And now it suddenly dawned upon her why her pursuers had laughed so loudly when they saw her take refuge in this direction, here also the road was barred.

For an instant she stopped short. Feminine weakness for a moment took possession of her heart, and a shudder ran suddenly through her whole body; it was one of those instinctive feelings of panic which we cannot explain to ourselves. Where can I take refuge? she thought. Shall I forsake the road and venture amidst the strange woods beyond? Then she bethought her on what errand she had come, and she trembled no longer, but drew forth her pistols from her holsters, looked well to their priming, placed one under her arm, took the other in her hand, and tying the horse to a tree by the roadside (for, indeed, of what further use was he now?), resolutely directed her steps towards the noisy mob.

It was now so dark that it would have been easy to have avoided them altogether by making a short circuit, but that sort of perilous curiosity which often urges men to thrust themselves into the very situations from which they instinctively shrink, would not now permit her to turn from her purpose of penetrating those howling masses there and then.

Only when she was already in the midst of them did they become aware of her.

"Stop!" resounded on every side of her, and the point of a scythe pressed against the breast of the intruder.

In the moment of danger Maria recovered in an instant all her presence of mind.

"Give me room! two paces at the least!" she cried with a clarion-like voice. "A step nearer and I shoot! What do you want here?"

At the sight of the pistol the sordid mob drew back. If she had wished to proceed the path now lay clear and unobstructed before her.

But now she had changed her mind. This nocturnal spectacle had put it into her head that here was some evil plot afoot against the Hetfalusy family. She must find out what it was, and if possible defeat it. So she repeated her question:

"What are you doing here?"

At that moment the door of the wayside house opened, and out came Thomas Bodza with a lamp in his hand.

"Who is talking here?" he asked, peering all around him into the darkness.

Some timorous peasant lads behind the door pointed out to him the new arrival, at the same time calling his attention to the fact that the stranger had a pistol in his hand, and it was therefore not advisable to go near him.

The master, however, boldly advanced towards Maria, and held the lamp high above his head the better to read the intruder's face.

"What a fine head that young squire has," growled shaggy Hanak behind his back, "it would look very well on the point of my scythe."

"Hush!" said the master. "I want to speak to him! Who are you, sir, and what do you want?"

"That is what I don't mean to tell to the first blockhead I meet. First of all I should like to know who you are. If you are robbers I shall defend myself against you to the best of my ability; if you are fools I shall try to enlighten you; if you are brave and honest men I will shake hands with you."

The last idea only occurred to Maria when she caught sight of Bodza's face. She had encountered such enthusiasts before now, and had had opportunities of studying them.

Bodza's eyes sparkled.

"We are neither robbers, nor fools, but brave men in very deed, who are battling for one great brotherhood, from the icy sea to the warm sea."[11]

[Footnote 11: I.e., From the White Sea to the Black Sea; he meant the Slavs.]

Maria at once stuck her pistol into her breast-pocket and confidentially extended her hand to the master.

"Then I greet thee, my brother, I have just come from Russia."

Thomas Bodza squinted suspiciously at Maria, and holding the iron ring on his little finger right in front of her eyes, inquired:

"Dost thou then know the meaning of these three letters: U. S. S.?"

Maria answered with a smile:

"Ud slovenske stridnosce."[12]

[Footnote 12: "Member of the Slavonic League;" the language is Slovak.]

Then the master did indeed press the hand offered to him.

"Come inside!" said he, himself escorting the stranger, whilst the peasants, obsequiously raising their caps, made a way for them right up to the door.

The master dismissed everyone from the room, and when they two were alone asked excitedly in Russian:

"You come from Russia, you say? From what part of Russia?"

"From the eternal city where stand the golden gates of the Kremlin," answered Maria, also in the Russian tongue.

All Bodza's doubts instantly disappeared.

"What news in the Empire since the death of Romulus?"

Maria knew very well whom was meant by Romulus. It was none other than Muraviev, who was to be the builder of the walls of the new Rome, which was ere long to be the Lord of the whole earth.

Maria was no proselyte of this extravagant confederacy, but, living, as she did, nearer to the main source of it all, she was better able, with the assistance of current rumours and her own lively imagination, to amuse Thomas Bodza with more fables than he could have told her.

"Romulus is not dead, Romulus is still alive," whispered she to the interrogator mysteriously.

"How so?" asked Bodza, much surprised; "where is he then?"

"He has disappeared—like Romulus. The Gods have taken him!"—and Maria smiled enigmatically, as if she could reveal a great deal more if she only chose.

Bodza seized her hand violently.

"And in his own time he will appear again, eh?"

The only answer Maria gave was to press his hand significantly.

"Then it is true that they have not beheaded him?" continued the master excitedly, "and one of his good spiritual brethren sacrificed himself in his stead?"

"It was my own brother," said Maria, covering her eyes with her hands. Then she suddenly placed her hand on the master's shoulder. "Weep not for him!" she cried. "Look! I do not weep, and yet he was my brother. Romulus still lives and demands sacrifice and obedience from us all."

The master pressed Maria's hand still more warmly.

"What is thy name, my beloved brother?"

"My name is Fabius Cunctator!" said Maria, well aware of the weakness of these visionaries for classical names.

"My name is Numa Pompilius," said Bodza, tossing back his head with proud self-consciousness. "Numa Pompilius, ever true to the good cause, fervent in action, lucid in counsel, pitiless in execution, and fearless in peril."

And again they pressed each other's hands in a fiery masonic grip, and all the while Maria was thinking: how I long to seize the dry skinny throat of this fervent, pitiless, and fearless man while he is spouting his finest, and throttle him on the spot.

"So you have raised the standard of revolt, eh?" inquired Maria of the valiant Numa Pompilius, "who gave you the signal?"

"Heaven and Earth," replied the master. "Heaven which sends death down upon the people, and Earth which opens her mouth to receive their dead bodies. Never was there a better opportunity than now. The terrible destroying angel is going from house to house, and striding from village to village, bringing with him wherever he goes sorrow and terror. Men perceive that life is cheap and that it can't last long. Desperation has severed every bond between masters and servants, creditors and debtors, superiors and inferiors. It needs but one spark to ignite the whole mass. That spark has already been kindled."

"How?"

"A blind rumour has begun to circulate among the masses to the effect that the gentry are about to poison their peasants en masse."

Maria looked at the master in amazement.

"But is there anyone who believes such a thing?"

"The tales of wayfarers first spread the rumour, the thoughtless speech of a drunken apothecary's assistant established it, intercepted letters written by the gentry to one another served as confirmatory testimony."

"And the gentry actually wrote to each other that they were about to poison the peasants?"

"No, but those who read out these letters to the people, took care to find therein things that had never been written down."

In her horror and disgust Maria had been on the point of betraying herself.

"Oh! I see. You read out forged letters to the illiterate people. A very judicious expedient, I must say. Village folks can be got to believe anything. But how about the townsfolk?"

"Oh! in the towns there is even more fear than in the country, and more terrifying rumours too. But one loud cry and the walls of Jericho will fall down—fall down where nobody expected it."

An idea suddenly flashed like lightning through Maria's brain.

"Have our brethren who dwell on the banks of the Drave[13] and among the mountains of Chernagora[14] been informed of this movement?" she asked.

[Footnote 13: The Croats and Serbs.]

[Footnote 14: The Montenegrins.] The master, somewhat confused, replied that they had not.

"Then all our fine preparations will lead to nothing," rejoined Maria, with self-assumed despondency. "While you are awake in one place they are asleep in another; in one spot the flames are bursting forth, in another they are being extinguished. Why, they ought to have flashed forth everywhere at once. Have you issued proclamations?"

"No," replied Bodza shamefacedly.

"Then, Numa Pompilius, you know not what you are about," cried Maria. "Why, that was the first, the one absolutely indispensable thing to be done. You should have sent proclamations in every direction, you should have kept the local leaders fully informed of what was going on, you should have concentrated the whole force of the movement, you should have thoroughly systematized the whole concern. Ah! Numa, I see you are but a neophyte after all. Why did you begin without inviting the aid of the Poles? This is just the sort of thing a Pole would understand! Have you writing materials handy?"

Startled into obsequiousness, Bodza produced ink and paper from some secret receptacle. He was humbly silent now. He felt himself in the presence of a man wiser than himself.

"And now sit down and write!"

Bodza obeyed mechanically. Maria dictated to him what he was to write, while she herself, at the same time, was writing something else on another piece of paper.

"BRETHREN!

"The long expected hour has at length struck. The flag is unfurled. The gentry want to extirpate us by means of poison, we will extirpate them with fire and sword. The brave shall live, the cowards shall die. Ye, who see your children, your parents tormented and grovelling in the dust, snatch up your arms and avenge them. Fear not the soldiers, they also will be on our side. Let none go who has short-cropped hair. Two deputies must proceed forthwith from every village to Hetfalu, which is to be the centre of our operations, and there await our further instructions. Valour and concord.

