"They are down to nothing," said the magistrate. "They are quoted to-day at ten guldens. They killed poor Csanta."

They had to take the shares all the same. You must not look a gift-horse in the mouth.

Arpad slipped out of the room and ran down to the garden. The fruit-trees were untouched, and all in full bloom. The cherry-tree was one ma.s.s of rosy blossom. He remembered well how he daren't touch a blossom under pain of a good whipping. And the forget-me-nots on the bank of the stream, which flowed past the end of the garden, and the May bells were ringing in a chorus, to which no one listened.

Everything was just as it had been, only grown. The trees had such long branches that they were entangled with those on the opposite sh.o.r.e.

He laid himself down in the green gra.s.s, all dotted over with yellow cowslips. No one could beat him now. He might waste his time and drink his fill of lazy enjoyment. Fame, the chatter of the newspapers over his sudden disappearance, the ladies who would regret him--what were they all in comparison with this? In a hiding-place on the river-bank he sought for the little flute he had secretly made in those old days.

To his great joy it was there, just as he had left it.

Arpad took from his pocket a newspaper full of his Parisian triumphs, an announcement of his next appearance. Where is Paris now? Out of the sheet he made a large boat with sails, that it might take a cargo on board. He pulled a bunch of the cherry blossom; he set the tiny vessel on the water, and while it danced over the little bubbles in the stream he laid down again among the forget-me-nots and played upon his flute the national air, "Repulj fecskem."

At the sound of the flute another child appeared. She came from the house opposite: a young girl about fifteen. She had a round, fair, laughing face and beautiful blue eyes. Timidly, like a frightened fawn, she made a few steps, then stopped and listened. By-and-by she drew nearer, then stood still again. She did not see the flute-player; she noticed nothing but his flute and his boat with the cherry blossoms.

The girl had come quite close to the bank without Arpad having seen her approach. He was made aware of her presence by hearing her laugh.

The laugh of a child is as clear as a bell. Arpad looked up, surprised.

"Ah, is that you, Sophie? How pretty you have grown! I beg you will send me back my boat."

Sophie did not want to be asked twice. She held up her frock with one hand, tucked it between her knees, and after she had replaced the red cherry blossoms by some white flowers, she gave the little boat such a hearty shove that it came back to the opposite side. Then the game began again. It was so amusing!

Madame Belenyi saw the pair from the window. She didn't disturb them, but let them amuse themselves until the sun went down and the air began to get chill. Then the most prudent of the two children--it was the girl, no doubt--suggested to the other that the gra.s.s was wet with dew, and that it would be well to go back to the house.

Arpad took his boat out of the water, and put it and the flute back in their hiding-place, and returned to his mother.

Madame Belenyi did not scold him. She did not, however, kiss him on his forehead, as she was wont to do. She showed him all she had done to settle the house while he had been amusing himself in the garden.

Arpad was very much pleased to find it so comfortable.

"Mother," he said, "we will live here always."

"I don't object to our living here, Arpad; only there is one condition. You must marry a good girl, and bring her here to help me."

"I, mother?" returned Arpad, half pleased and yet astonished.

"Yes, you. Why not? You are a young man. I cannot look after you always."

Arpad laughed again. "So, because I have grown a young man, and that you cannot keep me any longer at your ap.r.o.n-string, I must take a wife who will keep me in better order than you can. Is that it, mother?"

"My son, it is in the natural order," returned Madame Belenyi, gravely, and as if there were no other course for a young man but to have either a mother or a wife to look after him. It did not enter into her imagination that he could look after himself.

"Sooner or later I shall obey your wishes; but just now, as we have got a house, I shall have enough to do to provide the house-keeping, and I could not take a wife with me here and there when I have to fulfil my professional engagements. For this sort of Bohemian life, vagabondizing from Paris to London, Petersburg to Vienna, is a bad thing for a woman, whether she goes with her husband or is left behind."

"But we have something to live on, Arpad. I have been very lucky with your earnings, and there is a nice nest-egg in the bank. Besides, there are the shares. Don't laugh, you silly boy! Although they are only worth ten gulden, yet there are a thousand of them. If we realize them, that would be ten thousand gulden. In a small town like this that sum would be a fortune, and with it you need not scruple to take a wife."

"Mamma, you don't understand about these shares. _One_ could easily be realized, but if the next day I were to go to the same place with another for sale they would kick me out. Any one who would offer a thousand Bondavara shares in the money-market would be sent to the mad-house. Put the shares away with those other important papers Csanta gave you, and, if you like, treasure the hope that one day they may be worth as much as the paper they are printed on."

