CHAPTER XI

THE ATTACK ON THE CHURCH

Down in the Ukraine that winter when men went about from habitation to habitation on the little horses that had noses so pointed that they could poke them through the snow and eat the dry grass of the steppe beneath, it was known that a great change had come over a certain Bogdan, called the Terrible along the Dnieper and Volga, and Peter of the Button Face among the Polish colonists. It was not that he had lost so much hair that certain ones called him behind his back Bogdan of the Singed Locks, that made him sad and contemplative instead of boisterous and ready as he had once been—it was the effect of some failure that brought on despondency and kept him a recluse for several months. When he did return at length to men’s sight and began to appear in the taverns, his hair had grown to its accustomed length and a huge scar that fire had made was nearly healed over. It was hinted, too, that he had made a journey clear up to the land of the Muscovites and had had conference with Ivan, called the Great, but this he did not speak about, and men dared not question him.

Spring came with the month of March in the year 1462, with peace over all the Dnieper lands, save where here and there tribes were on the march, or the Tartars were threatening raids. With spring set out Bogdan the Terrible, and with him traveled as fine a crowd of cutthroats and cattle stealers as ever the Ukraine knew. They rode to Rovno, the town of the Level Plain, and then struck out for Chelm on the border just beyond the River Bug. They established headquarters in the Lublin Woods for a time, for the purpose of pillaging, and then hearing that soldiers had been sent after them, they vanished into the swamp lands to the north and were not heard of again in those parts.

It seems that Peter had opposed this pillaging from the first, because he had other work in hand, but they were tribesmen and wild, fond of robbery and theft and eager for gain.

At Tarnov, having them well in hand again, he organized them into a caravan of Armenian rug merchants and marched them—carts, horses and merchants—to Krakow, the great market of the eastern part of Europe. In Krakow they camped with their wares in the square on the east side of the Cloth Hall.

Now the saddest man in Krakow at this time was Pan Andrew Charnetski—sad because he had lost, through no fault of his own, a treasure which he had intended to present to the King of Poland, and evidently a treasure of great worth since certain men seemed to envy him its possession. Jan Kanty sought to comfort him, and his wife and son and Elzbietka did much to divert his thoughts from the seriousness of the loss, but on the long nights when he was alone in the tower, moods of depression would often engulf him.

Joseph, knowing this, took to visiting him in the night vigils when it was possible, before holy days and vacations when there was no collegium on the following morning; often he would come with his father at the tenth hour of the night and remain until morning. Sometimes he would take the duties of the watchman while his father slept and sound the Heynals at each hour and inspect the city regularly from each of the tower windows in order to sound the alarm whenever a red tongue of flame leaped into the sky. Joseph had progressed each day in playing the trumpet and could now sound the Heynal as well as his father.

[Illustration: _At the Right Is the Florian Gate, an Entrance to the City. This Entrance Is Protected by a Barbican, the Building in the Foreground with the Pointed Towers._]

He was in the tower with Pan Andrew on this same night that Peter and his caravan of merchants were encamped in their carts in the market place below the church. The moon was at its full and the shadows of the church towers fell far across the street and market. Down in front of the church doors a watchman with lantern and halberd paced to and fro calling out, as was his custom, the hours as they were sounded from the tower.

He had already called out the first hour when Peter of the Button Face, watching from a cart across the square, decided to make his first move.

“Michael,” he called in a loud whisper, “Michael.” And at that a man in a suit of leather with hat to match and thick sandals slid out of the next cart. He had already divested himself of the round turban and blankets that he wore as an Armenian merchant, and his body seemed to move in a constant succession of quiverings and glidings—in fact he had always been known in the Ukraine as the Snake—and he stood for a moment by his chief’s wagon to receive a whispered command in one ear.

Then, true to his name, he wriggled beneath a dozen carts and past the flank of an outhouse near the church to take refuge behind a tree that grew at this corner of the Rynek. Doubled up here he waited until the watchman should pass in front of the church. He had not long to wait.

