The wire whip fell from the hand of the manager, and his face became deadly pale, because Orso looked ferocious. His eyes were bloodshot, his lips covered with foam, his head inclined to one side like a bull’s, and his whole body was crouched and gathered, as if ready to spring.
“Get out!” cried the manager, trying to hide his fear behind a show of authority.
The pent-up dam was already broken. Orso, who was usually as obedient to every motion as a dog, this time did not move, but leaning his head still more to one side, he moved slowly and threateningly toward the “artist of the whip,” his iron muscles taut as whipcords.
“Help! help!” cried the manager.
They heard him.
Four brawny negroes from the stables ran in through the broken door and fell upon Orso. A terrible fight ensued, upon which the manager looked with chattering teeth. For a long time you could see nothing but a tangled mass of dark bodies wrestling with convulsive movements, rolling on the ground in a writhing heap; in the silence which followed sometimes was heard a groan, a snort, loud short breathing, the gritting of teeth.
In a moment one of the negroes, as if by a superhuman force, was sent from this formless mass, whirling headlong through the air, and fell at the feet of the manager, striking his skull with great force on the ground; soon a second flew out; then from the center of this turbulent group Orso’s body alone arose, covered with blood and looking more terrible than before. His knees were still pressing heavily on the breasts of the two fainting negroes. He arose to his feet and moved toward the manager.
Hirsch closed his eyes.
The next moment he felt that his feet had left the ground, that he was flying through the air — then he felt nothing; his whole body was dashed with monstrous force into the remaining half of the door, and he fell to the earth unconscious.
Orso wiped his face, and, coming over to Jenny, said:
“Let us go.”
He took her by the hand and they went.
The whole town was following the circus procession and the steam calliope, playing “Yankee Doodle,” and the place around the circus was deserted. The parrots only, swinging in their hoops, filled the air with their cries. Hand in hand, Orso and Jenny went forward; from the end of the street could be seen the immense plains, covered with cacti. Silently they passed by the houses, shaded by the eucalyptus trees; then they passed the slaughter-houses, around which had gathered thousands of small black birds with red-tipped wings. They jumped over the large irrigation ditches, entered into an orange grove, and on emerging from it found themselves among the cacti.
This was the desert.
As far as the eye could reach these prickly plants rose higher and higher; thick leaves growing from other leaves obstructed the path, sometimes catching on Jenny’s dress. In places they grew to such a great height that the children seemed to be as much lost here as if they were in the woods, and no one could find them there. So they kept threading their way through them, now to the right and then to the left, but careful always to go from the town. Sometimes between the cacti they could see on the horizon the blue mountains of Santa Ana. They went to the mountains. The heat was great. Gray-colored locusts chirped in the cacti; the sun’s rays poured down upon the earth in streams; the dried-up earth was covered with a network of cracks; the stiff leaves of the cacti seemed to soften from the heat, and the flowers were languid and half-wilted. The children proceeded, silent and thoughtful. But all that surrounded them was so new that they surrendered themselves to their impressions, and for the moment forgot even their weariness. Jenny’s eyes ran from one bunch of cacti to another; again she looked to the farther clusters, saying to her friend:
“Is this the wilderness, Orso?”
But the desert did not appear to be deserted. From the farther clumps came the calling of the male quail, and around sounded the different murmurs of clucking, of twittering, of the ruffling of feathers: in a word, the divers voices of the small inhabitants of the plains. Sometimes there flew up a whole covey of quail; the gaudy-topped pheasants scattered on their approach; the black squirrels dived into their holes; the rabbits disappeared in all directions; the gophers were sitting on their hind legs beside their holes, looking like fat German farmers standing in their doorway.
