The Poor Plutocrats

"Mariora trembled at these words, and grew paler than ever.

"I seized her by the hand and drew her with me into the hut. I whispered in her ear that I knew all. 'The accursed wretch has been faithless to me because of your pretty eyes. He swore to me by sunlight and he swore to you by moonlight, but you would not listen to him. You love your husband and Black Mask relies on his strength now that fair words have failed. The coward has poisoned your faithful guardian like the wretched thief, the miserable house-breaker, that he is.'—Mariora's hut was lighted by the flame that flickered on the hearth. A bedstead of linden-wood covered with goat-skins, a table of slate and a few three-legged chairs were all the furniture. There was also a nicely carved and painted little cradle in which lay the little child, sleeping, with his plump little hands drawn up behind his head, like an angel. In the extreme corner of the room the faithful beast lay all of a heap on a lair of soft moss,—at the last gasp. He groaned and shivered continually like one in a fever, and raised his failing eyes with such an eloquent appeal to his mistress, as if he would have spoken to her. Sometimes he pricked his ears as if he were listening and snuffed joyously. Perchance he expected his master, perhaps he wanted to lick his hands for the last time. Poor beast, how I pitied him! 'He will die,' I whispered to Mariora. I durst not say it aloud for I imagined the beast understood everything which men say to one another. 'And then will come the tempter, who knows that you are alone and defenceless.' I told her everything which your ladyship told me, and the woman trembled like an aspen-leaf.

"'Where is Juon Tare encamping now?' I asked Mariora.

"'Only a mile from here in the Vale Capra.'

"Hem! It is impossible to get there on horseback, but I can reach him by going on foot. Meanwhile you lock yourself in, put out the fire, and whatever noise you hear, do not open the door till we come back.

"'Nay,' said Mariora, 'you must not go away. If Juon ought to come home, there is a sign between us. I have here an Alpine horn; he has taught me how to blow upon it, and has told me that if ever I should be in great danger I must blow it, and however distant he may be, he will hear it and hasten home.'

"'But it is night now; perhaps he is asleep.'

"'Juon never sleeps at night, he must be awake and protect his herds.'

"'And what then will become of his goats if he leaves them?'

"'Are not I and my child dearer to him than all his property?'

"Then I told Mariora that no time must be lost, and that she should blow the horn at once. It is a long tube made out of the bark of trees, with the end tilted upwards, and anyone who knows how to blow it can make its voice heard for miles. Mariora was too feeble with it. Perhaps at another time she would have been more up to it, but now she was upset, there was something which weighed down her bosom and hampered her breathing: the horn gave forth but a feeble and uncertain sound. We listened for the echoes and they scarce resounded from the sides of the adjacent hills. Juon would never hear that. 'Give it to me,' I said. 'I shall throw more force into it.' A moment after I had blown the horn, the woody heights repeated the sound just as if there was another horn-blower there. Presently, from afar, right away among the hills, another horn replied, just as if there was another echo there. That was Juon's answer. He had heard the summons; we could now rest content. In half an hour he would have bounded across the mountains and through the glens and would be here. In the meantime we would barricade ourselves inside the hut. Mariora anxiously asked me what we should do if her husband were the last to arrive, for the robber had firearms. Acting on my advice, we closed the door with a heavy beam and put out the fire. The child began to cry, but Mariora took it in her arms and soothed it to sleep. A heavy groan sounded from a corner of the room: it was the faithful beast breathing forth his last breath. We exchanged not another word in order not to betray the fact that Mariora was not alone. Half an hour had nearly elapsed when we heard footsteps in the distance approaching. We listened. Who was coming? Which of us would recognize those footsteps first? I did. It was he! he for whose sake I had brought down a curse upon my head.

"For about as long a time as it would take one to repeat a Paternoster, he remained standing there before the door. Then he rapped lightly with his fingers and I heard the voice I knew so well: 'Mariora, are you asleep?'

"'I am awake. What do you want?' she replied.

"'Let me in, Mariora; open the door!'

"I whispered to her what she should say.

"'I cannot, my husband is not at home. I am alone.'

