The besieged had to economize their shots, for they had only four charges left. Their means of defence had to be reserved till the very last instant, they could not afford to simply destroy the first stupid bumpkin who might happen to come in their way.

The fear of death no longer terrified the besiegers. Several times Maria held the barrel of her pistol close to the temples of the peasant who was busy with the iron fastenings of the window, and he did not so much as move his head. Many of the howling mob were so drunk that they no longer knew what fear was. They thrust their hands through the glass to open the window sashes, and Maria sliced away with her sword at the intruding hands, and a few minutes afterwards the same bloody hands would re-appear with stunted fingers. Wounds no longer hurt them.

The time had come when the besieged could count the minutes which they had still to live, the blows given and received were like so much money paid for life, whosoever stock failed first would be utterly ruined.

Maria was able to defend the window longer than Imré could defend the door, one of whose panels was suddenly burst in with a loud crash, opening a breach to the besiegers outside, whose sudden rush to the gap made it impossible for the youth, despite the most frantic efforts, to defend the crazy door much longer.

Maria heard Imré's cry of despair, and, forgetting the same instant her own danger, quitted the window, and sped to the help of her beloved.

For a few moments the besiegers made a frantic effort to force their way through the door, but at length the two swords, swift as lightning flashes, beat down the brutal preponderance of the mob. The two defenders held their places, held them, at any rate, till the besiegers should stream through the window or shoot them down from behind.

Either of these eventualities might be expected at any moment.

"Keep your shots to the very last," whispered Maria to Imré. "Reserve one of them for the enemy, and the other for me. I must not fall into their hands alive."

Nevertheless, there was an unaccountable tardiness among the besiegers of the window, and the assailants of the door also began thinning down, and everyone noticed with surprise that the deafening din had abated, and a momentary suspension of hostilities had taken place.

"Our rescuers are at hand!" cried Maria, and the same instant they could hear the sound of rolling drums drawing nearer and nearer to the castle.

The rebels had quitted the besieged window and were scampering towards the gate.

The last beat of the drum indicated that the soldiers had arrived in front of the castle.

There were only five-and-twenty, most of them young fellows, mere lads, and opposed to them stood a savage multitude, armed with all sorts of hastily appropriated weapons, and with bloodthirstiness enough for a whole army.

The young officer in command stood at the head of his little company, and when he saw the headless, savage mob surging all around him, he exhorted them, in a bold, manly voice, to return to their homes, respect the laws, and give up their captives and their ringleaders.

Shaggy Hanák took it upon himself to respond to this invitation:

"We will not return to our homes," he shouted, "so long as a single castle in the kingdom is still standing. We will make whatever laws we like. We will give up the captive gentry when they are stone dead, and as for our ringleader you may have him if you can catch him."

To still further emphasize his words, shaggy Hanák whirled his knobby bludgeon above his head, and shied it frantically at the officer, who warded off the blow with his sword, and the same instant a young private transfixed the braggart so vigorously that the end of his bayonet stuck in the ground behind.

This unexpected scene served as a signal for the little band of soldiers, and they there and then fired into the thickest of the crowd.

And with that the whole horrible tragedy came to an end.

A single volley dispersed the whole ragged host. The corpses remained on the ground naturally, but all the rest fled without another word, fled incontinently over pillar and post, rushed straight home, hid themselves away, put on their simplest air, washed the blood from their hands, and held their tongues.

The rescued welcomed their deliverers with open arms. But another quarter of an hour and very sorry remnants of them would have been found at Hétfalu.

Meanwhile, out came Dr. Sarkantyús, and a very great pother he made, insisting that the whole company should instantly hasten back to town, as if they remained there the pale death would speedily overtake them, and it would therefore boot them little to have escaped from the red death. And indeed the plague was raging fearfully in that district, and dying wretches were writhing convulsively in the streets outside. He himself must remain on the spot. He was bound by his official duties to visit the very houses of these persons who, half an hour ago, had combined to torture him, and whose families were now themselves suffering torments in the grip of this unknown disease. Nevertheless, he required the escort of two armed men, for, as he jocosely observed, "The Deuce is in it when patients would compel the doctor to drink his own drugs."

Hétfalusy had the felicity of embracing his long-lost grandchild before he died. The child accepted him as her grandpapa, but begged that she might have as her dear papa besides, good old Zudár, who had loved her so much.

Hétfalusy nodded his consent, and pressed the coarse palm of the headsman with his own gentlemanly hand. Nobody told the child that she had a perfect right to call Zudár her father, inasmuch as her real father, who had cast her from him, now lay frightfully disfigured in a grave he had dug with his own hand.

Hétfalusy indeed never mentioned the name of his son-in-law again.

Then they laid him in the carriage already prepared for him, and little Elise sat beside him and nursed his head in her lap. Oh, by this time, she was very well used to nursing old people.

Maria and Imré accompanied the carriage on foot all the way to town. Yet, once again, they were forced to fight their way through armed bands of rebels, but after that they reached the town peaceably enough.

The General had given orders that Hétfalusy should be conducted straight to his house as soon as the old man arrived.

Boundless was the joy of the worthy General to welcome in his home as a guest the man who, once upon a time, had been his mortal foe.

Now indeed they could pardon each other everything.

Hétfalusy knew, at last, why the General had abandoned his girl so suddenly, and how could the iron man help forgiving him who had sinned greatly against him it is true, but, at the same time, had suffered so terribly for it.

It was only mental excitement which still kept the life in the old man's shattered body. He survived for another six months. His bodily wounds healed but slowly, and still more slowly the wounds of the spirit. He saw his only son happy in the love of the noblest, the rarest of women; he saw his little grandchild growing up full of beauty, wisdom, and amiability; and it did him good to rejoice in the domestic happiness of his former enemy, and oftentimes he would call Cornelia his darling daughter. And she was worthy of the name.

A beneficent stroke of apoplexy called him home to his dead in the family vault at Hétfalu.

Imré remained no longer in those parts. He settled down on his wife's property with little Elise, and left for ever the place which had such melancholy associations for him.

And Peter Zudár went with them. He pursued no more his grim profession. After that last master-stroke of his, he never grasped the headsman's sword again. He had wielded it for the last time at God's command, he was not going to play the part of death's scytheman any more at the bidding of man.

Close to the Kamienszki estates he rented a little plot of land where he grew flowers and melons, sported with white doves and little rabbits, and sang in the church choir every day. It never occurred to anyone that he had once been——but no matter.

And the three houses at Hétfalu were abandoned to desolation.

The gutted dwelling-house was never re-built. The castle was never re-inhabited, people avoided it as a spectre-stricken dwelling. Its windows were bricked up, its garden became a wilderness of weeds, its steps and staircases fell to pieces. Ruin wrought her work upon it.

The hut, with the moss-covered roof, endured the longest. The old night-owl, who now could scarce use her limbs, would, nevertheless, totter of an evening to the place where stood the vast family vault of the Hétfalusies, sit down there, opposite to the iron gate, and talk all sorts of nonsense to some imaginary interlocutor.

"Eh! eh! old Hétfalusy! who was right after all? Didn't I say you would be the first to go? What a little room satisfies you now! what a quiet, peaceable man you are now! You have got earth enough at last, yet you were always hungering after more while you were yet alive! You would be at rest now if I would let you alone, eh? Or are you sorry that we cannot go on with our wrangling? Well, well, if I should discover the door by which you made your exit, we will begin it all over again...."

For hours at a stretch she would pour forth these vain mad words, unanswered, unheeded. What had once been dust now lay at rest, what had once been a human spirit now abode in Heaven, there was none to answer her.

The mossy roof grew more and more ruinous, and at last one day the old night-owl had quitted her nest and was gone. Nobody mourned for her. Who takes any count of the birds of the field or the beasts of the forest!

THE END.