"Given at our headquarters near Hetfala."

"Write your name beneath it: 'Numa Pompilius, praetor of Upper Pannonia.'"

Thomas Bodza, with a spasmodic grin, accepted this title of distinction, and added his sprawling signature to the dangerous document.

Then Maria snatched up a pen, and subscribed it with the name: Fabius Cunctator, quaestor of Volhynia.

Then both documents were sealed with the famous signet ring, bearing the three mysterious letters, and also with Maria's family seal.

"And now send one of the documents by a rapid horseman to the Nyitra district, while I hasten with the other towards Slavonia. Meanwhile, you will organize here a standing army. You have already arranged, I suppose, to procure provisions and uniforms?"

Thomas Bodza confessed with a blush that he had not taken thought for these things.

"Well, write as soon as possible an open order to the presidents of the Tailor and Cobbler Guilds of Kassa and Rozsnyo, commanding each of them to provide, without fail, within ten days four thousand pairs of boots and just as many dolmans and szuers,[15] and send them in carts to Hetfalu, otherwise you will levy upon them a grievous contribution."

[Footnote 15: A szuer is a sheepskin mantle such as the peasants wear.]

This letter also Thomas Bodza wrote as he had been told. "These Poles have had such lots of practice in such matters," thought he to himself.

"And now despatch one of these open orders by a swift courier to Rozsnyo, and the other I will take charge of. Do not forget to have numerous copies made of these proclamations for instant distribution throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom."

Bodza promised to make his pupils copy out the documents in question early on the following morning.

"And now, my brave Numa, don't forget that our watchword is: 'Valour and Concord!' Of valour we have no lack, but as regards concord I would first of all have you know why they call me Fabius Cunctator. My principle is: judicious procrastination! It was a premature signal, you will remember, which ruined the plots of Romulus II. If only he had waited for another half day, for another six hours, his enterprise would have been a triumphant success. Only over-hastiness ruined us then. Lest a similar risk should befall us now, I would strongly advise you to postpone the general rising till to-morrow afternoon. To-morrow afternoon all the soldiery will quit Kassa for Eperies, and they will not be relieved for two whole days. You will now understand therefore why I want the rising postponed till to-morrow afternoon."

The master turned very pale.

"Too late now!" said he.

"How so?" exclaimed Maria confounded.

"All my orders have been distributed already."

"Then they must be recalled."

"It's impossible, impossible," cried the master, wringing his hands; and he glanced anxiously, from time to time, through the window, through which a far distant reddish light was beginning to illuminate the room. "They have already fired the house of the headsman."

"What!" cried Maria beside herself.

"That was to be the beginning of it. It is impossible now to hold them back any longer."

"Oh, fools and madmen!" hissed the lady. Her immediate impulse was to rush from the room. At the door, however, she recovered her sang froid, and, turning back, clutched Bodza by the arm and whispered in his ear:

"There is now only one remaining way of gaining a complete victory."

"What is that?"

"We must revolt the county-town also. If we succeed we shall have the General as a hostage, if we do not, at least we shall give the soldiers something to do."

Thomas Bodza, with his teeth all chattering, approved of this project. He would, however, have very much liked to know who would undertake this dangerous enterprise.

Never had Maria had to exercise such self-control as now, when, gazing through the window into the night, she watched with the utmost sang froid the distant conflagration which was lighting up the room.

For an instant the thought of what was happening there and what might be happening elsewhere flashed through her brain. She saw vividly before her all those midnight horrors, and all the time she had to affect an enthusiastic interest in the affair.

"Numa Pompilius, we must make haste! Have you a good steed handy here? Mine I have left behind on the road, it was no longer of any service to me."

"Be it so, Fabius! It was my first care to seize all the post-horses in order that the authorities should not send forth couriers for assistance. You see that I am provident. Choose the best horse for yourself and hasten whither you would. I entrust this province to you."

Bodza was magnanimous. The department of greatest danger and the glory of conquest he entrusted to another.

"I will hasten," cried Maria, flinging open the door—and for some moments she remained standing on the threshold. "Numa!" she cried at last, "you would let me depart alone?"

"Why not?"

"You are making a mistake. The popular leaders might be suspicious. Suppose they took me for a spy or a traitor? Never put your whole confidence in a single person. Always send forth your emissaries in couples, that one of them may be a check upon the other. That is a general rule. I am surprised that you have not learnt it hitherto."

Thomas Bodza admitted his mistake, but of course Fabius had had so much more experience in these matters. An escort he must have certainly.

Maria, on the other hand, required an escort in order to avoid being again detained by the mobs of rustics encamped in front of the csarda.

"Bring hither two good horses!" cried Bodza to the boor mounting guard in the corridor, and with that the pair of them stepped forth amidst the peasant host.

The peasants were scattered about in groups. Here and there some of them were engaged in sharpening their scythes. Others were standing round excited stump-orators, or making a frightful uproar over a few pence which they had found upon some poor Jewish tramp and would not divide fairly.

"My friends!" cried Maria, stepping into the midst of them, and speaking in a friendly confident tone, "can I find among you half a dozen stouthearted dare-devils who are ready, if necessary, to go through fire and water?"

The gaping rioters did not respond very willingly at first, but when Thomas Bodza assured them that they now saw before them one of the most powerful leaders of the movement, ten or twenty of them forced their way to the front, boasting loudly that they were prepared to face any danger.

"Remember this is no joke, my sons," continued Maria. "Are you ready to adventure yourselves with me in the county-town, read the proclamation in the streets, stir up the people there, provide yourselves with weapons and powder, and seize all the bigwigs at one stroke like a pack of wolves in a spinney?"

This little speech somewhat abated the ardour of the more clamorous heroes, yet two or three youths, well soaked with brandy, still persisted in beating their breasts with their fists, and declared that they were men enough for anything.

Maria selected from among them shaggy Hanak. The fellow had a face as broad as it was long, one half of which was covered with hair, the other with bristles; it was impossible not to take to him at once.

"You shall come with me. Mount on the other horse."

Shaggy Hanak did not wait for a second invitation. He managed somehow to scramble on to the horse's back, and could not help smiling with joy at the thought that at last he had a good steed beneath him.

Maria leaped lightly on to the second horse. It was a somewhat lean and bony beast of great powers of endurance.

"To-morrow about this time you shall hear of us," she said, addressing herself to Bodza. "Till then avoid every decisive step. Whomsoever you may capture keep a strict watch upon them, and see that no harm befall them. Do you take me? It is possible that the captives may attempt to put an end to their own lives. But we shall require them all on account of their confessions. Therefore take care of their lives. We must judge each one of them separately. Numa! take care to be ubiquitous. Valour and vigilance!"

Then, after pressing Thomas Bodza's hand once more, Maria put spurs to her horse and galloped briskly along the high road. As for the horse of her comrade it had to be almost dragged out of the courtyard, as it showed a disposition to force its rider to return to the stable. Only with the utmost difficulty did Hanak succeed in overtaking Maria, pursued by the yells of encouragement and exultation of the mob he had left behind him.

Maria pounded along the highway, glancing aside from time to time in the direction of the burning house, the conflagration of which lit up the overcast sky, tinging the clouds with an angry purple. The wind drove the lurid smoke hither and thither. There was as steady a glare as if a whole village was in flames. As they sped further and further away the flames lit up the road and the wayside trees, and the towering masses of clouds ever less and less. At last all that was to be seen was a large blood-red star rising from the plain, a mere point of light far, far away. Then even that vanished. Soon afterwards day began to dawn. The cinder-grey sky reduced the nightly glare to ashes, and a dark grey column of smoke, standing out against the pale yellow horizon, was the only sign left of the conflagration.

On approaching the next csarda, Maria allowed Hanak to draw nearer to her; her escort had to explain to the mob of peasants drinking in front of the door on what errand they were speeding. He did so in his usual boisterous bombastic fashion.

"We are going to town," bawled he. "We are going to read the proclamation and collar the soldiers and the bigwigs, and bring back with us guns and gunpowder, and lots of money. This is the courier."

Hoarsely bellowed "Eljens!" greeted this magnanimous resolution. A guffawing scytheman, moreover, pressed with his horny palm the hand of Maria, for whom shaggy Hanak, in the fervour of his enthusiasm, could find no more important title than that of "courier."

As the day slowly began to dawn, the sobering breath of the fresh morning breeze blew full in the faces of the horsemen, and the towers of the county-town stood out plainly before them in the distance. And now Maria began to observe that her companion was lagging behind her at a considerable distance. More than once she had to shout back to him:

"My brother! don't drop behind so!"

"My horse is tired out," stammered Hanak, and he kept on mopping up the sweat from his towzled poll.

"Give him the spur, then!"

"I would if I had 'em."

"Then ride in front of me, and I'll whip him up from behind."

