"A pretty whip, and a good whip," he said, at last, in order that its owner might leave off cracking it.
"I"ll very soon prove whether it is a good whip or not," said the Circa.s.sian, without moving a muscle of his brown, oval-shaped, apathetic face; and with that he began to make the handle of the whip out of fine copper wire of a fantastically ornate pattern nicely studded with leaden stars.
"How will you prove that it is a good whip?" asked the merchant.
"Stop till my children come home."
"Your _children_?"
"Yes, naturally. I should not think of proving it on other people"s children."
"You are surely not going to prove the whip on your own?"
"On whom else, then? Children should be whipped in order that they may be good, that they may be kept in order, and that they may not get nonsense into their heads. "Tis also a good thing to train them betimes to endure greater sorrow by giving them a foretaste of lesser ones, so that when they grow up to man"s estate, and real misfortune overtakes them, they may be able to bear it. My father used always to beat me, and now I bless him for it, for it made a man of me. Children are always full of evil dispositions, and you do well to drive such things out of them with the whip."
A peculiar smile pa.s.sed across the long, olive-colored face of the Greek at these words; he seemed to be only smiling to himself. Then he fixed his sly, coal-black eyes on the sheik, and inquired, sceptically:
"But surely you don"t beat your children without cause?"
"Oh, there"s always cause. Children are always doing something wrong; you have only to keep an eye on them to see that, and whoever neglects to punish them acts like him who should forbear to pull up the weeds in his garden."
"Kasi Mollah," said the Greek, puffing two long clouds of smoke through his nostrils, "I tell you, children are not your speciality, for you do not understand how to bring them up. In the whole land of Circa.s.sia there is none who knows how to bring up children."
"Then how comes it that our girls are the fairest and our youths the bravest on the face of the earth?"
"Your girls would be still more beautiful and your lads still more valiant if you brought them up in the land where dwell the descendants of white-bosomed Briseis and quick-footed Achilles. O h.e.l.las!"
The Greek began to grow rapturous at the p.r.o.nunciation of these cla.s.sical names, and in his excitement blew sufficient smoke out of his chibook to have clouded all Olympus.
"I tell you. Kasi Mollah," continued he, "that children are the gifts of G.o.d, and he who beats a child lifts his whip, so to speak, against G.o.d Himself, for His hands defend their little bodies. You do but sin against your children. Give them to me!"
"You are a Christian; I am a Mussulman. How, then, shall you bring up my children?"
"Fear nothing. I do not want to keep them for myself; I mean rather to get them such positions as will enable them to rise to the utmost distinction. I would place them with some leading pasha, perhaps with the Padishah himself, or, at any rate, with one of his Viziers, all of whom have a great respect for Circa.s.sians."
"Thank you. Midas, thank you; but I don"t mean to give them up."
"Prithee, prithee, call me not Midas; that is an ominous name which I do not understand. You might have learned any time these ten years, when I first came to buy pelts from you, that my name is Leonidas Argyrocantharides, and that I am a direct descendant of the hero Leonidas, who fell at Thermopylae with his three hundred valiant Spartans. One of my great-great-grandfathers, moreover, fell at Issus, by the side of the great Alexander, from a mortal blow dealt to him by a Persian satrap. If you do not believe me, look at this ancient coin, and at these others, and at this whole handful which are in my purse, all of which were struck under Philip of Macedon, or else under Michel Kantakuzenos or Constantine Porphyrogenitus, all of whom were powerful Greek emperors in Constantinople, which now they call Stambul, and built the church of St. Sophia, where now the dervishes say their prayers; and then look at the figures which are stamped on these coins, and tell me if they do not resemble me to a hair. It is so.
No, you need not give me back the money; give me rather the two little children."
The Circa.s.sian, who had taken the purse with the simple intention of comparing the figures on the coins with the face of the merchant, drew the strings of the purse tight again at this offer, and thrust it back into the merchant"s bosom.
"Thank you," said he, dryly. "I deal in the skins of goats, not in the skins of men."
The face of the merchant showed surprise in all its features. Not every man possesses the art of controlling his countenance so quickly, especially when his self-command is put to so sudden and severe a test. The Georgians, more to the south, were a much more manageable race of men. With them one could readily drive a bargain for their daughters and give them a good big sum on account for their smallest children. One could purchase of them children from two to three years of age at from ten to twenty golden denarii a head, and sell them in ten years" time for just as many thousands of piastres to some ill.u.s.trious pasha. This was how Leonidas was able to build himself palaces at Smyrna.
"You talk nonsense, my worthy Chorbadzhi," said the merchant, when he had somewhat recovered himself. "Shall I prove it to you? Well, then, in the first place, you do not sell your children, and, in the second place, why shouldn"t you sell them? If a Circa.s.sian wrapped in a bear-skin comes to you and asks you for your daughter, would you not give her to him? And at the very outside he would only give you a dozen cows for her, and as many a.s.ses. I, on the other hand, offer you a thousand piastres for them from good, worthy, influential beys, or perhaps from the Sultan himself, and yet you haggle about it."
The sheik"s face began to show wrath and irritation. He was well aware that the merchant was now dealing in sophisms, though his simple intellect could not quite get at the root of their fallacy. It was plain that there was a great difference between a Circa.s.sian dressed in bear-skin, who carries off a girl in exchange for a dozen cows, and the Captain-General of Rumelia, who is ready to give a thousand ducats for her--and yet he preferred the gentleman in bear-skins.
The Greek, meanwhile, appeared to be studying the features of the Circa.s.sian with an attentive eye, watching what impression his words had produced, like the experimenting doctor who tries the effects of his medicaments _in anima vili_.
"But I know that you will give them. Kasi Mollah," he resumed, filling up his chibook. "No doubt you have promised them to another trader.
Well, well! you are a cunning rogue. Merchants of Dirbend or Bagdad have no doubt offered you more for them. They can afford it, they do such a roaring business. Those perfidious Armenians! They buy the children for a mere song, and sell them when they are eight or nine years old to the pashas, so that not one of them lives to see his twentieth year, but all die miserably in the mean time. I don"t do such things. I am an honest man, with whom business is but a labor of love, and who is just to all men. It is sufficient for me to say that I was born where Aristides used to live. Numbers and numbers of my ancestors were in the Areopagus, and one of my great-great-uncles was an archon. Do not imagine, therefore, that I would do for every foolish fellow what I offer to do for you. I only do kindnesses to my chosen friends; the ties of friendship are sacred to me. Castor and Pollux, Theseus and Pirithous are to me majestic examples of that excellent brotherhood of kindred spirits which I constantly set before me. Wherever I have gone people have always blessed me; nay, did I but let them, they would kiss my feet. The daughter of a Georgian peasant whose father trusted me is now the first waiting-woman of the wife of the Governor of Egypt. Is that glory enough for you! The daughter of a poor goatherd, whom I picked up from the mire, is now the premier pipe-filler of the Pasha of Salonica. A high office that, if you like!
What Ganymede was to Jove in those cla.s.sical ages-- Ah! the tears gush from my eyes at the sound of that word. O h.e.l.las!"
The Circa.s.sian allowed his good friend to weep on, considering it a sufficient answer to let his dark bushy eyebrows frown still more fiercely, if possible, over his downcast eyes. Then he caught up a hammer and hammered away with great fury at the handle he had prepared for the whip, riveting the wire with copper studs.
"Kasi Mollah, hitherto I have only been joking, but now I am going to speak in earnest," resumed Leonidas Argyrocantharides, raising his voice that he might be heard through the hammering. "You should bethink you seriously of your children"s destiny. I am your old friend, your old acquaintance; my sole wish is for your welfare. I love your children as much as if they were my own, and the tears gush from my eyes whenever I part from them. What will become of them when they grow up? I know that while you are alive it will be well with them, but how about afterwards? You may die to-morrow, or the next day; who can tell? We are all in the hands of G.o.d. Now I"ll tell you something. Mind. I"m not joking or making it all up. I know for certain that Topal Pasha has been informed that you have two lovely children. Some flighty traders of Erzeroum revealed the fact to him.
They are wont to trade with you here, and he has paid them half the stipulated sum down on condition that they bring the children to him.
