by Mór Jókai
CHAPTER XX.
THE DYING SOLDIER'S BEQUEST.
It was dark when Richard recovered consciousness. At first the gloomseemed to him like something dense and heavy pressing against hishead, and when he raised his hand he was surprised to find itsmovement unimpeded by this thick, black substance.
"Oho!" he cried, discovering at length that his tongue was movable.
At his call a door opened and Mausmann's face looked in, lighted by alantern which he held in his hand.
"Well, are you awake at last?" asked the student, still wearing hisdroll expression.
"Am I really alive?" asked the other.
"Hardly a scratch on you," was the cheerful reply. "You were only atransient guest in the other world."
"But where am I now?"
"In the mill by the RAikos."
"Did we win the fight?" The questioner suddenly recalled the events ofthe day just passed.
"Did we win, you ask. Isaszeg is ours, and the victory is complete."
At this Richard sprang to his feet.
"That's right!" cried Mausmann; "there's nothing the matter withyou,--a lump on your head, and a three-inch _solutio continuitatis_ ofthe skin, that's all."
"And what of Otto Palvicz?"
"Ah, you handled him rather roughly. He is here too in the miller'shouse, and the staff physician has charge of his case. His wound isthought to be mortal, and he himself is prepared for the worst. Hisfirst words to me, when I went to him, were, 'How is Baradlay?' Andwhen I told him you were out of danger, he asked me to take you tohim, as he had something important to say to you."
"If he wishes to see me, so much the better," rejoined Richard. "Ishould have felt bound in any case to visit my wounded opponent. Letus go to him now."
Otto Palvicz lay in a small room in the miller's dwelling. SeeingRichard Baradlay enter, he tried to sit up, and requested thatsomething be put under his head to raise it. Then he extended his handto his visitor.
"Good evening, comrade," said he. "How goes it? You see I'm done forthis time. But don't take it to heart. It wasn't your sword that didthe mischief. I have a tough skull of my own, and it has stood many agood whack. The good-for-nothing horses used me up with their hoofs.There must be something wrong inside me, and I shall die of it. Youare not to blame; don't be at all concerned. We gave each other oneapiece, and we are quits. I have settled my accounts for this life,but one debt remains." He grasped Richard's hand with feverish energyand added, "Comrade, I have a child that to-morrow will befatherless." A flush overspread the dying man's face. "I will tell youthe whole story. My time is short. I must die, and I can leave mysecret only to a noble-hearted man who will know how to honour andguard it. I was your enemy, but now I am good friends with everybody.You have got the better of me, and are left to receive your oldenemy's bequest; it is your duty to accept it."
"I accept it," said Richard.
"I knew you would, and so I sent for you. I have a son whom I havenever seen, and never shall see. His mother is a high-born lady; youwill find her name in the papers that are in my pocketbook. She wasbeautiful, but heartless. I was a young lieutenant when we first met.We were both thoughtless and self-willed. My father was alive then,and he would not consent to our marriage, although it would haveatoned for the indiscretion of an unguarded hour. Well, it can't behelped now. Yet she needn't have torn a piece of her heart out, andthrown it into the gutter. She, my wife before God and by the laws ofnature, went on a journey with her mother and came back again as amaiden. I learned only that the hapless being sent into a world wherethere are already too many of its kind, was a boy. What became of him,I did not find out at the time. Later I won for myself a good stationin my military career, my father died, and I was independent; and, byheaven, I would have married the woman if she could only have told mewhere my child was. She besieged me with letters, she begged for aninterview, she used every entreaty; but to each of her letters I onlyreplied: 'First find my child.' I was cruel to her. She could havemarried more than once; suitors were about her in plenty. 'I forbidyou to marry,' I wrote to her. 'Then marry me yourself,' she answered.'First find my child,' I repeated. I tortured her, but she had noheart to feel the infliction very keenly. She said she didn't knowwhat had become of the child. She had not tried to find it; nay, shehad taken the utmost pains to destroy all traces that could lead toits discovery, either by herself or by another. But, nevertheless, Ifound the clue. I spent years in the search. I came upon one littlebaby footstep after another,--here a nurse, there a scrap of writing,in another place a child's hood, and finally the end of the searchseemed at hand. But right there I am stopped; I must die."
The rough man's breast heaved with a deep sigh. The rude exteriorcovered a tender heart. Richard listened attentively to every word.
"Comrade," said the dying soldier, "give me your hand, and promisethat you will do the errand I can no longer execute."
Richard gave his hand.
"In my pocketbook you will find papers telling where the persons arewho will help you to find the boy. He was, at last accounts, in thecare of a peddler woman in Pest. I learned this from a Viennahuckster. But I failed to find the woman in Pest, as she had removedto Debreczen. I could not follow her, but I learned that she had sentthe child to a peasant woman in the country. Where? She alone cantell. Yet I learned this much from a girl that lived with her,--thatthe peasant woman into whose care the boy was given, and who made abusiness of taking such waifs, was often at the peddler woman's house,and complained that she didn't receive enough money to pay for thechild's board. The woman lives poorly, I was told, and the boy goeshungry, and in rags."
The speaker paused a moment, and his eyes filled with tears.
"But it is a pretty child," he resumed. "The peasant woman brought thelittle fellow to town with her now and then, to prove that he wasalive; he can always be identified by a mole in the shape of ablackberry on his breast. The peddler, out of pity and fondness forthe child, used to pay the woman a little money--so I was told--and inthat way the poor boy was kept alive. The mother has long agoforgotten him. Comrade, I shall hear the child's cries even after I amunder the sod."
"Don't worry about him," said Richard, "he shall not cry."
"You'll find him, won't you? And there is money in my pocketbook tosupport him until he grows up."
"I will hunt up the boy and take him under my care," promised theother.
"Among my papers," continued the other, "you will find a formalauthorisation, entitling the child to bear my name. Yet he is never toknow who I was. Tell him his father was a poor soldier, and have himlearn an honest trade, Richard."
"You may rely on me, comrade Otto; I promise you to take care of theboy as if he were my own brother's child."
A smile of satisfaction and relief lighted up the dying man's face.
"And comrade," he added, "this secret that I am confiding to you is awoman's secret. Promise me, on your honour, that you will never betraythat woman. Not even to my son are you to tell the mother's name. Sheis not a good woman, but let her shame be buried in my grave."
Richard gave his promise in a voice that testified how deeply he wasmoved. The pale face before him grew yet paler, and ere many minuteshad passed the eyes that looked into his became glazed and fixed; thewounded soldier had ceased to breathe.