THE DAMNABLE MOUNTAINS

This was a bitter winter on the Albanian frontier, and God alone knows how the party got to Ranovica at all.

None but a madman would have attempted the journey at such a moment in the story of the Balkans; but as John Faber remarked, it needed a double-barrelled charge of insanity to venture it in the winter. Yet he had told Maryska that he would go, and go he did.

What a country, and what a people! The Almighty seemed to have blasted the mountains and the mountaineers alike. Such a wilderness of grey rocks, of weirdly scarped precipices, of awful caverns and fearsome valleys is to be imagined by none who have not visited it.

Depict a range of mountains built up of the barren limestone into a myriad fearsome shapes of dome and turret, castle and battlement. In the valleys far below, put the gardens of the world, fertile beyond all dreams; where the grapes grow as long as the fingers on your hand, and every tropical plant luxuriates. Drive humanity from this scene and deliver it up to the world and the bear. Such is the frontier of Albania where it debouches upon Montenegro—such are the "damnable mountains," as every Christian in their vicinity has learned to call them.

A desert upon an altitude, and yet it is not wholly a desert. Here and there ensconced in nook and cranny you will come upon an oasis where a village harbours wild people and a scanty patch of fertile soil keeps body and soul together. Such a place was Ranovica, to which Louis de Paleologue led his guest on the sixth day afterwards. They came up to it at three o'clock upon that December afternoon when the sun was magnificent over the Western Adriatic, and even these desolate hills had been fired to warmth and colour.

An odd party—three upon cheeky little Hungarian horses; three upon mules. Frank, the American valet, had much to say about the habits and character of the mule, but he reserved it until they should be safely upon the yacht again. The other two servants were Austrians who had been heavily bribed for the venture—even they would have refused had they understood that it was for an expedition to Ranovica. This hole in the hill was full of savage Christians who hated the Montenegrins much, but the Moslem a good deal more. It was bound to be burned sooner or later.

Ranovica has a fine old gate built by Stephen of Bosnia, heaven knows how many years ago. The party rode through this just after three o'clock, and was challenged immediately by half-a-dozen warriors with the most wonderful white breeches the Western world has seen. Already, and when far down the valley, the outposts of the little force defending this wild place had put the travellers through a searching inquisition; but they had to face another ordeal at the gate, and lucky for them that Louis spoke Servian so fluently. The soldiers listened to him as though a brother was speaking. They looked at Maryska with wide black eyes. Why not?—she was good to look upon, surely, with her high boots and crimson breeches and little Greek cap. Faber himself had looked at her a great many times on the way up, but he was by no means pleased that she should become the cynosure of so many evil eyes.

"Well?" he said to her, while Louis played the millionaire among the wild men, "and what do you think of this, young lady?"

She was still upon her pretty little horse and her eyes were here, there and everywhere; but not with the curiosity an untravelled woman would have displayed. Maryska had seen too much of the world to be troubled by Ranovica. Besides, she was hungry.

"I think my father is a fool to come here, and you also, boss, that is what I think."

"Guess you've hit it first time. Are you hungry, Maryska?"

"Why, yes. Are you, boss?"

She imitated her father perfectly, and Faber laughed. They were in a street so narrow that his horse had a head in the window upon one side of the road and a tail in a window upon the other. A tremendous battlement of rock lifted a sheer precipice far up above this peopled gorge. In the shadows there moved a fierce people, savage, wild, hunted. They gathered round the strangers menacingly, and but for the old white-haired priest, even Louis' gift of tongues might not have saved them. The priest, however, liked the jingle of good Austrian crowns. Let the strangers come to his house, he said, the inn was not fit to harbour a dog.

So the party rode on a furlong—the men, the girl, the American valet and the Austrians. At every step the crowd pressed about them, black and scowling. It was good at last to enter an open courtyard and to see that none followed. Dark was coming down then and lights shining from the windows of the miserable houses. Faber remembered that he had communicated with the Turkish authorities before setting out and congratulated himself upon his prudence.

"They'll want my guns, and so they'll want me," he said.

But he was still mightily anxious about Maryska.

II

The priest's house was about as big as a cow-house and as filthy as a Spanish podesta. Of food there was little save coarse bread and villainous-looking brandy. Here the guests came to the rescue, for Louis had carried up victuals at Faber's expense, and now the good things were spread upon old "Pop's" table, to that worthy's exceeding satisfaction. None ate with better appetite than he; none smacked fine lips so loudly over the good white wine, unless it were Maryska.

Louis had christened him "Old Pop" immediately, and he talked to him in voluble Servian during the repast. Occasionally he interpreted at Maryska's request, and fragments of talk were tossed down to her as bones to a dog. They made the girl laugh, but Faber found them grim enough. He was asking "What does he say?" almost at every sentence. Louis picked out the tit-bits and passed them on.

"There were Turks nine miles from here the day before yesterday. They burned Nitzke, and killed the women; some of the Nitzke people are here now; one has lost his nose—yes, they always cut off the noses, and so do our fellows when they catch a Turk. This place would be easy to hold if there were troops, but, of course, Nicholas can't send any until war is declared. Pop hopes that Alussein Pasha won't find us. If he does, there'll be a massacre; yes, it will be in the next two or three days. You're not behind the times, sir; you'll see the fun if there is any."

