Timar's Two Worlds. Mór Jókai

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СКАЧАТЬ three hundred-weight anchor was thrown over, and the ship brought up in the middle of the channel, so as to be hidden by the cliffs from the upper reaches of the river.

      "And now ashore with the boat," Timar ordered three oarsmen.

      "Change your clothes," advised Euthemio.

      "Waste of time," answered Timar. "I shall soon be wet again; now I am thoroughly soaked. We have no time to spare."

      The last words he whispered into Euthemio's ear.

      The man's eyes glittered as he agreed. The captain sprung into the boat and rowed himself, so as to get quicker to the post-house on the bank, where towing-teams could be engaged. He collected hastily eighty oxen. Meanwhile, a new towing-rope was attached to the vessel, the oxen harnessed, and before half an hour had passed, the "St. Barbara" was on her way again through the Iron Gate, and on the opposite side of the stream.

      When Timar returned on board, his exertions had dried his clothes.

      The ship was saved, perhaps doubly saved, and with it the cargo, Euthemio, and Timéa.

      But what are they to him that he should work so hard? He is only the captain and supercargo, and receives a scanty salary as such. It can not matter to him whether the vessel's hold is full of wheat or contraband tobacco or real pearls; his wages remain the same.

      So also thought the "purifier," who, when they reached the Roumanian canal, resumed his interrupted conversation with the steersman.

      "You'll allow, neighbor, that we were never nearer all going to destruction together than we were to-day."

      "There's some truth in that," answered Fabula.

      "But why should we try the experiment whether we could get drowned on St. Michael's day?"

      "H'm!" said Johann, and took a short pull at his brandy-flask. "What salary do you get, sir?"

      "Twenty kreutzers a day," answered the purifier.

      "Why the devil do you come here to venture your life for twenty kreutzers a day? I didn't send for you. I get a gulden and my food; so I have forty kreutzers more reason to venture my life than you. What does it matter to you?"

      The health-officer shook his head, and threw back his hood, so as to be more easily heard.

      "Listen," he said; "it strikes me the brigantine is chasing you, and the 'St. Barbara' is trying to escape."

      "H'm!" coughed the steersman, clearing his throat, and becoming suddenly too hoarse to make a sound.

      "Well, it doesn't matter to me," said the purifier, with a shrug. "I'm Austrian born, and I don't like the Turks. But I know what I know."

      "Well, then, will the gentleman listen to what he doesn't know?" said Fabula, who had suddenly recovered his voice. "Certainly the gunboat is chasing us, and that's why we are showing him our heels. For, look you, they wanted to take the white-faced maiden into the sultan's harem, but her father would not consent; he preferred to escape with her from Turkey, and now the object is to reach Hungarian territory as quickly as possible—there the sultan can't touch her. Now that's all about it, so no more questions, but go to St. Barbara's picture, and light the lamp again if the water has extinguished it; and don't forget to burn three consecrated willow-twigs, if you're a good Christian."

      The purifier drew himself up slowly, and looked for his tinderbox, and then he growled in his beard—

      "If I am an orthodox Catholic? But they say you are only a Papist on board, and a Calvinist directly you set foot on shore; that you pray in the ship, and can hardly wait for dry land before you begin cursing and swearing. And they say too that your name is Fabula, and that Fabula means just the same as a pocketful of lies. But of course I believe all you have told me, so you need not be angry."

      "You're quite right there; but now you be off, and don't you come back till I call you."

      The twenty-four rowers in the gunboat required three hours to get from the point where first the "St. Barbara" was seen to the Perigrada Island, where the Danube divides into two arms. The cliffs of the island masked the whole bend, and on board the brigantine nothing of what had passed behind them could be seen.

      Even below the island the gunboat had met with floating wreckage, which the eddy had thrown to the surface. This was part of the sunken mill, but could not be distinguished from the remains of a vessel. When the brigantine had passed the island a reach of a mile and a half lay open before her; neither in the stream nor by the bank was any large craft to be seen; near the shore were only barges and rowing-boats.

      The man-of-war went a little higher, cruised about in the river, and then returned to the shore. There the Turkish first-lieutenant inquired of the watchmen about a cargo-vessel passing by. They had seen nothing, for the ship had not got so far. Presently the brigantine overtook the "St. Barbara's" towing-team, and of them also questions were asked. They were all good Servians, and explained to the Turks where they could find the "St. Barbara."

      "She has gone down at the Perigrada Island with her cargo of fruit and all her crew; you can see here how the tow-rope parted."

      The Turkish brigantine left the Servian drivers, who were all lamenting because no one was left to pay their wages. (In Orsova they know full well they will come up with their ship and tow her on.) But the commander, being a Turk, of course turned about and went down-stream.

      When the brigantine got back to the island the sailors saw a board dancing on the water which did not float away. They fished it out: a rope was fastened to it by an iron hook, for the board was a float from the mill-wheel. Then they heaved up the rope, which had an anchor at its other end. This also was got in, and on its cross-piece, painted in great letters, there was the name "St. Barbara."

      Now the whole catastrophe was quite clear. Her towing-rope had broken, she cast her anchor, but it could not hold her, she drifted into the whirlpool, and now her timbers float on the surface, but her crew rests below in the deep pool.

      Mashallah! We can not follow her there.

CHAPTER IV.

       A STRICT SEARCH.

       Table of Contents

      The "St. Barbara" had escaped two dangers—the rocks of the Iron Gate and the Turkish brigantine; two remained, the Bora and the quarantine in Orsova.

      Above the bay of the Iron Gate, the powerful stream is confined by its steep banks in a chasm only a hundred fathoms wide, through which the pent-up current forces its way, in parts with a fall of twenty-eight feet.

      Up above the mountain peaks, three thousand feet in air, the eagles circle in majestic flight across the narrow strip of sky visible, whose pure azure, seen from the awful depths below, looks like a glass vault, and further yet rise more and higher peaks.

      It is a sight, I trow, to call up spirits from hell. The impotent vessel, which has neither hands nor feet, nor yet fins, which, like an overladen nutshell, floats upward in this narrow channel against wind and stream; and in it a handful of men, trusting in their intelligence and their strength. Here, too, even the Bora can not harm them, for the double СКАЧАТЬ