CHAPTER XVII.
IN PORLIK GROTTO.
Complying with his brother's instructions, Aaron broke up his quarters at Balyika Cave early the next morning, and, descending with Blanka to the bed of the stream, led her up the valley to Porlik Grotto, one of nature's wonders known to few and seldom visited. From the top of its high-arched entrance hung cornel-bushes with brown leaves and red berries, while luxuriant wild grape-vines, with pendant clusters of ripe fruit, climbed upward from below to meet them, the whole thus forming an almost perfect screen before the opening. Through the screen, however, an observant eye caught the gleam of the stalactites within; the sun's rays, piercing the foliage, lighted them up like so many sparkling chandeliers. But our two travellers' thoughts were not on the beauties of the place.
"If Manasseh should only come out now to meet us!" they both exclaimed at once.
"There!" cried Aaron, "we both wished the same thing, and we have a sort of superstition here that a wish so uttered by two at the same time is bound to be fulfilled."
But Manasseh did not appear.
"Look there," said Aaron, with forced cheerfulness, pointing out the wonders of the grotto; "see how the limestone pillars grow together from above and below, till they meet and make one solid column." And all the while he was thinking: "What if Manasseh should come back, not alone, but with our two brothers! Yet is it right to ask so much of fate? Will not Heaven be angry with me for cherishing such a wish? Ah, let Manasseh himself come, even if he must come alone and with evil tidings!"
"See there, my dove," he continued aloud to his companion, "how the arches extend back, one behind another, with balconies along the sides, just like a theatre, and high up yonder a perch for the gallery gods." Meanwhile he was saying to himself: "Oh, that brother of mine ought to have been here long ago if he was coming at all." Then, aloud to Blanka: "Hear me play on the organ up there,—for theatres have organs sometimes. You notice the pipes, side by side, some longer and some shorter, each for a different note. But you stay here,—the rocks are wet and slippery,—while I go up and play you a pretty tune."
With that he clambered up the side of the cavern to a series of stalactites that presented somewhat the appearance of organ-pipes, and drew the handle of his hatchet across them, assuring his listener the while that he was playing a beautiful melody. Blanka was expected to laugh at this, and had Manasseh only been there, she could have done so with a light heart.
"Don't you think this back wall looks like a stage curtain?" Aaron went on. "With a little stretch of the imagination you might take it for the curtain in the Kolozsvar theatre, with Apollo and the muses painted on it. One feels almost like stamping one's feet, to make it go up and the play begin." But the undercurrent of the speaker's thoughts was quite different. "What if Manasseh shouldn't come by noon—by nightfall?" he was asking himself. "Then what is to become of this poor girl?" Aloud once more: "That lad Manasseh must have made a little mistake—just like these young men! He probably took the longer way, instead of following my advice. But just look out toward the entrance, and see how the sun shines in through the leaves and lights up the whole grotto like a fairy palace."