4. CHAPTER IV.
Spite of remonstrance on my part, the imperative
countess, who had asserted her authority more than
once on our way to Laybach, insisted on the company
of Miss Cunegunda Von Krakenpate, in an
evening walk around the town. Fearing that Percie's
masculine stride would betray him, and objecting
to lend myself to a farce with my valet, I opposed
the freak as long as it was courteous—but it was not
the first time I had learned that a spoiled woman
would have her own way, and too vexed to laugh, I
soberly promenaded the broad avenue of the capital
of Styria, with a valet en demoiselle, and a dame en
valet.
It was but a few hours hence to Planina, and Iminild,
who seemed to fear no risk out of a walled city, waited
on Percie to the carriage the following morning, and
in a few hours we drove up to the rural inn of this
small town of Littorale.
I had been too much out of humor to ask the
countess, a second time, what errand she could have
in so rustic a neighborhood. She had made a mystery
of it, merely requiring of me that I should defer all
arrangements for the future, as far as she was concerned,
till we had visited a spot in Littorale, upon which
her fate in many respects depended. After twenty
fruitless conjectures, I abandoned myself to the course
of circumstances, reserving only the determination, if it
should prove a haunt of Yvain's troop, to separate at
once from her company and await her at Trieste.
Our dinner was preparing at the inn, and tired of
the embarrassment Percie exhibited in my presence,
I walked out and seated myself under an immense
linden, that every traveller will remember, standing
in the centre of the motley and indescribable clusters
of buildings, which serve the innkeeper and blacksmith
of Planina for barns, forge, dwelling, and out-houses.
The tree seems the father of the village.
It was a hot afternoon, and I was compelled to dispute
the shade with a congregation of cows and double-jointed
posthorses; but finding a seat high up on the
root, at last I busied myself with gazing down the
road, and conjecturing what a cloud of dust might contain,
which, in an opposite direction from that which
we had come, was slowly creeping onward to the inn.
Four roughly-harnessed horses at length, appeared,
with their traces tied over their backs—one of them
ridden by a man in a farmer's frock. They struck me
at first as fine specimens of the German breed of
draught-horses, with their shaggy fetlocks and long
manes; but while they drank at the trough which
stood in the shade of the linden, the low tone in which
the man checked their greedy thirst, and the instant
obedience of the well-trained animals, awakened at
once my suspicions that we were to become better
acquainted. A more narrow examination convinced
me that, covered with dust and disguised with coarse
harness as they were, they were four horses of such
bone and condition, as were never seen in a farmer's
stables. The rider dismounted at the inn door, and
very much to the embarrassment of my suppositions,
the landlord, a stupid and heavy Boniface, greeted him
with the familiarity of an old acquaintance, and in answer,
apparently to an inquiry, pointed to my carriage,
and led him into the house.
“Monsieur Tyrell,” said Iminild, coming out to
me a moment after, “a servant whom I had expected
has arrived with my horses, and with your consent,
they shall be put to your carriage immediately.”
“To take us where?”
“To our place of destination.”
“Too indefinite, by half, countess! Listen to me!
I have very sufficient reason to fancy that, in leaving
the post-road to Trieste, I shall leave the society of
honest men. You and your `minions of the moon'
may be very pleasant, but you are not very safe companions;
and having really a wish to die quietly in
my bed—”
The countess burst into a laugh.
“If you will have the character of the gentleman
you are about to visit from the landlord here—”
“Who is one of your ruffians himself, I'll be sworn!”
