The Day of Wrath

To many it seemed, while the child's quavering voice was intoning the sad melody, as if, either from the midst of the crowd, or from some corner close at hand, a man's voice was accompanying the tone in a subdued voice, dwelling upon the final notes, as they do in church.

Who could it be?

None could say whence the accompanying voice proceeded.

A cold shudder ran down Dame Zudár's back. It was the voice of the headsman!

But what a mad idea! Men no longer come forth unhurt from the midst of the fire, as did the three holy children in the days of Nebuchadnezzar.

So she strengthened her heart, marched up to the door, and began thundering upon it with her fists.

"The three minutes for consideration is now up. My old enemy and my young enemy, you must now open the door and come forth."

The crowd waited in hushed suspense for what would come next.

Why did not the people inside fire beneath the sure protection of their stronghold? What spell had this woman cast over them? Had she really the power, then, to break through bolts and bars with a mere word, a mere look?

"One, two, three!"

Still not a sound.

Then the virago, with a haughty look, turned towards the people, and addressed them with a penetrating voice:

"If they won't speak I will. Friends and comrades, these bigwigs here have sworn our ruin. They want to root out the whole lot of us, why, then, should we have mercy on them? Now, however, it is not we who are in their power, but they who are in ours. Their own sins have delivered them into my hands. You know, and the whole world knows, that that stuck-up gentleman yonder, Széphalmi, Esq., once upon a time exposed his firstborn child. He cast it forth in the wilderness, cast it forth among the wild beasts, because he feared the shame of it forsooth!—ha, ha, ha! Has a poor man ever done the like of that? Aye, and it was a poor man who found the child, it was a poor man who had compassion on the little outcast thrown in his way, it was a poor man who brought it up as if it were his own child. And now, if you please, these high and noble gentlemen cast poison into the wells of the poor man that they may destroy him, root and branch."

The mob listened to these murderous words with ever increasing eagerness.

At the same time it did not escape Dame Zudár's attention that a key had been put into the iron door of the castle from the inside, and that it was being turned softly.

So now she fell a-shouting more noisily than ever.

"Before you kneels the foster-daughter of the headsman's wife. Who was that child's mother? who gave her to the headsman's wife? Her mother, I tell you, was a great lady, none other than Benjamin Hétfalusy's daughter, whom the wrath of God smote down together with that little murderer, her infant son. I nourished and brought up that child, and what thanks did I get for it? Only this: that these bigwigs have determined to kill us all by poisoning our meat and drink, that they may thereby bury their shameful secret. But I declare their design aloud, so that every man may know it. This girl is Hétfalusy's grand-daughter. This girl is in our power, and if these fine gentlemen so much as crumple a single hair of any of your heads, I will plunge this knife into the child's heart."

A confused, savage murmur ran through the mob at these grim words, which seemed to intoxicate the hearts of all who heard them with a fiendish cruelty.

And Dame Zudár, listening attentively, heard the key turn in the door a second time.

She was well prepared for what would follow.

She now stepped behind the child, wound its beautiful blonde tresses round her left hand, and with her right grasped the handle of the knife convulsively.

"Oh, God, my God!" cried Elise's bell-like voice.

At that same instant the iron door opened wide, and between its receding wings stood a spectre—a spectre was the only name for it, as it had no resemblance to anything human.

A pale face, like the face of one arisen from the tomb, white dishevelled hair clinging round his temples and hanging over his bloodshot eyes. He had wrapped a long mantle over his white night-dress which fluttered about him like the wings of a bat.

It was old Hétfalusy.

In each hand he held a loaded pistol, and as the opening door groaned on its hinges he cried in a hoarse voice:

"Here I am, but whoever dares to lay a hand upon the girl, him will I shoot first and the girl afterwards."

But it was a threat which excited little terror, his hands trembled so and his eyes were scarce able to see what was before them.

Nobody followed him. He passed through the door alone.

The Leather-bell, however, was so terrified lest he should carry out his threat that he threw himself at the old man's feet, and embracing his knees, piteously besought him:

"Master, master, oh, my dear master! don't fire, for God's sake! Lay down your pistols. I assure you that nobody here will hurt you."

"Will ye swear, then, that you will do the child no harm?" gasped old Hétfalusy.

"Put down your weapons!" cried the rioters.

"Swear that you will not harm her in any way, and then I will put them down."

"Very well, we swear!" cried some in the rear of the crowd.

"Let that woman swear too," said Hétfalusy, pointing at Dame Zudár with a shaking hand. None of them did he hold in such horror as her.

