CHAPTER IX

BUTTON FACE PETER ATTACKS

Cold weather came in late November—or Listopad, the month of Falling Leaves, as Polish folk call it—and found the poor people in the villages already fortified in their log huts with the thatched roofs. Sand had been heaped high about the walls of the houses, all crevices that led to the outer world were stopped up with mud or tree branch or stone, wood and charcoal were piled under table and bench, and from the ceiling hung dried vegetables and mushrooms and sausage. The geese and pigs still ran about outside the house but would be taken in with the first frost to share the “black” or large compartment of the hut with the family. In the second or “white” compartment of the hut the whole family slept when the weather was not too frigid, but when the snow was up to the roof level, and the cold was so great that one could hear trees cracking in the night, all slept in the “black” room which had not even a chimney to vent the smoke that poured out steadily from an open fireplace.

In the city houses, wealthy men were beginning to build high tile stoves of Italian pattern, but for the most part people depended for heat and comfort upon the open fireplace. When the first frost came boys ran hither and thither with flaming coals for starting the first fires; up in the tower of the Church of our Lady Mary the watchmen kept eyes constantly wide open in order to detect as quickly as possible the patches of flame which sometimes broke out from the roofs of over-heated dwellings, and many a troublesome night was spent by the water master and his men quenching such fires.

A light snow was falling on the last Wednesday of the month, when Pan Andrew started for his nightly duties at the church. The world had been going well with him, he reflected, as he made his way through the dark and well-nigh deserted streets: his son was making marked progress in the collegium, his wife was happy and contented, he himself was earning enough to support them both comfortably, and he hoped that before long he would have a chance to present his offering to the King. For it had not been possible thus far to gain an audience; either the King had been away on business in Torun with soldiers and diplomats, or he was in Vilna, the home of the Jagiello dynasty which now ruled Poland, or in Lvov where the Ruthenian subjects lived.

In the short snatches of time when he had been in Krakow neither Pan Andrew nor Jan Kanty had been able to reach him, because so many had been waiting ahead of them—the ambassadors from the Czechs who came to offer him the crown of Bohemia, the delegation from Rome, the scholars from Italy, the deputation from the Teutonic Knights asking for a compact against the Hussites, and other men of title and power.

This delay was no great cause of concern to Pan Andrew, however, since an audience was eventually assured. Late in the summer Jan Kanty had sent a petition to the very throne itself, and the King had advised the gentle scholar by message that he would see him at the first opportunity. In the meanwhile the treasure seemed hidden in as safe quarters as Pan Andrew could ask for.

It was several hours after Pan Andrew had left his lodgings on the Street of the Pigeons that there came a violent ringing of the bell that summoned Stas. Stas unfastened the door and thrust his lantern directly into the face of the man who stood there, and for his pains was rewarded with a smart blow upon the chin which tumbled him into the soft snow which was now beginning to cover everything.

“Don’t do that again as you value your life,” the stranger muttered as he picked up the fallen lantern and straightened the limp Stas upon his feet. “You fool, don’t you know that some one might have seen my face? If some watchman took me, he would as well take you; it is for your safety that no man knows anything of this meeting. Is everything ready?”

“Yes,” responded Stas a bit ruefully.

“Then tell me, who is in the building?”

“Well—there is the lodger on the top floor and his niece, and there is the boy and his mother.”

“The students?”

“They have gone to a discussion at the Hungarian pension. Sometimes they do not return before daybreak.”

“Good I Then we can work without fear. A dozen men will suffice, four to enter the rooms of Pan Andrew, four to quiet the tenants if need be, and four to stand at the gate. If the guard should come, we can silence him.”

“Will you see the stairs?”

“Yes, they live——”

“Up one flight.” They ascended the stairs, Stas in the lead. It seemed to the stranger that the staircase swayed a little beneath their feet.

“We must take care here,” he muttered. “It seems as if a weight would bring this down.”

Just then a dog began to bark in the court below.

“What is that?” demanded the man, turning on Stas. “You did not tell me of a dog.”

“He is chained,” replied the other. “Will you give me the gold now?”

“Here.” The man thrust him a few coins. He took them greedily and felt them over in the darkness, for the stranger was holding under his coat the lantern that he had picked up from the ground.

“This is not all?” Stas’ voice rose to a whine.

“Swine!” For a moment the man lost control of himself. “Here is the rest, then,” and he swung his free hand to Stas’ throat, and sank his fingers in the flesh. Stas fought but could not release himself from those fingers that dug like iron points—at length the man freed him.

“No more of that,” he admonished. “The next time you will find yourself in paradise, or some other world. Listen, fool, once and for all—if all goes well here I will give you double of that which you already have. But if you betray me, or make one foolish blunder, then you will receive, not gold, but a punishment that is worse than anything you dream of.”

Stas beat a retreat down the stairs, the stranger behind him.

“Remember,” was the final admonishment, “we will be here just after the second hour has sounded. Let us in, and your part in this is finished.”

Now it so happened that Pan Kreutz, the alchemist, was working alone in the loft above his room that night. He had already finished one experiment, and was about to begin a more difficult one, when his attention was caught by the sudden barking of a dog in the court beneath.

“What can that be?” he thought. “There is no moon to cause barking, nor does the dog bark at any of the dwellers in the court.” He quickly threw a covering over the lantern that lighted the loft and opened the door so that he might look down.

His suspicions that all was not well in the court were confirmed in the next second when he heard a whispered conversation somewhere below, while the stairs creaked as if two persons were ascending. Then all at once came an exclamation of pain in a voice that he recognized as Stas’.

More whispering, and the footsteps descended.

The next instant the alchemist, leaning forward to listen, heard the stranger’s final instruction to Stas.

“There is, then, some mischief afoot,” he decided. “Doorkeepers do not let honest visitors into any house at two o’clock in the morning.”

He reëntered the attic room, and uncovered the lantern after making fast the door. For some time he puzzled about what he had heard. Who was the stranger, and what business did he have with Stas, the watchman? And what ought he to do about it? He was for a moment minded to notify the night watch.

“I am perhaps magnifying things,” he finally concluded “More than likely two o’clock on the morrow was meant. Besides, I myself could give any marauder here a very warm reception—” he glanced about the loft. The thought seemed to please him, for he chuckled for the space of a moment, and then turned seriously to his work.

For an hour or more his experiment, which was difficult and exacting, held all his attention. But when it was finally finished and the results carefully noted, the thought of Stas and his mysterious visitor returned to him. In the stillness of the late hour the affair seemed to show a graver face.

He jumped up suddenly and set the fires leaping in two braziers. He melted a gum in one of them and heated some liquid in the other. At length at the end of fifteen minutes he covered the fires and took out the substances. With a small brush he smeared the mixture of the two over his long student gown that hung against the wall. Then he took the mask which he used when making experiments with certain poisonous gases, and covered this with the same drug he had compounded in the braziers—the gum causing it to cling to the surface of the mask.

“I have but to sprinkle this with aqua phosphorata,” he said to himself, “and the heavens will not be more brilliant than I.”

He sat back in his chair to wait, and with closed eyes tried to reason it all out. “What can be the meaning of this?” he thought. “The stranger with Stas stopped on the landing of Pan Andrew’s lodging. What mystery can have attached itself to this family? Why should the name be changed? Who would seek revenge upon a man and a woman and a boy? Elzbietka has found a mother, and I good friends. They have no treasure with them, no money of any kind, for even on that first day Pan Andrew was obliged to sell his cart and horses for the means of living.”

He was becoming drowsy, for he had worked much of late, and had had but little sleep, and he was on the point of succumbing to his weariness when he heard the watchman at the Church of our Lady Mary strike twice upon the bell and then begin to play the Heynal. The fourth Heynal was scarcely finished when he heard a motion in the court below. It was Stas creeping along the wall in order to open the door. Throwing back his door noiselessly the alchemist lay flat on the floor and leaned out over the threshold. The door below creaked a little as it opened. Some one came in. The alchemist listened. “One—two—three—more! By the lightning, there must be a dozen of them, if footsteps tell no lies. I did wrong not to notify the watch. If I shout now, he may come, but there are enough to silence both him and me. No, I have made my beer and I must drink it.”

