Chapter XXXVII: “Salaam alêkom, Stepan Beg.”

“Wa-alêkom salaam, Jaffer Hakim. Come up to the selamlik. Haidar, see your friend well bestowed.”

They mounted the narrow wooden stairs to the great room above. A quaint brass student-lamp gave it a moonlight effect. There were chairs and tables and divans, and a white porcelain stove with green panels. Upon the floor were fine old rugs. Upon the wall was a case of firearms of many patterns, both ancient and modern. Evidently there was one man in Bosnia who was exempted from the law, perhaps because he never broke it. On another wall was a case of books and manuscripts.

The two men stood looking at each other—Jaffer in his fez, with dark aquiline features sharpened by anxiety; Stepan Beg in a scarlet turban, with white beard close cropped, strong sinewy neck exposed, eyes sad but smiling.

“You stayed long with Kadri Beg?”

“Two hours, my lord. But there I learned”—and Jaffer bowed his head—“how Azrael brushed Starigrad with his wings when Ramazan had passed. May the peace of Allah rest upon the soul of the Lady Ila.”

A shadow of pain passed over the noble face, but the answer came quietly. “Sweet with firdousi was the apple of life which Azrael held to her nostrils.”

Stepan Beg laid a kind hand on Jaffer’s shoulder. “I have heard of you. I have had letters. You shall be Rasul here, and I am not your lord. Rest upon this divan. So—so, my son.”

The old man gently forced the youth to lie down. Jaffer lay without speaking till the inevitable coffee came. He lay dimly realising that he had been speaking Persian, not Servian, and that he had been understood and answered.

A glass of water followed by a little cupful of black coffee seemed to go to the immediate focus of his various anxieties—an aching spot somewhere in the back of his neck. He rose to a sitting posture.

“It is the part of age to inquire, Stepan Beg, and the part of youth to answer. But may I ask and be blameless?”

“Ask many things, Rasul.”

“These letters, how old are they?”

“Saadi wrote me six months ago that his room had been the room of Jaffer. He wrote me of other friends, but Jaffer I remember, for it is the name of the good vizier. And he wrote of Trench Hakim, upon whom be peace.”

“And have there been no letters lately?”

“Yes, my son. He wrote for money. He had borrowed a certain sum from Trench—four thousand kronen. I have sent it from Serajevo—Haidar is but yesterday returned.”

Jaffer was delighted, but pondered his next question.

Stepan Beg lifted his coffee to his lips, then set it aside. At last he said, quite calmly, “Does Rasul bring me word of Saadi’s death?”

“Ustafr Ullah! God forbid! For aught I know, he flourishes like the vines in your garden.”

Stepan Beg’s breast heaved with renewed life. “Four thousand kronen is not enough to establish a home in the ends of earth. I have sent four thousand more to his bride, whose name I love. See, I have their good addresses—Isham Trench and Elsie Sereef.” He lifted a leather bound book from the table.

Jaffer’s relief was enormous. Saadi was neither thief nor seducer. From here on, the messenger might unburden his heart to this braver heart.

“I bring you good news, Stepan Beg. When the month of Dulheggia has come, you will be a grandfather.”

Stepan Beg sat still, but great tears rose to his eyes. “Allah be praised! To Allah be great praise! But, alas, the boy will be born in America. It is farther away than paradise.”

Jaffer rose and approached. “Some day he will come to you, O best of fathers. But now I must speak the truth. I bring the news not merely to the grandfather but to the father. I seek Saadi.”

Stepan Beg sprang to his feet, stepped to the bookcase, took out a packet of letters, and swiftly opened several. “The last is written from Chicago, on the twentieth of April.”

“He left on that date for Europe,” said Jaffer. “He gave as a reason that his mother was dead.”

Stepan Beg stared. Then he went to the latticed window and called into the night. A man came running, flung open the door of the house, and dashed upstairs, ready to throttle Jaffer. But he saw the two men standing quietly.

