by Mór Jókai
CHAPTER XVI.
'TIS WELL THAT THE NIGHT IS BLACK.
At the Castle of Hetfalu everyone was quietly sleeping. None had anythought of that black spectre which is the enemy of all livingcreatures, which constrains the huge watch-dog to dig up graves with hishind feet, which bids the night owl utter her dismal notes on thehousetop alongside of the creaking weather-cock, which sends into thevestibules and corridors its living visiting-cards in the shape of thoselarge, black, night-moths with pale skull-like effigies painted on theirbacks as upon tombs, beneath whose feet the furniture creaks andcrackles, which makes that tiny invisible beetle hidden between theboards of the beds begin tick-tick-ticking like a fairy watch, eleventimes in succession, by way of showing that the witching hour of nightis close at hand.
Oh! there is such a great unanimity among these dumb creatures of thenight and darkness.
The wind blew gloomy-looking clouds before it across the sky, cloudswhich hastened away from that district; which jostled one another asthey scudded along, some high, some low, and kept on changing theirshapes as if they feared lest something might catch them there. Some ofthem had blood-red linings from the flames of distant conflagrations,and these flew rapidly along, trying to force their way through inadvance of the rest; but these others sped along still faster, lestthey, too, should be enkindled.
And in the darkness disorderly masses of men might have been dimly seenassembling in the roads and stealthily proceeding towards the castle. Inthe tap-room of the _csarda_ evil counsellors are discussing thedestruction of all the dwellers in the castle.
Three separate opinions are fighting for the supremacy. Numa Pompiliusis in favour of an open, heroic attack, as became the _epigoni_ of thevaliant Sarmatians; with battering-rams, ballistas, and other classicalinstruments of warfare, he would have fought breast to breast, eye toeye with the foe.
Ivan, on the other hand, is more practical. He knows his own peoplebetter, and anticipates much greater success from an insidious surprisein which the warriors shall stealthily crawl over walls and throughwindows upon the unguarded and unsuspecting garrison, and massacre themin their dreams.
The wife of the headsman sits on the table opposite the twocommanders-in-chief with a mocking smile upon her lips, and her hugemuscular arms crossed over her bosom. From time to time she utters ascornful laugh and grunts disapprovingly.
"Do what you like," she said at last, "neither of you knows anythingabout it. The buffalo-catcher would proceed cautiously and the cripplewould run like a 'bull' at the gate."
"And what would you do, I should like to know," snarled Ivan.
"I know something, and I know how to keep it to myself. When you twohave made a mess of it, then I shall come forward."
The commanders began to be jealous of her influence. The first successalways wins the heart of the mob, they must make sure of that anyhow.
"Call in the Leather-bell," cried Ivan to the doorkeepers.
The old fellow was shoved in.
"The castle watch-dogs know you, don't they?" he was asked.
"Know me? of course they do," replied the worthy man. "Why, I brought upTisza and Farkas myself. I give them bread every day. Why, they sniff mypockets even now whenever I go along there."
"They know you still better, you knacker you, I'll be bound," said DameZudar to Ivan derisively.
Ivan caught up a knife from the table and would have stuck the womanwith it had not Thomas Bodza stayed his hand. He did not like thesesquabbles at all.
"This is not the time for wrangling," said he.
Only very reluctantly did Ivan allow himself to be pacified and inducedto continue the conversation.
"Here in this handkerchief are some pieces of meat, do you think you canget the dogs to take them with soft words?"
"Why not? I have only to call them by name, and they will come to thedoors of their kennels and eat it out of my very hands."
"Then look sharp and set about it."
The Leather-bell was such a good fellow that he was never able to resistthe slightest command. He accepted the commission, although he knew verywell that the dogs would be poisoned. He consoled himself with thereflection, however, that nobody had told him so beforehand.
"But look here, gentlemen, you don't want to do his honour, the squire,any harm?" he inquired of Ivan, with a foolishly smiling face.
"No, old 'un, no."
"Nor the young squire either?"
"No, nor him either, not for all the world."
"Nor the heyduke? He is my godson, you know."
"No, nor him either, old 'un, but do look sharp."
"You only want to find out whether there is poison in the castle or not,don't you?"
"Yes, yes. Devil take the fellow! Be off, or I'll knock some of yourteeth down your throat."
And the poor Leather-bell scuttled off.
"And now bring Mekipiros hither!"
They dragged the poor half-idiotic creature into the room. His thick,bristly hair hung right over his eyes. He was grinning and evidently ina good humour. But he could speak no longer, of course, since he hadlost his tongue; whatever they said to him he could only reply:"Hamamama!"
This with him was the expression of happiness and contentment, bothquestion and answer.
"Mekipiros! come hither and drink," cried Ivan, holding to his mouth astraw-covered pitcher full of spirit, which he to whom it was offereddid not remove from his lips till it was quite empty. Then he returnedit to Ivan with a joyful "Hamamama!"
"Look now, blockhead! You can climb up a rope anywhere, can't you?"
"Hamamamama!"
"All right, I'm not deaf! You can scale the roof of a house by means ofa rope then?"
