Kitabı oku: «The Strange Story Book», sayfa 14

LAND-OTTER THE INDIAN

On the North-West part of America, and especially near the sea, a great many tribes of Indians are still living, each with its peculiar customs and interesting stories handed down from one generation to another. The story which I am going to tell you now is a tale of the Tlingit tribe and is about 'Land-otter,' as the Indians called him, whose parents lived on the coast of Alaska.

That year the crop of maize had failed all through the country, and the people took their boats and went out to catch halibut, so that they might not die of starvation. Among them was a certain man and his wife who made a little house for themselves just out of reach of the high tides, and fished harder than any of the rest; but the halibut seemed as scarce as the maize, and the one or two fish that they caught in a week hardly kept them alive. Then the wife used to go to the beach at low water and look for crabs or shrimps among the pools in the rocks, but even so they grew thinner and thinner.

One night the husband came home with only one small halibut in his big fishing-basket. They were both very hungry and could have eaten ten times as many, but there was no good thinking of that, and the woman put part of the halibut in the pot which stood on the fire, and hung the rest of it outside in a shed.

'At least, there shall be something for breakfast to-morrow,' said she.

But when to-morrow came a strange noise was heard in the shed where the fish was lying, as if someone was throwing things about.

'What is that?' asked the wife. 'Go and see who has got into the shed.' So the man went, and beheld, to his surprise, two large devil-fish on the floor.

'How did they come up from the beach?' thought he. 'But however they managed it, they will be very useful,' and he hurried back to his wife and said to her:

'We are in luck! There are two devil-fish in the shed; Whoever brought them, it was very kind of him, and now we have such good bait we will go out in the morning and catch some halibut.' His face as he spoke was filled with joy, but the woman's grew pale and she sat down rather quickly.

'Do you know who brought them here?' she said at last? 'It was our son; it is a year to-day since he was drowned, and he knows how poor we are, so he has taken pity on us. I will listen at night, and if I hear anyone whistle I will call him; for I know it is he.'

At dawn they got up and baited their lines with the devil-fish, and this time they caught two halibut. As soon as it grew dark and they could see no longer, they rowed back and pulled up their boat, and the woman went inside and threw one of the halibut into the pot. At that moment she heard a whistle behind the house, and her heart beat wildly.

'Come in, my son,' she said. 'We have longed for you these many months. Fear nothing; no one is here except your father and I.' But nobody entered; only the whistle was repeated. Then the man rose and flung open the door and cried:

'Come in, come in, my son! You have guessed how poor we are and have sought to help us,' and though neither the man nor his wife saw the son enter, they felt he was somehow sitting opposite at the fire, with his hands over his face.

'Is it you, my son?' they both asked at once, for they could not see. Again he whistled in answer, and the three sat in silence till midnight when the young man made some sounds as if he would speak.

'Is that you, my son?' asked the father again, and the son replied:

'Yes,' and made a sign, pointing outside the door, where more devil-fish were lying.

'In the morning we will go out,' he said in a strange voice, as if speaking was difficult to him, and his mother gave him a pillow and some blankets and he slept by the fire.

It was still dark when he took his father by the feet and shook him, saying 'Get up, it is time to fish,' so they fetched the line and dragged the canoe to the water's edge. When they were seated the son took a paddle, and he pulled so hard that they had reached the feeding grounds of the halibut in only a few minutes. After that he baited the hooks and fastened the end of the line to the seat.

'Put the blanket over you,' he said, turning to his father, 'and be careful not to watch me.' But the father did watch him through a hole in the blanket, and this is what he saw.

The son got up very gently so that the boat should not move, and, plunging into the sea, put the largest halibut he could find on the hooks. When no more were to be had, he returned into the canoe and shook it; his father perceiving this, stretched out his arms drowsily and inquired if they had had any luck.

'Pull in the lines and see,' answered the son, and as they pulled, one big halibut after another met their eyes. The canoe was soon full, and they paddled home again.

