It takes a man, and no mere stripling, to take a bull out of the herd, and this Ferko Lacza was a master of the art. With sweet words and caresses, such as he might use to a pet lamb, he coaxed out the beast which belonged to Mr. Sajgató, and led him in front of the gentlemen. A splendid animal he was too; massive head, sharp horns, and great black-ringed eyes. There he stood, allowing the cowboy to scratch his shaggy forehead, and licking his hand with his rough, rasping tongue.
"And the beast has only seen the third grass," said its owner. The herdsmen reckon the age of their cattle according to the grass, that is the summers they have lived through.
Meanwhile the painter did not let slip the opportunity of making a sketch of the great horned beast and its companion. "The cowboy must stand just like that with his hand on the horns." The lad, however, was not used to posing, and it injured his dignity.
When their models are restless, artists often try and amuse them with conversation.
"Tell me," asked the painter—the others were inspecting the cows—"is it true that you herdsmen can cheat about your cattle at the market?"
"Why, yes. The master has this very moment taken in the gentleman with the bull. He made it out to be three years old, and see, there is not an eye tooth left in its head!" He opened the animal's mouth as he spoke to prove the fact of the deception.
The painter's sense of honour was even keener than his passion for art. He immediately stopped painting. "I have finished," he said, and hastily closing his sketch-book, he departed in search of his friends, who were standing among the chosen cattle in the enclosure. Then he revealed the great secret. The manager of the stables was horror-struck. Opening the mouths of two or three cows, he called out:
"Look here, overseer! You warned us that cattle sellers like to 'green' their customers, but I won't be done like this. Everyone of these cows is so old that there is not an eye tooth left in its head."
The overseer stroked his moustache, and answered with a broad grin, "Yes, I know that joke; it came out in last year's calendar. The General who was cheated in the Franco-Prussian War through not knowing that cattle have no eye teeth."
"Haven't they?" asked the manager in surprise, and when the doctor assured him that it was so, he said petulantly, "Well, how should I know about a cow's mouth? I am no cattle dentist. All my work has lain among horses!" But he must needs vent his anger on somebody, so he flew upon the painter for having led him into such a trap. "How could you?" he demanded. The painter, however, was too much of a gentleman to betray the cowboy, who had first taken him in. At last the taligás put an end to the dispute by respectfully announcing that breakfast was waiting.
The taligás is cook on the puszta. All this time he had been preparing the herdsman's breakfast of "tesztás kása," or meal porridge. Now, bringing out the pot, he set it on a three-legged stool. The guests sat round it, and to each he handed a long tin spoon with which to help himself. "Excellent," pronounced the gentlemen, and when they had eaten, the overseer and the herdsmen devoured what remained. The scrapings of the pot fell to the taligás. Meanwhile, Mr. Sajgató was in the kitchen preparing the "Hungarian coffee," which all who have been on the puszta know so well. "Hungarian coffee" is red wine heated up with brown sugar, cinnamon, and cloves. It tastes most delicious after such an early outing on the plains.
Then the taligás took the pot, rinsed it, filled it with water, and hung it over the fire. The gulyás stew would be ready when the gentlemen returned from their walk. They would then taste something really good!
Ferko Lacza showed the company round, pointing out to the strangers all the sights of the puszta, such as the wind shelter and the railed-in burying place for cattle.
"In the good old days," he explained, "if a beast died, we just left it where it fell, and the vultures came in flocks and picked it clean. Now, since this new order has come out, we have to inform the vet over at the Mata Farm, who comes and inspects it, writes down what it died of, and bids us bury it without fail. But we are sorry to see so much good meat wasted, so we manage to take a chunk or two, which we cut up small, cook, and spread out in the sun to dry. This we stuff into our bags, and whenever we want gulyás, why we throw as many dried handfuls of meat into the pot as there are men to eat it."
The painter looked the cowboy hard in the face, then turned to his master.
"Does this worthy herdsman of yours ever happen to speak the truth, overseer?"
"Very rarely, but this time he has, for once in his life."
