Well, when it came to "dear Baron," what on earth could I say? "Countess! ma déesse, it is very dark; we shall only get upset and break our legs, and how can we dance with broken legs? We shall have to cross the three Körös rivers, the bridge over one of them is sure to be crazy as usual, and in we shall plump. Then at Szalenta we shall have to pass through the deuce of a wood, full of robbers, and I shall never be able to defend you single-handed against the whole lot of them. And besides, what need is there to hurry? Early to-morrow morning, after a nice cup of tea, you have only to step into your carriage, your four bay horses will fly with us to Arad, and by the evening you will be quite ready with your toilet."

That's what I said, but you know how it always is, try and persuade a woman not to do a thing, and she'll insist on doing it all the more. She didn't want to drive her horses to death, she said, and whoever heard of wanting to rest after a short journey like that. Besides, she loved so to travel by night. What with the stars and the frogs, it was so beautiful, so romantic, and much more such stuff. But bless you, that was a mere pretext. The fact was, she had suddenly got the idea into her darling little noddle, and nothing in heaven or earth could turn her from her purpose.

Enfin, I was between two stools. I had either to go with her or remain alone in the castle. Of course I chose the former alternative, especially after she gave me permission to sit opposite to her in the coach.

I enjoyed myself splendidly, I can tell you. The Countess, by degrees, absolutely loaded me with her favours. First of all she put her handbag in my lap, to which she presently added a muff; next she hung a reticule upon my arm; finally she entrusted to me a couple of band-boxes, after that she fell asleep. I could have asked anything I liked of her, especially when the coach stumbled and she awoke in terror and began asking for all her belongings one after another, dozing off again when she was quite sure they were all there. Later on, the lady's-maid began to groan: "O Lord! how my head aches!"—whereupon I also pretended to fall asleep.

Suddenly we all started up in alarm, the coach had suddenly moved sideways, and then come to a dead stop as if it had fallen into a ditch.

My Countess also awoke and asked, stupidly, what was the matter.

The lackey leaped from the box and came to the carriage window.

"Your ladyship, I am afraid we have lost our way."

"Well, what of that?" said the Countess; "we can't stop here; there's a road in front of us, I suppose, and we are bound to arrive somewhere if we only follow it."

"Yes, but——"

"Yes, but—what do you mean? The road must lead somewhere, I suppose?"

"Saving your ladyship's presence, we are in the Szalenta wood."

"Well, the Szalenta wood is no trackless wilderness. We shall get to the end of it in a couple of hours."

"Yes, your ladyship, but the coachman is afraid."

"The coachman! What business has he to be afraid? there's nothing about that in his contract, is there?"

"He's afraid of some mischief befalling your ladyship."

"What has the coachman to do with me, I should like to know?"

Here I thought it my duty to intervene.

"Countess, ma déesse, this is no joke. This comes, you see, of nocturnal excursions. Here we are camping out in the middle of a forest, and the robbers who abound in this forest will come and take our horses, our money, and our lives. I only wish I had a revolver."

But the little demon only laughed, and, before I could prevent it, she had opened the coach door and leaped out.

"Oh! what a splendid night. How fragrant the forest is; how the glow-worms sparkle in the grass. Have you no eyes, Baron?"

Eyes, indeed! when I couldn't see three paces before me for the darkness.

"But surely I see something shining through the trees over there," she continued.

My blood grew cold within me. We were approaching some robbers' den evidently.

The coachman answered the question from his box with the voice of a man who is already being throttled.

"That, your ladyship, is the pot-house which the country people call the 'guest-detaining csárdá.'"[9]

"Guest detaining! Bravo! The very thing for us. Let's hasten thither."

I was desperate. "For God's sake, Countess, what would you do? Why, that csárdá is a notorious resort of thieves, where they would kill the whole lot of us; a regular murder-hole, whose landlord is hand in glove with all the ruffians of the district, and where numbers and numbers of people have come to an evil end."

The naughty girl only laughed at me. She told me I had read all these horrors in the story-books, and there was not a word of truth in any of them. She admitted, indeed, that if there had been another inn she would have gone to that in preference, but as this was the only one we had no choice. She then ordered the coachman to drive the horses along very gingerly, while she went before on foot to show him the way.

Every lamentation and objection was useless, we had to stumble along in the direction of that cursed csárdá, for she threatened to go alone if we were afraid to come too.

It is a fact that that naughty little fairy was afraid of nothing.

When we drew nearer to the csárdá, a merry hullabooing sort of music suddenly struck upon our ears, though all the windows were closed by shutters.

"Mon Dieu! it is absolutely full of robbers."

"You see how it is," remarked the Countess, mischievously; "we started to go to a ball, and at a ball we have arrived. No one, you see, can avoid his fate"—and thereupon, with appalling foolhardiness, she marched straight towards the door.

For a moment I really thought I should have turned tail, left her there, and made a bolt of it. But, noblesse oblige. And besides, I couldn't, for Mademoiselle Cesarine, the lady's-maid, had gripped my arm so tightly that I was powerless to release myself. The poor creature was more than half dead with fright; at any rate, she was only half alive when we followed the Countess together.

Even outside the door we could hear quite distinctly the wild dance-music and the merry uproar proceeding from a parcel of men inside; but my Countess was not a bit put out by it. Boldly she opened the door and stepped into the csárdá.

It was a large, long, dirty, whitewashed room, where in my first terror I could see about fifty men dancing about. Subsequently, when I was able to count them, there turned out to be only nine of them, including the landlord, who did not dance, and three gipsies who provided the music. But it seemed to me that five stalwart ruffians were quite enough to deal with our little party.

They were all tall fellows, who could easily hit the girders of the roof with their clenched fists, and strapping fellows too, with big, broad shoulders; their five muskets were piled up together in a corner.

Well, we were in a pretty tight place, it seemed to me. The rascals when they saw us instantly left off dancing, and seemed to be amazed at our audacity. But my Countess said to them, with a charming smile—

"Forgive me, my friends, for interrupting your pastime. We have lost our way, and as we couldn't go any further in the dark, we have come here for shelter, if you will give it to us."

At these words one of the fellows, sprucer and slimmer a good deal than the others, gave his spiral moustache an extra twirl, took off his vagabond's hat, clapped his heels together, and made my Countess a profound bow. He assured her she was not inconveniencing them in the least; on the contrary, they would be very glad of her society. "I am the master here," he added, "Józsi Fekete" (the famous robber, by the way), "at your ladyship's service. But who, then, is your ladyship?"