The virago smiled and twiddled the knife between her fingers. Craftily lowering her eyes, and casting a side-long glance at the old man, she replied:

"And by whom, then, am I to swear?"

"By the name of God, the living God."

"But what shall I swear?"

"Swear that neither you yourself, nor any of your companions, will do this child any harm, whosoever child she is, and whether what you allege concerning her be true or not."

"Nothing else?"

"Nothing."

"Would you not save your own grey hairs from being crumpled then?"

"May the Almighty dispose of me as it seemeth Him good."

"Then I will take the oath," cried the virago, and, raising her muscular right arm heavenwards, she cried:

"No harm shall come to the child, so help me, God!"

Then Hétfalusy calmly surrendered his pistols to the Leather-bell, who politely kissed his hand for so doing, and straightway fired the pistols off in the air, so that they might do no harm to anyone.

The same instant the blaspheming mob fell upon the defenceless squire, tore at his grey locks and impotent limbs, and hurled him to the ground.

"Smash him, kill him, the poison-mixer!" resounded from every side, and the bloodthirsty cowards rushed furiously from their hiding-places with cudgels and flails, to the spot where the defenceless old squire was lying.

The worthy Leather-bell had not another word to say, but he cast himself at full length upon the prostrate gentleman, and, tightly embracing his frail figure, defended him with his own body from the first onset of the raging mob.

In vain they pummelled, in vain they kicked him, his self-sacrificing back endured everything, and patiently received the beating intended for his master.

The poor fellow, after all, would really have been a very good man if only he had not been so very simple.

"Clear out, will you!" cried Dame Zudár and Thomas Bodza simultaneously, "we must not kill him. We want to get something out of him, so he must live. Let no one hurt him, then, till he has received his sentence."

At last the two ringleaders succeeded in clearing away the furious mob from the mauled and trampled body of the squire. Then they raised him from the ground, tied his hands together, and fastened him tightly by one lean arm to the trellised gate of the castle. Blood oozed from the old man's limbs beneath the pressure of the rough cord, yet, with not so much as a groan did Benjamin Hétfalusy betray the torture he was suffering.

And thou, oh, man, in thy fiery pit, art thou still singing thy hymns below there, art thou still testing the edge of thy sword with the tips of thy fingers, just as if it were the string of some sad and delicate musical instrument, which can give forth but one voice, and that the voice of a sad, sad song?

The heat of the collapsed dwelling was now penetrating to the cellar below, and the straitened prisoner began to bethink him of some other place of refuge.

Instead of the fierce crackle of the flames which had met his ear hitherto, he now could only hear a monotonous flickering as of expiring embers, and this lasted for a long time, when suddenly a fresh noise attracted his attention.

Not far from his hiding-place something began to sound like the voice of a wind-clapper. At first it went clap! clap! clap! very rapidly, but gradually the strokes grew slower and slower, tapering down at last to single beats at long intervals.

Whoever has attentively watched the doors of a metal furnace, will know at once how that sound arises. When the heat of the fire which has expanded the metal begins to decrease, the expanded fibres of the metal suddenly begin to contract and give forth a snapping sound as of metal strings violently torn asunder.

The iron door of the cellar was, in fact, loudly calling the attention of the master of the house to the fact that the fire had reduced all the brushwood piled round the house into red-hot embers, and it was therefore high time for him to seek another asylum.

Peter Zudár seized a large measure of beer, approached the door, and flung the malt liquid all over it.

Ha! how loudly the glowing metal hissed and spluttered at the contact of the cold fluid, as if laughing with joy at the artful scheme which it and the master together had devised for the latter's deliverance.

The iron door was far too burning hot to be opened with the naked hand, but the blood-red glare visible behind it made it pretty certain that the lead-soldering had long ago melted away, and it therefore only needed a vigorous kick to wrench it off its hinges.

Peter Zudár listened attentively. Not a soul was stirring. There was indeed no reason why anyone should linger any longer in that wretched place.

Impatience spurred him on to action. He began to lift the door from its hinges with the help of a heavy crowbar. It gave way sooner than he had anticipated, and fell at full length on the smoking embers in front of it, bridging over the fiery stream from one bank to the other.

With a single bound Peter Zudár leaped over the door, and sped away from the burning house like a madman.

It was dark, nobody saw him. In his way stood huge thistles, prickly-headed vegetable monsters, and Peter Zudár mowed them all down with his headsman's sword just as if they had been so many condemned malefactors, or as if he were a frolicsome lad waging fierce war with a wooden sword against the whole evil host of weeds. Anybody who had seen him would have taken him for a lunatic.

