The Strange Story of Rab Ráby. Mór Jókai

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СКАЧАТЬ and the passengers were all but sent flying from their seats. But at this point Mr. Laskóy had to get out to await the companions he had left behind, who were coming on in the coach.

      "But don't say a word to anyone," was the judge's parting injunction to his companion.

      "Trust me! But, all the same, whenever I see a black poodle I shall laugh at the thought."

      And off went the judge, for his time was up.

      At the bridge, where the roads branched off, Laskóy waited for the coach to come up.

      But what a time the coach was coming, to be sure! He could not imagine what had happened to it. It was past mid-day, his ever-growing hunger made the delay of the diligence all the more wearisome. But in spite of it all, he waited patiently.

      At last the famous vehicle came in sight, but only slowly, although the road was quite good. What could have happened?

CHAPTER IV.

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      Now what had really happened to the coach was that it had lost one of the big screws out of the hind wheel, so that the latter had come off. For a whole hour had they hunted for the screw without success, and then they tried to get on without it, but that was a difficult business. If a peasant loses a wheel-nail, he can easily find a substitute; the screw of a coach, however, is not so easily replaced. What straps and ropes they had to hand were knotted and wound round the axle, but the quickly rotating nave had in a few minutes torn all to shreds, and would not go round properly, much to the detriment of the horses who now had to drag the lumbering conveyance with a wheel that would not work, through the tough, sticky morass, which made the way much more toilsome.

      Not that this affected the merry mood of the president as he took his place inside. Every now and again he whistled for sheer lightness of heart.

      "Fire away, there!" he cried to the driver.

      But the driver was not equal to the task, as he urged his steeds over the morass through which the four slow old hacks dragged the rickety vehicle with its broken-down wheel.

      Meanwhile, on a hillock which rose tolerably steep from the roadside, waited a horseman mounted on a strong wiry beast, that stood with his muzzle snuffing the ground like a setter scenting the trail, with watchful eyes and pricked ears, but so still that he did not even brush off the flies that settled on his withers and flanks. The man himself in the saddle was equally motionless; he was dark and hawk-eyed, with curly hair, and a tapering pointed moustache. He wore a peasant's garb that was scrupulously fine of its kind, his countryman's cloak being richly embroidered, and his sleeves frilled with wide lace. In his cap he wore a cluster of locks of women's hair and a knot of artificial flowers; at his girdle gleamed a pair of silver inlaid Turkish pistols, while from the pommel of his saddle hung another, double-barrelled, and in his right hand he carried an axe. An alder-bush had hidden the stranger up till now, so that he could not be seen by the coaching party till he himself hailed them.

      "Now you traitor, you knave, are you going to stop or not?"

      Was the coachman going to stop? Yes indeed, he sprang down from his box in terror, promptly crawled under the coach, and whimpered, "Alack, your honour, it's Gyöngyöm Miska himself, it is indeed!"

      The mounted cavalier pranced up to the coach, the noble charger tossing his proud head to and fro, so that the harness-fringe flew round him.

      "Now we've got something to laugh at and no mistake," growled the coachman. Yet he laughed too in spite of himself.

      The highwayman himself began to laugh as he accosted the president.

      "So you've recognised me, have you, for the celebrated Gyöngyöm Miska?"

      "How pray did you become Gyöngyöm Miska?"

      "Don't you remember me by that name? You yourself gave it me. Have you forgotten how when, years ago, in the County Assembly, I had begun a speech, you called out to me in the middle of it, 'Ay, Gyöngyöm (my jewel), hold your peace; you understand no more of these things than half a dozen oxen put together,' so that I could not get any 'forrader,' for people laughing at me. Since those days the name has stuck to me. Everywhere I go I am received with the greeting, 'Here's Gyöngyöm Miska, worse luck!' So then, I say to myself, 'I'll be a Gyöngyöm Miska,' and show them such things as no one else can. And people talk about me, don't they?"

      "But you won't rob me, will you?" implored his victim. "Do you want my horses?"

      "Make your mind easy. I rob nobody. I only take what is given me, and carry off what the possessor does not value, and as for such wretched nags as you drive, I tell you plainly I wouldn't have them at a gift. I am pretty hard to please in horseflesh, I can tell you. So don't let's waste time in talking. I ask for nothing that people have not got. I know too that you are in a hurry. So just give me ten gold pieces, and then you can drive on."

      The president did not wish to understand the hint, as he said sulkily, "What do you mean?"

      "Only those ten Kremnitz ducats that you drew as salary for your work on the Bench."

      "True enough, friend, that I have received them, but the prefect won them from me at cards last night, and I haven't one left. He did not give me back the money he had won. Turn out my pockets, search me if you will, and if you find there anything but a bad groschen, it shall be yours. Here's my sword-pouch. See, there's nothing inside. And if you like, you can take my boots off, but you'll find no gold there, I warn you."

      The highwayman pressed his axe between his fingers, and tapped quite gently with the butt end of it on the crown of the president's head, where the velvet lining of his fur cap hung out. What was jingling inside?

      The smile vanished from the lips of his victim. His round face became suddenly square with astonishment.

      Now there must be something wrong about that. Who had betrayed him? No man knew it but one.

      Gyöngyöm Miska did not let him waste time in further consideration. With a pickpocket's dexterity he drew from under his cloak his hunting knife from its sheath, ripped out the velvet lining, and possessed himself of the ducats in a trice. Then, with a pressure of his knees, he turned his horse round, and in the twinkling of an eye, horse and rider were over the marsh. Only then did he turn round to utter as a parting greeting the formula of the law courts: "I commend to you, my lord, my official services," and disappeared through the poplar-trees.

      "It is a stupid business," grumbled the president, whose good humour had been torn away with that cut into his cap-lining.

      And a stupid, not to say absurd business it certainly was.

      But Gyöngyöm Miska, cracking his hunting whip merrily, bounded away over the sedge.

      It was already evening. The autumn sun cast long shadows over the level plain. At the edge of a wood burned a herdsman's fire. By it sat a girl in riding-gear, her head supported on her hands, at her feet two greyhounds lay stretched out, her horse was tethered to the stem of a poplar. At the cracking of the whip she sprang from her resting-place, threw a bundle of dry faggots on the fire, mounted her horse, snatched up her whip, and cracked it as a counter signal. Across the plain, starred with wild anemones, the two met; bending down from the saddle, they embraced and kissed each other, СКАЧАТЬ