CHAPTER II.

SANGE MOARTE.[29]

The Patrol-officer and his companion had already been travelling for half the day across the Batrina moor on their way to Marisel. Clement kept on asking every living soul he met where the village was, and always received the same answer--"Further on!"

[Footnote 29: _Sange moarte._ Dead blood (Roumanian).]

From time to time they met a Wallachian peasant reviling the team of sluggish oxen spanned to his huge wagon, and vainly endeavouring to make them quicken their pace; then there were ponds to be waded, where half-naked gipsy bands, in picturesque rags, were washing gold-dust out of the sand, and stared at the Tartar as if he were a wild beast; here and there, in the mossy hollow of a wayside tree, stood an icon, the pale, weather-worn gilding of which being all that remained of its once gorgeous colouring; in the worm-eaten niche stood the _pomana_,[30] a pitcher of pure spring water which the traditional piety of the young Wallachian maidens had placed there for the refreshment of thirsty travellers.

[Footnote 30: _Pomana_, or _pomena_. An alms, a voluntary free succour. The etymology is obscure. Some opine that it is a corruption of _per_ and _manus_.]

The road now went up hill and down dale; for the greater part of the way they had to lead their horses. All around stood the ever-changing wilderness; lofty, perpendicular beeches, terebinthine oaks, with an occasional dark-green pine. At last they reached a point where the road divided. One branch of it ran right down into the valley, the other wound obliquely up to the summit of a bald bleak hill, from which a projecting rock hung down so precipitately that it seemed ready to fall every moment.

"Well, whither shall we turn now?" asked Clement, hesitating. "I have never come so far as this before."

"Let us follow the road," returned Zülfikar; "none but a fool would risk his neck up that steep cliff."

Clement looked about him in great perplexity, and suddenly perceived a man sitting on the rock which so precipitately overhung the path. It was a young Wallach with a pale face and long, flowing curls; his sheep-skin jacket was open at the breast, his cap lay beside him on the ground. There he sat in a reverie, on the very edge of the lofty rock, with his feet dangling in empty space, his stony countenance resting on his hands, and his eyes staring glassily into the remote distance.

"Hi! you up there! _ungye méra ista via?_"[31] cried Clement, in a jargon which was half Latin and half Wallachian.

[Footnote 31: _Ungye méra ista via?_ "Whither goes this road?" The first two words are Roumanian.]

The Wallach did not appear to hear the question; he remained in just the same position, blankly staring and immovable.

"He is either deaf or dead," said Zülfikar, after they had both bawled themselves hoarse at him in vain. "The best thing we can do is to follow the beaten track," and off they set at a trot. The Wallach did not so much as look after them.

Evening was drawing nigh, and the road to Marisel seemed absolutely endless. It went out of one valley into another, without passing a single human habitation, and the huge boulders and fierce mountain torrents, which they came upon at frequent intervals, made it almost impassable. At last they perceived, somewhere in the wood, a fire burning, and a monotonous chant struck upon their ears. On approaching nearer, they saw an immense pyre, made of the trunks of trees, burning in a forest glade, and shaded by oaks, the foliage of which was singed red by the long tongues of flame which flickered up to their very summits.

Not far from the pyre, a band of Wallachs were dancing with savage gesticulations, striking the ground at the same time with their massive clubs. Their twirling feet seemed to be writing mystic characters in the soil, and all the while they brandished their arms and howled forth metrical curses as if they were exorcising some evil spirit.

Around the men twined a wreath of young girls, holding one another by the hand, and twirling in a contrary direction. These young and charming forms, with their black, plaited tresses interwoven with pearls and ribbons; their flowered petticoats, cambric smocks, and broad, striped aprons; their tinkling gold spangles, or strings of silver coins about their round necks and their tiny, high-heeled shoes, formed a pleasant contrast to the wild, ferocious figures of the men, with their high sheepskin hats perched upon their shaggy, unkempt hair, their sunburnt, naked necks, greasy _köduröns_,[32] broad brass buckles, and large ox-hide sandals.

[Footnote 32: _Ködurön._ A rough, fur jacket.]

Both dance and song were peculiar. The girls, all hand in hand, flew round the men, singing a plaintive, dreamy sort of dirge, while the men stamped fiercely on the ground and uttered an intermittent wail. The fire blazing beside them cast a red glare, intermingled with dark flitting shadows, on the wild group. Some distance behind, on the stump of a tree, sat an old bagpiper with his pipes under his arm. The tortured goatskin's monotonous discord blended with the savage harmony of the song.

When the pyre had nearly burnt itself out, the dancers suddenly dispersed, dragged forward a female effigy stuffed with straw and clothed in rags, placed it on two poles, and with loud cries of "Marcze Záre! Marcze Záre!"[33] held it over the fire; then, exclaiming in chorus--"Burn to ashes, accursed Wednesday-evening witch!" they threw it into the glowing embers. The girls then danced round the fire with cries of joy till the witch was burned, when the men, with a wild yell, rushed among the embers and trod them out.

[Footnote 33: _Marcze Záre_ = Wednesday witch, hags possessing peculiar power on Wednesday evenings, according to the Wallachs.]

"Who are ye, and what are you doing here?" cried Clement the Clerk to the Wallachs, who hitherto had not taken the slightest notice of him.

"We are they of Marisel who have burned Marcze Záre," answered the peasants unanimously, with the grave faces of men who had just done something uncommonly wise.

"Well, be quick about it, and then come back to the village, for I am here by command of the Prince, my master, to put the usual questions to you."

"And I," put in Zülfikar, "am here by command of the mighty Ali Pasha of Grosswardein to levy a new tax."

The Wallachs watched the Patrol-officer till he was quite out of sight without uttering a word; but they shook their fists after him and exclaimed--"May Marcze Záre take him!"

Then, with the bagpiper in front, they formed into a long procession and marched, loudly singing, down towards the distant village.

* * * * *

It was a long, straggling, Wallachian hamlet at which the patrollers now arrived--one house exactly like another; low clay huts with lofty roofs and projecting eaves, surrounded by quick-set hedges, the doors so low that one had to stoop in order to enter. Every house consisted of a single room, in which the whole family, parents and children, goats and poultry, lived together. At the entrance of the village stood a gigantic triumphal arch made of marble blocks; over the principal portal was the torso of a Minerva; on the façade were battle-pieces in high relief, and beneath them this Latin inscription in large Roman letters--"This town has been built by the unconquerable Trajan as a memorial of his triumph!" And behind the arch a heap of wretched clay huts!

On the capitol of a fallen Corinthian column, in front of the village dead-house, sits the _prefika_, the oldest old woman in the place, lamenting with meretricious tears over the dead young maiden who lies within. On the side of a grass-grown hill close at hand one sees a round stone building, raised once upon a time, no doubt, in memory of some Roman hero; but the Wallachian population has turned it into a church, covered it with a pointed roof, and daubed the interior with hideous paintings.

The Patrol-officer called the people together into the church, which was the only public building in the place. The crowd stood around him, the old men leaning on their crutches. The blood-red rays of sunset pierced through the round window-panes, giving a peculiar appearance to the interior of the venerable edifice, whose walls were daubed all over with figures of grotesque saints, whom the monstrous fancy of the rustic artist had provided with scarlet mantles and spurred jack-boots. Amongst so many pictures of the marvellous, that well-known allegory which represents Death as a skeleton, dragging off with him a king, a beggar, and a priest, was not lacking, and scattered among the icons were a few bandy-legged fiends derisively stretching out their tongues at poor damned sinners whom they clutched tightly by the hair.

Behind the iconastasis the priest and the Patrol-officer took their stand, surrounded by gilded icons and consecrated candles. When Clement had read his credentials to the people, he called to the village elder, a tall man with large projecting teeth, to come in front of the altar-rail, and addressed the following questions to him--

"Are there amongst you any sorcerers and magicians who can summon the devil to their aid?"

The crowd received this question with an awful whisper, and after a long pause the magistrate replied--

"There was one last year, your worship, a godless villain with blotches on his neck and body, which were patches stitched on to him by the devil, for even when we singed them with red-hot irons he did not feel it. We sent him to the Sanhedrim at Fehervár, where, failing to stand the water test, he was burnt alive."

"Are there among you any hags or vampires which injure other people's children, make knots in men's bowels, ride through the air, colour milk red, hatch serpents' eggs, or seek for grasses which can make them invisible, and open barred and bolted doors?"

This question called forth a hundred different answers. Every one tried to communicate his own personal experiences to the interrogator; the younger women in particular pressed upon the Patrol-officer with furious importunity.

"One at a time, please," cried Clement, with great dignity. "Let the magistrate say what he knows."

