"Here in this casket is money--about a thousand ducats; the rest of my property is in the sacks packed as grain. I leave on my table a note which you must keep. I declare therein that I have contracted dysentery by immoderate enjoyment of melons, and am dying of it; further, that my whole possessions were only these thousand ducats. This will serve you as a security that no one may accuse you of having caused my death or embezzled my money. I give you nothing; what you do is of your own kind heart, and G.o.d will reward you: He is the best creditor you can have.
And then take Timea to Athanas Brazovics and beg him to adopt my daughter. He has a daughter himself who may be a sister to her. Give him the money--he must spend it on the education of the child; and give over to him also the cargo, and beg him to be present himself when the sacks are emptied. There is good grain in them, and it might be changed. You understand?"
The dying man looked in Timar"s face, and struggled for breath. "For--"
Again speech failed him. "Did I say anything? I had more to say--but my thoughts grow confused. How red the night is! How red the moon is in the sky! Yes; the Red Crescent--" A deep groan from Timea"s bed attracted his attention and gave another turn to his thoughts. He raised himself anxiously in his bed, and sought with a trembling hand for something under his pillow, his eyes starting from their sockets. "Ah, I had almost forgotten--Timea! I gave her a sleeping-draught--if you do not wake her up in time she will sleep forever. Here in this bottle is an antidote. As soon as I am dead, take it and rub her brow, temples, and chest, until she awakes. Ah! how nearly I had taken her with me! but no, she must live. Must she not? You vow to me by all you hold sacred, that you will wake her, and bring her back to life--that you will not let her slumber on into eternity?"
The dying man pressed Timar"s hand convulsively to his breast: on his distorted features was already imprinted the last death-struggle. "What was I talking of? What had I to tell you? What was my last word? Yes; right--the Red Crescent!"
Through the open window the half-circle of the waning moon shone blood-red, rising from the nocturnal mists. Was the dying man in his delirium thinking of this? Or did it remind him of something?
"Yes--the Red Crescent," he stammered once more; then the death-throes closed his lips--one short struggle, and he was a corpse.
CHAPTER X.
THE LIVING STATUE.
Timar remained alone with the dead body, with a person sunk in a death-like stupor, and with a buried secret. The silent night covered them, and the shades whispered to him, "See! if you do not do what has been committed to you--if you throw the corpse into the Danube, and do not wake the slumberer, but let her sleep on quietly into the other world--what would happen then? The spy will have already given evidence in Pancsova against the fugitive Tschorbadschi; but if you antic.i.p.ate him and the land at Belgrade instead, and lay information there, then, according to Turkish law, a third of the refugee"s property would fall to you; otherwise it would belong to no one. The father is dead, the girl, if you do not rouse her, will never wake again; thus you would become at one stroke a rich man. Only rich people are worth anything in this world--poor devils are only fit for clerks."
Timar answered the spirits of the night--"Well, then, I will always remain a clerk;" and, in order to silence these murmuring shadows, he closed the shutters. A secret anxiety beset him when he saw the red moon outside; it seemed as if all these bad suggestions came from it, as well as an explanation of the last words of the dying man about the Red Crescent.
He drew back the curtain from Timea"s berth.
The girl lay like a living statue; her bosom rose and fell with her slow breathing--the lips were half open, the eyes shut; her face wore an expression of unearthly solemnity. One hand was raised to her loosened hair, the other held the folds of her white dress together on her breast.
Timar approached her as if she were an enchanted fairy whose touch might cause deadly heart-sickness to a poor mortal. He began to rub the temples of the sleeper with the fluid from the bottle. In doing so, he looked continually in her face, and thought to himself, "What, should I let you die, you angelic creature? If the whole ship were filled with real pearls, which would be mine after your death, I could not let you sleep away your life. There is no diamond in the world, however precious, that I should prefer to your eyes when you open them."
The lovely face remained unchanged, in spite of the friction on brow and temples; the delicate meeting eyebrows did not contract when touched by a strange man"s hand. The directions were that also over the heart the antidote must be applied. Timar was obliged to take the girl"s hand, in order to draw it away from her breast: the hand made no smallest resistance; it was stiff and cold, as cold as the whole form--beautiful and icy as marble.
The shadows whispered--"Behold this exquisite form! a lovelier has never been touched by mortal lips; no one would know if you kissed her."
But Timar answered himself in the darkness, "No--you have never stolen anything of another"s in your life. This kiss would be a theft." And then he spread the Persian quilt, which the girl had thrown off in her sleep, over her whole person up to her neck, and rubbed above the heart of the sleeper with wetted fingers, while, in order to resist temptation, he kept his eyes fixed on the maiden"s face. It was to him like an altar-picture--so cold, yet so serene.
At last the lids unclosed, and he met the gaze of her dark but dull eyes. She breathed more easily, and Timar fell her heart beat stronger under his hand; he drew it away. Then he held the bottle with the strong essence for her to smell. Timea awoke, for she turned her head away from it, and drew her brows together. Timar called her gently by name.
The girl started up, and with the cry "Father!" sat up on her bed, gazing out with staring eyes. The Persian quilt fell down from her lap, the night-dress slipped from her shoulders. She looked more like a Greek marble than a sentient being.