"'For that very reason open, so that we two may have it all to ourselves?'

"'There will be three of us, don't forget Ursu.'

"'It is all up with Ursu,' laughed the robber outside.

"'You have killed him, you villain!' cried Mariora though I never whispered this to her.

"'Not I, but the honey-cake.'

"'Why did you do so?'

"'Because he was in my way.'

"'Who will defend me now?'

"'I will defend you. I will take you away with me. I will take you to a beautiful city full of palaces. I will buy you a house and an estate and you shall be a great lady.'

"'It cannot be. I already have my lawful husband and you too have your lawful wife.'

"'Your lawful husband shall die when I choose, and you will then be a widow. As for Anicza, she only married a mask. I will tear it off and she will no longer know who I was.'

"Oh, my lady, can you not fancy how my heart broke at these words! Yet I did not weep.

"'You will deceive me as you deceived her,' replied Mariora.

"Then the robber began to swear that I had deceived him first. He lied concerning me, oh! the accursed wretch! Yet the game had to go on. Mariora was no longer the mistress of her own thoughts. She is a helpless creature. If I had not whispered in her ear what she was to say, she would have had no answer ready for him.

"'I fear you,' she said at my prompting, 'for you are a robber; it is not love but money that you want. Why did it not occur to you to court me before? You have only come now because you have found out that my father has been here and offered me a hundred ducats that we may buy a little estate with it. You have only come here to rob me of that.'

"The tempter grew furious at so much gainsaying.

"'Stupid wench!' he cried, 'what are your hundred ducats to me? I will give you ten times as much. Here! take them!' And with that he pitched through the little window—opening above the door a heavy purse which fell rattling at our feet. It was full of ducats. I kicked it aside with loathing.

"'It is easy to talk,' replied Mariora. 'Now, you give and give, but if I were to let you in, you would take them back again to-morrow with my own.'

"'I swear I will not.'

"'No, I will not believe the oaths of a robber. You have firearms and I am therefore defenceless against you. Go and hang up your musket, your pistols, and your hunting-knife on that beech-tree, which is a hundred paces distant from the house; when you come back without your firearms I will believe that you do not want to kill me and will listen to what you have to say?'

"The robber fell into the snare and did as he was bid. Then he returned. 'Here I am without weapons,' said he. 'Let me in!'

"We had to gain as much time as possible, so I whispered Mariora to say that she must first stir up the fire into a blaze for she could not let him in in the dark.

"These words inflamed the passion of the tempter still more.

"'You will have time for that afterwards,' said he. 'I can see your beautiful eyes even in the dark, for then they shine all the more brightly.'

"'Then I suppose I have eyes like a cat?' I made Mariora say.

"'Silly fool!' growled the tempter to himself in Hungarian, which Mariora did not understand. 'No,' he then added in Roumanian, 'you have eyes like stars.'

"'But confess now, do you really love me? Or do you only come hither with evil designs? Don't you want, now, to cut off the hands of my little child? for robbers covet the hacked off hands of babies,—they make them invisible.'

"At this the man's temper fairly gave way. He perceived that he was being trifled with and exclaimed roughly: 'Woman, open the door, or I'll bring it down about your ears!' And he gave the door such a blow with his clenched fist that it cracked from end to end. 'I tell you for the last time,' cried he, 'let me in peaceably. If you will come with me, I will take you, and your child also, to a pleasant place. I will make a gentleman of him and a lady of you. But if you gainsay me another moment, I'll batter in the door, dash the brains of your brat out against the wall and carry you off by force wherever I please.'

"Thereupon Mariora paid no more attention to me but began wringing her hands and I snatched up the child, who had been awakened by the noise and begun to cry. I drew my pistol from my bosom and planted myself beside the door. If there's nobody else, I thought, I must bear the brunt of it.

"The robber planted his shoulder against the door and pressed it inwards with tremendous force. The boards cracked and as the middle of the door was barricaded by a stout beam, there was soon a regular gap between the two folds of the door and the door inclined more and more inwards. Through the opening thus made, I held the pistol, pointed straight at his temples and only an inch away from him. He is a very strong man, I thought, but another effort of strength and he will be lying dead at my feet."