"Yes, there used to be an old witch here, worshipful sir," said the village elder obsequiously. "We called her Dainitsa.[34] She had long molested mankind, for her eyes were red. She could, when she chose, bring down such storms upon the village that the wind would take off the roofs of the houses. Once she brought a hailstorm upon us, and God's thunderbolt smote the village in three places. Thereupon the women here grew furious, seized her, and threw her into the pond. But even there the witch railed upon them and said--'Take heed! You will live to beg of me the water which you now give me to drink!' Then the women fished up her dead body from the bottom of the pond, thrust a dart through her heart, buried her in the valley, and rolled a large stone over her grave. But the very next year the witch's curse came upon us. Throughout the summer not a drop of rain fell in our district. Everything was withered up, and our cattle carried off by the murrain. Dainitsa had drunk up all the rain and dew. So we went to her grave, bored a large hole therein, and filled the grave with water till it ran over, shouting at the same time--'Drink thy fill, accursed hag! but lap not up all our rain and dew!' And so at last the great drought came to an end."

[Footnote 34: _Dainitsa._ She who sings in a low voice, _i. e._ she who mutters spells. From Roumanian _daina_, which is derived from the Hungarian _danolni_, to sing.]

The priest gravely vouched for the accuracy of this narrative, and Clement made a note of it in his parchment roll.

Now came the third question.

"Are there any among you who dare to smoke tobacco, either by cutting up the leaves into small fragments and putting them in his pipe, or by roasting them on the fire and inhaling the ascending steam?"

"There are none, sir!" returned the elder. "We do not know that dish."

"And do not try to, for whoever is caught in the act will, in accordance with the law of the land, have the stem of his pipe thrust through his nose, and be led in that guise all round the market-place."

The fourth question was this--

"Do any of the peasants wear cloth coats, marten-skin kalpags, or morocco shoes?"

"Pshaw!" cried the village elder. "Why, our poverty is such that we never look beyond sheep-skin jackets and leather sandals. What do we want with coloured cloth and morocco shoes?"

"Nor must you, for the Estates of the Realm have forbidden the peasantry to wear the clothes of the gentry."

Now came the fifth question.

"Which of you not only acted contrary to the decree of the Diet, that the peasants should extirpate the sparrows, but even mocked the officers charged to collect sparrows' heads?"

The magistrate humbly approached the Patrol-officer.

"Believe me, worshipful sir; by reason of the great drought and the bad season, the sparrows have all departed from our district. Tell his Highness that we have been unable to lay our hands upon a single one all through the summer."

"That's a lie!" cried Clement the Clerk fiercely.

"I speak the truth," persisted the magistrate, seizing Clement by the hand, and dexterously insinuating two silver marias into his clenched fist.

"Well, it is not impossible," said the Patrol-officer, somewhat mollified.

Last of all came the question--

"Has any among you seen foreign beasts of prey, or other strange animals, straying about in these regions?"

"Of a truth, sir, we have seen lots of them."

"And what sort of beasts were they?" asked Clement, with joyful curiosity.

"Well, dog-headed Tartars!"

"You fool, I don't mean that sort of beast. I want to know whether any one, in strolling through these woods, has come upon a four-footed beast of prey, a creature with a spotted skin? You know very well you have left no hole or corner unexplored, for even now you are hunting after the hidden treasures of Decebalus."

The magistrate shook his head incredulously, glanced at the crowd, and said, with a shrug of his shoulders--

"We have seen no such wondrous beast; but haply Sange Moarte has seen it, for he in his mad moods roams incessantly through woods and hollows."

"And where then is this Sange Moarte? You must call him hither."

"Alas! sir, he is difficult to catch; he seldom comes to the village. But perhaps his mother is here."

"Here she is! here she is!" cried several peasants at once, pushing forward an old woman with sunken cheeks, whose head was wrapped round in a white cloth.

"What mad name is this you have given to your son?" cried the Patrol-officer; "whoever heard of calling a man 'Dead blood'!"

"'Twas not I, sir, who gave him this name," said the old Wallachian woman with a broken voice. "The villagers call him so because he is never seen to laugh or speak to any one, or answer when he is spoken to. He did not even weep for his father when he died; nor has he ever visited the girls in the spinning-rooms, but wanders about incessantly in the woods."

"All right, all right, old lady; but that has nothing to do with me."