He only came to himself when the barking of a dog struck upon his ear; he knew then that he was on the borders of the village, and close to the nearest houses.

Then he began slowly to compose himself, the cool night air was soothing his troubled brain. He now commenced to recollect what had happened to him during the last few hours. The riot, the seizure of the child, the house burnt over his head, the agony he had endured in the cellar—all these things flashed like vivid pictures before his mind again.

But what had become of the child? What did they want to do with her? To kill her perhaps?—these were his first thoughts. Then he began to consider how he might discover her whereabouts and rescue her. Vengeance was the last thing he thought of.

He had no suspicion as to whom the raging mob had risen against. He fancied that the child was the pivot of the whole ghastly affair. He was persuaded all along that they had sought her death, and would murder her, and the idea of such a thing was all the more terrible to him because he did not know the reason why. So much, however, he did know, that his own wife was the person most to be feared.

He was fully sensible that there was no time to lodge a complaint with the magistrate, the priest, or the local court, and await a heavy sentence. This was a peculiar case in which the headsman himself must investigate, condemn, and execute the sentence—and was not the sword of Justice already in his hands?

And as he stood there, leaning against a fence, in a brown study, it seemed to him as if he heard from the midst of the village the very hymn which he had sung so often with his darling before their evening repose:

He listened attentively. It was no delusion. They were really the words of the hymn, the child's voice was really singing them.

At first he fancied that his darling was in some other world, and was speaking to him from the Kingdom of Heaven, and he lifted up his voice likewise, and sang back again, his deep sonorous voice sounding like a magnified echo of the bell-like childish voice.

Subsequently, however, it occurred to him that perhaps the child was locked up somewhere, and wanted to let him know where she was by singing the hymn.

Suddenly there arose a hideous shout from the courtyard of the castle, the inarticulate roar of hundreds and hundreds of savage men, whose very throats seemed to thirst for blood.

At that same instant Hétfalusy had surrendered his arms to his assailants.

Peter Zudár lost not another instant in reflection, but turned up his shirt-sleeves, smoothed away his hair from his eyes, and rushed towards the castle.

A long lane separated him from the residential part of the mansion, but not choosing to follow it along its whole length, he waited till he saw the pinnacles of the castle, and then took a short cut over hedge and ditch, dashing along straight before him heedless of everything.

The infuriated mob which, after being cowed by the mere show of resistance, became all the more brutal at the first symptom of surrender, after Hétfalusy had laid down his arms, was able to glut its brutal rage, at will, on the old gentleman who had thus become its victim.

But it was lost labour.

What satisfaction can there be in the torturing of a withered stump which is dumb to all outrage?—it is as fruitless a business as flogging a corpse!

The old squire did not demean himself by a single outcry of pain.

When they wanted him to confess that the gentry had banded together to extirpate the peasantry, he coldly replied:

"That is not true."

Every denial on his part was followed by inhuman tortures. But they were but tormenting a frigid skeleton insensible to pain, who only replied, again and again:

"That is not true!"

The invading mob, after breaking everything in the castle it could lay its hands upon, began searching for young Széphalmi and the doctor.

They must have hidden well, for nowhere could they be found. The mob turned all the rooms upside down, and yet it could not find them.

The old man must certainly know where they were stowed away.

But Hétfalusy would not betray his son-in-law or the doctor.

Amongst his executioners shaggy Hanák particularly distinguished himself by his fiendish ingenuity, but the squire only remarked to him in a gentle voice:

"Do you recollect, Hanák, how last year, you were bedridden, and I supported your whole family? And when your biggest lad was taken by the recruiting sergeant, did I not buy him out? And when the hail destroyed your crops, did I not give you the corn on which you and your whole family lived comfortably during the winter?"

But at this mild reproach, stubbly Hanák only wiped his bloody mouth, and bellowed with bestial pride:

"There's no Hanák here! I'm Hanák no longer. I'm a rebel patriot, that's what I am!"

The poor Leather-bell was quite unable to help his master. He could only implore the rioters to torture him if they liked rather than Hétfalusy. He knew he was the cause of it all because he had talked about the poison. He wished now that he had eaten of the poison and died.

Dame Zudár, meanwhile, had been regarding the sufferings of her mortal foe with devilish enjoyment.

There she stood, her arms folded across her breast, facing her enemy, whose warm blood frequently spurted over her face.