“Haidar, the moon is dead, and the new moon is not born. But could you go to Fotcha?”

Haidar glanced from one man to the other. “I need no moon, my lord.”

Stepan Beg lifted a finger. “But if it were to Stolaz? Think, Haidar.”

“I can go to Stolaz without a moon. I have done it—years ago—when the road was worse, and the whole band of Stojan Kovacevitch thirsted for my lord’s blood.”

Stepan Beg pointed to the case of firearms. “Take what you will. You must not be stopped by the patrol. Say that you are on my service. Carry with you my Star of the Order of Franz Joseph. If they do not respect it, make them respect it. Bring hither young Mohammed Beg by this time to-morrow night.”

Haidar went to the case and took what he needed—the Star, a six shooter, and a box of cartridges. He came before Stepan Beg, and knelt. But Stepan raised him to his feet and kissed him on either cheek. Then Haidar went out into the night, and within ten minutes they heard the great door clang behind him, and the hoof-beats of his Turkish horse resounding from the karst.

“No more to-night, Rasul. I see that you have brought more than news. You have borne anxiety on these young shoulders, and now you shall shift it to mine. Whose money brings you hither?”

“That of Dr. Trench. I come from Peshawar.”

“The money shall be paid. You left Peshawar when?”

“April twenty-third.”

“By railroad?”

“No, by camel. I went to Tashkent—and consulted Dr. Yukitch.”

Stepan Beg gazed at him. “It is the work of a hero. Mohammed Beg, who is Saadi’s sworn brother in God, could not have done more. To-morrow shall be a festival in Starigrad. To-morrow morning you must visit the houses of my people, and wield your magic in one or two—for some are ailing, and I do not bring the doctor from Fotcha every week. And now to bed, my brave lad—to Saadi’s own bed. I will light you there.”

And so by ten o’clock on the evening of June 21, Jaffer slept in Saadi’s bed, as Saadi had slept in Jaffer’s. He hardly stirred till seven in the morning, so knowing are the little grey cells of the brain when load of care is lifted.

At eight he emerged much refreshed and washed, and Stepan Beg received him kindly. They had coffee and melons and honey-cakes together in the selamlik, and then for a little time Jaffer was left to himself, having been invited to examine the books and manuscripts in the case on the western wall. He found many of them written in Glagolitic, and of very great age.

Later the two men went out into the June morning. A flock of doves followed Stepan Beg, lighting on his shoulders. “Their line is as old as mine, Rasul, and no one but a member of the family feeds them. They go back to a day when we were Christians, and there is I know not what meaning in them. They flock to Saadi as birds would flock to David. It is written in eight and thirty, which is called Sad.”

They proceeded to the Kula and mounted by a circular stairway of stone, story after story, to the very top. Here was a comfortable room, with crenellated windows. Far below, to the south, appeared the polje which Jaffer had noted, a very Eden, and beyond it the buildings of a little tannery. Between the tannery and the polje lay the village, on both sides of the river. Jaffer noted a wooden bridge and a little Orthodox church. Beyond were the mountains of Montenegro. To the west stretched the karst, fantastic, grey, and forbidding. In the east the hills of Servia were visible. To the north, beyond miles of lower mountains, arose the snowpeaks of the Treskavitcha Alps. At the foot of the castle was the little stone bridge by which the northern road started for Serajevo.

“It is the Saadi bridge,” said Stepan Beg, “and may the soul of the designer rest in peace. Four centuries ago my family abandoned the attempt to live here, and went to the Sandjak. The kula fell into ruins; the broken wall choked the river, and there was no village. Within fifty years the place was known as Starigrad,[5] and it has never lost the name. Three centuries ago we were living almost like serfs in the Sandjak, but there arose among us a dreamer of dreams. It was he who longed for the old home, and believed that the lake could be drained. It was he who made his way to Stamboul, penniless, seeking an engineer. There he found Saadi of Isfahan, himself a dreamer of dreams, himself an exile. They returned together to Starigrad, and with Saadi’s slender means they wrought the miracle. Here Saadi died, before the kula was rebuilt; but, dying, he left the plan for the bridge. Yonder he lies, among my people, and since his day there has always been a Saadi in our line, and the knowledge of Persian is kept alive among us.”

They descended, and walked down to the village, Jaffer carrying such medical resources as he could muster. Holiday had been proclaimed, and the streets were full of cheerful people. The village was clean. By any standard, even a Dutch one, the village was clean, and that was a greater miracle than the draining of the lake. They went from house to house where the aged or the ailing were, Stepan Beg leading the way.

Jaffer found little to do that morning. There was not a case of tuberculosis, the scourge even of Herzegovina, in the whole place. He did find a very lame back, where a little weazened man had fallen down stairs. As he made his examination the little man quizzically asked him if he had ever fallen down stairs himself. Stepan explained that the kmet was making a sly reference to old Nasradin, the comic figure of Herzegovinian history, who had declined to have a broken rib set save by a hakim who had suffered from a broken rib.

At noon the whole village swarmed up to the castle, where, in the open, six fat sheep were roasting on spits. The baker brought a cartload of white bread. Baskets of melons and figs made their appearance. There was even a reasonable amount of red wine and plum brandy. Such gay apparel, with tinkling showers of ancient coins, Jaffer had never seen on women even at home.

After the feast the kolo was danced to shake it down. And as the evening drew on, the whole crowd gathered about the village minstrel to hear the songs of ancient days. There were no Turks present, and no Moslems save Stepan Beg and Jaffer, and the guslar knew his master well. The songs he sang were all of Prince Marko, who grieved that he must fight his own people at Kosovo, and who was willing to die for them. A mighty hero was Marko, slayer of Turks and avenger of wrongs. His mace was passing heavy of iron and silver and gold. He never died, but still sleeps in a cave, and will come again to unite all Serbians. There beside him is his sword, plunged into a rock up to the hilt, and when the appointed time is at hand, the sword will itself leap from the rock and Marko will awake. Exploit after exploit was sung, and the excitement grew intense.

Then suddenly the guslar rose and began the last of all, and Stepan Beg translated it for his guest, minute by minute. All in a magical moment Marko had become Marko Jaffer, who had set out from the ends of the earth to bear glad tidings to Starigrad. But Marko Jaffer was met by a mighty giant, Moosa India, and was struck down by a mountain. He threw it off, only to be plunged into a river. From this he struggled out and wielded his mace, but the monster was mightier than he. Then Marko Jaffer called for help in the name of Starigrad, and the saints appeared in the clouds above. St. Elijah hurled his thunder, St. Sava threw down snow, St. Mary of the Fire burned the monster’s mace with lightning, St. Thomas dried up the river, St. Panthelmyion made the rocks to burn beneath the monster’s feet. The monster fled, and Peter and Paul descended with wine and bread to feed the fainting traveller and speed him on his way. And so came mighty Marko Jaffer to Starigrad in guise of a young physician, slender and beautiful, pretending to be a Turk but deceiving none. And here he uttered his glad tidings, that brave and laughing Saadi Beg had taken to himself a wife, fair Ilsa of the West, who soon would bear him a noble son to rule in Starigrad. Nay, more—here the guslar, a little grey man, assumed a rapt expression—within a few days perhaps, when Vidov Dan had come, Saadi Beg would himself return!

It was too late to correct that last little touch of rhapsody and vision, for the crowd went wild with joy. They raised the guslar and bore him on their shoulders. They crowded before Jaffer and kissed his fingers. They shook Stepan by the hand till the strong wrist ached. And Jaffer perceived, what before had not entered his head, that his news was of importance to more people than Stepan and Saadi.

When the sun had set and the villagers had descended to the valley, host and guest waited for the return of Haidar. But at midnight he had not come, and Stepan Beg was grave and silent.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] “Old Castle.”