""Then I consider the stratagem as feasible.""
Here I could not help leaping to my feet. "What!" cried I, "you actually undertook to learn by heart a whole despatch written in cipher?"
"No, my sweet friend! I won"t deceive you as I deceived that other man.
The whole thing was a delusion. The cryptograms which reached the Commandant of the fortress were entrusted to Rengetegi, that he might unpod them with a secret key. He communicated this key to me. One had only to know a single word whose consecutive letters repeat all the characters of the alphabet in different series. The whole thing only required a little calculation; there was no need to rack one"s brains about it. With the a.s.sistance of the secret key I first of all deciphered the cipher, and then I retransferred it into its original rigmarole."
"But are you aware," I interrupted, "that if the General had found you out, he would have had you shot on the spot?"
"I suspected as much. But he suspected nothing. He was really a good, worthy man. He said that things being as they were, he could safely confide the despatch to my hands.
"After that he pointed out to me on the military map the route I ought to take through Galicia, by which I should possibly avoid falling in with the enemy"s squadrons. My pa.s.sport in the name of Madame Janos Bagotay he filled up with his own hand. I begged him to leave a blank s.p.a.ce for the personal description of my travelling companion.
"When this was ready he gave me a portfolio full of Austrian bank-notes, besides a hundred louis d"ors and a handful of silver money.
"Then he pressed my hand, and said: "The last line of this despatch announces the promotion of Captain Rengetegi to the rank of major.""
At this both Bessy and I laughed heartily, and then she merrily resumed her story as follows:--
"My return journey was in a much more lordly fashion. Everywhere relays were waiting for me. In a couple of days I reached Vienna. While still in Comorn, I had learnt that my mother had gone there for refuge, and still kept up her intimacy with a certain high official in the Imperial army. He was in the service of the War Minister there. It was not difficult to find him. I will leave you to picture to yourself the scene of our meeting. My mother loves acting, but she is a bad player, she never knows her part. She would have liked to have cried and fainted when I came rushing in, but she got no further than sobbing. I was all the better able to play my part. I hastened to excuse her for her behaviour at our last meeting. I took all the blame on myself. I ought to have remembered, I said, that it was not the proper thing to cling on to my mother"s carriage when the infuriated populace was seeking her life. Then I went on to the motive of my coming there. The Hungarian Governmental Commission at Comorn had ordered that every Austrian bank-note which could be laid hands upon was to be burnt in the middle of the market-place. My mother had 40,000 florins in bank-notes, which the Orphanage Fund had retained from my patrimony. This amount had been lent out to various persons at interest. These persons, as soon as they heard of the order of the Governmental Commission, had hastened to deposit their German bank-notes--not in the fortress, but in the town bank, that they might at least get back their securities; and thus it was _our_ money that would be burnt. That was why I had come at such a break-neck pace, I said. If my mother would give me a power of attorney for the purpose, I would immediately return, and as I had great influence with the Commandant, I would so manage that our money instead of being burnt should be handed over to me. After that I would settle with my mother. She also had money locked up there which I would get handed over to me.
"This proposition made an impression.
"I had already informed my mother by letter of all this when communications were freer than now, but she, as all nervous people do with their letters, the moment she recognised my handwriting in the address, put it away without opening it. She fancied it was full of maudlin penitence. Now, however, when I called her attention to this letter, she took it out and opened it, and almost fainted with terror when she saw the annexed official communication of the Governmental Commission, and learnt therefrom that the term fixed for the bonfire of the Austrian bank-notes would be reached in three days.
"Then there was such a scampering to her good friend the high official, and to all sorts of high commanding officers, in order to procure for me a safe-conduct; then she got me a power of attorney neatly written out, by means of which I could reclaim her money, and then she said: "Now, don"t wait a moment, my darling girl, but jump into a fiacre and gallop off to Comorn."
"I found my journey back much freer from obstacles than my coming away.
The self-same major of cuira.s.siers who would have had me flogged as a gipsy leader was now full of courtesy towards me. After reading my letter of introduction, in which the object of my journey was mentioned, he could not have the slightest doubt that I was about purely private business which was very pressing. He did not even have me searched. I could have smuggled into the fortress anything I liked.
"When I had pa.s.sed through the besieging lines, I turned off from the highway in the direction of Heteny, that I might seek out my captive.
"After the first delights of meeting each other again were over, I told him the whole story which I have just been telling you. I must say that I had a much more appreciative audience than you are. At the sensational scenes, he flung himself on the ground ... and with folded, uplifted hands implored the wolves not to devour me. He swore that if he caught the Ban of Croatia he would dance the life out of him for making me fiddle so unmercifully. When I dictated to him the despatch I had learnt by heart, by means of the secret key, the last lines of which contained his promotion to the rank of major, he exclaimed, with an irresistible burst of grateful emotion: "My Queen! my Zen.o.bia!" I had made him a major; he made me a queen. We were quits.