"'Tis no good hurting him that way," she murmured to herself. "A boor howls if you nip him, this sort only holds his tongue just as if he had a soul different from the others...."

"This was the very spot where you made my father bleed," she cried. "Do you recollect Dudoky, eh? There he lay, where you lie now, and you stood beside him, as I now stand beside you, and revelled in it. But my father wept and howled beneath his torments while you only keep silent. I could not bear to look on, I ran away and hid myself in my room, but there also I kept on hearing his shrieks. I heard them through two thick walls. Twenty years have passed since then, and through those twenty years I still hear him. I want to hear you weep too, and not mock your executioners by putting on a stone-cold face like that. Yes, you shall weep, you shall entreat. I will not be happy till I see your eyes full of tears."

Hétfalusy regarded the fury contemptuously, and knitted his lips.

And then he called her a name, a low, degrading name, the worst of all names that a man can call a woman.

With a hiss of rage the virago rushed upon him with the frantic idea of plunging her knife in his heart.

But nay, not so.

Her face was white with fury, her whole frame trembled.

"I became that all through you!" she gasped with husky rage. "But you will not mock me for it much longer. Do you see your grandchild here in my power?"

"You swore you would not hurt her."

"I swore I would not kill her, but I will make her what I was. By Heaven and Earth and all the torments of Hell, I swear I will do it."

"Woman!" stammered Hétfalusy, and his face lost at last its expression of stony endurance.

"Ha-ha!" cried the virago, with a laugh like the howl of a wild beast. "The last scion of the house of Hétfalusy will do credit to a house of ill-fame. Look how lovely she is! Look at her face, her figure, her eyes! As innocent as an angel too! Ah! you are weeping now, are you? But you will have to weep tears of blood, you accursed old wretch, for what I say I mean to do!"

"Woman, if you believe in God——" began the old man, writhing to free himself from his bonds.

"I don't!" the woman yelled back defiantly. "There is no God!"

At that same instant her head leaped so suddenly into the air that her body remained standing upright, three long jets of blood at the same time shooting up from between her vacant shoulders. Her two hands still fumbled about in the air as if they would have drawn back the uttered blasphemy and defended her against this terrible judgment, and then the whole figure collapsed in the direction of the fallen head, which lay with its face turned heavenwards, and its mouth gaping open, as if longing to speak, whilst the tongue still moved, perchance, asking mercy or pardon from Heaven. Too late, too late! There was no longer any power of utterance there. Once or twice there was a twitching of the eyelids over the stiffening staring eyes, till at last they closed painfully in the dream of death.

And above the condemned sinner towered the form of the avenger of sin—the headsman.

CHAPTER XVII.

This brief interval of petrified astonishment was sufficient for Peter Zudár to snatch up the sorrowing child with one hand, while with the other he whirled his bloody sword above his head, and opened a way for himself to the gate.

Then, when the rioters saw him escaping, they came to themselves again.

"After him!" cried Hanák, catching hold of his scythe.

"After him!" roared the Leather-bell, grasping a torch, and bounding on in front, and so skilfully did he scatter the sparks in the eyes of the pursuers, that their dazzled eyes could see absolutely nothing. When, at last, he came to a narrow bridge over a stream which they had to cross, he stumbled so suddenly that those coming immediately behind tumbled over him, and the torch was extinguished in the water. Zudár, meanwhile, had had time to conceal himself and the girl in the bushes on the banks of the stream. Nobody had observed him except the Leather-bell, and as soon as that worthy could gain his legs again he fell a-bellowing with all his might:

"On, on! there he goes! catch him, seize him!"

And off he went at full tilt, as if a high price had been set upon the head of the pursued, and he was determined to win it, whilst Zudár, snug in his hiding-place, listened to the hundreds and hundreds of pattering feet that made the bridge creak over his head, and to the hundreds and hundreds of hoarse voices clamouring for his blood. Presently he heard them all come panting back again, cursing and swearing and consoling one another with the assurance that although they had not caught him now, he would not be able to escape them for long.

"Yes," he thought to himself, "a time is coming when you will find me without having sought me."

And now the pursuing band, full of fresh fury, stormed back to the castle. The Leather-bell cursed them for not following up the trail when they were already hot upon it. He had had, he maintained, the tail of the fugitive's coat in his very hand, but had been obliged to leave go because they had not helped him to hold on, and so the headsman had fled away among the maize-fields.

The sky was now growing grey, the dawn was not far off; but the folks had forgotten to ring in the morning, for the bell-ringers had something better to do.