“No, on my honor! A more innocent old beer-guzzler
lives not on the road. But I will tell you
thus much, and it ought to content you. Ten miles
to the west of this dwells a country gentleman, who,
the landlord will certify, is as honest a subject of his
gracious majesty as is to be found in Littorale. He
lives freely on his means, and entertains strangers
occasionally from all countries, for he has been a
traveller in his time. You are invited to pass a day
or two with this Mynheer Krakenpate (who, by the
way, has no objection to pass for father of the young
lady you have so kindly brought from Laybach),
and he has sent you his horses, like a generous host,
to bring you to his door. More seriously, this was
a retreat of Yvain's, where he would live quietly and
play bon citoyen, and you have nothing earthly to fear
in accompanying me thither. And now will you wait
and eat the greasy meal you have ordered, or will you
save your appetite for la fortune de pot at Mynheer
Krakenpate's, and get presently on the road!”
I yielded rather to the seducing smile and captivating
beauty of my pleasing ward, than to any confidence
in the honesty of Mynheer Krakenpate; and
Percie being once more ceremoniously handed in, we
left the village at the sober trot becoming the fat steeds
of a landholder. A quarter of a mile of this was quite
sufficient for Iminild, and a word to the postillion
changed, like a metamorphosis, both horse and rider.
From a heavy unelastic figure, he rose into a gallant
and withy horseman, and, with one of his low-spoken
words, away flew the four compact animals, treading
lightly as cats, and, with the greatest apparent ease,
putting us over the ground at the rate of fourteen
miles in the hour.
The dust was distanced, a pleasant breeze was
created by the motion, and when at last we turned
from the main road, and sped off to the right at the
same exhilarating pace, I returned Iminild's arch
look of remonstrance with my best-humored smile
and an affectionate je me fie à vous! Miss Krakenpate,
I observed, echoed the sentiment by a slight pressure
of the countess's arm, looking very innocently out of
the window all the while.
A couple of miles, soon done, brought us round the
face of a craggy precipice, forming the brow of a hill,
and with a continuation of the turn, we drew up at the
gate of a substantial-looking building, something between
a villa and a farm-house, built against the rock,
as if for the purpose of shelter from the north winds.
Two beautiful Angora hounds sprang out at the noise,
and recognised Iminild through all her disguise, and
presently, with a look of forced courtesy, as if not quite
sure whether he might throw off the mask, a stout
man of about fifty, hardly a gentleman, yet above a
common peasant in his manners, stepped forward from
the garden to give Miss Krakenpate his assistance in
alighting.
“Dinner in half an hour!” was Iminild's brief
greeting, and, stepping between her bowing dependant
and Percie, she led the way into the house.
I was shown into a chamber, furnished scarce above
the common style of a German inn, where I made a
hungry man's despatch in my toilet, and descended
at once to the parlor. The doors were all open upon
the ground floor, and, finding myself quite alone, I
sauntered from room to room, wondering at the scantiness
of the furniture and general air of discomfort, and
scarce able to believe that the same mistress presided
over this and the singular paradise in which I had
first found her at Vienna. After visiting every corner
of the ground floor with a freedom which I assumed in
my character as guardian, it occurred to me that I
had not yet found the dining-room, and I was making
a new search, when Iminild entered.
I have said she was a beautiful woman. She was
dressed now in the Albanian costume, with the additional
gorgeousness of gold emhroidery, which might
distinguish the favorite child of a chief of Suli. It
was the male attire, with a snowy white juktanilla
reaching to the knee, a short jacket of crimson velvet,
and a close-buttoned vest of silver cloth, fitting admirably
to her girlish bust, and leaving her slender and
pearly neck to rise bare and swan-like into the masses
of her clustering hair. Her slight waist was defined
by the girdle of fine linen edged with fringe of gold,
which was tied coquettishly over her left side and fell
to her ankle, and below the embroidered leggin appeared
the fairy foot, which had drawn upon me all this
long train of adventure, thrust into a Turkish slipper
with a sparkling emerald on its instep. A feronière
of the yellowest gold sequins bound her hair back
from her temples, and this was the only confinement
to the dark brown meshes which, in wavy lines and
in the richest profusion, fell almost to her feet. The
only blemish to this vision of loveliness was a flush
about her eyes. The place had recalled Yvain to her
memory.
