CHAPTER XIV

A GREAT FIRE RAGES

Since earliest times Krakow was divided into four sections—the Castle Quarter, the Potters’ Quarter, the Butchers’ Quarter, and the Slavkov. At the head of each of these districts was a quartermaster who was responsible for everything that went on in his district, the fighting of fires being one of his chief concerns. Therefore the watchman from one of the streets that lay in the districts threatened by the fire went pounding at the gate of the quartermaster’s house, shouting “Fire” at the top of his lungs in order to send the servants flying to the master. In a short time the quartermaster was up and dressed, and had sent summons to the water master who had charge of the town reservoir and aqueducts.

The bell meanwhile began to sound clamorously from the tower of the Church of Our Lady Mary, for the watchman there had caught sight of the flames. Cries of “fire” were now being echoed from all sections of the city, and in the red glare which was beginning to illumine all the grim Gothic buildings and churches, a very tumult of confusion was arising. The water master had already set his machinery in motion and drummers were pounding away at their drums in all the city streets in order to awaken the merchants and their apprentices upon whom fell the burden of fighting the flames. All the town guilds were assembling, companies of servants from the palaces were filling buckets of water and taking positions on the roofs of their own houses, and all citizens were busily getting down from the wall, hooks and axes and pails such as the law required them to keep for such emergencies.

A fire of any size in Krakow was a serious thing in those days, for there were hundreds upon hundreds of wooden and part-wooden houses clustered together in the thickly populated streets. In the section about the old university the majority of dwellings were very ancient, dry, and cobwebbed everywhere, and a single spark upon their roofs was enough to turn them in exceedingly rapid fashion into belching furnaces of flame and smoke. As the fire raced through these streets, the inhabitants poured out in panic-stricken confusion; each building was literally teeming with life, and the whole scene, viewed from above, would have resembled a huge ant hill suddenly destroyed or burned out by a careful gardener.

Women and children came out rushing and shrieking. Black-robed students dashed through the streets with manuscripts and parchments in their hands; others came carrying glass tubes or astrolabes or metal dividers; frantic domestics ran here and there with no definite refuge in view save only to escape the heat and terror of the ever-spreading flames. The streets were rapidly filling with furniture, clothing, beds, and personal possessions of every variety, hurled out of casements by desperate owners—and some of this material in the streets had already caught fire from the sparks which were descending like rain in a spring thunderstorm, making the lot of the fugitives even more unendurable. Inside some of the courts those who had preserved presence of mind were combating the fire with much vigor; tubs of water and pails were being pressed into action, and burning walls were already being hauled down.

The water master had marshaled a line of water carts which extended from the burning buildings to the aqueduct; these water carts were usually drawn by horses, and some of them were on this night, but there had been difficulty in getting enough horses quickly, and men and boys were harnessed into the shafts. At the aqueduct men were busy filling the carts with water; as each cart was filled it moved on some little distance to the fire, and there being emptied, swung about into another street and returned to the aqueduct for another filling. The nearest section of the aqueduct was about an eighth of a mile from the point where the fire started.

Forces of men armed with hooks and axes were sent out by the water master to surround the district where the flames were reaching, for the rapid spread of the fire had made it apparent at an early stage that very little could be saved in the university area. These men were under orders to demolish any building that seemed to offer a chance for a further spread of the blaze, whether the fire had already reached it or not. One detachment formed a line in front of the Church of the Franciscans, another on St. Ann’s Street, and another on Bracka. All these detachments were forced to retreat, however, as the fire ate its way out of the district where it had started. The Rynek was the scene of a turbulent mob which had struggled from the burning section in the Street of the Pigeons, and every open space was quickly filled with rescued goods. Two families had even taken possession of the platform where the town pillory stood and children were being put to sleep there by mothers thankful to find a place of rest.

Amid all this uproar, an elderly woman, a boy, a girl, and a dog were fighting their way through the Street of the Pigeons amidst the débris of furniture and personal belongings that had been thrown from windows. They had all been sleeping when the fire broke out, and not having been roused until the flames were all about them, had been able to rescue nothing but themselves and the clothes which they wore. The boy was Joseph, the girl, Elzbietka, and the woman the wife of Pan Andrew. Wolf, cut loose by Joseph, was the most terror-stricken of the group, but he followed after them, submissive and obedient, not knowing exactly what he was expected to do.

Each of them was busy with separate thoughts as they fought their way through the disorder. Joseph was ever figuring the quickest route out of the burning district, and this was no easy task, since the fire was playing so many tricks. It was not marching ahead in a straight wall of flame but was whirling about, leaping here and there, skipping this house and fastening upon that, advancing, retreating, spreading to the flanks, all with terrific speed and unexpected vivacity. Sometimes the two roofs just above the heads of the fugitives would shoot up in flames—passing these with great peril, they would find that the fire was now behind them and rejoice at the breath of air that fell upon them; then suddenly without warning the roof of a building just ahead would belch forth smoke and flame as if the fire demon were working invisibly, and this new peril must be passed.