Out from the shadows at the base of the church emerged suddenly a man carrying a lantern that threw a star-shaped light about it. This man tested the door to the stairs leading to the trumpeter’s tower, found it securely locked, yawned, and struck the paving stones several times in front of the door with his long halberd as if he were weary of doing nothing. The Snake’s eyes sized up this man as his opponent. He was a man perhaps past middle age, clad in a garment of leather over which was a very light chain armor, poorly woven; this fell like a skirt with pointed edges just below the knees. Above the waist the links of armor were a bit heavier extending over the shoulders and back into long sleeves clear to the wrist, and up past the neck to a kind of head covering like a cowl, over which he wore a pointed helmet of rough metal. Outside the armor he wore a very short leather vest caught with a belt from which hung a short sword, and across the shoulders just below the neck another belt with a buckle at the left where the halberd could be secured and balanced.

He passed from the front of the church to the south side, looked about carefully to see if there were any signs of life in the street or square, and, finding none, turned away from the church and entered the churchyard at the south where the moonlight fell brightly upon the old gravestones. Squatting down behind one of these, and crossing himself as if in excuse to the people buried there for disturbing their slumbers, he laid his halberd on the ground at his right side and the lantern at the left. Then reaching into a wallet which he wore at his girdle, he took out a crust of bread and a huge portion of meat. These he began to eat with no suspicion of any interruption.

In this conduct he was justified, for he had been doing this same thing over and over again for many years; there had been no serious duties about the church save perhaps on a holy day when youth on mischief bound would play some trick upon the watchman, and them he could easily dispatch about their business. Thieves seldom troubled churches in this period and the cemetery itself was guard enough against marauders in a period full of superstition. Up above him the trumpeter kept a much stricter vigil, and all about the town, the watch tried house doors and questioned late passers-by.

“Oh-ho-hum!” he yawned. Such a quiet thing was life!

But—flattened against the church wall behind him was one whose intention might have disturbed those weary thoughts had the watchman been able to discern it. The Snake had sized up this situation with rapidity and had taken advantage of the moment that the watchman turned his back upon the square to dart into the projecting shadow of a buttress. Edging along the wall, he moved cautiously until he was but a few yards from the tombstone by which the watchman sat.

Plof! The Snake had pounced like a hawk on a mouse.

There was not even a scuffle, so prepared was the intruder and so taken by surprise was the victim. Down went the watchman on his back by the side of the grave and in a second the deft Michael had bound his scarf tightly about the man’s mouth, so that he could not utter a sound. It was the work of a moment as well, to secure the hands and feet with short bits of rope that he carried in his jacket—he was at first minded to cut the man’s throat with his own sword, but he feared lest he might make one last dying cry and upset all their plans.

Inside the victim’s leather vest he found a huge brass key. This he cut loose from the short chain which held it and thrust it into his own belt.

Then making sure that the bonds were secure, he leaped back into the shadow of the church and stole back to the wagon of his chief as deftly as he had come.

“I have bound and gagged the watchman behind yon gravestone,” he reported, “and here is the key to the tower door.”

A whispered command traveled along the line of carts. Then there was a general doffing of blankets and turbans and the band of Peter, in leather jackets and hats, high hose and tall soft boots, stood ready behind their carts to follow the leader into his excellently planned enterprise.

It was but a short distance from the carts to the tower, and Peter led the way, keeping close to the ground in the shadow cast by the tower. They stood at length, about twenty of them, within the shelter of the angle which the tower made with the church.

“Keep close behind me,” said the leader, “when we mount the steps, and watch lest there be loose boards in the stairs beneath your feet. The boy is here this night in the tower with his father. Mount carefully, but rush and secure both father and son when I give you word.”

Here he fitted the key which Michael had stolen from the watchman, to the lock, and swung the small iron door on its hinges. He had to stoop as he went in.

“Quiet,” he whispered, “follow closely.”

In a very few minutes they were all inside. The last man following directions closed the iron door so that if a curious passer-by should inspect it, he would find it shut as it was usually.

“The task is easy,” whispered Peter when they had climbed the narrow steps that led to the stairs built in the tower scaffolding, “we have now but to bag our rabbit. But you must see to it that he is not a noisy rabbit. If he once gets his hand on a bell rope he will awaken the whole town with his ringing. He must be secured quickly.”

