AN HONEST LIVING
THE earning of an honest living is a problem which most of us have to face and very often to endure, and my friend Vignolles, who for thirty adventurous years had beat the world in search of knowledge, had eyer been handicapped by this irksome but inescapable necessity. It had led him into strange places and strange callings; and though he had frequently enjoyed the former, especially when looking back on them, he was not so sure about the rest. He had put up with the one for the sake of the other on occasion. "But a man who's single and not too old can always earn his keep anywhere." He had arrived at this conclusion, and, early in life, had adopted it as a kind of personal motto. It was his scroll, his challenge, and had he possessed a shield and coat of arms, these words would have been blazoned and proclaimed thereon.
"If a man's single and not too old." He repeated the phrase this evening; and then he added as an afterthought: "I'd always taken that for granted till I ran into Saloniki. It beat me. Saloniki is the exception that proves the rule, and it's the capital of Macedonia. It's burnt down and rather off the map at present; but did I ever tell you how I tried it in the long ago before the war?" he continued. "Before the two wars, strictly speaking; before the rest of Europe had discovered it; when the Turk was its lord and master and wild men roamed the wilderness outside its ancient walls. Macedonia!" he exclaimed. "What a place! what an area of damnation! the last place God made!"
Vignolles had barely mentioned that country until this evening. I knew he had served there gaining promotion and a decoration; but that had nothing to do with earning an honest living.
We had dined together, he with me, or I with him—I forget which of the two had paid the reckoning—and now we had left the crowded restaurant and gone back to my chambers in the Temple, where one could talk and smoke and draw a low chair to the fire. The sitting-room is a cozy spot; as cozy as any in London, though those wretched trams on the Embankment clang and clatter in the hot summer nights.
And now we will go back to Saloniki.
"I had come round from Trieste," Vignolles had answered me; for of course, I had shown an interest, a curiosity. "On an Austrian boat," he next pursued, "a very good one, clean and speedy. She was going to Constantinople, and on our way we were looking in at Saloniki. It used to be a fairly busy place before the Greeks got hold of it, shoved on a murderous tariff, and spoilt it. Most of the Balkan trade went through the port and there was very little duty to pay when things came in; so half of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, and even Rumania, found an outlet or bought there. But it was no place for a European or any one unaccustomed to the Eastern way of doing business. Everybody lied like an artist and accepted bribes, backsheesh, and odd commissions, from the governor up at the Konak to the porters on the quays.
"We hadn't meant to do more than call there, but something went wrong with the ship's engines and held us up for a week, or rather more than a week. We were told that we could proceed by rail if we liked, at the company's expense, or if we chose to stay, we would be accommodated the same as usual. My boss—I had a boss just then—we'd picked one another up at Trieste—was for taking the rail. He was in the tobacco trade, an American, and rather a large buyer. His name was Bruce and this was his first business trip to Europe. One of the other partners had always come before, but Bruce had thought he'd like the trip, and nobody had objected. He couldn't speak any language but English. This is where I came in. We'd met at a hotel; he'd remarked the ease and vigor wherewith I made myself at home there, and he guessed I'd be pretty much the same in Constantinople. 'More so,' said I; for I knew Constant far better than I knew Trieste. He thought for a moment, and then he made me an offer. It was rather a good offer. Would I come along with him and help him out? We'd buy tobacco and see the sights. It'd be a business trip, but there'd be a good deal of fun thrown in. He was in no hurry. Bruce was a Southerner and very far from being a hustler. He didn't believe in hustle. If you knew what you wanted there was no need. And the people out there were expecting him; he had the right addresses to go to; would I keep him company and help him out with the talking?
"We'd got on famously so far; and now it was a question of taking the train, or waiting till the ship had mended her engines. We had decided on the train, but Bruce had proposed a day or two ashore first; so we'd packed a handbag and put up for the night at a hotel. He had his. camera with him; he had a wish to see Saloniki—or any other outlandish place, for that matter—and there might be something doing in tobacco.
"Saloniki was pretty soon explored. The place looked very nice from the sea, with its white minarets, the dome of St. Sophia, and its castle, towers, and battlemented walls. It tumbled down a hill—a narrow city—and then spread out, crescent-shaped, for a mile or two where it reached the water's edge. It looked Eastern and picturesque and full of color; but when we got ashore it was an unholy spot full of mud and smells and atrocious paving that made your feet sore, and there was nothing much in the way of sights or curiosities to mend them.
"The inhabitants were just as bad, all shriveled by malaria and out to make money by selling and re-selling and tre-selling, or buying and re-buying and tre-buying. At least, that's what most of them looked like. A parasitic breed! There wasn't a factory chimney in the place, and of all the stuff they bought and sold, nobody had made any or hewn any or grown any or done more than buy or sell it We both concluded that Saloniki lived on its wits or by lending money; and that the Turk took a commission on it all and regarded everybody else as a heathen and fair game. And as to buying any tobacco here—we felt we'd wait till we got among Bruce's friends in Constant.
"He and I had been marked men from the moment we landed. The proprietor of the hotel, the head waiter, and all sorts of obliging and beady-eyed gentlemen had asked us what we wanted, leading up to it very cleverly and cunningly, but always arriving there sooner or later, and if they could do anything to help us, of course that would afford them a pleasure so exquisite— But I dare say you have met that kind of small talk. It was like a money-lender's circular, only more so.
"Bruce was rather humorous when the situation dawned upon him. He couldn't understand a word; but I did my best to make the position clear. 'The notion is that we've come to buy something,' I said. And after that we had rather a lark with everybody who was out to scalp us. First of all we made them show us the mosques. The good ones were Greek churches that had been converted. Very fine and Byzantine, a couple of them were, and difficult to discover without a guide. Well, we had our pick of a dozen guides. And after that Bruce got out his camera and took snapshots of everything and everybody, to the great annoyance of the Moslem population, whose code forbids the making of pictures, and to the great delight of a couple of young gentlemen, all hair-oil and wild jewelry, in fancy waistcoats, tropical neckties, and shiny little boots which had got rather soiled as we dragged their owners uphill through the mud.