"I know it, sir, I know that it does not concern you; but I must tell you that the pretty Floriza, the belle of the village, was in love with my son. There was not a lovelier maiden in all Wallachia. Such black eyes, such locks reaching down to her feet, such rosy cheeks, such a slim waist were not to be found anywhere else. And then she was so diligent, and she loved my son so dearly! In her chest she had sixteen embroidered chemises which she herself had woven and spun, and round her neck she wore a string of two hundred silver and twenty gold pieces. Sange Moarte never so much as looked at the girl. Vainly did Floriza make him posies, he would not put them in his hat; vainly did she give him kerchiefs, he would not wear them in his breast. Whenever he passed by, the girl would sing such beautiful songs as she sat by the hearth; but Sange Moarte for all that did not linger at her threshold, and yet she loved him so dearly. Often she said to him, when they met together in the lane--'Thou dost never come to see me; perchance thou wouldst not even look at me if I were dead?' Sange Moarte replied--'Then indeed I would look at thee.'--'Then I will soon die,' said the maiden sorrowfully. 'And then will I also visit thee,' said Sange Moarte, and went his way. Does all this weary you, good sir? I shall soon have done. Pretty Floriza lies dead. Her heart broke for grief. There she lies on her bier; the funereal _armindenu_[35] stands in front of the house. When Sange Moarte sees it he will know that Floriza is dead, and will come forth from the woods to look upon his dead sweetheart, as he promised her, for he always keeps his word. Then you can speak with him."

[Footnote 35: _Armindenu._ A green branch placed in front of houses on the 1st of May and at funerals. Compare Latin _Alimentale_.]

"Very well, old lady," said Clement, who had suddenly become serious, and was almost angry to find something very like poetry among rude peasants, who had certainly never read Horace's _Ars Poetica_. "You must watch for the lad's return, and let me know."

"'Twere better you went yourself, sir," said the old woman, "for I scarcely think he will answer a single question put to him by any one else."

"Be it so! Lead me thither!" cried the Patrol-officer; and the whole assembly proceeded towards the mortuary, which stood at the extreme end of the village.

This end of Marisel is so far distant from the church, that night had fallen before the crowd had reached it.

The moon came from behind the mountains. Round about the house stood pine trees, through the sombre foliage of which the evening star shimmered faintly. In the distance sounded the melancholy notes of some pastoral flute. In front of the little white house the hired mourner was sobbing loudly. The wind agitated the crape-hung branches of the _armindenu_. Inside the house lay the corpse of the beautiful young maiden awaiting her truant lover. The moonbeams fell upon her pale countenance.

* * * * *

The mob surrounded the mortuary, crept stealthily on tip-toe into the courtyard, peeped through the window, and whispered--

"Look! There he is! there he is!"

The Patrol-officer, the priest, the magistrate, and Sange Moarte's mother entered the room.

Right across the threshold lay the girl's father dead drunk; he got so tipsy yesterday from sheer sorrow that he will need all to-day and all to-morrow to sleep it off. In the middle of the room stood the pine-wood coffin, bedaubed with glaring roses fresh from the brush of a rural artist; within it lay the girl (she was only sixteen), her beautiful forehead encircled by a funereal wreath. A wax taper had been placed in one of her hands, in the other she held a small coin. At the head of the coffin burned two handsome wax candles stuck into a jar containing gingerbreads; at the foot of the coffin, in a gaudily-painted, high-backed chair, staring blankly at the girl's face, sat Sange Moarte.

The pious superstition of the priest and the magistrate would not let them cross the threshold; but Clement stepped up to the lad, and immediately recognized in him the man on the rock who would not tell him the way.

"Hi, young man! So you are he who has the bad habit of never replying to people when they address you, eh?"

The person thus addressed justified the question by not answering it.

"Now hearken and answer my question. I am the Patrol-officer. D'ye hear?"

Sange Moarte remained speechless, with his eyes fixed all the time on Floriza. He was as motionless as the corpse itself, and scarcely seemed to breathe. His good old mother tenderly took him by the hand and called him by his proper name.

"Jova, my son! answer the gentleman. Look at me, I am your mother."

"In the name of my master, the Prince, I command you to answer me!" cried the Patrol-officer, raising his voice.

The Wallach still remained silent.

"I ask you if, in the course of your sylvan ramblings, you have seen any sort of foreign wild beast, to wit a yellow, speckled monster, which the learned call a panther?"

Sange Moarte gave a start, as if suddenly aroused out of a deep sleep. His glassy eyes flashed and sparkled as he looked at his interrogator, a feverish scarlet flushed his cheeks, and he stammered tremulously--

"I have seen it, seen it, seen it."

And with that he covered his eyes, so as not to look upon the dead body.

"Where have you seen it?" asked the Patrol-officer.

"Far, far away," whispered the Wallach; then he became dumb once more and buried his forehead in his hands.

"Name the place. Where is it?"

The Wallach looked timidly around. A cold shudder ran through him, and with fearful, rolling eyes he whispered to the Patrol-officer--

"In the Gradina Dracului."[36]

[Footnote 36: _Gradina Dracului_. Garden of the Devil (Roumanian).]