On the way back the young man who was standing at the bow with a spear in his hand threw it at a seal, which he dragged on board the boat, and killed it with a blow from his fist. But as soon as they touched the shore he looked at the sky and exclaimed that if he did not make haste the raven might cry before he could reach a shelter, and ran off up to the woods.

It took the father and mother all day to take out the halibut and cut them in pieces and salt them, so that they should always have something to eat. Darkness came on before they had finished, and in the evening their son was with them again. Then the father took some of the raw halibut and set it before him, first cutting it into small mouthfuls. He knew that drowned men did not like cooked food, and also that they did not like being watched. So he signed to his wife to say nothing when the son turned his back, and began to eat very fast, for he was hungry.

In this manner things went on for a whole week, and then his parents begged him not to go back to the woods to sleep, but to stay with them, which he did gladly. And every day before it was light, he woke his father and they went off to fish together, and each time the canoe came back full, so that at length they had great stores of food laid up in the outhouse.

At first, as we know, he was only a voice; then he would not let them see his face, but little by little his body grew plain to them and his features distinct, and they noticed that his hair had grown long and reached his waist. At first, too, he could only whistle, but now he could talk freely, and always was ready to help either his father or his mother, and she used to go with them in the boat whenever she had time, for she loved the fishing. Very soon, no longer fearing starvation, they packed up their store of food and placed it in the canoe and pushed off, for they were going back to Silka where they lived with their tribe. And as they drew near the landing-place, the woman beheld the shadow of her son's hands paddling, and wondered to herself, for his hands she could not see.

'What is the matter with my son?' she asked her husband at last. 'I can only see his shadow,' and she rose to find out if he was asleep or had fallen into the water. But he was not in the boat, neither was there any trace of him. Only the blanket, which had been across his knees, remained in the bottom.

So they rowed on to Silka.

[From Tlingit Myths and Texts, recorded by John R. Swanton, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology. Bulletin 39.]

THE DISINHERITING OF A SON

Near a large town in England there lived in the last century a gentleman with his son and daughter. His wife died when her children were quite young, leaving a large fortune behind her, and in a few years her husband married again. Now, though the new lady of the manor had seemed gentle and amiable as long as she was a girl, she soon grew jealous of her stepson and his sister, and treated them very harshly and unkindly. She thought that anything was good enough for them, but that the moment she wished for anything she was to have it – quite forgetting that the money which bought her horses and diamonds belonged of right to the children. When she began to have babies of her own, matters grew worse, and as soon as her husband's eldest son declared that he wished to leave England and pass some years in foreign countries, the stepmother broke into a furious rage, and declared that he must stop at home, for there was no money to waste on him.

The young man saw that no help was to be expected from his father, who was always afraid of his wife's temper, so he said no more, but wrote at once to his own mother's brother to beg his assistance. This was at once given, and thus it came about that very soon Alexander started off to see the world.

In the beginning, the allowance which his father had agreed to make him was paid regularly, and as regularly the son wrote home to tell where he was and what he was doing. Then gradually the payments were delayed, for the stepmother had always some good reason why the money could not be forthcoming at that particular date, and at length they ceased altogether. And when the payments ceased, the letters ceased also.

For four years things remained in this state, but the stepmother was not idle. She intended in one way or another to work upon her husband till she had forced him to do as she wished, and this was to leave the estate to her own son, 'as it was quite certain,' she went on, 'that Alexander must be dead, or by this time they would have heard something about him.'

At first her husband would not listen to her, and many and frequent were their quarrels; but, as we know, 'the dropping of water wears away a stone,' and in the end he showed signs of giving way. His wife noticed it, and redoubled her efforts. 'If Alexander were alive,' she declared, 'it was unpardonable of him to have treated his father in such a manner, and that fact alone would make him worthy of disinheritance; and if he were dead, then, of course, her boy was the proper heir to the estate.'

Still, in spite of all her arguments, she could not entirely bend her husband to her will; and the utmost she could get from him was a promise that if he did not hear from his son in four years he would agree to her plan.