The hideous monster rubbed his hands with joy at the proposal.
"And then you will drag me up after you by means of the same rope, doyou understand?"
The dwarfish abortion rushed with a howl of joy at Ivan, caught thefellow round the knee, raised him high in the air, and leapt up and downwith him, by way of showing that he was as light as a bag of feathers,till Ivan, by dint of shouting and pummelling, contrived to free himselffrom the creature's grasp.
"The fellow has the strength of an ox," said he to Thomas Bodza,seizing the thick-set creature by the hair, and lugging him hither andthither, which appeared to infinitely delight the speechless monster.Whenever he succeeded in getting hold of one of Ivan's hands he coveredit with kisses, whereupon the other, with an air of disgust, keptrubbing them on the tails of his coat, as if he could not wipe themsufficiently.
"He will do very well as food for their guns," whispered Ivan. "If thepeople in the castle hear a noise, and guess our subterfuge, they willshoot Mekipiros, for we will send him on in front. Why, even with acouple of bullets in his body the fellow will be able to scramble up thewall. He's like a toad."
Meanwhile the Leather-bell returned and announced that the dogs hadgobbled up all the meat thrown to them.
"Oh, they made no bones about it," cried he.
"Then we can go," said Ivan, thrusting a rusty military pistol into hisbreast-pocket.
Dame Zudar hastened towards her matted waggon and leaped upon thebox-seat. For a moment a long, sharp knife flashed betwixt her hands,and she peered at it closely to make sure that its edge was all right,immediately afterwards it vanished again nobody knew whither. Then shelaid hold of her whip and lashed up the horses.
The road they followed passed by the hut of the Death-Bird. The oldwitch was huddled up in her doorway, and began counting those whopassed, marking them off one by one, with her crutch: "One, two,three--One, two, three."
She never went beyond three, therefore every third was a marked man.
When her daughter passed by with the rector and Ivan she laughed aloud.
"Ha, ha, ha! A splendid company truly! A schoolmaster, a headsman'sapprentice, and a nice young bride! Whither are you going such a darknight? A splendidly dark night! Just the night for thieves andmurderers; just the night for thos
e intent on rapine and burning! On yougo! On you go! Worry the great gentry, root out your landlords, andafter that fall yourselves into the hands of the headsman! The lesspeople there are in the world the nicer it will be."
None of the rioters durst molest her though she stood right in theirway, and spoke so that everyone could hear her. They all took care togive her a wide berth.
Thomas Bodza distributed his people along the road, and occupied everyexit from the castle. One detachment he hid behind a haystack, withanother he seized the beehives, and with a third the distillery. Theservants who lived outside he overcame after a short resistance, andthen bound them tightly and locked them up.
Inside the castle nobody was yet aware of what was going on outside. Nota single servant slept there. The young squire, in his terror of theepidemic, would not suffer one of them to sleep in the castle, the onlypeople inside there besides himself were old Hetfalusy and the doctor.
Ivan then chose out six of the bravest of his followers, amongst themthe watchman in whose sylvan hut they had held their secret meetings,Hamza, the sexton, and Mekipiros, whose mouth they had to gag, toprevent him from uttering his eternal "Hamamama!"
Poor Mekipiros! A little while ago he was able to pray, now he could notutter an intelligible word!
It was not difficult to get into the courtyard. The Leather-bell openedthe gate for them. Inside the dogs were lying near the well stiff andstark, nothing had betrayed the venture.
And now Ivan produced a long strong rope, and tied on to it a lot ofpack-thread, at the end of which a heavy piece of lead was fastened.Round the roof of the castle ran a metal gutter, which terminated at thecorners in old-fashioned dolphins. On to one of such dolphins Ivan threwthe pack-thread noose, and seizing hold of the re-descending leadplummet, hoisted up the rope likewise. It was really a capital idea.Mekipiros was to clamber up the rope, he knew the trick of it. He was tobe the _anima vilis_ by means of whom they were to find out whether thefolks in the castle were asleep or not.
When he got to the top he was to pull up Ivan after him, and then theunited strength of the pair of them would do the same by the others.They would then creep into the castle through the attics and open thedoors, which were locked on the inside, to admit their comrades.
Nothing could have been more circumspectly conceived.
When the rope was firmly fastened to the top of the gutter Ivan hurriedup Mekipiros and shoved the free end of the rope into his hand.
The little monster did not trust himself to shout but expressed hissatisfaction in a lowly murmured "Hamamamama!"
The next moment he was clambering up the rope like a strange sort ofhuge spider, climbing rapidly higher and higher with agile hands andfeet, occasionally he even helped himself along with his teeth. In a fewmoments he was sitting on the back of the copper dolphin, delighted tohave found a steed in a monster similar to himself, and from thence heshouted: "Hu, hu, hu!" like an owl.
"Will you shut up!" called Ivan, in a voice of suppressed fury. "Thebeast will betray us! Haul up, can't you?"
Ivan clutched hold of the rope with both hands.