"We dined at the hotel, and as we sat there Bruce had another and more simple inspiration. He had already disclosed the fact that he was a professional photographer, a dealer in picture post-cards, and the representative of "Collier's Weekly," "Harper's" and "The Illustrated News" and "Graphic."
"'Tell the Dago we've come ashore to buy an elephant,' he said; and it was a remark that won us instant respect and consideration; for, translated and understood, it merely became a polite way of asking an officious person to mind his own business. 'That gentleman seems to know the East very well,' was a reluctant tribute paid by one of the Levantines to whom I had interpreted Bruce's improvisation. And when I passed the compliment on to its rightful owner, he was amused and thought of other and rarer explanations of our saunterings through these crowded narrow streets and the bazaars that were guarded by a wooden roof from the fierce sun of the hot season.
"Next day we took a gharry and tried the open moors beyond the city walls, but had only gone a little distance when our driver halted, and, speaking in the Spanish jargon of the place, a curious lingo imported by the Jewish exiles of the Inquisition, 'No farther,' he said; 'it is dangerous; there are brigands.'
"I remembered then that I had read in the newspapers of a foreigner or two who had been captured here and held to ransom; and, 'Gee what a place!' said Bruce, when I had explained matters. A town full of Shylocks and a country full of robbers! The last place God made!' was how he ended.
"Still, in the brilliant sunshine, with a glimpse of the blue sea and the mountains across the gulf and the fine, clear air, it wasn't so bad, and I knew that in midwinter, as we stood, there were many people at home who would gladly have exchanged with us. The driver gave us time to admire the view and then turned round and back into the city.
"At the hotel, after another hour's tramping of those infernal paving-stones and the mud that lay between them, we sat down to luncheon within ear-shot of a dozen interested listeners, who were still trying to fathom the meaning of our presence and to turn it into a commission or a profit. The simple explanation that we were passengers from the Medusa, stuck in the port with damaged engines, must have occurred to some, but how could they be sure? And even then our destination and our business might lie with Saloniki. There was no shaking them off till they had made certain. One must admire such persistence such tenacity, so fierce an egotism; but Bruce, I am afraid, was beginning to resent it; and, moreover, he had sat down with aching feet, with nerves on edge, and very hungry. Under his guidance I was downright rude to some people. They took it calmly, and as though they were used to it.
"After luncheon he felt better; but it was after luncheon on that second day, when the impression produced by the place had soaked in and been more or less digested, that Bruce declared it was a sheer impossibility for any white man to earn his living here or hereabouts. Don't forget the hereabouts; for I never shall," added Vignolles; and he sat up now and chuckled at a distant recollection that at one time, I fancied, could hardly have been so humorous.
"I'm inclined to agree with Bruce," I said.
"So am I," he answered; and then continuing: "It was after Bruce had issued this challenge that I came out with my old axiom, Any man who is single and not too old can always earn his keep anywhere if he wants to.' I said it stoutly; for I had rather relied on it, built up a whole philosophy about it, and tested it, time and time again.
"'I'm not speaking of his keep; I'm speaking of a living,' said Bruce.
"'Comes to the same thing,' said I.
"'Well, we may stick here a week—we can if we want to—and I'll bet you can't support yourself and turn up smiling at the end of it,'
"'I bet I can,' said I.
"If I thought you'd win—' he began; meaning, of course, that he wasn't taking the risk of staying in this infernal hole more than a very little longer.
"'Oh, I'll win right enough.'
"That seemed to nettle him. These Americans from the Southern States are a bit touchy.
"'Well, we've nothing much else to do, and I'm in no hurry,' he drawled; 'I'll go back to the ship and leave you here. An honest living, mind you,' he added. 'Of course, anybody could follow one of these little Dagoes into a back street and frighten his money out of him.'
"'A perfectly honest living,' I said.
"'Well, I'll bet you can't; and I'll give you odds, twenty to two in Turkish pounds. Will that do?'
"'Done,' said I; 'and I don't want your odds'; for I was just about as roused as he was. It had always been an article of faith with me and one I had often needed to keep me going—well, I won't repeat it—but I wasn't going to give it up on his account. There and then Bruce and I totaled up the money I had on me and made a note of it. There were my watch and chain and ring—
"'You'll have to produce these and all your clothes,' he said; and you won't starve, anyway,' he grinned; 'I've never seen such a collection of ole-clo' men and pawnbrokers as have got themselves together in this ancient and historic city. To-day's Tuesday. I'll meet you here next Tuesday at one o'clock, unless you come aboard and say you've lost, which you will do. So long, Vignolles, see you to-morrow'; and with that last piece of brazen effrontery he took his leave of me and went out at the main door and into the hotel vestibule.
"The Olympus Palace Hotel—that was the pretentious name of it—faced the sea and Mount Olympus across the gulf on the one side and a little square on the other; and, as I said before or didn't say, it was a warm and sunny afternoon in early January, the sort to make a Londoner's mouth water. There was snow on the far mountains, Ossa, Pelion, and Olympus where the Gods used to live; and I wondered what sport they were going to have with me!
"I went upstairs, to begin with, and sat on a balcony and pondered over the difficulties of the situation, smoked a cigarette, and enjoyed the view. It is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen, with those far, snow-covered mountains floating like clouds in a blue sky. You half expect them to move and sail toward you. And there were little boats from all the islands of the Ægean, coming in or going out or moored in rows against the Marina—so they called the waterfront—with red-brown sails, or piled full of oranges, a blaze of color; or it might be melons later on or purple aubergines. Just then it was oranges.
