Cæsar Cascabel/Part 2/Chapter XI

CHAPTER XI. THE URAL MOUNTAINS.
THE chain of the Ural is deserving of the tourist's visit, quite as much, at least, as are the Pyrenees and the Alps. In the language of the Tartars, the word “Ural” signifies “belt,” and here we have, in very truth, a belt stretching from the Caspian to the Arctic Sea over a distance of 2900 kilometers,—a belt ornamented with precious stones, enriched with fine metals, gold, silver and platinum,—a belt girt around the loins of the old continent, between Asia and Europe. A vast orographic system, it pours its waters through the beds of the Ural River, the Kara, the Petchora, the Kama, and a number of tributaries fed by the melting of the snows. A superb barrier of granite and quartz, it shoots up its needles and peaks to an average height of 2300 yards above the level of the ocean.

To our travelers, the Urals were suggestive of other thoughts besides.

And, first of all, while crossing the chain they would find it difficult to avoid those villages, those zavodys, those numerous hamlets, the population of which owes its origin to the former workmen employed in the mines. On the other hand, on its way through these grand defiles, Mr. Cascabel's troupe need have no fear of military posts, since their papers were duly legalized. And even though they had struck the range in its central part, they would have had no hesitation to follow the beautiful Ekaterinburg road, one of the most frequented in that region, so as to emerge from the mountain on the territory of the government of that name. But, since Ortik's itinerary had brought them farther north, it was better to enter the pass of the Petchora, and go down, afterwards, as far as Perm.

That is what they proposed doing on the very next morning.

When daylight came, they were able to ascertain how considerable the number of their assailants had been. Should they have succeeded in forcing their way into the Fair Rambler, not one of its occupants would have survived the carnage.

Two or three scores of wolves lay dead on the ground,—of those large-sized wolves, so formidable to the wayfarers across the steppe. The main body had fled as if the devil was after them; and even he could hardly have “made it hotter” for them. As to the two paraffined animals, their charred remains were discovered a few hundred paces away from the clearing.

And now, one question had to be solved: at this end of the Petchora pass, the Fair Rambler was at a considerable distance from the nearest zavody, for there are few of them on the eastern side of the Ural.

“How shall we manage?” asked John. “Our reindeer have run away—”

“If they had only run away,” answered Mr. Cascabel, “we might perhaps get them back again; but it is very probable the poor things were devoured last night!”

“Yes, the poor things!” repeated Napoleona. “I was so fond of them; just as fond as I was of Vermont and Gladiator.”

“And they would have been food for the wolves, if they had not drowned,” said Sander.

“Just what would have happened them!” added Cæser Cascabel, heaving a deep sigh. “But how are we to replace our deer?”

“I shall start off at once to the nearest village,” said Mr. Sergius, “and get horses at any price. If Ortik can show me the way—”

“Ready to go when you like, sir,” replied Ortik.

“Evidently,” added Cascabel, “that is the only thing to be done!”

And it would have been done, that same morning, if, to the astonishment of all, two of the reindeer had not been seen coming back across the clearing about eight o'clock.

Sander was the first to perceive them.

“Father!” he cried, “father! Here they are! They are coming home!”

“What, alive?”

“Well, these two don't look as if they had been entirely devoured, since they walk—”

“Unless the wolves had left them their legs!” suggested Clovy.

“Oh, the good creatures!” exclaimed Napoleona. “I must go and give them a kiss!”

And running to her two lost pets, she threw her arms around their necks and embraced them heartily.

But, alas, two of them could not have drawn the Fair Rambler. Luckily, several others presently began to appear by the edge of the wood, and, within an hour, fourteen had mustered back out of the twenty that had come from Tourkeff.

“Hurrah for the reindeer!” shouted young Sander. “Only, it's a pity they don't know what I'm crying out!”

The six animals, now missing, had been devoured by the wolves ere they had time to snap their fetters off, and their carcasses were afterwards found in the vicinity. The fourteen others had run away, on the approach of the wild beasts, and instinct now brought them back to the camp.

No need to tell how the good creatures were welcomed home. With them, the wagon could now resume its journey on through the defile of the Ural. Every one would put his shoulder to the wheel in the more difficult passes, and Mr. Cascabel would be able to make his triumphal entry into Perm.