Next the stairs began to creak, and almost instantly the hoarse barking of a dog cut through the air.

“Silence that dog,” he heard some one whisper from the steps. Footsteps were heard again in the court as if someone had gone back to combat the animal. At this same moment the door leading into the court was slammed shut, and there was a rattle of the chain that fastened it on the inside.

“A precious jewel, that Stas,” thought the alchemist. “He shall pay for this to-morrow.”

A cry of pain rang out suddenly from below. It was the cry not of a dog, but of a man. “Ha,” thought Pan Kreutz, “Wolf finished that one.” There was a sound of a man running across the court. “I can’t get near him without injury,” he whispered loudly to the leader of the party. “He sank his teeth in my leg, and I am faint for pain.”

“Three of you attack him at once,” directed the leader.

There was scuffling again and suddenly the night was made hideous with the mad howling and barking of Wolf and the shrieking of men in pain; at this moment Joseph, with a light in his hand, appeared at the door on the second story:

“Wolf—Wolf,” he called.

He did not call again.

“Whew,” thought the alchemist, “they silenced the boy. A gag, probably.”

He was right. The leader of the attacking party had seized Joseph and thrown a cloth bag over his head.

“To the house,” he shouted to the men below. “Four of you stand guard at the door. Four of you wait at the stairs and let no one descend, and the rest come with me.”

As the light of the lantern which he had taken from the boy swung upon his face, the man watching above could see that it was marked with a great round scar like an immense button.

“Tartar or Cossack,” he exclaimed, “for the plague which leaves such scars is an Eastern plague; these men have come from a long distance.”

He was right. This was indeed the band of that ruffian whom the Poles called Peter of the Button Face and whose bad fame men knew in all the Ukraine and the lands to the east.

In the next second, almost, they were inside the house—Peter, and three men following. There came to the alchemist’s ears the scream of a woman, followed by a crash as if she had been thrown upon the floor. Then came the sound of the breaking of furniture, of the tearing up of matting, of the destruction of everything within the house as if a quick, violent search were being made. The door was open and the alchemist could hear clearly all the sounds below.

“Look in the bed,” the leader spoke.

Pan Andrew and his wife slept in a large bed in the front room. Swords were quickly at work ripping this to pieces. They cut open the pillows, they tore apart the blankets, and it was only after the bed was a complete ruin that the leader found what he had been seeking.

“There it is,” he shouted; “that large package, done up in cloth.”

With his sword he ripped away the layers of cloth that bound it—one by one they fell away upon the floor until the object he sought stood uncovered in his right hand. But just at that instant as he was about to dart for the door there came a shrill voice, shrieking, “My gold—my gold!”

Peter turned like a flash. “Blood of a dog——”

The lantern was held up. Its light disclosed the face of Stas maddened with the fear that he should not receive the price of his treachery.

“Gold! I’ll give you gold,” shouted Peter, infuriated. “Some one take him and throw him down to the dog. Then he can take what gold we choose to throw him.”

Two men seized him, but he fought madly and dashed into the room. There the third man headed him off and the two others fell upon him from behind; his slim body wriggled loose, however, and he fell across the table already overturned by the intruders in their search for Pan Andrew’s treasure, and clung there with ferociousness to the upturned legs. He kicked, he bit, he struck out blindly—but they tore him loose just as Peter set the prize on the floor to take the man in hand himself.

The lantern rested on the floor behind him, and as the struggling men swung toward him, Stas, shot with a brilliant idea, worked a leg loose and kicked the lantern over. As it fell the door swung open and the candle went out. Almost instantly, however, the ruffians closed their grip upon him and hustled him to the door.

Over the rail he would have gone without further ceremony had not there come the sudden screaming of a girl from the floor above.

“The plague upon them all,” exclaimed Peter, dropping Stas. “Here everything is as smooth as water in a lake, then all of a sudden babies and fools raise the dead with their cries. Come, we have enough—let us get out of this at once.”

He groped his way back to Pan Andrew’s bed, and was feeling in the dark for the precious thing that was the object of his raid, when there came a crash like that of thunder from above, and through the open door appeared a terrible red light that seemed to come from the sky and enveloped everything for the moment in a garment of red.