""And now let us hasten to the fortress," I said, "for I have urgent business there. I want to save my property. Our house has been burnt already; if our money is burnt too, we shall be beggars." This made him hasten.
""I must, however," said he, "devise something to round off my expedition, something of the quality of a heroic deed."
"And by the time we reached the fortress he _had_ devised something.
"The return of the courier with the despatch of the Hungarian Commander-in-chief created an extraordinary sensation in the fortress and spread even to the town. The Commandant immediately proclaimed that Captain Tihamer Rengetegi had been promoted to the rank of Major by the Hungarian War Minister for extraordinary services.
"A banquet in honour of the returning hero followed. All the officers were present. The ladies also took part in it. I was there too. Never had I seen Balvanyossi (I beg his pardon, Rengetegi) play his part in so masterly a manner as on that evening. He was the gipsy leader who, with three others, fiddled his way right through every hostile camp. And what amusing adventures befell him on the road! I believe he laid under contribution every book of gipsy anecdote that was ever published. And when he came to that ghastly scene with the wolves--that was indeed a drastic description. The reality was nothing like so horrible as his account of it. The ladies swooned, the men were horror-stricken, only I was inclined to laugh. And when the guerillas turned up, how valiant my Rengetegi became all at once! He took horse and started off in pursuit of the cuira.s.siers. (To him they were cuira.s.siers!) It would have been beneath his dignity to have chased mere hussars.... By way of climax came the splendid description of how he cut his way through the besieging host. In the dark night, amidst a blinding blackness of midnight snow-storm, he cut his way on horseback through the Austrian foreposts, leaping over trenches and earth-works, with the bullets skimming about his ears right and left. His horse was shot dead beneath him, but ever equal to the occasion, he hastily fastened on his skates, and skated with the rapidity of lightning over the frozen Zsitva and the Csiliz, and two other rivers the names of which I never heard of before.
Thus at last he reached the fortress. Every one was enchanted with the narration. The ladies rose _en ma.s.se_ and kissed him, and improvised a laurel-wreath for his brows out of muscatel leaves.
"To save appearances, I also went up to him that I might condole with and congratulate him upon all the exploits and sufferings he had gone through, when all at once my friend turned quite stiff and rigid, gave me a cold bow, pursed his lips, and turned up the whites of his eyes.
""Madame!" said he, "I have a word or two to say to you also. Where were you, may I ask, while I was jeopardizing my life a hundred times every day for my country? Can you tell me how you were occupying your days all this while?"
"I was confounded. Language died away on my lips. The blood rushed to my face. I felt that every one was now looking at me. Naturally n.o.body in Comorn had seen me all this time.
""If what the world whispers turns out to be true, and you have in the meantime been to Vienna--but no! I will not believe it."
"His magnanimity offended me even more than his indictment.
""What is it to you whence I come or whither I go?" I replied, turning my back upon him and beginning to talk to the young officers, like one who has nothing to be ashamed of.
"Shortly afterwards I quitted the banqueting-room. I hadn"t reached the end of the long pavilion corridor in the fortress when Rengetegi came running after me.
""What on earth possessed you to calumniate and accuse me before the whole company," I said to him, "just as if I were a traitor, or I don"t know what?"
""Tsitt! Zen.o.bia, my Queen. Let us understand each other. It was in your own interest that I had to feign jealousy and rage. Let us go into my room and I"ll explain everything."
"When we were alone together he locked the door and then explained things nicely.
""It concerns your money."
""Aha!"
""Amidst all this laudation, appreciation, and ovation, and all the other flummery, I did not lose sight of the _main chance_. I told the Governor privately that if he wished to reward me in any way, he might do me the favour not to give to the flames the property deposited in the bank to the credit of the damsel who was so near to my heart, but allow me to bring it back to her. The austere patriot was as inexorable as Brutus. "Never!" said he. "We will burn what we have laid hands upon, even though it were the property of my own father. We can make no exception. What would those poor devils say whose paltry ten or twenty florins we surrender to the flames of the _auto-da-fe_ if we allowed the forty or fifty thousand florins of the rich to fly away? Burn they shall!" This he said with a very wrathful voice. Then he added in a milder tone: "However, I"ll confide the burning of them to you.""
"Now I began to understand.
""A quarrel between us therefore has become an absolute necessity. We must fly into a rage with each other. The _auto-da-fe_ will take place in a couple of days. The bonfire will be in the centre of the public square. I shall throw the bundles of bank-notes one by one among the spluttering f.a.ggots. You must be close by the booths of the bread-sellers, and break out into curses. You remember the cursing scene from _Deborah_? Very well, it may be useful. After the _auto-da-fe_ there must be a lively scene between us. We must cast our mutual souvenirs at each other"s feet. I"ll throw at you the embroidered cushion which you worked for my birthday, and inside it will be the money belonging to you and your mamma which I have rescued. Then be off as quick as you can to Vienna."