"Then thank you very much for your delightful gulyás."
"Oh don't be alarmed!" said the overseer, "there's nothing bad about it. Since God laid out the flat Hortobágy, that has always been the custom. Look at those lads, can you desire healthier or stronger fellows? Yet they have all grown up on carrion. The learned professors may talk as much as they like, it doesn't hurt us Hungarians."
The manager, however, listening to this revelation, strictly forbade his Moravian drovers to touch the dish.
"Though who knows," said the painter, "whether the old humbug has not invented the whole story to scare us from the feast, and then have a good laugh at us!"
"We'll see," rejoined his comrade, "whether the vet eats it or not, for he must know all about it."
And now came the mirage, that seems like the realisation of a fairy dream.
Along the horizon lay a quivering sea, where high waves chased each other from east to west, the real hills standing out as little islands in their midst, and the stumpy acacias magnified into vast forests. Oxen, grazing in the distance, were transformed into a street of palaces. Boats which appeared to cross the ocean turned out on reaching the shore to be nothing but some far off horses. The fantastic deception is always at its height directly after sunrise, when whole villages are often raised into the air, and brought so close that, with a glass, the carts in their streets can be distinguished, their towers and houses being all mirrored upside down on the billowy fairy sea. During cloudy weather, however, they remain below the horizon.
"Let the Germans copy this," exclaimed Mr. Sajgató to the admiring group, while the painter tore his hair in despair.
"Why am I compelled to see things I can't put on canvas? What is this?"
"Why the mirage," said the overseer.
"And what is the mirage?"
"The mirage is the mirage of the Hortobágy."
But Ferko Lacza knew more than his master.
"The mirage is God's miracle," he told them, "sent to keep us poor herdsmen from growing weary of the long day on the puszta."
Finally the painter turned to the doctor for an explanation. "I know even less," said he. "I have read Flammarion's book on the atmosphere, where he speaks of the Fata Morgana as seen on the African deserts, the coasts of the Arctic ocean, on the Orinoco, and in Sicily, also Humboldt and Bompland's descriptions. But learned men know nothing of the Hortobágy mirage, though it may be seen every hot summer's day from sunrise to sundown. Thus are Hungary's wonderful natural phenomena utterly ignored by the scientific world."
It did the doctor good to pour out the bitterness of his heart before the strangers, but he had no time to admire the marvels of nature, being obliged to hurry back to his animal hospital and pharmacy at Mata. So, bidding adieu to both his old and new friends, he jumped into his gig, and jogged away over the plain.
The herd was already scattered far out on the puszta, the cowboys driving it forward. The grass near at hand is more luscious, but in spring the cattle graze far afield, so that when summer scorches the distant pastures, the nearer still remain for them. Very touching was the farewell between the main herd and their companions in the enclosure—like a chorus of Druids and Valkyre.
The head of the stables had meanwhile been occupied with the financial side of the business and in arranging the line of march. In crisp brand new hundred florin notes he paid Mr. Sajgató, who stuffed them into his pocket so carelessly, that the manager thought it not superfluous to remind him to look after his money on the puszta. Whereupon the proud citizen of Debreczin answered phlegmatically,
"Sir, I have been plundered and deceived during the course of my existence, but never by robbers or rogues. They were always 'honourable gentlemen,' who knew how to thieve and cheat!"
The overseer likewise received his fee. "If," said the old herdsman, "I might—out of pure friendliness—give you a word of advice, I would recommend you, as you have bought the cows, to take the calves as well."
"What, we don't want a crowd of noisy brutes! Why should we take carts for them?"
"They will go on their own feet."
"Yes, and hinder us at every step, by stopping the cows to drink. Besides, the duke's chief reason for buying this herd, is, as I know, not to experiment with pure Hungarian cattle, but to cross them with his Spanish breed."
"Of course that is quite another thing," said the overseer.