Before I could pull the Countess's mantilla to prevent her from blurting out who she was, she had already replied: "I am the Countess Repey, from Kérekvár."

"Then I am indeed fortunate," said the rascal. "I knew the old Count. He fired after me with a double musket on one occasion, though he did not hit me. Pray sit down, Countess."

A pleasant introduction, I must say.

The Countess sat down on a bench, the fellow beside her; me they didn't ask to take a seat at all.

"And where did your ladyship think of going on such a night?"

(I winked at her: "Don't tell him.")

"We were going to Arad, to the Casino ball."

("Adieu all our jewels," I thought.)

"Oh, then you have come here just at the nick of time. Your ladyship need not go a step further, for we are giving a ball here, if you do not despise our invitation. We have very good gipsy musicians—the Szalenta band, you know. They can play splendid csárdáses."

The rascal didn't stand on ceremony in the least, but no sooner did they begin dashing off the csárdás, than he threw his buttoned dolman half over his shoulder, and seizing the Countess round the waist, twirled her off amidst the lot of them.

Another fellow immediately hastened up to Mademoiselle Cesarine, and ravished her away in a half-fainting condition; but she had no need to think of herself, for she was passed from one hand to another so that her feet never touched the ground.

As for my Countess, she excelled herself. She danced with as much fire and vivacity as if she were sweeping over the waxed floor of the assembly rooms at Arad. Never have I seen her so amiable, so charming, as she was at that moment. I have seen Hungarian dances at other times, and have always been struck by their quaintness, but nobody ever showed me how much there was really in them as that good-for-nothing rascal showed me then.

First of all he paced majestically round with his partner, as if this were the proudest moment of his life, gazing haughtily down upon her from over his shoulder; then he would shout down the music when at its loudest—and it was pretty loud too—and emerge from the midst of the throng after his partner, she all the time swaying modestly backwards and forwards before him, like a butterfly which touches every flower but lights on none; and, indeed, I am only speaking the truth when I say that her feet never seemed to touch the earth. The fellow, foppishly enough, would keep bending towards her as if he were about to embrace her on the spot, and then would stop short, stamping with one foot and flinging back his head haughtily, alluring the enchanting little fairy hither and thither after him. Sometimes he would rush right up to her as if about to cast himself upon her bosom, and then, with a sudden twirl, would be far away from her again, and only the glances of their eyes showed that they were partners. Presently, as if in high dudgeon, he would turn away from his partner, plant himself right in front of the gipsy musicians, and prance furiously up and down before them, and after thus dancing away his anger, suddenly patter back to the Countess, and seize and whirl her round and round as if he were a hurricane and she a leaping flame.

During this spacious pastime I was constantly agonized by the thought that perhaps this mad rogue in his excitement might permit himself some unbecoming demonstration towards the Countess. The temptation you know was great. The Countess was entirely in his power, the fellow was a gallows-bird, with the noose half round his neck already; an extra misdeed or two, more or less, could do him no further harm. I was firmly resolved that if he insulted the Countess by the least familiarity, I would make a rush for the piled-up muskets, seize one of them, and shoot the villainous trifler dead. I affirm on my honour that this I was firmly resolved to do.

But there was no necessity for it. The dancers finished the three dances, the robber-chief politely conducted his partner back to her place, and respectfully kissed her hand, after thanking her heartily for her kindness; and with that he approached me, and amicably tapping me on the shoulder, inquired—

"Well, old chap, can't you dance?"

Fancy calling me old chap.

"Thank you," I said, "I cannot."

"More's the pity;" and back he went to the Countess.

"I beg your ladyship's pardon," he began, "for not being sufficiently prepared for the reception of such distinguished guests, but I hope you will indulgently accept what we have to offer you; it is not much, but it is good."

So he meant to give us not only the ball, but the supper after it.

And a splendid banquet it was, I must say. A large caldron full of stewed calf's flesh was produced, put upon the long table, and we all took our places round it. Of plates and dishes there was no trace. Every one used his own claws, by which I mean to say that, with a hunk of bread in one hand, and a clasp-knife in the other, we fished up our marrow-bones from the caldron itself.

As for my Countess, she fell to as if she had been starving for three days. The robber-chief fished up for her, with his brass-studded clasp-knife, the reddest morsels of flesh (they literally swam in pepper), and piled them up on her white roll. It was something splendid, I can tell you.

Suddenly it occurred to the rascal that I was not eating.

"Fall to, old chap," said he. "Stolen goods make the fattest dishes, you know."

Nice company, eh?

"Thank you, I can't eat it; it is too much peppered," I said.

"All right; so much the more for us."

The wine, naturally, was sent round in the flask; not a glass was to be seen. Józsi Fekete, as is the way with boors, first drank from the flask himself, and then, having wiped the mouth of it with his wide shirt-sleeve, presented it to the Countess. And, bless my heart, she took it, and drank out of it. An amazing woman, really!

Then the flippant rogue turned to me, and offered me a drink.

"Come, drink away, old chap," he said (why always harp upon my grey hairs), "for of course you are going to make a night of it."

"Thank you, I cannot drink. I'm a teetotaler," I said.

I was now thoroughly convinced that they were going to drink themselves mad drunk preparatory to knocking our brains out. And, indeed, they did drink a cask of wine between the five of them, yet when they rose from the table not one of them so much as staggered.

While they were treating the gipsies, the robber-chief approached me again.

"Well, old chap" (devil take him with his old chap!), "so you neither eat, nor drink, nor dance, eh? How, then, do you amuse yourself? Do you play cards?"

And with that he produced a pack from his pocket. So he wanted to find out how much money I had in my pocket, eh?

"I know no game at cards."

"Well, I'll pretty soon teach you one. It is quite easy. Look, now! I put one card here and another card there. You lay upon this, and I lay upon that, and whichever of us draws a court card of the corresponding suit takes the stake."

The rascal was actually teaching me Landsknecht, and I was obliged to pretend to learn from him.

What could I do? I was obliged to sit down and play with him. I had in my pocket a lot of coppers. I thought I might as well risk them, so I put them on the table.

"What! We don't play for browns here! We are not bumpkins. Here's the bank!" and with that he flung upon the table a whole heap of silver florins and gold ducats.