They went up and up, mounting quietly the stairs that wound about the heavy scaffolding, and treading ever carefully so that not a single board should squeak. At last the leader stopped.

“The light is just ahead,” he whispered.

Through the opened door of the tower room came suddenly the voice of Joseph, “You can sleep for the rest of the night, father,” he said. “I will sound the Heynal at every hour; the hourglass is plain to read and I shall make no error.”

“It was lucky to hit upon a night when they were together,” thought Peter. “We can bind the old one and make the young one show us the way to the prize.”

Joseph had just spread a manuscript before him on the table in the tower room and had moved a taper close to it to begin reading, when he heard a sudden noise just outside the door. Turning about sharply, he was just in time to see the door thrown violently open, and then three men rushed toward him before he could even assume a defensive attitude; he was absolutely powerless. One man held his arms as closely gripped as in a vise, while the two others leaped upon Pan Andrew as he rose, dazed with astonishment, from the little bed.

A fourth man stood in the doorway. His hands were at his hips and he laughed merrily. “Ho—ho—my merry singing birds,” he said. “We meet again high up above the noisy world where none can come to disturb us.” Then his brows darkened and he asked, “Do you know why I am here?”

Joseph shuddered. This man was the same that had met his father on the first day that he had seen Krakow—this was the man that had incited the crowd in the Rynek to stone his people—this was the voice that he had heard while he lay bound hand and foot in the small room of his lodgings. But at the same time he wondered what had brought the man back to the city. He had already obtained the prize, Joseph thought, after the risk and danger of the first trial. Was it, perhaps, that he wished to avenge himself upon his father for the incident of the cart?

Joseph made a motion as if to cross himself at thought of this, for here they were high up in the air above the city, and nothing would be easier than to hurl a man from the summit into the graveyard below and none would know of it until morning came and they found the lifeless victim.

Pan Andrew, however, looked at the intruder steadily. “No,” he said, very deliberately, “I do not know why you are here. But I do know you now, Peter of the Button Face, sometimes called Bogdan—it is strange that I did not recognize you that morning when you threatened me.”

Peter took notice in no way of Pan Andrew’s latter statement. He heard only the negative answer. Apparently he had not expected it.

“You do not? You lie! . . . Do you think that I do not know everything?” He pushed his way in and held the candle close to the prisoner’s face. “I say to you that I have come all this way to get what I want; I have the means for doing it, too, and I have men in this company that would rather see a dog like you dead than alive. Now come—if you value your skin. Where have you hidden the Great Tarnov Crystal?”

Joseph leaped with a thrill. This, then, was the prize that they had brought from the Ukraine—a crystal, the “Great Tarnov Crystal,” whose loss the father had not ceased to mourn. But, after all, was a crystal something that men valued so highly? If it were a diamond or a precious stone there might be some reason for so much covetousness, but a mere crystal—why, he himself knew caves in the Ukraine where one might knock rock crystals from the walls. But perhaps this had a certain significance.

“You know as well as I,” returned Pan Andrew, “that it disappeared on that same night that you attacked my lodgings. If you have it not, I know not where it is to be found.”

“It disappeared!” Peter was at first shocked, then incredulous. “You lie!” he shrieked, “you lie! You have it still. I will find a way. . . . Come here!” he called to Michael the Snake, “take this boy to the house where he lives and keep always your knife at his throat. I will stay with the old one here and if you do not return in a quarter of an hour we will put this Pole out of all trouble in this world. . . . No,” he continued, as if changing his mind, “I will go with the brat myself. While we look the house over you keep your sword close to the old fox’s throat. If the boy leads me the wrong way I’ll slit his throat, likewise if he tries to betray me. But if we do not return with the crystal in a reasonable time do as I have told you.”

