CHAPTER XXIV.

ZEBULON'S BRIGHT IDEA.

Three thousand six hundred feet above the sea-level, on a height of the Carpathian mountain range, a convivial party, consisting mostly of army officers, was enjoying itself with wine and music. A splendid view lay spread out before the merrymakers,--a wide-reaching landscape lighted by the slanting beams of the western sun as it sank in golden radiance beneath the horizon.

"Look there," RideghvAiry was saying, as he named, one after another, the cities and villages that lay before them; "yonder lies the way to Constantinople."

His words were greeted with a shout: "Hurrah! Long live the Czar!" Glasses clinked, and the company struck up the Russian national anthem. RideghvAiry joined in, and all uncovered during the singing.

"Don't you sing with us, Zebulon?" asked RideghvAiry, turning to his friend, who sat silent and melancholy.

"No more voice than a peacock," was Zebulon's curt reply.

The crags about them gave back the tuneful notes, while far below the long line of Russian cavalry regiments, on their march from the north, caught up the song.

"See there!" cried RideghvAiry to Zebulon, pointing to the troops as they wound their way southward toward the heart of Hungary; "now comes our triumph; now we shall tread our foes under our feet. No power on earth can withstand our might." His face beamed with exultation as he spoke.

Zebulon TallA(C)rossy was out of humour. His present part had pleased him so long as he had nothing to do but travel about with his patron, make the acquaintance of foreign celebrities, and receive honours and attentions wherever he went. That, he thought, was the fitting occupation of a great statesman, and he had looked to this same kind of statesmanship to bring everything to a quiet and orderly conclusion. But when he saw that matters were not destined to flow on so harmoniously much longer, he fell out of conceit with his rA'le of statesman.

Returning with RideghvAiry to the town that lay beneath them in the valley, he gave his friend and patron a hint of his dissatisfaction. "Yes," said he, "she is a mighty power,--Russia; I don't know who could withstand her. But what will be the fate of the conquered?"

"_VA| victis_--woe to the vanquished!" returned the other sententiously.

"Well then," continued honest Zebulon, "let us suppose a case: what about such a man as A-dAśn Baradlay, whom we and all his countrymen esteem and love, and who, if his zeal has led him a little too far, has yet been influenced by none but the loftiest motives,--what will be done to him? A good man, fine talents, sure to be a credit to his country--he ought to be spared."

"_Mitgefangen, mitgehangen_,"[6] quoted RideghvAiry briefly.

[Footnote 6: Caught with the rest, hung with the rest.]

For the rest of the drive Zebulon was silent.

In the evening, as RideghvAiry was looking over the passport blanks which he kept in one of the pigeonholes of his desk, he missed the very one to which he attached the greatest value. It was an English passport with the official signature and stamp of the ambassadors of all the intervening countries, the name and description of the bearer being alone left blank. Such forms were commonly held in readiness for secret missions. No one could have taken the missing paper except Zebulon; and when he had reached this conclusion, RideghvAiry smiled.

In his comings and goings, the great man always took his friend with him. But how explain the friendship which he manifested for him? Easily enough. RideghvAiry was not a master of the common people's language, and it was the common people that he wished to reach. Zebulon was their oracle, their favourite orator. One needed but to give him a theme, and he could hold his simple auditors spellbound by the hour. In his expeditions, therefore, RideghvAiry knew that his honest friend would be indispensable to him when it came to persuading the good people that the invading hosts which passed through their villages were not enemies, but friends, allies, and brothers. That, then, was to be Zebulon's mission, and he already suspected as much; but he had no heart for the task before him. RideghvAiry, in his concern lest he should lose his spokesman, hardly let him go out of his sight, and even shared the same room with him at night; otherwise he might have found himself some morning without his mouthpiece.

Zebulon racked his brains for a plan of escape from his illustrious patron, but all in vain. The patron was too fond of him. He had even tried to pick a quarrel with RideghvAiry; but the other would not so much as lose his temper. Since their last talk, however, Zebulon was more than ever determined to shake off his affectionate friend.

"If you won't let me run away from you," said he to himself, "I will make you run away from me."

He had been pondering a scheme of his own ever since he chanced to see a Cossack eating raw cucumbers on an empty stomach. The Cossack plucked the cucumbers in a garden, and munched them with the greatest apparent relish. The plan was further developed as he watched the preparation of a dainty dish for the epicures of the Russian camp. Turnips and beets were cut up together, mixed with bran, and then boiled in an immense kettle, the finishing touch being added by dipping a pound of tallow candles into the steaming mixture. The candles came out thinner, to be sure, but were still serviceable for illumination, while the stew was rendered perfect.

Zebulon's scheme attained to full development when the cholera broke out so fiercely in the Russian army that even a disastrous battle could hardly have wrought greater havoc. RideghvAiry was mortally afraid of the cholera, carried in his bosom a little bag of camphor, wore flannel over his abdomen, shook flowers of sulphur into his boots, always disinfected his room with chloride of lime, drank red wine in the evening and arrack in the morning, and chewed juniper berries during the day.

On this weakness of the illustrious man Zebulon counted largely for the success of his scheme. Entering a druggist's shop one evening, he asked for an ounce of tartar emetic. The apothecary was disinclined to furnish the drug without a physician's order, but Zebulon cut his objection short.

"Doctor's prescription not necessary," said he sharply. "I prescribe for myself--exceptional case. If I say I must have it, that's enough." And he received his _tartarus emeticus_, divided into small doses.

In the night, while RideghvAiry was asleep, Zebulon took two doses of his emetic. Honour to whom honour is due! Every man has his own peculiar kind of heroism. In Zebulon it was an heroic deed to bring on himself an artificial attack of cholera at a critical time like that. But his scheme worked admirably. The audible results of the double dose of tartar emetic awakened RideghvAiry from his slumbers. With one leap from his bed, he landed in the middle of the room, and ran into the passageway, shouting: "The cholera is here! the cholera is here!" He left his clothes lying in the room, and procured fresh ones to put on. Whatever luggage and papers of his were in the bedchamber, he ordered to be fumigated before he would touch them. Then, calling for his carriage, he drove out of the town in all haste.

Meanwhile, Zebulon, after the drug had done its work, went to sleep again and snored till broad daylight. With this _salto mortale_ he disappeared from public life.