"That didn't help me much. So I went out into the town, then uphill to the Turkish quarter, and back. Boys were shouting the local newspapers. 'El Avenir!' they yelled. It's good Spanish and means 'The Future.' But the wretched thing was printed in Hebrew, so I couldn't even read it. There were Turkish papers and Greek papers; and these were no good. But at last I came across two in French and turned to the advertisements. Always study the press, is my motto, if you come to a new place and want to get right inside of it.
"I got inside of it, and, as I had feared, it was nothing but export and import; and clerks were required who knew Greek, Bulgarian, and Turkish, and there were demands for bookkeepers and shorthand writers and typists. Not much use to me. Nobody wanted anything done in English, Russian, French, or Arabic, or any of the languages I was used to. And as for the country-side beyond the town, these newspapers ignored it. The porters on the quays and the boatmen in the harbor were closed corporations and would not welcome an outsider; and nobody seemed to have horses to ride or drive or a garden or farm that wanted labor. I wouldn't have been particular; it was only for a week. If the worst came to the worst, I'd get a barrow, fill it up with oranges, and cry them through the town. I didn't know that there'd be a 'living' in it; but at any rate it would be 'honest.'
'I went back to the Olympus and dined, a marked man, as before; yet I knew that if I asked for anything my credit would go down to zero. I might have got a dog's job at half the current wages; I knew that just as these people cringed before the strong, they would exploit and despise a supplicant. They could come to me if they wanted anything. I talked to one or two of them and gave very little away and got less than a little in exchange. If I played poker or bridge, they were ready to oblige me, or if I cared to invest money or to procure investment from abroad. As a man and a brother I did not exist, and scarcely as a human being; but could I have proved myself a Greek, a Hebrew, an Armenian or a Deunmeh, perhaps I might have found a different welcome. A Deunmeh, by the way, is a Mahometan Jew, descended from converts or pseudo-converts.
"Were there any resident English in the place? I put the question to a couple of these men and was told that, besides the consul, there was a missionary who sold cheap Bibles which one could resell at a good profit, and that they were printed in all the languages. But as Bruce had stipulated for an honest living, I let the missionary go. The lady in charge of the Roman Catholic convent was an Englishwoman, and the representative of the Standard Oil Company was either an Englishman or an American. They were not sure which it was; his name was Smith; and 'Mon Dieu, what a business!' one of them began; and next they fell to arguing whether John D. Rockefeller had more money than Rothschild or whether it was the other way round. I could not enlighten them, so took my departure with the question still unsettled.
"In the little square round the corner of the hotel I was accosted by another stranger, and to my relief I saw that he was badly dressed, a ruffian, one-eyed, and with a three-days' beard. He spoke in Greek, but changed into the local Spanish when he found that I had none of it He was a large man, villainous, ugly, and yet not very dangerous. A bully and a blusterer, perhaps, but not at all dangerous. So I had sized him up by the time he was finished. He had offered to serve as my guide to the pleasures of the place. 'Is there anything else?' I asked him. He scratched his head and repeated his previous invitations, and when I turned to go, 'Cafe-concert,' he said; 'there is the Odéon.'
"We were standing under a big electric globe that lit the tiny square, and there were bright lights flooding out from all the open cafés. I could see him quite plainly as he stood there, disreputable, brutal, yet somehow abject—a pariah dog of a man, in spite of his great bulk.
"'Take me to the Odéon,' I said and away he shambled.
"I followed him. Apparently he did not expect me to walk at his side or to be very proud of his company. He gave me the option at least, and if I cared to be seen with him it was my business. As a matter of fact, I found him rather refreshing after the other rascals we had been dealing with. He, at least, was open and made no pretensions to appearances, to respectability, to anything beyond the facts of his atrocious trade.
"We walked along the Marina till we came to the Odéon. It is easily the worst variety show in this or any other continent. I have heard of it since, alive with Allied officers. It had not changed, only the audience. My new friend followed me into the box I had taken. I had invited him in and sat now in full view of the company. I even ordered him to a front seat, so that he could better watch the singers and the dancers. He really enjoyed it. He was very easily satisfied and criticism is only a matter of comparisons. A month in Paris might have destroyed this ingenuousness. But here we were, in Saloniki.
"When a singer or a dancer had finished her turn she mingled with the audience, and the really serious business of the evening was before her. She had to persuade these people to spend their money with the place, and on what they spent she made her small commission. She would begin by asking for champagne and compromise on sparkling cider, or even have to content herself with a mug of beer. As we watched these proceedings, some one tapped at the door of our box and a gentleman in a fez entered.
"'You permit me?' he began, speaking in French; and 'Permit you what?' I answered in the same noble language.
"'I desire to have a word with—with this animal. I will not detain you a moment.'
'"By all means,' said I, and offered him a chair.
"The newcomer was a Turk, apparently, for under his fez he had an authoritative Moslem face, weakened rather than strengthened by what an optimist might call our 'Western culture.' The worst sides of it would lie open to him in any of our big cities, to be toyed with and flung aside. He was arguing earnestly and with his hands and feet, so to speak; and the only answer he got for his pains, it seemed, was a stubborn negative.
"'No,' said my companion; and 'No,' and 'No,' again.
"The Turk held out money, real gold; but the other would not be tempted; and I, who had thought the ruffian capable of any treachery at a price, was beginning to wonder what all the talk was about.
"At last the intruder gave it up. He rose, and, turning to me, 'I thank you, sir,' he said; 'good evening.'
"He bowed and was on the point of leaving us; but I, as usual thirsting for information, asked him to explain matters. 'You will excuse me?' I ended. 'It must be something very extraordinary for this fellow to refuse it.'
"'I have offered the pig a very good place,' he answered, 'and he will not take it. A little dangerous, but he will be armed; and, really, it is I who run the danger.'
"This sounded interesting, so I asked him to resume his seat, and he ignored the other, and, speaking with a characteristic vehemence, exposed the whole situation.