And so they went along pretty well for some time, but when the towers and steeples of the county-town drew very much nearer, shaggy Hanak began to complain that his saddle was nearly falling off.

"Dismount, then, and fix it tighter!"

The fellow dismounted accordingly, but he was fumbling about with it such a long time that Maria, growing impatient, herself leaped to the ground and tightened his saddle-girths.

"And now up you get and off again!"

Shaggy Hanak stuck all five fingers into his hairy poll and scratched his head all round beneath his cap, then suddenly, with an artful grin, he turned his face towards Maria.

"Hark ye! Are we really going into the town?"

"Of course we are."

"And you really intend to read out the proclamation, to seize the General, take away the guns, and capture the barrack?"

"Yes, and much more besides, when the business has been fairly begun."

Shaggy Hanak began to scratch his head still harder, and seemed to have a thousand and one things to put to rights in the horse's trappings. At last he came out with the following proposition:

"Listen, comrade! Don't you think it would be better if, when you went into the town, I remained outside and read the proclamation to all the people coming to market?"

"You can read then?"

"Read! A pretty sort of sexton I should be if I couldn't read!"

"Very well. I rather like your idea;" whereupon Maria drew from her side-pocket a couple of cigars wrapped up in part of an odd number of the Leutschau county newspaper, and gave the sheet to her valiant comrade, who glanced over it with the air of a connoisseur, and, after declaring aloud that he quite grasped its meaning, folded it neatly up, and stuck it in the braiding of his cap.

"I'll read it in my best style," said he, "and will come to your assistance at the head of a fresh band of them."

Maria approved of his design, and, whipping up her horse, galloped towards the town at such a rate that shaggy Hanak felt constrained to pray Heaven that his comrade might not break his neck before he got there.



CHAPTER XII.

IN THE MIDST OF THE FIRE.

Zudar was to-night more anxious than at other times. He had put up the iron shutters in front of his windows immediately after dusk, and had gone to bed much earlier than usual.

The evening prayer of the little girl soothed him for a while. "Amen! Amen!" he kept repeating after her, laying stress upon the word—and then something began agitating him again strangely.

"An evil foreboding, an evil foreboding," he kept on murmuring; "some great calamity is about to befall me."

"You have caught cold, my good father," said the little girl soothingly, stroking the old man's forehead with her tiny hand; "your hand is trembling, your head is burning..."

"I am all shivering inside," said the old man; "a sort of deadly coldness seems to come from within me. Don't you hear a noise in the courtyard?"

"There is nothing, my father. Only the horses are stamping in the stable."

"But don't you hear talking, whispering beneath the windows, just as if someone was digging at the wall below?"

"The dog is settling down for the night; 'tis he who is scratching down below there. Go to rest, my good father!"

"I will lie down, but I shall not be able to sleep. Put my musket at the head of my bed."

Elise took the gun down from the wall, examined it carefully to make sure that it was in perfect order, and then leaned it against the bed.

Then they both lay down.

Zudar kept conversing for a long time with Elise in the darkness, and assuring her that he should never go to sleep—nevertheless, suddenly, there was a deep silence, followed presently by a deep, thunderous snore, only interrupted from time to time by cries of terror, as if the sleeper were tormented by evil dreams, and at such times he would fling himself violently against the sides of the bed.

The child did not sleep. Resting on her elbows she lay there listening and gazing steadily into the vision-haunted darkness.

Presently it seemed to her also as if a large concourse of people was moving backwards and forwards along the wall outside, and a great deal of whispering appeared to come from the kitchen.

Suddenly she heard a soft knocking at the door, and the voice of Dame Zudar inquired:

"I say, Betsey! is your father asleep?"

"Yes," stammered the little girl.

"Some people have come hither from Kassa, they don't understand German, come out and speak to them!"

The little maid hastily put on her clothes and, opening the fast-locked door, went out into the kitchen.

* * * * *

Peter Zudar was continually tormented by evil dreams. Danger to Elise was the ever-recurring subject of his nightmares. Now he saw her wandering among rocks overhanging dizzy abysses, and would have stretched out his hand to lay hold of her and draw her back, but his hand could not reach her. Now a fierce wolf was pursuing the child, and he would have run after it with a gun, but his legs refused their service, or he forgot where the gun was, or it refused to go off.

Suddenly a shrill scream sounded in his ear.

"Father!"

Up he jumped. That cry had pierced through his heart, through every fibre of his body. It was Elise who was calling.

"Elise! Elise, my child! are you asleep? Were you calling just now?" he inquired softly.

Receiving no answer he turned towards the child's bed, which lay at the foot of his own, and sought for her little head on the pillow with his hand.

She was not there.

The same instant he heard the key of his room-door turning in the lock outside.

With one bound he was at the door. Not a word did he say, but he shook the door till it trembled on its hinges.

At that moment he heard hasty footsteps quitting the kitchen and the hall, and once more imagined he could distinguish Elise's stifled moans.

Redoubled fury lent gigantic strength to his Sampsonian frame. The door burst into two pieces beneath the pressure of his hands, and the upper portion containing the lock remained in his clenched fist.

He roared aloud for the first time as he rushed into the kitchen. It was no human voice, no intelligible sound, but the roar of a savage lion whose den has been broken into, and who scents the flesh of the huntsman.

And in response to this savage roar there arose from the courtyard the mocking yell of hundreds and hundreds of human voices, intermingled with laughter, curses, and threats.

For a moment he remained there dumfounded. What could it be? Surely not a band of robbers in collusion with his wife?

"Look out!" cried the shrill voice of Dame Zudar rising above the din outside, "the old carrion has a loaded musket, and would shoot at you if there were a thousand of you."

But Zudar did not even require the help of a loaded musket, he would have rushed out among them with his bare fists, but the kitchen door was barred and bolted, and barricaded with all sort of heavy obstacles.

Panting hard, Zudar rushed back into his room, sought out a heavy axe, and rushed back to the kitchen door. At the first vigorous strokes the joints of the door began to crack.

"Quick! throw the bundles of faggots in front of the door!" shrieked the savage virago outside, "and set it alight at once! Don't you see the door is giving way?"

The courtyard was crowded with a mob of louts, armed with scythes and pitchforks, among whom stood Dame Zudar, with dishevelled hair and flaming eyes, like the very Fury of Revolt.

The peasant host quickly got together a heap of faggots, and carrying them to the door, literally buried it beneath them.

"And now a match! Let him burn in his own den!"

It was Zudar's own wife who thus exclaimed.

The boor who tried to kindle the fire was such a long time about it, owing to the damp tinder, that Dame Zudar impatiently snatched the flint and steel out of his hands, struck away at it till she had ignited the tinder, then thrust it with her own hand in the midst of the straw surrounding the faggots, fanned it with her apron till it burst into a vivid flame, and then ran across the courtyard to the other side of the faggot heap to set it alight there also. Her wild and tangled tresses fluttered in the tempest.

"My father, oh! my good father!" wailed a scarce audible voice from the bottom of the reed-covered waggon to which the headsman's horses had been attached.

The dry bunches of twigs and fire-wood suddenly began spluttering and crackling, and burst into a flame. The windows of the house were also crammed full with straw and sticks, and each heap of combustibles was ignited one by one. Soon something very like a big bonfire was blazing merrily all round the house.

The man imprisoned within there thundered away at the door with all his might, and at each terrible blow the besiegers laughed derisively.

"Bravo, fire away! Frizzle away in your own den, old Bruin!"

* * * * *

The thuds against the door had ceased; the flames were already leaping above the roof of the house; the whole building was burning with a steady glare, casting forth showers of sparks upwards towards the sky. And long, long after that, when the flames were towering upwards in each other's embrace above the ruins of the house, it seemed to many as if they heard, arising from the deepest depths of this furnace of blazing embers, the half-smothered sound of a deep sonorous voice intoning the vesper hymn. Perchance it was only imagination, only a delusion of the senses. Nobody could be singing there now, except it were the soul of the headsman. In a short half-hour the roof collapsed between the four walls, burying in a burning tomb all that lay beneath it, and millions of sparks rose straight up into the air.

"So there we have settled your account for you!" cried Dame Zudar, as the hellish glare of the fire lit up her passion-distorted face. "And now comes the turn of the castle!"

"Oh, my father! my poor father!" wailed the child, who lay fast bound at the bottom of the cart beneath a covering of rushes.

The furious virago gazed at her with gnashing teeth.

"Your father indeed! Your real father's turn will come later, my chicken. And now, my lads, let's be up and doing elsewhere!"

And, with that, she leaped upon the car, seized the reins in her hands and whipped up the horses, and before and behind her tore the savage, bloodthirsty mob with torches and pitchforks. There she stood in the midst of them with dishevelled, storm-tossed tresses like the Genius of War and Devastation rapt along on frantic steeds, with coiling snakes for hair, a terrible escort of evil beasts and semi-bestial men, and ruin and malediction before and behind her.

