The Day of Wrath

by Mór Jókai

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  THE READY-DUG GRAVES.

  Imre Hetfalusy, hastening with all his might, reached at last theofficer in command of the cordon, and delivered the General's command.The officer at once placed four-and-twenty soldiers at the disposal ofthe General's adjutant. More he could not spare, as his assistance mightbe wanted elsewhere.

  Imre lost no more time in going to the next cordon-commander, butmarched straight off to Hetfalu with his four-and-twenty warriors.

  Only three of them were mounted, the General's adjutant, Kamienszka, andhimself, all the rest were on foot. Even with the utmost exertion itwould take at least four hours to reach Hetfalu.

  During the long journey Maria told Imre everything she knew about hisfamily. Nobody disturbed their conversation, the road was empty andnoiseless.

  When they reached the first _csarda_ that also was silent. The doors andwindows had been torn from their places, the road was strewn with thedebris of casks, bottles, and flasks. Here and there, amidst the ruins,were little pools of blood in which somebody had stood, leaving abloody trail behind them....

  The little band went further on their way in silence.

  Two hours later they perceived in the wayside woods, concealed among thebushes, three figures which rose to their feet on perceiving thesoldiers, and one of them came rapidly towards them, and was so out ofbreath when he reached them that he could not speak a word, and wouldhave fallen if Imre had not supported him against his saddle.

  Then Imre recognised the worthy Leather-bell.

  "What's the matter, old man?" he inquired compassionately.

  "Alas, alas! my young master, a terrible thing has happened. I cannotdescribe it in words. I'm only glad that we have saved this innocentcreature."

  "What innocent creature?"

  "This child, the squire's grandchild, whom Zudar brought up in secret,and the headsman's wife betrayed. But she has paid for it dearly now.They had condemned the child to death. I hid them here beneath thebridge, and gave them peasant's clothes to put on, and helped them toscurry through the woods."

  At these words Kamienszka leaped from her horse, and ran to the childwho was quite worn out. Her little feet were all wounded and bloody, itwas only by leaning on the arm of Zudar that she was able to walk atall.

  The headsman recognised at once the youth who had brought a blessing onhis house, although he had now quite another figure. Now he had come tofight. Zudar stooped down and kissed his hand. He said, too, that hisown hands were now pure, for he had washed them in blood, the sheddingwhereof was pleasing to God.

  The officer in command had a rough litter made from the branches oftrees, on which they placed the exhausted little girl. Four soldierswere then told off to carry it, and then the little band resumed itsmarch. Elise could not have been in a place of greater safety.

  Meanwhile, the Leather-bell was giving a full account of the horrorsthat had taken place around the castle from the evening to the morning.He had left the place just as Szephalmi and the doctor had fallen intothe hands of the mob.

  Imre was beside himself with horror.

  "I must hasten to save my father or die with him," he murmured bitterly.

  The officer wanted him to wait so that they might all reach the castletogether, but he would not listen. He was quite ready to face the dangersingle-handed. But indeed he was not alone. He had beside him hisvaliant comrade, in love a true woman, in trouble a true man, and shewould not be parted from him.

  "Courage and hope!" she cried, pressing his hand, and with that theheroic couple spurred their horses along the grass-grown road.

  * * * * *

  With the fall of Numa Pompilius the last vestige of disciplinedisappeared from the ranks of the rioters. The loss of their leader, sofar from bringing them to reason, only made them desperate. Bodza haddied at their very feet after half an hour of the most excruciatingtorments, and, meanwhile, there mingled with the crowd numbers ofwailing women, each of whom already had their dead at home, and spreadsorrow and confusion wherever they went. Then everybody lost his head,and was frightened into bestial ferocity. The dying lay about in theroad with none to care for them. Fathers no longer owned their sons,brother had no compassion for brother. And the gentry had to pay for allthis panic terror.

  The people had been brought up in such a way that its first thought onbreaking out of its cage was to tear its masters in pieces.

  It listened no longer to any word of command, only the latest whimobtained a hearing.

  Stubbly Hanak hit upon a hideous idea.

  "What are those three bigwigs lounging about here for, eh?" he cried."Let them go and dig graves, let them dig their own graves!"