Now this pasha is a filthy, brutal, rake-h.e.l.l sort of fellow, the pressure of whose foot is no laughing matter, I can tell you; a horrible, hideous, cruel man. I can give you proofs of it. And these merchants have made a contract with him, and have engaged, under the penalty of losing their heads, to deliver your children to him within a twelvemonth. What do you say? You"ll throw them down into the abyss, eh? Ah! they are not as foolish as I am. They will not openly profess that they have come here for your children, as I do, but they will lie in wait for them when they go to the forest, and when n.o.body perceives it they will clap them on the back of a horse and off they"ll go with them, so that n.o.body will know under what sky to look for them. Or, perhaps, when you yourself are going along the road with them, they"ll lay a trap for you, shoot you neatly through the head, and bolt with your children. Well, that will be a pretty thing, won"t it? You had better not throw me over."
The Circa.s.sian did not know what to answer--words were precious things to him--but he thought all the more. While the merchant was speaking to him, his reflections carried him far. He saw his children in the detested marble halls, he saw them standing in shamefully gorgeous garments, waiting upon the smiling despot, who stroked their tender faces with his hands, and the blood rushed to his face as he saw his children blush and tremble beneath that smile. Ah, at that thought he began to lash about him so vigorously with the whip that was in his hand, that the Greek rolled about on the bear-skin in terror, holding his hands to his ears.
"Do not crack that whip so loudly, my dear son," said he, "or you"ll drive away all my mules. I really believe your whip is a very good one, but you need not test it to the uttermost. I thank you for making it; but now, pray, put it down. I must go. It is a good thing you have not knocked out one of my eyes. You certainly have a vigorous way of enjoying yourself. But let us speak sensibly. Do you believe that I am an honest man, or not?"
At this the Circa.s.sian did _not_ nod his head.
"Very well, then. It is natural that you should believe, you ought to believe it. Since Pausanias there has not been a sharper among my nation. He was the last faithless Greek, and they walled him up in the temple. I am a man without guile, as you are well aware. But I am more than that, more than you suspect. Oho! in this shabby, worn-out caftan of mine dwells something which you do not dream of. Oho! I know what I really am. I am on friendly terms with great men, with many great men, standing high in the empire, whose fame has never reached your ears. In the palm of this hand I hold h.e.l.las, in the other the realm of Osman. I shake the whole world when I move. Why do I take all this trouble? Oh, for the sake of your holy shades, Miltiades, Themistocles, Lysippus, and Demosthenes! for the sake of your shades, O Solon, O Lycurgus, O Pythagoras, and a time is coming in which I will prove it! It is thy memory, Athene, which inspires me to heap up treasures for the future! Thou, O holy G.o.ddess of Liberty, hath whispered in my ear that thou canst make use of the lowly as well as of the mighty to promote thy cause!" Here the merchant leaped to his feet in his enthusiasm, and, extending his hand towards the Circa.s.sian exclaimed, "Kasi Mollah, you groan beneath the yoke just as much as we do; let us join hands against our oppressors, and let us gradually melt the hearts of their leaders by the strongest of fires, by the fire of the eyes of the Greek and Circa.s.sian maidens, and we shall catch them in a flowery net!"
Kasi Mollah did not clasp the hand of the enthusiastic Greek; and, without turning towards him, replied, coldly, "I do not grudge you the drink which I put before you, worthy merchant, but I perceive that it has begun to mount into your head, or else you would not talk such rubbish as selling free people to your enemies from motives of freedom. Nor do you say well in saying that we are under the yoke, for that is not true. n.o.body has ever made the Circa.s.sian do homage, nor would any try to conquer us for the sake of the eyes of our poor damsels. Say no more about my children. I will not give them up. If any one comes to visit me, I"ll send him about his business; if any one tries to deceive me, I"ll cudgel him; and if any one tries to rob me, I"ll slay him. And tell that to the merchants of Erzeroum also.
And now say no more about it."
