Under the Big Dipper

by Desiderius George Dery

Putting on his coat and cap, John walked down to the foyer, and having learned from the gloriously arrayed and imposing chief porter the location of the nearest mail box, he leisurely sauntered toward it.

The street was totally deserted, not even a lighted shop window was to be seen. This surprised him. He had been told that Bucharest was known as the “Paris of the East.” It looked like anything but that just now. He surmised the change was owing to the troubled times. As he slipped the letters into the mail box, he had a feeling that he had been followed. Without in the least betraying his suspicions, he paused and lit a cigar and then slowly made his way back to the hotel, smiling quietly. “You are welcome to read both letters—but one of them, I guess, you won’t recognize as mine,” he muttered to himself.

The next morning was spent in making a few necessary purchases. He visited the principal streets, and made it his business to look into the largest stores. He observed that he was being followed wherever he went; but he took no notice and went about his business as if seeing nothing. The town was in that state of suspended animation that betokens an unusually unsettled condition. Shopkeepers seemed surprised to find a patron; the few women he saw were sober and barely let their glances fall on him, though it could be easily seen that Morton was a stranger—he had taken good care to get himself up like the typical English tourist. Few conveyances of any description disturbed the curious quiet that had come over the city, a quiet as if from drowsiness.

Evidently, an ominous cloud was hovering over the place, and Morton felt that he was walking on the thin crust of a lake of molten lava, when any moment his feet might break through. Wherever he went he was certain to meet either a “Guarda Civil” with his fierce mustachios, or an officer with clanking sword and spurs, or a gendarme in his bizarre hat and baggy pantaloons many inches too long for him. But no one said a word to him, nor did he hear any words spoken.

He was not sorry to find that a train would take him to Padina and land him there that evening. Quickly packing a valise and informing the clerk that he would retain his room, he made his way to the railway station and found the train on time.

At the Padina depot, he inquired from a sleepy looking guard after the best hotel, and was glad to have the man point down the street to the very house he had intended to stay at. It was but a short walk and the foggy evening air hid the inhospitable appearance of the place. But it could not hide the miserable condition of the roadway, a trench-like, broad furrow, between low, dingy buildings of box-like structure. It was full of holes and pitfalls, and a pedestrian sank ankle-deep in its mud. John recognized the hotel by its swinging sign—an unnaturally meaty bull painted with garish, coppery bronze—which glittered in the feeble rays of an antiquated oil lamp fastened above it. He set down his bag and with a resigned sigh gave a vigorous pull at the bell-handle.

The door was opened by the landlord in person. He looked astounded to see a man with a valise—evidently, guests were not an event of everyday occurrence. But his countenance quickly assumed its professional smile and, with a nod of his unkempt head, he invited Morton in. To Morton’s inquiries, he responded in a curious jargon of German and Roumelian, which Morton understood sufficiently to be satisfied that he would find the accommodation he needed.

Bearing aloft an ill-smelling and smoky tallow candle in a tin receptacle, the landlord led the way up a stairway, the walls of which had been anciently plastered and whitewashed. Arrived at the upper floor, he entered a room and placed the light on a small table and the guest’s bag on a most uninviting looking bed. Then, turning, he gave vent to some more guttural sounds and left Morton alone. The sounds were intended to convey the information that the gentleman’s dinner would be ready in half an hour in the tap-room.

It was with many misgivings that Morton looked about the cell that was to serve as his residence for the next few days. The prospect was by no means a pleasing one. The walls of a dirty white, roughly plastered, showed many cracks and nail-holes, and numerous blotches of soot or smoke where previous visitors had evidently sent up burnt offerings on the altar of a night’s peace from vermin. The bed, piled high with pillows and quilts, assured warmth, but not cleanliness; a rickety washstand with rough bowl and pitcher, both chipped and cracked, two rickety chairs, a small table, and a number of wooden pegs driven into the wall, completed the furnishing. This was the first real shock to John’s fortitude. He had realized that he might have to encounter dangers, but he never thought that he might be nauseated. In his camp in the desert, vermin and insects were a part of the natural order of things, so to speak; but in this “hotel”—faugh!—Morton’s lips twisted themselves into an expression of disgust.

Still, it was an ill wind that did not blow some good. The very primitiveness of the place would protect him from an espionage which might prove to be far more inconvenient than the discomfort. And he was not just now interested in offering suggestions for running model hotels. He was about to make up his mind to risk a descent to the tap-room, for he was very hungry, when a gentle knock sounded on the door. Taking the battered candlestick in one hand and cautiously opening the door, he peered into the dark stair-landing. In the flickering light, the shadow of a man stretching along the deal boards of the hall seemed gigantic. But the feeling aroused by the size was quickly dispelled by the voice which emanated from the person. In a low, whining and apologizing tone, and in a language which was intended for German, the man inquired for the most honorable and respected Signor Moor-ton.