The King of the Mountains

By Drakinan

A young botanist just out of the University is sent to Greece by the Museum of Paris to study the flora. In search of rare plants, he meets two English women, a mother and her daughter, on the path that leads to Parnès. All three were kidnapped by a band of brigands led by Hadgi-Stavros, "the king of the mountains," renowned for his cruelty. Faced with the refusal of the old English lady to pay the ransom, the botanist, enamored of her daughter, tried several times to escape.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Drakinan
• Release date: Apr 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370967698

Drakinan

Reading is my passion since my childhood. I started to write young and I was loving it. When I had my first computer I could write for hours non stop. Later, very late, I learnt English and then started to love that language and I started to make traductions. I still read alot and my favorites books are erotica and fantasy. I do love writing erotic short stories. Now I write and self-edit my books, under the pseudonyme of “Drakinan”, and then sell them. I think that litterature should not be put aside of our lives and also because reading is my passion. Everyone should read a little story once a day. The stress goes away and peace of mind come back.

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The King of the Mountains

Traduction by Drakinan

From the French author Edmond About

Drakinan's EDITION | COPYRIGHT 2017 Drakinan

License Notes

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Mr. Hermann Schultz

Chapter 2: Photini

Chapter 3: Mary-Ann

Chapter 4: Hadgi Stavros

Chapter 5: The gendarmes

Chapter 6: The escape

Chapter 7: John Harris

Chapter 8: The ball of the court

Chapter 9: Letter from Athens

Chapter 1: Mr. Hermann Schultz

On the 3rd of July of this year, about six o'clock in the morning, I watered my petunias without thinking evil, when I saw a tall, fair-haired young man wearing a German cap, adorned with gold spectacles. An ample overcoat of lasting floated melancholy around his person, like a sail along a mast when the wind comes to fall. He was not wearing gloves; His shoes of unbleached leather rested on powerful soles, so wide that the foot was surrounded by a small pavement. In his side pocket, towards the heart region, a large porcelain pipe was patterned in relief and vaguely drawn its profile under the shining fabric. I did not even think of asking this unknown whether he had studied in the universities of Germany; I laid down my watering-can, and greeted him with a beautiful hand.

Guten Morgen.

Monsieur, he said to me in French, but with a deplorable accent, my name is Hermann Schultz; I have just spent a few months in Greece, and your book has traveled everywhere with me.

This exordium penetrated my heart with sweet joy; The voice of the stranger seemed to me more melodious than the music of Mozart, and I directed a glittering glance of gratitude towards his golden glasses.

I took him by the hand, that excellent young man. I had him sit on the best bench in the garden, for we have two. He told me that he was a botanist and that he had a mission from the Garden of Plants in Hamburg. While completing his herbarium, he had observed the country, the animals and the people at the best that he could. His naive descriptions, his short but correct views, reminded me a little of the manner of the good man Herodotus. He spoke heavily, but with a candor which imposed confidence; He pressed his words with the tone of a man profoundly convinced. He could give me news, if not of all the city of Athens, at least of the principal personages whom I have named in my book. In the course of the conversation, he set forth some general ideas which seemed to me all the more judicious as I had developed them before him. After an hour of conversation, we were intimate.

I don't know which of us first pronounced the word brigandage. The travelers who have run Italy talk about painting. Those who have visited England speak of industry: each country has its specialty.

My dear sir, I asked the precious unknown, have you met robbers? Is it true, as has been alleged, that there are still brigands in Greece?

It is only too true, he replied gravely. I lived a fortnight in the hands of the terrible Hadgi-Stavros, surnamed the King of the mountains; I can speak of it from experience. If you are at leisure, and a long narrative does not frighten you, I am ready to give you the details of my adventure. You will do what you please: a novel, or rather (for it is history) an additional chapter for this little book in which you have piled up such curious truths.

You are really too good, I said, and my two ears are at your orders. Let's get into my study. We shall be less warm than in the garden, and yet the smell of resedas and musky peas will reach us.

He followed me with a very good grace, and while walking, he hummed a popular song in Greek:

"A Clephte with black eyes descends into the plains;

His golden rifle sounds at every step;

He said to the vultures, Do not leave me;

I will serve you the Pasha of Athens!"

He settled on a divan, folded his legs under him, like the Arab storytellers, took off his coat to get cool, lit his pipe and began the narrative of his story. I was at my desk and stenographed under his dictation.

I have always been unsuspecting, especially with those who compliment me. The amiable stranger, however, told me such surprising things, that I wondered several times whether he did not laugh at me. But his words were so assured, his blue eyes sent me so limpid a look, that my flashes of skepticism were extinguished at the same instant.

He spoke without a moment, till half past twelve. If he interrupted himself two or three times, it was to relight his pipe. He smoked regularly, in equal puffs, like the chimney of a steam engine. Every time I looked up at him, I saw him calm and smiling in the midst of a cloud.

We were informed that lunch was served. Hermann sat down in front of me, and the slight suspicions that trotted through my head did not stand before his appetite. I told myself that a good stomach rarely accompanies a bad conscience. The young German was too good a guest to be an unfaithful narrator, and his voracity answered me for his veracity. Struck by this idea, I confessed, by offering him strawberries, that I had doubted for a moment of his good faith. He answered me with an angelic smile.

I spent the day alone with my new friend, and I did not complain of the slowness of time. At five o'clock in the evening, he put out his pipe, put on his coat, and shook my hand, bidding me farewell. I replied:

Goodbye!

No, he resumed, shaking his head. I am leaving today by the seven o'clock train, and I dare not hope to see you again.

Leave me your address. I have not yet renounced the pleasures of travel, and may pass through Hamburg.

Unfortunately, I don't know where I'm going to plant my tent. Germany is vast; It is not said that I shall remain a citizen of Hamburg.

But if I publish your story, at least, I must send you a copy!

Don't take that pain. As soon as the book appears, it will be counterfeit at Leipsig, at Wolfgang Gerhard's, and I will read it. Farewell.

When I had gone, I carefully re-read the account he had dictated to me; I found some improbable details, but nothing which contradicted formally what I had seen and heard during my stay in Greece.

However, at the moment of giving the manuscript to the impression, a scruple held me back: if some errors had crept into Hermann's narrative! As a publisher, was not I somewhat responsible? Is it not to expose the history of the King of the mountains to the paternal reprimands of the Journal des Débats, the denials of the gazetteers of Athens, and the rudeness of the Spectator of the East? This clairvoyant leaf has already invented that I was hunchbacked: was it necessary to provide him with an opportunity to call me blind?

In these perplexities, I made up my mind to make two copies of the manuscript. I sent the first to a man worthy of faith, a Greek of Athens, M. Patriotis Pseftis. I begged him to point out to me, without hesitation and with Greek sincerity, all the errors of my young friend, and I promised him to print his answer at the end of the volume.

Meanwhile, I give the public curiosity the very text of Hermann's account. I will not change a word, I will respect even the most enormous improbabilities. If I made myself the corrector of the young German, I would become, by the way, his collaborator. I withdraw discreetly; I yield to him the place and the word; My pin is out of the game.

Chapter 2: Photini

You can guess, at the age of my clothes, that I have not ten thousand francs a year. My father is an innkeeper ruined by the railways. He eats bread in good years, and potatoes in the bad. Add that we are six children, all well endowed. The day when I obtained a mission from the Jardin des Plantes, there was a celebration in the family. Not only did my departure increase the pittance of each of my brothers, but I was also to receive two hundred and fifty francs a month, plus five hundred francs, once paid, for traveling expenses. It was a fortune. From that moment, the habit of calling me the doctor was lost. I was called the cattle-dealer, so rich I looked! My brothers reckoned that I would be appointed to professor at the university upon my return from Athens. My father had another idea: he hoped I would be married again. As an innkeeper, he had attended a few novels, and he was convinced that beautiful adventures only meet on the highways. He mentioned, at least three times a week, the marriage of Princess Ypsoft and Lieutenant Reynauld. The princess occupied apartment No. 1, with her two maids and her courier, and she gave twenty florins a day. The French lieutenant was perched on the 17th, under the roofs, and paid a florin and a half, including food; And yet, after a month of stay in the hotel, he had gone out of his chair with the Russian lady. Now, why should a princess take a lieutenant in her carriage, except to marry her? My poor father, with his father's eyes, saw me more beautiful and more elegant than the Lieutenant Reynauld; He had no doubt that I would sooner or later meet the princess who was to enrich us. If I did not find her at the table d'hote, I would see her by train; If the railroads were not favorable to me, we still had steamboats. On the evening of my departure, an old bottle of Rhine wine was drank, and it happened that the last drop fell into my glass. The excellent man wept with joy: it was a sure presage, and nothing could prevent me from getting married in the year. I respected his illusions, and I refrained from telling him that the princesses did not travel in the third class. As for the lodging, my budget condemned me to choose modest inns, where the princesses don't lodge. The fact is that I disembarked at Piraeus without having sketched the smallest novel.

The army of occupation had increased all things in Athens. The Hotel d'Angleterre, the Hotel d'Orient, the Hotel des Etrangers, were unaffordable. The Chancellor of the Prussian Legation, to whom I had borne a letter of recommendation, was kind enough to find me a lodging. He conducted me to a pastry-cook called Christodule, at the corner of the Rue d'Hermes and the Place du Palais. I found there to live and cover it for a hundred francs a month. Christodule is an old pallicare, decorated with the Iron Cross, in memory of the War of Independence. He is lieutenant of the phalanx, and he touches his pay behind his counter. He wears the national costume, the red cap with blue tassel, the silver jacket, the white skirt and the golden gaiters, to sell ice cream and cakes. His wife, Marula, is enormous, like all the Greeks of fifty years of age. Her husband bought her eighty dollars at the height of the war, at a time when this sex was quite expensive. She was born in the island of Hydra, but she dresses in the fashion of Athens: black velvet jacket, light skirt, a scarf in her hair. Neither Christodulo nor his wife knew a word of German; But their son Dimitri, who is a domestic servant, and who dresses in French, understands and speaks all the patois of Europe. Besides, I did not need an interpreter. Without having received the gift of languages, I am a rather distinguished polyglot, and I flay Greek as fluently as English, Italian and French.

My hosts were good people; There are more than three in the city. They gave me a little whitewashed room, a white wooden table, two straw chairs, a good thin mattress, a blanket and cotton sheets. A wooden bed is a superfluity which the Greeks deprive themselves easily, and we live by the Greek. I had lunch with a cup of salep, I dined with a dish of meat with a lot of olives and dried fish; I supped with vegetables, honey, and cakes. The jams were not uncommon in the house, and from time to time I evoked the memory of my country, feasting on a leg of lamb with jams. Needless to say I had my pipe, and that the tobacco of Athens is better than yours. What contributed chiefly to acclimatize me to the house of Christodule, is a little wine of Santorini, which he went to fetch I do not know where. I am not a gourmet, and the education of my palace has, unfortunately, been somewhat neglected; However, I think I can say that this wine would be appreciated at a king's table: it is as gold as transparent, like the topaz, bursting like the sun, joyous as the smile of a child. I think I saw him again in his carafe in the broad belly, in the middle of the oilcloth which served us as a tablecloth. He was lighting the table, my dear sir, and we could have supped without any other light. I never drank much of it, because it was heady; And yet at the end of the meal I quoted verses from Anacreon, and I discovered remnants of beauty on the lunar face of the fat Marula.

I ate with Christodula and the boarders of the house with my family. We were four internal and one external. The first floor was divided into four rooms, the best of which was occupied by a French archaeologist, M. Hippolyte Merinay. If all the French resembled that one, you would make a rather poor nation. He was a little gentleman between eighteen and forty-five, very russet, very gentle, speaking a great deal, and armed with two hands, warm and moist, which did not let go his interlocutor. His two dominant passions were archeology and philanthropy, and so he was a member of several learned societies and several beneficent brotherhoods. Although he was a great apostle of charity, and that his parents had left him a fine income, I do not remember having seen him give a penny to a poor man. As for his knowledge of archeology, everything leads me to believe that they were more serious than his love for humanity. He had been crowned by some provincial academy, for a memoir on the price of paper in the time of Orpheus. Encouraged by this first success, he had made the journey from Greece to collect the materials of a more important work: it was nothing less than determining the quantity of oil consumed by the lamp of Demosthenes while he Wrote the second Philippique.

My two other neighbors were not so wise, and the things of old did not care much about them. Giacomo Fondi was a poor Maltese employed at some sort of consulate; He earned a hundred and fifty francs a month to seal letters. I imagine that any other job would have suited him better. Nature, which has populated the island of Malta so that the East never lacked porters, had given to Fondi the shoulders, arms, and hands of Milo of Crotone; he was born to handle the club, and not For burning sealing wax sticks. Nevertheless, he used two or three a day: man is not master of his destiny. This declassed islander only returned to his element at the time of the meal; He helped Maroula to put the table, and you guess, without my saying it, that he always brought the table with outstretched arms. He ate like a captain of the Iliad, and I shall never forget the cracking of his large jaws, the dilatation of his nostrils, the brilliance of his eyes, the whiteness of his thirty-two teeth, formidable wheels of which he was the mill. I must admit that his conversation left me little memory: one easily found the limit of his intelligence, but one never knew the limits of his appetite. Christodule gained nothing for four years, although he paid him ten francs a month for supplementary food. The insatiable Maltese absorbed every day, after dinner, an enormous dish of hazelnuts, which he broke between his fingers by the simple approach of the thumb and index finger. Christodule, an ancient hero, but a positive man, followed this exercise with a mixture of admiration and terror; He trembled for his dessert, and yet he was flattered to see at his table such a prodigious nutcracker. The figure of Giacomo would not have been moved into one of these boxes of surprise, which cause so much fear to little children. He was whiter than a negro; But it is a matter of nuance. His thick hair descended even over his eyebrows, like a cap. By a rather odd contrast, this Caliban had the most cute foot, the thinnest ankle, the best and most elegant leg that could be offered to the study of a statuary; But these are details that hardly struck us. For anyone who had seen him eat, his person began at the table; The rest no longer counted.

I am speaking only of memory of little William Lobster. He was an angel of twenty, blond, pink and chubby, but an angel from the United States of America. The Lobster and Sons, of New York, had sent him to the East to study the export trade. He worked during the day with the brothers Philip; In the evening he read Emerson; In the morning, at the glittering hour when the sun was rising, he went to the prison of Socrates to fire the pistol.

The most interesting character of our colony was undoubtedly John Harris, Lobster's maternal uncle. The first time I dined with this strange boy, I understood America. John was born in Vandalia, Illinois. He breathed in the dawning of the air of the new world, so vivacious, so sparkling, and so young, that it carries on its head like Champagne wine, and that one breathes in it to breathe it. I do not know if the Harris family is rich or poor, whether she has put her son to college or whether she has let him do her education himself. What is certain is that at twenty-seven he relies only on himself, expects only himself, is not surprised at anything, believes nothing impossible, never recoils, believes