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.”