Faber looked at Maryska, and discovered that she was looking at him. Evidently she shared her father's whim of exaggeration and her curiosity as to "the stranger's" behaviour was now awake. These odd terms: "boss," "stranger," "master," picked up from the backwoods of America twenty years ago, pleased the Southern ear, and were guarded tenaciously. Maryska wished to frighten this American, and would have been delighted had she succeeded.

"What shall you do if they come?" she asked him.

He said, as quickly: "I should go to bed," and at that she laughed again.

"And what will you do?" he asked her. She leered as she put a whole sardine into her capacious mouth.

"I shall see them fight. Men are for fighting—women to see them. In your country, you have no soldiers. All the Americans talk a heap about it, but none of them have seen anything at all. You will be a great good man after this, boss!"

He opened his eyes.

"Why a great good man?"

"Because you will have seen something that is great and good."

He was very much astonished.

"Do you mean that killing other men is great and good, Maryska?"

Her face wore a pensive attitude, but she still had one eye upon the comestibles.

"I think they are a brave people. I think it is great and good to fight for your country."

"Well, wouldn't the Americans fight for theirs?"

"Perhaps; I don't know. You are all too clever to think about anything but money. He says so."

"Isn't money a very good thing to think about?"

She looked at him with great contempt.

"I was not born a shopkeeper," she said, and then, "Ask poppa and hear what he will say."

He nodded his head.

"Why has poppa come to Ranovica?"

"To draw pictures for the papers, yes."

"Is it for money?"

"If he will receive it, yes; if he does not like the people he will not receive it."

"Then how will you live, Maryska?"

She tossed her head.

"We shall live very well, sir; my father is a noble in his own country. He will not be insulted by such people; he is very proud."

And then she said with a ridiculous want of gravity, "And so am I. Please to give me some of the chocolates, sir. The old Pop will eat them all."

He passed her the chocolates and helped himself to a cigar from one of his own boxes. The room was long and narrow, the walls wainscoted in oak and painted a dirty pink above. An ikon hung in a corner, for "Pop" was of the Greek Orthodox Church, and very devout—when he was not drunk. The latter appeared now to be his condition, and when they rose from the table, he insisted upon taking them out into the village that they might hear him harangue the people. Night had come down at this time, but no one thought of sleep in that oasis of the bleak mountains. Far up on the desolate hills were the sentries who would tell Ranovica of the Turks' approach. In the street itself moved a heterogeneous company of old and young men, and women and laughing girls, everyone carrying a revolver in the girdle and some armed to the very teeth. A babble of excited talk fell upon the night air as a hum of insects. What was in store for the people of this new citadel? Would the Turk come or pass them by? God and the morrow must answer.

III

It was a far cry to the great arsenals at Charleston, but Faber's mind crossed the seas when he walked alone that night in the street before the priest's house. What particular freak of a latent insanity had sent him to this place?

Was it curiosity or the girl? Just the passing fancy for the wildest little woman he had ever met or the desire to see his fellow men butchered? One or the other it must be, and he was too honest to deny it. Either Maryska or the Turkish butcher, scimitar in hand.

If it were the girl, his vain folly had met with a swift rebuke. Looking up to her bedroom window, he remembered her "good-night," and the manner of it. She had told him that he was an "old, old man," and the words struck him as a thunderclap. An "old, old man!" Good God! had so much of his life already run? No one had ever spoken such words before and his vanity bristled. Had the girl been serious, or did she speak in jest?

An "old, old man"—and he was not forty. In America, it is true, they have little use for forty unless forty can command allegiance. He, John Faber, had ruled a city in Charleston. His works employed more than five thousand men; he was the high priest of the temples of labour his own brain had built up. No one remembered his age there. They spoke of him as "the new Krupp," the young genius in steel who could make or mar the fortunes of empires. The women pursued him relentlessly, remembering his eleven millions. He could have led the life of an Oriental debauchee and no one criticise him. To read the papers—many of which he owned—you might have set him down for twenty-five. This chit of a wild girl had burst the bubble with a little pin prick of her candour. An old, old man! The words raked his self-assurance, he could have boxed her ears for them.

If not Maryska, what, then, had brought him to Ranovica?

Was it to see if he could witness something of that wild life of the Balkans which had stirred his imagination in the past? When quite a lad he had read of these villages and of what befell them when the Turk came in. One incident he had never forgotten; it was on the Macedonian frontier where a little town had been sacked, the men butchered or burned by naphtha, the women violated, the old priest flayed alive. He had the account of it in the Illustrated London News among his papers to that very day. Such a village as this might have been the scene of it!

He passed on, musing deeply, and presently met an Albanian posted at the head of the street. The soldier had an American rifle, and he discovered that it had come from his own factory at Charleston. He gave the man a couple of crowns, and the fellow grinned savagely, pointing at the same time up to the silent hills. There were Turks somewhere up there, and he would shoot them. The rifle was about to do that for which it was made. Faber would see the fruit of his own work.

