"Then he hastily dismounted from his horse, gave his bridle to his orderly, went up to me, raised me in his arms, carried me to his carriage, and laid me down there among sweet-smelling hay.
"I felt just as if I had been placed in Paradise.
"Then he threw his mantle over me. It was cold outside now, and a strong wind was blowing.
"But his care for me went even further than that.
""There is food in my knapsack, lady Elizabeth. I suppose you have had no supper to-day? Take whatever you find there. There"s some drink, too, in my flask. It will do you good. You have nothing more to fear. The finger-pointing virgin still stands there on the bastions of our fortress."
"Then he mounted his horse again, and continued commanding his men loudly and authoritatively to force their way through the crush of carts and carriages with their convoy of hay. I fancied that I saw before me an archangel.
"I didn"t wait to be asked twice. As soon as I was able to get hold of the knapsack of victuals, I stuffed myself indiscriminately with all it contained--ham, cake, rolls. I gorged like a wild beast broken loose from a menagerie. I verily believe that if my bliss in Heaven had depended upon it, I would have renounced it for that couch of soft straw and those greedily devoured delicacies.
"When I had satisfied my appet.i.te as I had never done before, I unscrewed the top of the flask and put it to my mouth. I didn"t taste what was in it, but I gulped and gulped so long as I had any breath in my body, as much as my thirst craved. I fancy it must have been brandy.
When I couldn"t drink any more I looked all about me. The burning town was a grand illumination; in the midst of it was the Calvinist church tower--only it was now not one tower, but three. The silly thing was dancing a _pas seul_, and wagging its head now to the right, and now to the left, and all the people, and the horses, and the coachmen, and the hay-carts were leaping and dancing, like wedding-guests considerably the worse for liquor.
"When next day I awoke out of a twenty-hours" sleep, I found myself in the room of a peasant"s house. Two men were holding a consultation over me--the camp-surgeon and "he." "How do you find yourself, lady Elizabeth? You are in my little room."
"So ever since then I have been the lady Elizabeth."
With these words Bessy rushed to the edge of the steep rock, crossed her two hands over her breast, and looked over her shoulder at me.
"I have now told you everything, and you must judge me. You have no need to push me. Give but a signal with your finger and I"ll put an end to myself!"
Horrified, I grasped her hand, and s.n.a.t.c.hed her away from the dizzying rocky ledge.
"Do not tempt G.o.d! Be reasonable!" And, not without some little force, I made her sit down by the hot embers.
"But do you call this _life_?"
"Come, come, calm yourself! Look, these armed men are close upon us!"
They were not gendarmes. They were two worthy foresters belonging to the domain of the Forests of Diosgyor--a grey-bearded old man with a youthful a.s.sistant.
No hostile intentions had brought them thither. They could see, too, that our picnic beside the fire was a very innocent diversion. In the alb.u.m left upon the rock was my unfinished landscape.
They greeted us cordially, and I returned their greeting in like manner.
I asked the elder man whether I was injuring any one"s proprietorial rights by making a fire with other people"s wood. If so, I said, I would make good the trespa.s.s. To which the old man replied that he had no quarrel with me on that score. The stuff was there for the poor man to gather, and he cited the cla.s.sical German ballad in which the evil-minded forester robbed the peasant of his bundle of f.a.ggots. He must needs be a lover of letters, then!
Then he told us why they had come.
"We perceived the smoke from below, and knew, therefore, that there were visitors on the Precipice Stone. We thought it our duty to come up.
Wolves are about in the forest. We wished to tell you so."
"I thank you for your great kindness; but, from what I am told, wolves will not attack a man."
"But they"ve become very aggressive since they discovered that the Government has confiscated all muskets, leaving only a pair or two with us. They avoid men in the day time, I know; but at dark or in a snowstorm they are very impudent."
"We do not intend to remain here till evening. I only wanted to finish the drawing, for the sake of which I scrambled up hither."
"But I would call your attention, sir, to the fact that we shall have a fall of snow here before night. I know the signs of the weather. When such a vast mist lies over the country in the morning, and then rises suddenly, and is quickly followed by darkness, then we may expect a snowstorm the same day. That is an old experience of mine."