For the moment the wife felt that no more could be gained, but soon she began her grumblings afresh, and worried him so perpetually that at last he consented to reduce the time of waiting from four years to one. This was not done very easily, and many angry words passed between them, till one day the wife burst out in a passion that she hoped his son's ghost would appear to him and tell his father that he was dead, and that justice ought to be done to his other children.

'And I,' cried the father, 'only wish his ghost would appear before the year is up, and tell us that he is alive.'

It happened not long after that they were sitting one summer evening in the parlour, disputing over the same subject – for nowadays they never talked about anything else – when suddenly the wife became silent and started up.

'Did you see that hand at the window?' she cried. 'There must be thieves in the garden!'

'Thieves!' he exclaimed, and rushed to the door, but he quickly returned, saying:

'You have made a mistake; there is nobody in the garden.'

'But there must be,' she answered.

'It was a ghost, then,' he replied, 'for no one could have got over the walls without my seeing him.'

'I am certain,' persisted the wife, 'that I saw a man put up his hand to the window, and if it was a ghost, it was the ghost of your son, who came to tell you that he is dead.'

'If it was my son,' said the husband, 'he is come to tell us he is alive, I warrant you, and to ask how you can be so wicked as to wish to disinherit him. Alexander! Alexander!' he cried, looking towards the window. 'If you are alive, show yourself, and don't let me be vexed daily with tales of your death.'

As he spoke, the window flew open, and Alexander looked in. He stared angrily at his stepmother, who shrieked and fainted; and uttering the word 'Here' in a clear voice, the young man vanished.

Immediately her husband rushed outside and tried the doors leading from the garden into the stables and some fields, but found them all barred. Then he inquired of some men if anyone had passed, but they had seen no one.

After that he returned to the parlour, and seated himself in his chair, waiting till his wife had recovered herself.

'What was it?' she asked as soon as she could speak.

'Alexander, without a doubt,' answered he, and she fainted a second time, and was in bed for several days afterwards.

The husband hoped that the fright his wife had undergone would have put an end to her schemes, but as time went on she forgot her scare, and began to tease as of old. This so enraged the poor man that he threatened to summon Alexander again, to which the furious woman retorted by calling him a magician. Finally the quarrel was ended by the resolve to refer the dispute to some friends and to beg them to judge between them. The friends, when they had listened to what had passed, laughed at the wife, and said that all they could make of it was that her husband had cried out his son's name, and that someone had answered 'Here.' In their opinion, that was all there was in the affair, and they advised the two to be reconciled to each other as soon as possible.

Of course, if the husband had possessed any sense he would have turned his wife's fright to good account, but he was very weak and terribly afraid of her. He agreed after much arguing to sign the deed she wanted in the presence of two witnesses, saying as he delivered it to her:

'You have worried me into this by your horrible temper, but I have signed it against justice and my conscience, and depend upon it, I shall never perform it, as I am satisfied in my mind that my son is alive.'

When four months had passed, and the year was up, the woman told her husband that the time was come to perform his promise about the estate, and to have the new deeds executed to settle it upon her son. Therefore she had invited the two friends who had helped them before, to dine with them the next night, and they would see that everything was done properly.

The following evening they were all seated round a table, which was covered with papers. The new deeds handing over the estate to the second wife's son on the death of his father were read out and signed, and the wife took up the old deeds which had appointed Alexander heir to his own mother's property, and tore off the seal. At that instant an icy, whistling wind rushed through the room, as if someone had entered from the hall and passed out by the garden door, which was shut.

Nothing was seen, but they all shivered. The wife turned pale, but, recovering herself, asked her husband what tricks he was playing now, to which he answered angrily that he knew no more about it than anybody else.

'When did you last hear from your son?' asked one of the gentlemen present.

'Five years ago,' replied the father.

'And have you not written to him about this business?' continued the gentleman.

'No; for I did not know where to write to.'

'Sir,' said his friend earnestly, 'I never saw a ghost in my life, nor believed in them; and even now I have seen nothing. But that something passed through the room just now was quite clear. I heard it distinctly.'

'And I felt the wind it made as it passed by me,' remarked another witness.