After resting an hour the children proceeded on their journey. Jenny soon felt thirsty. Orso, in whom had awakened his Indian inventive faculties, began to pluck cactus fruits. They were in abundance, and grew together with the flowers on the same leaves. In plucking them they pricked their fingers with the sharp points, but the fruit was luscious. Their sweet and acid flavor quenched at once their thirst and appeased their hunger. The prairies fed the children as a mother; thus strengthened they could proceed further. The cacti arose higher, and you could say that they grew on the head of one another. The ground on which they walked ascended gradually and continuously. Looking backward once more they saw Anaheim, dissolving in the distance and looking like a grove of trees upon the low plains. Not a trace of the circus could be distinguished. They still pressed steadily onward to the mountains, which now became more distinct in the distance. The surroundings assumed another phase. Between the cacti appeared different bushes and even trees; the wooded portion of the foothills of Santa Ana had commenced. Orso broke one of the saplings, and, clearing off its branches, made a cudgel of it, which, in his hands, would prove a terrible weapon. His Indian instincts whispered to him that in the mountains it was better to be provided, even with a stick, than to go unarmed, especially now that the sun had lowered itself into the west. Its great fiery shield had rolled down far beyond Anaheim, into the blue ocean. After a while it disappeared, and in the west there gleamed red, golden, and orange lights, similar to ribbons and gauzy veils, stretched over the whole sky. The mountains uplifted themselves in this glow; the cacti assumed different fantastical shapes, resembling people and animals. Jenny felt tired and sleepy, but they still hastened to the mountains, although they knew not why. Soon they saw rocks, and on reaching them they discovered a stream; they drank some water and continued along its course. The rocks, which were at first broken and scattered, then changed into a solid wall, which became higher and higher, and soon they entered into a cañon.
The rosy lights died away; deeper and deeper dusk enveloped the earth. In places immense vines reached from one side of the cañon to the other, covering it like a roof, and making it dark and uncanny. On the mountain side, above them, could be heard the voices of the swaying and creaking forest trees. Orso implied that now they were in the depths of the wilderness, where certainly there were many wild animals. From time to time his ear detected suspicious sounds, and when night fell he distinctly heard the hoarse mewing of the lynxes, the roar of the pumas, and the melancholy howling of the coyotes.
“Are you afraid, Jen?” asked Orso.
“No,” replied the girl.
But she was already very tired, and could proceed no farther, so Orso took her in his arms and carried her. He went forward with the hope that he would reach the house of some squatter, or should meet some Mexican campers. Once or twice it seemed to him that he saw the gleam of some wild animal’s eyes. Then with one hand he pressed Jenny, who had now fallen asleep, to his breast, and with the other he grasped his stick. He was very tired himself; notwithstanding his great strength Jenny began to prove heavy to him, especially as he carried her on his left arm; the right one he wished to have free for defense. Occasionally he stopped to regain his breath and then continued on. Suddenly he paused and listened intently. It seemed to him as if he heard the echoes of the small bells which the settlers tie for the night to the neck of their cows and goats. Rushing forward, he soon reached a bend in the stream. The sound of the bells became more distinct, and joined with them in the distance was heard the barking of a dog. Then Orso was sure that he was nearing some settlement. It was high time that he did, for he was exhausted by the events of the day, and his strength had begun to fail him. On turning another ben
d he saw a light; as he moved forward his quick eyes discerned a campfire, a dog, evidently tied to a stump, tearing and barking, and at last the figure of a man seated by the fire.
“God send that this may be a man from the ‘good book’!” thought he.
Then he resolved to awaken Jenny.
“Jen!” called he, “awake, we shall eat.”
“What is it?” asked the girl; “where are we?”
“In the wilderness.”
She was now wide awake.
“What light is that?”
“A man lives there; we shall eat.”
Poor Orso was very hungry.
Meanwhile they were nearing the fire. The dog barked more violently, and the old man, sitting by the fire, shaded his eyes and peered into the gloom. Shortly he said:
“Who is there?”
“It is us,” answered Jenny in her delicate voice, “and we are very hungry.”
“Come nearer,” said the old man.