"He was an Ottoman Turk, I gathered, with two or three estates up country, and when he rode about or drove about, it was the custom to take an armed man or two with him as an escort. There was no danger, but it was safer so. 'This fellow is the kind of man I want,' he continued, 'and he will not leave the city. He has already lost an eye, he says; but that was when he became a Comitadji. What can one expect? I do not ask him to fight or plunder. I want somebody who will ride with me as a kind of servant. It is not very far from here—fifteen kilometers. He would live in my own house, in my own village. There is nothing to fear.'
"'When do you want him?' I asked.
"'To-night—at once. The last man I had was not very lucky. He has heard of it, and he prefers to rot in Saloniki.'
"I translate very literally and baldly; but this Turkish gentleman's French was very literal and bald. As you may have already guessed, he had made me think of Bruce and of my bet; and here was a job going with very good money hanging to it, and one could make one's own conditions as to payment.
"The bey—he was a bey, I afterward discovered—beys grow thick in the East like knights in England—well, he had explained all this to me very fully if not quite frankly, and no one could have been more surprised than he when suddenly I offered myself and said I stood at his service.
"'You are joking, sir, he said.
"'Not at all. I am an Englishman stranded here, and I have to earn my living.'
"He looked at me dubiously, and, when I repeated my offer, 'You can ride and shoot?' he asked.
"'I have served two years in His Majesty's cavalry,' I said. It was literally true. As a boy I had enlisted. But that's a story that will keep.
"'You were an officer?' he asked.
"'No, a common trooper.'
"The last admission made a difference, and he was a shade less polite when next he spoke to me.
'"If you are serious,' he said, 'we can try. It is not too safe or very pleasant,' he added. 'You Englishmen are spoilt, and your clothes—but I can find you clothes of the country,'
"'I will want a week's money in advance,' I said, 'before we are clear of Saloniki. Once out there—who knows?'
"'Good,' said he; 'and now we can start,'
"He was for ignoring my mystified guide, the one-eyed rapscallion in the corner; but I stopped to give the fellow a small backsheesh, and the bey added a coin to it.
"There was my bag at the hotel and the bill to pay. I told my new employer of this and that he had better meet me there, or, if he wished it, he could accompany me and wait while I packed up and settled. He hesitated; then, 'On the word of an Englishman,' he said. It is a common expression throughout the East and one that our new politicians are apt to ignore."
Vignolles continued after this sally, after registering this note of disapproval. It was a matter on which at times he had shown considerable feeling.
"I gave him my word," he resumed, "and then the bey counted out five pieces of gold, and handed me his card, and spelt out the name of my new address. I made a note of it under a street lamp; it was a village called Arakli.
"'In half an hour I shall call for you,' he said and left me; and there I stood with my bet already as good as won. I don't think I thought very much further. In a week I would come back, and Bruce would have to acknowledge that I had been right; that a man, single and not too old—but I think you've heard that tale before; or, you would have, had you been listening."
I waited, and Vignolles rose from his chair and mixed himself another drink; and, looking round the comfortable room, "This is better than Macedonia," he said; "you can take my word for it!"
"But we haven't come to Macedonia yet," I reminded him.
"No, we're just getting there." And then: "I packed and I tipped the hotel servants," he pursued, "and when I came to the office and asked for my bill, 'It's all right; that is paid until to-morrow morning,' said the cashier, 'Mr. Bruce has paid for both.'
"I complimented him upon his honesty, which made him laugh. He was an Austrian, with a knowledge of other places. And next I said 'I'll be back in a few days; if Mr. Bruce inquires, you may tell him I have gone into the country.'
"'To buy tobacco?' he asked. 'I could recommend you a very good firm here—in the town itself,' he added.
"'I'll be back in a few days,' I answered, and wished him a good evening.
"When I came out, there stood the one-eyed man, looking for a new client. The bey joined us with an open carriage and a pair of wiry little ponies. A servant was on the box, and the one-eyed pirate saluted as we entered and drove off.
"The bey turned from him in disgust. 'He is a coward,' he said.
"'Well, why were you so anxious to secure him?' was the natural rejoinder.
"'There is not much choice,' said the bey. 'Wait till you know something of Macedonia!' And then he added: 'Why does not England take it over, or France, or Germany? I dare hardly do what I like with my own land! To-morrow you will see it.'
"We went through the lower or Frankish part of the town, and then uphill to the Turkish quarter, where the bey had a house, one of those mysterious affairs, seen from the outside, all blind walls and barred and bolted gateway, behind which waited his women-folk and their attendants. He pointed it out to me as we drove by; and, 'It is very tiresome to have to leave,' he said, 'but business is business.'
"We turned to the left, reaching a cobbled street that gave on to a main road bordered with Moslem cemeteries—acres and acres of them! It was a night with a late moon, and I could see quite plainly—all those phallic symbols, standing erect under the clear sky. We passed a large white building that was a barracks, and another that was a hospital, and next came open country and one of those strange mounds, site of a prehistoric stronghold, which are a feature of Macedonia; and after that there was night and the quiet of the hills. It seemed a beautiful country, silent under a moon that obliterated its desolation, its utter poverty, and its abominations. A beautiful country; but bare and barren as an open hand, and just as empty! The bey gave me a loaded automatic pistol: 'In case,' he said. But nothing happened to us, and not another soul seemed to be astir. The railway takes a different road and is hidden behind the mountains. We, too, left the wide moors, and the hills drew closer together till they made a wall in front of ns. We entered a narrow pass and threaded it, exchanging good nights with two Turkish soldiers who stood at the door of a block-house; and at last we came out, overlooking a great plain and a lake, spread far below and lovely in the moonlight. A village going up in flame hung on the edge of the horizon. Such was the bey's cold explanation when I asked. 'These cursed Comitadjis!' he added. Soon there will be nothing left!'
"Bulgar and Greek were at each other's throats, anticipating a division of this wild country. 'You will understand that we find our Christians troublesome,' said the bey; 'with their hatreds, their schools, and their propaganda. Why can they not keep quiet like other people?'