The girl was quite overcome by the narration of this scene. She paused for a moment to recover herself, during which Henrietta, as pale as a statue, gazed at her in silence.

Presently she resumed:

"At that critical moment, a cry like the howl of a wild beast resounded in front of the hut. The door fell back into its proper place and rushing to the little window, I saw that two men now stood in front of the hut.

"Juon Tare had arrived at last!

"It was neither speech nor language that he addressed to his antagonist in the first instant of their encounter, it was the savage roar of a wild beast rushing upon its prey.

"Juon Tare is a very strong man. Fortunately, he is also a peaceful, retiring creature, for if he were as passionate as he is strong and frequented the wine shops, every carouse would end with the death of a man. All the more horrible was it therefore to behold him at that moment like a ravening beast of prey.

"The detected seducer at once made a rush for his arms, but Juon Tare overtook him with an enormous bound and seized one of his hands. If Fatia Negra had been one of God's ordinary creatures, he must have been writhing the next moment with crushed limbs on the ground beneath Juon's knee; but at the very instant in which Juon caught hold of one hand, the robber faced about and seizing the herdsman round the body began to wrestle with him.

"The moon flooded the valley with its light; the whole course of the struggle was plainly visible.

"As soon as Juon Tare perceived that his antagonist was foolhardy enough to try a fall with him, he complacently allowed his body to be encircled and calmly murmured: 'Ho, ho! then you would wrestle with me, eh, Fatia Negra! Very well, be it so!'

"Then he also quietly encircled the trunk of his opponent with those terrible arms of his, which had shown themselves capable on one occasion of throttling a bear, and prepared to crush his adversary.

"And thus began an awful struggle, the mere remembrance of which is a horror.

"There is nothing more terrible than when two men struggle for life or death with their bare hands.

"Juon Tare's tremendous strength was unable to crush Fatia Negra. The herdsman might perhaps have been a little exhausted by his swift run, but the robber was skilful and opposed a steel-like elasticity to the herdsman's massive weight.

"Now the one, now the other was forced down upon his knee, only to bound instantly back again. The grass was rooted up by their stamping feet. Tightly embraced, with straining shoulders, with their fists tearing at each other's bodies, their faces were pressed so closely together that the two heads seemed but one.

"Now and then they would pause for an instant to take breath and at such times would gasp out short, fierce words.

"'Who are you?' growled Juon. 'Who are you that you can resist the arm of Juon Tare? Who are you that Juon Tare cannot put to silence?'

"'What is it you want, you fool?' the robber gasped back. 'Has that two hundred ducats, the price set on my head, tempted you? Is that why you want to catch me? Let me go, and I will give you five hundred.'

"'I will not let you go. I want neither your money, nor yet the money of the magistrates. Your destruction is all that I want. You should not escape from these hands if you were thrice a devil.'

"'We will see.'

"And again the tussle began. Each of the two men put forth all his strength against his adversary. Fatia Negra's garments split into rags, the blood spouted from his shoulders where Juon had worried him with his sharp teeth like a wild beast. Not another word did they now speak, only their panting sobs were to be heard like the snorting of two wild boars as they dragged and dashed each other up and down on the sward.

"I was obliged to restrain Mariora violently from rushing to her husband's assistance. She would only have distracted his attention. And besides I would not have it so. Let the men fight it out, I thought. They are a well matched pair."

"Then you still love Fatia Negra?" enquired Henrietta sadly.

The girl blushed.—"I love him, yes,—and therefore he must die."

She went on:

"'At that moment he was like a magician battling with a giant. The other was half a head taller than he, and the muscles of his arms stood out like the rugged bark of an oak's trunk. Black Mask was much the slimmer. But every muscle in his frame seemed made of steel. His gigantic adversary might pitch and toss him wherever he pleased, he always fell on his feet; nor was the other ever able, squeeze as he might, to disjoint his arms or free his own head from Fatia Negra's embrace, though again and again he ducked down to do it; and then they would struggle more fiercely than ever, on their knees, with their limbs interlaced like one single, inseparable quivering mass of flesh.