The priest and the magistrate immediately crossed themselves thrice, and the latter gazed devoutly on a mural St. Peter, as if to invoke his help on this occasion.

"You seem to me a plucky lad, to venture to approach the Devil's Garden," said the Patrol-officer. "Will you guide me thither?"

The Wallach nodded, with a joyful look.

"In the name of St. Michael and all the Archangels I implore you, sir, not to go," interrupted the priest. "Of all who have visited the Devil's Garden, not one has ever been known to come back. A truly devout person would turn his back upon it. It is only this man's sinfulness that has led him thither."

Clement scratched his head.

"I don't go there for the pleasure of the thing," said he. "Not that I fear the name of the place, but because I object to scaling mountains. In my official capacity, however, I have no choice."

"Then at least stick a consecrated willow-twig in your cap," urged the anxious pastor, "or take with you a picture of St. Michael, that the devil may not come near you."

"Thank you, my brothers; but it would be much more to the point if you provided me with a pair of sandals, for I cannot go clambering over the mountains in these spurred boots. I regret too that your amulets are thrown away upon me, for I am a Unitarian."

The priest crossed himself once more, and said with a sigh--

"I fancied you were orthodox, because you were so zealous about the hags and witches."

"I only did that officially. Send my Turk hither."

As he went out the priest murmured to himself--

"Birds of a feather! A nice pair of heretics!"

"Comrade Zülfikar," cried Clement to the Turk, as he tied on his sandals, "you can find the rest of your way by yourself, for I must take a side spring into the mountains."

"If you spring, I will spring too," replied the distrustful renegade. "Whithersoever you go, thither will I go also."

"My dear fellow, there is nothing to be pocketed on the road that I am about to take, except perhaps the devil, for man has never set his foot there."

"What do I care! My orders are to go along with you till I return to the point from whence I started."

"So much the better, then; I shall have the pleasure of your company. But pray help me to draw my sword, so that I may be able to defend myself in case of need."

"So you carry a sword which requires two men to draw it! Well, let's look at it," and with that the two men planted their legs one against the other, grasped the sword with both hands, and tugged away at it for a long time, till at last it flew out of its sheath so suddenly that Clement the Clerk nearly fell sprawling.

Clement then called for a jar of honey, rubbed the rusty blade all over with the viscid stuff, and stuck it back into its sheath.

"And now let us be off, young man," said he to the Wallach, who hastily took his cap and a small axe from the ground, and went out without once looking behind him.

His mother seized him by the hand--

"Wilt thou not first kiss thy dead sweetheart?"

Sange Moarte did not even turn his head round, but drew his hand out of his mother's and went with the two strange men towards the darkening woods.

All that night the adventurers were traversing a deep dell. Gigantic perpendicular rocks rose up on each side of them, only above their heads shimmered a narrow streak of starry sky.

Towards morning they found themselves among the Carpathian Alps.

It was a dazzling spectacle. In the distance diamond-peaked crystal mountains covered with white snow-fields, striped here and there by dark-green lines of pine forest. Close beside them is a basalt rock, consisting of angular columns as large as towers, standing side by side like the pipes of a gigantic organ, with their summits crowned by wreaths of round trees. A white, semi-transparent cloud floats across this rock, hiding all but its summit and its base. From time to time a lightning-flash darts from this cloud, and the reverberated echoes of the thunder-peals resound like long-drawn-out chords from this majestic organ of Nature's own workmanship.

Over yonder, a mountain chasm suddenly comes into view, where two rocky fragments, whose rugged surfaces seem to exactly correspond, stand face to face. Through this rocky chasm, many hundred feet below, rushes a stray branch of the icy Szamos, disappearing among the thick oak woods which cover its banks.

In one place the rocks form a flight of steps, steps never fashioned for the foot of man, for each of them is as high as a tower; in another place the rocky boulders are piled one on the top of the other, in such a way that if the undermost block were disturbed, the whole of the enormous mass would fall into a differently-shaped group.

Everything indicates that here the dominion of the world and of man ends. Not a single human habitation is visible from the dizzy heights; even vegetation is rare and scanty; on every side bald rocks and gaping chasms, among which the mountain torrents toss and tumble; only the wild goat is there to be seen leaping from crag to crag.

"Which is the way now?" asked Clement of his guide, casting an anxious glance at his surroundings, in which the possibility of hopelessly losing oneself was more than probable.

"Trust only to me," said Sange Moarte, and he guided them through the uninhabited wilderness with the unerring precision of instinct. In places where it seemed impossible to go a step further, he always found a path. He recollected every root or shrub which could serve as a support to clamberers down the mountain side; every fallen tree which spanned the abyss, every narrow ledge which could only be passed by bending forward over the precipice and holding fast behind to the fissures of the rock, was familiar to him; in short he seemed quite at home in this interminable labyrinth.

