Chapter 7

THE CAVERN OF LUCSIA

Not so very long ago there was in Transylvania a wide-spreading society of coiners which, it is now notorious, had carried on its nefarious business undetected for more than half a century. The science was an inheritance descending from father to son, people married and were born into it. Careful parents trained their children to follow it, and a very lucrative profession it proved to be. That it should have remained undiscovered for so long a time, that it should have been plied successfully for more than fifty years under the very noses of the authorities--all this was capable of a very simple explanation, _these men coined gold pieces_.

Yes, genuine ducats, of full weight, out of real three-and-twenty carat gold, without any admixture of baser metal, so that they absolutely could not be distinguished from the royal ducats of the authorized minting towns, Körmöcz and Gyulafehervár. If they fell into the hands of a goldsmith, and he melted them, he found that they did not contain half a grain more silver than the genuine ones. Indeed the public lost nothing by their fabrication, though the state treasury suffered considerably.

The whole region, in fact, from Zalathna to Verespatak abounded in that precious metal which some fool or other has called "a mere chimera," and the gold mining was farmed out to private individuals, the yearly output from the shafts being twelve hundredweights. These private diggers are bound to deliver the gold they obtain to the minting towns at Abradbanya or Gyulafehervár and there receive coined money in exchange. Nevertheless, during some fifty years, only about six hundredweights were delivered annually at these places; the rest disappeared, though at first nobody could suspect it. The State pays to the diggers 441 guldens for every pound of gold dust, which quantity when coined is worth 720 guldens. But it occurred to the mountaineers that they also might profitably engage in coining and circulate the money so coined. So they provided themselves with all the necessary implements and machinery (there were skilled workmen among them) and issued false ducats to their very great advantage. Their existence was not even suspected except by the parties interested in the concern, and they had every motive in the world for preserving the secret.

* * * * *

Travelling from Abradbanya up towards Bucsum, one might have seen two riders toiling up the mountain along the stream overshadowed by dark alders; one of them was a grey-haired, gigantic Roumanian, the other a proud-looking young woman. The old man wore a lambskin mantle, on his head he carried a tall pointed cap, also of lambs' wool, drawn down over his eyebrows, his body was carelessly girdled with a golden girdle. His rich grey locks were plaited into two thick pig-tails which reached down to his broad shoulders, and his snow-white moustache hung down from his mouth like two seamew's wings. A coarse sack lay in front of him across his saddle, both ends of which appeared to be full of something heavy; across the sack lay his fowling-piece.

The fair cavalier was sitting on a small, wild, shaggy horse, which constantly evinced a praiseworthy endeavour to overtake the rider in front of him; his mistress with difficulty held him in. She was one of those famous Roumanian beauties. Her features, the cut of her lips, her full chin could have stood as a model beside any antique statue. And then those sparkling eyes, that vividly red complexion, those coal-black eyebrows--they made an ideal beauty of her. And the picturesque Roumanian costume enhanced her charms. Her black hair, twisted into a double plait, was bound round with a flaming-red scarf, and on her head she wore a round hat, trimmed with pearls and garnished in front with a row of gold pieces which reached down to her marble-white forehead. Moreover, her fine cambric shirt embellished with bright flowers and gold ornaments fitted so closely as to betray the outlines of her harmonious figure. Wound ten times round her neck she wore a necklace of gold coins extending down to her bosom. As she rode along (and she sat astride her saddle like a man), every now and then one could catch glimpses beneath her variegated girdle of her red morocco boots and of a Turkish dagger, with a massive silver handle, gleaming forth from their shafts. On each side of her holsters peeped forth a double-barrelled pistol with an ivory handle.

When the old man stopped to water his horse at the spring gushing forth from the black slate rock, he said to the girl: "Anicza, when did you speak last with Fatia Negra?"

"Just a month ago. It was at the time of the full moon, like it is now. He then said that he was going away on a long journey."

"And yet he has already been at home these two days. I saw his sign over against my window."

"Impossible. It cannot be," cried the girl passionately.

"What cannot be? Do you think I am dreaming or lying?"

"If he were at home, he would have come to see me ere this."

The old man shrugged his shoulders.

"And yet he did not come. But the day before yesterday, about midnight, I found the three owl-feathers there in the window."

"The wind carried them thither."

"The wind did not carry them thither for they were stuck fast in putty. And only we three know what that means. Fatia Negra would speak with us and we are going to meet him in the Lucsia cavern."

"It cannot, cannot be--three days at home and never to come to me--to _me_!"

"Who knows?" said the old man coolly, tightening his saddle girth, "a whole month is a long while, long enough for the moon herself to change four times. There are many pretty wenches on the other side of the mountain."