"It was no concern of mine, and I kept silent while we came downhill, reached the level, and took a road that branched off to the right. We crossed an iron bridge, a curiously civilized kind of structure to find in such a wilderness. But presently we came to trees and even to patches of cultivation, and one could see that this well-watered plain had its inhabitants. Except for the glow of the burning village far away no lights shone out from any building; but one heard the baying of a dog, the hooting of owls, and the hee-haw of a jackass. A flight of wild fowl passed overhead and we could catch their chatter. 'Soon we shall arrive,' said my companion.
"Arakli, our destination, lay at the end of an abominable track which branched from an abominable road. It was a triangle of thatched hovels, about two hundred yards at its base, enclosing noisome mounds of refuse, dilapidated pigsties, and tumble-down hen-houses. In this enclosure the village dogs roamed at night, so fierce and so hungry that we had to beat them off as we descended before a kind of house that stood a little apart and rose one story higher than the other buildings of the place. For safety's sake, Arakli was concentrated round the three sides of its communal midden, piggery, and yard; and the bey lived in the house, his people in the hovels, while a tiny church and school and parsonage stood in the near angle. To-night the place was rather ghostly, as I followed the bey into his house and up a flight of stairs. "'This is your room,' he said, opening a door on the first landing. 'you will find a candle and you probably have matches.' With that he left me and went off to his own quarters.
"We were both of us tired and I could have lain down and slept anywhere, so it was just as well that I did not examine my new abode too closely. But in the morning light I saw it as it was, with its broken windows, its naked floor, and the straw mattress and couple of frowsy quilts which had been given me for bed, bedstead, and bedding. There were an earthenware pitcher and a basin, and a three-legged stool in the center of the room upon the rotten boarding. It was like a jail, except that the door wouldn't fasten. Out of the window I saw the village wide awake; its women filling their tin cans at two wells, its men wetting their hands and faces or leading their animals to water. I went down and filled my own pitcher and had some kind of a wash.
"The bey sent me in some breakfast, and, now that he had got me out there, and, so to speak, in his clutches, he was most deuced off-hand and inhospitable. I had some cheese, some coffee, and some olives and a slab of bread, and when I was done I waited. An old woman, a Greek, had attended to me, and she came in now and cleared away, and the poor old thing seemed sorry for me, though I couldn't understand her. I could understand nobody in all that place except the bey; and him I was beginning to understand completely. But, still, I had taken his money; and there was my bet. I could stick out a week of this, or so I fancied.
"Toward nine o'clock he came in to me, with some clothes, a Mauser carbine, and a belt of cartridges, 'You will carry these and your automatic pistol,' he said, 'and here is your new uniform.' This was a sheepskin coat of the country, a pair of leather gaiters, a pair of riding-breeches, and a round fur cap, of a sort of moldy astrakhan. They were none of them 'new,' but I have seen worse. Properly equipped, and dressed in all this toggery, I would look a fair old brigand!
"To-day, however, we were only going on foot, and there was no need to keep him waiting.
"'I am making an inspection of this property,' he said, in his stilted French. 'You will walk with me, and, if there is any trouble, you must shoot. I have another man, Yanni, who will join us. The shepherds here are a little difficult.'
"Now, the exact proposition we were up against requires a word or two of explanation. The bey made it clear as we went along, and was not too haughty to answer a few questions; indeed, on this matter, he was well informed and even loquacious.
"His land hereabouts had from time immemorial been used as pasture or grazing-land. The shepherds, a nomadic race, neither Greek nor Slav nor Turk, but simply 'shepherds,' roamed with their flocks from Thessaly in Greece to Turkish Macedonia, and Arakli, with its loamy plain, was a favorite winter pasturage. For generations a group of them had paid for and enjoyed grazing rights over the bey's property; but to-day he wished to clear them out. A friend of his in Constantinople had procured him a valuable contract and the bey had parted with a good deal of ready cash. He made no secret of it. They had bribed a minister, paid backsheesh to his underlings, and there was his friend's commission. It was arranged that he should plow up all the best of this land and sow it with grain for the imperial cavalry. He had contracted to deliver an immense quantity by the following autumn; and now every man in his village and every ox and ass and mule and horse he could lay hands on had started to plow up the estate. The shepherds hovered on the outskirts of this activity, vowing to prevent what they considered an outrage on their rights. But so far they had only threatened and fired a few shots into the village after nightfall. Should they attempt anything more serious, it was my business and Yanni's business to cope with them.
"The little rascal explained all this to me as we strode along, watching the men at work behind the light plows he had had sent down from Austria. Acre after acre of this virgin soil was being laid bare and open to the birds—wagtails mostly—that followed the plows and feasted. The shepherds, coming out of their reed camps and enclosures, watched us; but, beyond black looks and blacker imprecations, let us alone. A great dog trotted at our heels. I must have looked a perfect ass, dressed in my European clothes and carrying a carbine and a belt of cartridges. The bey in his fez and long frock-coat was bad enough! But still I felt that here was I, earning what in Macedonia, was considered an honest living.
"It was lovely weather, warm in the sun and blue overhead; but toward dusk it clouded, and next morning an icy wind was blowing; the bey called it 'the Vardar.' It is a wind which comes down the valley of the Vardar River from the great snow-covered mountains to the north; from the real Balkan ranges up in Serbia and Bulgaria. Nothing else had happened overnight, except that a shot or two had been fired through our broken windows and had made holes in the plaster on the walls. But I didn't mind that. It was the utter dreariness of the place after nightfall that I hated, when I lay in the dark or by candle-light with the rats playing about me and the world all black outside. It was dark at five o'clock and day only broke after seven.