'Pray, sir,' said the first, addressing himself to the father; 'have you seen anything at any time, or heard voices or noises, or dreamed anything about this matter?'

'Many times I have dreamed that my son was alive, and that I had spoken with him, and once that I had asked him why he had not written to me for so long, seeing that I had it in my power to disinherit him.'

'And what answer did he make to that?'

'I never dreamt on so long as to have his answer.'

'And what do you think yourself? Do you believe he is dead?'

'No; I do not. I believe he is alive, and that if I disinherit him I shall commit a sin.'

'Truly,' said the second witness; 'it begins to shock me. I will meddle with it no further.' But at these words the wife, who had recovered her courage, exclaimed:

'What is the use of talking like that? Everything is settled. Why else are we here? I am not frightened, if you are,' and again she took up one of the old deeds, in order to tear off the seal.

Then the window flew open and the shadow of a body was seen standing outside, with its face looking straight at her face.

'Here,' said a voice, and the spectre vanished.

In spite of her boasted courage, the wife shrieked and fell in hysterics, and the two witnesses took up the deeds.

'We will have no more to do with this business,' cried they, and, taking up the new deeds which they had signed, they tore off their names, and by so doing these deeds became of no value, and the elder son was still heir to the property.

Four or five months later the young man arrived from India, where he had gone from Portugal soon after leaving home. The two gentlemen who had been concerned in the matter of the deeds, as well as his father, put many questions to him as to whether he on his side had seen visions or heard voices which warned him of the plots going on against him. But Alexander denied having received warning of any sort, 'unless,' he added, 'you can so call a dream I once had – which was indeed what sent me home – that my father had written me a very angry letter, threatening me, if I stayed away any longer, to deprive me of my inheritance. But why do you want to know?'

THE SIEGE OF RHODES

When you are reading the history of the sixteenth century, you will notice that in Europe nearly the whole of that period was occupied by two struggles: the struggle of the Reformed religion against the Catholic Church, and that of the Christian world with the Sultans of Turkey.

When the century began, the Turks had been lords of Constantinople for fifty years, and were for a while busy with establishing themselves firmly in the capital of the Emperors of the East. Then, as in the days of Mahomet's successors nine hundred years before, they proceeded to look about for fresh worlds to conquer, when the Crescent should trample underfoot the Cross. In 1521, Solyman, accompanied by a vast host, marched northwards to Hungary, and after a two months' siege captured the town of Belgrade. This expedition was undertaken by the Sultan in obedience to the wishes of his father, who died before he could march there himself; but what the young man really longed to possess was the beautiful Island of Rhodes lying at a short distance from the coast of Asia Minor.

His councillors shook their heads when he told them of his plan. The city of Rhodes was the stronghold of the Brotherhood of St. John of Jerusalem and the Knights had seen to its fortifications. It might be taken, of course; still the loss of life was sure to be tremendous and the Sultan possessed other islands as lovely and fertile as Rhodes. No doubt he did; but it was Rhodes he wanted, so Solyman turned from his old councillors and listened to the advice of his brother-in-law, Mustafa Pasha.

The first step was to discover something about the town and its defences: how many men could be mustered on the walls, and what means the Knights had of providing against a long siege. For this purpose he despatched a Jewish physician greatly trusted by his father, to the island, with orders to pretend himself ready to become a Christian so as to find favour with the Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, and to lose no opportunity of making friends with the people by trying to cure their sick. These instructions were faithfully carried out by the Jew, who sent word to the Sultan that an important part of one of the city walls was being rebuilt, and that if an army could be landed before the work could be completed, the men would easily be able to enter the breach.

Now the Jew, of course, was fulfilling the task given him, and was risking his own neck in the accomplishment of it. But what can be said of the treachery of one of the Knights themselves who out of jealousy had bidden Solyman to besiege the town? This man, Sir Andrew de Merall, was a Portuguese and so highly thought of among his fellows that he had been named Chancellor of the Order. He expected, however, to be the next Grand Master, and when, on the death of Fabrice of Cacetto, Sir Philip de Villiers was chosen in his place, de Merall's rage at being passed over was such that he could not control himself. The Knights did not pay much heed to his words; it was natural, they thought, that he should be disappointed, but he would soon calm down again. And so de Merall did, to all outward appearance, and no one guessed how black were his thoughts.