* * * * *

Zudar, as soon as he had guessed the hellish design of his enemies, hastily abandoned all attempts to stave in the door, and rushed to the rear-most room of the house with the intention of escaping into the garden through the window.

But what was his horror when he perceived that here also the windows were covered with a fence of dry reeds and faggots, through which the hissing flames were already beginning to wriggle like fiery serpents—clouds of smoke were already coming through the shattered windows.

Back again he hastened into the front room, the windows of which were guarded by iron shutters, which stopped the intrusion of the flames. Outside resounded the furious howling of the rioters, and all round about him too was to be heard the soft hissing fizz of the burning reeds and the licking of the flames, and the loud crackling of the dry beams—all around him and above his head also.

The iron shutters over the windows were gradually becoming red-hot, and, like transparent panes of glass, admitted the rays of the fiery sea beyond them, spreading a horrible scarlet glare through the room which coloured every object, every shadow, blood-red.

The imprisoned wretch kept running frantically up and down the room like a wild beast caught in a trap, striking the walls with his fist and hacking at the beams with his axe.

In vain, in vain, slash away as you will, neither on the right hand nor on the left, neither from above nor from below, is there any way of deliverance!

At last, in his despair, he began to sing the hymn:

"On Sion's Hill the Lord is God...!"

and collapsed upon his knees in the midst of the room.

And lo! the Lord answered the man who cried out to Him in his dire extremity. The boards resounding beneath him suddenly gave him a bright idea of deliverance. Above and around there was no place of safety, but might there not be a refuge below—down in the cellar?

The entrance into the cellar was from the outside by an iron door; but if the vault beneath the room where he was, the ceiling of which had resounded so loudly beneath his footsteps, if this vault were broken open, it would be possible to get down into it that way.

Ah! how nice and cool it would be down there. The atmosphere of the room was now burning hot. Terror and exertion had bathed every limb of the headsman with sweat; the glare of the iron windows was merging into a dazzling white, and radiated a heat that burnt the eye that looked upon it. There was no time to be lost.

Zudar hastily broke up the floor with his axe, it would not be difficult for him to find the key-stone of the cellar beneath it.

Nevertheless, he had to be careful lest he should stave in the whole vault, and thus open a way therein after himself for the fire. He must cautiously pick out the mortar from the interstices with a knife, and lift up the bricks one by one.

And, now and then, in the midst of his work, he would stop and listen.

And then he would hear on every side of him a hubbub of wild voices, hissing, shrieking, savage dance-music, and bloodthirsty harangues.

Or was it, after all, but the many-voiced gabble of the flames above his head?

And on he went—digging, digging, digging.

The first layer of bricks over the vault was followed by a second. This cellar vault had been very strongly built, it was well lined with a double row of bricks. And he had to pick out each brick of the second layer as carefully as he had done with the first.

Meanwhile, in the roof above him, a rafter here and there was gaping open, and fiery monsters, with blood-red eyes, were peeping down at him and puffing clouds of blue smoke through the interstices. Thousands and thousands of voices were bickering and chattering with each other, the voices of the fire-spirit's little ones quarrelling with each other over every little bit of rafter till their old mother, the evil flame, burst roaring through a huge tough beam and frightened them into silence. And, all the time, something was humming and crooning like a witch hushing little children to sleep; and in the midst of the charred and smouldering embers a buzzing and a fizzing was going on continually, like the noise made by an imprisoned bee; and the pent-up blast howled dismally down the chimney: Hoo! hoo! hoo!

"They are dancing and singing outside there!" murmured the headsman to himself.

And now the second layer of bricks was also pierced, and up through the rift, like a blast of wind, rushed the cold air of the cellar. Peter Zudar bent low over the gap and filled his lungs with a good draught of the life-giving air. He regularly intoxicated himself with it.

The gap was just big enough to enable him to squeeze through it.

First, however, with perilous curiosity, he cast a look round the room he was about to leave. The principal girder of the ceiling was bent in the middle from the intense heat, smoke was pouring into the room through every crack and crevice, and filled it already to the height of a man's stature; it was slowly descending in regular layers, lower and lower, like a gradually falling cloud.

Little fluttering fiery threads were darting hither and thither, in the grey cloud, like tiny flashing birds. The fiery spectre, peeping through the rent in the roof, was already laughing a thunderous "ha! ha! ha!" Peter Zudar laughed back at it.

"If thou dost laugh, I can laugh too, so the pair of us may laugh together!"

Already he had crept half through the opening, whence he observed how the beams were curving above his head, how they were bursting and charring.

All at once he recollected something.

Hastily he scrambled out of the hole again. To walk upright in that room was impossible, for the clouds of smoke were now only three feet from the ground. He crept along the floor on all fours to his oaken chest, opened it, and drew forth therefrom a little Prayer Book and a couple of ribbons, which he thrust into his bosom.

Then he also drew forth a long leather bag which was fastened at each end by a clasp. These clasps he opened, one by one, with the utmost composure. Inside lay the pallos,[16] that bright, two-edged implement which flashes at the command of the criminal law, the weapon of Justice.

[Footnote 16: The sword of the public executioner.]

When Peter Zudar felt it in his hand, his gigantic figure suddenly arose bolt upright, and there he stood amidst the smoke, amidst the flames, like an avenging demon, slashing about him with his sparkling blade as if he would say to the smoke and the flames, "Fear me! I am the headsman!"

At that moment a thundering crash resounded behind him. His gun, which had been leaning up against the wall, suddenly exploded by reason of the intense heat, and the bullets penetrated the wall.

The shock recalled Zudar, whom a sort of frenzy had seized for a moment, to his senses, and quickly crouching down upon the floor, he tore a cushion from the bed and dragging it after him, crept towards the gaping hole in the floor. The cushion he flung down before him and then leaped carefully after it.

The cool air of the cellar gradually restored him to himself again; the oppression of the fierce heat no longer tortured his brain, the semi-darkness was so grateful to his eyes, already half-blinded by the flames, a semi-darkness but faintly illuminated by the gleam of the fiery-world above shining through the gap.

Then it occurred to him that this very gap was now superfluous.

In the stands of the cellar were several casks, large and small, either empty or full of beer and wine.

He rolled one of the empty casks below the hole in the ceiling, and turned it upside down. Then he stove in the top of a beer-cask and dipped into it the cushion, allowing the beer to well soak through it. Then he mounted on the top of the empty cask and thrust the saturated cushion into the hole above.

It was now quite dark in the cellar, but Peter Zudar knew his way about there all the same. He was well aware of the exact locality of the best cask of beer, and lost no time in staving in the top of it, found a pitcher in a niche close at hand, filled it with fresh beer, sat him down by the side of the barrel, and took a monstrously long pull at his pitcher. After that he moistened well his head and face, and then he replenished his pitcher and took another long draught.

Above his head there the roof now fell in with a loud roar and a crash, and the whole tribe of flames laughed and roared in their joy at having done their work so well.

"We have roasted his goose for him, anyhow!" cried Dame Zudar outside, and her band of rogues and scoundrels laughed and bounded for joy.

But down in his underground asylum the old headsman sang from the depths of a fervent heart:

"To thee, O Lord! on Sion's Hill, All praise and glory be."

And he drew his fingers along the double edge of the sword—right well had it been sharpened, nowhere was there the trace of a notch, nowhere.



CHAPTER XIII.

THE LEATHER-BELL.

We Magyars are very liberal in the distribution of nicknames, in this respect, indeed, our fancy outruns that of the Princes of the Orient, and the titles we bestow are even more appropriate than theirs.

In Hetfalu "Leather-bell" was the nickname of a peculiar man, whose real name had quite slipped out of everybody's memory. This derisive epithet was given to him by the housewives to whom he used to convey all the local gossip, to wit: who it was who died to-day, where he was going to be buried, whose turn it was to work for the castle this day or that, who was doing the rector's cooking for him, &c, &c, &c. This was the name he went by throughout the parish when he went about telling everybody in which house there was going to be a birth, a marriage, or a funeral; who was in need of the last sacraments, or how much wine the squire gave for the use of the Lord's Table. This was the title by which he was greeted at the castle, where he religiously presented himself to inform the good folks there where serviceable domestics could be got, or where anything was to be sold, or what were the current prices of corn and poultry. He himself was half the servant of the gentry, and half the servant of the community; nay, he belonged somewhat to the village priest also, and indeed to any good fellow who had a glass of beer to offer him. He was perpetually scurrying from house to house, from the local magistrate's residence to the market-place, from the market-place to the castle, from the castle to the parsonage, from the parsonage to the miller's, the pot-house, and the tavern, thence into the fields, and thence again into the courtyards. He would pick up something here and something there, something he might, perhaps, have heard at the church porch or up in the belfry; or something would catch his ear as he was dawdling among the waggons on a market-day, and he would immediately run and repeat it at the miller's. By the time he had reached the pot-house he would hear his own invention, already well amplified and nicely embellished, circulating from mouth to mouth as an absolute fact. Whereupon he would dash off with this enlarged edition of it to the castle, stopping, however, to tell it to every living soul he met on the way with all the variations which struck him as most appropriate on the spur of the moment, so that he really well-earned the epithet of "Leather-bell," inasmuch as he was performing all the functions of a bell, and, nevertheless was covered with a coat of skin or leather.[17]

[Footnote 17: The Hungarian word "boer" means both skin and leather.]