"The villagers, a primitive and misshapen race of semi-savages, I could not understand, and they looked upon me with fear and suspicion as a stranger. Even the children avoided me. Yanni, the foreman, I could not understand, and he evidently regarded me as a potential rival. The old woman who looked after the bey was, I felt, sorry for me. The bey himself was a greedy hog and only anxious to fill his contract and get his money and spend it in Europe and in Saloniki. For me he had no use beyond the immediate purpose for which he had hired me. Small wonder that on this second morning with the icy wind blowing outside and the water frozen in my pitcher I began to feel a little in need of encouragement.
"Outdoors, with the ground so hard, our work had come to a standstill. We led out the animals, and they refused the stone-cold water from the wells. Brutally galled most of them were, and underfed and overdriven; but to-day they had a rest. The bey crouched over his fire in the living-room and complained and said he had 'a fever.' I went below and looked in at the village church, where a woman was haggling with the priest over the price of a baptism. She had the infant at her breast; and all three were hideous and malformed—the priest, the woman, and the child. They fought for some time over those few piasters, and other villagers joined in. I poked round the church and saw its pitiful, tawdry ikons; and when the child had been baptized, the priest invited me into his house, which contained two rooms. In one of them he taught school and in the other he lived and slept with his wife and five children. It was a pathetic place. No wonder he had bargained like a demon; and to-day it was cold as—I forget which particular hell of the lot is the cold one. I gave him a shilling or two when I had seen what he had to show me; and—hang it!—if he didn't start bargaining and lamenting once more, just as he had done with the woman whose child he had baptized! I'm afraid I drove him away after that and went out into the icy fields.
"My sole companion out there was an old donkey, which, it being ancient and useless, some kind soul had hit over the neck with a hatchet and left to die. A great red wound gaped wide against the gray; and I began to grow even more heartily sick of Arakli than I had been before. I put the poor thing out of its pain, with my pistol, and it seemed to say 'thank you,' in its dumb way before it dropped. Yes, I was growing most utterly tired of the place. Still, I would stick it out. To-day was Thursday; and on Tuesday, or even Monday night, I would be free.
"I wandered on and came to a dwarf oak with a great nest in its topmost branches; and there sat a lady eagle and looked down on me. I had never seen an eagle before at such close quarters. My troubles seemed to lift at that, and I stood there as though I had found a friend at last, a living thing that I could understand. The eagle was not so taken. After a few seconds it flapped its wings and flew away into the sky. And I was as before—cold, exiled unwashed, ill-housed, and thoroughly sick of my friend the bey and Macedonia. 'Damn Bruce!' I said; and meant it.
"I went back to the village and discovered that it was New Year's Eve, being the thirty-first of December by the Greek calendar and the twelfth of January by ours; though the way I found it out was not through calendars, but from the sudden and bloodthirsty activity which had come over all those uncouth and misshapen creatures in the hovels. Armed with their long, sharp knives, they were chasing the pigs which had been housed in the dilapidated sties of the enclosure. The pigs knew that their hour was come and were running and screaming round the village. One after another, they were caught and stabbed to death. The old priest, with his skirts gathered, led the field; but it wasn't hunting, and it wasn't murder. It was a massacre! The dogs went round licking up the blood; and I retired to the house and sat alone upon my three-legged stool. At five o'clock it was pitch-dark, with the dogs all loose and furious in the enclosure; but in the hovels it was New Year's Eve, and every pot was a-boiling and full of pig, and next day there would be feasting and a holiday.
"I sat in the dark, and the rats ran round, and that confounded bey never came near me; till I began to feel like shooting him myself, instead of leaving it to the shepherds. He was Kef-ing, I suppose; which means making your mind a dead blank and 'getting into touch with the infinite.' So the highbrow people explain it; but my own explanation is quite different. He was probably thinking what he was going to eat and drink and cuddle when he got back to Saloniki.
"The old Greek woman came in to me with my supper and a bottle of wine and I believe she wished me a happy New Year and a merry Christmas; but I was feeling very far from happy and the poor old girl knew it. All night I heard the villagers, escaped for a few hours from their dismal lives, from the squalor and the degradation of their servitude. They must have had mastic and wine with their meat; for next morning the place was silent and not a soul moved in the yard outside. Even the dogs looked drunk.
"The bey, however, wag sober enough. He came in search of me shortly after I had finished breakfast and taken a stroll with a cigarette. He found me in the fields.
"'Ah, there you are!' he cried.
"I was disgruntled and fed up with him; and he knew it; could read it in my face, I suppose; in the look of unconcealed disgust I handed out to him.
"'You English are spoilt,' he began. 'You want tea at five o'clock in the afternoon, and jam and cake, like children.'
"This, of course, made me smile, and that annoyed the little hook-nosed blighter, with his Kaiser Bill moustache and mousy eyes. He was a rodent in appearance, and rather a rat generally; but he had the pull over me, or he thought he had.
"My smile had upset him; so, 'You English, with your cursed superiority!' he yapped. 'No wonder the other nations detest you!'
"'I thought I'd come here to save you from being shot like the dog you are, and not to talk politics,' I answered as politely as I was able.
"'You are ready enough to take our money,' he replied. But at that I had fished out his five pieces of gold and he well knew what was coming.
"'Forgive me,' he said, changing all of a sudden. 'In the morning I am not very amiable. I smoke too much, and these Christian feasts, this New Year of theirs—everybody is drunk and we can get no work done.' The little beast was almost cringing.
"The real object of his search for me, however, was not to exchange views on religion and politics, but to give me my orders for the day.
"'There will be no work here for the rest of this week,' he said; 'and even if these peasants were sober, the frost would keep us idle. To-day we will go over to one of my other properties where the peasants are good Turks. We want more animals for plowing; half of those we have are growing useless. We will ride,' he pursued, 'and if I were you I would leave my money behind in a secret place. You can bury it in a hole in the ground, for one never knows what may happen. In half an hour the horses will be ready,' And with that he left me and I went back to the house and changed into my 'uniform'; and then as a precaution, I actually did divide my money into halves and the one I put into my pocket and the other I stuffed into the middle of my straw mattress. There wasn't much, anyway; but whatever happened I was pretty sure of getting back to Saloniki. It was curious now how that deadly hole was fast becoming a paradise. Compared with Arakli it was one.