There now remained nothing else to do but to start the new bought herd. The manager gave the herdsman his credentials, and the chief constable handed him his pass. These documents, together with the cattle certificates, he put into his bag. Then he tied the bell round the bull's neck, knotted his cloak round its horns, and bidding everyone good day, sprang into the saddle. The overseer brought him his knapsack, filled with bacon, bread, and garlic, enough for the week that they would take to reach Miskolcz. Then he described the whole route to him. How they must first go by Polgár, because of the mud at Csege, caused by the spring rains, and sleep on the way in the little wood. They would cross the Theiss by the ferry-boat, but should the water be high, it would be better to wait there, and give hay to the beasts rather than risk an accident.
Then he impressed on his godson the necessity of so behaving in a foreign country that Debreczin need never blush for him. "He must obey his employers, hold his high spirits in check, never forget Hungarian, nor abandon his faith, but keep all the Church feasts, and not squander his earnings. If he married he must take care of his wife, and give his children Hungarian names, and when he had time he might write a line to his godfather, who would willingly pay the postage."
Then, with a godfather's blessing, he left the young fellow to set out on his journey.
Now the two Moravian drovers had undertaken the task of driving the herd, when free from the enclosure, in the desired direction, but naturally the beasts, as soon as they were set at liberty, rushed about on all sides, and when the drovers attempted to force them, turned, and prepared to run at them. Then they again made for the corral and their calves.
"Go and help those poor Christians!" said the overseer to the herdsman.
"Better crack the whip among them," suggested the painter.
"The devil take your whip," growled the overseer; "do you want them to run to the four ends of the earth? These are no horses!"
"I said they ought to be tied together in pairs by their horns," cried the manager.
"All right, just leave it to me."
With that the cowherd whistled, and a little sheep-dog jumped from the karám, and barking loudly, scampered after the disordered herd, dashed round the scattered animals, snapped at the heels of the lazy ones, and in less than two minutes had brought the whole drove into a well-ordered military file, marching behind the bull with the bell.
Then the cowherd also bounded after them, crying "Hi, Rosa! Csáko! Kese!" He knew the name of everyone of the twenty-four, and they obeyed. As for the bull, it was called "Büszke"—"Proud one."
Thus, under this leadership, the herd moved quietly off over the wide plain. For long the gentlemen gazed after it, till it arrived at the brink of the quivering fairy sea. Then suddenly each beast grew gigantic, more like a mammoth than a cow, jet black in colour, and with legs growing to a fearful length, until at last there appeared to be attached to them a second cow, moving along with the other, only upside down. Herdsmen, dog, drovers, all followed them head downwards.
The painter sank back on the grass, his arms and legs extended.
"Well, if I tell this at the Art Club in Vienna, they will kick me out at the door."
"A bad sign," said Mr. Sajgató, shaking his head. "It's well the money is in my pocket."
"Yes, the cattle are not home yet," muttered the overseer.
"What I wonder at," observed the manager, "is why some enterprising individual has not taken the whole show on lease."
"Ah!" said Mr. Sajgató with proud stolidity. "No doubt they would take it to Vienna if they could. But Debreczin won't give it up."
CHAPTER IV.
The veterinary and his gig jolted merrily over the puszta. His good little horse knew its lesson by heart, and needed neither whip nor bridle. So, the doctor could take out his note-book, reckon, and scribble. All at once, looking up, he noticed a csikós approaching, his horse galloping wildly.
The pace was so mad that both rider and steed seemed to be out of their minds. Suddenly the horse rushed towards him, stood still, reared, and then swerved aside, taking another direction. Its rider sat with head thrown back, and arched body, clutching the bridle in both hands, while the horse shook itself, and began to neigh and snort in a frightened manner.
Seeing this, the doctor seized whip and reins, and made every endeavour to overtake the horseman. As he got closer he recognised the csikós. "Sándor Decsi!" he exclaimed. And the rider appeared to know him also, and to slacken the bridle as if to allow the horse to go nearer. The clever animal reached the doctor's gig, puffing and blowing, and there stopped of its own accord. It shook its head, snorted, and, in fact, did everything but speak.