That Pan Andrew would gladly give up the crystal to save not only his own life but that of the boy, the Cossack had believed firmly. Therefore his denial of the possession of the crystal was unlooked for and baffling. However, he dismissed the matter from his mind promptly. Undoubtedly Pan Andrew had lied to him, and unless something unforeseen happened it would be but a matter of a few minutes’ time before the crystal was in his own hands. It was true that Joseph might not know the exact hiding place of the crystal; what he did know was that the men in the tower would kill his father if he did not return at once with the prize, and he and the mother would make a quick search of the house in order to find it and redeem the father. It did occur to Peter that perhaps Pan Andrew had deposited it elsewhere, but if the house did not give up its prize, then they would return and try to torture the information out of the father.

“Stay,” he said suddenly, just as Joseph’s captor delivered the boy into his hands, “the hourglass there on the table shows that the sand has fallen to the second hour. It is time that the trumpet was sounded from this place, otherwise some one may suspect that something is wrong and come up here to see. . . . You, boy—you trumpet sometimes, I know. Surprises you, does it? Peter has eyes and ears everywhere. So, before we set out to get this precious stone, take down that trumpet from the wall. . . . No, leave it there a moment, and come here.”

He led him to the bell rope outside and stood over him.

“Ring twice upon the bell, then get your trumpet and play your Heynal from the four windows.”

He watched the boy carefully, with his knife gleaming in his hands, as Joseph tugged twice at the cord that moved the hammer against the bell.

“Do as you always do, and play no tricks.”

As Joseph went back to the little room and took up the trumpet he was thinking of another young trumpeter who, standing in the old tower over this same spot, had fallen pierced by an arrow while performing his duty. And it seemed curious that he too was called upon to show his mettle in much the same way. In his heart much of the first tumult of fear had died out. There had come to him that gift of everlasting stanchness which had been one of the most characteristic qualities of the Polish people. It was perhaps the inspiration which the thought of that other trumpeter had brought, for immediately afterward and at the minute that he had thrust the trumpet through the tower opening on the west, his mind flew back to his conversation one day with Elzbietka. He had spoken in jest that day about the Heynal, but she had taken it as a childish secret—bless her!—he was sure that she would remember.

This hope increased instantly. He knew that Elzbietka was awake at the second hour; she had known that it would be at that hour that he would take his father’s place, and if the Heynal was played straight through and two or three notes were added at the end where usually the music broke off on the broken note, she would know that something was wrong. What would she do? Her uncle, lost in his experiments, would only laugh at her fancy, as he would call it. Would she dare in the night to go to Jan Kanty? If she did, it was possible that Kanty could summon the watch quickly enough to save his father’s life, for he felt in his heart that Peter meant to kill Pan Andrew after the crystal was found.

It all depended on this. Did Peter know the story of the Tartar invasion and the broken note at the end of the Heynal? God must be trusted that he did not. This prayer was on Joseph’s lips as Peter said, “Now for your music.”

Up went the trumpet.

Then it seemed to Joseph that he had once done this very thing before. The whole world changed beneath him. The great stone city had become wood, and it was everywhere in flames. Men of short stature and ugly faces were riding about furiously on little horses. Close at hand a man had descended from his horse and had drawn a bow from his shoulders and an iron-tipped arrow from a quiver. The bow bent, the arrow was notched.

He played.

Peter nodded. The Heynal was not new to him, and he knew that the boy was playing as usual—that is, he knew up to a certain point. Joseph hesitated at the place where the music ordinarily breaks off—this time he added three notes of his own which definitely finished the Heynal. It took courage to play those notes, for he knew not but that at any moment he might feel the Cossack’s dagger in his throat. At length he let the trumpet fall and looked about.

The blood surged into his head with a rush. The Cossack was nodding approval! He did not know, then!

He went to the windows at south, east, and north, successively, and played as he had already played.

“Now hurry for your lodgings!”

Peter gripped the boy’s arm and pushed him ahead all the way down the stairs, after giving final orders to the men who guarded Pan Andrew. They found no one in the square below and slunk along in the shadows toward the university district. The Cossack was exulting again that his plans were working, and as he went along he looked about him for a quiet corner where he could finish Joseph with his dagger once he had the crystal in his hands and was on the way back to the tower. Then they would settle with the father and there would be no one left to give information concerning them. A company of Armenian merchants would leave the city unhindered in the course of the following day.