Emerging from behind a great rock, which had partly concealed them, they both stood in the light of the fire, holding each other’s hands. The old man looked at them with astonishment, and involuntarily exclaimed:
“What is that?”
For he saw a sight which, in the sparsely populated mountains of Santa Ana, would astonish any one. Orso and Jenny were dressed in their circus attire. The beautiful girl, clothed in pink tights and short white skirt, appearing so suddenly before him, looked in the firelight like some fairy sylph. Behind her stood the youth with his powerful figure, covered also with pink fleshings, through which you could see his muscles standing out like knots on the oak.
The old squatter gazed at them with wide-open eyes.
“Who are you?” he inquired.
The girl, relying more on her own eloquence than on that of Orso, began to speak.
“We are from the circus, kind sir! Mr. Hirsch beat Orso very much and then wanted to beat me, but Orso did not let him, and fought Mr. Hirsch and four negroes, and then we ran off on the plains, and went a long distance through the cacti, and Orso carried me; then we came here and are very hungry.”
The face of the old man softened and brightened as he listened to her story, and he looked with a fatherly interest on this charming child, who spoke with great haste, as if she wished to tell all in one breath.
“What is your name, little one?” he asked.
“Jenny.”
“Welcome, Jenny! and you, Orso! people rarely come here. Come to me, Jenny.”
Without hesitation the little girl put her arms around the neck of the old man and kissed him warmly. He appeared to her to be some one from the “good book.”
“Will Mr. Hirsch find us here?” she said, as she took her lips from his face.
“If he comes he will find a bullet here,” replied the old man; then added, “you said that you wanted to eat?”
“Oh, yes, very much.”
The squatter, raking in the ashes of the fire, took out a fine leg of venison, the pleasant odor of which filled the air. Then they sat down to eat.
The night was gorgeous; the moon came out high in the heavens above the cañon; in the thicket the mavis began to sing sweetly; the fire burned brightly, and Orso was so filled with joy that he chanted with gladness. Both he and the girl ate heartily. The old man had no appetite; he looked upon little Jenny, and, for some unknown cause, his eyes were filled with tears.
Perhaps he had been once a father, or, perhaps, he so rarely saw people in these deserted mountains.
Since then these three lived together.
FOR BREAD.
I. ON THE OCEAN — MEDITATION — A STORM — THE ARRIVAL.
ON the broad waves of the ocean the German steamer Blücher was rocking as it sailed to New York from Hamburg.
That was its fourth day on the voyage; two days before it had passed the green shores of Ireland, and had come out on the open ocean. From the deck, as far as the eye could see, nothing was visible save the green and gray plain; ploughed into furrows and ridges, swaying heavily, in places foaming, in the distance darker and darker and blending with the horizon, which was covered with white clouds.
The light of these clouds fell in places on the water too, and on that pearly background the black body of the vessel was outlined distinctly. The prow of that body was turned to the west; now it rose on a wave with great labor, now it plunged into the depth, as if drowning; at moments it vanished from the eye; at moments, lifted on the back of a billow, it rose so high that the bottom of it was visible, but the steamer went forward. The sea moved toward it, and it toward the sea, cleaving the water with its breast. Behind it, like a giant serpent, chased a white road of foaming water; sea-gulls flew after the rudder, turning somersaults in the air and piping like Polish lapwings.
The wind was favorable; the vessel was going with half steam, but all sails were raised on it. The weather grew better and better. In places among the rent clouds bits of blue sky could be seen changing their forms unceasingly. From the moment that the Blücher had left the port of Hamburg, the weather had been windy, but without storm; the wind blew toward the west, but at times it ceased; then the sails dropped with a flapping, to swell out again like the breast of a swan. The sailors, in close-fitting knit jackets, tightened the line in the lower yard of the mainsail, chanting a melancholy: “Ho — ho — o!” They bent and straightened themselves in time with the sound, and their voices were mingled with the midshipmen’s whistles, and the feverish puffing of smoke-stacks which hurled out broken bundles or rings of black smoke.