Mekipiros with vigorous tugs hoisted him upwards, hauling up the ropewith his short arms as easily as if there were no weight attached to it.
"How I wish he would let him fall," murmured Dame Zudar to herself.
Thomas Bodza had much the same sort of wish in his own heart. Each ofthem had his or her particular reasons for wishing Ivan's plan to fail.
But Mekipiros did not let him drop. He hoisted him up right on to theroof and helped him to climb up on to the metal gutter.
Ivan scarce felt his feet once more, however, when, instead ofexpressing his gratitude, he expended his pent-up rage on his companion.
"You mad bullock, you, why did you roar out just now, eh?" he whisperedin the ear of Mekipiros, and he viciously tugged at the stuntedmonster's bristly hair with one hand, at the same time holding his otherhand before his mouth to prevent him from screaming out.
At that same instant Mekipiros turned upon Ivan with flashing eyes,seized him round the thighs and holding him fast embraced, hauled himalong the roof. For a second the pair of them tottered on the very edgeof the gutter, but then Ivan clutched the metal cornice and held on toit convulsively with both hands.
"Hamama, hamama, hamama!" howled the enraged monster. Like a heavy loadof sin, he hung on to the legs of his prey, squeezing his knees togetherin an iron embrace, worrying his enemy's calves with his teeth, kickingand cuffing him, and striving to hurl him into the abyss below.
Ivan was fairly mad with terror.
"Help!" he roared, in a voice capable of arousing the Seven Sleepers,"help! He is killing me!"
"I knew what would be the end of it!" cried Dame Zudar, gnashing herteeth. "The poltroon is betraying us himself. Let him perish if he doesnot know how to live."
"Scoundrel!" Bodza shouted to him. "What! cannot you die speechless likea Julius Caesar? And when the common cause demands that you should keepsilence too! Fie upon you, I say!"
Ivan, in his desperation, writhed over the gulf beneath him, andforgetting everything but the horrible death awaiting him, bellowedhoarsely to those standing below:
"Help, for the love of Christ. Men, I say! do not let me perish! I amfalling! I am dying. Woe is me! Spread straw underneath, can't you? Holda carpet below me! Mercy, mercy! Let me go, Mekipiros! I beseech you,for God's sake, let me go!"
But it was no part of Mekipiros' plan to plunge down to the ground allby himself. For the last hour or so he had been joyfully awaiting thissweet moment, for this he had laughed, for this he had frisked about souproariously. He was unable to conceal his delight. If only he could bealone with his tormentor at that giddy height, suddenly seize him, andhurl him down with himself from the roof, fly for a few seconds throughthe air, and then lie stretched upon the earth in a smashed and brokenmass, so that it would be impossible to distinguish the one from theother--ah! then how happy he would be!
And--better than that even--his victim had clutched hold of something inthe very act of falling, and so the delicious moment was indefinitelyprolonged! He heard how his prey roared for help, saw how he writhedconvulsively in the desperate hope of saving himself, how half out ofhis mind he even begged him, Mekipiros! for life: "Mekipiros, dear goodMekipiros, let me go, and plunge down alone!"
"Hamamama! hamamama!" gurgled the monster with a grim cruel voice, andhe kicked the wall with his feet to make Ivan let go the quicker, andburied his scanty teeth in the fleshy legs of his victim, and worriedhim like a dog.
"Mercy, mercy! Help! I can hold out no longer!" gasped Ivan, his sinewsbeginning to stretch beneath the pressure of the double load. No helpwas possible. Those standing below cursed him for rousing the castlewith his shouts. The narrow edge of the gutter was gradually slippingthrough his nerveless fingers. And now one hand relaxed its hold, andonly by a last convulsive effort did he manage to hold on for a fewseconds by the other.
"Hamamama!" screeched the monster, and then a yell, as of the lost,resounded from height to depth, and a huge round, black, writhing, coilcame bounding rapidly to the ground, and there, the next instant, lay amangled mass of flesh, in which perhaps at one time two souls had dwelt.
"And now let us see what the next can do," growled Dame Zudar, leaningnonchalantly back in her waggon, and crossing her arms over her breastlike an impatient singer at a concert who waits for his turn in theprogramme to come while his colleagues are boring the public to deathwith their dismal performances.
At Ivan's first howl two lights had become visible in the two cornerchambers of the castle, and presently both of these lights were observedhastening to the central hall only, a few moments later, to beextinguished. Then the iron shutters were banged down with a crash, onlyone square piece in the middle still remained raised.
The besieged were on their guard.
Now, Numa Pompilius, you have a fine field before you for the race ofglory. Advance! put your ladders to the walls, hurl your b
eams againstthe foe, sling your stones against the roof, begin the struggle, andinspire the combatants with martial fury! Let shouts and yells andcurses supply the place of thundering artillery! The enemy is arousedand expectant!
"Forward, ye heroes! The hour of the red dawn of our day of triumph isat hand. Victory to the valiant!"
The excited mob heard not a word of this classical appeal, its ears weretoo full of its own howlings, as it pressed into the courtyard.