On this particular momentous evening, the Leather-bell, all hurry-scurry, rushed into the porch of the castle, where the old lord of the manor was nursing his invalided limbs in an ample easy chair, having so disposed himself as to be able to command a view of the western sky, still lit up by the faint hues of sunset.

Once upon a time the Leather-bell must have been a tall man, but excessive salutations had so bent his back, and an incessant to-ing and fro-ing had given his head such a forward inclination, that whoever beheld him now for the first time must needs have suspected him of an intention to run straight under the table incontinently. He was the very image of obsequiousness, and he presented his back to the world as though he would say: "Smite away at it whoever has a mind to."

Old Hetfalusy liked to see the man. He had leave to come and go whenever he chose. He was free to relate serious matters with a smiling face, and amusing incidents in a whining voice, especially as the points of all the jokes generally turned against himself.

"I kiss your honour's hand," said the Leather-bell, depositing his hat and stick in the doorway. "I kiss your hand (and kiss it he did there and then). How frightfully hot it is outside, and oh! what a lot of dust. Those boors are always routing it up with their ox-waggons. They make all the dust, I do believe. My throat is full of it, and it lies heavy on my chest. Oh no! I humbly thank your honour! Don't put yourself about! I'll not have a drink. Yes, I really mean it. I didn't say I was thirsty on that account. Wine does not suit my constitution at this time of day. Besides, to tell you the truth, I have had some already. For how else could I endure this terrible heat and this horrible dust. It weighed so upon my chest that I was obliged to look in at Samsi's tavern for an instant. Oh no! I assure you I did not go there on that account. I only wanted to have a word or two with my good friend the magistrate. He was not there, it is true, but instead of him I found the sworn jurors, Spletyko and Hamza, and a couple of peasants, who thereupon seized and offered me some brandy to drink. Your honour will graciously understand that I don't like brandy very much, my constitution won't stand it, and then it was only the afternoon, and it is not wholesome to drink so early. So, says I, thank you, but I won't take any, whereupon every man jack of them fell fiercely upon me. 'Oh, ho!' they cried, 'so you too have already been primed what to drink and what not to drink, eh? So they have told you that the brandy has been poisoned, eh?'

"'What do you mean?' I cried.

"'The brandy is poisoned.'

"'Who has poisoned it?'

"'Who but the bigwigs themselves.'

"'Fire and flames! here goes!' I shouted in my horror, and forthwith, just to show my indignation, I seized and emptied every glass I could get hold of one after the other.

"'Poison, eh!' says I, 'poison! how can it be poison if I drink it? I'm as alive as ever I was, ain't I?'

"'Well,' says that squinting blockhead Hamza, 'if there's no poison in that cask there is in the other, so draw us some out of that, Samsi!'

"But Samsi durst not leave the room, he made out that an ague was shaking him, so his wife went instead of him down into the cellar in the presence of the two sworn jurors, and brought a sample for tasting out of every cask. I assure your honour it was very hard upon me, for brandy does not suit me at all, yet, out of gratitude to your honour, I drank all this new stuff likewise. It is a marvel to me that I didn't grovel on the ground and root up the earth with my nose, so much did I drink.

"'Well,' cried I, 'should I not be dead by this time if there was really poison in it?'

"All that squinting Hamza could say in reply was:

"'Well, if there's none in to-day there will be some in to-morrow.'

"'Very well,' says I, 'I will come to-morrow also, and the day after to-morrow likewise; and, in fact, every day, and I'll taste every one of your drinks, one after the other, and show you that I'm none the worse.'

"Those were my very words. And I'll do it too, your honour, that I will, although it will be very hard upon me, for I can't abide spirits. But I won't allow your honour's noble family, to whom I owe so much, to be maligned by any pack of boors in the world."

Old Hetfalusy let the Leather-bell rattle on, perhaps he did not even listen to him. He paid as little attention to the tongue of the Leather-bell as he did to the clapper of the bell that hung in the church tower, perhaps less. For, indeed, in the solemn sonorous ding-dong, ding-dong of the church bell, those who have ears to hear, and still preserve memories of the past, may recognise the voices of the dead telling them all manner of mysterious things.

The brilliant exposition of the Leather-bell was interrupted by the arrival of Dr. Sarkantyus, who drove into the courtyard in a wretched chaise, dragged along by a couple of rustic nags, and immediately hastened up to the Squire.

The Leather-bell hastened forthwith to the chaise in order to take out the doctor's things, and as it was his ambition to load himself with as many boxes and packages as he could seize upon before the arrival of the domestic heydukes, he managed in his excess of zeal to drop three of the parcels on to the ground, one of which immediately burst asunder, and a stream of whitish powder poured forth upon the marble floor.

The doctor turned upon him furiously.

"Am I not always telling you not to load yourself so much? You see the result, all my bismuth powder wasted."

"I'll soon pick it all up again," said the Leather-bell submissively, and going down on his hambones he began sweeping into the palm of his hand what had been spilt and putting it back with the rest.

At this the doctor was ready to thrash him on the spot.

"What! mix what is all full of dust with what is still pure—go to the devil!"

"I humbly crave your pardon, doctor, but wouldn't it do for the cattle?" asked the mischief-maker with an obsequious smile.

"Cattle indeed! Does the fellow suppose I carry about drugs for pigs and oxen."

"I mean there's so much of it."

"None too much for such cattle as you, but now what has been spilt must be swept away."

And the doctor snatched the damaged box from the fellow's hands, and hastened into the house with it.

The Leather-bell remained kneeling on the ground, staring amazedly with foolish, wide-open eyes at the spilt powder. Then he moistened the tip of his index-finger in his mouth, and dipping it gingerly in the powder, transferred a tiny morsel thereof to the tip of his tongue, and instantly fell expectorating in every direction. At last he frantically scraped a good bit of it together, drew his handkerchief from his breast-pocket, shovelled a portion of the suspicious substance into it, looking round cautiously all the time in case anyone should see him, then shuffled out of the hall, departed from the courtyard by way of the garden, and, once free of the house, set off running rapidly towards the inn on the outskirts of the village, as if the most fleet-footed of horrors were behind him, his head, as usual, being a good yard or so in advance of his feet.

When he entered the tavern it never once struck him how very calm and peaceful it happened to be there at that particular moment. Mr. Martin Csicseri, the village justice, was sitting at the head of the table, and before him on the table lay his long hazel stick.

"I wish you a very good evening, my dear Mr. Justice and good Mr. Comrade, if I may make so free. 'Tis a good job you are here. And where may Hamza and Spletyko be?"

The village justice regarded him angrily.

"They are in a very good place where they will do no mischief—the stocks."

"Really? Well, they will certainly be well looked after there. All the same it is a great shame they are not here just now." Then, lowering his voice mysteriously, he added: "Well, my honoured comrade, I myself can now say that it is all up with us."

"How is it all up with us?" inquired Martin Csicseri, leaning both elbows heavily on the table.

"Oh, it's all up with us in every way, all up, all up!" wailed the Leather-bell, rapidly pacing up and down the room, and pressing his head betwixt his hands. "It is all up with the whole village."

"Will you tell me how it is all up with us, you old woman, you. Are you aware that this stick has an end to it, and I am very much inclined to give it some work to do on your back this instant?"

The fellow made as if he would simply answer the justice's question, yet all the while he kept glancing about him timidly, till five or six inquisitive rustics had also gathered around him, only then did he exclaim in a strident whisper: "The poison has already arrived!"

"You're a fool!" cried the justice, starting back as he spoke.

"I am not. I have seen and tasted it, and I have brought some of it with me. The doctor himself admitted that the county authorities had sent a large trunk of poison hither, and were going to make us drink it. The box was in my hand. I lifted it down from the carriage. Divine Providence so ordered that it fell from my hands, and a whitish powder poured out of it. The whole box was full of that powder. The doctor was horribly frightened, and swore at me like anything for my clumsiness. I saw him, I tell you, he grew quite yellow. I merely asked whether this medicine might not be for the cattle, but he savagely snatched it from my hand, and said he would make our heads ache with it."

"Is that true?" asked a terrified boor on the other side of the table.

"As true as I'm alive. The doctor immediately ordered the domestics to sweep the spilt powder away lest one of the animals should taste it and perish instantly; but I managed to scrape together a little of it first, and here it is in the corner of my handkerchief."

And the Leather-bell undid his handkerchief and poured the powder out upon the table.