“I am about to disclose to you secrets,” said she,
laying her hand on my arm, “which have never been
revealed but to the most trusty of Yvain's confederates.
To satisfy those whom you will meet you must swear
to me on the same cross which he pressed to your lips
when dying, that you will never violate, while I live,
the trust we repose in you.”
“I will take no oath,” I said: “for you are leading
me blindfolded. If you are not satisfied with the
assurance that I can betray no confidence which honor
would preserve, hungry as I am, I will yet dine in
Planina.”
“Then I will trust to the faith of an Englishman.
And now I have a favor, not to beg, but to insist upon
—that from this moment you consider Percie as dismissed
from your service, and treat him, while here
at least, as my equal and friend.”
“Willingly!” I said; and as the word left my lips,
enter Percie in the counterpart dress of Iminild, with
a silver-sheathed ataghan at his side, and the bluish
muzzles of a pair of Egg's hair-triggers peeping from
below his girdle. To do the rascal justice, he was as
handsome in his new toggery as his mistress, and carried
it as gallantly. They would have made the prettiest
tableau as Juan and Haidée.
“Is there any chance that these `persuaders' may
be necessary,” I asked, pointing to his pistols which
awoke in my mind a momentary suspicion.
“No—none that I can foresee—but they are loaded.
A favorite, among men whose passions are professionally
wild,” she continued with a meaning glance at
Percie; “should be ready to lay his hand on them,
even if stirred in his sleep!”
I had been so accustomed to surprises of late, that
I scarce started to observe, while Iminild was speaking,
that an old-fashioned clock, which stood in a
niche in the wall, was slowly swinging out upon
hinges. A narrow aperture of sufficient breadth to
admit one person at a time, was disclosed when it
had made its entire revolution, and in it stood, with
a lighted torch, the stout landlord Von Krakenpate.
Iminild looked at me an instant as if to enjoy my
surprise.
“Will you lead me in to dinner, Mr. Tyrell?” she
said at last, with a laugh.
“If we are to follow Mynheer Von Krakenpate,” I
replied, “give me hold of the skirt of your juktanilla,
rather, and let me follow! Do we dine in the cellar?”
I stepped before Percie, who was inclined to take
advantage of my hesitation to precede me, and followed
the countess into the opening, which, from
the position of the house, I saw must lead directly
into the face of the rock. Two or three descending
steps convinced me that it was a natural opening enlarged
by art; and after one or two sharp turns, and
a descent of perhaps fifty feet, we came to a door
which, suddenly flung open by our torch-bearer,
deluged the dark passage with a blaze of light which
the eyesight almost refused to bear. Recovering
from my amazement, I stepped over the threshold
of the door, and stood upon a carpet in a gallery of
sparkling stalactites, the dazzling reflection of innumerable
lamps flooding the air around, and a long
snow-white vista of the same brilliancy and effect
stretching downward before me. Two ridges of
the calcareous strata running almost parallel over
our heads, formed the cornices of the descending
corridor, and from these, with a regularity that
seemed like design, the sparkling pillars, white as
alabaster, and shaped like inverted cones, dropped
nearly to the floor, their transparent points resting on
the peaks of the corresponding stalagmites, which of
a darker hue and coarser grain, seemed designed as
bases to a new order of architectural columns. The
reflection from the pure crystalline rock gave to this
singular gallery a splendor which only the palace of
Aladdin could have equalled. The lamps were hung
between in irregular but effective ranges, and in our
descent, like Thalaba, who refreshed his dazzled eyes
in the desert of snow by looking on the green wings of
the spirit bird, I was compelled to bend my eyes perpetually
for relief upon the soft, dark masses of hair
which floated upon the lovely shoulders of Iminild.