"We are near," he cried suddenly, after clambering up a steep rocky wall and surveying the horizon; then he held out his hands to his companions and drew them up after him.

A new spectacle then presented itself.

The opposite slope of the rocky ridge which they had just ascended was perfectly smooth and shiny, and encompassed the whole region in a semi-circle, forming a sort of basin, at the very bottom of which--and it was six hundred feet deep--lay a little mountain lake, the dark-green waters of which perpetually boiled and bubbled, though not a breath of air was stirring: perhaps it felt the ebb and flow of ocean. The opposite side of the rocky basin was formed by a gigantic chain of mountains, fringed only at its base by fir trees, and at the point where the two mountain systems met, a small stream in a deep bed trickled into the little mountain lake. The masses of ice which had fallen into the valley formed a crystal vault over this stream.

"Whither are we going?" asked Clement, aghast.

"To the source of that brook," returned Sange Moarte. "It has dug its way through the ice, and by following its course we shall come to the place we seek."

"But how are we to get there? This rocky slope is as smooth as a mirror; if a man begins sliding down it there is no stopping till he plumps into the lake."

"You have only to take care. We must lie on our backs and glide down sideways. Here and there you will find a tuft of Alpine roses to cling on to. But you've nothing to fear if you slide down barefoot. Do as I do."

A hair-bristling pastime truly!

Taking off their sandals they held on by their hands and feet to the smooth, shelving, stony wall, at the foot of which lay the darkly-gleaming, fathomless lake.

They had already slided half-way down the incline, when from the mountain opposite arose a muffled, mysterious roar. They felt the cliff on which they lay quaking beneath them.

"Ha! stay where you are," cried Sange Moarte, looking back at them. "An avalanche from the mountain opposite is approaching."

And at the very next moment they could see a white ball descending from the immeasurably distant heights, plunging with mad haste down the mountain slope, tearing away with it whole masses of rock and uprooted pines, swelling every moment into a more tremendous bulk, and dashing down the decline in leaps of two hundred feet at a time into the valley below.

"Heaven defend us!" cried the terrified Clement, clutching his guide with one hand and holding on to the rock with the other. "It is coming this way, and will overwhelm us all."

"Keep still," cried Sange Moarte, seeing them inclined to clamber up again and thus expose themselves to the danger of a fall. "The avalanche will take the direction of that block of rock standing in its way, and will there either stop or disperse."

And indeed they could see that the snow-slip, now grown colossal, was making for a projecting point of rock which was dwarf-like in comparison. Every other sound was lost in the thunder of the avalanche.

And now the huge snow-ball bounded upon the obstructive rock, and fell prone across it with a terrific thud, which shook the whole mountain to its very base.

For a moment the whole region was enveloped in a cloud of steam-like snow-spray, and after the final crash the thunder of the avalanche ceased. But immediately afterwards it began again with a frightful crackling; the weight of the snowy mass had uprooted the obstructing rock, and whirling down with it in dizzy rotations, plunged perpendicularly into the lake below.

The agitated lake, lashed out of its basin on both sides, rose in an enormous wave, three hundred feet high, up to the very spot where the bold climbers were clinging to the naked rock, and after poising in the air for a second, like a huge transparent green column, broke and fell back into the lake, which very slowly subsided.

"Now we will go on our way," said Sange Moarte. "The rock is moist now, and the descent will be all the easier."

After the lapse of half-an-hour, the wanderers found themselves at the mouth of a stream.

A wondrous corridor lay open before them. The brook sprang from a hot spring, which, after racing down the deep valleys, buried itself beneath icebergs and snowdrifts. But the hot water had bored a passage through the ice, constantly melting the frozen mass around it with its warm stream, so that only the thick outermost layer remained, which, constantly renewed by the cold air without, and as constantly dissolved by the hot stream within, grew into a sort of transparent crystal arcade with huge dependent glittering stalactites above the stream.

Through this channel Sange Moarte now led his companions.

Clement could not but call to mind the fabulous fairy palace where spellbound mortals only see the light of day through transparent waters.

Wading thus in the bed of the stream, they reached a point where the bright arcade began to grow dark. Its transparent roof grew thicker and thicker, passing gradually into an ever deeper blue, till at last it became quite black, and the murmuring of the stream was the wanderers' only guide. As they advanced, with their hose tucked up to their knees, into the ever-darkening darkness, they felt the water getting hotter and hotter, till at last they heard a hissing sound and saw once more the daylight streaming through the rocky chasm, through which the brook rushed down into its subterraneous cave.