At Thomas Bodza's command they carried the corpses aside out of the courtyard, the corpses of Ivan, Dame Zudár, and poor Mekipiros. They conveyed them to a large ditch at the back of the house, so that none might see their remains.

The surviving ringleader felt a secret satisfaction when his colleagues had thus perished by his side. He alone remained upon the field, and he flattered himself that Fate was on his side, and by thus putting the leading threads of the whole movement into his hands, meant to emphasize the fact that mind was the true motive-power—his own mind naturally—and therefore it was for him, and him alone, to hold sway.

The mob must be impressed, of course, by some great never-to-be-forgotten scene, which would give a touch of sublimity to its hitherto low and common rioting.

So Thomas Bodza ascended to the highest step of the castle staircase, from whence he declared to the mob that as the champions of justice they had prevailed.

"And now," continued he, "we will pronounce judgment on the poison-mixers according to the good old Greek custom. Let the people take potsherds in their hands. In front of the hall stand two urns. In one is life, in the other death. Let each one of you cast his vote into which urn he pleases. This, my friends, is the ostracism of classical times. You are the archons who shall give judgment, and the whole world will thus see that we exercise according to law and order the authority which we have won with our arms. Sit around me, therefore, oh, citizens, and let the accused be brought forth!"

The gaping mob was delighted with this new diversion.

Hitherto the only occasion on which they had had an opportunity of seeing a court of justice was when they had been led in chains, for some crime or other, before the green table of the district court, where great gentlemen pronounced sentences upon them out of big thick books. And now one of these very great gentlemen was, in his turn, to stand before a tribunal, and the tribunal consisted of nothing but peasants, whose hair had never been clipped, who had never worn linen, who could neither read nor write, and yet who now had the power of passing upon him whatever sentence they chose. So they all applauded Bodza's proposition loudly, whilst he himself, with an air of ineffable importance, sat down on the topmost step of the staircase, and beckoned to his subordinates to lead forth the old squire.

He gave very little trouble, it was not even necessary to fetter him, for the moment he was untied from the doorpost he simply collapsed and remained lying where he had fallen.

Then they put him on an ambulance car, and thus conveyed him before the Areopagus.

One worthy peasant had compassion on the old man lying there in his shirt exposed to the cold morning air, and covered him with his guba20 yet this very man voted for his death a few moments later.

Meanwhile, stubbly Hanák had placed behind the old man's back a gipsy brickmaker to keep an eye on him, and touch him up with a whip if he refused to confess.

Thomas Bodza now produced the box of bismuth that had been found in the castle, and, cautiously opening it, placed it in front of the old squire.

"You old sinner," said he, "answer my questions truly. Why did they send you so much poison?"

The old gentleman remained silent.

The gipsy savagely belaboured his dove-white head with the heavy whip.

At the sound of the blows, an angry voice suddenly resounded from behind the master's back.

"Hold hard, hold hard! you blockheads, you brutes, you stupid numbskulls!"

Bodza, in his terror, sprang from his seat, and the astonished multitude beheld Dr. Sarkantyús running hastily towards them along the hall.

The worthy man had been well concealed with young Széphalmi in a blind niche, in the chimney corner, whence he had listened to the whole horrible tragedy; but when it came to accusing someone of poisoning people with his drugs, he could stand it no longer, but kicked open the tapestried door, and rushed out among the rioters.

Young Széphalmi swooned with terror when his hiding-place was discovered, so that they had to drag him out by the feet.

The unexpected joy of laying hands upon a couple of fresh victims whom they had long sought in vain, whetted the appetite of the mob for more blood. They kept pummelling Széphalmi till he came to again, and tied the physician back to back with Hétfalusy.

Throughout the whole tussle Dr. Sarkantyús never ceased blackguarding the rioters for their imbecile suspicion of medical science, and tried to explain to Thomas Bodza how very much in error he was as to the contents of the box.

Only Széphalmi displayed an utter want of dignity. He wept, he implored, he fell on his knees, and promised to confess everything if only they would not hurt him, if only they would not kill him. He was not guilty, he said, and he cursed the doctor for bringing all this mischief on the house with his abominable drugs and betraying their hiding-place so madly.