A pretext for his treason was soon found: it was easy for him to send over a Turkish prisoner to Constantinople, on the plea of the man raising money for his ransom, and instructing the Turk beforehand exactly what he was to tell the Sultan as to the condition of the city.

'He will never find a better time,' said the traitor, 'seeing that the wall is now partly down and there is mischief among some Italian Knights. As to help from without, the Christian princes are busy warring each upon the other, and, if this should last, the town will be his without fail,' which thing came to pass.

The Sultan took the counsel given him, and assembled a great fleet in all haste to bear his army through the Ægean Sea. In order to keep everything as secret as possible, he forbade his subjects to enter Rhodes on any pretence whatever. But the return of the Turkish spy and his friendship with de Merall was noted by all, and the Grand Master's own men reported that a large army was being assembled in Turkey. Yet, in spite of these rumours, Sir Philip de Villiers did not disquiet himself. No Turkish host had ever captured Rhodes, and when the wall was repaired the defences would be stronger than before. And it was far more likely that the fleet was intended for the Adriatic, and meant either to attack Venice herself or some of her dependencies on the opposite coast. Still, in order not to be caught unawares, the Grand Master heightened the walls and deepened the trenches beyond them while he filled the storehouses with food, and the magazines with powder.

His precautions were received with scorn by the larger number of his Knights and most of the citizens. 'Why, the town was already provisioned for a year or more,' they said, 'and no siege would last as long as that.' But the day came when they lamented that the granaries had not been twice the size, and the magazines three times bigger, for a month before the surrender of the town food was hardly to be had, and ammunition had almost failed them.

Though no help was to be expected from the great nations of Christendom, and the Governor of Candia or Crete forbade his men to serve under the Grand Master of the Knights in Rhodes, Sir Philip de Villiers contrived by his energy to get in a large quantity of wine from the island. Besides this, he was greatly cheered by the kindness of a private gentleman from Venice, who not only brought over a ship laden with 700 butts of wine for their use, instead of selling his cargo at Constantinople as he had meant to do, but stayed and fought for them himself, and put all he had at their disposal. Night and day the Grand Master worked; he seemed to be everywhere at once, and to think of everything. Now he was in the powder magazine watching the officers serving out ammunition to the soldiers; now he was on the walls testing the strength of the repairs; now he was in the fields examining the corn and deciding what was ripe enough to be cut and brought in. When this was done he gathered into the city the people of the neighbouring villages.

Hardly was this accomplished when news arrived that the Turks were near at hand. Then the Grand Master ordered a muster of all the men capable of bearing arms, and began with the Knights, the flower of many races; and a splendid sight they were, in their scarlet tunics with a large white cross on the breast. To each he appointed his place, with his special duties, and next proceeded to the citizens and the strangers, giving them separate colours and mottoes, and forming them into companies. But at the most the defenders did not number more than 6,000, and who could tell how many the Turks might be?

On June 18, 1522, the Turkish fleet was sighted, and for the next fortnight it moved from place to place in the neighbourhood of Rhodes, till it finally cast anchor about six miles from the town and remained there till the end of the siege. Four hundred ships, large and small, were said to be assembled, and for a fortnight some of the galleys went to and from the mainland, returning with fresh supplies and more soldiers. Meanwhile the Grand Master left his palace and took up his abode near the part of the walls where he expected the fight to be fiercest. He had need of vigilance; for more to be dreaded than the enemy without were the traitors within, though as yet none suspected de Merall of treason. But many of the women slaves serving in the houses of the rich were Turks, who sought to help their countrymen. This was to be done by setting fire to their masters' houses at the moment of the first assault, in order to tempt the soldiers to leave their posts at the defences, to put out the flames. Luckily the plot was betrayed and the leader executed before any harm was done. The Turkish male slaves, on the contrary, were faithful throughout, and as they numbered 1,500 were of great importance, working hard in the trenches. The walls were divided into different portions, called sometimes after the kingdoms and sometimes after provinces of countries. There was the 'gate of Italy,' the 'gate of Almaine' or Germany, the 'gate of Auvergne,' the 'gate of Provence,' the 'Walls of England and Spain'; and it was at these two walls that the first assault was directed. The Turks shot huge stones from their guns, and their engines cast them upwards into the air, so that they fell down with tremendous force into the street, but strangely enough they did little damage to anyone. Soon there arrived in Rhodes, from Candia, Captain Gabriel Martinengo and two other captains, all skilled in war, while the following day the young Sultan himself joined his fleet.