Then from that window square, which had remained uncovered by theshutter, a shot resounded, at whose sharp report the hideous hubbubsuddenly grew dumb, and during the lull a strong manly voice addressedthe rioters:
"That was only a blank shot. If you do not instantly leave the courtyardwe will fire among you with bullets."
"Let us depart hence, my noble patriots, let us depart!" stammered theLeather-bell. "It is Squire Szephalmi who commands it. It is not well toplay games with him. He has a lot of six-barrelled firearms inside withthree bullets in each barrel. A mischief may befall some of us else. Wehave wives and children at home. Let us go home, my dear fellowpatriots. Early to-morrow morning we will send a deputation."
The greater part of the mob shared this good opinion, and began to showtheir respect for firearms by clearing out of the courtyard.
But Numa Pompilius, full of the fury of despair, barred the way againsthis retreating host.
"Miserable, cowardly deserters! What! a single blank shot is sufficientto turn you back! Holus-bolus, 'sicut examen apum,' ye decamp at theword of a single foe! Fie, fie upon you, ye dregs, ye sweepings ofhumanity!"
The bellicose commander spat in his disgust at the fugitives again andagain, and overwhelmed them with all sorts of choice epithets. Finallyhe snatched up an axe, and declared that if nobody else stirred he wouldgo and batter down the door of the castle single-handed.
But the Leather-bell threw his arms round the body of the enthusiastichero lest he should hazard his life in so perilous an enterprise. Nay,he would not even let him enter the courtyard, but went so far as toseize the axe he held in his hand regardless of the kicks and cuffs hereceived during the struggle.
Dame Zudar laughed scornfully at this tragicomical scene.
"Why don't some other of you fellows hold him back too?" she cried. "Helikes nothing better than not to be let go. Don't you see what abusiness he makes of it to rid himself of that feeble old man, whom hecould throw to the ground with half a hand if he had a mind to. Get outof my way, will you? Men are out of place in a joke of this sort. Mymother was a witch and I'm one also. Do you know that I can open everydoor before you with a single word. All you have got to do is to sharpenyour knives."
And with that she opened the wicker covering of her waggon, whichhitherto had been kept tightly closed, and as easily, as if she onlyheld a down cushion in her hand, she hauled forth little Elise.
The child's hands were tied in front of her, and her head was completelyenveloped in a thick woollen wrapper so that she could neither see norcry out.
Dame Zudar removed the wrapper from the little girl's head, and orderedher to stand upright.
Then she produced a half burnt wax taper, the relic of some pastfuneral, lit it, and placed it between the child's fettered fingers.
"The woman is not quite right," growled shaggy-headed Hanak. "She lightsa candle so that they may be better able to fire among us."
"Have no fear, shaggy pate. They will not fire at you. Go and huddlebehind the doorpost if you like. _I_ mean to go alone into thecourtyard, and will draw the snake out of its hole with my bare hand."
The besiegers did not need much persuasion to hide themselves. When DameZudar passed through the gate with the child, everyone, not exceptingThomas Bodza, hastened to make himself scarce.
The child she sent on in front with the lighted taper sticking betweenits fettered fingers. She followed close behind. She had no fear ofbullets now.
When they came in front of the open square in the shutter, she made thechild stop, and bade it kneel down.
Then with a loud resounding voice she shouted up at the windows:
"Old Hetfalusy, are you there? Young Szephalmi, are you there?"
There was no answer.
"It is of no use denying yourselves. I am here to carry on my processagainst you. It is the old, old suit in which my father lost his lifeand my mother her reason. I have also brought along with me a tribunalwhich cannot be corrupted. _I_ am now the stronger party."
"Take yourself off!" a hoarse, broken voice suddenly cried from thewindow; it very much resembled old Hetfalusy's.
"Oh, I'm to take myself off, eh!" cried the virago defiantly. "Am I notstanding then on my own ground? Is not this corner of the house whosewindows I am now rattling, built on the plot of ground belonging to myforefathers? Is not this ground my own? Are not these very stones, thesevery blades of grass on which I now trample, mine, mine, mine?"
"It may very easily be yours for ever, you wretched creature," saidanother voice, the voice of the younger squire. "If you do not go away,you shall die on the very spot."
The barrel of a gun flashed between the shutters, and the headsman'swife could see that it was pointed straight at her heart.
Quickly she pulled the little girl towards her.
"Aim away, Szephalmi!" she cried. "I have even taken the trouble tobring a light that you may see to aim straight."
And with that she snatched the candle from between the child's fingers,and held it so that it lit up her face.
"Look now! A pretty child, ain't she? Those blue eyes, those soft lipsresemble someone you loved very much at one time, don't they? It wouldbe a shame, wouldn't it, to make this tender, slender shape a target forbullets, wouldn't it?"
The barrel of the gun sank slowly down.
"How do you suppose now, Szephalmi," continued the virago, her faceradiant with infernal malice, "how do you suppose now that theheadsman's wife managed to get hold of this gentle cherub, who is asmuch like her as an angel is to a devil?"
"Woman!" hissed someone from within, though whether it was the old manor the young it was impossible to say.