At the extremity of the gallery we turned short to
the right, and followed an irregular passage, sometimes
so low that we could scarce stand upright, but
all lighted with the same intense brilliancy, and formed
of the same glittering and snow-white substance. We
had been rambling on thus far perhaps ten minutes,
when suddenly the air, which I had felt uncomfortably
chill, grew warm and soft, and the low reverberation
of running water fell delightfully on our ears.
Far ahead we could see two sparry columns standing
close together, and apparently closing up the way.
“Courage! my venerable guardian!” cried Iminild.
laughing over her shoulder; “you will see your dinner
presently. Are you hungry, Percie?”
“Not while you look back, Madame la Comtesse!”
answered the callow gentleman, with an instinctive
tact at his new vocation.
We stood at the two pillars which formed the extremity
of the passage, and looked down upon a scene
of which all description must be faint and imperfect.
A hundred feet below ran a broad subterraneous river,
whose waters sparkling in the blaze of a thousand
torches, sprang into light from the deepest darkness,
crossed with foaming rapidity the bosom of the vast
illuminated cavern, and disappeared again in the same
inscrutable gloom. Whence it came or whither it
fled was a mystery beyond the reach of the eye. The
deep recesses of the cavern seemed darker for the intense
light gathered about the centre.
After the first few minutes of bewilderment. I endeavored
to realize in detail the wondrous scene before
me. The cavern was of an irregular shape, but
all studded above with the same sparry incrustation,
thousands upon thousands of pendent stalactites glittering
on the roof, and showering back light upon the
clusters of blazing torches fastened everywhere upon
the shelvy sides. Here and there vast columns,
alabaster white, with bases of gold color, fell from the
roof to the floor, like pillars left standing in the ruined
aisle of a cathedral, and from corner to corner ran
their curtains of the same brilliant calcareous spar,
shaped like the sharp edge of a snow-drift, and almost
white. It was like laying bare the palace of some
king-wizard of the mine to gaze down upon it.
“What think you of Mynheer Krakenpate's taste
in a dining-room, Monsieur Tyrell?” asked the countess,
who stood between Percie and myself, with a
hand on the shoulder of each.
I had scarce found time, as yet, to scrutinize the
artificial portion of the marvellous scene, but, at the
question of Iminild, I bent my gaze on a broad platform,
rising high above the river on its opposite bank,
the rear of which was closed in by perhaps forty irregular
columns, leaving between them and the sharp
precipice on the river-side, an area, in height and extent
of about the capacity of a ball-room. A rude
bridge, of very light construction, rose in a single
arch across the river, forming the only possible access
to the platform from the side where we stood, and,
following the path back with my eye, I observed a
narrow and spiral staircase, partly of wood and partly
cut in the rock, ascending from the bridge to the gallery
we had followed hither. The platform was carpeted
richly, and flooded with intense light, and in its
centre stood a gorgeous array of smoking dishes,
served after the Turkish fashion, with a cloth upon
the floor, and surrounded with cushions and ottomans
of every shape and color. A troop of black slaves,
whose silver anklets, glittered as they moved, were
busy bringing wines and completing the arrangements
for the meal.
“Allons, mignon!” cried Iminild, getting impatient
and seizing Percie's arm, “let us get over the river,
and perhaps Mr. Tyrell will look down upon us with
his grands yeux while we dine. Oh, you will come
with us! Suivez done!”
An iron door, which I had not hitherto observed,
let us out from the gallery upon the staircase, and
Mynheer Von Krakenpate carefully turned the key
behind us. We crept slowly down the narrow staircase
and reached the edge of the river, where the
warm air from the open sunshine came pouring through
the cavern with the current, bringing with it a smell
of green fields and flowers, and removing entirely the
chill of the cavernous and confined atmosphere I had
found so uncomfortable above. We crossed the
bridge, and stepping upon the elastic carpets piled
thickly on the platform, arranged ourselves about the
smoking repast, Mynheer Von Krakenpate sitting down
after permission from Iminild, and Percie by order of
the same imperative dictatress, throwing his graceful
length at her feet.