The passengers had come out on deck numerously. In the stern of the steamer were those of the first-class, in black overcoats and caps; toward the prow had assembled the particolored multitude of emigrants who lived between decks. Some of these were sitting on benches, smoking short pipes; others, lying down; others, leaning against the bulwarks, were gazing into the water.
There were women with children in their arms, and with tin cups fastened to their girdles; there were young people walking backward and forward from the prow to the bridge, preserving their balance with difficulty and staggering from moment to moment as they sang: “Wo ist das deutsche Vaterland!” and thinking, perhaps, that they would never again see that “Vaterland,” still gladness did not leave their faces. Among the passengers were two, the saddest of all, and separated, as it were, from the others: an old man and a young girl. Neither understood German, and they were really alone and among strangers. Who were they? — each one of us would have divined at the first glance that they were Polish peasants.
The man was called Vavron Toporek, and the girl was Marysia, his daughter. They were going to America, and had taken courage a moment before to come out on deck for the first time. On their faces, thin from sickness, were depicted both fear and astonishment. They looked, with frightened eyes at their companions of the journey, at the sailors, at the steamer, at the smoke-stacks, belching forth mightily, at the terrible walls of water which hurled wreaths of foam to the deck of the steamer. They said nothing to each other, for they dared not. Vavron held the railing with one hand, and his four-cornered cap with the other, lest the wind might sweep it away from him; Marysia held to her father, and when the ship inclined more steeply, she held to him more closely, and cried in a low voice from fear. After a certain time the old man broke the silence, —
“Marysia!”
“But what?”
“Dost see?”
“I see.”
“And dost wonder?”
“I wonder.”
But she feared still more than she wondered; it was the same with old Toporek.
Happily for them, the waves decreased; the wind went down; and the sun broke forth through the clouds. When they saw the “dear beloved sun,” it became easier at their hearts; for they thought to themselves that that sun was “just the very same as in Lipintse.” Indeed everything was new and unknown to them; that sun disk alone, gleaming and radiant, seemed as it were an old friend
and guardian.
Meanwhile the sea became smoother and smoother; after a time the sails slackened; and from the lofty bridge was heard the whistle of the captain, and the sailors rushed to reef them. The sight of these sailors suspended, as if in the air above an abyss, filled Toporek and Marysia with wonder a second time.
“Our boys could not do that,” said the old man.
“Wherever Germans go, Yasko can go,” replied Marysia.
“Which Yasko? Is it Sobkov?”
“How Sobkov? I mean Smolak, the groom.”
“He is a smart fellow, but drive him from thy head. Thou art not for him, nor he for thee. Thou art to be a lady; and he, as he is a groom, will remain a groom.”
“But he has land too.”
“He has, but it is in Lipintse.”
Marysia said nothing; but she thought to herself that whatever was fated would not fail, and she sighed sadly. Meanwhile the sails were reefed; but the screw stirred the water so mightily that the whole steamer quivered from its movements. The rocking had stopped almost completely. In the distance the water seemed even now smooth and azure. From moment to moment new figures came up from below: laborers, German peasants, street idlers from various seaports, people going to America to seek fortune, not work; a throng took possession of the deck, so Vavron and Marysia, to crowd no one, sat on a coil of rope in the very point in the prow.
“Tatulo (papa), shall we go long through the water yet?” inquired Marysia.
“Do I know. Whomever thou may ask, no one will answer in Catholic fashion.”
“But how shall we talk in America?”
“Have men not said that there is a cloud of our people there?”
“Tatulo?” —
“What?”
“To wonder there is something to wonder at, still it was better in Lipintse.”
“Better not blaspheme for nothing.”
But after a while Vavron added, as if speaking to himself, —
“The will of God!”
Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz Page 730