The boors, with the fearful inquisitiveness of professed connoisseurs, carefully regarded the strange awe-inspiring powder from every side—so this was the murderous instrument of extirpation.

Some of them had heard, somewhere or other, that it was usual to make preliminary experiments with such poisons on the brute-beasts. One of them accordingly smeared a piece of bread with the powder, and offered it to a large shepherd's dog extended at his ease beneath the table. The dog sniffed at the morsel but would not touch it.

"Poison! poison!" cried those who stood around full of horror.

"Didn't I say so!" cried the Leather-bell, with a radiant face; but his joyful triumph was very speedily embittered, for when he least expected such a distinction, he became sensible that the long hazel cudgel of the village justice was unmercifully belabouring his back and shoulders.

"You good-for-nothing, lying wind-bag you, how dare you calumniate your own landlord? You hound of the whole village, you! that barks at every man behind his back, and licks his hand when he faces you. You dare to come hither with such idle stories at a time when there's already far too much discord among the people! You good-for-nothing vagabond! What! I suppose you want the peasant folks to beat the landlords to death, burn their castles to the ground, and rob them of everything? Coward and rebel as you are, the gallows-tree is far too good for you. I tell you what it is. I'll put you in irons and send you to the county jail, and there you may sit till your turn comes to stand before the judges. You incendiary, you!"

The Leather-bell was thoroughly scared, he began to hedge.

"Alas! my dear sweet Mr. Justice, and my good friend, don't be angry! God bless me! Why should I wish our landlord beaten to death? God preserve us from anything so dreadful."

"Who are you aiming at then?"

"I? Nobody at all. Not for all the world would I injure anyone. Oh, dear no! I only opened my mouth in order that every poor mother's son of us might look out for himself and guard himself, that's all."

"Guard himself!—from what?"

"From danger."

"And who told you there was any danger here? Don't you know that the doctor has a long way to go, and many people to cure, and must therefore carry a great many drugs along with him? And you, you senseless ass! dropped one of his medicine boxes, spilt the contents, and instantly jumped at the conclusion that it was poison! Poison! your grandmother! It is true, no doubt, that if a man in health takes medicine he will have stomach-ache for his pains, but if he be sick the same medicine will cure him. Every fool knows that. Drugs are not good to eat."

A couple of the more sensible peasants murmured approvingly behind him. The Leather-bell stood confounded before the magistrate, and made a sort of downward movement with his hat as if he would have liked to scatter to the winds the little bit of powder still lying on the table.

"And now tell me, you seditious idiot, what might not have happened if these honest men here had not had their wits about them? What if they had believed the horrible accusation spread by you and a few more vagabond busybodies of the same kidney? What if in their mad terror they had fallen foul of your young landlord, who has done you so much good, and shot him dead before your eyes? What if they had dragged his father, the old squire, out of bed in his nightshirt, and burnt him to death? What would you have done then, you good-for-nothing? I suppose you would have sharpened the knife that cut their throats?"

The knees of the Leather-bell smote together; he stammered piteously that he had had no idea that such horrible things would follow from what he said, that he had, in fact, not been thinking at all of what he was saying.

"Well, you will have plenty of time to think it over when you are sitting in the county jail."

The Leather-bell begged and prayed that he might not be sent there, rather shove him in the stocks alongside Hamza. He admitted that he deserved it; but if they liked to give him twenty or thirty blows with a stick instead, he would take it kindly of them. He had meant no harm, and he would never spread any more such rumours.

Meanwhile, no one had remarked that the tap-room had gradually been filling with silent, savage-looking forms, one of whom, while listening attentively to the conversation, began sweeping the suspicious-looking powder into the palm of his hand.

Mr. Martin Csicseri was so far moved by the piteous lamentations of the Leather-bell as to promise not to cast him into irons and send him to the county jail as a fomenter of sedition.

"But you shall, at any rate, sit in the stocks till morning, my friend!" added he. "Hie, you sworn jurymen, come forward and convey him thither."

"Nay, not that man!" cried a voice from the crowd, and the magistrate beheld Thomas Bodza advancing towards him—by the side of the long table.

"Whom then?" cried he.

"Whom but yourself!" exclaimed Numa Pompilius, accompanying his words with the gesture of a Roman Senator.

For the moment it occurred to the magistrate that the worthy rector who was not, as a rule, addicted to strong drink, had actually, for once, taken more of the noble juice of the grape than was quite good for him, so he simply laughed at him. All the more astonished, therefore, was he when, at a sign from the master, two strange men rushed upon him and seized his hands fast.

He had never seen their faces before, they were men who did not belong to the village.

"What's the meaning of this, eh?" he thundered, giving one of them a rattling box on the ear and knocking the other down. It was of no use. Ten at least instantly threw themselves upon him, seized his hands and feet, threw him to the ground and bound him fast. One or two of his acquaintances tried to defend him but were thrust aside.

So long as the tussle lasted, Thomas Bodza stood upon the table with the pose of a capitoline statue, whence he exclaimed in a dictatorial voice:

"It is now for me to command."

The pinioned magistrate continued to curse and swear, and threaten the rioters till they shoved a gag into his mouth. As for the Leather-bell, he hid himself behind the fireplace partly to avoid blows, partly from a fear that this business would have unpleasant consequences, and he might be called upon to give evidence. He wanted neither to hear nor see anything more.



CHAPTER XIV.

THE SENTENCE OF DEATH.

The candles were burning on the table though it was broad daylight, the bells were tolling though nobody was sick, the coffin had also been made ready though nobody was dead.

The hard sentence had been pronounced over the poor sinner, he must die. The law demanded his head. If his dear father and mother and all his brothers and sisters were to plead for him all day long they could not wash away the strict letter of the law with their tears.

All those who sat by the long table, the captains, lieutenants, and common soldiers, all of them wished, longed, to avoid uttering the fatal word. The General himself covered his face with his hands as he uttered the words:

"With God there is mercy!"

In his hand he held a little staff, a little white staff. From time to time he glances at it, it is still whole, still smooth and unbroken.

The old sergeant-major approaches him, his shako on his head, his storm-belt strapped down over his shoulder, one hand by his side, the other touching the band of his shako.

"Mercy, General, for the poor condemned prisoner!"

"With God only there is mercy."

Again the sergeant-major raises the tip of his palm to the cord of his shako and makes his petition.

"Mercy, General, for the poor condemned criminal!"

A third time he utters his appeal.

"With God only there is mercy," is the General's reply.

The little white staff falls to the ground broken in two. The condemned man gives a sigh of relief, thanks the gentlemen present for the trouble they have taken, the good sergeant-major for interceding on his behalf, and the rigorous judge for pronouncing over him the sentence of the law.

Then they take him away to the house of mourning, give him a white uniform to put on, and set meat and drink before him that he may eat and drink for the last time.

That day the iron man was afraid to go to his own quarters.

Suppose Cornelia were to ask him what sentence he had pronounced upon the son of his enemy?

He durst not go home, he was actually afraid.

He was still brooding there when the gaoler came to tell him that the condemned man wished to say a few words to the General privately.

Vertessy hastened to him at once.

"You defended yourself badly," said he reproachfully on entering, "you made it impossible for us to pronounce any other sentence."

"I know that, I wished it so," replied the youth with a bright, calm countenance. "That is all over now, General; it was a soldier's duty to condemn me. In three days' time I am to die. Take it as if I was very sick, and the doctors had told you beforehand that I had only three more days to live."

"I will send the sentence to His Majesty."

"It would be useless. Why, even you can advance nothing in my defence, and I have myself nothing to allege in mitigation of my sentence."

"But I know everything. Others have come forward to defend you, and if you had not cut the ground from under my feet by your defiant answers before the court-martial, I might have devised some means of saving you."

"I am surprised that anyone should have defended me. I know of none who might bear me in mind."

"Indeed yes. First of all there was my wife."

"Ah! General, such knowledge will make my death the easier."

"Then there was the man you fired at in your stupid jealousy."

"Then he did not die after all?" exclaimed the youth joyfully. "It does me good to hear that."

"That's all one so far as you are concerned. You have in any case committed a capital offence."

"But my heart is the easier, nevertheless. A load has been removed from it. I thank you. What you have said will shorten my last moments."

"Your third advocate was your father."

"What?" stammered the youth with trembling lips—"my father, did you say?—my own father?"

"Your own dear father. He wrote to me with those trembling hands of his, those hands which have barely recovered from a paralytic stroke. He wrote to me himself—do you realise what that means?"

"He wrote on my account!" whispered the condemned man, clasping his manacled hands together and closing his heavy eyelashes over his moist eyes.

"Your fourth advocate was Count Kamienszki, whose sister you will doubtless remember."

The youth looked up in astonishment.

"I have no recollection of such a person. She had no brother."

Vertessy shrugged his shoulders.

"He himself told me so, he was with me here to-day."

