As if the imprisoned brute had suddenly given the word to his body-guard for a last and decisive combat, a dangerous tumult began inside the net.
The skirmishing corps of pike and carp ran their heads against the tightly drawn meshes; the men were obliged to beat down the marine giants with loaded staves. The fishes became furious; the cold-blooded creation showed itself capable of heroic devotion, and rose against the invaders in pitched battle. The struggle ended in the defeat of the fishes. The dog-fish were knocked on the head, the net shook out many beautiful white fogasch and schille; but the fogasch-king would not show himself.
"He has got away again," grumbled the old chief.
"No, no; he is in the net still!" said the hauling-men, clinching their teeth. "I feel by my arms how he is pushing and fighting; if only he does not break the net."
The catch was enormous already; there was no room to stand without treading on fishes.
"There goes the net! I heard it crack!" cried the first man. Half the net was still in the water.
"Haul!" growled the old fisherman, and all the men put out their whole strength. With the net came the rest of the fishes, and the fogasch-king was among them--a splendid specimen indeed, more than forty pounds weight, such as is only seen once in twenty years. He had really torn the net with his great head; but he had caught his p.r.i.c.kly fins in the meshes, and could not get free. When they got him out he gave one of the men a blow with his tail which knocked him backward on the ice. But that was his last effort; the next moment he was dead. No one has ever held a living fogasch in his hand. It is thought that his lungs burst as he is taken out of water, and he dies instantly.
The delight of the fishermen at the capture of this one was greater than over the whole rich haul. They had been after him for years; and every one knew the cannibal, for he had the bad habit of eating his own kind.
That was why he was king. When he was opened they found a large fogasch in his inside, quite recently swallowed; his flesh was overlaid with a thick layer of yellow fat, and white as linen.
"Now, honored sir, we will send him to the gracious lady," said the old fisherman. "We will pack him in ice, and your honor will write a letter and say he is the king of the fogasch. Whoever eats him will eat a king"s flesh."
Michael approved the suggestion, and a.s.sured the men they should get a reward. When they had finished with the fogasch, the short winter"s day had come to a close; but only in the sky, not on the ice--there it was lively enough. From every village came the people with baskets and hampers and wooden kegs; in the kegs was wine, in the hampers pork, but the baskets were meant for the fish. When it came to the division of the spoil, a complete fair formed round the fishermen. After sunset, torches were made of dry osier-twigs, fires were lighted on the ice, and then began the bargaining. Carp and pike, conger and ba.s.s, are good enough for poor people. Only the fogasch and schille are sent to Vienna and Pesth, where they fetch high prices; all the rest go for a song--and even so there is room for a large profit, for in one haul they had caught three hundredweight of fish. This Timar is indeed a favorite of fortune! The unsold fish are packed in baskets and put in the ice-house, whence they will be sent to the Vessprimer market.
Timar wanted to give a feast to all the a.s.sembled crowd. He had a ten-gallon cask brought on to the ice and the top knocked out; then he begged the captain to prepare a fish-soup, such as he only could concoct. Certain selected fishes, neither rich nor bony, were cut in pieces into a great kettle; then some of the blood, and handfuls of maize and vegetables, were added. The whole art lies in the proper proportions of the mixture, which the uninitiated never understand. Of this delicious mess Herr Timar himself consumed an incredible quant.i.ty.
Where good wine flows and fish-soup is brewed, be sure there will be gypsies to be found. Almost before they thought of it, a brown band of musicians appeared, who, as soon as the cymbal-player was seated on an upturned basket, began to play popular airs.
Where gypsies and rosy wenches and fiery youths get together, dancing will soon begin. In a twinkling a rustic ball was improvised on the ice, and rose to a frolicsome height. Round the bonfires circled the active couples, shouting, as they leaped, like King David, and before he knew where he was, Timar too, whom a handsome girl had caught by the arm, was drawn into the whirl. Timar danced.
In the clear winter darkness the cheery fires illuminated the ice for many a mile. The fun lasted till midnight. Meanwhile the fishermen had finished carrying the fish into the ice-house. The joyous crowd dispersed on their homeward way, not without cheers for the feast-giver, the generous Baron von Levetinczy.
Timar stayed till Galambos had packed the fogasch-king in a box, between ice and hay, and nailed the lid down. It was put into the chaise which had brought Timar, and the driver was told to get ready to drive for his life to Komorn: there is no time to lose in dispatching fish. He wrote himself to Timea. The letter was written in an affectionate and cheerful mood. He called her his dear wife, and described the picturesque scene on the frozen lake, and the terrible cleft in the ice. (That he had been so near the _Rianas_ he did not mention.) Then he gave a description of the fishing, with all its amusing details, and finished with an account of the night festival. He told her how much he had been entertained, and how he had quite lost his head, and even ventured on a dance with a pretty peasant girl on the ice.
Some men write these amusing letters when they are contemplating suicide. When the letter was ready he took it to the driver. The old fisherman was there too. "Go home now, Galambos," Michael advised. "You must be tired."
"I must go and make up the fire on the ice," said the old man, lighting his pipe, "for the smell of fish brings the foxes and even bears from all the forests round, to fish on their own account: they watch for the fishes, which put their heads out of the holes, and drag them out, and that frightens away the others."
"No, no!" said Michael, "don"t keep up the fire. I will keep guard--I often watch all night. I will go out now and then and fire my gun; that will send all the four-footed fishermen to the right-about." This satisfied Galambos, who invoked G.o.d"s blessing on his master, and trotted away.
The deaf vine-dresser, the only other inhabitant of Timar"s house, had long been asleep. To add to his deafness, he had drunk so much good wine that one might be certain his night"s rest would be unbroken. Timar too went to his room and stirred up his fire.
He was not sleepy; his excited brain required no rest. But there is another form of repose; or is it not rest to sit near an open window and look out on dumb nature? The moon had not yet risen; only the stars of heaven shone down on the smooth ice. Their reflection was like rubies spread on a blight steel plate, or the lights which flicker over graves on Hallowe"en.
He gazed before him, and did not even think. He sat without any sensation, either of cold or of his own pulses, neither of the outer nor inner world--he only wondered. This was rest.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PHANTOM.
The stars glittered in heaven and sparkled from their frozen mirror: no breath disturbed the silence of the night. Then Michael heard behind him a voice which greeted him with "Good-evening, sir."
At the door of the bedroom stood, between the two lights of the lamp and the fire, a figure, at sight of which Timar"s blood ran cold. In the bitter midnight, through the dense fog, he had fled from this specter across the frozen Danube.
The man"s dress was that of a naval officer, whose uniform had, however, visibly suffered from storms and weather. The green cloth had altogether faded on the shoulders, and some b.u.t.tons were gone. The shoes, too, were in sad condition. The soles had worn away at the tip so that the naked toes were visible; over one shoe a piece of carpet was tied. The wearer was suited to his ragged dress. A sunburned face with a neglected beard; in place of the shaven mustache, a few bristly hairs; across the forehead a black handkerchief covering one eye. This was the figure which had wished Timar a good-evening.
"Krisstyan!" said Timar, very low.
"Yes, to be sure; your dear Theodor--your dear adopted son, Theodor Krisstyan! How good of you to recognize me!"
"What do you want?"
"First, I want to have that gun in my own hands, lest it should remind you of the words with which we parted last time--"If I ever appear before you again, shoot me down." Since then I have changed my mind." So saying he seized Timar"s gun, which leaned against the wall, threw himself into a chair by the fire, and laid the gun across his knee.
"There, now we can talk quietly. I have come a long way, and I am dreadfully tired. My equipage left me in the lurch, and I had to travel part of the way on foot."
"What do you want here?" said Timar.
"First, a respectable suit, for what I am wearing bears signs of the severity of the weather." Timar went to the closet, took out his pelisse trimmed with astrakhan, and the rest of the suit, laid them on the ground between himself and Krisstyan, and pointed to them in silence.
The vagrant held the gun in one hand, keeping his finger on the trigger, lifted the clothes one by one with the other, and looked them over with the air of a connoisseur.
"Very good--but there is something wanting to this coat. What do you think it is? Why, of course, the purse."
Timar took his pocket-book from a drawer, and threw it over. The vagabond caught it with one hand, opened it with the help of his teeth, and counted the notes inside.
"We are getting on," he said, placing the pocket-book in the pocket of the pelisse. "Might I ask for some linen? I have worn mine for a week, and I fear it is hardly fit for company." Timar handed him a shirt out of the wardrobe. "Now, I have got far enough to proceed to the toilet.
But first I have a few explanations to make in order to explain one or two things to his honor the privy councilor. But why the devil should we bother with t.i.tles! We are old friends, and can talk openly."
Timar sat down speechless by the table.
"So then, my dear fellow," said the fugitive, "you will remember that you sent me some years ago to Brazil. How affected I was! I adopted you as a father, and swore to be an honest man. But you did not send me over there to make an honest man of me, but in order that I might not stand in your way in this hemisphere. You calculated that a worthless youth, without a good fiber in him, is sure to come to grief in that part of the world. He either turns thief, or gets drowned, or somebody shoots him--anyway, he would be got rid of. But you intrusted me with a large sum of money. What was that to you? Only a stalking-horse. You reckoned on my robbing you, so that you might arrest and imprison me; and so it turned out. Once or twice I nearly did you the favor of dying of some native plague, but unluckily for you I pulled through. And then I devoted my whole energy to business; I robbed you of ten million reis.
Ha! ha! Spanish thieves reckon in half-kreutzers, so that the sum may sound larger--it is not more than a hundred thousand gulden. If only you knew what lovely necks the women there have, you would not think it too much; and they will only wear real pearls. But your stupid agent, the Spaniard, looked at it from a different point of view; he had me arrested and tried, and the rascal of a judge sentenced me--just for a foolish boyish trick--only think, to fifteen years at the galleys! Now, just say, was it not barbarous?"
Timar shuddered.
"They took off my fine clothes, and in order that they might not lose me, they branded me on the arm with a hot iron." The felon threw off his uniform-coat as he spoke, drew his dirty shirt from his left shoulder, and showed Timar, with a bitter laugh, the mark still fiery red on his arm. "Look you, it was on your account that they branded me like a foal or a calf, lest I should go astray. Don"t be afraid--I would not run away from you, even without that."
With morbid curiosity Timar gazed at the burn on the miserable wretch, and could not turn his eyes away.
"After that, they dragged me to the galleys, and riveted one of my feet to the bench with a ten-pound chain." With that he threw his torn shoe from his foot, and showed Timar a deep wound on his raw ankle. "That also I carry as a remembrance of you," sneered the escaped criminal.
Timar"s eyes rested as if fascinated on the disfigured foot.
"But just think, comrade, how kind fate can be! The ways of Providence are wonderful by which an unhappy sufferer is led to the arms of his friends. On the same bench where they had been good enough to fasten me, sat a respectable old man with a bushy beard. He was to be my bed-fellow for fifteen years. It is natural to take a good look at a man who is wedded to you for so long a time. I stared at him awhile, and then said in Spanish, "It seems to me, senor, as if I had met you before." "Your eyes do not deceive you--may you be struck blind!" replied the amiable individual. Then I addressed him in Turkish, "Effendi, have you not been in Turkey?" "I have been there; what"s that to you?" Then I said in Hungarian, "Were you not originally called Krisstyan?" The old fellow was much surprised, and said, "Yes." "Then, I am your son Theodor, your dear Theodor, your only offspring!" Ha! ha! Thanks to you, friend, I found my father, my long lost father, over there in the New World on the galley-slave"s bench. Providence in its wonderful way had united the long-divided father and son! But may I beg you to give me a flask of wine and something to eat, for I am thirsty and hungry, and have many interesting things to tell you, which will amuse you intensely."
Timar did as he asked, and gave him bread and wine. The visitor sat at the table, took the gun between his knees, and began to eat. He devoured like a starved dog, and drank eagerly: at every draught he smacked his lips, like an epicure who has dined well. And then he went on, with his mouth full:
"After we had got over the first joy of the unexpected meeting, my dear papa said, while he thumped me on the head, "Now tell me, you gallows-bird, how you got here?" Naturally my filial respect had prevented me from addressing the like question to my parent. I told him that I had defrauded a Hungarian gentleman named Timar of ten million reis. "And where did he steal all that?" was my old man"s remark. I explained that he never stole--that he was a rich landowner, merchant, and trader. But that did not alter my father"s opinion: "All the same, whoever has money stole it. He who has much stole much, and he who has little stole little: if he did not steal it himself, his father or grandfather did so. There are a hundred and thirty-three ways of stealing, and only twenty-two of them lead to the galleys." As I saw it was useless to try and change my old man"s opinion, I no longer disputed the point. Then he asked me, "How the devil did you come in contact with this Timar?"
"I told him the circ.u.mstances. "I knew this Timar when he was a poor skipper, and had to wash his own potatoes in the ship"s galley. Once I was sent by the Turkish police to track an escaped pasha who had fled on one of Timar"s ships to Hungary." "What was his name?" growled my father. "Ali Tschorbadschi." "What!" he exclaimed, striking me on the knee. He leaped up so that I thought he would jump overboard. Ha! ha! he forgot the chain. . . . "Did you know him too!" Then the old man shook his head and said, "Go on; what became of Ali Tschorbadschi?" "I detected him at Ogradina: I hurried on in front of the ship to Pancsova, where every preparation was made to arrest him. But the vessel arrived without the pasha. He had died on the way, and as he was not allowed burial on sh.o.r.e they had thrown the corpse overboard. All this Timar proved by doc.u.mentary evidence." "And Timar was then quite poor?" "No richer than myself." "But now he has millions?" "Of which I was lucky enough to secure ten million reis."
""Now, you fool, you see I was right--he stole his wealth. From whom? he killed the pasha and hid his money. I knew Ali Tschorbadschi--well. He was a thief too, like every other man, especially like every other rich man. He belonged to the 122d and 123d cla.s.s of thieves. Under those numbers we reckon governors and treasurers. He was in charge of the treasures of another thief--the sultan himself, No. 133.