At length they reached the place where the Street of the Pigeons is cut by a cross lane, known to-day as Wislna Street, but this lane was already full of smoking beams and fallen timbers; escape that way was impossible. There was nothing to do but to push on through the Street of the Pigeons where it curves to meet Bracka.

Elzbietka was wondering most of all about her uncle; there had been no answer to their hurried calls when they left the doomed house, and, besides, the loft was glowing in red and purple flames of such intensity that no person alive could have been there at that time. Joseph’s mother was thinking of the father, wondering if he had left his post at the church to come to his family’s aid, and wondering, too, if they could reach him at the tower before he began to suffer too much from anxiety concerning them.

The houses were a little higher in this portion of the street and there was therefore more cool air, in the lower reaches. The fire was still whirling along here but was not taking hold quite so fast as it had done down below, and consequently the fugitives made better progress. The only difficulty was the ever-increasing crowd that now swept in from three directions, making it hard for the three to keep together. Finally they locked arms and literally fought their way through the crowd. All about them the scenes were heart-rending, men and women fleeing with but few possessions from the only homes they had ever known, children lost in the mad scramble who set up shrill cries and tried to keep their feet as the crowd pushed ahead. Sick persons were brought into that raging torrent of humanity, carried on the shoulders of their relatives or perhaps stretched upon cots. Here was one old man who sat astride a young fellow’s neck like Anchises on the back of Æneas fleeing from the burning city of Ilium.

At length they stood where the fire had not reached, much more fortunate in that than many other people that night. Joseph waited only until they caught their breath, though he, too, felt like throwing himself down upon the ground and resting, and then started forward again through Bracka in the direction of the Rynek. In his heart he hoped that when he had settled Elzbietka and his mother in the tower where his father was on duty, he might come back with the apprentices and help fight the fire, for there is that in a youth which draws him into such fighting. As they went along Bracka he heard the sound of horses’ hoofs from the direction of the Wawel.

“Wait,” he said, drawing the women back on a footpath, “here come soldiers from the castle to preserve order.”

He spoke truly, for the next moment a great troop of cavalry wearing mail armor and carrying spears rode into Bracka Street from below and began to deploy in lines that marked the district immediately threatened by fire. A few minutes later foot soldiers and artisans began to appear and, joining with the watch, pulled down buildings at the edge of the fire. Siege machinery was also drawn up into Bracka and the buildings just outside the reach of the fire began to crumble under its pounding.

“This will prevent the spread of the flames,” thought Joseph.

They went ahead again toward the church, but while they were still in the Rynek they saw a company of soldiers dragging forward a prisoner whom they had taken in the burning district.

“A thief,” said the boy.

“Bless us,” exclaimed the mother. “It is not possible that men could be so cruel as to steal from poor folk driven mad with terror.”

As the company came near and the torches fell upon the face of the prisoner, Joseph let out a cry of amazement.

“Why, mother, that is Peter of the Button Face, the leader of the men that attacked our house. That is the man who met us on the first day we were in Krakow. He it was who tried to make us prisoners in the church tower. . . . See how he struggles—but they are holding him tight for all that. And mother, it is not the city watch that has taken him. It is the King’s own guard. Do you not see the royal crown on their helmets, do you not notice the richness of their clothing? I wonder what it can be about.”

Joseph spoke truly. Peter had at last fallen into the hands of guardians of the law, and this time it was the King’s own men that held him. It was evident, too, from the way they held him that they thought they had a prize. They did not stop at the Town House where offenders against municipal law were kept but marched straight along Castle Street in the direction of the royal castle on Wawel Hill.

At the church they found Pan Andrew in a very sweat of anxiety and fear lest something of harm had befallen them. He caressed them all one after another and then said to Joseph earnestly:

“I want you to remain here and sound the Heynals for the rest of the night. There is much work to be done in the quarter where the fire is, and every man’s hand is needed to stay the flames. . . . I see that Pan Kreutz is not with you. He stayed, too, I presume, to work with the rest of the men?”

“Indeed, father, I know not. We called many times, but his loft was a mass of flames like to a roaring furnace, when we were driven down the stairs.”

“I must see, then, if I can find aught of him. He has been on a previous occasion our very great benefactor and it would but suit us ill not to seek at least his body in the ruins. Should he not have perished, as I pray God he has not, then we can offer him shelter here until such time as he can find a roof again.”

But when Joseph told him of the capture of Peter he looked very serious and said that if such people were in the city then he had better not leave his wife and the young people. On second thought, however, it seemed right for him to go, for the city was now lighted by flames and it would be easy to summon aid if they were attacked.

And so he, with thousands of other valiant men, fought the fire in Krakow that night. They formed in a ring about the conflagration and tore down all the buildings across which it might run. The Collegium Minus was the last building to catch on the side toward the city wall, and then the fighters tore down the houses near the old Jew Gate and stopped the fire there. The flames swept around the other buildings of the university, destroyed one or two, though not all, and were finally halted on the second street above St. Ann’s. Sweeping in the other direction, the fire had early in its progress destroyed the monastery and adjoining houses of the Church of the Franciscans, and had crossed over to Castle Street where it burned flat a whole line of buildings.