""But how about the packet that you have to burn?"
""Leave that to me; a few copies of the _Comorn News_ will give every bit as brisk a flame."
"Everything happened according to his instructions. I saved our property, and you must admit that my friend and I displayed considerable prudence on this occasion. We did n.o.body any wrong: I only recovered what was my own.
"Then we fell out together publicly, as preconcerted. My friend Rengetegi played Oth.e.l.lo in a masterly manner. Then as our acquaintances could not succeed in reconciling us, we solemnly separated and I went back to Vienna.
"On the way back I again fell in with the Austrian major. I showed him the money I brought with me, naturally without letting him know how I came by it. He became so friendly as even to entrust me with a letter to an old acquaintance of his in Vienna, who was none other than my mother"s colonel....
"You may imagine the friendly reception which awaited me when I returned to Vienna and gave my mother her money. She folded me in her arms, covered me with kisses, bedewed me with tears, and called me her darling child. What still remained to me of my patrimony, about 40,000 florins, I placed in the Vienna savings-bank. The rest of my dower was in the hands of Muki Bagotay, with the exception of what we spent while we lived together. This also I contrived to get back again--but how?
"In the spring, when the fortune of the war changed, Comorn was relieved, and I hastened off home again. I told my mother that I was urgently bent upon building up again our burnt house--only the roof had been burnt off, the walls remained standing. She approved of my resolution, and was very proud of having such a sensible and enterprising daughter. I immediately set about rebuilding our house, taking advantage of the time which elapsed from the raising of the first to the beginning of the second siege. During my stay at Vienna I moved continually in military circles, and I saw quite plainly what was coming. But why reopen my wounds? All my illusions were over. I had learnt to know my hero at close quarters, behind the scenes, I might say. This "lord of creation" used to whine before his tailor for a respite with his account till next pay-day, and immediately afterwards would ascend his triumphal car drawn by captive kings and declaim to the populace of conquered Constantinople. But in one particular thing Major Rengetegi really extorted my admiration, I mean by his strategical science."
"Ah!" cried I.
"You may well say "ah!" I have read the campaigns of Napoleon I., I have read the campaigns of Charles XII., but in none of them could I discover so many ruses of war as my hero invented in order to triumphantly solve the problem--how a man in his capacity of superior officer may constantly be taking part in the most ticklish skirmishes without allowing his person to get into the way of any wandering bullet. He always knew how to hit upon some mission whereby he might manage to skedaddle out of danger. And if I now and then fluttered the red rag of _self-esteem_ before his eyes, he would reply: "I have duties towards art; if they shoot away half my leg, how shall I be able to act on the stage again?" Yet, when the battle was over, who so great a hero as he!
Others only mowed down the enemy, he thrashed them afterwards with a flail. "Tis a dreadful thing when a woman discovers that her hero is a habitual liar, lying with the fiery burning conviction that no man will dare to doubt him, so that she has to make him swear to the truth of every word he utters.
"Meanwhile, I continued my house-building. Every sort of building material was very dear, and there was plenty of money too. Whence did all this money come? I"ll tell you. The Russian hosts had already invaded the kingdom. The speculator-species perceived that the national cause was declining. The Hungarian armies were everywhere falling back.
Then Klapka, by a brilliant victory, raised the second siege of Comorn and was within an ace of capturing the besieging host. The region was instantly alive with people, and a whole series of triumphs followed one after another. And now there flocked to Comorn from every part of the kingdom quite a tribe of panic-stricken speculators and jobbers, with bags full of Hungarian bank-notes, and bought everything that was for sale, at whatever price the sellers liked to ask. My Muki also took advantage of this lucky period to regulate his finances. He sold his herds at four times their real value, and paid the price, in Hungarian bank-notes, into the deposit bank at Comorn. It was my dowry paid back, he said. The bank hastened to place the amount in my hands; and I hastened to satisfy therewith my architects and builders, who did not let the money stick to their hands.
"Doesn"t this remind you of the round game we used to play as children, when we lit a straw, and, sitting in a circle, pa.s.sed it round from hand to hand; whoever was the last to hold it till the fire burned his hands, him we used to thump unmercifully--that was the forfeit? Just such a burning straw was the dowry paid back to me by my husband. The roof of my father"s house was the straw end which remained in my hands. The amount which I deposited in the Vienna bank is all I have left in the world--except Tihamer Rengetegi. But not even he has remained mine, for he has changed into Balvanyossi. And now here we are together. The playing of a common part unites us. From morn to eve every word we say to one another is a lie. It is not even true that any one is pursuing Rengetegi, for at the capitulation of Comorn he received his safe-conduct which guarantees his life and liberty. That is not what distresses him. But he wishes to deny the whole part he played during the Revolution, that as Balvanyossi, the theatre-director, he may get the necessary concession. He is continually urging me to go to Miskolcz to the Government Commissioner and settle the business for him."