A struggle with a torturing suspicion seemed to be going on in the young soldier's troubled mind; presently, however, he turned to the General with a radiant countenance and said to him with a smile:

"All these things, General, will alleviate my chastisement and I thank you for telling them to me. I regret that my misfortune will cause others to shed tears which I did not expect, which I do not desire; still, they will greatly ease my affliction. I am sure that you too, at the bottom of your heart, forgive me and my poor family—you do forgive us, General, do you not? Will you not even go further and protect that poor old man who has now got nobody to stand by him?—will you not be his protector if any danger, yes, any great danger should threaten him?"

The General pressed the young man's extended hand—the chains rattled on the hand that he held in his.

"And now, General, may I speak to you of a very serious matter? Would you be so good as to hear me out?"

"Say on."

"And you will not take what I am about to tell you as the mere ravings of a disordered brain? Many men's brains grow disordered at the approach of death I know; you will not imagine that I am simply delirious, will you? You will believe that I am well and with all my wits, sound both in heart and mind, will you not?"

The General nodded.

"First of all I would beg you not to postpone my execution for the usual three days. Let it take place sooner. I do not ask this for my own sake. I am as good as dead already, my time has run."

"Why do you make this request?"

"I will tell you presently. Then I would beg you not to conduct me outside the town; the execution could take place just as well inside the courtyard of the barracks."

"Very well, I will promise you that."

"And, finally, announce the execution for the afternoon and have it carried out in the morning, early, at break of day, before anyone is awake."

"What are your reasons for so extraordinary a request?"

"I will tell you, General. You know right well what terrifying rumours have been circulating through the land in consequence of the extraordinary, unprecedented epidemic now raging there. I had an opportunity of discovering, involuntarily, the designs of sundry malevolent persons who looked upon this terrible time as an excellent occasion for carrying out their nefarious designs. The dregs of the population have been roused to action, and only await the signal to pour their ignorant, brutal herds all over the kingdom. This is no idle tale I am telling you, General. I have heard their seditious mutterings, I have read their letters, I have seen the lists of the names of those who are to fall the first victims. My father's name stands at the very top of the list. His peasants have always hated him as much as they have loved me. One of the leaders of these secret conspirators was formerly a fellow-soldier with me, since then he has been compelled to quit the service. I accidentally met him in Galicia, where he was pursuing his secret plans. He promised to hide me away, and, immediately afterwards, went and denounced me. It is part of his infernal plan, when I am led outside the town and a large crowd of people have come together to see the execution, to incite the mob to riot, overpower the little band of soldiers guarding me, release me, proclaim me far and wide as a hero, and use my name as the means of provoking a general rising. You can see, General, with what horror I so much as mention this affair, you can see that I have neither dreamt nor imagined it, but shudder at it, and for that very reason would hasten on my exit from this world."

The General really did believe that the youth was not quite in his right mind.

The young man perceived the cold smile on the General's face, and convulsively grasping his hand with his own manacled hands, exclaimed despairingly:

"General! they would murder my father, they would destroy my house, my nation!"

"Who forsooth?" inquired the General with an expression of unutterable contempt. "These skulking loafers, eh? I will not presume to deny that they may, perhaps, intend to do what you say, such ideas may and do occur at times to some blockhead or other. But I do not believe that the time will ever come for the realisation of such projects. But if anybody should attempt to move in the matter, I solemnly assure you that at the very first outcry he will be a dead man!"

And he tapped his sword with proud self-consciousness.

At that moment an adjutant hastily entered the room and announced that there were suspicious gatherings of the people in the market-place and the streets of the town. They were exclaiming loudly against the gentry and the soldiers, and were goading one another on with incendiary speeches. It had been found necessary to bar the gates of the town hall against them, and the windows of an apothecary's shop had already been smashed. Apparently they meant to give most of their attention to the barracks and the town hall.

The General had no sooner hastened out of the corridor than he already heard in the adjacent streets, that vague hubbub whose chaotic voice sounds so terrifying in the ears of the faint-hearted, who know not whether it is an alarm of fire or a hue and cry after a murderer.

On the present occasion, however, there was both fire and murder in the sound—it was a riot.

In a distant part of the town some over-zealous guardians of public order had set ringing the alarm-bells, whose strident semi-tones rose above the low hideous murmur of the mob.

The General hastened into the courtyard. The soldiers were already standing there under arms.

There was scarcely more than two hundred men there, the rest were a long way off, forming part of the far-stretching military cordon.

This, however, was quite enough for Vertessy's purpose.

What had he to fear? It was impossible to conceive that the honest scythe and saddle makers of the town, the peaceful citizens who had only to do with planes and awls and shuttles, would dare to attack him forcibly and compel him to retire before them.

Swiftly, but with the utmost sang froid, he made his preparations.

Half a battalion took up a position outside the gate guarding every approach, the rest remained within the courtyard.

The rifles of the soldiers outside the gate remained unloaded.

At three rolls of a drum the remaining column also marched out into the street.

A single word of command would suffice for subsequent tactics.

It was also considered necessary to close the gates of the neighbouring house, and two sentries were posted outside it with loaded muskets.

All this was done in the most perfect order, there was no hurry, no bustle.

In that house opposite dwelt the General's wife; one could reach it from the barracks across a garden.

Vertessy had just completed his preparations when Cornelia's maid came hastening up to him and whispered something in his ear.

For a moment a smile of delight flashed across the General's face, which immediately afterwards, however, formed into still darker folds than before.

Hastily transferring the command to his first lieutenant, he hastened to his dwelling, promising to be back in a moment.

It must indeed have been a matter of importance to have constrained Vertessy to quit the post becoming a soldier at such a moment.

He hastened as fast as he could go to his wife's bedchamber.

The curtains had been let down, in the semi-obscure alcove lay a pale woman, seemingly a corpse which, nevertheless, was suffering the torments of life.

Domestics were gathered round the bed, at a table sat the doctor writing something.

Vertessy had already unfastened his sword outside so as to avoid making a clatter. He now rushed to Cornelia's side, seized her trembling, sweat-covered hand, and, pressing it to his lips, inquired:

"How do you feel?"

"On the threshold of death," answered the lady, and with her other arm she drew down her husband's head towards her that she might kiss it. Her whole face was as white as marble, and the cold sweat stood out upon her forehead like pearly beads.

"The coming hour has secrets of its own, Vertessy," lisped the lady, pressing Vertessy's hand in her own, "whether it be good or evil, joy or death."

Vertessy's eyes interrogated the doctor as if he hoped for some comforting reassurance from him.

The doctor beckoned him aside.

"She is suffering tortures," he whispered, "but she would hide it from you."

"She may hide it in her voice, but I can tell it is so from her breathing. Is the danger great?"

The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

"Pretty much as usual. She is very nervous, and besides that, there is something on her mind."

"What can it be?"

"It would be as well, General, if you ascertained. At such a time peace of mind is a matter of life or death, and fear or any feeling of anxiety might have a bad effect upon—a new life."

At the words "a new life" that involuntary gleam of joy flashed across Vertessy's lips once more. He went back to his wife and knelt down on her tapestried cushion.

"Cornelia, how are you?"

"In God's hands," whispered the lady, raising her glorious eyes. "God chastises and is merciful as it seemeth Him good."

Her convulsive pressure showed Vertessy what she must be suffering.

"There is mercy with God," faintly murmured the lady once more.

Vertessy felt his heart tremble at these words. An hour before he also had said: "With God there is mercy," and that to a man who had promised himself a long life.

The lady turned towards him with a languid look, pressed both her husband's hands to her breast, and looking long and painfully into his eyes, she asked:

"Will God be merciful to me?"

"To thee, my angel?—yes!—oh yes!" stammered the General.

"And have you also been merciful to him who begged you for mercy?"

Vertessy could not meet that look, he could find no words to answer that question.

"Vertessy! One death demands another, judgment is requited with judgment. I am standing on the edge of the grave, do not let me die."

"What am I doing, what can I do?" said her husband with a faltering voice.

"You see," replied his wife, winding her arm round his like a tender creeping plant round a sturdy oak, "if you slay, I must die also. What the condemned man in the neighbouring house suffers that I also must endure—his terror, his despair, his death-struggle. Oh! my husband, have pity upon me. Be merciful now to him who has offended, that I also may find mercy with God!"

Vertessy's mind was much disturbed. And now the doctor approached him and solemnly observed:

"General, I fancy it would not be the first instance of a capitally condemned felon being pardoned on the plea of such a sufferer."

Vertessy regarded him abstractedly as if to beg him to proceed.

"I knew of a similar case when I was in service at the fortress of Comorn, when a youth, who had thrice deserted the ranks, was pardoned in consequence of a similar petition."

"And do you believe that it would do good?"

"My dear sir, when the exaltation of the nerves has reached such a degree as this, the imagination is omnipotent, good news may give life, bad news death. A soothing thought in such cases is worth all the drugs in the world."