Dame Zudar drew nearer, she now went right up to the window.
"You would like me to speak in a lower key, no doubt? Well, I may dothat. You see how close I am standing to you, you could touch my bodywith the barrel of your musket. But you _won't_ touch me, I know, fornow it is I who am the destroyer."
And with that she laid her large, broad, muscular palm on the littlegirl's tender shoulder.
"This child is now eight years old. When she was born her father cursedher, her mother kicked her out, and her nurse confided her to a she-wolfthat she might either kill it or bring it up along with her ownwhelps--which is much about the same thing. It is the foolish old story,the old grey wolf carried off the brat and brought it up; the oldheadsman nourished the innocent little girl, and defended her againstall the wild beasts of the forest. Do I make the fable quite clear toyou?"
A stifled moan was the sole reply.
"And then Heaven's lightning descended upon your house, misfortune was aconstant visitor upon you, you soon had a pair of corpses under yourroof, and there was no end to your affliction. Now I should say thatthat looked very much like a curse upon you.
"Yes, a curse pursued your family. When you had securely fastened thedoor behind you, you used to weep and wail like any beggar; yes, and nobeggar at your door would have thanked you for the chance of exchanginghis lot with yours."
To this there was no reply from behind the window.
The defiant features of the virago were illuminated by the candle whichthe child now held again in her hand. She seemed to cast a dark shadowupon the very night around her--the darkest of dark shadows.
And now she went right up to the window so that she could actuallywhisper through it.
"Come, throw down your weapons, ye great and haughty gentlemen, for theyare no longer a defence to you. Something very evil is going to happento-night, for I have
not come to you for nothing, I can tell you."
And with that she drew from beneath the kerchief covering her breast theknife sharpened to a keen point, whose edge she had tested so carefullya short time before.
"Do you see my key?" cried she. "This is the key to your hearts, this isthe key to the doors of your palaces. This knife will pare down yourpride and humble you to the dust beneath my feet. You could shoot medead as I stand here I know, though that would be no very greatmaster-stroke. But the same instant in which I fell, my mother, the oldwitch, would stand behind my back and would shout to the infuriated mobwith all the force of her lungs, and tell them whose this child is, andthen do you know in whose heart this knife would be plunged first ofall?"
A sort of painful wail came from below the dark window, like the soundsthat are heard in a deserted, dilapidated old fortress where the wholebuilding is ever sighing and moaning, and none can tell whence the noisecomes.
During the virago's muttered discourse the bolder spirits among the mobhad gradually flitted back again into the courtyard. They perceived thatthe headsman's wife was not afraid, and this of itself gave themcourage. Some of them even drew near to the threshold of the house,where they pricked up their ears and did their best to catch somethingof what the woman was talking about so mysteriously. It might be worththeir while to hear.
Dame Zudar began sharpening the knife against the stone ledge of thecastle window.
"I give you three minutes to think it over," she now exclaimed aloud."If you then say: let there be bloodshed! bloodshed there shall be."
And with that she turned back to the child.
There she stood in front of the castle threshold, with the heavenlyresignation of a martyr on her pale, innocent face. She appeared to bequite undisturbed by the dreadful scene before her. The thought that shewas now about to die absorbed all her faculties.
"Kneel down!" cried the virago coldly.
The child took her at her word, and knelt down on the lowest of theflight of steps.
"Pray, if you have a mind that way."
The child devoutly raised her eyes to Heaven, and holding the lightedcandle in front of her in her tiny hands, began to sing this verse of ahymn:
"The Lord my God, I praise and bless, For He hath heard my soul's distress, And hath inclined His ear to me Who love Him through eternity."
To many it seemed, while the child's quavering voice was intoning thesad melody, as if, either from the midst of the crowd, or from somecorner close at hand, a man's voice was accompanying the tone in asubdued voice, dwelling upon the final notes, as they do in church.
Who could it be?
None could say whence the accompanying voice proceeded.
A cold shudder ran down Dame Zudar's back. It was the voice of theheadsman!
But what a mad idea! Men no longer come forth unhurt from the midst ofthe fire, as did the three holy children in the days of Nebuchadnezzar.
So she strengthened her heart, marched up to the door, and beganthundering upon it with her fists.
"The three minutes for consideration is now up. My old enemy and myyoung enemy, you must now open the door and come forth."
The crowd waited in hushed suspense for what would come next.
Why did not the people inside fire beneath the sure protection of theirstronghold? What spell had this woman cast over them? Had she really thepower, then, to break through bolts and bars with a mere word, a merelook?
"One, two, three!"
Still not a sound.
Then the virago, with a haughty look, turned towards the people, andaddressed them with a penetrating voice:
"If they won't speak I will. Friends and comrades, these bigwigs herehave sworn our ruin. They want to root out the whole lot of us, why,then, should we have mercy on them? Now, however, it is not we who arein their power, but they who are in ours. Their own sins have deliveredthem into my hands. You know, and the whole world knows, that thatstuck-up gentleman yonder, Szephalmi, Esq., once upon a time exposed hisfirstborn child. He cast it forth in the wilderness, cast it forth amongthe wild beasts, because he feared the shame of it forsooth!--ha, ha,ha! Has a poor man ever done the like of that? Aye, and it was a poorman who found the child, it was a poor man who had compassion on thelittle outcast thrown in his way, it was a poor man who brought it up asif it were his own child. And now, if you please, these high and noblegentlemen cast poison into the wells of the poor man that they maydestroy him, root and branch."
