The Cassowary; What Chanced in the Cleft Mountains

by Stanley Waterloo

Into the Danube far southwest of Buda-Pesth once ran a deep, still stream which babbled when it began in the hills, became more quiet as it reached the plain, and was almost sluggish when it entered the Black Tarn, as the broad sheet of water was called, though it was in fact a lake surrounded by sedgy marshes. The stream after feeding and passing through the Black Tarn became a deep river, and broadened as it poured itself into the Danube, the father of waters of all the region. To the north of the Black Tarn was the Moated Grange where lived the Lady Floretta Beamish, that is the lady whose name would have been that if translated into English, for the country in which she lived was Hungary. The streams which would, in English, have been called Ken Water after flowing through the Black Tarn as told, went on through the estate of Sir Gladys Rhinestone. It is true that Gladys is usually accepted as the name of a gentlewoman, but this time it belonged to a gentleman, and one of high degree. He explained his name himself by frankly confessing that he had been named after his mother.

In the days referred to people of the class of the Lady Floretta Beamish and Sir Gladys Rhinestone were generally under the immediate sovereignty of a prince, and the prince in their case was scarce a model. The one to whom all of that part of Hungary owed allegiance was Prince Rugbauer, and he was hardly of a type to be called gentle or considerate. In fact none of the people of the lands about were accustomed to pronounce the name of Prince Rugbauer above a whisper. Whenever it became necessary to allude to the prince, the inhabitants of the country were used to make the motion, hand on throat, of strangling. This was a direct allusion to the prince's system of taxation, and was understood by the humblest knave in the whole valley of Ken Water. Even the prince knew the meaning of this gesture, though when first told of it he but laughed grimly and no one ever spoke to him again about it. It was the witch of Zombor who told the prince. Anything malicious might be expected from her.

It was because of the witch that the cow was in trouble. The witch had enchanted the cow for a thousand years, and the seven hundredth year was passing when this tale begins. It may be said straightforwardly of the witch, that she was one of the worst of a disagreeable class of beings now, happily, becoming rare. She lived in a sort of hutch, a round mud-walled den on a hill which would be called Endbury Moon in English, and throughout the day she lay curled up in this den like a snail in its shell, but at night she came out regularly to work such mischief as she might in the country round about. Wherever she found there was no trouble she proceeded at once to brew some. There was no end to her pernicious activity.

The Lady Floretta Beamish was an orphan and sole mistress of the two-towered Grange and all the lands and waters a mile either up and down the deep Ken Water. But the land was far from rich, and the revenues of the lady came mostly from the sturgeon in the river which were caught each year in the same manner as in the Danube itself. The Lady Floretta was a very beautiful creature. Her hair was of a pale golden hue, and her eyes were blue. Her cheeks were like June roses. She was tall and fair, and walked around the walled Grange in a long white satin robe embroidered with gold, and down her back rippled the golden hair, even to the hem of her trailing gown.

It required the services of seven maidens and seven hours daily to comb and brush the Lady Floretta's hair, but they did not mind it. The seven maids had nothing else to do, so they combed and they combed, and they brushed and they smoothed the pale golden treasure of their mistress' hair, fastening each shining braid of it at last to the hem of her trailing gown, with pins sparkling with diamonds, moonstones, rubies and emeralds. Why the Lady Floretta did not dispose of some of these jewels when the strait came, which will be told of, it is not easy to understand. It may be they were all heirlooms and so not to be parted with.

A year of trial came at last for both the Lady Floretta and Sir Gladys Rhinestone. No fish were caught and that was a disaster which affected everything. The fish were the fortune of the country, for from the eggs of the great sturgeon was made the caviare, without which no true-born noble of the realm could make a tolerable meal. The caviare was shipped away to all parts of the civilized world as it is now, and it will be seen that to have the stream fail of fish was a calamity of first magnitude.

It was a wonderful thing to see the manner of fishing in those days, and they fish in the same way upon the Danube now. They cut a great gap through the ice in the winter, the gap extending across the stream, and in it they set monster nets. Then, miles above the nets, a band of horsemen ranged themselves straight across the river on the ice, which would bear an army, and at a signal blast come thundering down at utmost speed. The noise was terrific. "Ohe! ohe! a hun! a hun!" yelled the wild horsemen, there was a blare of trumpets and the strong ice trembled beneath the impact of the mighty hoofs. The timid sturgeon fled beneath the ice before the pursuing shock, and at last rushed blindly into the awaiting nets, to be taken by thousands and tens of thousands. But from Ken Water, though the horsemen rode as in the past, no fish were found. The stewards explained that the stream had run very low, and that the fish had gone either to the Danube or the depths of the Black Tarn. The case was very bad. Prince Rugbauer announced that Sir Gladys and Lady Floretta were false traitors both, and announced as well that he would cancel their ownership of their lands and castles, and hold them no better than common folk themselves unless the heavy annual taxes were paid within a week.

And so it came to pass one night that from his castle Sir Gladys paced with bowed head along Ken Water, around the Black Tarn toward the witch's hut on Endbury Moor, and at the same time, the moon over her right shoulder, came to the desolate hill-top Lady Floretta, each bent on consulting the Witch as to what should be done about the fish that had left Ken Water.

The Witch, seated on top of her hut, gave what is called in old stories, an eldritch laugh when she saw Sir Gladys advancing on one side of the Moor, and Lady Floretta, more slowly climbing up the other.

When the Lady Floretta heard the strange laugh of the Witch, she was startled and alarmed and stood still for the space of a full half-hour, while her seven maidens coaxed her to go on, and so Sir Gladys, who was less affected by the eldritch laugh than she and who, moreover, was alone, arrived first at the Witch's haunt and secured audience at once. He gave the Witch a gold-plated candlestick and two sugar spoons of silver, then explained his woeful plight, and asked advice and counsel.