The lad sat in the saddle, bent backwards, his face staring at the sky. The bridle had dropped from his fingers, but his legs still gripped the sides of his horse.
"Sándor, lad! Sándor Decsi!" called the doctor. But the boy seemed not to hear him, or hearing, to be incapable of speech.
Jumping from his trap, the doctor went up to the rider, caught him round the waist, and lifted him out of the saddle.
"What ails you?" he said.
But the lad was silent. His mouth was shut, his neck bent back, and his breath came in quick gasps. His eyes, wide open, had a ghastly gleam, which the dilation of the pupils rendered all the more hideous.
Laying him flat on the turf, the doctor began to examine him. "Pulse irregular, sometimes quick, sometimes stopping completely, pupils widely dilated, jaws tightly closed, back curved. This young fellow has been poisoned!" he cried, "and with some vegetable poison, too."
The doctor had found the csikós midway between the Hortobágy inn and the little settlement at Mata. Probably he was on his way to the hamlet when the poison first began to act, and had tried as long as consciousness lasted to get there; but when the spasms seized him, his movements became involuntary, and the convulsive twitching of his arms had startled the horse. It was also foaming at the mouth.
The doctor next attempted to lift him into the gig, but the lad was too heavy, and he could not manage it. Still, to leave him on the puszta was impossible. Before he could return with help the eagles would already be there, tearing at the unfortunate man. All this time the horse looked on intelligently, as if it would speak, and, now bending its head over its master, it gave some short abrupt snorts.
"Well, help me then," said the doctor.
Why should he not understand, a puszta steed, who has three-quarters of a soul at least? Seeing the doctor struggling with his master, it caught hold of his waistcoat with his teeth, and raised him, and so between them, they managed to get the csikós into the gig. Then the doctor knotted the horse's halter to the back of the trap, and galloped on to the settlement.
There, it is true, were hospital and pharmacy, but only for animals. The doctor himself was but a cattle doctor. In such cases, however, he may help who can. The question was, could he?
The first thing to do was to discover what poison was at work, strychnine or belladonna. At all events, black coffee could do no harm.
Arrived at the farm, the doctor called out his assistant and his housekeeper. Coffee was ready, but aid was necessary before the patient could swallow. His jaws were so tightly locked that they had to force his teeth apart with a chisel before it could be poured down.
"Ice on his head, a mustard plaster on his stomach," ordered the doctor; and there being no spare person at hand, he carried out his own directions, at the same time giving instructions to his assistant, and writing a letter at the table. "Listen," he said, "and think of what I am telling you. Hurry in the gig to the Hortobágy inn, and hand this letter to the innkeeper. If he is not at home, then tell the coachman my orders are to put the horses in the caléche, and go as fast as he possibly can to town, and give this sealed letter to the head doctor there. He must wait and bring him back. I am a veterinary surgeon, and on oath not to practise on beasts 'with souls.' The case needs help urgently, and the doctor will bring his own medicine. But ask the innkeeper's daughter for every grain of coffee she may have in the house, for that the patient must drink until the real doctor comes. Now, see how sharp you can be!"
The assistant understood the task imposed on him, and made all haste to get under way. The poor little grey had hardly had breathing time before it was rattling back to the inn.
Klári happened to be on the verandah, watering her musk-geraniums, when the gig drove up.
"What brings you, Pesta," she asked, "in such a fearful hurry?"
"A letter for the master."
"Well, it will be difficult to get a word out of him, because he is just putting a new swarm into the hive."
"But it is an order from the vet," said Pesta, "to send the carriage to town immediately for the best doctor."
"The doctor? Is someone ill? Who has the ague now?"
"None of us, for the doctor picked him up on the meadow. It is Sándor Decsi, the csikós."
The girl gave a cry, and the watering-can fell from her hands. "Sándor? Sándor is ill?"
"So ill that he is trying to climb up the wall, and bite the bed-clothes in his agony. Somebody has poisoned him."
The girl had to clutch the door with both hands to prevent herself falling.
