FROM THE SCRIPT OF THE VOIVODE, PETER VISSARION,
July 7, 1907.
I had little idea, when I started on my homeward journey, that it
would have such a strange termination. Even I, who ever since my
boyhood have lived in a whirl of adventure, intrigue, or diplomacy--
whichever it may be called--statecraft, and war, had reason to be
surprised. I certainly thought that when I locked myself into my
room in the hotel at Ilsin that I would have at last a spell, however
short, of quiet. All the time of my prolonged negotiations with the
various nationalities I had to be at tension; so, too, on my homeward
journey, lest something at the last moment should happen adversely to
my mission. But when I was safe on my own Land of the Blue
Mountains, and laid my head on my pillow, where only friends could be
around me, I thought I might forget care.
But to wake with a rude hand over my mouth, and to feel myself
grasped tight by so many hands that I could not move a limb, was a
dreadful shock. All after that was like a dreadful dream. I was
rolled in a great rug so tightly that I could hardly breathe, let
alone cry out. Lifted by many hands through the window, which I
could hear was softly opened and shut for the purpose, and carried to
a boat. Again lifted into some sort of litter, on which I was borne
a long distance, but with considerable rapidity. Again lifted out
and dragged through a doorway opened on purpose--I could hear the
clang as it was shut behind me. Then the rug was removed, and I
found myself, still in my night-gear, in the midst of a ring of men.
There were two score of them, all Turks, all strong-looking, resolute
men, armed to the teeth. My clothes, which had been taken from my
room, were thrown down beside me, and I was told to dress. As the
Turks were going from the room--shaped like a vault--where we then
were, the last of them, who seemed to be some sort of officer, said:
"If you cry out or make any noise whatever whilst you are in this
Tower, you shall die before your time!" Presently some food and
water were brought me, and a couple of blankets. I wrapped myself up
and slept till early in the morning. Breakfast was brought, and the
same men filed in. In the presence of them all the same officer
said:
"I have given instructions that if you make any noise or betray your
presence to anyone outside this Tower, the nearest man is to restore
you to immediate quiet with his yataghan. It you promise me that you
will remain quiet whilst you are within the Tower, I can enlarge your
liberties somewhat. Do you promise?" I promised as he wished; there
was no need to make necessary any stricter measure of confinement.
Any chance of escape lay in having the utmost freedom allowed to me.
Although I had been taken away with such secrecy, I knew that before
long there would be pursuit. So I waited with what patience I could.
I was allowed to go on the upper platform--a consideration due, I am
convinced, to my captors' wish for their own comfort rather than for
mine.
It was not very cheering, for during the daytime I had satisfied
myself that it would be quite impossible for even a younger and more
active man than I am to climb the walls. They were built for prison
purposes, and a cat could not find entry for its claws between the
stones. I resigned myself to my fate as well as I could. Wrapping
my blanket round me, I lay down and looked up at the sky. I wished
to see it whilst I could. I was just dropping to sleep--the
unutterable silence of the place broken only now and again by some
remark by my captors in the rooms below me--when there was a strange
appearance just over me--an appearance so strange that I sat up, and
gazed with distended eyes.
Across the top of the tower, some height above, drifted, slowly and
silently, a great platform. Although the night was dark, it was so
much darker where I was within the hollow of the Tower that I could
actually see what was above me. I knew it was an aeroplane--one of
which I had seen in Washington. A man was seated in the centre,
steering; and beside him was a silent figure of a woman all wrapped
in white. It made my heart beat to see her, for she was figured
something like my Teuta, but broader, less shapely. She leaned over,
and a whispered "Ssh!" crept down to me. I answered in similar way.
Whereupon she rose, and the man lowered her down into the Tower.
Then I saw that it was my dear daughter who had come in this
wonderful way to save me. With infinite haste she helped me to
fasten round my waist a belt attached to a rope, which was coiled
round her; and then the man, who was a giant in strength as well as
stature, raised us both to the platform of the aeroplane, which he
set in motion without an instant's delay.