He walked on a little way and met his valet, Frank. The young man spoke German fluently, and had learned a good deal from the Austrian porters. He was much alarmed by his situation, and did not hesitate to say so.

"They tell me an attack is expected, sir. We shall fare badly in this hole if it comes off. I don't think the authorities can do much for us; what's more, there ain't any."

Faber thrust his hands into his pockets—a habit of his—and walked a little way by his servant's side.

"Why," he said half reflectively, "it isn't exactly the Ritz Hotel to be sure. Who's been talking, Frank?"

"All of them, sir, all together. Turks are known to be five miles away and the young lieutenant expects them to ride in before morning. He says passports are a sure road to paradise—you can get to heaven quicker on an ambassador's signature than on any other. I'd do this block next time if I was you, Mr. Faber, to be sure I would. We may all have our throats cut before morning."

Faber chewed his cigar heavily.

"Mr. Paleologue doesn't think it; he's been among them before. He says the Turks like newspaper men; he's one of them. I advised our people in Constantinople I was coming, and I don't suppose they've gone to sleep. Anyway, can you fire a gun, Frank?"

Frank turned a little pale.

"I'd sooner see others fire it, sir."

"True enough, and guns won't be much good if the knives get going. I think we'll move on to-morrow, Frank; we'll learn what happens from the newspapers."

"I wish you'd go to-night, sir."

Faber shook his head.

"There's the young lady to be thought of. I guess she's asleep. It's got to be the morning, anyway."

"At any particular hour, sir?"

"As early as you like, Frank, if mademoiselle is ready."

The young man went off more afraid than he would say, but glad of the crumb of comfort. His master, however, continued to walk up and down the narrow street before the house and to regard the cold mountains wistfully. What an odd scene! What a place for him to be in! The hole was full of the queerest people he had met in all his travels. Every hour added to the multitude of souls, while as for the inn or guest-house, it might have been a barracks. Albanians whose belts were full of knives and revolvers wrangled with refugees from the mountains who had fled before the Turks; there were travellers, police, wild women, soldiers, all boxed up together like sardines in a tin; and to add to the uproar a mechanical organ played the "Merry Widow" waltz without an interval. From time to time shrieks were to be heard and the sound of blows. A man would come reeling out into the street with bloody face or gashed limbs. One of them fell dead almost at the door of the priest's house, but no one took any notice of him. As for Louis de Paleologue and "old Pop" they were far too busy getting drunk together to observe such a trifle.

Faber assured himself that the man was quite dead, and chancing upon two immense Albanians who were coming down the narrow street, he told them as much of the story as gestures would permit. They shrugged their shoulders and entered the guest-house, whence two or three tipsy fellows emerged presently to drag the dead man away as though the body were a sack. Following them to the lower end of the village, Faber perceived them disappear upon a narrow path by the side of the gorge he had climbed that afternoon, and he had no doubt that they would throw the dead man into the ravine, and leave the wolves to perform the last obsequies. He followed them no further, but stood a little while breathing the cool air and looking over toward Scutari. There lay Antivari and his own yacht. His voyage had been successful enough, and he had found the Emperor complaisant, but this estimate of his success was attended by another thought, and it concerned a woman. Sir Jules Achon would be at Ragusa by this time. Had Sir Jules seen the Emperor, and if so, to what end?

Here was a memory of Gabrielle Silvester speaking to him, and in some way moving him to an exaltation of success, not wholly chivalrous.

Had he not wagered that he would obtain an audience of the Kaiser, while the ridiculous ambassadors of a silly sentimentalism were still dreaming of their projects? And what he had promised, he had performed. The new Faber rifle would go to Germany—manufactured in part by Krupps, in part at Charleston. Meanwhile, universal peace remained a pretty topic for public platforms, and for certain distinguished old gentlemen whose philanthropy all the world admired. He, John Faber, owed something to it for it had introduced him to one of the cleverest women he had met in all his life, and this could be said despite their dramatic farewell. The latter troubled him, to be sure, but he did not despair of her when he remembered that the ugly business in Paris could yet be set straight. Claudine d'Arny must have a husband bought for her as other women have jewels or toy dogs. It should not be beyond his resources to contrive as much.

He lighted a new cigar upon this pleasant realisation of power—a gratification which his busy life made rare—and turning about, he retraced his steps toward Ranovica. The contrast between the lonely mountains which guarded the valley and the hive of armed men within was sharp enough, but it interested him at the moment less than other omens which a quick ear detected. The stillness seemed to him almost unnatural. He could have sworn at one place that a face peered down at him from a cranny of the precipice above, and, upon that, there came from afar the echo of a rifle shot. He was sure of it, faint as was the report and difficult to locate. A rifle shot over there beyond the great mountain which protected Ranovica from the northern winds! Long he listened for any repetition of the firing, but hearing none, returned at last to the priest's house. His nerves were playing tricks with him, he said. It was time to have done with it. There was a light in Maryska's room and a shadow upon the blind said that she was not yet in bed. Faber smiled as he looked up and remembered her words.

"An old, old man."

What had put it into the little cat's head to call him that?