Cæsar Cascabel/Part 1/Chapter IV

CHAPTER IV. A GREAT RESOLUTION.
RUFFIANS!

This was indeed the only name suitable to such wretches. The robbery, however, was none the less an accomplished fact.

Each evening Mr. Cascabel had been in the habit of seeing whether the safe lay still in its nook. Now, the day before, well he remembered it, worn out with the hardships of the day and overpowered with sleep, he had omitted his habitual inspection. No doubt, while John, Sander and Clovy had gone down with him for the articles that had been left at the turning of the pass, the two drivers had made their way unnoticed into the inner compartment, removed the safe, and hidden it among the brushwood around the camping-ground. That was the reason why they had declined to sleep inside the Fair Rambler. They had afterward waited until everybody was asleep, and had then run away with the farmer's horses.

Out of all the savings of the little troupe, there was nothing left now but a few dollars that Mr. Cascabel had in his pocket. And was it not lucky that the rascals had not taken Vermont and Gladiator away as well!

The dogs, already grown accustomed to the presence of the two men for the past twenty-four hours, had not even given the alarm, and the evil deed had been done without any difficulty.

Where were the thieves to be caught, now that they had made for the Sierra? Where was the money to be recovered? And without the money, how was the Atlantic to be crossed?

The poor people gave vent to their grief, some with tears, others with outbursts of indignation. At the very first, Mr. Cascabel was a prey to a real fit of rage, and his wife and children found it very difficult to calm him down. But, after having thus given way to his passion, he recovered possession of himself, as a man who has no time to waste in vain recriminations.

“Accursed safe!” burst from Cornelia's lips in the midst of her tears.

“Sure enough!” said John, “if we had had no safe, our money—”

“Yes!—A brilliant idea I hatched that day, to go buy that devil of a chest!” exclaimed Mr. Cascabel. “I guess the best thing to do when you have a safe is to put nothing in it! A great boon, to be sure, that it was proof against fire, as the shopman told me, when it was not proof against thieves!”

It must be admitted, the blow was a hard one for the poor people, and it is no wonder they felt utterly crushed by it. Robbed of two thousand dollars that had been earned at the cost of so much toil!

“What shall we do now?” inquired John.

“Do?” replied Mr. Cascabel, whose gnashing teeth seemed to grind his words as he spoke. “It is very simple!—Nay, it is most uncommonly simple! Without extra horses we can't possibly go on climbing up the pass. Well, I vote we go back to the farm! It may be, those ruffians are there!”

“Unless they did not go back!” suggested Clovy.

And, truly, this was more than likely. However, as Mr. Cascabel said once more, the only course open to them was returning on their steps, since going ahead was out of the question.

Thereupon Vermont and Gladiator were put to, and the wagon began its journey down through the pass of the Sierra.

This was but too easy a task alas! You can put on speed when you go downhill; but it was with heads hanging down and without a word our folks jogged down, save and except when a volley of curses broke forth from Cascabel.

At twelve o'clock in the day the Fair Rambler stopped in front of the farm. The two thieves had not returned. On hearing what had taken place the farmer flew into a passion in which sympathy for the show-people played not the slightest part. If they had lost their money, he had been robbed of his three horses, he had! Once away in the mountain, the thieves must have cut across to the other side of the pass. A nice race he might have after them now! And the farmer, beside himself with excitement, had wellnigh held Mr. Cascabel responsible for the loss of his horses!

“That's a rich idea!” said the latter. “Why do you keep such scoundrels in your service, and why do you hire them to respectable people?”

“How did I know?” the farmer replied. “Not a word of complaint had I ever against them!”

In any case the robbery had been perpetrated, and the situation was heart-breaking.

But, if Mrs. Cascabel found it hard to master her own feelings, her husband with that solid foundation of gypsy philosophy so peculiarly his own, succeeded in recovering his coolness.

And when they were assembled together in the Fair Rambler, a conversation was engaged among all the members of the family,—a most important conversation, “out of which was to come forth a great resolution,” so said Mr. Cascabel, strongly rolling his r's as he spoke:

“Children, there are circumstances in life, when a strong-willed man must be able to make up his mind on the spur of the moment. Indeed I have observed that those circumstances are generally unpleasant ones. Witness those in which we now are, thanks to those rascals. Well, this is no time to hesitate to the right or to the left, the more so as we have not half a dozen roads before us. We have but one, and that's the road we shall take immediately.”