"Our doctor is not sure what is killing the herdsman, so he is obliged to summon the town doctor to inspect him."
Then Klári muttered something, but what could not be heard.
"See, leave go the door, miss," said the assistant, "and let me in to look for the master."
"Doesn't he know what has hurt him?" stammered the girl.
"And the doctor's message to you," added Pesta, "is to collect all the ground coffee in the house, and give it to me. Till the other doctor comes with medicine, he is treating Sándor Decsi with coffee, for he can't tell what poison they gave the poor fellow." Then he hurried off to search for the innkeeper.
"He can't tell what poison," murmured Klári to herself, "but I can—if that be the danger, why I could tell the doctor, and then he would at once know what to give him."
She ran into her room, and opening the chest took from its bottom, the man-shaped witch roots. These she stuffed into her pocket.
Cursed be she who had given the evil counsel, and cursed be she who had followed it!
Then she set to work grinding coffee, so that by the time the assistant returned from the garden, where he had been forced to help with the swarm, the tin box was quite full.
"Now give me the coffee, miss," said he.
"I am coming with you."
The assistant was a sharp lad and saw through the sieve. "Do not come, miss," he said, "you really must not see Sándor Decsi in such a state. It is enough to freeze one's marrow to look at his agony. Besides, the doctor would never allow it."
"It is just the doctor I want to speak to," said the girl.
"But then who will attend to the customers?"
"The servant-girl is here, and the lad, they'll manage."
"But at least ask the master's permission," begged Pesta.
"Not I!" cried Klári, "he would not let me go. There, get out of the way."
So saying, she pushed the assistant aside, flew out into the courtyard, and with one bound was seated in the gig. There she seized the reins, flourished the whip about the poor grey's back, and drove where she wished. The assistant left behind gasping, shouted after her,
"Miss Klári! Miss Klári! Stop a bit!" But though he ran till he was breathless, he only caught the gig at the bridge, where the tired horse had to go slowly up the incline. Then he too jumped on to the seat.
Never had the grey's back felt such thwacks as on this drive to Mata! By the time they reached the sandy ground, it could only go at a walk, and, the girl, impatient, sprang from the gig, and catching hold of the canister, rushed over the clover field to the doctor's farm, which she reached panting and speechless.
Through the window the doctor saw her coming and went to meet her, barring her way at the verandah.
"You come here, Klárika! How is that?"
"Sándor?" gasped the girl.
Through the open door the girl could hear the groans of the sick man.
"What has happened to him?"
"I don't know myself, and I don't want to accuse anyone."
"But I know!" cried the girl, "someone—a wicked girl—gave him something bad to drink. I know who it was too! She stirred it into his wine, to make him love her, and that made him ill. I know who it was, and how it was."
"Miss Klári, do not play the traitor. This is a serious crime, and must be proved."
"Here are the proofs."
And with that girl took the roots out of her pocket, and laid them before the doctor.
"Oh!" cried the doctor, stupefied, "why, this is Atropa mandragora—a deadly poison!"
The girl clapped her hands to her face, "How did I know it was poison?" she asked.
"Klárika," said the doctor, "do not startle me more or I shall jump out of the window. Surely you did not poison Sándor?"
The girl nodded mutely.
"And what in thunder did you do it for?"
"He was so unkind to me, and once a gypsy woman made me believe that if I steeped that root in his wine I should have him at my feet again."
"Well, I never! . . . You must hold traffic with gypsy women, must you? To school you won't go, where the master would teach you to distinguish poisonous plants. No, no, you will only learn from a gypsy vagabond! Well, you have made your lad nice and obedient!"
"Will he die?" asked the girl with an imploring look.
"Die? Must he die next? No, his body and soul are not stitched together in such a ramshackle fashion."
"Then he will live!" cried the girl, and knelt down before the doctor, snatching his hands, and kissing them repeatedly.
"Don't kiss my hand," said he, "it is all over mustard plaster, and will make your mouth swell."
So she kissed his feet, and when he forbade that, also his footprints. Down on the brick floor she went and kissed the muddy footprints with her pretty, rosy lips.
"Now, stand up and talk sense," said the doctor. "Have you brought the coffee? ground and roasted? Right—for that is what he must drink till the doctor comes. It is well you told me what poison the lad took, for now I know the antidote. But as for you, child, make up your mind to vanish from these parts as soon as you like, for what you have done is a crime, which the town doctor will report, and the matter will come before the court and judge. So fly away, where there are no tongues to tell on you."
"I won't fly," said the girl, drying her tears with her apron. "Here is my neck, more I can't offer. If I have done wrong, it is only just that I should suffer for it, but from this spot I won't stir! The groaning I hear through the door binds me faster than if my feet were in fetters. Doctor! sir! for God's sake let me be near to nurse him, to foment his head, smooth his pillows, and wipe the sweat from his brow."
"Indeed! Is that your idea? Why, they would clap me into the madhouse, if I entrusted the nursing of the victim to the poisoner."
A look of unspeakable pain came over the girl's face.
"Does the doctor believe that I am really bad then?" she asked. Glancing round she caught sight of the damnatory root lying on the window-sill, and before he could stop her, had grasped it, and was putting it into her mouth.
"No, no, Klárika," said the doctor, "do not play with that poison. Don't bite it, take it out of your mouth instantly. I would rather allow you to go to the patient, though it is no sight for you, as I tell you beforehand. No tender-hearted person should see such suffering."
"I know; your assistant told me everything. How one cannot recognise him, his face is so changed. Dark blotches instead of healthy red colour, death-like shadow on his forehead, and cold perspiration shining on his cheeks. His eyes are wide open with a glassy stare, his lips seem gummed together, and if he opens them they foam. How he groans, struggles, gnashes his teeth, tosses his arms about, and contorts his back! An agonising sight! But let this be my punishment, to feel his moans and sufferings, like so many sharp knives stabbing my heart. And if I do not actually witness them with my own eyes and ears, I shall still seem to see and hear them as acutely as if I was really present."
"Well," said the doctor, "let us see if you are really brave enough. Take charge of the coffee-pot, and have black coffee always ready; but if you burst out crying I will push you out of the room."
Then he opened the door and allowed her to enter.
The world went blue and green to the girl as her eyes fell on her sweetheart lying there. Where was the radiant young fellow who had left her such a short time ago? Now it was painful to look at him, to endure the sight of him.
The doctor called in his assistant, and the girl stifled her sobs as best she might, over the coffee-pot. If the doctor caught the sound of one he would glance at her reproachfully, and she would pretend it was a cough.
The two men applied mustard plasters to the patient's feet.
"Now bring your coffee and pour it into his mouth," said the doctor.
But that was a business! Both had to exert their full strength to hold down the lad's arms, and prevent his flinging them about.
"Now, Klárika, open his mouth; not like that! You must force his teeth apart with the chisel. Don't be afraid, he won't swallow it. See, he holds it as fast as a vice."
The girl obeyed.
"Now pour in the coffee by the spout, gently. There you are a clever girl. I can recommend you to the Sisters of Mercy as a sick nurse!"
There was a smile on the girl's face, but her heart was breaking.
"If only he would not look at me with those eyes!"
"Yes," said the doctor, "that is the worst of all, those two staring eyes. I think so too."
At length there seemed some little improvement, possibly the effect of the remedy. The patient's groans became less frequent, and the cramp in his limbs relaxed, but his forehead burned like fire. The doctor instructed the girl how to wring out the cold water bandage—lay it on the aching head, leave it a little, and then change it again. She did all that he bade her.
"Now I see that you have a brave heart," he said, and in time came her reward, for to her joy the sufferer suddenly closed his eyelids, and the terrible stare of those black-shadowed eyes ceased altogether. Later his mouth relaxed and they were able to open the close-shut jaws without difficulty.