Vertessy kissed the forehead of his pale, suffering well-beloved, and cried with a manly emphasis, which instantly inspired self-confidence:

"I will save him!"

The lady raised her trembling hands and her pale features to Heaven, her eyes slowly closed, and a smile of joy passed over her white face.

Outside resounded the threefold roll of the drums.

The General arose, hastened to the door, tied on his sword, and rushed towards the barracks.

The noise, the hubbub, was now quite close at hand, and he fell a-thinking how he could best, with fair words, persuade these turbulent citizens to go back to their homes and begin weaving linen and stitching boots again, though he longed all the time to storm forth amongst them and like a tempest scatter them in every direction.



CHAPTER XV.

OIL UPON THE WATERS.

The whole of the broad street was entirely covered with caps.

It was impossible to see anything but caps. Here and there a scythe or a pitchfork projected from the midst of the throng, but the larger portion of the mob was unarmed, unless slender canes, of which there were a great number, be accounted weapons.

Here and there in the midst of the surging crowd might be distinguished sundry honest citizens still in plain clothes indeed, but carrying along with them bayonetted muskets, thereby inspiring the rabble with peculiar valour, the common people always imagining in such cases that the national guard with its bayonets is quite equal to the military.

"Halt!" a voice rung out in front of the crowding mass.

At the sound of that voice the hubbub for an instant grew still. The mob stopped short.

"Load your muskets!"

The soldiers, like a single, many-handed machine, instantly brought down their weapons to their sides with a clash, and the clatter of the loading-sticks in the barrels of the muskets was distinctly audible. Then there was another clatter, and every musket was instantly pointed.

The rioters began to look at one another, and those in front envied the position of those in the rear, who could freely use their lungs without the slightest risk.

And now the General rode along in front of the noisy mob and shouted to them in a hard, stern voice:

"What do you want? What is the matter with you? Why are you obstructing the street?"

The fellows kept elbowing each other forward, and, at last, one of them exclaimed:

"Here is Master Matthias! Let Master Matthias speak!"

"Bravo, Master Matthias!"

And suddenly from the midst of the mob arose the form of a citizen in a leather apron, with a shako on his head, and a musket with a bayonet attached thereto in his hand. He was passed along over the heads of the crowd, from shoulder to shoulder, and finally planted on his feet right in front of the General. This was Master Matthias.

Even if his hands, the knuckles whereof were unwashably embalmed with pitch, had not of themselves betrayed the fact, the awl hanging beside his leather apron, and evidently left there by accident, would have declared that the individual in question belonged to that estimable section of the community whose business in life it is to provide humanity with corns. His moustache was twisted with seven-and-seventy ringlets, and he had the habit every time he opened his mouth of violently shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders by way of making his words the more emphatic.

Master Matthias was a famous orator of the market-place, a toast-master of the city guilds, a finished wedding-feast chairman, and a recognised champion swine-slayer, he was consequently renowned throughout the town.

Nor was he the least afraid of the town, or the county either, or even of the General himself, as he now intended to show him.

So there he stood manfully in front of Vertessy, twirling his crooked moustache from end to end, and banging his musket on the ground as violently as if he meant to smash its butt end to pieces. Then he cleared his throat, and in a hoarsely strident voice gave expression to the following sentiments:

"My Lord General, whereas it has happened, so to speak, that our human masses in this comitavus[18] have attained to extraordinary dimensions, and inasmuch as the honourable imposteratus[19] has decided in consequence thereof that this is not a right state of things at all, far from it, and right they are too, say I, for the members of the city guilds have far too many qualifications; but, on the other hand, they are quite wrong, inasmuch as our journeymen are in countlessly small number therein, therefore we have resolved that as everyone is talking about it, so it must be, and not otherwise. For great is the desire of the enemy to make an impulse in this kingdom. Moreover, as for the avoidance and confirmation thereof, the plenipotentiaries have furthermore resolved that the 'pothecaries are concocting a certain miasma, by which decree we men are to be kept within salutary boundaries. Such finally being the case, and the people having cognisance thereof, the secular inhabitants of the neighbouring districts and sequestrations have arisen, and want to know what it is all about and wherefore. I myself am not able to say a word there anent, inasmuch as I wish not to apprehend it; but so much I can say for certain, that one of my journeymen on his way to the fair had his feet twisted double with cramp, and I know what I know. If, therefore, my Lord General so wishes it, and considers it seasonable that men for the common good of the kingdom should make a revolution, therefore we most humbly and respectfully petition for the same. And we are not fools either."

[Footnote 18: I.e., "Comitatus" county.]

[Footnote 19: I.e., "Compossessoratus," a local committee of landed proprietors for assessing taxation, &c.]

During this brilliant and particularly lucid harangue, the bolder masses of the mob had pushed right forward, and it seemed highly probable that within the next few moments the arguments of the great popular orator would be emphasized by fist-law. Vertessy, on the other hand, quite apart from general feelings of humanity and patriotism, had still stronger reason for avoiding tumult and bloodshed. At that very moment his sick wife lay at the threshold of death. A mere volley, a single hour of street-fighting, might perhaps be the death of her.

In this agonising situation a horseman was seen approaching from the opposite side of the road. Only with the utmost difficulty could he force his way through the densely packed mob. Indeed, they would not have stirred a stump had he not kept on waving in his hand a piece of paper, and shouting incessantly that this was a proclamation addressed to the people, and he wanted to speak with their leader.

"Who is the worthy leader of these patriots?" he exclaimed.

Vertessy recognised in the horseman that mysterious Pole whom the condemned man could not recollect, and by this time he was a trifle suspicious of the fellow himself. After all, he began to think, there might be some coherency in the words of the prisoner, though only an hour ago he had looked upon them as the mere ravings of a lunatic.

"Where is the leader of the people?" cried Kamienszka, urging on the sweating horse towards the nearest open space.

Master Matthias proudly pointed to the warm swelling bosom which lay beneath his leather apron, by way of indicating that he was the man.

With an air of pathetic dignity Kamienszka handed to the worthy patriot the proclamation of Numa Pompilius, in which that worthy confided to the tailors, cobblers, and bakers of the city the honourable task of making, stitching, and baking some thousands of boots, hose, and rolls for headquarters to be delivered immediately.

"What are you doing?" cried the General in French. "At the very first movement I shall scatter these men."

"I am pouring oil upon the waters," replied the young horseman in the same language. "Within an hour every man of them will go home."

Master Matthias seized the document with both hands, pressed his musket betwixt his knees, and read the proclamation attentively from beginning to end.

The impression it made upon him could be imagined from the conduct of his moustache, which gradually lost its martial fierceness, and at last hung meekly down.

"Six thousand pairs of boots—whew!"

Meantime, a skinny fellow-citizen, buttoned up to the chin, kept on stretching his scraggy neck a monstrous distance across the heads of three rows of other burghers standing in front of him, with his eyes glued all the time upon the distant document in Master Matthias' hands. This was Master Csihos, known by the token over his shop as a member of the honourable guild of tailors.

"There it is!—read it for yourself!" cried Master Matthias.

The long arm stretched all the way across three rows of fellow-citizens standing in front of it, and a little group of tailors having put their heads together around the master-tailor, he read out the proclamation in a loud voice.

"Three thousand pairs of trousers!"

The head of the guild of bakers had not heard all that had been said, but the words "bread" and "rolls" had tickled his ears uncomfortably.

The fatal proclamation had in a few moments made the round of the assembly, gradually disappearing among the back rows of the mob. And, wherever it passed, it left behind it long faces and gaping, speechless mouths; the tumult subsided into a low murmur and an uneasy whispering. Master Matthias, Master Csihos, and the chief of the Guild of Bakers held counsel together cheek by jowl. Those in the rear began to edge away along the wall as if it was no concern of theirs.

At last Master Matthias leaned his musket against the back of a friend, took off his cap, smoothed out his moustache, and approached the General with a very dubious expression of countenance, at the same time violently scratching the back of his neck.

"Your pardon, my Lord General!" cried he, "possibly your honour did not quite understand me. Although I never said that things were this or that; neither did I mean the other thing, whether more or less. Nevertheless, and be this as it may, and without prejudice, I am well aware, as also are all my friends, that it is not for us to sit in judgment on the county tribunals or on you, my Lord General—very much, the other way in fact; and if impudent disturbers of the public peace are carrying on their games amongst us, such are to be regarded as the dregs of humanity, and we on the contrary see ourselves obliged to turn to the worshipful county magistrates and to your honour that ye may deign to have these evil-minded rioters who approach our peaceful towns with firearms and pitchforks kept far away therefrom, whereunto we also and the trainbands of this town volunteer our services, giving it to be and understood that, at my Lord General's command, we shall be found ready to pour out our life-blood in defence of our country, our town, our county, and our prince. To the gallows say I, with all who demand of us six thousand pairs of boots! Your poor humble servant!"