"Yanni, who for some reason or other—probably because he was paid for it—had kept sober, had saddled up all three horses, though he managed to make me understand that in future I could see to my own. It was pleasant, however, to get a leg over anything that trotted or cantered, so I thanked him and looked the little mare over, pulled out the stirrup leathers, tested the girth, and chucked out half the stuff around her mouth. She was a chestnut with a blaze, and quite fresh and in good heart, and she danced round the yard as we mounted. Each of us had a day's feed and our own grub tied in a bag to the saddle. I had my carbine and pistol and lots of cartridges, and, for the first time since I had arrived in that accursed place, I felt really and truly happy.
"Yanni and the bey rode like tailors; to them a horse was only a means of locomotion; but I'm afraid I let my little lady out when we came to anything soft enough, and all that day I was her most obedient servant. It was long since I had handled anything so human. She ate my sugar and part of my bread, she tried to throw me when we came to water, she shied at a dead tortoise on the road, and lashed out at a dog that threatened her hind quarters. She teased me and tried me, but by evening we were friends. The bey, I learnt, had bought her for his own use, but she had flung him into a dung-heap at their first tussle and gone back laughing to her stall. He was still very sore about it and hit her over the flank when we gave him the chance. I imagine the villagers rather spoilt her. It would be natural. Me she carried gaily along that day, and I gave her as much as 1 dared on the hard ground.
"We went across the plain, then skirted the mountain that our Tommies later christened 'Gibraltar,' and so north on tracks feet deep in mud when it thawed the following morning. Balkan mud! It's easily the worst mud in the world.
"We met nobody except the shepherds, who came out of their reed enclosures and scowled at us; for the rest of the population was celebrating the New Year, and there were no Turkish Tillages before we got to Kalabek, our destination. And half the Tillages we passed were but empty shells and blackened ruin, the work of those political Comitadjis, who were all dispersed and having a holiday to-day and hidden with their Greek or Bulgar sympathizers. At intervals we ran into a post of the gendarmerie, and the first night we slept on the floor of a horrible Greek inn, but the second night we were clean and comfortable in the guest-room of the Turkish Tillage for which the bey had been making.
"I enjoyed those two days, and when we started out again, I felt that my bet was properly won and the good Bruce discomfited. That morning we set off early, and we rode with hardly a break, reaching Langaza Plain and the fields that led to Arakli well before sunset. The bey had a bad head; for I'm afraid that, with all his principles and his strictures on the Gentile he had imbibed pretty freely the night before from a private supply of cognac. Yanni was cautions and afraid; but no one molested us—it was a Sunday—and when we came to the spot where the shepherds had scowled at us we found their reed encampment deserted and not even a dog to bark at us or snarl as we rode by.
"An ominous silence attended our home-coming on that fine clear afternoon. There was a similar splendor of sunshine as on the first day after my arrival; but something had changed; and when we sighted the village, a dull smell hit our nostrils, and a smolder of smoke rose from the buildings on the bey's side of the triangle.
"The villagers themselves awaited us, furtive and afraid; and next the bey came out of his thoughts and began to realize what had happened. He asked questions and got his hangdog answers. The shepherds had avenged themselves, it seemed. A third of Arakli had been set on fire, beginning with the bey's house and its adjacent hovels. All the barns and outbuildings which held his stores, his plows and implements, had gone as well. The shepherds had done their work thoroughly. The animals were mostly saved and staring at us from where they nosed in the enclosure; amid its filth, its flies, and rotting shelters. The animals were mostly saved; but there would be no more turning up of that rich pasture-land before next winter; and even then the bey would have his hands full.
"You can imagine the rage and fury of that spoilt little man! I will not attempt to describe it. There was his house, reduced to a mere shell; and his contract—literally gone to blazes! But what concerned me particularly was the fact that the contents of my kit-bag, the bag itself, the money I had stuffed into the straw mattress, my overcoat, cloth cap, and the trousers of the suit I had arrived in, were lost and gone forever. And so, after all, my bet was as good as lost; though I did have the bey's sheepskin coat and what he called 'my uniform,' and of course there were the carbine and the revolvers. But if I cleared out next evening, he would hardly leave me these; and there was no place I could see where I fancied spending the night; and there was little Juanita, too, who like me, was homeless.
"I stood there, a hand on her neck, when the bey flared up at me.
"'What are you doing?' he yelled. 'Why don't you say something? No wonder those shepherds cleared out!' he ran on. 'They are miles away, now. They will cross the frontier into Greece;you will have to stop them. Ride to the gendarmerie barracks,' he cried; 'ride to the devil!' And then he broke down utterly, and wept and lamented, squatting on his hunkers in the mud.
"I took him at his word; for I wasn't a missionary; and he was such a little bounder—and I suppose I was fed up with him.
"'I'm for Saloniki,' I said, mounting the little chestnut.
"At that he rose in a horrible rage.
"'You are! You are!' he cried; and then he sang out something to Yanni. What he said I could not understand; but to me he yelled, 'Get off my horse and give me back the pistol and the carbine you have stolen, and my clothes! You can go to the devil! You dirty swine of an English pauper! I dismiss you; you have had your money!'
"I was on Juanita's back when Yanni raised his carbine, and then I saw what the game was. They wanted to turn me out on foot and half destitute. I dug my heels into the little mare and she answered.
"Yanni had the first shot. It missed me, and before he could load again I whipped out the automatic pistol and had the pair of them cold. I'm not a bad shot, and I aimed at the ground a foot in front of where each of them was standing. The bey fled yelping indoors. Yanni jumped a yard into the air, a damned good yard; so I gave him another and kept him jumping. The bey poked his head out of a window-frame and I let him have one to the right and one to the left. It was risky, but I aimed wide, and, if anything, a trifle high. His red fez, hook-nose, and silly Kaiser moustache disappeared after that, and I have never seen any of them since; and I can't say I've missed them. All the villagers were looking on, and I believe they thoroughly enjoyed it. For, all said and done, it was about as good as a Charlie Chaplin film, and in some ways a darned sight better.
