake death would come quickly. Timar walked out on the ice, and there before him the head of Theodor Krisstyan rose in the water and then sank. The spy had not known the treachery of the fissures.

Timar fled to the ownerless island, and when the corpse of Krisstyan was discovered, in an advanced stage of decomposition, Timea declared she recognized her husband's clothes.

So the body of Theodor Krisstyan was buried with great pomp, and a year later Timea married Major Katschuka, and then, haunted by the doubt whether her first husband was really dead, pined away.

No blessing rested on the wealth Timar left behind him. The only son Timea bore to the major was a great spendthrift, and in his hands the fabulous wealth vanished as quickly as it had grown.