"Well, stranger things have happened. Did you ever think we would come back to this house? I am very sorry I did not keep the other papers. I burned them. Who knows what luck we may have with those bonds? If, one day, they rise again to par, we shall realize twice two hundred thousand gulden--"

"I don't count on such strokes of luck as that, mamma. The worst compliment Providence can pay a man is to let him win in a lottery. It is just as if G.o.d said to him, 'You a.s.s! I cannot keep you in any other manner.' G.o.d would not allow a man who has any intellect to win in a lottery. To such a one he would say, 'Wilt thou cease to beg alms of Me in such a shameless manner? Is it not sufficient that I have endowed thee with talent? My consolation prizes are reserved for the dunderheads.'" Then he added, "Mother, don't be afraid, we shall live from my art. Wait a little and you shall see; only give me time.

Meantime I shall buy for the little girl a doll with a china head as a plaything. You must take care of me for a little longer."

At these words the widow embraced her boy tenderly. She was happy; but that evening Arpad, when it was moonlight, went out and sat under the weeping-willow and played a melancholy air on his flute. Sometimes he stopped to listen to a soft silvery voice singing a national air on the other side of the stream. The singer, however, when she heard the flute no more, knew that he was listening, and stopped her song. It is so sweet to be young!

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

EUREKA

Ivan's fears as to the safety of his own colliery were growing day by day. One morning he found that the amount of hydrogen was scarcely perceptible; still there was water in the pit. This discovery made him thoughtful; he could not understand it. He descended into the cavern where the pond was. Not one drop of water!

Ivan remained for three hours, watching anxiously to see would the water rise; but none came.

At the end of three hours he was relieved by the men, and it was then arranged that during the night they would take turns in watching the tank. As soon as the water began to rise they were to call him. Ivan went home, lay down, and fell into a deep sleep, from which he did not awake until the sun was high in the heavens. He wondered that no one had called him, as had been agreed.

It might be that the men had also been overcome by sleep. Poor wretches, they also were exhausted. He hastened to the pit. The men told him they had watched all night, but there had been no sign of water in the tank. He waited patiently for twenty-four hours. Not a sign of water!

Ivan thought he could explain the absence of the water by the theory of the periodic springs--a theory too complicated to enter upon here.

It is sufficient to say that the water-supply of the mine was worked by the pressure of the air upon these springs. If the water did not now return, it would be attributable to one of two causes: either the pipe which conducted the water from the larger basin had suddenly closed, and was no longer subject to atmospherical pressure, on which it depended to keep open; or some split or crevice had come in the stone masonry which protected the basins, and the force of the air had driven the water down farther into the bowels of the earth, where, no doubt, another basin was ready for its reception. We will remember that from the first Ivan had the idea that some such reservoir existed. But where?--that was the problem; and if the reservoirs were not found, what then?

The cavern where Ivan stood was empty. The black portals which guarded the subterranean kingdom of death stood open to him. He could enter the labyrinth; he could discover what he had long sought, the communication between the upper and the lower water basins. One difficulty lay in his way. He should take a workman with him. He called the old miner, Paul.

"Paul, how old are you?"

"Sixty-nine."

"You would like, no doubt, to complete your seventieth year."

"I should like to see the gold wedding of this pit. Next year it will be just fifty years since it was opened."

"And if you die before then?"

"I should say, 'The name of the Lord be blessed.'"

"Are your sons grown to man's estate?"

"My grandson is able to keep himself."

"Would you be ready to accompany me on a dangerous expedition--one where the chances are we might never return?"

"I think I have run that chance before now."

"You must understand, Paul, the whole risk before you agree. We are going to look for the water that has left the tank. It is a matter of life and death to every one of us, and, therefore, I think G.o.d will help us; but it may not be so. The Almighty may say, 'Why should you mere worms of the earth dare to interfere between me and the sentence I have pa.s.sed against you and yours? I did not listen to the entreaties of Lot, and now the Dead Sea covers the ruins of the city.

You men of Bondathal are not better than the men of Gomorrah.' Do you understand me? I have often sought for the source of the spring through the narrow winding paths of this cavern. These windings are so narrow that one must sometimes press through them by mere force, at other times creep along upon one's stomach. Great abysses yawn under the feet; a fall down one of these would be fatal; we will have to cling to the wall as we creep along. Again, we will pa.s.s through stinking sewers, up to our elbows in putrid filth. All these clefts and fissures have been made some time--G.o.d knows when--by an earthquake which has caused the uprooting of the coal stratum. Now it is quite possible that this last explosion has closed again many of these clefts and opened others. If it has happened, as I surmise, that the aperture has been shut which communicated between the pit beneath us and the one above--if this has taken place, then we have a tank full of water over our heads. If we, in our search through the bowels of the earth, come upon this aperture, and accidentally break the smallest hole, not the size of a pin's point, the water in the basin over our heads will burst through and annihilate us; if we hear it roaring we are already lost. But, on the other hand, it may be that the explosion caused a rent in the upper cleft, and if so the water has rushed through it to the lower basin under our feet. What we have to do, whether we die in the search or not, is to find out where the water is."

"I have no idea what you mean; all I know is that I am ready to go with you."