Maybe it was the prompt application of the antidote; maybe the dose of poison had not been strong, but by the time the doctor from town had arrived, the patient was very unmistakably better. The veterinary and the doctor conversed in Latin, which the girl could not understand, but her instinct told her that it was of her they were speaking. Then the doctor ordered this and that, and after writing the usum repertum, returned to his carriage, and hastened back to town.
Not so the gendarme whom he had brought with him on the box. He remained. Hardly had the physician gone, when another trap rumbled into the yard. This was the Hortobágy innkeeper, who had come to demand his daughter.
"Gently now, master," they said, "the young woman is under arrest. Don't you see the gendarme?"
"I always did say that when once a girl loses her head she goes mad altogether. Well, it's no concern of mine." And with charming indifference the old innkeeper thereupon turned and drove back to the Hortobágy inn.
CHAPTER V.
All night long the girl watched beside him—to no one would she yield her place at the sick bed. She had been up till dawn the night before as well, but how differently occupied! This was her penance.
Now and then she nodded sleepily in her chair, but the slightest moan from the sick man sufficed to wake her. Sometimes she renewed the cold bandage on his head, and bathed her own eyes to keep herself awake. At the first cock-crow kindly sleep settled softly on the patient. He stretched himself out and began to snore with beautiful regularity. At first the girl was terrified, and thought the death struggle was at hand, but presently she grew very happy. This was a good honest snore, such as could only emanate from healthy lungs; and besides, as she reflected, it kept her wide awake. When the cock crew for the second time, he was in a sound slumber.
Then he started from sleep and yawned widely.
Thank heaven! He could yawn again.
The spasms had quite ceased, and all who suffer from their nerves know the worth of a good yawn after the attack. It is as good as a lottery prize.
The girl wished to give him more coffee, but the man shook his head. "Water," he murmured.
So she rapped through to the doctor, who was reposing in the next room, to know if she might give the patient water, as he was asking for it.
The doctor rose, and came out in dressing-gown and slippers, to see for himself. He was most satisfied. "He is going on well; to be thirsty is a good sign. Give him as much water as he wants." The invalid drank a whole carafe and then dropped into a quiet slumber.
"Now he is fast asleep," said the doctor to Klári, "so you may go and lie down on the bed in the housekeeper's room. I will leave my door open, and take care of him."
But the girl pleaded so hard to be allowed to stay, to lean her head on the table and thus steal a nap, that he at last let her do as she pleased. Suddenly she awoke with a start to find it was day, and the sparrows were twittering at the windows.
The patient was then dreaming as well as sleeping. His lips moved, he murmured something and laughed. His eyes half opened, but evidently with a great effort, for they closed immediately. But his parched lips seemed to be asking for something.
"Shall I give you water?" whispered the girl.
"Yes," he muttered, with his eyes shut.
So she brought him the water bottle, but he had not strength enough in his arms—this great fellow—even to raise the tumbler to his mouth. She had to lift his head and give it to him. Even while drinking he fell half asleep.
Hardly had his head touched the pillow when he began to hum aloud—probably a continuation of the gay air of his dreams:
Gypsy maid, Magyar maid, both are flowers."
CHAPTER VI.
A day or two later the lad was on his feet again. Such tough fellows as he, born and bred on the puszta, do not linger long on the sick list when once the crisis is past. They abhor bed. So on the third day he told the doctor that he wished to get back to the horses at his place of service.
"Wait a bit, Sándor, my boy. Somebody has to speak with you first."
"Somebody" turned out to be the examining magistrate. On the third day, after the report, this official, with his notary and a gendarme, arrived at Mata to conduct the formal inquiry. The accused—the young woman—had already been examined, and had given a full account of everything. She denied nothing, only saying in her defence that she was very much in love with Sándor, and wished to make him love her as well.
All this was taken down in the protocol and signed. Nothing now remained but to confront the prisoner with her victim. And this was done as soon as the herdsman had regained sufficient strength.