The mob listened to these murderous words with ever increasingeagerness.
At the same time it did not escape Dame Zudar's attention that a key hadbeen put into the iron door of the castle from the inside, and that itwas being turned softly.
So now she fell a-shouting more noisily than ever.
"Before you kneels the foster-daughter of the headsman's wife. Who wasthat child's mother? who gave her to the headsman's wife? Her mother, Itell you, was a great lady, none other than Benjamin Hetfalusy'sdaughter, whom the wrath of God smote down together with that littlemurderer, her infant son. I nourished and brought up that child, andwhat thanks did I get for it? Only this: that these bigwigs havedetermined to kill us all by poisoning our meat and drink, that they maythereby bury their shameful secret. But I declare their design aloud, sothat every man may know it. This girl is Hetfalusy's grand-daughter.This girl is in our power, and if these fine gentlemen so much ascrumple a single hair of any of your heads, I will plunge this knifeinto the child's heart."
A confused, savage murmur ran through the mob at these grim words, whichseemed to intoxicate the hearts of all who heard them with a fiendishcruelty.
And Dame Zudar, listening attentively, heard the key turn in the door asecond time.
She was well prepared for what would follow.
She now stepped behind the child, wound its beautiful blonde tressesround her left hand, and with her right grasped the handle of the knifeconvulsively.
"Oh, God, my God!" cried Elise's bell-like voice.
At that same instant the iron door opened wide, and between its recedingwings stood a spectre--a spectre was the only name for it, as it had noresemblance to anything human.
A pale face, like the face of one arisen from the tomb, whitedishevelled hair clinging round his temples and hanging over hisbloodshot eyes. He had wrapped a long mantle over his white night-dresswhich fluttered about him like the wings of a bat.
It was old Hetfalusy.
In each hand he held a loaded pistol, and as the opening door groaned onits hinges he cried in a hoarse voice:
"Here I am, but whoever dares to lay a hand upon the girl, him will Ishoot first and the girl afterwards."
But it was a threat which excited little terror, his hands trembled soand his eyes were scarce able to see what was before them.
Nobody followed him. He passed through the door alone.
The Leather-bell, however, was so terrified lest he should carry out histhreat that he threw himself at the old man's feet, and embracing hisknees, piteously besought him:
"Master, master, oh, my dear master! don't fire, for God's sake! Laydown your pistols. I assure you that nobody here will hurt you."
"Will ye swear, then, that you will do the child no harm?" gasped oldHetfalusy.
"Put down your weapons!" cried the rioters.
"Swear that you will not harm her in any way, and then I will put themdown."
"Very well, we swear!" cried some in the rear of the crowd.
"Let that woman swear too," said Hetfalusy, pointing at Dame Zudar witha shaking hand. None of them did he hold in such horror as her.
The virago smiled and twiddled the knife between her fingers. Craftilylowering her eyes, and casting a side-long glance at the old man, shereplied:
"And by whom, then, am I to swear?"
"By the name of God, the living God."
"But what shall I swear?"
"Swear that neither you yourself, nor any of your companions, will dothis child any
harm, whosoever child she is, and whether what you allegeconcerning her be true or not."
"Nothing else?"
"Nothing."
"Would you not save your own grey hairs from being crumpled then?"
"May the Almighty dispose of me as it seemeth Him good."
"Then I will take the oath," cried the virago, and, raising her muscularright arm heavenwards, she cried:
"No harm shall come to the child, so help me, God!"
Then Hetfalusy calmly surrendered his pistols to the Leather-bell, whopolitely kissed his hand for so doing, and straightway fired the pistolsoff in the air, so that they might do no harm to anyone.
The same instant the blaspheming mob fell upon the defenceless squire,tore at his grey locks and impotent limbs, and hurled him to the ground.
"Smash him, kill him, the poison-mixer!" resounded from every side, andthe bloodthirsty cowards rushed furiously from their hiding-places withcudgels and flails, to the spot where the defenceless old squire waslying.
The worthy Leather-bell had not another word to say, but he cast himselfat full length upon the prostrate gentleman, and, tightly embracing hisfrail figure, defended him with his own body from the first onset of theraging mob.
In vain they pummelled, in vain they kicked him, his self-sacrificingback endured everything, and patiently received the beating intended forhis master.
The poor fellow, after all, would really have been a very good man ifonly he had not been so very simple.
"Clear out, will you!" cried Dame Zudar and Thomas Bodza simultaneously,"we must not kill him. We want to get something out of him, so he mustlive. Let no one hurt him, then, till he has received his sentence."