"Mr. Széphalmi," retorted Dr. Sarkantyús, "all my life long I have taken you for a poor creature, and in that belief I shall for ever remain. If you could remain quietly in your hiding-place when they were talking of your only daughter, if you could hold your breath and your ears and tremble in every limb when they were torturing your father-in-law—well, that's your look out. As for me, if only I can unmask a downright lie, I am quite content to look death itself between the eyes immediately after. Ever since you fainted at the prick of a leech, and were not ashamed to burst into tears when I cut out one of your warts, I knew you to be a coward. Yes, a coward you are, and a very poor creature to boot; but whatever else I am, I am not that. Twice have I broken the bone of my own leg because it was improperly set, and I am ready to have my neck broken into the bargain if only I may bear witness to the truth. Those, sir, are my sentiments. And now is there anybody here with whom a man can talk common-sense?"

Bound and helpless as he was, the doctor still seemed to have made some impression on the mob. Thomas Bodza, therefore, hastened to cut him short.

"Then you maintain," he began, "that the gentry have not poisoned the peasants?"

"A man must be mad to even ask such a question."

"Then why are so many people now dying all over the kingdom?"

"Because of their sins. They are dying of a terrible plague which is in the air, in the earth, in the very meat and drink which God has given us, in the heat of the day, and in the chill of night—a plague which is no respecter of persons, but slays lord and serf, rich and poor alike; which will visit you, too, if not to-day then to-morrow, which will destroy a tenth part of your households, which will search you out wherever you are, in the forest, in the fields, within your cottages, though you were to slay instantly every gentleman in the county. You will, therefore, do well to untie my hands, and let me distribute amongst you the blessed antidote, by means of which, with God's assistance, we may be able to prevent this terrible calamity."

Thomas Bodza felt something of the paralysis of extreme terror when he saw the impression made by these words upon the mob, which evidently already began to waver. So he hastily threw himself into the attitude of a Roman statue, and exclaimed with a loud voice:

"Doctor! I tell you you are lying. Let nobody touch that white powder, for there is death in it. If you maintain that this powder is not poison, take some yourself!"

This proposal met with universal approbation.

"Yes, yes! let him swallow some of the stuff he has brought if it is not poison."

The doctor did not at all relish the idea of taking his own drugs, but he was careful not to betray his dislike, for he was in a decidedly ticklish position.

"Death comes from above," he calmly observed to the master. "Medicaments are no food for a healthy man, but, all the same, I will willingly take some of that bismuth powder to convince you all of the truth of my statement."

Then Thomas Bodza proceeded to pour a paper full of the stuff down the throat of the pinioned doctor.

The bystanders thronged around and gaped curiously at him, expecting every moment to see him drop down dead.

"Look how green his face is!" said Bodza, working with evil intent on the excited imagination of the mob. "Look how his eyes are staring, and how ghastly pale he is!"

"It is not my eyes that are staring, my worthy master, but your own," replied the doctor calmly. "Your face is pale, you are trembling. I tell you death comes from above and not from my powders."

Thomas Bodza felt so dizzy that he had to clutch hold of the arm of shaggy Hanák, who was standing by his side. Quite early that very morning he had felt a sort of numbing paralysis in all his limbs, a sort of griping cramp convulsing his inner parts, and an unspeakable fear had arisen within his soul, but the feeling had passed over, and he had put the thought of it away from him.

And now, again, that panic fear, which has no name, but beneath whose influence the bravest of men become pale, shaking spectres, overcame him, and he felt like one who is sensible of the approach of that one enemy against whom there is no defence.

The physician was the first to detect in the face of his tormentor that terrible phenomenon, facies Hypocratica, and when he said to him: "Your face is deathly pale," he as irrecoverably plunged him into the grave that was gaping open for him, as if he had plunged a knife into his heart.

The horror-stricken rioters gazed at their master who, for some moments, stood gaping at them with a terribly distorted face. There were two coloured rings round his glassy eyes, his cheeks had fallen in, his lips were turning yellow, the whole man seemed to be a hideous personification of mortal dread. Then, suddenly with a loud yell, he rolled down the steps, and collapsing with hideous convulsions at the doctor's feet, yelled in the midst of his racking torments:

"God of mercy, have compassion upon me! ... Doctor, help me! I am dying!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

When they reached the first csárda that also was silent. The doors and windows had been torn from their places, the road was strewn with the débris of casks, bottles, and flasks. Here and there, amidst the ruins, were little pools of blood in which somebody had stood, leaving a bloody trail behind them....

The little band went further on their way in silence.

Two hours later they perceived in the wayside woods, concealed among the bushes, three figures which rose to their feet on perceiving the soldiers, and one of them came rapidly towards them, and was so out of breath when he reached them that he could not speak a word, and would have fallen if Imré had not supported him against his saddle.

Then Imré recognised the worthy Leather-bell.

"What's the matter, old man?" he inquired compassionately.