"I gave Yanni a parting shot between his boots, flung the carbine at his ugly head, and told the little mare that it was now or never. She put her nose down and off we went; out of that God-forsaken village, through the field with the dead donkey, and past the dwarf oak where I had seen the eagle on her nest; and then I gave Juanita a breather. Next morning we walked in at the Vardar Gate and took our ease in Salonika
"We put up at the Olympus Palace Hotel again, where I handed her over to the head porter; while I retired upstairs to a good bedroom, ordered a hot bath, and, when I was properly aired and clean and comfortable, lay down and had a real sleep in a real bed. The Olympus Palace Hotel was even finer than its name on that particular morning.
"At the cashier's office down below I had found a letter from Bruce. It was dated on the Wednesday.
"'I guess you've won that bet,' he began; 'the man here, says you've departed up country to buy tobacco. One lie more or less don't matter in this part of the world, anyway; and so I let it go. We'll meet next Tuesday at one o'clock sharp, unless I get shanghaied, marooned, or pirated. There's an English captain I've met here who is taking his ship Athens way. He says I can come along and that he'll get somebody to bring me back here by Tuesday morning. I've always wanted to see the Parthenon and the Acropolis and the gold things in the museum that belonged to Agamemnon, and I may get to Mycenæ itself with any luck. We sail to-night, and if I'm not back by Tuesday—well, I'll post you from there if I'm delayed. And here's the twenty Turkish pounds I've lost to you, in case things haven't panned out exactly right.'
"It was decent of him to think of that, but Americans of the right sort are about the most decent thing on earth. And, on reflection, it occurred to me that I might need the money. Anyhow, as soon as I felt like it, I sent for my Austrian friend behind the pay-desk.
"'I want a European overcoat,' I said, 'a suit of pajamas, a pair of trousers, a tooth-brush, a leather bag, a comb and hair-brushes, and a few more things. I want them to-day. Where can I get them?'
"'At Herrera's,' said he, 'up in the bazaar. And say that I sent you. Did you find any good tobacco?'
"He gave me the exact direction and I went to Herrera's and spent the best part of those twenty pounds with them; and I've no doubt but that my Austrian friend had his commission on that deal, as he still hoped to have it on the tobacco.
"I got back with a new kit-bag and they had promised to send the trousers round as fast as they could make them; I'm rather too long in the leg for Saloniki.
"Upstairs, in my room, I found a visitor.
"'You permit me?' he said, rising when I entered. 'I have taken the liberty. You are connected with the house of Ginnell and Bruce—may I give you my card? We can quote you for tobacco in any quantity, of all the best districts—Cavalla, Yenidje, Latakia—and at the lowest prices.'
"'Mr. Bruce is in Athens,' I answered.
"'He will return?'
"'To-morrow, I hope.'
"'And you, sir?'
"'What about me?'
"That rather floored him; but, still, he gave me his best smile, murmured, 'Well, I will call again to-morrow,' bowed, and left the room.
"His card was on the table where I had placed it. 'Benjamin Toledano,' I had read; and now beside the card lay a little package rolled up in a sheet of white note-paper; a heavy little package considering its size.
"I unfastened it and counted out twenty-five pieces of Turkish gold. This was my price, apparently; or was it my share of the spoil? I was beginning to win that bet again; although, a moment earlier, I had quite made up my mind to the fact that I had lost it; that I would have to refund Bruce's twenty pounds with twenty of my own.
"I was dwelling on these matters when another visitor came in, and he too inquired after the absent Bruce and left his card and offered to quote prices. This gentleman valued my services at thirty pounds, and from his name I judged that he was an Armenian.
"I went downstairs and had a word with my friend the Austrian cashier and told him he'd better stop it; but when I returned to my room that evening, I found the new trousers and a dozen large flasks of Chianti; and together with these were a string of amber beads the size of pigeons' eggs and a silver cigarette-case, done in the filigree-work of the place, which I had admired in a shop-window. Beside this still-life—for it made rather a picture—was the card of a third dealer in tobacco, a Greek with a sonorous surname and an antique forename—Euripides Papanastasiou, or something similar. I locked my door after that and kept it locked till Bruce turned up next day from Athens.
"'Well, you won that bet?' he asked, as soon as I had heard his story.
"'Come upstairs to my room,' I answered; and when I had locked the door again, I showed him the two rolls of gold, the bottles of Chianti, the amber beads, and the filigree cigarette-case. Also I gave him a brief summary of labor conditions, trade, commerce, and industry, as experienced by myself, in Macedonia.
"'We agreed it was to be an honest living,' he began; and next he burst out laughing; and, 'I guess it's honest for Saloniki,' he ended, though it wouldn't exactly do in my home town.'
'Then the two of us drove back to the old Medusa and continued on our way to Constantinople."
Vignolles was done; but I wasn't quite satisfied.
"What became of that pony," I asked, "and your new uniform, and the beads and the Chianti, and did you stick to old Benjamin Whatsername's money?"
"The little mare was all right. I went up to the police barracks, found an interpreter, and reported the matter to the colonel, a jolly old Turk with a big gray beard, who hadn't been 'Europeanized.' He said he'd see that the bey got back his property; but he also said that he could do with a little horse like that himself. And as for the beads, Mrs. Bruce got the beads, while I stuck to the cigarette-case; and we put the Chianti on the table of the Medusa, where an Italian friar had the half of it and the rest of us a bottle apiece. And the money? It seems that I'd earned it and wasn't particularly over-paid. At least, that's how Bruce and I figured it out. Now, are you satisfied?"
I was.