Within a few seconds, and without any discovery being made of my
escape, we were speeding towards the sea. The lights of Ilsin were
in front of us. Before reaching the town, however, we descended in
the midst of a little army of my own people, who were gathered ready
to advance upon the Silent Tower, there to effect, if necessary, my
rescue by force. Small chance would there have been of my life in
case of such a struggle. Happily, however, the devotion and courage
of my dear daughter and of her gallant companion prevented such a
necessity. It was strange to me to find such joyous reception
amongst my friends expressed in such a whispered silence. There was
no time for comment or understanding or the asking of questions--I
was fain to take things as they stood, and wait for fuller
explanation.
This came later, when my daughter and I were able to converse alone.
When the expedition went out against the Silent Tower, Teuta and I
went to her tent, and with us came her gigantic companion, who seemed
not wearied, but almost overcome with sleep. When we came into the
tent, over which at a little distance a cordon of our mountaineers
stood on guard, he said to me:
"May I ask you, sir, to pardon me for a time, and allow the Voivodin
to explain matters to you? She will, I know, so far assist me, for
there is so much work still to be done before we are free of the
present peril. For myself, I am almost overcome with sleep. For
three nights I have had no sleep, but all during that time much
labour and more anxiety. I could hold on longer; but at daybreak I
must go out to the Turkish warship that lies in the offing. She is a
Turk, though she does not confess to it; and she it is who has
brought hither the marauders who captured both your daughter and
yourself. It is needful that I go, for I hold a personal authority
from the National Council to take whatever step may be necessary for
our protection. And when I go I should be clear-headed, for war may
rest on that meeting. I shall be in the adjoining tent, and shall
come at once if I am summoned, in case you wish for me before dawn."
Here my daughter struck in:
"Father, ask him to remain here. We shall not disturb him, I am
sure, in our talking. And, moreover, if you knew how much I owe to
him--to his own bravery and his strength--you would understand how
much safer I feel when he is close to me, though we are surrounded by
an army of our brave mountaineers."
"But, my daughter," I said, for I was as yet all in ignorance, "there
are confidences between father and daughter which none other may
share. Some of what has been I know, but I want to know all, and it
might be better that no stranger--however valiant he may be, or no
matter in what measure we are bound to him--should be present." To
my astonishment, she who had always been amenable to my lightest wish
actually argued with me:
"Father, there are other confidences which have to be respected in
like wise. Bear with me, dear, till I have told you all, and I am
right sure that you will agree with me. I ask it, father."
That settled the matter, and as I could see that the gallant
gentleman who had rescued me was swaying on his feet as he waited
respectfully, I said to him:
"Rest with us, sir. We shall watch over your sleep."
Then I had to help him, for almost on the instant he sank down, and I
had to guide him to the rugs spread on the ground. In a few seconds
he was in a deep sleep. As I stood looking at him, till I had
realized that he vas really asleep, I could not help marvelling at
the bounty of Nature that could uphold even such a man as this to the
last moment of work to be done, and then allow so swift a collapse
when all was over, and he could rest peacefully.
He was certainly a splendid fellow. I think I never saw so fine a
man physically in my life. And if the lesson of his physiognomy be
true, he is as sterling inwardly as his external is fair. "Now,"
said I to Teuta, "we are to all intents quite alone. Tell me all
that has been, so that I may understand."
