"I keep these things as souvenirs," he continued. "This crisp little smock, this baby's bonnet embroidered with rosebuds and forget-me-nots, are more precious to me than all the treasures of life, for to them I owe the soothing moments which poured balm into my soul. It was by the side of this child, sir, that I learnt to pray. Something whispered to me that this child was sent to me from Heaven. And so it must have been. Nobody under heaven loves me save she, and I love nobody, nothing else in the world. I have never tried to find out who the child might be, nay, rather I have trembled lest she might one day be discovered and demanded back from me. But all these years nobody has inquired after her. I fancy she must have had a bad mother whom they told she was dead, and she was glad to hear it. Perhaps she even wished it to be killed. Ah! sir, there are those born outside the headsman's house who ought to end their lives on the headsman's threshold. Never for one hour's time have I quitted that child. I taught her to walk, to talk, I prepared all her food for her, and now she prepares mine for me. I have eaten no cooked food which her hand has not made ready. While she was still but a wee thing I watched by her bed while she slept, now she watches over me while I sleep. When I go a journey she comes with me, I never leave her behind. Only one thing troubles me when I think of her: What will become of her when I die? what will become of her when she grows up?"

The youth tenderly pressed the old man's hand, and said to him with a voice betraying some emotion:

"Don't be uneasy! Thou hast been a good father to the child, if thou shouldst die I will find a good mother for her. Make a note of this name and address: 'Maria Kamienszka, Lemberg.' Whenever thou dost write to the above address on this subject thou shalt receive an answer with full information. Nay, perhaps thou mayest hear sooner from that quarter than thou desirest."

The old man kissed the youth's hand and stammered some unintelligible words of blessing.

At that moment the door opened, and little Elise came in with two glasses of wine-soup on a platter from the kitchen.

She placed the fragrant steaming drink on the table, spread beneath it a snow-white diaper, and with her sweet gracious voice invited the stranger to partake thereof, as it would warm and comfort him.

The stranger gently stroked her sweet pretty face, kissed her fair head, and touching glasses with his host, emptied his own at one manly gulp.

"And right good it is, my little hostess! It has made quite a man of me."

The old man needed far more pressing. The little girl had to taste it first to put him in the humour for it. It was quite clear that this adopted father ran a great risk of being spoiled.

Peter Zudár's face was now quite bright and cheerful.

"Ah, sir!" said he to the stranger, "I have never felt before as I feel now. My heart feels as light as if no load had ever lain upon it. I feel myself a man. How long will you remain with me? I hope it will be for a long time."

"It cannot be, my worthy fellow, my vocation summons me elsewhere. By the way, hast thou any apprentices or assistants who require spiritual consolations?"

Peter Zudár's face grew dark at these words.

"I have only one 'prentice," said he at last, "and, sir, waste not any words of the Lord upon him—one must not cast bread before dogs."

"Hast thou no other?"

"Not long ago this 'prentice of mine brought a stranger to my house. Early next morning, before I could see him, he escaped through the loft and over the fence, why or whither I know not to this day. This was not the first case of the kind."

"Then my mission to this house is ended," said the stranger, sighing involuntarily. "Accept from me this little Prayer Book as a souvenir; as often as thou dost read it thou wilt find consolation. On its cover is the name of that lady whom thou must not forget."

The old man pressed the little book to his lips and concealed it in his coffer.

"And I, what shall I give, what can I give to you, my spiritual benefactor, and, after God, my regenerator, as a token of my gratitude; what can I give you, I say?"

The stranger hastily replied:

"If I might be so bold as to ask for something, give me the half of thy treasures, the little embroidered baby's cap."

For a moment the headsman was overpowered with astonishment, then he quickly undid once more the little bundle of clothes, drew forth, the pearl-trimmed cap, regarded it steadily, and a tear fell from his eye as he did so, then he kissed it, and handed it to the stranger without a word.

"If thou dost find it so hard to part with it I will not take it."

"Nay, it will be well disposed of," whispered the old man, and he pressed it into the hand of the youth, who thrust the little relic into his bosom.

"And now God be with thee, and go and lie down, for it is late. As for me, I have a long journey to make ."

The headsman would have gone with him to help him to saddle his horse, but the stranger restrained him.

"I will arouse thy lad," said he, "I have a word for his ear."

"But the watch-dogs are vicious."

"They will do me no harm."

The stranger would not be persuaded. On reaching the kitchen he wrapped himself in his mantle, and after inquiring whereabouts near the stables the 'prentice usually slept, took a lighted lamp in his hand and went forth into the courtyard.

The mastiffs when they beheld him slunk away, growling timidly and uneasily, and only began to bark with all their throats when they found themselves safely behind the house. Those strange eyes had the effect of a spell on man and beast. Meanwhile the headsman could be heard singing within his room the hymn:

The youth hastened towards the night-quarters of the headsman's 'prentice. On the way thither he encountered the young woman. He pinched her ear and tapped her on the shoulder.

"Get along with you, you naughty boy!" said she.

And then the virago sauntered back into the kitchen, leaving her guest to go where he liked.