His presence inspired the army with fresh energy. The soldiers now began to take aim with harquebuses and 'hand-guns', and to erect mounds nearer the town as cover for their marksmen. They worked under a heavy fire from the besieged, and though many of them were slain, the hill they made grew steadily higher till at length it overtopped the wall of Spain and the gate of Auvergne by ten or twelve feet. The Christians, in their turn, rebuilt the walls with boards and trenches for cover, but not before numbers who could ill be spared had fallen victims to the fire of the Turks.

In spite of the hosts encamped before them, the courage of the defenders never failed, and for a time it seemed as if their strength would never fail either. Vainly did the besiegers build screens or 'mantelets' of wood or stones, behind which their soldiers could shoot in safety; a well-directed fire beat on them with such persistence that at length they got weary of constantly repairing, and moved their mantelets away to some other place. But though the Knights had won the day here, the number of the Turks was beginning to tell, as it was bound to do in the long run. It did not matter to them how many were killed, there were always plenty more to take their places, and at the end of a month the wall of England was cast down, and a breach was made in the wall of Spain. Gabriel Martinengo did his utmost to make use of these disasters and his guns fired through the breaches into the trenches, while he stationed men with harquebuses on the roofs of the houses. To this the enemy answered by throwing hollow stones into the town filled with that terrible Greek fire which it was said could only be put out by burying it under earth. Some of the wooden buildings caught, but on the whole, not much harm was done.

So passed August, and September brought a new terror to the besieged. The Turks were undermining the town, and countermines had to be prepared. The mine under the wall of England, however, was so well laid with gunpowder that when it exploded all the town felt the shock, and part of the wall fell into the trench, whereat the Turks leaped into the breach waving their banners and poured forth an incessant fire from their hand-guns. For three hours the battle raged; then the victory remained with the Grand Master, and the enemy retired, leaving a thousand dead upon the ground.

Again and again the assault was renewed upon one or other of the walls and gates. The fire of the besieged was so fierce that, brave as they were, the Turks often recoiled before it and had literally to be driven forward by their officers. Their loss was always much greater than that of the Christians, as must invariably happen in a siege; but, on the other hand, some of the best and most useful of the Christian Knights were killed by the enemy.

Throughout September the mining continued, and explosions were frequent. Sixty thousand Turks were now in the trenches all well armed, and it was easy for them to attack the walls in various places at once. On the 24th the famous Turkish band of Janizaries, led by their chief, fought their way into the bulwark of Spain, and planted their standards on the top. It seemed as if the capture of the town was inevitable, but the Grand Master on hearing of the peril hastened from his post at the gate of England, and put himself at the head of the combatants at the bulwark of Spain. The struggle lasted for hours, but at length the Turks gave way, and so many of them lay dead that you could not see the ground for the corpses.

From his tent Solyman had watched it all, and 'was very sore displeased, and half in despair.' He laid the whole blame of defeat on Mustafa Pasha, his brother-in-law, because, he declared, without his advice the siege would never have been undertaken. The Sultan even wished in his anger to put the unfortunate man to death, but was dissuaded from his purpose by the other pashas, on the ground that 'it would comfort their enemies and give them courage.' So Mustafa's life was spared, and 'that he might do something to please the Turk, as well for his honour as for to save his person, he was marvellously diligent to make mines at the bulwark of England.'