Whereupon my daughter, making me sit down, knelt beside me, and told
me from end to end the most marvellous story I had ever heard or read
of. Something of it I had already known from the Archbishop
Paleologue's later letters, but of all else I was ignorant. Far away
in the great West beyond the Atlantic, and again on the fringe of the
Eastern seas, I had been thrilled to my heart's core by the heroic
devotion and fortitude of my daughter in yielding herself for her
country's sake to that fearful ordeal of the Crypt; of the grief of
the nation at her reported death, news of which was so mercifully and
wisely withheld from me as long as possible; of the supernatural
rumours that took root so deep; but no word or hint had come to me of
a man who had come across the orbit of her life, much less of all
that has resulted from it. Neither had I known of her being carried
off, or of the thrice gallant rescue of her by Rupert. Little wonder
that I thought so highly of him even at the first moment I had a
clear view of him when he sank down to sleep before me. Why, the man
must be a marvel. Even our mountaineers could not match such
endurance as his. In the course of her narrative my daughter told me
of how, being wearied with her long waiting in the tomb, and waking
to find herself alone when the floods were out, and even the Crypt
submerged, she sought safety and warmth elsewhere; and how she came
to the Castle in the night, and found the strange man alone. I said:
"That was dangerous, daughter, if not wrong. The man, brave and
devoted as he is, must answer me--your father." At that she was
greatly upset, and before going on with her narrative, drew me close
in her arms, and whispered to me:
"Be gentle to me, father, for I have had much to bear. And be good
to him, for he holds my heart in his breast!" I reassured her with a
gentle pressure--there was no need to speak. She then went on to
tell me about her marriage, and how her husband, who had fallen into
the belief that she was a Vampire, had determined to give even his
soul for her; and how she had on the night of the marriage left him
and gone back to the tomb to play to the end the grim comedy which
she had undertaken to perform till my return; and how, on the second
night after her marriage, as she was in the garden of the Castle--
going, as she shyly told me, to see if all was well with her husband-
-she was seized secretly, muffled up, bound, and carried off. Here
she made a pause and a digression. Evidently some fear lest her
husband and myself should quarrel assailed her, for she said:
"Do understand, father, that Rupert's marriage to me was in all ways
regular, and quite in accord with our customs. Before we were
married I told the Archbishop of my wish. He, as your representative
during your absence, consented himself, and brought the matter to the
notice of the Vladika and the Archimandrites. All these concurred,
having exacted from me--very properly, I think--a sacred promise to
adhere to my self-appointed task. The marriage itself was orthodox
in all ways--though so far unusual that it was held at night, and in
darkness, save for the lights appointed by the ritual. As to that,
the Archbishop himself, or the Archimandrite of Spazac, who assisted
him, or the Vladika, who acted as Paranymph, will, all or any of
them, give you full details. Your representative made all inquiries
as to Rupert Sent Leger, who lived in Vissarion, though he did not
know who I was, or from his point of view who I had been. But I must
tell you of my rescue."
And so she went on to tell me of that unavailing journey south by her
captors; of their bafflement by the cordon which Rupert had
established at the first word of danger to "the daughter of our
leader," though he little knew who the "leader" was, or who was his
"daughter"; of how the brutal marauders tortured her to speed with
their daggers; and how her wounds left blood-marks on the ground as
she passed along; then of the halt in the valley, when the marauders
came to know that their road north was menaced, if not already
blocked; of the choosing of the murderers, and their keeping ward
over her whilst their companions went to survey the situation; and of
her gallant rescue by that noble fellow, her husband--my son I shall
call him henceforth, and thank God that I may have that happiness and
that honour!
Then my daughter went on to tell me of the race back to Vissarion,
when Rupert went ahead of all--as a leader should do; of the
summoning of the Archbishop and the National Council; and of their
placing the nation's handjar in Rupert's hand; of the journey to
Ilsin, and the flight of my daughter--and my son--on the aeroplane.
The rest I knew.
As she finished, the sleeping man stirred and woke--broad awake in a
second--sure sign of a man accustomed to campaign and adventure. At
a glance he recalled everything that had been, and sprang to his
feet. He stood respectfully before me for a few seconds before
speaking. Then he said, with an open, engaging smile:
"I see, sir, you know all. Am I forgiven--for Teuta's sake as well
as my own?" By this time I was also on my feet. A man like that
walks straight into my heart. My daughter, too, had risen, and stood
by my side. I put out my hand and grasped his, which seemed to leap
to meet me--as only the hand of a swordsman can do.
"I am glad you are my son!" I said. It was all I could say, and I
meant it and all it implied. We shook hands warmly. Teuta was
pleased; she kissed me, and then stood holding my arm with one hand,
whilst she linked her other hand in the arm of her husband.
He summoned one of the sentries without, and told him to ask Captain
Rooke to come to him. The latter had been ready for a call, and came
at once. When through the open flap of the tent we saw him coming,
Rupert--as I must call him now, because Teuta wishes it; and I like
to do it myself--said:
"I must be off to board the Turkish vessel before it comes inshore.
Good-bye, sir, in case we do not meet again." He said the last few
words in so low a voice that I only could hear them. Then he kissed
his wife, and told her he expected to be back in time for breakfast,
and was gone. He met Rooke--I am hardly accustomed to call him
Captain as yet, though, indeed, he well deserves it--at the edge of
the cordon of sentries, and they went quickly together towards the
port, where the yacht was lying with steam up.