His quest was an easy one now. He had only to proceed in the direction from whence the woman had come. Ivan feigned to be asleep.

"Hie! my little brother! up! up!" cried the stranger, and tugged at the fellow's hair till he opened his eyes in terror.

"Well! what's the row? what do you want with me?"

"What do I want? I'll very soon let you know, you rascal, get up, I say!"

Ivan made no very great haste to obey.

The stranger wasted no more words upon him but began buffeting him right and left, till his head waggled on his shoulders.

Full of fury Ivan started up from his couch and fell upon his tormentor; but the latter, with serpentine agility, clutched the fellow's throat tightly with his right hand and pressed his head against the wall, while with his left he held a large pistol in front of his nose.

"You dare to move, you rogue, that's all, and I'll spread you out over the wall like a painted picture."

The lad was awed by the unexpected strength of that fist and the threatening proximity of the pistol.

"But, sir, what in heaven's name have I done?" he babbled. "Who are you, and what do you want of me?"

"Who am I, eh? I am a police-sergeant, you rascal. I am pursuing a deserter, whom you have concealed. Come, speak, what have you done with him?"

Ivan had already begun to recover himself a little.

"I'll tell you the truth, I will indeed, only let me go. It is true that I enticed a deserter hither, but it was not to conceal him."

"You did not bring him hither to conceal him, eh? You lie, you dog. Another falsehood, and I'll tie you to my horse's tail and drag you all the way to Dukla. What did you do with him?"

"I'll tell you everything, Mr. Sergeant, I am a man of my word. It is true that I enticed a young gentleman here, at one time I was his lackey. Later on we became soldiers together. I was subsequently discharged because I was growing blind. I am speaking the truth, I was blind then. The young man had confidence in me, and one day, when he saw me in the street at Dukla, he implored me to hide him."

"What were you doing in Galicia?"

"My master sent me to buy horses, but I could not get any fit for us. I am speaking the truth, I assure you I am."

"Do you know why that man deserted?"

"Yes, he shot his captain because of a woman."

"Did you hear the woman's name?"

"I heard it, but I have forgotten it."

"You lie. You know it now. Come, out with it!"

"I'll say it then—Oh! my throat!—the Countess Kamienszka."

"Did you hear it from him?"

"No, it is my own idea, for he wrote her a letter while about to fly and sent me to the post with it, that is what put them on his track, I should think."

"That is none of your business, where is the man now? Don't lie! I shall know if you do, and in that case I will make an end of you at once."

"He is safe enough now, Mr. Officer, I assure you. He escaped before daybreak, but I denounced him, and he was arrested at the house of his own father."

The stranger dashed the fellow's head furiously against the wall, then flung him on the floor and kicked him.

"You denounced him, eh? Oh! you detestable dog!"

"But what is the matter, sir? Why do you strike me again? Surely I did right? I had him arrested, and they locked him up. He is in the pillory already, I daresay. What harm have I done?"

The stranger made an effort to master his passion, and, controlling his rage, answered coldly,

"What harm have you done, you fool! Haven't you made me take all my trouble in vain, and done me out of the promised reward to those who ferret out and hand over deserters. You dare to meddle with my affairs again, that's all!"

Gnashing his teeth, he kept his pistol grasped firmly in his hand; he would very much have liked to have beaten the fellow's shaggy poll about with the butt end of it.

"Go and saddle my horse this instant!"

Ivan was only too delighted to get clear of the narrow little room where he was so close to this dangerous visitor's muscular fists, and went to saddle the horse. While so employed, he could not help reflecting that the nag was just a trifle too good to be bestridden by a secret police-agent.

The stranger did not wait till he was ready, but hurried after him. Then he quickly mounted his horse, and presented something to Ivan.

"Here, take that!"

The fellow dodged his head, thinking he was about to get another buffet. Then the stranger flung a thaler at his feet.

"Take that, you dog, for your trouble. And now open the gate!"

The horse splashed the 'prentice's eyes and mouth full of mud as the stranger galloped away.

At the sound of the rapidly retreating hoofs the headsman thought to himself: "That was Heaven's own gracious messenger." The headsman's young wife, however, sighed: "Ah! that was a gay gentleman." But the 'prentice growled furiously: "It was old Nick himself."

And with that he picked up the thaler, wiped the mud off it, put it in his pocket, and then turned furiously upon the watch-dog and kicked out one of its teeth.

"Take that for not barking!" cried he.

The whole house of Hétfalu was still in mourning. The doctor from town looked in every day. There were two invalids to be seen to. Young Széphalmi was able indeed to go about, but he was like a worm-eaten plant, there seemed to be but little life within him. Old Hétfalusy, on the other hand, had altogether succumbed to his woe, he had taken to his bed, and was frequently tormented by epileptic fits.

The doctor, worthy Mr. Laurence Sarkantyús, regularly every day deposited his round-headed bamboo cane in the doorway, rubbed his short-cropped grey hair all over with his pocket handkerchief for a minute or two, felt the respective pulses, wrote out prescriptions for unguents and syrups; ordered baths, blisters, clysters, and cold douches—and all to no purpose, as both patients seemed to dwindle away more and more day by day. The only really doubtful point seemed to be, which of the two would bury the other?

One day, when Dr. Sarkantyús was superintending the preparation of a hot bath, a light chaise drove into the courtyard of the castle, from which our unknown friend descended, dressed in a stylish black frock coat, and shod with elegant calfskin shoes. His long hair was combed back and smoothed down behind his ears on both sides, and he had an eyeglass cocked knowingly in one eye. Altogether he looked very different from what he was when we last saw him. His characteristic sang froid, that peculiar rigidity of the lips, that faint furrow in the middle of the forehead between the eyebrows, and the gravity of the somewhat languid face, made the metamorphosis complete. A savant, a scholar of practical experience, a cosmopolitan physician stands before us.

He inquired for Mr. Széphalmi. The servants at once announced his arrival, and presently a broken-down, prematurely aged man appeared, with sunken cheeks, pale withered lips, and staring eyes starting from their sockets, and with but the ghost of their former brilliance and expressiveness.

After the first greetings the stranger handed him a letter. Széphalmi broke it open and read it with an apology for so doing, and all the time his hands trembled.

The letter was from his friend, Ambrose Ligety, who informed him that the bearer of the letter was a famous physician, who had just come from France, and cured maladies by means of magnetism. Would he allow this doctor to make experiments upon the old squire? He had reason to believe that such experiments would not be thrown away.

Széphalmi sighed deeply, and conducted the stranger into the parlour where he beckoned him to take a seat. As yet they had not exchanged a single word professionally.

Then Széphalmi went into an adjoining chamber, where he encountered Dr. Sarkantyús, and showed him the letter.

Dr. Sarkantyús thereupon told him that his honour, Judge Ligety, was a big donkey, that the French doctor was a still bigger one, but that the old gentleman would be the biggest one of all if he allowed himself to be meddled with. Let them try it, however, by all means, if they choose, he added.

Nevertheless, he could not help going out to have a look at this miraculous Scarabœus that professed to be able to cure men with the tips of its antennæ.

The young man greeted him with refined courtesy, and the Doctor anxious to show him that he understood French, addressed him in what he supposed to be that language, a smattering of which he had picked up as far back as the time of the Emperor Napoleon I.

"Vooz-ate oon medesen, monshoo?"

"Oui, monsieur, mon collègue."

"The Devil is your collègue, I am not!—Vooe-ate oon magnetizoor, monshoo?"

"Oui mon cher bonhomme."

"Zate—oon—sharlatanery, monshoo!"

"Comme toute la médecine, monsieur."

Dr. Sarkantyús put both hands behind his back, measured the young man first from head to foot, and then from foot to head, scratched his own head violently, and retreated precipitately.

And now Széphalmi rejoined the stranger, and begged him to come in and see the invalid.

In the adjoining chamber where old Hétfalusy was lying, the curtains were drawn and the floor was covered with carpets, so that no light and no noise should disturb the sufferer.

On the lofty bed lay a motionless figure, with closed eyes and hands folded across his breast, a motionless, helpless bit of earth, worse off indeed than other bits of earth, because it had the consciousness of existence.

The stranger approached the bed, seized one of the cold bony hands, tested the pulse and laid his hand on the invalid's forehead. It might have been a corpse that lay there. The eyes did not open, the blood scarce seemed to flow through the veins, the respiration was hardly perceptible.

"He lies like that all day long," said Széphalmi to the stranger.

The youth took his rings from his hands, asked for a glass of water, and drew the tips of his fingers first round the rim of the glass and then along the eyeballs and the temples of the old man in a downward direction.

Széphalmi stood beside him with a dubious expression. The young man at once observed it.

"You, sir, are also a sufferer," said he; "my method can cure you also."

Széphalmi smiled bitterly—galvanised corpses may smile in the same way.

"The balm that is to cure me does not exist," said he.

"My method does not depend on material substances. You shall see. In an hour's time you shall have actual experience of my treatment. Your cases are very much alike."

"How so?"

"They are due to the same cause. The hidden seat of the evil in both your cases is the mind, both of you are suffering from terrible bereavements, you have lost your wife and two children, the old man his daughter and two grandchildren."

The sick old man drew a long and deep sigh at these words, but his eyes still remained closed. Széphalmi sat down on a chair beside him, hid his face in his hands, and fell a weeping.

The young unknown continued to draw his fingers softly round the rim of the glass, producing a ghostly sort of low wailing sound.

"The water will become magnetic before long," said he, "and then we shall see."

"Yet," pursued he, "there is an even more evil malady than the sorrow of bereavement, and that is—remorse. You are both troubled by the bitter memories of an irrevocable past. You did not always love your children, your grandchildren, as you do now that they are both dead—and this is the greatest affliction of all."

At these words the sick Hétfalusy opened his eyes and gazed at the speaker in astonishment.

Széphalmi stammered sorrowfully:

"Oh, sir! why do you torture us with these words? They make the poor old man's heart bleed."

"I see. Already he begins to revive. The medicine is a violent one, no doubt, but for that very reason all the more efficacious. Suffering supervenes, and in suffering lies the very crisis of the malady. But a few more drops of this water. So! The reaction will be still more violent presently, as you shall see. The sick man will groan and have convulsions. Cold drops of sweat will exude from his temples. After that, however, he will grow calmer, and the cure will be complete if God help us."

The youth continued to magnetise the water.

"The sick man's greatest pain proceeds from the recollection of those years when first you made the acquaintance of his recently deceased daughter."

"What do you know, sir, of those years?" stammered Széphalmi, much surprised.

"As much as a doctor ought to know whose business it is to cure the hearts of his patients. He strongly opposed the marriage of the girl with you. He was wrong in so doing. True affection when excluded from the right road seeks out secret paths for itself. You discovered for yourselves some such secret path."

"Sir!"

"Hush! The patient is groaning. The cure is operating. These secret relations had consequences which could not be hidden. Your wife became a mother before she was yet your wife. Pardon me, sir, but it is as a doctor that I address you."

"How do you come to know all this?" faltered Széphalmi, in a scarcely audible voice. "And when it was kept so secret too!" he thought to himself. The same instant the old man made a violent effort to rise from his bed and compel the speaker to be silent.

"It is having a strong effect, a very strong effect," said the youth, feeling the sick man's pulse. "His pulse is beating ten strikes more a minute than it did just now. Squire Hétfalusy," he resumed, "on hearing these evil tidings flew into a violent temper; he was always a very passionate man. He told his daughter that if she did not kill her child, he himself would kill the pair of them. He would have married her to someone else, to a rich man of high rank. This unlucky accident must be kept secret. The girl was very miserable. Her brother stood forth in her defence, and took her part against his own father, and his father cursed him in consequence, expelled him from the house, and forbade him ever to show his face there again. And the uninvited guest, the little suckling who had no right to be born, also atoned for its fault; they said that it was dead. Oh, how the sick man is pressing my hand with his cramped fingers! This method of treatment is working wonders."

Széphalmi sank back into the depths of his arm-chair and shivered as if with an ague fit.

"The rich man, however, abandoned the bride on the very day of the wedding, and in that same year the elder Hétfalusy suddenly grew grey. You see, sir, I am well informed. A doctor ought to know every little detail relating to a case if he is to cure the patient. The father was now ready to let his daughter marry her former lover, but you were no longer inclined for such a marriage. One day, however, the girl went to you of her own accord, with the face of a lunatic, and threatened..."

"Hush, sir! for Heaven's sake!"

"Ah! how much more rapidly his blood is circulating. His muscles are twitching, his lips are convulsed, his arteries begin to throb—the girl threatened to reveal the fact that she had killed her child and so mount the scaffold, unless you made her your wife."

The sick man began to throw about his arms, and cold drops of sweat, like transparent pearls, welled forth from his forehead. Széphalmi arose and walked about the room wringing his hands.

"Who told you that?" he asked the stranger, suddenly planting himself right in front of him.

"Softly, sir, you are disturbing me. The patient is about to take a favourable turn, look how he is sweating. His sufferings are violent, and I am glad to see them, it shows that his vital energy is returning. Repose is a symptom of death, pain is a sign of life. Let us go on with our magnetising. These long passes from the temples to the shoulders work wonders. The whole soul of the sick man now clings to the thought that just because he himself cast forth his first grandchild, which he hated, therefore God took from him the other two which he loved. Notice, sir! that heaving bosom, those fiery red eyes, those swelling lips—all of them are in their way the interpreters of that one thought. God has punished him and you, the father and the grandfather; He has removed from you the blessing which you rejected of your own accord, and now you stand by yourselves in the world, so lonely, so comfortless, joined to each other by nothing but the recollection of a terrible loss."

Széphalmi buried his head among the pillows of the speechless invalid and sobbed bitterly.

Then the youth arose and took the old man's hand in his hand, gazed steadily into his burning eyes with his eyes, and with a voice of exaltation thus addressed the unhappy wretch, who seemed to be bearing in his bosom all the torments of Hell:

"Suppose someone were to come here to you now and say, 'Behold! that outcast child, whom you wished to think of as dead, nay, or murdered! whose birth you cursed, and whose death you prayed for, I now give her back to you!'—how would you feel?"

The sick man there and then drew the youth's hand up to his lips, and with an effort raised himself up in his bed. His lips were wide open, his tongue babbled something unintelligible, while Széphalmi regarded him with amazement, and tugged away at his own hair like one possessed.

The youth put his hand into his bosom and drew forth the little baby's cap embroidered with rosebuds and forget-me-nots, and held it up before the two men.

"What if someone were to restore to you the darling wearer of that little cap? What if I were to tell you that a single consolation still remained to you, an angel sent from Heaven in whom you could learn to rejoice once more? What if I were to tell you that she had grown up as gentle and as beautiful as those angels who are permitted to minister to the earth?"

At these words the father knelt down at the stranger's feet and kissed his hands in a transport of joy, while old Hétfalusy, in a sort of paroxysm threw himself off the bed, made a snatch at the little pearl-embroidered cap, and exclaimed in a piercing voice:

"Elise!"

The remedy had indeed been efficacious. The old man was actually sitting up and had recovered the use of his tongue.

The broken-down old man, who had been in a state of collapse, now violently seized the youth's arm with his still tremulous hand, and groped his way along it till he was able to touch the little cap with his lips.

"Elise, Elise, wore that! How beautiful she was!" he cried.

"Where is she?" sobbed Széphalmi, hiding his face in his hands.

"Now she is indeed beautiful. She is in safe hands too. She has found a loving father who guards her as the apple of his eye. And she is wise as well as beautiful. Her glorious eyes are as blue as the expanse of heaven, and radiant with innocence and goodness. Her lips are as small as wild strawberries, and when she smiles her pretty little face is full of dimples."

"Yes, yes, she promised to be like that!" stammered Széphalmi, pressing the stranger's hand to his heart.

But old Hétfalusy was sitting up in bed and insisted upon getting up.

"I am going. I am going for her. Lead me to her. I will fetch her."

"Softly, softly, sir. Lie down again! Remember that I am a doctor, and I have still to cure you. You must continue to lie in bed for some time, and cannot yet see your grandchild. The girl is with folks who love her. Her adopted father is all love, you have been all hatred. You must first be cured of that evil sickness."

"Of what sickness? I am no longer sick. I am quite cured."

"Of hatred. You have a cast-off son who perhaps at this very moment is standing on the threshold of destruction. You have no thought for him. You have still some hard stones in your heart. Those stones must first of all be pulverized and dissolved. Now if this son of yours were standing here, and you were to stretch out your arms to him and say, 'My child!' then you would be cured, then you might very well say, 'I am no longer sick.'"

"And shall I not see my child till then?" wailed Széphalmi.

"Sir, you are very exacting."

"Ask of me what you will, I place all my property at your disposal. If you will not bring my child hither, at least take me where I may see her. You need not tell her I am her father, I only want to exchange a word or two with her. Whatever price you may put on such a service I shall not consider it too great."

"Sir, I am no impostor who wants to make money out of you. The only recompense I claim for restoring to you your lost child is that you welcome back the youth who was driven from this home. I have odd desires sometimes, but I stick to them."

The young man shrugged his shoulders, refolded the little pearl-trimmed cap, thrust it into his bosom again, and coldly replied:

"And if we cannot save this young man?"

"Then I shall keep my secret and you will never know where the girl is."

Old Hétfalusy sighed deeply.

"Bring me pen and paper," said he to his son-in-law.

The latter looked at him as if he did not understand.

The old man insisted impatiently.

"Place the table here and give me writing-materials, I say."

When he had got what he wanted he beckoned to the stranger.

"Listen, sir, to what I write," said he. Then he arose from his bed, took up the pen, and wrote with a trembling hand the following letter:

"To General Vértessy,

"Sir,—By a divine miracle I have recovered within the last hour my power of speech, and the use of my fingers. The very first word I am able to speak and to write I address to you who have such good cause to hate me, and that word is—mercy! I ask of you mercy towards that son of mine to whom I myself have never shown mercy. I ask for mercy from you who in your judicial capacity have never shown mercy to anyone. You know full well that all the faults of this child of mine are due entirely to me. You know that my cruelty has made life a wilderness to him and filled him with cynical bitterness—he who was always so tender-hearted that even an angry look was pain to him. Behold, sir! the one man who could venture to insult you with impunity now lies in the dust before you, and begs for your compassion. And in order that such compassion may not appear as rust on your iron character, show this letter to the world and say: 'My mortal enemy has wept before me in the dust in order that I might condescend to stoop down and raise him up.' Your humbled, eternally faithful servant,

"Benjamin Hétfalusy."

"Would you look at this letter, sir?" asked the old man, turning towards the stranger—and there were tears in his eyes.

"I thank you," faltered the stranger, and he himself hastened to fold up the letter and seal it.

"Széphalmi will deliver it."

"Nay, sir, I will see to that myself."

"You will? But who, then, are you?"

"That I will tell you—perhaps—some day."

The old man took the youth's hand in both his, and pressing them warmly, said in a voice that trembled with emotion:

"God help you!"

At that moment Dr. Sarkantyús peeped in at the door, and was amazed to see the old man talking and writing the address on a letter with his own right hand, while his whole countenance was warm with feeling. This magnetic cure was truly marvellous.

He approached the youth and, bowing respectfully, remarked,

"Mossoo! vooz ate oon anshantoor!"

"Possibly, but why should we not speak Hungarian?" replied the other smiling.

"Then you are not French?" asked the dumfounded doctor.

"Why should I be? It does not follow because a person may have just come from France that therefore he is a Frenchman, does it?"

"All the better pleased, I am sure, my dear colleague!"—and then it suddenly occurred to him that only a short time ago he had said to him in Hungarian: "The Devil may be your colleague, I'm not!"

"All you have to do now is to give the patient tonics; that won't interfere with my cure. I shall come back again in a few days, and by that time I hope he will be quite strong. Till then, let us trust in God!"

The young unknown then hastened to his carriage, Széphalmi accompanying him the whole way.

Everyone who had recently seen the old man apparently on the verge of the grave, and now beheld him completely changed, going about with a lively irritable temper and rosy cheeks, were amazed at this wonder-doctor who could perform cures by the mere touch of his finger-tips.

"He must be a magician!" said they.

The unknown next presented himself at the residence of General Vértessy.

They told him this was not the official hour for being received; at such times the General was wont to be with his wife. He replied:

"So much the better; what I have to tell him will be better told in the presence of his wife."

The General was informed of this odd wish, and took to the idea so kindly that he ordered the young man to be instantly admitted.

And, in a few moments, a handsome, courtly youth stood before him, who greeted the General frankly and the General's wife ceremoniously. In his hands he carried a small forage-cap with a border of thin gold thread round it, and his whole style and bearing testified to the fact that, somewhere or other, he had been brought up as a soldier.

"I beg your pardon, General, for disturbing you so unconscionably, and robbing you of your most precious moments, but the business on which I have come admits of no delay. My name is Count Kamienszky, I come from Poland, and I bring a petition in favour of young Hétfalusy, who deserted in the belief that he had shot his captain."

The General's face grew suddenly cold. He had become a cast-iron statue, just as he was wont to be when on parade.

"From whom is your petition?"

"From the very officer for whom his bullet was intended. That bullet did not strike home, but stuck fast in his laced jacket; yet it was well aimed too at thirty paces, just in the middle of the heart."

"And what does the officer want?"

"Pardon for the deserter. He admits that he was in the wrong. He insulted a woman—I speak with absolute certainty, for I am that woman's relation—and he would now make good his fault by imploring pardon for the man who stood forth to wipe out that insult."

"To implore pardon is not enough. What can he say in the man's defence?"

"He certifies that the youth was a pattern of soldierly honour, valour, and discipline, that his comrades idolized him, his superiors liked him, and they now unanimously unite in this petition for his pardon. I have brought letters with me to prove all that I say; be so good as to peruse them!"

The General took the letters and read them through. He discovered more than one old comrade, more than one dear friend among the names written there. The young man had spoken the truth. But what was the use of it all. The claims of duty only became the more urgent.

"Sir," said the General coldly, folding up the letters again and placing them on the table, "I gather from your manner and bearing that you were brought up as a soldier."

"You are right, General. I passed the years of my childhood at a military institution, and a little time ago I was a soldier myself."

"In that case you must have some notion of the absolute necessity of the strictest discipline so long as the soldier is under arms."

"I am well aware of it, and it was not that which made me abandon a military career. If he whom I am now addressing were to say to me, 'I stand here as a judge,' I should simply withdraw, knowing that my cause was lost. But, sir, I am now addressing the man that is in you, a man with a heart, a being blessed with human feeling, 'tis to him that I would speak."

And the large black eyes of the stranger had such a heart-searching expression in them that the General turned away from him.

Then, as if still in search of hope and confidence, the youth glanced in the direction of the General's wife, and her bright eyes gave him in return such a look of encouragement, as if to bid him not to fear, for they two were certainly at one in the matter.

But now the General turned sharply round upon the stranger again.

"Do you know what I am commonly called, whether from fear, or fun, or respect, I will not say, that is all one to me, but do you know what they commonly call me?"

"Yes, they call you 'the man of iron,' yet even iron melts in a smelting-furnace."

"Do you fancy there in such a smelting-furnace in the world?"

"I hope so. I have got one more letter for you. I ought to have given it to you first of all, but I have kept it till last. The handwriting will be familiar to you. Take it and read it through."

The General was dumfounded when he recognised the handwriting in which the address was written. The hand which had penned those lines had been somewhat tremulous, that was plain from the irregularity of the script, but he recognised it perfectly all the same.

As he regarded it he grew a shade paler.

He opened the letter, and his eyes remained riveted on the very first line as if he were too astonished to proceed any further.

"Read on, General, I beg. Read it out aloud," murmured the youth; "we shall see whether the iron will melt or not."

The General stared stiffly for a time at the young man, then he read the letter through in silence, finally refolding it and thrusting it into his breast-pocket.

Then he turned to the window, and remained for a long time in a brown study.

Suddenly he turned once more towards the youth and said:

"Sir, devise some means whereby I may save this man. Find, I say, some way or mode of salvation compatible with soldierly honour, and I will pursue it."

The youth, surprised, overcome, rushed towards the General, seized his muscular hand, and would certainly have kissed it had not the General drawn it back.

Vértessy was very near losing his composure.

"Stay here!" said he. "There you have," pointing at Cornelia, "a confederate who would also take the stronghold by assault. Deliberate together, and devise some expedient. I leave you to yourselves."

And with that he quitted the room, leaving the young man alone with his wife.

And when he had gone, when the door had closed to behind him, the figure of the strange youth lost its soldierly bearing, and his limbs with a painful spasm subsided into that picturesque pose in which artists generally represent Niobe, or the Daughters of Sion mourning by the willows of Babylon. Every trace of energy and vigour vanished from his face, his eyelids closed over his tearful eyes, and his lips parted with an expression of the deepest emotion. Once more he raised his languishing head to show his strength of mind, but the effort was useless. In the presence of a woman such affectation was no longer possible, and when his eyes met those of Cornelia, he suddenly burst into tears, fell sobbing on his knees before her, seized her hand, pressed it convulsively to his breast, and trembling and gasping, said to her in a voice full of agony:

"Oh, madame, by the tender mercies of God, I implore you to help me and not forsake me."

Cornelia regarded him with wondering eyes, her shrewd intellect had already deciphered the enigma, but her eyes still looked doubtful.

"Who are you?" she asked.

The stranger covered his blushing face with both hands and sobbed forth:

"A woman, an unhappy woman, who loves, who is beside herself, who is ready to die for him she loves."

CHAPTER IX.

Has anyone ever inquired of her: Oh, my sovereign mistress! thou good and blessed Earth! art thou pleased with the deeds we do upon thee? Can it please thee, perchance, to see us root up thy beauteous fresh woods from off thee, leaving thy tormented body all naked in the blaze of the Sun? Can it please thee to see us constrain thy flowing rivers within narrow basins, dry up thy lakes and leave thee athirst? Can it please thee to see us tear open thy body, break it up into little fragments, and compel these fragments to produce meat and drink for us? Can it please thee to see us drench thy flowery meads with blood and hide away the bones of our dead in thy bosom? Can it please thee that we live upon thee here, and bless and curse thee that thou mayest nourish us, and rack our brains as to how we may best multiply our species in those portions of the earth where men are still but few?

Nevertheless, the Earth patiently endures all this ill-treatment. Only now and then does she tremble with a fleeting horror, and then the palaces heaped upon her totter to their very foundations. Yet are there any among us who understand the hint?

And then for centuries afterwards she gives not a single sign of life. She puts up with her naughty children as every good mother does. She overlooks and hides away their faults and endures in their stead the visitations of Heaven. She is never angry with them, she never punishes them. She cherishes and nourishes them, and expects no gratitude in return. She only pines and pines, she only frets within herself, she only grieves and is anxious about the fate of her children, her selfish, heartless children: grief and anguish, the nastiness and the wickedness of man slowly undermine her strength and suddenly the Earth sickens.

Oh! how man falls down and perishes when the earth is sick!—like the parasitical aphis-grub from the jaundiced leaves!

New sorts of death for which there is no name appear in the midst of the terrified peoples, and a breath of air carries off the bravest and the strongest. In vain they shut themselves up within stone walls, anoint their bodies with salutary balms, and hold their very breath. Death invisible stalks through the fast-closed doors and seeks out them that fear him. No vitiated air, no contagion is necessary; men have but to hear the name of this strange death and they tremble and die.

This is no mere mortal malady, the Earth, the Earth herself is sick.

And how comical too this terror is!

I remember those times. I was only a child then, I fancy, and the general terror affected me but little; nay, the novelty of the situation rather diverted me. We were not allowed to go to school, we had a vacation for an indefinite period at which I was much delighted I must confess. Our towns were separated from each other by military cordons, and all strangers passing to and fro were rigorously examined. My good father, whose gentle, serious face is one of my most pleasant memories, buckled on his silver-hilted sword and went off himself to mount guard somewhere. I had greater confidence in that sword than in the whole English navy. My blessed, thoughtful, mother hung round each of our necks little bags with large bits of camphor in them, in the beneficial effects of which we believed absolutely, and strictly forbade us to eat melons and peaches. And we were good dutiful children and strictly obeyed her commands. And yet in that very year, just as if Nature had resolved to be satirical at our expense, our gardens and orchards overflowed with an abundance of magnificent fruit. And there we allowed them all to rot. We had a doctor in those days, a fine old fellow, who, when the danger was at its height, went fearlessly from house to house. He had white hair, rosy cheeks, and a slim, erect figure, and was always cracking jokes with us. He used to say: "No funk, no risk of Death!" and would pick up the beautiful golden melons before our eyes and eat them with the best appetite in the world, and he took no harm from them, for he feared no danger. You had only to live regularly and trust in God, he used to say. He would laugh when we asked him: "Is it true that the air is full of tiny scarce visible insects, the inhaling of which brings about the disease?" "If you believe in these insects you had better keep your mouths shut lest they fly into them while you are talking," he would say. And subsequently when we heard the drowsy monotonous tolling of the bells and the funeral dirges sung day after day, morning and evening, beneath our windows, and saw orphans following in the track of the lumbering corpse-carts; when they told us that everyone in the neighbouring houses had died off in two days, and we saw all the windows of the house opposite fast-closed, and not a soul looking through them; at such a time it was good to fold one's hands in prayer and reflect that we were still all together, and that not one of us had been taken away, but God had preserved us from all calamity. Our hope was weak, for there was no foundation for it to build upon, but our faith was strong and all-sufficing.