"'If I could only see your hidden face!' roared Juon, throwing himself with all his might on Black Mask. 'You devil, you, I'll tear your mummery off for you!'—and he gnashed at his opponent's face with his teeth, trying to snap his mask off.

"This attempt seemed to redouble Fatia Negra's fury. He too now began roaring like a wounded bear, struggling with a huntsman. It was no longer a struggle between men, but a ravening of two beasts. The combatants had now rolled far away from the hut. Their savage yells resounded through the still pastures. We, watching them from the hut, could see that they were drawing near the edge of a steep abyss with a sheer descent of many fathoms, at the bottom of which are the sources of the little mountain streams.

"'Take care, Juon!' cried Mariora despairingly. But her voice was unheard. Both of them were deaf and blind. The next moment Juon gave his adversary a fierce shake and instantly the pair of them plunged head over heels into the gulf below.

"We both rushed after them, and on reaching the edge of the abyss perceived one shape lying motionless among the rocks of the stream, and another limping painfully towards the further shore. This second figure was Fatia Negra."

"Surely Juon was not dead?" cried Henrietta, horrified.

"No; only crippled by the fall. He fell undermost, the other on top. Yet the other must have suffered severely. We could see from his heavy movements that he had more than one limb damaged. Only with the utmost exertion did he manage to scale the opposite cliff.

"While he was clambering up the mountain-side, Mariora sobbing and screaming, rushed down to her insensible husband, and taking his head into her bosom dragged his limp body out of the cold water of the brook, whilst I took down from the beech-tree Fatia Negra's double-barrelled musket and raised it to my cheek. Before me on the white rock, in the full light of the moon, a good mark for a marksman was that panting black object struggling upwards. I pointed the barrel straight at him. I took a long and careful aim. I am certain I should have hit him. And then I bethought me how much I had loved him once upon a time, and the weapon sank down. I flung it from me."

The girl ceased to speak and covered her face with both her hands. It was a long time before she took them away again.

At last she sprang up quickly, and turning her pale face towards Henrietta, said in a hard, dry voice: "It will be the last time, your ladyship. I am weak because I am a woman, folks would say. But they shall know that that is not true. Don't be afraid, my lady; what I have promised, that will I do. You have been very good to me in telling me that I was being deceived, and I will requite you for it. And now, God bless you, my lady. Farewell!"

"But surely you are not thinking of going home so late at night?"

"What care I about the night? No spectre can meet me anywhere that is worse than the horrible thing that dwells at the bottom of my heart. God bless your ladyship. You shall hear from me soon. Farewell!"

Then the girl gently kissed Henrietta's hand and left the room, throwing into her gait and bearing an energy and a self-confidence which she was far from feeling.

CHAPTER XII

"I mean those blue stuff gowns with white spots, which lend quite a peculiar charm to our women, especially if you set it off with an old-fashioned csipkeköto."[29]

At the very next soirée the Countess Kengyelesy was attired in one of these blue stuff gowns with white spots, of home manufacture, and with a black lace head-dress—exactly as Szilard had described it to her.

"My dear friend, be so good as to look there!" said the count appropriating Szilard while he was still only half through the doorway. "There she is costumed from head to foot exactly as you advised. Ah! I pity you. You are already in the toils."

Szilard hastened at once to greet the countess, who treated the handsome young fellow with marked distinction all through the evening. Indeed she made no secret of it.

Three days later Szilard was bound, by custom to pay a complimentary visit upon the Countess. He purposely chose an hour when he knew she would not be at home, and left his card, but the same evening he encountered her at the theatre. It was in the entrance hall, where she was waiting for her carriage, and till it drove up Szilard could not very well leave her.

"Ah, ah! my honoured friend," cried the countess archly, "this won't do. You wait till I am not at home, and then you go and leave your card upon me as a token of respect. But I don't mean to let you off so easily. I have got a lot to say to you which I am determined you shall listen to. You must therefore promise to come to my house at twelve o'clock to-morrow, or else I shall astonish the world by inviting you to come along with me this instant in my carriage."

A man, in another mood, could scarcely have resisted the temptation of replying that he would be delighted if the countess put her threat into execution then and there, even at the risk of astonishing the world. Szilard merely looked grave and said that he would be happy to pay his respects to the countess at twelve on the morrow.

He went accordingly. His pulses beat no more quickly than usual as he entered the countess's private apartment, although she gave the footman to understand in a low voice that she would be at home to nobody else, and invited the young man to sit down close beside her, face to face.

The countess was a beautiful woman, and she possessed the art of dressing beautifully likewise. The countess had beautiful eyes and she could smile beautifully with them, too. The countess had an extremely pretty mouth, and when she spoke it was prettier still, for she had a witty way with her. The danger of the situation was very appreciable.

"My dear, good Szilard," began the countess, with that light, natural naïveté which so easily disarms the strongest of us, "do not take it ill of me if I speak to you confidentially. The world will very soon be saying that you are in love with me and I with you. I shall not believe the former and you will not believe the latter. Let the world say what it likes. I have a real blessing of a husband, whom it would be a shame to offend, and you have quite other ideas. I know what they are. Don't be angry, don't frown! I am not exacting. I don't want to fetch you away from other people. I will not ask where you have buried your treasures. I will merely say to you that I know you have treasures and that they are buried. Is it not so? You need not be afraid of me."

Szilard was a little taken aback by this unexpected turn. Could it be sheer curiosity, he thought?

"I have nothing to be afraid of, countess," remarked Szilard, smiling, "I have no buried secrets. I was a young man once, that is all. I have had my foolish illusions, like other people, and like other people I have cured myself of them."

"Nay, nay, sir, now you are not quite sticking to the truth; you are not cured of them. But before I go any further let me tell you that all this is not mere feminine curiosity on my part. I want you to trust me and I will trust you equally. Believe me when I say that if I love to make fun of empty-headed noodles, I can always respect a good heart because it is a rarity. The lady I want to speak to you about is my dear friend and she is very, very unhappy."

Szilard was bound to believe that this was true, for tear-drops sparkled in the countess's eyes.

"Is it my fault?" he asked bitterly.

"It is neither your fault nor hers. I know that as a fact. The cause of it all is money, the thirst for money. There is not a more miserable creature in the wide world than the daughter of a rich man. But that is the least of her misfortunes. They married her to a man who did not love her, who only took her because her grandfather was a millionaire. Her grandfather frightened her into the match by threatening her with his curse and now, when she has become the wife of this man who does not even feel friendship for her, I hear that this same old grandfather has made another will depriving her of everything."

Szilard's lips trembled at these words.

"You can imagine what will be the result. This young woman loves not and is not loved. They gave her away to an Oriental nabob who, imagining his wife to be wealthy, scatters his money like a prince. And now this man has suddenly been startled by the report that his wife has absolutely nothing!—do you know the meaning of the expression: bread of charity?"

"I have heard the expression, but the bread itself I have never tasted."

"Then you can have no idea what that sort of bread is like which a man gives to the wife whom he finds to be poor, when he fancied her to be rich—oh! that sort of bread is very, very bitter!"

Ah! thought Szilard, the bread that I offered her was only dry—not bitter.

"I can tell you on very good authority," resumed the countess, "that the baron's conduct towards his wife has completely changed since he discovered that she has been disinherited. He had lost heavily at cards when the news first reached him, and he took no pains to conceal his ill-humour from his wife in consequence. The poor of the district had got to regard Henrietta as their ministering angel because of her labours of love among them, but now she can play the part of lady bountiful no longer. She has to shut her door in the faces of her poor petitioners, for her husband will not allow any unnecessary expense. Nay, more, they say that Hátszegi now keeps his wife's private jewels under lock and key to prevent her from pawning them and relieving the needs of the poor with the proceeds, as she was wont to do, and only brings them out on state occasions when he compels her to pile them all on her person. Isn't that a humiliation for a woman?"