I also had a few small silver coins in my purse, and, with much fear and trembling, I placed one of them on the first card. He dealt out, and I won the stake. The rascal paid up. Not for the world would I have taken up the money, I left it where it was. A second and a third time I won. Again I did not gather my stakes. The fourth, fifth, sixth time, every time, in fact, fortune smiled on me. I began to perspire. It is a frightful situation when a man plays cards with a scoundrel and wins his money continually. The seventh stake also was mine. By this time a whole army of silver coins stood before me. A cold sweat began to trickle down my temples. Why couldn't I be as lucky as this at Presburg, at the club, during the session of the Diet? Again I staked the whole lot, inwardly praying that I might lose it all. In vain, for the eighth time I won. I was a doomed man, there could be no doubt about it. The rascal smiled, and said: "Well, old chap, you cannot very well be in love with the pretty Countess, for you win at cards so shamefully." The rascal even dared to chaff me. I trembled in every limb when the ninth deal began. Yes, sure enough, again it fell to my share. The robber struck the table with his fist, and laughed aloud. "Well, old chap," he cried, "if you go on winning like this I shall lose the whole county of Bihar in an hour's time," and with that he pocketed what money remained and rose from the table. I took my courage in both hands and ventured to offer him the money I had won. The fellow looked me up and down as haughtily as a Hidalgo. "What do you take me for?" said he; "pick up your winnings at once or I'll pitch you and them out of doors." Good heavens! what was I to do with all this money? money enough to be murdered for, and I had no doubt they would beat me to death for it presently. I took it all and gave it to the gipsy musicians. And only after I had done it did I reflect what a foolish thing it was to do. For how could I more clearly have betrayed the fact that I was indeed a man of unlimited means?

The silly gipsies thereupon gathered round me and insisted upon playing me an air. What was my favourite air, they asked? I got out of it by referring them to the Countess. I told them to play her favourite air, and she would accompany it with her voice.

The Countess certainly did not require much pressing. She began to sing with her delightful siren voice—

and so sweetly, so enchantingly did she sing, that I quite forgot my surroundings and fancied I was in a private box at the Budapest casino. I actually began to applaud.

The robber-chief also applauded. And now he said he would teach the Countess his favourite song. And then the madcap rascal roared out some rustic melody which certainly I had never heard before.

"Well, old chap," he said, when he had finished, "it is now your turn to sing us something."

I was in a terrible pother. I sing? I sing in that hour of mortal anguish? I, who didn't know a single note except "Home, Sweet Home."

"I can't sing at all," I said. And that wicked, frivolous woman began laughing at me frightfully, as involuntarily I fell a-humming an air from some opera. I may mention I have a horrible hoarse sort of voice, not unlike a peacock's.

"If you won't sing," she said to me in French, "we shall all be insulted, see if we don't."

What could I do? With the dart of terror in my heart, and the pressure of mortal fear in my throat, I piped forth my "Home, Sweet Home." I felt all along I was making a woeful mess of it. Up to the middle of the song the Countess behaved with great decorum; but just as I was working my way up to the most pathetic part, and brought out a most cruel flourish, she burst out laughing, and the whole band of robbers began to laugh with her, till at last I also was obliged to smile, though, oddly enough, there was no joke in it at all, as far as I could see.

Then they fell to dancing again. The Countess was indefatigable. And so it went on till broad daylight. When the sun shone through the windows she said to the robber how obliged she was for the entertainment, but enough was as good as a feast, and would he, therefore, put to the horses and let us be off?

Well, now at last we shall all be knocked on the head straightway, I thought.

The robber went out, hunted up the coachman and the lackey, gave the necessary orders, and came back to say the carriage was awaiting us.

No doubt they meant to shoot us down on the road.

I got into the carriage far more alarmed than I was when I got out of it. It was a suspicious circumstance that he did not separate me from my companion. Evidently they intended to make sure of us and murder us all together.

The rascal himself took horse, galloped along by the side of our carriage, and conducted us to the turnpike-road, so as to put us on our way. Then he raised his cap, wished us a merry evening, and galloped back again.

Only when we came to Zerind did I venture to believe that I was alive. Only then did I begin to reproach the Countess for involving us in an adventure which might have ended miserably enough. Suppose, I said, these rascals had not been afraid of me? Why, then they might have practised all sorts of sottises upon her. And then to dance with vagabonds in a csárdá till dawn of day! Unpardonable!

All the way to Arad I was indulging myself with the hope that if I was very civil to the Countess she would not give me away by revealing the secret of this disreputable adventure. At six o'clock we reached Arad, and as we dismounted at the door of the reception-room, she told three of my acquaintances what had befallen us. Of course every one speedily knew of our misadventure. So I was not even able to tell the story my own way.

And, again, she was the loveliest woman at the ball. And she knew it, and that was one of the chief reasons why she came. It is true she did not dance a step. She excused herself by saying she was tired to death. I can well believe it. From midnight to dawn she had danced nineteen csárdáses. Why, I, who hadn't danced at all, could hardly stand on my legs.

As for me, I hastened to the card-room. Now that fortune has embraced you, hug her tight, I thought to myself. At one table they were playing Landsknecht. "Now's your time—make a plunge," I said to myself. But I had the most cursed luck. I lost a thousand florins straight off. Fortune evidently only pursues you when she sees that you are afraid of her.

Six months later I came across a newspaper in which was an account of the summary conviction and execution, by hanging, of the famous robber-chief, Józsi.

I took the newspaper to the Countess Stephen Repey, and showed it to her.

"Fancy," she said, when she had read the case through, "and such a good dancer as he was, too."

III
THE SHERIFF OF CASCHAU—A FRAGMENT OF AN OLD CHRONICLE[11]

It happened the same year that, in the place of old Tobias Kesmarki, the hundred electors of the city of Caschau, to wit, forty-five Hungarians, forty Germans, and fifteen Wends, after due deliberation and by common consent, elected as Sheriff his Honour Michael Dóronczius, as being a man of understanding and blameless life, and respected by all men.

The hundred burgesses, having so done, went forth in solemn procession, headed by their Honours the Fürmenders[12] and the Conrector, to the burial-ground outside the gates, where the whole ground was thickly strewn with straw, it being Water Cross Day,[13] when it is sore cold, and the feet of men grow numb in the very council chamber.

But it was the custom that the newly elected Sheriff should always be dug into his office in the churchyard, where humanity is least of all disturbed by official cares, nay, where, rather, the bulging tombs all around bid him remember that righteousness and good deeds alone abide upon the earth, while all else turns to dust.