  And with that he untied their bonds, placed spades and shovels in theirhands, and pointed out to them the exact spots in the courtyard of thecastle where they were to dig their own graves, and nice, picturesquespots they were too, beneath the shade of wide-spreading chestnut trees.

  Old Hetfalusy had no longer the physical strength for such work, andDr. Sarkantyus declared categorically that anybody who was fool enoughto kill him might do so if he chose, but that he was not such a fool asto dig his own grave, and nobody should make him do it either.

  Only Szephalmi took them at their word. On his knees he implored themnot to torture him, and he would willingly dig not only his own grave,but the graves of his comrades also.

  The rioters thrust a spade into his hand, and, grinning with delight,instructed him how to throw aside the earth out of the furrow, and thenthey made him lie down in it in order to take his proper measure.

  And how boisterously they laughed at the fun of it.

  Suddenly there was a sound of pattering hoofs, and two horsemen, withdrawn swords in their right hands, galloped into the courtyard.

  They came so unexpectedly that only the shrieks of the women wailing atthe gate told the frantic mob of their arrival.

  "My son!" cried the old squire, painfully raising himself from theground with a supreme effort.

  "My father, my father!" wailed the youth, and with that he cut his waythrough the thickest of the crowd, distributing vigorous blows, rightand left, till he had forced his way up to his father's tortured body,and forgetting everything at that moment, he flung himself from hissaddle, fell upon his father's neck, and embraced and sobbed over him.

  The brutal mob instantly rushed upon him with a savage yell, when,suddenly, a couple of shots resounded, and two of the assailants felldead close beside the father and son. It was Maria who had fired theseshots, and now, leaping from her steed, she shook Imre violently.

  "You must fight for your life now, and leave weeping for another time,my boy!" cried she.

  The youth quickly recovered himself and drew his sword, and then thepair of them turned upon the cowardly mob, and, by sheer dint of hardfighting, began driving them out of the doorway of the castle.

  In no very long time there were three of them, for the doctor had hadhis weather-eye open, and, when the general attention was distracted, hesnatched up the spade assigned to him, and therewith dealt a lanky loutbeside him such a blow at the back of the neck that he immediately felldown and never spoke again.

  "Come along with us, Mr. Szephalmi, come along!" cried the doctor, as hejoined the combatants, but Szephalmi paid no heed. He fell down on theedge of the freshly-dug grave at the feet of his jailors, and declared,sobbing and moaning, that he would hurt nobody if nobody hurt him. Theonly answer they gave him was a smashing blow on the head with a largehammer, and he fell back into the grave and expired on the spot.

  A vigorous slash with which Imre severed the arm of the most powerful ofthe peasants, clean off at the elbow, somewhat damped the fightingardour of the crowd, which drew back to curse and swear at a distance.The respite thus gained was sufficient to enable the little group ofgentlemen to reach the door of the castle, and bolt and bar it behindthem, after having first of all rescued old Hetfalusy from the hands ofhis murderers.
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  Fortunately not one of the rioters remained in the castle, indeed therewas nothing else for them to do there. Everything had been eviscerated,torn to atoms, reduced to powder. A large portion of the mob was down inthe cellars dead drunk.

  Imre Hetfalusy who, all this time, had held his father closely embraced,now deposited him on a torn and ragged hair mattress, and then they bothembraced each other again, and neither could speak a word. It was bothjoy and anguish, it was something which words could not describe.

  And now for the defence!

  The three of them could not, of course, defend the whole castle againstthe furious mob whenever it should return. For return it certainlywould, and if it could not get through the door, it was at least able toclimb through the windows. The best plan, therefore, was to confine thedefence to a single room, and the most convenient stronghold was thefamily library, the door of which was strengthened by iron fastenings.

  The sole object of the besieged was to keep the mob at bay till thearrival of the soldiery.

  In a few moments the roar of the rioters advancing to the attack wasagain audible. Stones flew through the windows, and angry fiststhundered at the door. Curses and savage threats resounded in thepassages. The mob, swarming in the courtyard, were carrying about ontheir shoulders the dead bodies of the two peasants that had been shot,two or three men with bloody faces were exhibiting their wounds, thewidow of one of the fallen held up her weeping children in her arms, andhounded the mob on to vengeance with her frantic bitterness.