“Which?” asked Sander.

“I am going to tell you what I have in my head,” answered Mr. Cascabel. “But, to know if my idea is practicable, John must fetch his book with the maps in it.”

“My atlas?” said John.

“Yes, your atlas. You must be a good fellow at geography! Run for your atlas.”

“Straight off, father.”

And when the atlas had been laid on the table, the father continued as follows:

“It is an understood thing, my children, that, although those ruffians have stolen our safe—why did I ever think of buying a safe!—it is an understood thing, I say, that we don't give up our idea of going back to Europe.”

“Give it up?—never!” exclaimed Mrs. Cascabel.

“A good answer, Cornelia! We want to go back to Europe, and go back we shall! We want to see France again, and see her again we shall! It is not because we have been robbed by scoundrels that—I, for one, must breathe my native air once more, or I am a dead man.”

“And you shan't die, Cæsar! We have made our start for Europe, we shall get there, no matter what—”

“And how shall we?” reiterated John. “How? I should like to know.”

“How, that's the question,” answered Mr. Cascabel, scratching his forehead. “Of course, by giving performances along the road, we shall be able to get day by day what will land the Fair Rambler in New York. But, when there, no money left to pay for our passage, no boat to take us across! And without a boat, no possibility of crossing the sea except we swim! Now, I fancy that will be rather hard.”

“Very hard, boss,” replied Clovy, “unless we had fins.”

“Have you any?”

“Not that I know of.”

“If so, hold your peace, and listen.”

Then addressing his eldest son:

“John, open your atlas, and show us the exact spot where we are!”

John found out the map of North America, and laid it under his father's eyes. All eagerly looked whilst he pointed with his finger to a spot in the Sierra Nevada a little to the east of Sacramento.

“This is it!” he said.

“Very well,” answered Mr. Cascabel. “And so, if we were on the other side of the range, we should have the whole territory of the United States to cross, right through to New York?”

“We should, father.”

“And how many miles might that be?”

“Somewhere about four thousand miles.”

“Very good; then we should have the ocean to cross?”

“Of course.”

“And how many miles to the other side of that ocean?”

“Three thousand or thereabouts.”

“And once on French soil, we may say we are in Normandy?”

“We may.”

“And all that, put together, gives a total of—”

“Seven thousand miles!” cried out little Napoleona, who had been reckoning it to herself.

“See, the little one!” said Mr. Cascabel. “Isn't she quick at figures! So, we say seven thousand miles?”

“About that, father,” answered John, “and I think I'm allowing good measure.”

“Well, children, that little strip of ribbon would be nothing for the Fair Rambler, if there was not a sea between America and Europe, an unfortunate sea blocking up the road for the wagon! And that sea can't be got over without money, that is, without a boat—”

“Or without fins!” repeated Clovy.

“Clovy has got fins on the brain!” said Mr. Cascabel with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Well then, it is beyond all evidence,” remarked John, “that we can't go home by the east!”

“Can't is the word, my son, as you say; the thing can't possibly be done. But, who knows if by the west?”

“By the west?” exclaimed John, looking up at his father.

“Yes! Look it up, will you? And show me what track we should follow by the west?”

“First, we should go up through California, Oregon and Washington Territory up to the Northern frontier of the United States.”

“And from there?”

“From that time, we should be in British Columbia.”

“Pugh!” said Mr. Cascabel. “And could we not avoid that Columbia by any means?”

“No, father.”

“Well, go on! And after that?”

“After we had reached the frontier to the north of Columbia, we should find the province of Alaska.”

“Which is English?”

“No, Russian—at least up to the present, for there is talk of its being annexed—”

“To England?”

“No! To the United States.”

“That's right! And after Alaska, where are we?”

“In the Behring Strait, which separates the two continents, America and Asia.”

“And how many miles to this strait?”

“Three thousand three hundred, father.”

“Keep that in your head, Napoleona; you'll add it all up by and by.”

“And so shall I?” asked Sander.

“And you too.”

“Now, your strait, John, how wide might it be?”

“Maybe sixty miles, father.”

“What! sixty miles!” remarked Mrs. Cascabel.