"Timea!" and as he spoke he drew the fine linen over her bare shoulders.
She did not answer. "Timea!" cried Timar, "your father is dead." But neither face nor form moved, nor did she notice that her night-dress had left her bosom uncovered. She seemed totally unconscious.
Timar rushed into the other cabin, returned with a coffee-pot, and began in feverish haste, and not without burning his fingers, to heat some coffee. When it was ready, he went to Timea, took her head on his arm and pressed it to him, opened her mouth with his fingers, and poured some coffee in. Hitherto he had only had to contend with pa.s.sive resistance; but as soon as Timea had swallowed the hot and bitter decoction of Mocha, she pushed Timar"s hand with such strength that the cup fell; then she drew the quilt over her, and her teeth began to chatter.
"Thank G.o.d! she lives; for she is in a high fever," sighed Timar, "And now for a sailor"s funeral."
CHAPTER XI.
A BURIAL AT SEA.
On the ocean this is managed very easily: the body is sewed up in a piece of sail-cloth, and a cannon-ball is suspended to the feet, which sinks the corpse in the sea. Corals soon grow over the grave. But on a Danube craft, to throw a dead person into the river is a great responsibility. There are sh.o.r.es, and on the sh.o.r.es villages and towns, with church bells and priests, to give the corpse his funeral-toll and his rest in consecrated ground. It won"t do to pitch him into the water, without a "By your leave," just because the dead man wished it.
But Timar knew well enough that this must be done, and it caused him no anxiety. Before the vessel had weighed anchor, he said to his pilot that there was a corpse on board--Trikaliss was dead.
"I knew for certain," said Johann Fabula, "that there was bad luck on the way when the sturgeon ran races with the ship--that always betokens a death."
"We must moor over there by the village," answered Timar, "and seek out the minister to bury him. We can not carry the body on in the vessel--we should be under suspicion as infected with plague."
Herr Fabula cleared his throat violently, and said, "We can but try."
The village of Plesscovacz, which was nearest at hand, is a wealthy settlement; it has a dean, and a fine church with two towers. The dean was a tall, handsome man, with a long curling beard, eyebrows as broad as one"s finger, and a fine sonorous voice. He happened to know Timar, who had often bought grain from him, as the dean had much produce to sell.
"Well, my son," cried the dean, as soon as he saw him in the court-yard, "you might have chosen your time better. The church harvest was bad, and I have sold my crops long ago." (And yet there was threshing going on in yard and barn.)
"But this time it is I who bring a crop to market," Timar answered. "We have a dead man on board, and I have come to beg your reverence to go over there, and bury the corpse with the usual ceremonies."
"Oh, but my son, that"s not so easy. Did this Christian confess? Has he received the last sacraments? Are you certain that he was not a heretic?
For if not, I can not consent to bury him."
"I know nothing about it. We don"t carry a father-confessor on board, and the poor soul left the world without any priestly a.s.sistance--that is the lot of sailors. But if your reverence can not grant him a consecrated grave, give me at any rate a written certificate that I may have some excuse to his friends why I was not in a position to show him the last honors; then we will bury him ourselves somewhere on the sh.o.r.e."
The dean gave him a certificate of the refusal of burial; but then the peasant threshers began to make a fuss. "What! bury a corpse within our boundaries which has not been blessed? Why, then, as certain as the Amen to the Pater Noster, the hail would destroy our crops. And you need not try to bestow him on any other village. Wherever he came from, n.o.body wants him, for he"s sure to bring a hail-storm this season before the vintage is over--the farmer"s last hope; and then next year a vampire will rise from a corpse so buried, which will suck up all the rain and the dew!"
They threatened to kill Timar if he brought the body ash.o.r.e. And in order that he might not bury it secretly on the bank, they chose four stout fellows, who were to go on board the ship and remain there till it had pa.s.sed the village boundaries, and then he could do what he liked with the dead man.
Timar pretended to be very angry, but allowed the four men to go on board. Meanwhile, the crew had made a coffin and laid the body in it: there was nothing more to do but to nail the lid down.
The first thing that the captain did was to go and see how Timea was.
The fever had reached its highest point; her forehead was burning, but her face still dazzling white. She was unconscious, and knew nothing of the preparations for the burial.
"Yes, that will do," said Timar, and fetched a paint-pot and busied himself in marking Euthemio Trikaliss"s name and date of death in beautiful Greek letters on the coffin-lid. The four Servian peasants stood behind and spelled out what he wrote.
"Now, then, you paint a letter or two while I see to my work," said Timar to one of the gazers, and handed him the brush. The man took it and painted on the board an X, which the Servians use like S, to show his skill.
"See what an artist you are!" Timar said, admiringly, and got him to draw another letter. "You are a clever fellow. What is your name?"
"Joso Berkics."
"And yours?"
"Mirko Jakerics."
"Well, G.o.d bless you! Let us drink a gla.s.s of Slivovitz." They had nothing against the proposition. "I am called Michael; my surname is Timar--a good name, and sounds just the same in Hungarian, Turkish, or Greek--call me Michael."
"Egbogom Michael."