Such is the sole impression I have retained of that memorable year.

Ah! elsewhere that same year was not content with embroidering its mourning robe with mere tears, it used blood also, and taught the land a twofold lesson at a heavy cost.

The circular letters issued by the county authorities flew from village to village, informing the local sages of the approaching peril of which even the well-formed knew no more than they had known ten years before, no more than they actually know now.

The local sages, that is to say the justices and the schoolmasters, were directed to explain to the ignorant people the contents of these circular letters.

Explain indeed! Men whose own knowledge was of the most elementary description, men who looked for supernatural causes in the most natural phenomena, were to explain what was still a profound mystery to the collective wisdom of the world!

Mr. Kordé, whom we remember as one of the two schoolmasters of Hétfalu, accordingly, by dint of bellowing, gathered all his subjects around him. It was the day before breaking up for the holidays, and drawing from his pocket the folded and corded vellum document, he gave them to understand that he was going to explain it to them. They, in their turn, were to explain it when they got home to their dear parents.

"Blockheads!" this was his usual mode of addressing his jeunesse dorée—"blockheads! you see here before you the letter patent of His Honour, the magistrate, signifying that all the schools are to be shut up, and the whole village is to be on the alert, inasmuch as a terrible disease, called the 'morbus,' is about to enter the kingdom. When the morbus lays hold of anybody the individual in question has not even time to look over his shoulder, but falls down dead on the spot. Down he drops, and there he stays.

"The morbus begins in this way. The gall overflows into the vital essences, and becomes gall-fever or cholera, consequently take care you don't aggravate me.

"Moreover, the morbus in question is to be found inside this year's melons, apricots, and all sorts of fruit; so every man jack of you who doesn't want to be a dead 'un mustn't go guzzling berries and such like."

Here a couple of Scythians from the northern counties began squabbling loudly on the back benches.

"Hie, there, you blockhead! Mike Turlyik, I know it is you—what was I talking about?"

"You was saying that—that—that—no more apricots were to be sneaked from his reverence's garden."

"Come out here, my son, wilt thou? I've a word to say in thine ear!"

And he leathered the unfortunate Mike soundly. Yet the lad after all had reasoned not illogically, for he had started from the assumption that the prohibition in question had been inserted in the letter patent for the express purpose of scaring the people away from the priest's orchard, his reverence being the only man in the village who cultivated fruit-trees.

"And now let us return to the matter in hand. Listen now, you addlepates!

"Bathing, too, is very dangerous just now, and, in fact, every sort of washing with cold water, for thereby the vital essence within a man is easily upset. On the other hand, brandy-drinking is very wholesome, for thereby the volume of spiritual essence in man is at any rate increased. Work on an empty stomach is also dangerous, as also are too much reflection and brain-racking. On the other hand the eating of roast meat and as little walking about in the sun as possible are very profitable."

This passage delighted the addlepates immensely.

"Inasmuch, however, as it is quite possible that a man from a neighbouring village might easily convey to us in his jacket or knapsack this morbus, which, by the way, is as catching as sheep-ticks; therefore it is ordered that nobody is to quit his own village, either by cart or on foot, and no stranger is to be admitted from without. Should anyone require, however, to pass through the district, he must first of all be locked securely in a cowshed beyond the limits of the village, and there his clothes must be well smoked ('fumigated' they call it), and he himself well doused in a ducking-tub, and if he has any coin about him it must be rubbed with ashes, which life-imperilling occupation will be duly attended to by the local gipsies."

After a pause, Mr. Kordé resumed his learned instructions as follows:

"If, nevertheless, anyone, despite these wise regulations, should catch the morbus, there is only one antidote, the name whereof is Vismuthum. Vismuthum, vismuthi, neuter gender, second declension. In Hungarian viszmuta, in Slovak vismuthium, in English bismuth."

At this point the worthy preceptor was overcome by a violent fit of coughing, for he was now bound by his directions to explain the properties of this mysterious substance whose name he himself had just that moment learnt for the first time from his letter patent.

"Well, now! listen all of you, for I shall examine you presently upon all that I have been telling you. Vismuthum is a powder, or rather a fluid, or perhaps 'twere better to say a powder of a—a quite indefinable colour. It is prepared in all sorts of ways, and has no particular odour, and in substance much resembles piskotum.2 Everyone who partakes of it instantly becomes quite well again. First of all it is to be taken in a coffee spoon (his reverence will supply the spoon gratis), and then, if that has no effect, in a tablespoon. If that also has no effect, then two tablespoons must be taken, and so on in increasing doses, until the morbus leaves the patient altogether. It is to be had in the apothecary's shop at Kassa, so whoever does not go and get some has only himself to blame if he dies. Poor men will receive it gratis from Dr. Sarkantyús, and those who won't take it willingly will have it crammed down their throats by force, and it will be also sprinkled in all the wells of drinking water that the people may get some of it that way. It will therefore be much better to make the acquaintance of vismuthum in a friendly manner, than go to the devil one way or other for not taking it."