“I pressed him to stay,” Harlberg said, “but he would go, and asked me to say good-bye for him.”
CHAPTER XXV
THE MARRIAGE OF THE DEAD
Meanwhile the Count had ridden on with his brain in a whirl of love, jealousy, and the rage of thwarted will. But, notwithstanding the hazardous double game he was playing, his was not a nature to admit the possibility of anything but ultimate success. His restrained fury which showed itself only in the lowering face, the set jaw and a certain savage impatience of gesture, was the result of the vexatious counterchecks and what he regarded as the temporary baffling in the plan which he had a few days before been confident of carrying through without the shadow of a difficulty. But that he had been thwarted from an unexpected quarter did not abate one jot of his fierce, ever-growing determination to gain his end. Still, whether it was policy or passion which prompted him, he told himself as he rode along that no time was to be lost, and that the sooner he resolved on a bold stroke the better it would be. Time is seldom a trusted ally to men of the gambler’s temperament; they play to win or lose on the moment; delay is no factor in their calculations.
Zarka rode on through the wild forest region at a rate in keeping with his impatience, until, having gone perhaps some half dozen miles, he slackened his pace and turned along a rough bridle-path which would bring him by a circuitous way back to Rozsnyo. He had pursued this path for about a mile when he came to a clearing in the woodlands and upon an unexpected scene. In the midst of the open space stood a half-ruined building which, from a certain peculiarity in its architecture, had clearly been, at any rate at one time or another, designed for a chapel or oratory. It was, in fact, the remains of a place of worship, built centuries before for the celebration of the superstitious rites of a semi-barbarous people. Grouped round the little building with an air of expectancy were several men and women, decked out in all the elaborate finery of their picturesque native costume. They were members of a community of forest dwellers, their homes lying in various hamlets scattered sparsely over those regions of wood and mountain. A curious fierce race of grown-up children, whose customs and superstitions seemed too hardy to be ever withered by the breath of civilization.
So intent was the group on what it was evidently awaiting that Zarka’s sudden appearance on the scene, which in an ordinary way would have caused some little commotion, passed almost unnoticed. The reason was immediately apparent. Almost simultaneously with his arrival the head of a quaint procession was seen emerging through the trees upon the open ground. The costumes of the peasants who composed the little train showed a strange mixture of sombreness and gaiety. The faces of most of them were sad, yet their manner and gestures seemed buoyant, almost joyful. All wore favours and nosegays, and the girls of the party carried wreaths of such bright flowers as were in season.
Zarka reined in his horse and stood by, watching the affair with an expression of cynical curiosity. He guessed by certain tokens what the rite was, a not infrequent ceremony in those wild parts, a strange, old Magyar custom, surviving from the Dark Ages—the Marriage of the Dead.
As the procession, followed by the onlookers, entered the chapel, Zarka, rousing himself from his scornful train of thought, touched his horse, as though with the intention of continuing his way, then suddenly seeming to change his mind, he reined up again, dismounted, and, leisurely making fast his bridle, strolled into the doorway of the chapel.
A singular spectacle was before him. The members of the procession had already taken their places and were on their knees. In front of a draped and decked-out altar, which accorded strangely with the crumbling walls, the broken windows and the general dilapidated state of the building, in two rudely-fashioned open coffins, hung by loving hands with flowers, lay a young man and a young woman, dressed in their full native costume of the gayest colours, with which the deadly ashen hue of their faces and hands made a sad contrast. Death had so refined their features that they seemed of a superior class to the assembly of their relatives and neighbours; moreover that same kindly, awful touch gave their faces a beauty which life, more churlish, had denied. They had both died on the same day, and in the minds of their simple kinsfolk it seemed fitting that in accordance with an immemorial custom, the Great Divider should join those whom life would probably have kept apart in mutual indifference. The service, or, rather, the ethnical rite, proceeded, conducted by an old, grey-bearded man, whose strongly marked features and determined yet venerable expression of fierce authority easily accounted for the high position he seemed to hold in the community. He wore a dark blue robe ornamented by symbols and mystic characters embroidered down the front of the gown and round the edges of the hanging sleeves. Below this, incongruously enough, he showed a pair of thick Hungarian buskins. He chanted with that peculiar melancholy inflection which is characteristic of the Magyar voice what seemed a rude hymn, in which at certain points the assemblage joined. Presently, amid a movement of suppressed excitement, he advanced to the bodies, and, taking a ring from the man’s rigid hand, placed it upon the girl’s cold finger. Then resuming his former place, he knelt and recited what was evidently a prayer, the whole congregation following him with a fervour which made it seem as though, even in their almost shocking ignorance and superstition, the spirit of the Divinity were not far away, nearer, indeed, to them than that lounging yet alert figure, the very incarnation of evil, standing with a cynical sneer in the porch.
When the strange rite was ended the officiating patriarch changed his tone to a more natural inflection and addressed to the relatives a few words of sympathy, paying a tribute to the simple virtues of the pair he had just wedded in death. Then the kinsfolk left their places and clustered round the bodies which were to lie there till next day, when they would be committed to the earth in one grave.
As Zarka, having satisfied his curiosity, was about to turn away, a unctuous, snuffling voice at his elbow said: