The trumpeter of Krakow

by Eric P. Kelly

There could be but one answer! The girl had half realized it with the very first false note of the first playing of the Heynal. This was a signal to her—to her, Elzbietka Kreutz! Joseph was in some strange, some unusual kind of distress! He counted upon her to remember the little secret that he had made in joking, he counted upon her to understand that he was in trouble. Why, perhaps he was even held by force—here her intuition actually leaped to the truth—perhaps some person was watching him so that he could not ring the bell!

Yes, it was for her ears that he was playing.

And she must act—she must help Joseph—at once—at once. Only, what was the wisest course? She could not bring herself to alarm the boy’s mother—should she call her uncle? He was still with Johann Tring in the loft—the light was there and there had been no sound of the student descending. Both, she knew, would laugh at her fears and send her back to bed. Therefore she moved quietly from the couch across the floor to the door where she threw back the bolts and drew the door open. Stepping across the threshold she closed the door and ascended to her own lodging where she procured the key to the outer door, and threw a cloak about her head and shoulders. In a very short time she was in the street.

At such an hour as this in the morning, it was dangerous for an unarmed man, and even more for an unarmed woman, to pass through the streets. Late roisterers were abroad, gamblers, drunkards, thieves, the very filth and scum of the city, were crouching in corners or picking the pockets of some man who had been struck down from behind. The city watch were preventive enough against crime if they responded in numbers large enough to cope with thieves and murderers who often worked in bands, but the law satisfied itself with treating most cruelly the few prisoners that fell into its clutches, and let the great majority of offenders go unmolested. Therefore a man’s best friend in dark city streets, particularly at such a late hour as this, was his good sword or cudgel.

Once outside the building wall Elzbietka breathed a prayer to her patron saint, the good Elizabeth, and observing in the bright light of the moon that the Street of the Pigeons was for the moment empty, kept her back close to the wall and edged her way slowly in the wall’s shadow to the cross street at the left, through which she had planned to dart for St. Ann’s Street, only a block distant. She was at the very corner and had climbed out from the sheltering buttress of the wall when there came the sound of men’s voices from the Street of the Pigeons directly behind her. Without turning about to see who was there she darted around the corner into the cross street and broke into a run over its rough cobbles.

Some one, however, had seen her. She heard a voice cry, “Who is there?” and there was the sound of feet pursuing her.

“A woman, as I live,” she heard a pursuer say as she dashed ahead. The moon seemed to hang over the very head of the cross street, so that none of the buildings threw a shadow. The pursuers had already turned the corner from the Street of the Pigeons and came flying ahead in great leaps and bounds.

She thought of Tartars and Peter of the Button Face, but it was no such folk as that who followed her. This small company of men was but a band of rags and tatters, beggars and petty thieves and filthy cozeners, seeking only to fleece some passer-by of a few grosz in order to get drinks or a hard corner in which to sleep. A girl of her age was just such prey as these wretched people sought, for they could plunder her without fear of harm, and her clothing or perhaps some bundle that she carried would bring a few coins for their need.

“Stop! Stop! We are friends,” the first of them called out. “We would not harm a woman in the street at such an hour. Listen, we will go with you where you are going.” But the tone of the voice only made Elzbietka run the harder.

Into St. Ann’s Street she turned at length, with the men close behind. Her one hope now was that Jan Kanty would answer his bell quickly, for if she did not slip inside almost immediately, the men following would catch up to her.