"Alas, alas! my young master, a terrible thing has happened. I cannot describe it in words. I'm only glad that we have saved this innocent creature."

"What innocent creature?"

"This child, the squire's grandchild, whom Zudár brought up in secret, and the headsman's wife betrayed. But she has paid for it dearly now. They had condemned the child to death. I hid them here beneath the bridge, and gave them peasant's clothes to put on, and helped them to scurry through the woods."

At these words Kamienszka leaped from her horse, and ran to the child who was quite worn out. Her little feet were all wounded and bloody, it was only by leaning on the arm of Zudár that she was able to walk at all.

The headsman recognised at once the youth who had brought a blessing on his house, although he had now quite another figure. Now he had come to fight. Zudár stooped down and kissed his hand. He said, too, that his own hands were now pure, for he had washed them in blood, the shedding whereof was pleasing to God.

The officer in command had a rough litter made from the branches of trees, on which they placed the exhausted little girl. Four soldiers were then told off to carry it, and then the little band resumed its march. Elise could not have been in a place of greater safety.

Meanwhile, the Leather-bell was giving a full account of the horrors that had taken place around the castle from the evening to the morning. He had left the place just as Széphalmi and the doctor had fallen into the hands of the mob.

Imré was beside himself with horror.

"I must hasten to save my father or die with him," he murmured bitterly.

The officer wanted him to wait so that they might all reach the castle together, but he would not listen. He was quite ready to face the danger single-handed. But indeed he was not alone. He had beside him his valiant comrade, in love a true woman, in trouble a true man, and she would not be parted from him.

"Courage and hope!" she cried, pressing his hand, and with that the heroic couple spurred their horses along the grass-grown road.

With the fall of Numa Pompilius the last vestige of discipline disappeared from the ranks of the rioters. The loss of their leader, so far from bringing them to reason, only made them desperate. Bodza had died at their very feet after half an hour of the most excruciating torments, and, meanwhile, there mingled with the crowd numbers of wailing women, each of whom already had their dead at home, and spread sorrow and confusion wherever they went. Then everybody lost his head, and was frightened into bestial ferocity. The dying lay about in the road with none to care for them. Fathers no longer owned their sons, brother had no compassion for brother. And the gentry had to pay for all this panic terror.

The people had been brought up in such a way that its first thought on breaking out of its cage was to tear its masters in pieces.

It listened no longer to any word of command, only the latest whim obtained a hearing.

Stubbly Hanák hit upon a hideous idea.

"What are those three bigwigs lounging about here for, eh?" he cried. "Let them go and dig graves, let them dig their own graves!"

And with that he untied their bonds, placed spades and shovels in their hands, and pointed out to them the exact spots in the courtyard of the castle where they were to dig their own graves, and nice, picturesque spots they were too, beneath the shade of wide-spreading chestnut trees.

Old Hétfalusy had no longer the physical strength for such work, and Dr. Sarkantyús declared categorically that anybody who was fool enough to kill him might do so if he chose, but that he was not such a fool as to dig his own grave, and nobody should make him do it either.

Only Széphalmi took them at their word. On his knees he implored them not to torture him, and he would willingly dig not only his own grave, but the graves of his comrades also.

The rioters thrust a spade into his hand, and, grinning with delight, instructed him how to throw aside the earth out of the furrow, and then they made him lie down in it in order to take his proper measure.

And how boisterously they laughed at the fun of it.

Suddenly there was a sound of pattering hoofs, and two horsemen, with drawn swords in their right hands, galloped into the courtyard.

They came so unexpectedly that only the shrieks of the women wailing at the gate told the frantic mob of their arrival.

"My son!" cried the old squire, painfully raising himself from the ground with a supreme effort.

"My father, my father!" wailed the youth, and with that he cut his way through the thickest of the crowd, distributing vigorous blows, right and left, till he had forced his way up to his father's tortured body, and forgetting everything at that moment, he flung himself from his saddle, fell upon his father's neck, and embraced and sobbed over him.

The brutal mob instantly rushed upon him with a savage yell, when, suddenly, a couple of shots resounded, and two of the assailants fell dead close beside the father and son. It was Maria who had fired these shots, and now, leaping from her steed, she shook Imré violently.

"You must fight for your life now, and leave weeping for another time, my boy!" cried she.

The youth quickly recovered himself and drew his sword, and then the pair of them turned upon the cowardly mob, and, by sheer dint of hard fighting, began driving them out of the doorway of the castle.

