THE MAKING OF ASPER
413
passing month Asper's popularity waxed stronger and the police
exhausted themselves trying to locate the villain. Whole villages
suspected one another of harboring Asper, but it was impossible
to follow the comings and goings of
this
remarkable man. Once,
when I had heard that the village of Garrakh was to be put
under close surveillance and every one of its citizens searched,
following a denunciation by some lying or imaginative individual,
I sent a letter to the newspaper
Dawn
in Asper's name. In it
Asper certified on oath that Garrakh was hostile to him.
About that time Asper fell in love.
A young lady, R., had taken up residence not far from Zur–
bagan in her sister's villa. During a stroll in the woods a stone
wrapped in a piece of paper fell at her feet. Picking up the
object, R .,
in
fright and amazement, read the following lines:
'My power is great but your power is greater. I have loved you
long and secretly. Do not worry-although I am hunted and an
outcast, in pronouncing your name I become transformed.
Asper.' The young lady hurried home. A family council decided
that
this
was the silly prank of one of the neighbors and calmed
the perturbed beauty. In the morning they discovered a garden
full of roses under her window; the whole area from the flower
beds to the window sills was covered with gigantic bouquets. A
dagger of blue steel with a mother-of-pearl handle impaled a
note on the wooden wall of the house. On the note was
in–
scribed: 'From Asper.'
R. immediately departed for another part of the country,
followed by the not unenvious gaze of the ladies
in
her circle.
Elusiveness is more disturbing than crime. On several occa–
sions the police laid an ambush in mountain passes, on river
banks, at fords, in caves and everywhere one might possibly as–
Sume
Asper to have his secret haunts. But the bandit's super–
natural elusiveness, which deprived the police of even the meager
consolation of a skirmish or a chase, little by little cooled the
ardor of the authorities. Half-heartedly, with no enthusiasm,
they took increasingly bureaucratic measures, like a chronically
