Part 17 (1/2)
Of all this Blanka could understand nothing. What great harm, she wondered, could come from the burning of an old beech-tree?
Toward evening the travellers found themselves on a height commanding a wide view of the surrounding country. To the north rose the cliff where they had lunched at noon, and where they could still see black smoke ascending in a column from the smouldering beech as from a factory chimney. To the southeast another column of smoke was visible, and toward the same quarter Torda Gap opened before them in the distance.
Aaron said they must halt here and rest their horses, whereupon all three dismounted and Mana.s.seh spread a sheepskin for Blanka to sit on; but she chose rather to go in quest of wild flowers.
”Your Blanka is a jewel of a woman!” exclaimed Aaron to his brother.
”From early dawn she sits in the saddle, bears all the hards.h.i.+ps of the journey, and utters not a sigh of weariness or complaint. With that filigree body of hers, she endures fatigues that might well make a strong man's bones ache, and keeps up her good cheer through them all.
Nothing daunted by danger ahead, she makes merry over it when it is pa.s.sed. Yet once or twice I thought she was going to lose heart, but she looked into your face and immediately regained her courage. But the hardest part of the journey is still to come. Turn your field-gla.s.s toward Monastery Heights, yonder, where you see the smoke. Do you find any tents there?”
”Yes, and on the edge of the woods I see the gleam of bayonets.”
”That is the camp of Moga's insurgents, and it lies between us and the Szekler Stone. Every road leading thither is now unsafe for us. But hear my plan. The insurgents hold Monastery Heights, and we must ride past them, through the Torda Gap. The millers of the two mills that stand one at each end of the Gap are my friends. The Hungarian miller at Peterd has shut off Hesdad Brook to-day, to clear out the mill-race. He does it once in so often, and I know he is about it now. So we shall have no trouble making our way up the dry bed of the stream to the farther end of the Gap. The miller there has promised to give a signal if the road through the Torda woods is clear, and unless it is blocked by the insurgents we can push on at once to the saw-mill on the Aranyos, where a four-horse team is waiting for us with twelve mounted young men from Bagyon as escort. But don't wrinkle your brow, we sha'n't come to bloodshed yet awhile. A dozen Bagyon hors.e.m.e.n make nothing of das.h.i.+ng through the whole Wallachian army, and not a hair of their heads will be touched. We shall be shot at, but from such a distance that we shall never know it. We will tell the young lady it is the custom in our country to receive bridal parties with a volley of musketry. When we reach the Borev Bridge we are as good as at home, and we shall be there before any one can overtake us, I'll warrant.”
”But what if the Torda woods are held by the enemy?” queried Mana.s.seh.
”Then we will take up our quarters for the present in Balyika Cave.
Everything is provided there for our comfort, and we shall not suffer.
We'll wait until the danger pa.s.ses. Near the Balyika Gate we shall find a signal: a cord will be stretched from one rock to another, and a red rag hung on it if danger threatens, but a green twig if all is well.”
”And when you first proposed in Kolozsvar that we should go home by way of Torda Gap, did you know the perils we should have to face?”
”Certainly,” replied Aaron. ”You can read my heart, brother, like an open book, and I need not try to conceal anything from you. Do you suppose we should ever have taken up arms unless we had been forced to do so, even as you will exchange the olive-branch for the sword as soon as you find what is dearest to you in danger? You cannot do otherwise; the iron hand of destiny constrains you. You have brought your sweetheart with you from Rome; your honour as a man obliges you to make her your lawful wife. Our law, our canon, compels you to make your way home with her, for nowhere else can your wedding be duly solemnised.
Suppose the enemy block your way: you are given a good horse, a trusty sword and a brace of pistols, and then, with thirteen loyal comrades, including myself, you clear a path, through blood if need be, to the altar whither it is your duty to lead your betrothed.”
While the two men thus discoursed on war and bloodshed, Blanka was enjoying the late autumn flowers that the frost had spared. Indigo-blue bell-flowers and red and white tormentils were still in bloom, while in the clefts of the rocks she came upon the red wall-pepper and a kind of yellow ragwort. She had gathered a great bunch of these blossoms when she had the good fortune to find a clump of bear-berry vines, full of the ripened fruit hanging in red cl.u.s.ters and set off by the leathery, dark green leaves, which never fall. The bear-berry is the pride of the mountain flora, and Blanka was delighted to meet with it.
”Are these berries poisonous?” she asked Aaron, with childish curiosity, as soon as she rejoined her companions.
He put one of them into his mouth to rea.s.sure her; then she had to follow his example, but immediately made a wry face and declared the fruit to be very bitter.
”But the berries will do to put in my bouquets for your two brothers who are coming to meet us,” she said, as she seated herself on the sheepskin to rest a few minutes and to tie up her flowers.
At these words Aaron's eyes filled, but he hastened to reply, with a.s.sumed cheerfulness:
”In Balyika Glen we shall find a still more beautiful species of bear-berry. It, too, is a kind of arbutus, but of great rarity, and found nowhere else except in Italy and Ireland. We call it here the 'autumn-spring flower.' The stems are coral-red, the leaves evergreen, and the blossoms grow in terminal umbels, white and fragrant, late in the fall, while the berries do not ripen until the following autumn, so that the beautiful plant bears flowers and fruit at one and the same time, and thus wears our national colours, the tricolour of Hungary.”
”Oh, where does it grow? Is it far from here?” exclaimed Blanka, eagerly, starting up from her seat. She had lost all feeling of fatigue.
”It is a good distance, dear sister-in-law,” replied Aaron. ”To the Torda Gap is a full hour's ride, and thence to Balyika Glen about as far; and I'm afraid somebody is tired enough already, so that we had best stay overnight in the mill and not push on until to-morrow morning.”
”No, I am not tired,” Blanka a.s.serted. ”Let us go on this evening,” and she was ready to remount at once.
”But the horses ought to graze a little longer,” objected Aaron, ”and even then we shall fare much better if we walk down the mountain; it will be easier for us than riding.”
With that he went off into the bushes and picked his hat full of huckleberries, returning with which he drew a clean linen handkerchief from his knapsack, used it as a strainer for extracting the juice of the fruit, and then presented the drink in a wooden goblet to Blanka. She left some for Mana.s.seh, who drank after her and declared he had never tasted a more delightful draught. She seemed now fully rested and refreshed, and eager to resume their journey. Aaron put two fingers into his mouth and whistled, whereupon the three horses came trotting up to him. He called them by name, and they followed him as a dog follows his master, while Mana.s.seh and Blanka brought up the rear. Thus the party descended the steep mountainside.
The Torda Gap is one of the most marvellous volcanic formations in existence. It is as if a mighty mountain chain had been rent asunder from ridge to base, leaving the opposing sides of the gorge rugged and precipitous, but matching each other with a rude harmony of detail most curious to behold. The zigzags and windings of the giant corridor, three thousand feet in length, have a wonderful regularity and symmetry in their bounding walls. The whole forms an entrance-way or pa.s.sage of solid rock, the most imposing gateway in the world, and a marvel to all geologists.