"O no! such a one as I am he will not find there," said the girl proudly, glancing into the tremulous water-mirror which threw back a distorted likeness of her defiant face--"and besides he knows very well that I should murder him were such a woman to mock me."

"Ah, ah!" mocked the old man, "so Fatia Negra is afraid of you, eh?"--and with that he swung himself back into his saddle with youth-like agility. "Black Face fears nobody, I tell you. He is not even afraid of the commandant of Gyulafehervár, nor of the lord-lieutenant of Krasna, and they have no end of soldiers and heydukes. Nay, he fears not the devil himself."

And with that he urged on his horse which ambled forward meditatively, whilst the girl's little nag whinnied in the rear.

"He may not fear the great gentlemen, he may not fear the devil, but I tell you that he would be afraid of the girl he made to love him, if he proved false to her."

"So you really think he loves you violently?" said the old man casting a backward glance at her.

"He swore he did."

"To whom? the priest?"

"Go along with you! No, to me!"

At this the old man chuckled--"little fool!" said he.

"And if he breaks his oath now, the devil shall have him. I'll murder him."

"Very well, I suppose you know him. Yet you have never seen his face. If he were to tear the black velvet mask from his face you would never recognize him."

"But that he cannot do as to that mask he owes all his power."

"Well, you are a comical wench--to be enamoured of a man whose face you have never seen!"

"I recognize him by his voice, by the beating of his heart."

"Well, if I were a girl and had a lover, I would insist on seeing his face. He should not come to me in a mask anyhow."

"He cannot put off his mask, I tell you. His oath forbids him to. The moment he removes his mask from his face his power is gone, and neither the devil nor the good angels will obey him any longer."

"That is true," returned the old man solemnly. "When he likes he can make himself invisible. I know it. He has always escaped pursuit even when the whole country was out after him, and when they thought they had him fast he always disappeared in the earth or in the air. Yet, for all that, if I were his love, see his face I would."

"He told me I should die of fright if I beheld it."

"Then I _would_ die of fright--but I would see it."

"His eyes are very fine,--they glow like coals."

"Like coals? Perhaps he is the Dracu[16] himself. Have you ever tried to make him kiss the amulet on which is the image of St. George and the Dragon?"

[Footnote 16: Dracu-dragon, _i.e._, devil.]

"Yes he has kissed it and was none the worse."

"Have you tried to get him to lay his three fingers on a copper crucifix?"

"He laid his fingers thereon and yet they were not burnt."

"Can he say the prayer of condemnation without trembling?"

"He has said it hundreds of times."

"Nevertheless, I maintain he is no mortal man."

"If he should love another woman, I swear that he will very soon find out that he _is_ mortal."

Talking thus the riders had descended into the depths of the valley, and when the mountain stream again crossed their path they quitted the usual footpath and followed the bed of the stream. And a very good road it is for such as do not wish to leave foot-marks behind them. The rapid current swiftly fills the traces of the horses' hoofs with leaves and pebbles.

The ravine grew ever deeper and narrower, and the stream at intervals formed small cataracts which the horses, who had been trained thereto, had to cross. Finally, at a sudden declivity, the water took an unexpected leap of four yards, and when the riders reined up at this very spot, it was plain that here a mill had been built into the hillside, whose wheel it was which drove the swiftly plunging water along.

If a stranger saw this mill he would certainly say: "What foolish man the miller must be who has built his mill here," (----) and that for three reasons. Firstly, because it was so concealed beneath the thick alders that even if one sees it one cannot get at it. Secondly, because it is built exactly under the water-fall which drives the wheel as rapidly as a spindle, so that the millstone must needs be red hot beneath it. Thirdly, because the way to this mill is so peculiar, passing right through the mountain torrent and then winding down to the door by way of a foot-path hewn in the naked rock, and inaccessible to horses. Well, such a miller will surely get but little grain to grind!

When the two riders reached this spot they sprang from their horses, led them into a little dry islet formed by the alders and tied them by their halters to the branches. Then the old man lifted the sack from the saddle.

"Give me a lift up, Anicza!" said he.

One would hardly have supposed that an old fellow of such a colossal build would have required any help at all in order to get this sack across his shoulders, nor would one have supposed from the size of the sack that it would have been so heavy to lift or that it would have weighed so heavily on the old man's shoulders that he had to plant his hand firmly on his hip in order to carry the load.

Then the girl drew both pistols forth from her holsters, stuck them into her girdle, threw the long fowling-piece across her shoulder and springing fearlessly across the stream from boulder to boulder followed behind the stooping old man along the narrow foot-path which led to the