“A mere stream, Cornelia; we may as well call it a stream.”

“How's that?--A stream?”

“Of course! Is not your Behring Strait frozen over in winter, John?”

“It is, father! For four or five months, it is one solid mass.”

“Bravo! and at that time people might walk across it on the ice?”

“People can and do so.”

“That's what I call an excellent strait!”

“But, after that,” inquired Cornelia, “will there be no more seas to cross?”

“No! After that, we have the continent of Asia, which stretches along as far as Russia in Europe.”

“Show us that, John.”

And John took, in the atlas, the general map of Asia, which Mr. Cascabel examined attentively.

“Well! There is everything shaping itself as if to order,” said he; “so long as there are not too many wild countries in your Asia?”

“Not too many, father.”

“And Europe, where is it?”

“There,” replied John, laying the tip of his finger on the Oural.

“And what is the distance from this strait—this little stream called Behring—to Russia in Europe?”

“They reckon nearly five thousand miles.”

“And from that to France?”

“About eighteen hundred.”

“And all that makes up, from Sacramento?”

“Ten thousand one hundred and sixty,” cried at the same time Sander and Napoleona.

“You'll both get the prize!” said Mr. Cascabel. “So then, by the east we have about seven thousand miles?”

“Yes, father.”

“And by the west, roughly speaking, ten thousand?”

“Yes, say a difference of three thousand miles.”

“Three thousand miles more on the western route, but no sea on the road! Well, then, children, since we can't go one way, we must needs go the other, and that's what I vote we do, as any donkey would.”

“A funny thing! Walking home backwards!” cried Sander.

“No, not backwards! It is going home by an opposite direction!”

“Quite so, father,” replied John. “Still, I would have you bear in mind that, seeing the enormous distance, we shall never reach France this year, if we go by the west!”

“Why so?”

“Because, three thousand miles in the difference is something for the Fair Rambler,—and for its team!”

“Well, children, if we are not in Europe this year, we shall be next year! And, now I think of it, as we shall have to go through Russia, where are held the fairs of Perm, Kazan and Nijni, that I so often hear of, we shall stop in those places, and I promise you the famous Cascabel family will gather fresh laurels there, and a fresh supply of cash, too!”

What objections can you make to a man when he has his answer for everything?

In truth, it is with the human soul as with iron. Under repeated blows, its molecules get more firmly kneaded together, it becomes thoroughly wrought, it acquires a greater power of resistance. And that was exactly the effect now being produced on these honest show-people. In the course of their laborious, adventurous, nomadic life in which they had had so many trials to bear, they surely never had been in such a sorry plight, with all their savings lost, and their return home by the usual means a matter of impossibility. Yet this last blow of the sledge hammer of ill-luck had so mercilessly battered them that they now felt a match for anything the future might have in store for them.

Mrs. Cascabel, her two sons and her daughter all joined in unanimous applause of the father's proposal. And still, could anything seem more unreasonable? Mr. Cascabel must indeed have “lost his head” in his desire to return to Europe, to think of carrying such a plan into execution. Pshaw! What was it, to have to rough it across the West of America and the whole of Siberia, so long as it was in the direction of France!

“Bravo! Bravo!” exclaimed Napoleona.

“Encore! Encore!” added Sander, who could find no more suitable words to express his enthusiasm.

“Say, father,” asked Napoleona, “shall we see the Emperor of Russia?”

“Of course we shall, if his Majesty the Czar is in the habit of coming to the Nijni fair to enjoy himself.”

“And we shall perform before him?”

“No doubt!—if he will express the least desire to see us!”

“Oh, how I should love to kiss him on both cheeks!”

“You may have to be satisfied with one cheek, my little girlie!” answered Mr. Cascabel. “But, if you do kiss him, take good care you don't spoil his crown!”

As to Clovy, the feeling he experienced toward his master was nothing short of admiration.

And so, the itinerary being now regularly planned out, the Fair Rambler was to trail it up through California, Oregon and Washington Territory to the Anglo-American frontier. They had some fifty dollars left,—the pocket-money which, luckily, had not been put up in the safe. However, as so trifling a sum could not suffice to the daily wants of such a journey, it was agreed that the little troupe would give performances in the towns and villages. There was no regret to be felt, either, at the delay occasioned by these halts. Had they not to wait until the strait should be entirely frozen over and afford safe passage to the wagon? Now, this could not come to pass before seven or eight months.