"If only you had become mine," Szilard mentally apostrophized poor Henrietta, "you would now have had a cosey little chimney-corner, and a nice little room all to yourself; and though I could not have bought you jewels, the best of every morsel of food we shared together would always have been yours."

"And," pursued the countess, "most degrading experience of all, Hátszegi no longer attempts to conceal from his wife his outrageous liaisons with pretty peasant women. The thing has long been a byeword, though his wife knew nothing of it—but she knows it now. Nor is this all, my dear Vámhidy. Poor Henrietta's heart is suffering from another sorrow which she feels all the more keenly because it smarts unceasingly. Her young brother, Koloman, has suddenly disappeared from Pest and left no trace behind him. They say all sorts of things about him, which I do not care about telling you, but most of them are bad enough. On the news reaching Henrietta, she asked her husband to make enquiries as to the cause of Koloman's disappearance. Hátszegi wrote to his agent and received an answer which he will not show to Henrietta on any consideration; nay, more, he commanded his wife never to mention Koloman's name before him again. The poor woman is naturally in despair. She cannot conceive why the cause of her brother's disappearance should be hidden from her. And now I am coming to the end and aim of all this rigmarole. Henrietta believes, and I am likewise convinced of it, that if her brother be alive, there is only one person in the world whom he will try and seek out and that is yourself."

"Poor lad! he loved me much," sighed Szilard.

"And now you understand what I am driving at, don't you? If anybody can find out the whereabouts of Henrietta's brother and the real reason why he fled from his relations at Pest and took refuge neither with his aunt, Madame Langai, who, I hear, has taken his part all through, nor yet with his sister, it is most certainly you. This is no lawyer's business, for a lawyer would set about it too gingerly. Here sympathy and chivalry are before all other things necessary, and if the husband declines this noble task, we have nobody to turn to except—the man who has been sacrificed."

Szilard bit his lips to prevent the tears from coming. Who could ever have thought that so frivolous a woman would have had so much feeling for her friend? Then he rose, bowed and curtly informed the countess that he would undertake the commission.

The countess pressed his hand affectionately: "And keep me informed of everything," said she, "for I am the common post between you two."

Szilard thanked the countess and withdrew. He pondered the matter carefully till the evening, and by that time he had a plan all ready in his head.

For a whole week after this, nothing was to be seen of Vámhidy. Count Kengyelesy sought him everywhere and could find him nowhere. Every day he asked his countess what she had done with the young man.

Ten days after the first soirée the date for another had been fixed. Szilard did not appear even at this. Kengyelesy hunted for him from pillar to post, but could not discover what had become of him. Nobody had heard anything of him.

"He has poisoned himself," said Kengyelesy at last to a group of his sporting friends. "It is quite plain to me. When a fellow has got that sort of thing into his head once, he will try it again and again. I wash my hands of the business, it is all the fault of the countess. Why does she play her tricks with such people? No doubt he has swallowed poison and then crawled away into some nook or corner of a forest. In a month or two, I suppose, we shall come upon him unexpectedly."

"Whom shall we come upon unexpectedly?" cried a voice behind his back. He looked around and there was the long lost Szilard.

"Oh, there you are, eh? What have you been doing with yourself all this time? Come along with me—and Heaven help you!—I will take you to my wife. Poor young chap! I thought you had already had enough of it and made away with yourself in consequence."

Then he drew his arm through Szilard's and tripped off to the countess. "Here he is!" he cried. "We have found him, do not abandon yourself to despair on his account. Be so good as to sit down beside him!—here's a chair! I'll take care nobody disturbs you!"

The countess pressed Szilard's hand and made a sign to him to remain.

"I have just arrived from Pest," said Szilard.

"Really! Well?"

"I have found out everything, or rather, I should say, a good deal."

"Do pray tell me at once. All the people are dancing, they will take no notice of us."

"Ever since old Lapussa's death," began Szilard, "for he died soon after he had altered his will, all the members of his family have been at bitter variance. Madame Langai, the old man's widowed daughter, disputes the validity of the last will—whereby Mr. John Lapussa becomes heir to the exclusion of everybody else, and has instituted legal proceedings to upset it. Madame Langai seeks to prove that old Lapussa was non compos mentis when he disinherited the other members of his family, and she also maintains, that the old fellow had no reason whatever for hating his grandchildren and reducing them to beggary as he has done. On the other hand, Mr. John maintains that his dear father had excellent reasons for detesting his grandchildren because the Baroness Hátszegi has never written a letter to her grandfather since her marriage and both she and her husband have expressed themselves, at home, in the most disrespectful terms imaginable concerning the old gentleman, even giving it to be understood that they would be very glad if they had not to wait too long for the curtain to fall on the fifth act of his life's drama. He calls as his witness one Margari, who was formerly old Lapussa's reader before the girl was married, and since then has been compelled to act as secretary to Hátszegi, or rather as a spy upon him. This fellow, who is now the mere tool of Mr. John, is quite prepared to retail all sorts of horrors about the Hátszegis. As to the other grandchild, the boy Koloman I mean, his uncle has saddled him with a terrible charge. He has produced a bill for 40,000 florins which he accuses the lad of forging in the name of his sister, the Baroness Hátszegi."

"Ah!" exclaimed the countess in an incredulous voice.

"The thing is ridiculously incredible, I know, yet there the bill is; I have seen it, for it has been sequestered by the Court. It is obviously in the youth's handwriting as also is the very bad imitation of his sister's signature. In connection therewith is the fact of the youth's sudden disappearance (and every attempt to trace his whereabouts has failed), for, on the very day when the subject of the bill was first broached, he vanished from his college, and apparently he had been preparing for flight some time before."

"But what could have induced a mere child to do such a thing, he is scarcely thirteen years old?"

"He was always somewhat flighty by nature, though that, of course, is not sufficient to explain how he came to forge his sister's name on a draft for 40,000 florins."

"But why will not the baron tell his wife all about it?"

"Does not your ladyship see?—It is quite plain to me. Hátszegi understands his wife thoroughly. He feels certain that as soon as the baroness hears of what her brother is accused, she would not hesitate a moment to acknowledge the forged signature as really her own."

"True, true. And then I suppose her brother could be saved."

"Completely."

"And then, I suppose, she would have to pay the money?"

"Either pay it or be sued for it."

"Poor woman! I know she has no money. A most awkward position, most awkward. But it does not matter; if her jewels are under lock and key, nobody guards mine."

At these words which came straight from the best of hearts, Szilard could not restrain himself from impressing a burning kiss on the countess's hand so affected was he by this outburst of generosity.

"Ah, ha!" cackled the count behind his back, "so we have got as far as that already, eh! Capital, capital, upon my word! Nay, nay, my young friend, don't be afraid of me. Do not put yourself out in the least on my account! God bless you, my boy!"

"To-morrow, we'll plan it all out, I'll be waiting for you at one o'clock," whispered the countess to Szilard, "now I must go, the cotillion is beginning."

"Don't you dance then?" enquired the count of Szilard. "Nonsense! they'll say you are mourning somebody. Thank God, old Lapussa was not your father-in-law, but Hátszegi's. It is for him to pull a long face, but you go and dance!"

CHAPTER XIII

"Yes, it is high time. My little finger whispers that someone wants to betray me. But say that to nobody. We must not frighten our own people. The Government is getting suspicious at the disappearance of so much gold. It is sniffing about, but at present it is on a wrong track. The Jews of Hungary are suspected and they happen to know nothing at all about it. But it is quite enough that suspicion has been aroused. So far they fancy that only about fifty to sixty pounds of gold a year are unlawfully made away with. They don't know yet that it amounts to five or six hundredweight, which is coined into ready money underneath the ground. This business must be put a stop to. This year the mines yielded a rich profit. Next Saturday there will be a last delivery of gold in the Lucsia cavern. As soon as the coins are struck, we shall divide the profits, wish one another 'buna nopte!'[30] and depart our respective ways. We shall destroy the machinery, blow up the smelting furnaces with gunpowder, break down the aqueducts and close up the mouth of the cavern. After that everyone can do as he likes with his gold. I shall wash my hands of it."