Here, with the help of some dangling shrubs, they scaled the hillside to avoid the onslaught of the boiling spring, and after a brief exertion found themselves on the other side of the mountain, in a deep, well-like valley.

This is the _Gradina Dracului_.

It is a perfectly round dell, shut in on every side by a wall of perpendicular cliffs more than six hundred feet high. Whoever wishes to look down from above, must approach the edge of the rock lying on his stomach, and even then must have a good head not to be seized by vertigo. At the bottom of this dell the flowers have an amaranthine bloom. When the snow is falling thickly all around, and the ice is sparkling everywhere else, here in the depths of the hardest winter may then be seen those dark-green flowers with broad, indented petals, and those little round-leaved trees the like of which are to be met with nowhere else in this district. Just at this time too the leather-leaved _Nymphaea_ opens its light-yellow calices here; the grass, both summer and winter, is of the brightest green; and the wild laurel climbs high up into the crevices of the rocks, and casts its red berries down into the valley, when Nature all around is cold and dead.

Throughout the winter this dell is clothed with the rarest flowers. Therefore the Wallach calls it "the Devil's Garden," and fears to approach it.

But the whole wonder has quite a natural cause.

In the depth of the dell a hot mineral spring bubbles up in a cave, never coming to light, but soaking all the circumambient soil through and through, and it is because these warm waters possess a flora of their own that these unknown shrubs and flowers are for ever blooming in the neighbourhood of the vivifying element. The whole thing is a splendid open-air orangery in the midst of snowstorms and icebergs.

Sange Moarte beckoned to his comrades to follow him. A feverish impatience possessed him, and when he had advanced a few steps into the cavern, he pointed with trembling hand at a dark recess, in which an iron door was visible.

"What is it?" cried Clement, clutching his sabre. "Does anybody dwell here?"

"Yes," rejoined Sange Moarte (his blood at that moment seemed to be on fire, and the veins of his temples stood out like cords). "There, in that water-basin, she is wont to bathe. There have I watched her, from day to day, without ever daring to approach her," stammered he, in a whisper that was scarcely audible, but full of the most passionate ardour.

"Who?" asked the Patrol-officer, much amazed.

"Oh! the fairy," stammered the Wallach, with trembling lips, and he buried his glowing head in his hands.

"What's all this about?" said Clement, turning to Zülfikar. "'Tis not a fairy that I'm after but a panther!"

"Pst! a key is turning in the lock," cried Zülfikar. "Away back into the dark cave!"

The two men had to drag Sange Moarte away from the iron gate, which a moment afterwards opened noiselessly, and a girlish form stepped forth leading a panther by a golden chain.

Sange Moarte was right in calling her a fairy.

Before them stood a dazzlingly beautiful woman in oriental _déshabillé_. Her locks were enveloped in a red fez, the long gold tassels of which fell across her white turban over her pale face; her ivory-smooth shoulders gleamed forth from the sleeves of her short, ermine-embroidered kaftan; her eyes sparkled in the dark; every movement of her lithe body was serpentine, fascinating, maddening.

The three men held their breath. The girl passed by without observing them.

"Ah, that is she," whispered Zülfikar in amazement, when she had gone.

"Who? Do you know her?" asked Clement.

"It is Azrael, Corsar Beg's former favourite."

"What a place for her to be in!"

"Pst! she'll hear us."

Meanwhile the girl had reached the basin where the subterraneous waters poured their mingled flood, sat down on a stone bench, and commenced to unwind her turban. Her jasper-black hair fell down over her shoulders.

Sange Moarte's hot panting resounded through the darkness.

The panther lay quietly at his mistress's feet, his shrewd head resting on his front paws.

Azrael now removed her bright Persian shawl from her slim waist, and next prepared to slip off her light kaftan, taking a couple of steps towards a projecting rocky buttress which hid her from the eyes of the watchers.

Sange Moarte was about to rush after her. It was all the two men could do to hold him back.

"Are you mad?" growled Zülfikar in his ear. "Would you betray us with your infernal curiosity?"

"The poor devil is in love with the girl!" whispered Clement.

At that moment there came the sound of a splash, as of some one leaping into the water and playing with its waves.

Sange Moarte frantically tore himself loose from his companions' arms, and with a furious yell rushed towards the basin.

At this yell Azrael, in all the maddening witchery of her charms, sprang out of her watery mirror, looked at the presumptuous wretch with flashing eyes, and cried savagely--

"Oglan! Seize him!"