What troubled him, however, was that the Fair Rambler had lost something of its splendor of former days, with its sides belabored with the teeth of the wolves, its panels scratched and clawed. Even before this recent siege, the billows and the squalls had played havoc with the harmony of its coats of paint and the relief of its gilt borders. The snow-drifts had half slashed away the escutcheon of the Cascabels. What time and skill it would now take the artist to restore its ancient luster! For, in truth, the combined efforts of Cornelia and Clovy were now powerless.

By ten o'clock the reindeer were harnessed, and a start was made, the men going on foot, as the ground was rising sensibly.

The weather was fine and the heat bearable in this upper region of the chain. But how often they had to help the willing team, and clear out the wheels of the wagon from the ruts into which they would sink axle-deep. At every sharp angle of the pass it became necessary to lay all hands on the Fair Rambler, lest it should knock, fore or aft, against the edges of the rocks.

These defiles in the Urals are not the work of man. Nature alone has wrought a passage for the outpourings of the chains through these meanderous clifts. A small river, an affluent of the Sosva, came down, right here, toward the west. Sometimes its bed became so wide as to leave the wayfarer barely a narrow zigzag path. Here, its banks, standing almost perpendicular, were covered with the merest layer of moss and rocky plants. There, their gentle slope bristled with trees, with firs and pines, birches and larch-trees and other indigenous growths of Northern Europe. And far away, lost in the clouds, were the profiles of the snow-capped crests that fed the torrents of this orographic system.

During this first day's march, the little troupe met not a soul along this evidently unfrequented pass. Ortik and Kirschef seemed pretty well acquainted with it. Two or three times, however, they appeared to hesitate, in places where several tracks presented themselves. They would then stop, and converse together in a low tone,—which could surprise nobody, since there was no motive for suspecting their good faith.

Still Kayette never ceased to watch them, unknown to them. Those secret conversations, the glances they exchanged, excited her distrust more and more. They, on their part, were far from dreaming that the young woman felt the least misgiving toward them.

At the fall of day, Mr. Sergius selected a halting place by the bank of the little river, and when supper was over, Mr. Cascabel, Kirschef, and Clovy undertook the task of mounting guard as a measure of precaution, one after the other. It must be confessed, they deserved no little credit, either, for not falling asleep at their post, after the fatigues of the day and their want of sleep during the preceding night.

Next day, another stage up the defile, which was becoming narrower as it ascended higher,—a stage as laborious as the previous one, and at the end of which an advance of five or six miles had been made in twenty-four hours. This, however, had been foreseen, and reckoned among the delays of the journey.

More than once Mr, Sergius and his friend John were greatly tempted to pursue some fine head of game through the wooded gorges, right and left of their track. In the occasional clearings, whole flocks of elks, deer, and hares were seen to scamper. And Cornelia would gladly have accepted a little fresh venison. But, if game was plentiful, the ammunition, it will be remembered, had been quite exhausted during the engagement with the wolves, and it could not now be renewed before the next village had been reached. And so the guns hung useless on the rack, and Wagram would often stare at his master and positively looked as if he uttered the words:

“Say, boss, you've given up shooting altogether, have you?”

Still one circumstance there was, in which the intervention of firearms would have been fully justified.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon; the Fair Rambler was coming along a rocky bank, when a bear, whose presence had been announced by the barking of the dogs, appeared on the other side of the stream.

It was an enormous brute; and there he sat on his hind quarters, swinging his huge head to and fro, and shaking his thick brown fur, as the little caravan was advancing toward him.

Did he think of pouncing upon them? Was it a look of curiosity or one of envy he cast on the team and their drivers?

John had silenced Wagram, wisely deeming it useless to excite this formidable animal, as they were unarmed. Why run the risk of changing his may-be friendly or careless humor into hostile disposition, when it was quite possible for him to simply cross from one bank of the little river to the other?

And that is why it came to pass that both parties stood looking at each other quietly, like two travelers crossing each other on the highway, while Mr. Cascabel muttered; “What a pity we can't capture this magnificent Bruin!—A genuine Bruin from the Ural mountains, ladies and gentlemen!—What a sensation he would make!”

It would have been hard, however, to induce him to join the troupe; he evidently preferred the wilds of his forest home to the glories of the showman's career, for he presently raised himself lazily on all fours, gave a last swing to his big head, and half-trotted himself out of sight.

A return of civilities being always de rigiieur, the bear's parting nod was acknowledged by the polite raising of Sander's hat. John would much rather have raised his gun for him to the level of his shoulder; but what could he do?

At six in the evening, another halt in very analogous conditions to those of the previous evening. Next morning another start at five o'clock and another day's painful progress. Always plenty of toiling, but thus far no accident.

And now the worst of the journey was over, since the Fair Rambler had now reached the culminating point of the pass, the very apex of the defile. There was nothing left now but to go down the western slopes of the mountain toward Europe.

That evening, the 6th of July, the worn-out team stopped at the entrance into a sinuous gorge, flanked on the right by a thick wood.

The heat had been stifling all the day. To the east, heavy clouds stood out in bold relief against the pale vapors of the horizon, thanks to the long well-marked streak that formed their basis.

“There is a storm coming on,” said John.

“Worse luck!” replied Ortik. “In the Urals, storms are terrible sometimes!”

“Well, we shall get under shelter,” rejoined Mr. Cascabel. “I'd rather have the storms than the wolves!”

“Kayette,” said Napoleona to the young Indian girl, “are you afraid of thunder?”

“Not at all, my pet,” replied Kayette.

“You are quite right too, little Kayette,” remarked John “You must not be afraid!”

“That's all very fine!” answered his sister. “But when you can't help yourself!”

“Oh, the little coward!” cried Sander. “Why, you silly girl, thunder is only a game of skittles with very big bowls.”

“Yes, bowls of fire that come down on your head, sometimes!” retorted the little girl, just as a sudden flash of lightning made her close her eyelids.

They hastened to organize the encampment so that every one might get under cover before the storm came on. Then, after supper, it was arranged that the men would keep watch as during the preceding nights.

Mr. Sergius was going to offer his services when Ortik anticipated him, saying:

“Would you like Kirschef and me to take the first watch to-night?”

“As you like,” answered Mr. Sergius. “At midnight, John and I will come and relieve you.”

“That's settled, Mr. Sergius!” said Ortik.

Natural as this proposal was, it drew Kayette's attention, and vaguely, almost without a thought, she felt a presentiment of something wrong being in contemplation.

Just now, the storm burst out with great violence. Flashes of lightning cast their fitful rays through the summits of the trees and the roll of the thunder traversing the space was over and over re-echoed through the mountains.

Napoleona, the better to shut her eyes and her ears, had covered herself up in her little bed. She soon had imitators. though not through the same cause, and by nine o'clock, all inside the Fair Rambler were fast asleep despite the roar of thunder and the hissing of the gale.

Kayette alone was not sleeping. She had not undressed, and though almost exhausted with fatigue, she could not rest for a moment. She shuddered with anguish when she thought that the safety of all those dear ones was intrusted to the keeping of the two Russian sailors. And so, after a long hour had passed, she should ascertain what they were doing: she raised the curtain of the little window above her couch, and peeped out.

Ortik and Kirschef had just interrupted the conversation they were having together, and were moving toward the opening of the gorge, where a man had suddenly appeared.

Ortik immediately beckoned to the latter not to come nearer for fear of the dogs; indeed, under ordinary circumstances, Wagram and Marengo would already have announced his approach, but, owing to the stifling temperature, they had sought a shelter under the Fair Rambler.

Ortik and Kirschef went over to the man, a few words were exchanged, and by the light of a flash, Kayette saw that the sailors followed him under the trees.

Who was he, why had the sailors communicated with him, were things that should be found out at once.

Slowly, softly, Kayette slipped out without disturbing a single one of her companions. As she passed by John, she heard him pronouncing her name—

Had he seen her?

No! John was dreaming, dreaming of her!

Noiselessly she opened the door and slid it back again, and when she found herself outside:

“Now!” she whispered to herself.

No fear, no hesitation even, was there in the young woman's breast. Still, it was her life she risked if ever she was discovered.

Kayette plunged into the forest, the underwood of which flared up as if with the glare of a huge conflagration whenever a flash of lightning rent the clouds above. Creeping along the thicket, in the middle of tall grass, she reached the trunk of an enormous larch tree. A whisper she heard some twenty paces beyond, caused her to stop where she was.

Seven men were there; Ortik and Kirschef had joined them; they were all under a tree, and this is what Kayette overheard of the conversation, carried on in Russian.

“Devilish lucky,” said Ortik, “that I took the Petchora pass! A fellow is always sure to meet old chums this way! Am I right, Rostof?”

Rostof was the man that Ortik and Kirschef had perceived by the edge of the wood.

“We have been following that wagon these two days,” said he; “on the quiet, of course. As we had recognized your two faces in there, we thought there might be a good job on, perhaps.”

“A good job, or may-be two,” answered Ortik.

“But where do you come from?” inquired Rostof.

“Right away from America, where we had joined the Karnof fellows.”

“And these people you are with, what are they?”

“French show people, of the name of Cascabel, coming home to Europe. We have a long tale of traveling adventures to tell you some other time. Let me come to the chief thing—”

“Ortik,” interrupted one of the men, “is there any coin in that wagon?”

“A remnant of two or three thousand roubles.”

“And you have not taken French leave of those French people yet?” asked Rostof with a sneer.

“No, there is a bigger haul to make than a paltry thing like that; and we wanted more hands.”

“What is it?”

“Well, listen here. If Kirschef and I have managed to come all the way through Siberia, without any risk and cross the frontier, it's thanks to these Cascabels. But what we have done, there is another man that has done it, too, in the hope that no one would go ferret him out among a lot of acrobats. He is a Russian, who has no more right than we have to set his foot in Russia, although the charges against him aren't the same color as ours. He is a political convict, a man of what they call noble birth, and as much fortune as you like. Now, his secret is known to nobody but the said Cascabel and his wife—”

“How did you come to know it?”

“By a conversation we overheard the other day at Mouji between the showman and his Russian friend.”

“And his name is—?”

“For the world at large, his name is Sergius; but in reality it is Count Narkine; and it's as much as his life is worth, if ever he is caught on Russian ground.”

“Wait till I think,” said Rostof. “Count Narkine—Isn't that the son of Prince Narkine, the same that was transported to Siberia, and they made such fuss about him when he escaped out of it, a few years ago?”

“That's the man!” answered Ortik. “Well, Count Narkine has millions of roubles, and I reckon he won't fight shy of giving us one,—if we threaten to give him up to the police!”

“That's a mighty good idea, Ortik! But what's the use of us in that concern?”

“Because it must not look as if Kirschef and me had anything to do with this first job, so that if it turned out no good, we might fall back on the other. For this card to turn up trump, we two must remain for the present as we are, the two shipwrecked Russian mariners, saved and brought home by the Cascabels. By and by, when we have got rid of them, we can roam over the whole country, and the police will never dream of suspecting us when we've got our tights on.”

“Say, Ortik, shall we attack you to-night, and pounce on Count Narkine, and let him know our price for keeping mum?”

“Not yet, not yet!” said the sailor. “As the count means to push on as far as Perm to see his old father, better let him go all the way. When he is there, one fine morning, he'll get a note requesting him to come to a certain rendezvous—for a very urgent affair—and then you can have the pleasure of making his acquaintance.”

“Just now, there is nothing to be done, then?”

“Nothing at all, but try and get on ahead of us, and be in Perm a little before our caravan.”

“Right you are!” answered Rostof.

And the wretches parted, without the least suspicion of having been watched.

Ortik and Kirschef returned to the encampment a few moments after Kayette, and concluded from the general stillness that their absence had passed off unnoticed.

And now Kayette was in possession of the plan of these monsters. She had learnt, moreover, that Mr. Sergius was Count Narkine, and that his very life was threatened, as well as that of her French friends. The secret that had hitherto sheltered him was going to be betrayed, if he did not consent to part with a portion of his fortune!

Terrified at her discovery, she felt for a few moments crushed under its blow, but her resolute determination to foil Ortik's designs soon overcame all other feelings, and she strove to think out the means of doing so. What a night she spent! What anxious hours she lay there thinking, and thinking.

Might not all this have been a horrible dream?

No, it was indeed a reality.

And poor Kayette could entertain no doubt about it, when, next morning, she heard Ortik say to her good Mr. Cascabel:

“You know we intended, Kirschef and myself, to leave you when we got over the mountain, and make our way to Riga. Well, we have been thinking we had better go with you to Perm and ask the governor, there, to send us home. Would it be the same to you to let us go on with you?”

“Why, of course, my friends!” answered Cascabel. “When people have come such a distance together, they should keep together to the last. Parting always comes too soon.”

César Cascabel/Deuxième partie/Chapitre XI