On these and the other edges of the district a wide belt of destruction was created by the fighters. This belt, the tradesmen, running to and fro with water wagons filled constantly at the aqueduct, wet down and soaked until it was almost a water wall. So furiously had they worked that the main progress of the fire was checked in seven or eight hours, and although certain buildings and ruins smoked and even blazed for several days afterward, yet the great danger passed when this well-soaked belt of destruction was completed.

When Pan Andrew returned to the tower in the full blaze of the morning sun, nearly one third of the city of Krakow lay in ruins. Fortunately it was not the better portion of the city, and many of the old wooden-built hovels had been there since before the days of Kazimir the Great; that monarch had successfully converted about one half the city of Krakow from wood to stone more than one hundred years before; had he not done so it is probable that the fire of 1462 might have utterly consumed it.

Elzbietka and Joseph’s mother were asleep on the trumpeter’s bed clasped in each other’s arms. Joseph sat outside the compartment with the hourglass before him on a beam, gazing out over the smoking ruins of the university quarter.

“Is the city saved?” was the first question he asked his father.

“It is not now in danger,” answered Pan Andrew. “But there are many homeless souls in the city this day.”

“Did you see the alchemist?”

“I did not. He has disappeared as if he had flown away on the clouds of smoke that covered the city.”

“Poor Elzbietka,” exclaimed Joseph.

The girl inside the compartment moaned slightly as her name was spoken, although she was deep in a heavy slumber.

“I wonder if he was caught in the loft?” mused Pan Andrew. “It was in the very center of the burned district.”

The answer to his question came with sudden unexpectedness. There was a sound of footsteps on the stairs and Jan Kanty’s head appeared from below. The scholar was leading another man by the arm, a man who had been in the fire—his charred clothes and blackened face showed it; around his shoulders and falling to his waist was all that remained of what had once been a black robe. He kept his hands beneath this robe.

“Pan Andrew,” whispered Jan Kanty softly, “I have found in the street—Pan Kreutz.” And, checking the other’s startled exclamation, he explained, “He is not in his right senses. Something has affected his brain. But he has here something of interest to us all.”

Pan Andrew turned toward Kreutz—he never would have recognized him had not Jan Kanty identified him; Joseph felt his eyes glued with strange eagerness upon the eerie, blackened figure and the mysterious folded hands beneath the robe; it had been a scholar’s robe once.

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed the alchemist suddenly, “up to heaven goes everything in fire and yet no gold is found anywhere. Johann Tring!” he looked about anxiously. “Where is Johann Tring? He answers me not. He is lost in the flames, the flames that came so red and purple when niter mixed with charcoal. Oho, Johann Tring! Come, Johann Tring, and see what I have carried this whole long night for you.”

Throwing back the black robe, he held up the object that he had been concealing there, and at the same moment the sun, streaming in through the little window on the east side, fell full upon that object; fell upon it and made it sparkle like the myriad of dew diamonds shining upon a morning lawn new-mowed; sparkled like the thousand chandeliers in the King’s great hall in the palace on the Wawel Hill; sparkled like the rubies and emeralds that gleam in the Queen’s crown; sparkled like the wondrous thing that it was, all touched by the red rays of the morning sun—the Great Tarnov Crystal!

“Now whence has that come?” shouted Pan Andrew so loudly that the sleepers in the next room awoke. “Where by all that is good and holy in the world have you found the gem which has been in my family for years and years, which all my ancestors and I have sworn to guard forever and to surrender to no person except to the King of Poland? How has it come into your hands after it was stolen from me, and my heart was nearly broken? Did you get it perhaps from that ruffian who has been captured by the King’s guards? Did you find it perhaps in the ruins of the town? Did you perchance——” The truth suddenly flashed upon him and he was speechless.

[Illustration: _The Royal Palace of the Kings, Wawel Hill._]

“It is an accursed thing,” cried out the alchemist suddenly, reeling in Jan Kanty’s arms as if he were gone faint. “There is blood upon it, and fire! It has lured princes and kings to their destruction! It has made men’s brains mad with lust for want of it! It has caused good men to steal, and evil men to kill. I will have none of it. I will have none of it, I say.” He was growing almost boisterous, yet there was something in this attack of madness that had much of reason and determination in it. “I will have no more of it,” he repeated, “and no more of Johann Tring.”

At that he fell fainting to the floor.

Jan Kanty raised him, and Elzbietka who had run out from the trumpeter’s room rushed to him and kissed and fondled his blackened hands.

Pan Andrew picked up the Great Tarnov Crystal and held it at arm’s length with a smile.

“Now may peace come upon us all,” he said, “for I may fulfill the oath that my family has taken and deliver this to the King. While the secret of its hiding place remained with me I might keep the crystal as long as I chose, but now that the secret is out, there is but one place where it may be guarded safely and that is in the palace of the King. Pan Kreutz is right. This jewel has already done too much harm in the world.”

“Then you may rid yourself of it at once,” broke in Jan Kanty. “The King returned to Krakow two days ago, and we may find him at the castle this very morning.”