At last the two ringleaders succeeded in clearing away the furious mobfrom the mauled and trampled body of the squire. Then they raised himfrom the ground, tied his hands together, and fastened him tightly byone lean arm to the trellised gate of the castle. Blood oozed from theold man's limbs beneath the pressure of the rough cord, yet, with not somuch as a groan did Benjamin Hetfalusy betray the torture he wassuffering.
* * * * *
And thou, oh, man, in thy fiery pit, art thou still singing thy hymnsbelow there, art thou still testing the edge of thy sword with the tipsof thy fingers, just as if it were the string of some sad and delicatemusical instrument, which can give forth but one voice, and that thevoice of a sad, sad song?
The heat of the collapsed dwelling was now penetrating to the cellarbelow, and the straitened prisoner began to bethink him of some otherplace of refuge.
Instead of the fierce crackle of the flames which had met his earhitherto, he now could only hear a monotonous flickering as of expiringembers, and this lasted for a long time, when suddenly a fresh noiseattracted his attention.
Not far from his hiding-place something began to sound like the voice ofa wind-clapper. At first it went clap! clap! clap! very rapidly, butgradually the strokes grew slower and slower, tapering down at last tosingle beats at long intervals.
Whoever has attentively watched the doors of a metal furnace, will knowat once how that sound arises. When the heat of the fire which hasexpanded the metal begins to decrease, the expanded fibres of the metalsuddenly begin to contract and give forth a snapping sound as of metalstrings violently torn asunder.
The iron door of the cellar was, in fact, loudly calling the attentionof the master of the house to the fact that the fire had reduced all thebrushwood piled round the house into red-hot embers, and it wastherefore high time for him to seek another asylum.
Peter Zudar seized a large measure of beer, approached the door, andflung the malt liquid all over it.
Ha! how loudly the glowing metal hissed and spluttered at the contact ofthe cold fluid, as if laughing with joy at the artful scheme which itand the master together had devised for the latter's deliverance.
The iron door was far too burning hot to be opened with the naked hand,but the blood-red glare visible behind it made it pretty certain thatthe lead-soldering had long ago melted away, and it therefore onlyneeded a vigorous kick to wrench it off its hinges.
Peter Zudar listened attentively. Not a soul was stirring. There wasindeed no reason why anyone should linger any longer in that wretchedplace.
Impatience spurred him on to action. He began to lift the door from itshinges with the help of a heavy crowbar. It gave way sooner than he hadanticipated, and fell at full length on the smoking embers in front ofit, bridging over the fiery stream from one bank to the other.
With a single bound Peter Zudar leaped over the door, and sped away fromthe burning house like a madman.
It was dark, nobody saw him. In his way stood huge thistles,prickly-headed vegetable monsters, and Peter Zudar mowed them all downwith his headsman's sword just as if they had been so many condemnedmalefactors, or as if he were a frolicsome lad waging fierce war with awooden sword against the whole evil host of weeds. Anybody who had seenhim would have taken him for a lunatic.
He only came to himself when the barking of a dog struck upon his ear;he knew then that he was on the borders of the village, and close to thenearest houses.
Then he began slowly to compose himself, the cool night air was soothinghis troubled brain. He now commenced to recollect what had happened tohim during the last few hours. The riot, the seizure of the child, thehouse burnt over his head, the agony he had endured in the cellar--allthese things flashed like vivid pictures before his mind again.
But what had become of the child? What did they want to do with her? Tokill her perhaps?--these were his first thoughts. Then he began toconsider how he might discover her whereabouts and rescue her. Vengeancewas the last thing he thought of.
He had no suspicion as to whom the raging mob had risen against. Hefancied that the child was the pivot of the whole ghastly affair. He waspersuaded all along that they had sought her death, and would murderher, and the idea of such a thing was all the more terrible to himbecause he did not know the reason why. So much, however, he did know,that his own wife was the person most to be feared.
He was fully sensible that there was no time to lodge a complaint withthe magistrate, the priest, or the local court, and await a heavysentence. This was a peculiar case in which the headsman himself mustinvestigate, condemn, and execute the sentence--and was not the sword ofJustice already in his hands?
And as he stood there, leaning against a fence, in a brown study, itseemed to him as if he heard from the midst of the village the very hymnwhich he had sung so often with his darling before their evening repose:
"The Lord, my God, I praise and bless."
He listened attentively. It was no delusion. They were really the wordsof the hymn, the child's voice was really singing them.
At first he fancied that his darling was in some other world, and wasspeaking to him from the Kingdom of Heaven, and he lifted up his voicelikewise, and sang back again, his deep sonorous voice sounding like amagnified echo of the bell-like childish voice.
Subsequently, however, it occurred to him that perhaps the child waslocked up somewhere, and wanted to let him know where she was by singingthe hymn.
Suddenly there arose a hideous shout from the courtyard of the castle,the inarticulate roar of hundreds and hundreds of savage men, whose verythroats seemed to thirst for blood.
At that same instant Hetfalusy had surrendered his arms to hisassailants.
Peter Zudar lost not another instant in reflection, but turned up hisshirt-sleeves, smoothed away his hair from his eyes, and rushed towardsthe castle.