Wherefore, with no accompaniment of music, the Sheriff elect and the retiring Sheriff, accompanied by the town councillors, proceed to the churchyard to perform this ceremony, standing within the gate of the churchyard, there to await the masters of the City Guilds coming with their salutations.

All of them came in procession to meet the Sheriff elect, with the badges of their respective Guilds. One by one they salute the new Sheriff, but none of them give him gifts; they do but show them to him, and then take them back again, to signify that he hath first to deserve these same gifts before he receive them.

First of all the millers approach him and exhibit to him a fine white loaf of well-winnowed wheat, and say—

"We will nourish thee with fine white loaves after this sort, if thou wilt be a faithful Sheriff unto us."

Then the vintners, who in those days were a rich and goodly Guild, address him in like manner, and exhibit to him a cask of red wine.

In like manner the weavers, the furriers, and the cobblers all allured the new Sheriff with the hope of receiving of their masterpieces, to wit, beautiful white pieces of cloth, rich cambric, shaggy furs, and bravely embroidered shoes, if so be he remain faithful to their city to the end of his term.

Last of all come the carpenters, who exhibit to the new Sheriff a brand-new waggon, to which horses are harnessed, filled with smoothly planed boards.

And when the master of the Guild of Carpenters stands before the Sheriff, he thus addresses him—

"Behold, now, we have piled up this brave heap of hornbeams that we may burn thee therewith if thou do betray us."

It was usual to say this on the occasion of the election of a Sheriff in the city of Caschau, and nobody was offended thereby. For in those sad times we were often forced to defend our cities with fire and steel against foes of three different nations, whilst as a fourth enemy we reckoned the numerous freebooters, who had turned Turks after once being Christians, and prowled in the environs of the city at night, to snap up any women and children who might fall in their way and sell them to the Turks. And our fifth enemy were the malefactors lurking in the town itself; and our sixth enemy was the terrible pestilence which so often visited our gates; while our seventh and most ancient adversary was the infernal Evil One himself, from whom Heaven in its mercy defend us. Thus in those days the Sheriff had to defend the city against seven divers sorts of enemies, and see to it that they were all kept well outside the gates, wherefore he had to sustain many sieges, guard the walls day and night, cudgel in fist, persecute evildoers, or threaten them with the terrible hárum palzarum,[14] fumigate or steep in lye all goods brought into the city by foreign chapmen, avert religious strife, frustrate the wiles of Satan, always endeavouring to judge righteous judgments, neither for the sake of lucre nor because of any interior impulse pronouncing any sentence which might call to Heaven for vengeance or make Hell applaud.

None feared lest his Honour Master Dóronczius should not prove just such a Sheriff as the town desired, for he was a man with no visible flaw, and known to be a righteous, God-fearing man, of whom nobody could say an ill word.

Wherefore, after performing the usual time-honoured ceremony in the churchyard, with great rejoicing and in solemn procession they brought back his Honour into the council chamber of the town hall, where, having set him down in a large velvet easy-chair, four aldermen, seizing the four legs of the said easy-chair, raised it aloft, to the triumphant musical accompaniment of the town trumpeters and the militia drums, while the people present shouted a threefold hurrah. Whereupon the whole town council went in solemn procession to the churches, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, and everywhere sang a Te Deum with great enthusiasm, and after listening to a sermon in Hungarian and a sermon in German, returned to the Sheriff's house to sit down to a great banquet, during which the united choirs, conducted by the precentor, sang all manner of delightful melodies, and towards evening platters of pitch were ignited on the angles of the bastions, and the howitzers also were fired off.

And the city of Caschau felt fully justified on the day of the election of its Sheriff in drinking so many barrels of wine and ditto beer with great rejoicing, because his Honour, Master Dóronczius, was quite capable of so ordering every manner of business and difficulty that nobody had the least cause for anxiety.

Nevertheless, it so happened, late in the evening of the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul (next evening), that a couple of watchmen, Wurmdrucker and Kebluska by name, to whom had been assigned the patrolling of the streets, while strolling round the large building known as the Turkish lock-up house, perceived a figure enwrapped in a black cloak come hastily out of a house, which figure, on perceiving them, suddenly crouched down under the gate as if with the intent of hiding from them.

Now, as they had had strict orders to arrest and lock up for the night in the nearest ward-house every living soul, good or bad, who should be found in the streets without a lamp after the hour for closing the gates, which was proclaimed by a blast of horns from the top of the great tower—every such soul, if a gentleman, to be fined a thaler next morning, or if a poor man, then half a thaler, or if he had nothing, then to be well trounced—the two watchmen determined to seize and stop the night wanderer thus confronting them. Wurmdrucker having a lamp made of some paper-like, compressible membrane, thereupon held it in front of him that he might see the face of the unknown person, while Kebluska stretched his halberd out against him, and cried with a loud voice, "Who's there?" in Hungarian, German, and Slavonic, that he might be able to answer in one at least of the three languages of the town.

But the person so addressed replied in no language at all, but, having a long stick in his hand, knocked the paper lamp out of Wurmdrucker's hand, so that it collapsed altogether, and would have run off then and there had not Kebluska so thrust at him with his halberd that the point thereof went right through his cloak, pinning to the door of the house the would-be fugitive, whom the two watchmen then seized, and tying his hands behind his back, urged him on before them to the ward-house hard by the Turkish prison, and there locked him up in the dark room, where they were wont to keep the ashes.

The imprisoned vagabond would not tell his name, and the watchmen, not having a lamp, could not see his face, but all along he begged and prayed them to let him go free; he would give them ever so much money for his freedom, he said.

At this the watchmen were even more afraid. They fancied they had got hold of some evil spy, and not for any amount of treasure would they have let him out of their hands till morning, hoping to get a still greater reward when they handed him over to the Sheriff. When he promised them a hundred ducats they felt sure that the Sheriff would reward them with two hundred, so in the morning they let out the prisoner in order to take him to the Sheriff, and lo! the prisoner was—the Sheriff himself.

So much for their two hundred ducats. The two watchmen were speechless with terror, they did not know what to say in their sudden amazement. Master Dóronczius said nothing to them, but hastened home, and the same day, under some plausible pretext or other, perchance on a trumped-up charge of brawling or blaspheming, seized and thrust both of them into the prison called after Pontius Pilate, where so long as Master Dóronczius remained Sheriff they might be quite certain they would remain.

Nobody, therefore, at that time knew anything of their secret, for they might just as well have been buried alive as imprisoned in the dungeon of Pontius Pilate.

In those days there lived in the city of Caschau a rich master-butcher, whom they called Stephen Sándor, who had two houses, one in the high town and the other next door to the apothecary's, which had no common thatch, but instead of a roof a cupola made of pointed tiles, like an Egyptian pyramid. In those days the whole of the principal square was built of such houses, with pointed cupolas, the quadrangular stones with which they were built being welded together with lead and iron clasps.

This rich butcher had an only son, Joseph by name, who had also been brought up to be a master-butcher, and had just given proof of his mastery, and manfully too, for he had felled his bullock at the first stroke, and thus escaped the fine of a ducat per extra stroke imposed on bunglers.

Joseph was indeed a stout, well-set-up fellow, yielding to none of his fellows in mettle; at pike-tilting he always kept in his saddle, and never failed to carry off the Shrove Tuesday goose in triumph. Withal he was an honest, diligent youth, and a regular church-goer; and when it came to psalm singing, he out-bawled the whole congregation. Moreover, every man loved and respected him, and never could it be said that he gave half an ounce less in the pound than he ought to have done.

On the day when this Joseph achieved his master-stroke, his father said to him: "Be off, my son; it is high time. Look about the town a bit, and search for a befitting consort. Look not for property or wealth, but rather for a good heart and a pure spirit. These two things every man should bring home; God will give the rest."

Then Joseph confessed to his father that he had already chosen for himself a worthy and beautiful maiden, an orphan from Eperies, Catharine by name, whose father and mother were dead, and who had put up at the house of an elder sister in the town. He would shorten the days of her orphanhood, he said.

Old Stephen Sándor also knew personally the girl, as well as her guardian elder sister; both of them were good and gentle souls; Catharine, in particular, was such a mild and modest creature that one had but to look at her to feel towards her an impulse of human tenderness.

Her only fault was her great pallor. But this trouble every foreign girl was exposed to who came to dwell at Caschau from the surrounding country or from other places, for there was something in the atmosphere of the town or its drinking water from which the fair faces of foreigners derived this pallid hue, which went by the name of the "Caschau complexion." And there was no escape from it save by quitting Caschau and going to other places, or else by taking to themselves a husband.

So the "Caschau complexion" was no great defect in Catharine's face, after all, so soon as Joseph's father had agreed that his son should take her to wife. After the marriage festivities it would vanish of its own accord, and the new wife would grow as rosy as the other pretty girls of Caschau.

So Joseph immediately sent his witnesses to the house of Catharine's elder sister, and not long afterwards rings of espousal were exchanged between them, and the wedding-day was fixed for the market-day before the festival of St. Vincent.

The wedding-day arrived, and the marriage took place with full ceremonials. The bride was fetched from her sister's house, and conveyed to the House of God in a carriage drawn by four horses, with plumes and coloured kerchiefs on the horses' heads, and thence to the house of the bridegroom through all the chief streets of the town, to the accompaniment of merry music; and every young man who saw the bride sitting in the beribboned carriage smiled and said to himself, "What a Caschau complexion she has got."

On that day Catharine was paler than usual. In the church itself her sadness, her anguish, were observed generally. Once, when her bridegroom took her hand, she burst into tears, and shrank timidly away from him. Her pallor, her timidity, her weeping, were, all of them, not unbecoming to a bride, so nobody was much struck thereby at the time.

After the dancing came the ceremonial of conducting the bride and the bridegroom to the marriage bed, when the bridesman seized Catharine's hand, while two sword-girt youths went before them, two bridesmaids following after with the bridegroom, and the musicians began to play a gentle, dreamy melody, to the music of which the two torch-bearing youths and the two bridesmaids danced round the bridegroom and the bride, as if thereby the better to enlace them together, till they came to the bedroom, and there also they danced round them once more, each man taking his and each girl her fellow's hands, and then all together they scampered out of the door, which they banged to behind them, leaving the young couple alone; but the music droned on outside ever more softly, ever more gently, at last scarce audibly, as if it would imitate the whispering of the happy pair inside.

But no sooner were the bride and the bridegroom alone in the bridal chamber than Catharine quickly plucked the bridal wreath from her head, tore it desperately to pieces, and then, opening the window looking on to the courtyard, leaped out of it.

The astonished bridegroom, in the first moment of his surprise, did not know what to do, but looking out after the girl, and perceiving that she was making straight for the well at the top of her speed, he quickly rushed after her, and caught the wench at the very moment when she was about to plunge down the well and kill herself outright.

Joseph pressed the lass tightly in his strong arms so that she could do herself no harm, and asked her anxiously what was the matter, and why she wanted to run away from him. At first the girl only sobbed, and begged him to let her die; but inasmuch as the bridegroom would by no means consent thereto, the girl confessed something to him which made the hairs of his head rise to heaven with horror; indeed, by the time the girl had told him everything, the bridegroom also had fainted, and lay there at her feet.

And within there, in the house of dancing, they were playing the dreamy melody which imitates the lisping of happy lovers, and stately maids and stalwart lads were dancing together and singing:—

The marriage came to nought. Catharine, half dead, was carried back to her sister's house, the bridal guests scattered in dismay. Nevertheless, Joseph said not a word of what Catharine had told him to any one, but mounted his horse, took a cudgel in one hand and a lance with a streamer to it in the other, and trotted off to the Sheriff's house. There, without leaving the saddle, he rattled at the gate with the point of the lance, and cried aloud in the hearing of all the people—

"Hearken, Michael Dóronczius! Here am I, Joseph Sándor, sitting on horseback, with lance and cudgel in my hands. Mount thy horse also, if thou be a man; take thy lance and thy cudgel and come out with me in the open, there to fight together; thou knowest wherefore, but tell it to none. Let God judge betwixt us."

It was an unheard-of audacity for a simple burgess to challenge the town Sheriff himself to a tilting duel with cudgels and lances. The people listened in amazement, but still more amazed were they when Master Dóronczius not only did not prosecute the audacious youth, but told the watchmen to let him go in peace, as he must certainly be out of his wits.

But Joseph Sándor, when Dóronczius would not come out of his house to fight with him in God's name, took a bladder lantern, hung it on the point of his lance, hung beside it a ragged sheep-skin jacket and a pair of hose, and throwing the lance over his shoulder, galloped through the town, exclaiming at every street corner—

"Hearken ye! old and young. Which of you hath seen this Michael Dóronczius, whom I am seeking with a lantern? Tell me, who hath seen him? What hath become of him?"

And in every crowd there is never any lack of merry roysterers ready to give mocking answers to such scornful questions.

"I have seen him. He is hiding just now in a mouse-hole, only his spur is visible."

"I have seen him. He is dressed up in his wife's clothes; he is selling bacon in the market-place among the huckster wenches."

"Never mind, Joe," cried another, "he is sitting behind the stove. He would freeze up if he came out."

"Nay, he would like to come," cried the fourth, "only his mother won't let him. She wants him to skein her thread for her."

"He'll come immediately," said a fifth, "only he's looking for his lance; the fowls are sitting on it, and he durst not drive them away for fear the cock might peck him."

"Let him alone," cried a sixth, "he's lying sick; a gnat bit him yesterday."

And thus the heckling went from street to street, being the usual mode, after the custom of those times, of shaming a backward combatant into action. And, indeed, it was surprising that Michael Dóronczius did not come forward to fight with the youth who jeered at him so, nor even sent to arrest him, inasmuch as he was quite able to do both, being both a strong muscular man and, at the same time, chief magistrate of the city. But, instead of doing either the one or the other, he said that they were to let young Sándor depart in peace wherever he liked to go.

Nevertheless, later on, when the first intoxication of rage had evaporated from the head of Joseph, he bethought him that, after so much heckling on his part, it was not perhaps very advisable for him to remain in the near neighbourhood of so powerful an enemy, and accordingly one night he privily escaped from the town, and not even his father knew whither he had gone.

Meanwhile time went on, and Catharine grew paler and paler, and no medicine had power to help her. And suddenly the whole miserable mystery was revealed.

On the night before Ascension Day, just after the blowing of the two-o'clock horn, a watchman perceived a woman's shape, wrapped in a long cloak, hastening stealthily along the walls in the direction of the city trench. The watchman followed in the traces of this figure, and saw how this servant-wench—for such he judged her to be—on reaching the trenches, placed on the ground something wrapped up in a bundle, and then produced a spade and began to dig.

When she had scooped out a good deep hole, she knelt down beside the wrapped-up object, and, covering her face with her hands, began to weep bitterly. Then she suddenly left off weeping, and looked timidly round to see if any one was near.

Then the night watchman went up to her and seized her hand, and bawled loudly in her ear, "What art thou doing there?"

The girl immediately fell back and fainted without answering him, but the object lying open there before him plainly told him what was being done. It was a little new-born baby, a pretty little chubby-faced child; but dead and stiff.

There was no wound upon it, but only a little pin-prick just over the region of the heart, nor was there any blood on its little white shift, save only a single drop, but that had been enough to make the innocent creature die.

At the cry of the night watchman, many people came running up, and they were horrified to recognize in the murderess and mother of the child, Catharine, the former bride of Joseph Sándor, who must certainly have run away from her bridegroom's house on the night of the marriage because she would not practise a vile deception on that worthy man.

They immediately tied the girl's hands behind her, and fastening the baby to her neck, put her in the lock-up, and there the inquiry began early the next morning.

The girl denied nothing. She had killed her child and would have buried it to conceal her shame. She made no excuses, she did not even weep or beg for mercy. The one thing they could not get out of her was: who was the child's father? On this point she remained doggedly silent, and was ready to suffer threefold torture rather than speak.

The Sheriff, Michael Dóronczius, was the presiding judge who pronounced sentence upon the criminal. For her great sin against God, he said, she was to endure the punishment prescribed for such offences in the statute-book of the town, without any mitigation.

Within living memory no such crime had been committed in our town, so that not even the people themselves knew what form the execution would take, therefore an enormous multitude assembled on the appointed day at the place of execution to see what manner of death she who had murdered her child was to die.

I also was there, and I shall never forget the spectacle, but I would not go to such a sight again if they were to promise me the best part of the town of Caschau for it.

Beneath the scaffold a long trench had been dug about four feet in depth, and beside it stood the executioner's two apprentices.

In this trench Catharine was laid backwards, so that her head alone emerged above it; it was just as if she were lying comfortably in bed.

Then they bound her hands and feet tightly to stout pegs at the bottom of the trench, and the executioner placed the point of a large stake just above Catharine's heart, and held it there while the executioner's assistants filled the whole trench with earth, so that at last only the girl's head was visible above it.

And when nothing more was to be seen but her head, with its pale face, the chaplain approached her, and, kneeling down beside her, urged her for the sake of the salvation of her soul and for the remission of her sins to confess herself truly to him and tell him everything which might relieve her heart of its heavy burden—for had she not two feet in the grave already.

The head visible above the earth looked sorrowfully around it in every direction twice or thrice, as if it were waiting for some one, as if it believed that at that consummate moment some one would appear to save it, and when, after all, it saw no deliverer approaching, two heavy tears dropped from its eyes and, trickling down its pale face, fell upon the earth which now reached to its very chin. Then she, who was thus buried before she was dead, whispered that she would confess everything, and not in secret, but so that the whole world should hear it.

And she began by saying that the father of the child whose young life she had so mercilessly extinguished was none other than Michael Dóronczius, the Sheriff.

It was he who had deceived the heart of the innocent girl by his devilish artifices, so that when she heard and saw him she forgot everything else. 'Twas he who, protected by the Prince of Darkness, came to Catharine's house at night, who corrupted her with devilish potions, and utterly turned her head. Once, too, he had been caught there by the watchmen, Wurmdrucker and Kebluska, whom Dóronczius, in order that they might not say anything against him, had thrown into the Pontius Pilate dungeon, where they were still languishing. For this cause Catharine had escaped by night from her bridegroom, Joseph Sándor, and after that had oftentimes implored Michael Dóronczius not to drive her to despair, but as he had made her unhappy, at least to take her to wife, especially as up to that time she had always loved him greatly. But Dóronczius always made excuses; and when it was no longer possible to conceal her shame, he had counselled Catharine, with devilish insinuations, to kill and bury her child as soon as it was born. And when they had caught the girl in the deed her destroyer had assured her that, if only she would not betray him, he would save her at the very last moment. And now the very last moment had come, but Dóronczius was hugging himself at home with the thought that the only witness of his evil deed was about to be put to silence for ever. So now, therefore, his offence was revealed, and let God judge him and let God judge her also, poor sinful girl that she was.

Every one heard these words with horror, and there was not one who did not weep for the poor downtrodden girl and curse the man who had ruined her.

And then the clergyman gave her spiritual consolation, and, having commended her poor oppressed soul to the infinite mercy of God, he covered her head with a handkerchief so that she might not see the things which were to happen next.

For the headsman now drew forth the stake, which indicated the exact place of the buried girl's heart through the intervening earth, and taking a long, red-hot iron peg from a brazier of burning coals, let it down through the place where the wooden stake had been. Then one of the executioner's assistants seized a sledge-hammer with both hands and drove the red-hot iron peg home, while the other quickly covered the girl's head with a heap of earth. But even through the earth could be heard a heart-rending scream, and the whole earthy tomb heaved up twice or thrice in a manner horrible to behold, till the other apprentices of the executioner had cast a great mound of earth over it and stamped it well down with their feet, after which the grave remained quiet, not a sound now came from it, and the earth ceased to move.

Thereupon the crowd, loudly cursing, set off for the house of Michael Dóronczius, whom they would no doubt have torn to pieces on the spot had not the Fürmenders taken him under their protection.

Meanwhile it became the duty of the Syndics to bring an action against him for fraud, sorcery, and murder. At first Dóronczius obstinately denied everything, but when Wurmdrucker and Kebluska, who were released from their dungeon, testified against him, and said they had seized him on the night when he had quitted Catharine's house, he began to perceive that things were going badly with him, and, by way of saving his own skin, devised an evil plan and sent a secret message to the Walloon captain encamped at Eperies, that if he would come to Caschau by night hard by the gate of the Green Springs, he might perchance find it open and so obtain possession of the whole town.

But the Almighty put to nought this vile device, inasmuch as Joseph Sándor, who had quitted the town because of the Sheriff, and entered the army of Prince John Sigismund, and there worked his way up to the rank of captain, having heard through spies of the intentions of the Walloon captain, galloped at breakneck pace all the way from Tokai to Caschau with five hundred heydukes, and arrived just as the Walloons were pressing through the gate into the town.

A fierce and desperate fight thereupon ensued between the Walloons and the Hungarians. The former had brought a cannon with them, and entrenching themselves close to the Green Springs behind waggons, fired mercilessly at the town, and into the ranks of the Hungarian warriors, one ball even penetrating the principal entrance of the cathedral. Nevertheless, Joseph Sándor, still further encouraging his warriors, broke at last the ranks of the enemy, and, capturing their cannon besides, flung them out of the town with great profusion of blood. Indeed, if it had not been so dark, and the terrified inhabitants had had time, after the treachery of the Sheriff, to set things in order and succour Joseph, certainly not one of the Walloons would have escaped.

As for Michael Dóronczius, he was seized while attempting stealthily to fly, and the whole treason was brought home to him.

And it was exactly a year that day since they had elected him as Sheriff and installed him in office in the churchyard. Wherefore the carpenters, with the waggon drawn by six horses and laden with a heap of fine hornbeams, again drew up in front of the churchyard, and there they made a pile of the wood and burnt Michael Dóronczius upon it, as they told him they would beforehand.

But, by way of a memorial of the sad treachery, they walled up the gate of the Green Springs, and drew a couple of trenches in front of it, with deep moats guarding them, so that none might get in that way again.

After this event Joseph Sándor settled again in the city of Caschau, and lived there for a long time till he became an old man, but he never married.

This also they said, at a later day, that one night Catharine's body was dug up from its grave beneath the gibbet and buried in a more godly place, which none wots of save he who buried it there.

Whether it were true or not, nobody could say for certain, for that which is under the earth is the secret of the dark earth known only to the Almighty, and may His gracious protection rest over our poor town and over our hundred-fold more unfortunate country!

IV
THE JUSTICE OF SOLIMAN—A TURKISH STORY

Worthy Muhzin wept sore because of this loss; he would neither eat nor drink, and sleep forsook him. Night after night he went on to the roof of his house, and wept and wept till dawn.

Vainly did his friends and kinsfolk try to console him. They could do nothing with him. He could not reconcile himself to the thought that those lovely eyes would never smile upon him again, that that dear mouth would never speak to him more.

One night, when Muhzin was lying back gloomily on his sleepless couch, suddenly, through the open door, a wondrous vision stood before him—a grey-haired old man, whose beard and turban shone like bright white flames.

And the vision spoke to him thus, in a gentle, consolatory voice—

"Muhzin, I have compassion on thy bitter affliction and upon thy grief. I see that thou art worthy of superhuman succour, because thou dost love after a superhuman sort. Thy wife hath not died, for she was not a mortal maid, but a peri. Eminha still lives, for she possesses the power of the peris to die whensoever she desires so to do, and awake in another realm, there to begin a new life, till she choose to die again, and so pursue her metamorphoses. Therefore gird up thy loins and set out forthwith on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and there sit down at the gate of the burial-place, hard by the well of Zemzem, and wait there. Wait there till a funeral procession comes thither, carrying a blue-painted coffin covered by a pall of yellow silk, which pall will be embroidered with blue letters and silver arabesques. Then thou shalt rush out, stop the funeral procession, uncover the face of the dead, and thou shalt find Eminha. The mourners will not believe that it is thy wife; but thou must then take from thy girdle this little box, which contains a salve, and touch the eyebrows and the lips of thy dead wife with thy anointed finger-tips, and then her eyes will open and her lips will mutter, 'Muhzin!' and no one will doubt any longer that it is indeed thy wife, and thou wilt bring her back to Stambul, and she will no longer desire to leave thee. But in order that thy treasures may not be stolen during the time of thy pilgrimage, take them not with thee, lest evildoers rob thee of them by the way, but commit them to the keeping of thy faithful friend, the honourable Ali Hojia, who is learned in the law, and an interpreter of the Koran, so that thou mayest find them all safe when thou returnest."

And with these words the grey-bearded old man vanished from before the eyes of Muhzin.

The merchant awoke full of amazement. He rubbed his eyes with both hands to see whether he was not still dreaming, lit a rushlight, and his amazement increased when he found on his table the little box which the old man from the other world had brought him; it was beautifully wrought of ivory, richly set with turquoises and perforated with gold. Such a masterpiece came from no human hand.

The next day he told the matter to Ali Hojia, to whom the enigmatical old man had referred him. The lawyer shook his head over it, as if he did not like the business at all, made objections, and tried to persuade Muhzin that he had dreamed it all, or imagined it with his eyes wide open, and finally appealed to his doubts by reminding him that the body of Eminha was now lying in the tomb where Muhzin had buried it—let him break open the tomb and see for himself, quoth Ali.

Muhzin hastened to perform the request of his friend, and behold—the dead body of Eminha was not in the desecrated tomb.

And now no power in the world was capable of keeping Muhzin back from following the voice of the heavenly vision. He put in his pouch whatever of ready money he had by him, and confided his whole store of gems to Ali Hojia, who was his nearest friend, and a worthy, honourable man to boot, till he himself should return from Mecca. And Ali took the charge upon him for friendship's sake.

Muhzin, after many vicissitudes, reached Mecca. On the road robbers attacked him, and robbed him of all his money, but, fortunately, the little box with the magic unguent escaped; it was concealed within his turban, and therefore they did not discover it. A beggar he entered the holy city, and lived from hand to mouth on the alms of compassionate pilgrims.

Every day he could be seen at the gate of the cemetery near the well of Zemzem, watching the funeral processions which passed before him day after day, for Mecca is a populous place.

A year had passed, and he was still waiting in vain—a coffin such as that described by the nocturnal apparition had not yet passed before him. Either the coffin was blue but the pall was not yellow, or the pall lacked the necessary blue letters, or if it had the blue letters the arabesques were not of silver, or if every requisite mark of identification was there, the corpse was not the corpse of a woman, but of a man, or a manchild of twelve years.

Muhzin was slowly approaching that state of mind which we call madness, when one day he heard from the other beggars that there was going to be a splendid funeral that day—the wife of the Kadilesker, the beautiful Eminha, had died.

Eminha!

That name put heart into Muhzin once more. All day long he did not depart from the gate of the cemetery, and the beating of his heart almost stifled him when he heard approaching him the funeral music which always heads the funeral procession.

Muhzin had no thought for the splendour of the funeral, no thought for the dancing dervishes, nor for the wailing women-mourners, nor for the siligdars who scattered small silver coins among the mob of mendicants. All he could do was to gaze upon the bier.

Even from a distance he could see that the coffin was blue and the pall a bright yellow. When they came nearer he could even distinguish the blue letters on the pall, and when they came level with him he could see the silver embroidery of arabesques quite well.

Muhzin, wild with joy, violently pushed aside those standing in front of him, forced his way through the procession right up to the coffin, and cried—

"Stop! Stop! This is Eminha. This is my wife!"

The attendants, the great men, the Kadilesker himself—the dead woman's husband—looked with amazement upon this raving figure who had dared to disturb the order of the funeral; but Muhzin regarded them not, but stripped the pall from off the face of the dead woman.

The young woman who lay there really resembled his Eminha. Death is a great artist. With one cold breath she knows how to make all human faces singularly alike.

"She is not dead!" cried Muhzin to the dumfoundered crowd. "I can make her arise, and then you will see that she will call me her husband. I have been waiting for her here a whole year. Hence, all of you! for I would kill and slay and scatter curses around me! Ye shall not bury the living!"

The people were alarmed at the sight of mad Muhzin, and still more by his savage words. Moreover, the mourning Kadilesker dearly loved his dead wife, and when Muhzin said that he would raise her up again, he also was glad, and made place for him by the coffin that he might perform this miracle.

With the fervour of devotion, Muhzin drew from his girdle the little box and opened it; a yellow-coloured ointment was inside it, speckled with little green-gold points, of whose magical efficacy Muhzin himself was quickly convinced when he dipped into it the index finger of his right hand, for it burnt him as severely as if he had plunged it into boiling oil. But this extraordinary quality of the ointment was only a greater testimony to its marvellous origin, so that Muhzin did not hesitate to thoroughly rub the eyebrows and the lips of the corpse with his anointed finger-tip.

Everybody was intently watching to see whether the breath of life would return beneath the influence of the wondrous unguent, but nobody was so devout a believer in it as Muhzin himself.

But lo! instead of the eyes and lips of the dead woman opening, as was expected of them, the places which Muhzin had anointed turned black, the skin began to crackle and blister, and the face of the dead woman became quite hideous.

Horror seized upon Muhzin. This was not the effect he had anticipated. The people around him murmured aloud, the Kadilesker rushed furiously upon him, and, seizing him by the throat, cast him to the ground.

"Accursed magician!" he cried, "so shamelessly to distort the face of my dead wife, and make her, now that she is dead, just such an one as thou thyself art while still alive!"

"To the stake with him!" thundered the mob all around; they were furious with Muhzin. "To the fiery pit with him—reserved for the idol-worshippers and sorcerers—the wretch who would desecrate the bodies of the dead!"

And worthy Muhzin would have been burnt on the spot had not the Governor of Damascus happened to be there, who, perceiving that they had to do with a lunatic rather than an idolater, ordered his chiauses to seize Muhzin, tie him to a pillar, give him two hundred strokes with a camel-driver's whip, and then bring the man before him, that he might confess what mad idea it was that had induced him to deform the features of the dead wife of the Kadilesker.

Muhzin told the Governor about the marvellous apparition which had sent him thither.

"My poor Muhzin," said the Governor, when he understood the whole affair, "what a confounded fool thou art to allow thyself to be imposed upon by such a lot of rubbish! Some one has been making a butt of thee. Why, that Eminha who was the wife of the Kadilesker was born and lived here from her childhood until now; how, then, could she be thy wife a year ago? Moreover, that unguent of thine is a fraud. It is no magic thing, but a corrosive poison with which they are wont to blister the bodies of the poor in the times of pestilence. Every dervish knows of it. Come to thy senses, man! Make an end of thy pilgrimage, return home to Stambul, and follow thy trade. I hope that no greater trouble awaiteth thee when thou gettest home."

Muhzin kissed the hand of the humane Pasha, who gave him some dinars to help him on his way, and turned back towards Stambul forthwith, with ragged garments, a scarred body, a broken heart, and a half-crazy mind.

Poor, and tormented by grief, he reached Stambul after many weeks, picked up by one caravan in the place where a former one had dropped him, bringing home with him a wound on the temples from the lance of a Bedouin freebooter, the impression in his thigh of four teeth of a panther, from which he had contrived to escape half alive, and a terrible emptiness in his heart, in which all hope and faith had died.