Meanwhile he never once uttered the girl's name in the doctor's presence, pretending not to know that she had been in the house nursing him, and as the young man recovered consciousness, she ceased to show herself at all. Before confronting her with him, the magistrate read out the deposition to the girl, who confirmed it anew, and would not have a word altered.
Then Sándor Decsi was brought forward.
As soon as the csikós entered the room he began to act a preconcerted rôle. His swaggering betyár airs were such that one would have thought he had only learnt to play the csikós on the stage. When the judge asked his name he stared at him over his shoulder.
"My worthy name? Sándor Decsi! I have hurt no one, nor have I stolen anything, that I should be dragged here by gendarmes. Besides, I am not under civil authority. I am still a soldier of the Emperor, and if anyone has a complaint against me, let him go before the regimental authorities, and there I will answer him."
The magistrate silenced him. "Gently, young man, no one is accusing you of anything. We only want enlightenment in an affair closely concerning yourself. That is the object of this investigation. Tell us when were you last in the taproom of the Hortobágy inn?"
"I can inform you exactly. What is there to hide? But first send away this gendarme at my back. Because if he should happen to come too near, I am touchy and might give him a blow."
"Now, now, not so fast, young fellow. The gendarme is not guarding you. Tell us when it was that you visited Miss Klári here—the day she served you with wine?"
"Well, I will as soon as I have got my wits together. The last time I was at the Hortobágy inn was last year, on Demeter's day, when they engage the shepherds. Then they took me for a soldier, and I have not been in the place since."
"Sándor!" broke in the girl.
"Yes, Sándor is my name. So they christened me."
"Then you were not there three days ago, when the barmaid gave you the wine mixed with mandragora, which made you so ill?"
"I never was at the Hortobágy inn, nor did I see Miss Klári. It is half a year since I asked for any of her wine!"
"Sándor, you are lying for my sake!" cried the girl.
The judge grew angry.
"Do not try to mislead the authorities with your denials. The girl has already confessed everything—that she made you drink wine poisoned with mandrake roots."
"Why, then, the young woman lied," said the herdsman.
"But what reason could she have for accusing herself of a crime which entails such heavy punishment?"
"Why, what reason? Because when the mad fit comes upon a girl, she simply raves without rhyme or reason. Miss Klári fancies our eyes don't meet each other's often enough, so she has an ill will against me, and now she takes to accusing herself to compel me to let out the other one's name, out of sheer compassion—the pretty lass, to whom I went to lose my soul and cure my heart, and who gave me the charm to drink. Well, if I choose I'll tell, but if I don't, I won't. This is Miss Klári's revenge for my having neither called on her, nor gone near her since I came home on leave."
At these words the girl turned on him like a fury.
"Sándor!—you who have never lied in your life—what ails you? When the one little lie, which they put in your mouth, would have saved you from soldiering, that you could not tell! Now you deny being with me three days ago. Then who brought me the comb that I have done up my hair with?"
The csikós laughed grimly.
"Who brought it, and why? Surely the young lady knows better than I!"
"Sándor, this is not right of you! I don't mind if they put me in the pillory for my wrong-doing, and lash and scourge me. Here is my head; let them cut it off if they like. But don't tell me you never cared for me, nor came to see me, for that is worse than death."
The judge flew into a rage. "Confound you," he cried. "Settle your love affairs between yourselves. Since a flagrant case of poisoning has been committed, I want to know who was the culprit!"
"Now answer!" exclaimed the girl, with flaming cheeks. "Answer that!"
"Well, well. Since I must, so be it, I can tell you all about it. On the Ohát puszta I fell in with a gypsy band in tents. One of them, a lovely girl, with eyes like sloes, who was standing outside, spoke to me, and invited me in. They were roasting a sucking pig, and we enjoyed ourselves. I drank their wine, and at once felt that it had a bitter taste; but the kisses of the gypsy lass were so sweet that I forgot all about it."
"You lie, lie, lie!" shrieked the girl. "You have invented that story this very minute!"
The herdsman laughed loudly, clapped one hand to the crown of his head, snapped his fingers in the air, and started his favourite song: