Tales From Jokai Part 2

But Kuczuk Pasha thus apostrophized the good Debreczeners: "So you would smile at me, you would laugh at me? You would rejoice over me, eh? Very well, laugh your fill now while you can, for the day is at hand when it will be your turn to weep."

On the broad highway leading to Tokai a long series of waggons was approaching Hadhaz; it was the caravan of the Debreczen women.

Five hundred waggons toiling one after another, filled with nothing but women and children, not a single man among them--no, not so much as a man's finger to raise a whip, for the women themselves even drove the horses. Those among the fugitives whom G.o.d Himself had created of the masculine gender had their hands nicely folded away under swathing-bands, and were called--babies.

Nothing but a pack of women and girls. Imagine the good humour, the racket which accompanied them on the way! They were telling each other how his Honour the Sheriff had driven the Turks from the town, how frightened they had been, and all the rest of it; they had enough to talk about for weeks to come. Rich indeed is the fancy of souls saved from a great peril.

At the head of every waggon as coachman sat a young woman driving the horses on, and singing one of those melancholy old songs which were then usually sung from the Theiss to Moldavia, perhaps this one, which began--

"The little duck is bathing in the lake so black, My mother in Poland gets ready the cooking-jack;"

or perhaps this--

"If they ask thee for me, say I'm a slave far, far away, Hands and feet in irons bound;"

which last was greatly in fas.h.i.+on then, G.o.d knows, and many a poor Magyar sang it from his heart.

And then a whole row of waggon-women would take up the song and make the whole canopy of heaven ring with it; the poor little larks soaring up there were quite vanquished in this singing contest.

Towards evening the whole caravan halted by a green mound standing out upon the level plain. Who knows who raised it? or whether our bones or others were in it? Our bones certainly, for the whole plain around was a blank desert.

Not a village, not a town anywhere near; only a solitary hut surrounded with ricks or stacks might be seen here and there, far apart from each other; not a trace of arable land; the whole district is nothing but pasturage for flocks and herds.

From time to time the Fata Morgana exhibits her juggleries, but we are accustomed to it now, and n.o.body is deceived thereby. She inundates the distant landscape with an undulous sea, but n.o.body wishes to bathe in it. She shows us umbrageous woods, but n.o.body hastens to refresh himself there. She conjures up cities and palaces which n.o.body takes the trouble to admire. We, the sober children of men, have discovered the meaning of all these enchantments, and don't care a rap what sort of marvel this faded old fairy lays before us.

But on this particular day the Fata Morgana was in a peculiarly good humour. Very rarely does the sun burn so fiercely as it did then. The earth regularly cracked beneath it, and the beds of waterpools became dried clayey hummocks. It was just the day for the Fata Morgana's elfin extravagances. A pack of young girls, the dreamiest spectators imaginable, were ascending a green hill to gaze down upon the marvels of atmospheric phenomena.

All round about surges the boundless sea full of swiftly advancing waves; from time to time figures rise out of it silhouetted against the sky. There are swimming blue islands, which grow up and swell out as the women gaze at them, green forests overspread their sh.o.r.es, the shadows of the trees are visible in the water; and then, suddenly, the island sinks lower, the waves of the sea rise, and clash together over its highest point. And now on the other side arise vast aerial palaces with transparent towers and hazy blue temples, and these also are tossed up and down by that elfin wag as if they were swimming upon it, and when she has tired of them she makes endless havoc of them, and towers and cities tumble together into a heap of ruins; and then the sea also disappears, and the eye sees nothing but a flock of migratory cranes coming slowly along.

The girls on the hill begin explaining the phenomenon to each other.

"Look! that building over there was just like the church at Debreczen with the two towers. And that other one that has just fallen to pieces is like the watch-tower at the gates of Grosswardein--it is just as crazy looking."

"Girls, girls!" scolded a young bride, who was suckling her plump little baby at the foot of the hill, "one ought not to joke about such things.

It is not right to recognize any place in the Fata Morgana. Woe will befall the town which she shows. Have done with such profane prattling!"

"Look!" suddenly cried they all, and the word died away on their lips; every one looked, with eyes petrified by wonder and terror.

What was it that had suddenly come to light in the sky?

Towards Hadhaz, high above the aerial road, the misty shape of a horseman was suddenly sketched out against the pallid sky--a real warrior on horseback, with a quiver on his shoulder, a peaked turban on his head, and his hand on his hip. The whole shape was magnified against the distant horizon into gigantic proportions, which made one's heart beat to look at it; the feet of the horse did not touch the ground, and below and through them one could see the sky. The whole thing looked like the bright-blue shape of an armed phantom cast upon the pale, yellow sky.

"O Lord, forsake us not!" murmured the terrified and helpless crowd at the sight of this strange apparition, which natural philosophers have seen so often and in so many places, and have since explained, though they know neither the why nor the wherefore of it.

The shapes of men far away swam forth into the sky, magnified into gigantic spirits of the mist. Every moment fresh and fresh shapes emerged from the aerial billows, all of them armed giants. Some only emerged from the surface of the delusive sea as far as the bodies of their horses; of others one could only see the heads and shoulders; some had their shadows joined on to their bodies, others showed double shadows glued together at different ends with heads, arms, and weapons turned upwards and downwards, and suddenly the whole thing slowly dissolved, and nought remained behind in the sky but two broad wheel-like spokes, two bright-blue ribbons of light on a misty, yellowish background, s.h.i.+ning upwards from the earth.