"We will hasten home."
"Do you live at Tordona, or at Malyinka?"
"I live at Tordona."
"G.o.d bless you, sir. I know every one there."
He didn"t ask who I was. We shook hands, and with that the pair of them went on their way.
"Was it worth while creeping into the cave for this?" said Bessy, when the foresters had withdrawn.
"There are men who can face a great danger and hide away from a little one."
"And you think, then, that our friend there is a fire-eater?--I thought so too for a long time. It was no unexampled thing in those extraordinary times for men to become suddenly transformed. Those who were looked upon as mere carpet knights became veritable heroes; lawyers became colonels: war has an enn.o.bling influence on so many types of character. I really believed that Rengetegi had changed his whole nature with his name. When others had to be aroused, there was no such orator as he. I was absolutely proud that we belonged to each other. When the Austrian troops invested the fortress, and hurled the first bomb into the market-place, the whole of our social life was suddenly turned upside down. There was now no such thing as etiquette. The families of great magnates left their houses (those, that is, whose houses were not burnt down already), pitched their tents in the Gipsy-field and dwelt there. The guns of the Monostor batteries did not carry so far as that.
In the barracks, moral law disappeared. An officer was a great personage then, and to walk about the streets leaning on his arm was a much-coveted glory. Whether the lady on his arm was his wife was not the question--he was a fine fellow, a gallant fellow. That was the main thing. And if I met an acquaintance I introduced Rengetegi as my future husband. Every one knew that I had begun a suit against Muki Bagotay.
But where were the courts, the advocates, the judges?--every one was either wearing a sword or serving a gun. When people asked me where I lived, I said "in the fortress!" To dwell in the fortress was an enviable position. The rooms there were fire-proof. I really think that there were more who envied than pitied my fate. I also got familiar with the ways of a soldier"s life. They gave concerts, and I fiddled while Rengetegi declaimed. When the enemy was hurling away his bombs at the fortress, we took our band out on the ramparts, and there, with a great flourish of trumpets, we danced _csardases_. How that did aggravate the Germans! I had a great reputation as a _raketas_[77] dancer."
[Footnote 77: Rocket-dance.]
I must frankly admit that I was not much edified by this turn in the conversation.
Bessy perceived that I was not well pleased with her doings in camp.
"Ah, my dear friend!" she said, "don"t fancy by any means that this episode of my life consisted entirely of rioting and revelry, there was a little intermezzo in it also. You know, of course, that, during the winter, things at Comorn were very bad indeed. The Commandant had not the capacity for the problem before him, which included the defence of such an important fortress. The garrison was lazy and mutinous. Whispers of treachery arose, and the chief of the artillery was deprived of his post. It was necessary to inform the Hungarian Government at Debreczin of the dangerous state of things at Comorn, and to beg for a new Commandant who should be a distinguished officer. But how was it possible to carry a message from Comorn to Debreczin? Who would undertake the risky enterprise of carrying the despatch from Comorn, through so many hostile armies, and bringing back the reply to it again?
They had sent one messenger already, but he had been unable to get back.
It was a joke which might cost a man his head.
"One evening, Rengetegi came to my little room in the barracks, and said: "Elizabeth, the hour has come for us to part!"
"I immediately thought that he was tipsy.
""You haven"t played me away at cards, I hope?"
""It is not you, but my own head that I have lost. I have accepted the mission to Debreczin. I"ve run my head against a wall, I know. It"s neck or nothing now. And they"ve pressed a thousand florins into my hand to make the way before me quite secure."
""And you have lost it all at cards this evening?"
""How did you find that out?"
""I have made it my study. I know well those Hippocratic countenances.
Well, and what are you going to do now?"
""Save my honour! I"ll go on my way without money."
""Listen to me! I believe that you would be very glad to get out of this bombarded fortress--but I"ve no very ardent belief that you"ll ever come back again. I tell you what: give me the official despatch which has to be taken, and I"ll take care that it reaches the hands of the Government."