A long lane separated him from the residential part of the mansion, butnot choosing to follow it along its whole length, he waited till he sawthe pinnacles of the castle, and then took a short cut over hedge andditch, dashing along straight before him heedless of everything.
* * * * *
The infuriated mob which, after being cowed by the mere show ofresistance, became all the more brutal at the first
symptom ofsurrender, after Hetfalusy had laid down his arms, was able to glut itsbrutal rage, at will, on the old gentleman who had thus become itsvictim.
But it was lost labour.
What satisfaction can there be in the torturing of a withered stumpwhich is dumb to all outrage?--it is as fruitless a business as flogginga corpse!
The old squire did not demean himself by a single outcry of pain.
When they wanted him to confess that the gentry had banded together toextirpate the peasantry, he coldly replied:
"That is not true."
Every denial on his part was followed by inhuman tortures. But they werebut tormenting a frigid skeleton insensible to pain, who only replied,again and again:
"That is not true!"
The invading mob, after breaking everything in the castle it could layits hands upon, began searching for young Szephalmi and the doctor.
They must have hidden well, for nowhere could they be found. The mobturned all the rooms upside down, and yet it could not find them.
The old man must certainly know where they were stowed away.
But Hetfalusy would not betray his son-in-law or the doctor.
Amongst his executioners shaggy Hanak particularly distinguished himselfby his fiendish ingenuity, but the squire only remarked to him in agentle voice:
"Do you recollect, Hanak, how last year, you were bedridden, and Isupported your whole family? And when your biggest lad was taken by therecruiting sergeant, did I not buy him out? And when the hail destroyedyour crops, did I not give you the corn on which you and your wholefamily lived comfortably during the winter?"
But at this mild reproach, stubbly Hanak only wiped his bloody mouth,and bellowed with bestial pride:
"There's no Hanak here! I'm Hanak no longer. I'm a rebel patriot, that'swhat I am!"
The poor Leather-bell was quite unable to help his master. He could onlyimplore the rioters to torture him if they liked rather than Hetfalusy.He knew he was the cause of it all because he had talked about thepoison. He wished now that he had eaten of the poison and died.
Dame Zudar, meanwhile, had been regarding the sufferings of her mortalfoe with devilish enjoyment.
There she stood, her arms folded across her breast, facing her enemy,whose warm blood frequently spurted over her face.
"'Tis no good hurting him that way," she murmured to herself. "A boorhowls if you nip him, this sort only holds his tongue just as if he hada soul different from the others...."
"This was the very spot where you made my father bleed," she cried. "Doyou recollect Dudoky, eh? There he lay, where you lie now, and you stoodbeside him, as I now stand beside you, and revelled in it. But my fatherwept and howled beneath his torments while you only keep silent. Icould not bear to look on, I ran away and hid myself in my room, butthere also I kept on hearing his shrieks. I heard them through two thickwalls. Twenty years have passed since then, and through those twentyyears I still hear him. I want to hear you weep too, and not mock yourexecutioners by putting on a stone-cold face like that. Yes, you shallweep, you shall entreat. I will not be happy till I see your eyes fullof tears."
Hetfalusy regarded the fury contemptuously, and knitted his lips.
And then he called her a name, a low, degrading name, the worst of allnames that a man can call a woman.
With a hiss of rage the virago rushed upon him with the frantic idea ofplunging her knife in his heart.
But nay, not so.
Her face was white with fury, her whole frame trembled.
"I became that all through you!" she gasped with husky rage. "But youwill not mock me for it much longer. Do you see your grandchild here inmy power?"
"You swore you would not hurt her."
"I swore I would not kill her, but I will make her what I was. By Heavenand Earth and all the torments of Hell, I swear I will do it."
"Woman!" stammered Hetfalusy, and his face lost at last its expressionof stony endurance.
"Ha-ha!" cried the virago, with a laugh like the howl of a wild beast."The last scion of the house of Hetfalusy will do credit to a house ofill-fame. Look how lovely she is! Look at her face, her figure, hereyes! As innocent as an angel too! Ah! you are weeping now, are you? Butyou will have to weep tears of blood, you accursed old wretch, for whatI say I mean to do!"
"Woman, if you believe in God----" began the old man, writhing to freehimself from his bonds.
"I don't!" the woman yelled back defiantly. "There is no God!"
At that same instant her head leaped so suddenly into the air that herbody remained standing upright, three long jets of blood at the sametime shooting up from between her vacant shoulders. Her two hands stillfumbled about in the air as if they would have drawn back the utteredblasphemy and defended her against this terrible judgment, and then thewhole figure collapsed in the direction of the fallen head, which laywith its face turned heavenwards, and its mouth gaping open, as iflonging to speak, whilst the tongue still moved, perchance, asking mercyor pardon from Heaven. Too late, too late! There was no longer any powerof utterance there. Once or twice there was a twitching of the eyelidsover the stiffening staring eyes, till at last they closed painfully inthe dream of death.
And above the condemned sinner towered the form of the avenger ofsin--the headsman.
