The King of the Mountains

The King of the Mountains by Edmond About

The King of the Mountains opens with the novel's ostensible author being visited in Athens by Hermann Schultz, a young German botanist who claims to have spent a fortnight as a captive of the notorious brigand chief Hadgi-Stavros, "The King of the Mountains," and offers to dictate his story. The bulk of the narrative that follows is Hermann's own account. Hermann, sent to Greece by Hamburg's Jardin des Plantes to build a herbarium, lodges in Athens with the pastry-cook Christodule, his wife Maroula, and their son Dimitri, alongside fellow boarders: the archaeologist Hippolyte Merinay, the Maltese Giacomo Fondi, the young American William Lobster, and Lobster's uncle, the vigorous and resourceful John Harris. Through Christodule, Hermann learns the legend of Hadgi-Stavros: a former pirate and War of Independence fighter turned brigand-financier who runs his band like a business, invests his plunder through a London bank, dictates a formal annual shareholder's report to his men, and has ruthlessly executed hostages (including two young sisters) when ransoms went unpaid, all while raising his own daughter, Photini... no, his own daughter separately, at boarding school, dreaming of marrying her to a German prince. Seeking the rare plant boryana variabilis on Parnassus, Hermann encounters two Englishwomen, Mrs. Simons and her daughter Mary-Ann, traveling with Dimitri as guide. Hermann is immediately captivated by Mary-Ann's beauty. The party is captured by Hadgi-Stavros's brigands. Brought before the King himself — an imposing, courteous, business-minded old man who conducts correspondence and finances between issuing brutal orders — they learn Mrs. Simons and Mary-Ann are held for a ransom of 100,000 francs, and Hermann, judged a poor but valuable "savant," for 15,000. Hermann is granted relative freedom and lodges near the Englishwomen, witnessing the brigands' rough camp life, an Ascension Day feast, and Hadgi-Stavros's grandiose musings on organizing brigandage into a rational, quasi-governmental institution. Hermann proposes a risky escape plan via a cascade, but Mrs. Simons refuses, preferring to trust Greek gendarmes. When troops under the brigand's own godson, Captain Pericles, arrive, they turn out to be complicit with Hadgi-Stavros: Pericles guards the prisoners while the King's band raids an army payroll elsewhere, and Pericles even tries to extort the ladies' remaining valuables before privately threatening Hermann into silence about the corruption. Hadgi-Stavros returns from a costly but victorious raid, having lost men including the promising young officer Spiro (recruited from the gendarmerie itself). Mrs. Simons's ransom is paid via the bank connection Hermann discovered, and she and Mary-Ann depart — Mary-Ann leaving Hermann a warm, encouraging glance — while Hermann's own ransom stalls because Mrs. Simons's brother refuses to cover it. Left behind, Hermann is placed under armed guard, attempts one unsuccessful escape by outrunning two guards (foiled when his suspenders break), and is then confined under the watch of the brigand Vasile, the same man who murdered the two little girls years before. Hermann nurses vengeful thoughts but cannot bring himself to kill Vasile even when given the chance. Finally, on the evening of May 11th, Hermann gets Vasile thoroughly drunk on wine and rhaki until the brigand collapses into a deep, incapacitated sleep.

By Edmond About · First published 1864 · Genre: Adventure, Science Fiction, Romance · 9 chapters · 77,766 words

First lines

On the 3d of July, about six o'clock in the morning, I was watering my flowers. A young man entered the garden. He was blonde, beardless; he wore a German cap and sported gold spectacles. A long, loose woolen coat, or paletot, drooped in a melancholy way around his form, like a sail around a mast in a calm. He wore no gloves; his tan leather shoes had such large soles, that the foot was surrounded by a narrow flange. In the breast-pocket of his paletot, a huge porcelain pipe bulged half-way out. I did not stop to ask myself whether this young man was a student in the German Universities; I put down my watering-pot, and saluted him with: "Guten Morgen!"

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The King of the Mountains is listed on Textopian as a novel by Edmond About, dated 1864 CE.

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Adventure · Travel · Exploration · Mountain Climbing · Alps · Switzerland · 19th Century · French Literature · Historical Fiction · Romance · Drama · Action

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