“And, to wind up, it will be ill-luck with a vengeance,” said Mr. Cascabel, “if we don't get a few good takings before we reach the end of America!”

In truth, throughout the whole of Alaska, “making money” among wandering tribes of Indians, was very problematical. But, as far as the western frontier of the United States, in that portion of the new continent hitherto unvisited by the Cascabel family, there was no doubt but the public, on the mere faith of its reputation, should gladly give its members the welcome they deserved.

Beyond that point, our travelers would be in British Columbia, and although, there, the towns were numerous, never, no, never would Mr, Cascabel stoop so low as to open his hands for English shillings or pence. It was bad enough already, it was too bad, that the Fair Rambler and its occupants should be compelled to journey a distance of over six hundred miles on the soil of a British colony!

As to Siberia, with its long desert steppes, all they would meet there would be perhaps some of those Samoyedes or Tchuktchis who seldom leave the coast. There, no takings in perspective; that was a foregone conclusion; proof evident thereof would be forthcoming in due time.

All being agreed upon, Mr. Cascabel decided that the Fair Rambler would start off next morning at daybreak. Meanwhile, there was supper wanted. Away Cornelia set to work with her usual heartiness, and while she was at her cooking-stove, with her kitchen-help Clovy:

“All the same,” said she, “that's a grand idea of Mr. Cascabel's.”

“I believe you, mistress, a grand idea like all those that simmer in his pot,—I mean, that gallop through his brain.”

“And then, Clovy, no sea to cross on this road, and no sea-sickness.”

“Unless—the ice should heave up and down in the strait!”

“That's enough, Clovy, and no ill omens!”

Meanwhile, Sander was doing a few somersaults, with which his father was delighted. Napoleona, on her side, was executing some graceful steps, while the dogs frisked about her. Nor was it needless now to keep in good form, since the performances were going to be resumed.

Suddenly, Sander called out:

“Why, the animals of the troupe! Nobody thought of asking their opinion about our great journey!”

And running to Vermont:

“Well, my old fellow, what do you think of it, eh? A little nine thousand miles of a jog?”

Then, turning toward Gladiator:

“What will your old legs say about it?”

Both horses neighed at the same time as if in token of cheerful assent.

It was now the turn of the dogs.

“Here, Wagram! here, Marengo, what jolly old capers you are going to cut, eh?”

A merry bark and a gambol seemed to supply the desired reply. It was plain that Wagram and Marengo were ready to go the wide world over at the beck of their master.

The ape was next called upon to speak his mind.

“Come, John Bull!” exclaimed Sander, “don't put on such a long face! You'll see lots of countries, my old boy! And, if you are cold, we'll put your warm jacket on you! And those funny faces of yours? I do hope you have not forgotten how to make them, have you?”

No! John Bull had not forgotten any such thing, and the antics he made there and then excited the laughter of all around him.

Remained the parrot.

Sander took it out of its cage. The bird strutted about, nodding its head and “squaring itself” on its legs.

“Well, Jako,” asked Sander, “you say nothing? Have you lost your tongue?—We are going on such a glorious journey! Are you pleased, Jako?”

Jako drew from the depths of its throat a series of articulate sounds in which the r's rolled as if they had come out of Mr. Cascabel's powerful larynx. “Bravo!” cried Sander. “He is quite satisfied—Jako approves the motion! Jako votes with the ayes!”

And the young lad, his hands on the ground, and his feet up in the air, began a series of somersaults and contortions which gained him the applause of his father

Just then, Cornelia appeared.

“Supper is laid,” she cried.

One moment later, all the guests were sitting down in the dining-room, and the meal was consumed to the last crumb of bread.

It would have seemed as though everything was forgotten already, when Clovy brought the conversation back to the famous safe:

“Why, the thought now strikes me, boss. What a sell for those two scoundrels!”

“How's that?” inquired John.

“As they haven't the word for the lock, they'll never be able to open the safe.”

“And that's why I feel sure they'll bring it back!” answered Mr. Cascabel with an outburst of laughter.

And this extraordinary man, wholly absorbed by his new project, had already forgotten both the theft and the thieves!

César Cascabel/Première partie/Chapitre IV