The panther had hitherto remained motionless; but the moment his mistress called him to battle, he sprang up with a roar, seized the young Wallach, and threw him with a single jerk to the ground.

Sange Moarte did not think of defending himself against the savage beast, but stretched out his hands imploringly towards the odalisk; drank in her loveliness with thirsty looks; writhed closer to her, and, weeping and groaning, fell down at her feet, while Azrael stared wildly at him, threw her mantle hastily around her, and watched her darling panther tear to pieces the youth who had never loved any one in his life in order that he might love her to the death.

"I'll go and help him!" cried Clement, mad with horror, and drawing his sword.

"Softly! Don't be a fool! Besides, we have something better to do. The iron gate remains open; let us creep in while the lady is otherwise engaged, and find out what there is here; that will interest our masters very much, especially mine."

With that the two men crept through the iron door, groped their way along the narrow passage which seemed to have been cut out of the naked rock, and discovered at the end of it, by the light of a lamp hanging from the roof, several small doors to the right and left. They opened one door after the other, but only found empty rooms with no further outlets. At length a glimpse of the outer world reached them through one of the windows. They hastened forward in that direction, and coming upon a second iron door passed through it, and found themselves in a large courtyard surrounded by high walls, one of which they scaled, and beheld from the top of it the valley of the cold Szamos stretching far and wide before their eyes. Soon after they discovered a footpath which led them from the wall to the woodlands below, and off they set running, and never drew breath till they had safely reached the bottom. It was only then that the two men ventured to stop and look each other in the face. Clement fancied he still heard the wildly musical voice of the fair demoniac, the roaring of the panther, and the death-shrieks of the young Wallach.

"We may as well go on now," remarked Zülfikar, "for to return the way we came without a guide is impossible, and we are bound to come out somewhere."

And, indeed, they soon came upon two wood-cutters, who were fastening their raft to the river's bank.

"What is that castle yonder?" asked Clement.

The men stared at him.

"Where? What castle?"

Clement looked behind to show it to them, and behold! nowhere was anything to be seen with the remotest resemblance to a castle, nothing but rocks, each the counterpart of the other. The Wallachs laughed aloud.

"It were better not to mention it to them," said Zülfikar. "They look as if they do not know what is going on under their very noses. But we'll mark the place. Nothing but rocks are visible from the outside, the brushwood conceals the very opening through which we got into the open air."

So the wanderers inquired their way; returned to Marisel, where they naturally did not stop to be questioned about Sange Moarte, but mounted their steeds and rode off.

Zülfikar wanted Clement to go on with him to Banfi-Hunyad. The Patrol-officer, however, declined to trespass on Denis Banfi's domains, so the Turk went on alone to levy the new tax, though Clement prophesied that he would receive more kicks than halfpence.

* * * * *

Clement duly informed Ladislaus Csaky of what he had seen, and received one hundred ducats for his discovery, to say nothing of the green top-boots.

Zülfikar fared much more strangely.

On arriving at Grosswardein, he gave the tribute-money to Ali Pasha, informing him at the same time of all that he had found out about Azrael.

This girl, when only thirteen years old, had been carried off from Ali Pasha's harem by Corsar Beg. Ali, her original possessor, had promised a reward of two hundred ducats to whomsoever should discover the whereabouts of his favourite.

Zülfikar on quitting the Pasha had in his hand a purse of two hundred ducats. This came to the ears of the Aga, Zülfikar's superior officer, who straightway picked a quarrel with the renegade, and condemned him to one hundred strokes of the bastinado, unless he preferred redeeming each stroke with a ducat.

"I won't do that," returned Zülfikar, "but I'll hand over to you the gift which Denis Banfi sent to Ali Pasha when I told him he was to pay the new tax. Give it to the Pasha, and I'll wager he'll so reward you that you'll remember it all your life."

The Aga greedily caught at the offer, took charge of the carefully-sealed casket which Zülfikar himself ought to have handed to the Pasha, and presented it to his Excellency with the following respectful salutation--

"Behold, most gracious Pasha, I bring you that princely gift which Lord Denis Banfi has sent you in lieu of taxes."

Ali Pasha seized the casket, cut through the silken cords, broke the seal, and took off the cover, when lo! a horrible, shrivelled pig's tail fell out of it on to his kaftan--the direst, most abominable outrage which can befall a Mussulman!

Ali Pasha in his fury sprang almost up to the ceiling, and throwing his turban to the ground, immediately ordered that the Aga, who stood rooted to the spot with horror, should be impaled outside the camp.

But Zülfikar went gaily on his way with the two hundred ducats in his pocket.