"Alas, alas! the Turks and Tartars are lying in wait for us," exclaimed the women, confused, terrified, without friend or counsellor, in the midst of the wilderness.

The mothers clasped their children to their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the girls scattered about their precious kerchiefs and ornaments, that while the robbers were picking them up they themselves might have time to escape. Every one believed that the danger was at their very heels.

"Let's be off! Let's be off! By the Boszormeny road! Let us fly through the pasture lands! Hasten! hasten!"

The mob of poor desperate creatures turned aside from the road; the waggons, greatly to the damage of the horses, plunged along over the fields where there was no sign of a track. n.o.body sang any more now, whether songs or hymns, but a pious soul here and there sighed in secret as she looked behind her, first into the formidable distance, and then up into the familiar sky. "Thou, O Almighty," they whispered, "Thou who in Thy heaven hath marvellously revealed to us the lying-in-wait of our evil foes, defend us, Thy poor weak servants, from our evil pursuers, who have none to trust in save Thee alone, O G.o.d of heaven!"

And, indeed, the Lord was to work yet other marvels that day.

As the flying women were still looking timorously behind them, the sportive phenomena suddenly disappeared from earth and sky; on the break-up of the Fata Morgana the horizon became sharply visible again, and the birch forests of Hadhaz loomed forth faintly blue in the distance. Clouds with sharply defined silver linings arose in the sky from that direction as if the tempest were puffing gigantic frothy bubbles before it; gradually the horizon grew darker and darker, dark-blue clouds came crowding up one on the top of another; it was as though a deep voice in the distance were roaring: "Fly, fly!"

And the waggons went jingling and clattering along towards the confines of Szormeny.

Badrul Beg had now been lying in ambush in the forest of Hadhaz for two days. He had performed everything which Kuczuk Pasha had commanded him in his own way. Every one from whom he had inquired the way he had cut down immediately after he had done him that service, so that he should not betray him. Every one of his band was forced to remain on the spot where he stood, n.o.body was allowed to quit the forest, and every inhabitant of the environs who happened to stray thither accidentally died before he could betray what he had seen. They were all shot down by arrows, arrows which utter no sound, and never brag of their heroic deeds as the big-mouthed guns do.

n.o.body should betray them, n.o.body should carry tidings concerning them to the women and girls of Debreczen. And G.o.d?--Ah! He sees these women thus hastening to destruction, He looks at them through the mirror of the Fata Morgana, and hides from them the crafty snare laid for them in the very nick of time. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

On the evening of the third day the sentinels stationed on the border of the forest informed Badrul Beg that far off in the _puszta_ a long line of dust could be seen, as if hundreds and hundreds of waggons were coming along one after another.

"It is they!"

Badrul Beg mounted to the top of a hillock, that he might see for himself--perchance he was the enormous giant whose misty form had first appeared in the sky, with the quiver on his shoulder and the peaked turban on his head.

"It is they! Only let them come nearer! n.o.body can warn them of their danger--n.o.body!"

But suddenly the approaching line of dust stops, remains stationary for some moments, and then suddenly begins to start off sideways, and, so far from slowly creeping on nearer, darts aside among the hedges with dart-like rapidity.

Badrul Beg looked furiously around him. "Which of you can have betrayed us to them?" he cried.

As if suddenly answering his question, the whole forest fell a-soughing.

The tall, slim birch trees began to rustle and s.h.i.+ver; a frightful hurricane had arisen over the plain, howling and roaring, and enveloping the whole firmament with clouds of yellow dust.

Badrul was not used to fear the tempest--Kuczuk Pasha did not allow him to.

"Forward with your lances!" he cried to his hors.e.m.e.n. "Split the tempest with the points of them! After those fugitives! Out upon the open plain!"

Hah! but out on the plain there it was another Master who commanded now.

In the midst of the open country, midway between pursuers and pursued, came scudding along the bride of the tempest, the wild whirlwind, that slim fairy who dances so majestically right over the smooth plain with her comet-like head among the clouds, as if her scattered locks were floating there, while her legs, like spindles, were twirling in the dust. She sways to the left, curtseying with her slim body, and throwing back her defiant head ever higher and higher. Woe to all frail and perishable creatures who come in her way, for she will tear them to pieces and scatter them abroad. The roofs of houses, haystacks, prominent trees, if once they are caught in the savage sweep of her garment, she hurls up to the sky, and then dashes to the earth again with furious caprice. After her, murmuring and growling, comes her angry bridegroom--the thunderstorm--who pursues his defiant bride with a fiery whip in his hand; with his whip he will scourge her if he catches her.

Ah! the love of the elemental spirits is terrible.

The whirlwind in an instant enveloped the band of Badrul Beg in such a cloud of dust that n.o.body knew from thenceforth whether he were going backwards or forwards. The air was darkened. One horseman could not see his next fellow for the whirling dust, in whose murkiness he could not even distinguish the lightning flashes, he could only hear the approaching thunder as it rolled along the sky, shook the earth, and silenced the savage howl of the tempest.

Badrul Beg's charger reared beneath him, the wind took the turban from his head and tore the pennant from his lance.

"Ah, thou G.o.d--thou G.o.d of the Magyars!" thundered the Moor, shaking his fist at the sky. "Thou hast taken the part of Thine own people, but for all that Thou shalt not save them from me!"

At the very moment when the presumptuous wretch uttered this blasphemy, a stony substance smote his shoulder, so that his arm hung down benumbed at his side.