In no very long time there were three of them, for the doctor had had his weather-eye open, and, when the general attention was distracted, he snatched up the spade assigned to him, and therewith dealt a lanky lout beside him such a blow at the back of the neck that he immediately fell down and never spoke again.

"Come along with us, Mr. Széphalmi, come along!" cried the doctor, as he joined the combatants, but Széphalmi paid no heed. He fell down on the edge of the freshly-dug grave at the feet of his jailors, and declared, sobbing and moaning, that he would hurt nobody if nobody hurt him. The only answer they gave him was a smashing blow on the head with a large hammer, and he fell back into the grave and expired on the spot.

A vigorous slash with which Imré severed the arm of the most powerful of the peasants, clean off at the elbow, somewhat damped the fighting ardour of the crowd, which drew back to curse and swear at a distance. The respite thus gained was sufficient to enable the little group of gentlemen to reach the door of the castle, and bolt and bar it behind them, after having first of all rescued old Hétfalusy from the hands of his murderers.

Fortunately not one of the rioters remained in the castle, indeed there was nothing else for them to do there. Everything had been eviscerated, torn to atoms, reduced to powder. A large portion of the mob was down in the cellars dead drunk.

Imré Hétfalusy who, all this time, had held his father closely embraced, now deposited him on a torn and ragged hair mattress, and then they both embraced each other again, and neither could speak a word. It was both joy and anguish, it was something which words could not describe.

And now for the defence!

The three of them could not, of course, defend the whole castle against the furious mob whenever it should return. For return it certainly would, and if it could not get through the door, it was at least able to climb through the windows. The best plan, therefore, was to confine the defence to a single room, and the most convenient stronghold was the family library, the door of which was strengthened by iron fastenings.

The sole object of the besieged was to keep the mob at bay till the arrival of the soldiery.

In a few moments the roar of the rioters advancing to the attack was again audible. Stones flew through the windows, and angry fists thundered at the door. Curses and savage threats resounded in the passages. The mob, swarming in the courtyard, were carrying about on their shoulders the dead bodies of the two peasants that had been shot, two or three men with bloody faces were exhibiting their wounds, the widow of one of the fallen held up her weeping children in her arms, and hounded the mob on to vengeance with her frantic bitterness.

The room to be defended had a window looking out upon the courtyard, and a door opening upon the passage. Maria was to be the defender of the window, Imré the defender of the door. The doctor, meanwhile, with the nonchalance becoming his profession, was binding up old Hétfalusy's wounds, tearing off portions of his own shirt to serve as bandages.

The rioters had now occupied the hall, they had crept into the castle through the rearward windows, the walls and arches rang with their triumphant shouting.

"Imré!" said the old squire to his son, "come nearer to me!"

The youth approached his suffering father and knelt down before him.

"It may be God's will," murmured the aged man, "that within an hour both of us may stand before His Judgment Seat. Promise me that you will never accuse me of being a hard father, that you will never say that I hunted you to death. Promise me that, my son!"

"I have always loved you, and I will love you still," sobbed the youth, kissing the shaking hand.

"Let us not part from each other in tears," continued the old man, "let us rejoice as they rejoice who have found again those whom they fancied they had lost, and now let me bless you as a father may bless his son when he is about to undertake a long journey."

And then he placed his trembling hands on his son's head, while his eyes looked up to Heaven, and his dumb lips murmured an inaudible prayer to the Lord of life and death.

"And now, my son, brace yourself up for your long journey!"

But Maria came rushing towards them.

"To work, my friend! bear a hand! The evil game has begun. Let us but gain half an hour and all our lives will be saved."

"Who is that apparition," whispered old Hétfalusy to his son, "who has twice descended from Heaven to save us?"

Imré looked with some hesitation at Maria, the girl gazed back at him encouragingly.

"Yes, tell him! Why not? I am your wife, the famous Maria Kamienszka, and this is not the first time I have been in the midst of a scrimmage. Courage, my father, your son is now in your embrace, and in half an hour your grand-daughter will be there also. Trust in God and be not faint-hearted!"

"Ah, yes!" whispered the old man, with a transfigured countenance and a voice full of enthusiasm, "this cannot be the hour of my death, no, my God! it cannot, cannot be!"

The youth and the valiant young woman then warmly pressed each other's hands, and hastened back to their posts. It was indeed high time.

The besiegers, after swarming all over the castle, had come at last upon the barred and bolted door, and with the bloodthirsty howl of ravening beasts, had rushed upon it with their iron bars, while another band began wrenching out the iron fastenings of the windows with their sharp csakanyas.21