At these words the face of the merchant grew very long indeed. In his spite he began pulling at the stem of his chibook with such force that his face was furrowed right down the middle, and his eyebrows ascended to the middle of his forehead. From time to time he kept on wagging his head, and his scarlet, mortar-shaped fez along with it, and burned the tips of his fingers by absently poking the red-hot bowl of his pipe. But his indignation did not go beyond a shaking of the head, and there he wisely let the matter rest.
"Very well, Kasi Mollah. You are an honest fellow. We shall see--we shall see."
The sun was now setting, and from among the hills the bells of the home-returning cattle resounded across the level plain which extended in front of the rocky heights of Himri. Fifteen head of snow-white kine strolled leisurely towards the house of Kasi Mollah, pa.s.sing one by one through the gate of their enclosure; behind the last of them came the children of the sheik, who guarded the herd in the forest.
The boy appeared to be about twelve, and the girl a year younger, and so closely did they resemble each other that, viewed in profile, it was impossible to distinguish one from the other. Both had the same long, black hair, which flowed in wondrous ringlets down their shoulders, the same soft complexion of a nave maturity, and as smooth as velvet, just as if they never walked in the sunlight, and yet they had no head-coverings. The youth"s face revealed so much girlish tenderness, and the girl"s so much vigor and expression, that by changing their clothes it would have been possible to subst.i.tute one for the other; and, but for the well-known, tight-fitting corset, peculiar to the Circa.s.sian maidens, which caused her figure, slender as a delicate flower-stalk, to bend somewhat backwards, throwing into relief the contours of her childlike b.r.e.a.s.t.s, it would have been scarcely possible to have distinguished her from her brother, especially when, as now, they walked side by side, half embracing. The snow-white arm of the girl was round her brother"s neck, and her humidly glittering black eyes seemed to be sucking the virile courage from his face; the boy held the slim figure of his sister encircled by one of his arms, tapping her, from time to time, caressingly on the shoulder, while his eyes rested, full of tenderness, on her beloved face.
"What a majestic pair of children!" exclaimed Leonidas Argyrocantharides, in his enthusiasm. "What a shame it is to lock them up in this corner of the world! But what the deuce is the lad dragging along with his left hand while he embraces his sister with his right?
What _is_ it, my pretty children? Nay, don"t bring it here. What sort of unclean animal is it?"
The lad, with a triumphant smile, stood before the merchant while his sister ran to her father, climbed on to his knees, and throwing her arms shamefacedly round his neck hid her face from the stranger.
"Do you not recognize the bear-skin?" cried the youth, in a strong, clear voice; and as he spoke you became aware of the light black down which shaded his upper lip and revealed the man, and with one of his hands he raised up the beast he was dragging after him on to its hind legs. It was a young bear, about a year and a half old, whose head was battered and smashed in a good many places, thus showing what a severe struggle it had cost to bring it down.
"Where did you find that monster? Who gave it to you?" cried Leonidas, holding his hand before him as if he believed that the hideous monster, even when dead, could clutch hold of his thin drumsticks of legs.
"Where did I find it? Who gave it me?" cried the youth, proudly, and with that he pointed to his sister, and, as if ashamed to speak of his heroic deed himself, he said, "Tell him, Milieva!"
The old Circa.s.sian looked attentively at the two children. Neither of them perceived that their father was angry.
"We were in the forest," began the girl--her voice was like a silvery bell. "Thomar was carving a fife, and I was twining a garland for his head, because he pipes so prettily, when all at once a little kid with its mother came running towards us, and the little kid hid itself close to me--it trembled so, poor little thing! but its mother only bleated and kept running round and round, just as if it wanted to speak. Thomar looked all about, and not far from us perceived two young bears running off, and one of them had another little white kid on its back, which was certainly the young one of the little she-goat that was trying to talk to us. "Thomar," said I, "if I were a boy, I would go after that young bear and take away the poor little kid from it." "And dost thou think I will not do it?" replied Thomar, and with that he caught up his club and went after the two young bears. One of them perceived him and quickly ran up a tree, but the other would not give up his prey, but turned to face Thomar. Ah! you should have seen how Thomar banged the wild beast on the head with his club till the blood ran down its shoulders, and suddenly it let go the white kid, which ran bleating after its mother."
The child clapped her little hands for joy, while her father softly stroked her long hair.