written by the mad poet, Justin Geoffrey: “The People of the Monolith.” Inquiries led to the information that Geoffrey had indeed written that poem while traveling in Hungary, and I could not doubt that the Black Stone was the very monolith to which he referred in his strange verse. Reading his stanzas again, I felt once more the strange dim stirrings of subconscious promptings that I had noticed when first reading of the Stone.
I had been casting about for a place to spend a short vacation and I made up my mind. I went to Stregoicavar. A train of obsolete style carried me from Temesvár to within striking distance, at least, of my objective, and a three days’ ride in a jouncing coach brought me to the little village which lay in a fertile valley high up in the fir-clad mountains. The journey itself was uneventful, but during the first day we passed the old battlefield of Schomvaal where the brave Polish-Hungarian knight, Count Boris Vladinoff, made his gallant and futile stand against the victorious hosts of Suleiman the Magnificent, when the Grand Turk swept over eastern Europe in 1526.
The driver of the coach pointed out to me a great heap of crumbling stones on a hill nearby, under which, he said, the bones of the brave Count lay. I remembered a passage from Larson’s
Turkish Wars
: “After the skirmish” (in which the Count with his small army had beaten back the Turkish advance-guard) “the Count was standing beneath the half-ruined walls of the old castle on the hill, giving orders as to the disposition of his forces, when an aide brought to him a small lacquered case which had been taken from the body of the famous Turkish scribe and historian, Selim Bahadur, who had fallen in the fight. The Count took therefrom a roll of parchment and began to read, but he had not read far before he turned very pale and, without saying a word, replaced the parchment in the case and thrust the case into his cloak. At that very instant a hidden Turkish battery suddenly openedfire, and the balls striking the old castle, the Hungarians were horrified to see the walls crash down in ruin, completely covering the brave Count. Without a leader the gallant little army was cut to pieces, and in the war-swept years that followed, the bones of the nobleman were never recovered. Today the natives point out a huge and moldering pile of ruins near Schomvaal beneath which, they say, still rests all that the centuries have left of Count Boris Vladinoff.”
I found the village of Stregoicavar a dreamy, drowsy little village that apparently belied its sinister cognomen—a forgotten back-eddy that Progress had passed by. The quaint houses and the quainter dress and manners of the people were those of an earlier century. They were friendly, mildly curious but not inquisitive, though visitors from the outside world were extremely rare.
“Ten years ago another American came here and stayed a few days in the village,” said the owner of the tavern where I had put up, “a young fellow and queer-acting—mumbled to himself—a poet, I think.”
I knew he must mean Justin Geoffrey.
“Yes, he was a poet,” I answered, “and he wrote a poem about a bit of scenery near this very village.”
“Indeed?” Mine host’s interest was aroused. “Then, since all great poets are strange in their speech and actions, he must have achieved great fame, for his actions and conversations were the strangest of any man I ever knew.”
“As is usual with artists,” I answered, “most of his recognition has come since his death.”
“He is dead, then?”
“He died screaming in a madhouse five years ago.”
“Too bad, too bad,” sighed mine host sympathetically. “Poor lad—he looked too long at the Black Stone.”
My heart gave a leap, but I masked my keen interest and said casually: “I have heard something of this Black Stone; somewhere near this village, is it not?”
“Nearer than Christian folk wish,” he responded. “Look!” He
I had been casting about for a place to spend a short vacation and I made up my mind. I went to Stregoicavar. A train of obsolete style carried me from Temesvár to within striking distance, at least, of my objective, and a three days’ ride in a jouncing coach brought me to the little village which lay in a fertile valley high up in the fir-clad mountains. The journey itself was uneventful, but during the first day we passed the old battlefield of Schomvaal where the brave Polish-Hungarian knight, Count Boris Vladinoff, made his gallant and futile stand against the victorious hosts of Suleiman the Magnificent, when the Grand Turk swept over eastern Europe in 1526.
The driver of the coach pointed out to me a great heap of crumbling stones on a hill nearby, under which, he said, the bones of the brave Count lay. I remembered a passage from Larson’s
Turkish Wars
: “After the skirmish” (in which the Count with his small army had beaten back the Turkish advance-guard) “the Count was standing beneath the half-ruined walls of the old castle on the hill, giving orders as to the disposition of his forces, when an aide brought to him a small lacquered case which had been taken from the body of the famous Turkish scribe and historian, Selim Bahadur, who had fallen in the fight. The Count took therefrom a roll of parchment and began to read, but he had not read far before he turned very pale and, without saying a word, replaced the parchment in the case and thrust the case into his cloak. At that very instant a hidden Turkish battery suddenly openedfire, and the balls striking the old castle, the Hungarians were horrified to see the walls crash down in ruin, completely covering the brave Count. Without a leader the gallant little army was cut to pieces, and in the war-swept years that followed, the bones of the nobleman were never recovered. Today the natives point out a huge and moldering pile of ruins near Schomvaal beneath which, they say, still rests all that the centuries have left of Count Boris Vladinoff.”
I found the village of Stregoicavar a dreamy, drowsy little village that apparently belied its sinister cognomen—a forgotten back-eddy that Progress had passed by. The quaint houses and the quainter dress and manners of the people were those of an earlier century. They were friendly, mildly curious but not inquisitive, though visitors from the outside world were extremely rare.
“Ten years ago another American came here and stayed a few days in the village,” said the owner of the tavern where I had put up, “a young fellow and queer-acting—mumbled to himself—a poet, I think.”
I knew he must mean Justin Geoffrey.
“Yes, he was a poet,” I answered, “and he wrote a poem about a bit of scenery near this very village.”
“Indeed?” Mine host’s interest was aroused. “Then, since all great poets are strange in their speech and actions, he must have achieved great fame, for his actions and conversations were the strangest of any man I ever knew.”
“As is usual with artists,” I answered, “most of his recognition has come since his death.”
“He is dead, then?”
“He died screaming in a madhouse five years ago.”
“Too bad, too bad,” sighed mine host sympathetically. “Poor lad—he looked too long at the Black Stone.”
My heart gave a leap, but I masked my keen interest and said casually: “I have heard something of this Black Stone; somewhere near this village, is it not?”
“Nearer than Christian folk wish,” he responded. “Look!” He
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