  The room to be defended had a window looking out upon the courtyard, anda door opening upon the passage. Maria was to be the defender of thewindow, Imre the defender of the door. The doctor, meanwhile, with thenonchalance becoming his profession, was binding up old Hetfalusy'swounds, tearing off portions of his own shirt to serve as bandages.

  The rioters had now occupied the hall, they had crept into the castlethrough the rearward windows, the walls and arches rang with theirtriumphant shouting.

  "Imre!" said the old squire to his son, "come nearer to me!"

  The youth approached his suffering father and knelt down before him.

  "It may be God's will," murmured the aged man, "that within an hour bothof us may stand before His Judgment Seat. Promise me that you will neveraccuse me of being a hard father, that you will never say that I huntedyou to death. Promise me that, my son!"

  "I have always loved you, and I will love you still," sobbed the youth,kissing the shaking hand.

  "Let us not part from each other in tears," continued the old man, "letus rejoice as they rejoice who have found again those whom they fanciedthey had lost, and now let me bless you as a father may bless his sonwhen he is about to undertake a long journey."

  And then he placed his trembling hands on his son's head, while his eyeslooked up to Heaven, and his dumb lips murmured an inaudible prayer tothe Lord of life and death.

  "And now, my son, brace yourself up for your long journey!"

  But Maria came rushing towards them.

  "To work, my friend! bear a hand! The evil game has begun. Let us butgain half an hour and all our lives will be saved."

  "Who is that apparition," whispered old Hetfalusy to his son, "who hastwice descended from Heaven to save us?"

  Imre looked with some hesitation at Maria, the girl gazed back at himencouragingly.

  "Yes, tell him! Why not? I am your wife, the famous Maria Kamienszka,and this is not the first time I have been in the midst of a scrimmage.Courage, my father, your son is now in your embrace, and in half an houryour grand-daughter will be there also. Trust in God and be notfaint-hearted!"

  "Ah, yes!" whispered the old man, with a transfigured countenance and avoice full of enthusiasm, "this cannot be the hour of my death, no, myGod! it cannot, cannot be!"

  The youth and the valiant young woman then warmly pressed each other'shands, and hastened back to their posts. It was indeed high time.

  The besiegers, after swarming all over the castle, had come at last uponthe barred and bolted door, and with the bloodthirsty howl of raveningbeasts, had rushed upon it with their iron bars, while another bandbegan wrenching out the iron fastenings of the windows with their sharp_csakanyas_.[21]

  [Footnote 21: Hooked axes.]

  The besieged had to economize their shots, for they had only fourcharges left. Their means of defence had to be reserved till the verylast instant, they could not afford to simply destroy the first stupidbumpkin who might happen to come in their way.

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

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

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

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

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

  Either of these eventualities might be expected at any moment.

  "Keep your shots to the very last," whispered Maria to Imre. "Reserveone of them for the enemy, and the other for me. I must not fall intotheir hands alive."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  To still further emphasize his words, shaggy Hanak whirled his knobbybludgeon above his head, and shied it frantically at the officer, whowarded off the blow with his sword, and the same instant a young privatetransfixed the braggart so vigorously that the end of his bayonet stuckin the ground behind.

  This unexpected scene served as a signal for the little band ofsoldiers, and they there and then fired into the thickest of the crowd.
r />   And with that the whole horrible tragedy came to an end.

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

  The rescued welcomed their deliverers with open arms. But anotherquarter of an hour and very sorry remnants of them would have been foundat Hetfalu.

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

  * * * * *

  Hetfalusy had the felicity of embracing his long-lost grandchild beforehe died. The child accepted him as her grandpapa, but begged that shemight have as her dear papa besides, good old Zudar, who had loved herso much.

  Hetfalusy nodded his consent, and pressed the coarse palm of theheadsman with his own gentlemanly hand. Nobody told the child that shehad a perfect right to call Zudar her father, inasmuch as her realfather, who had cast her from him, now lay frightfully disfigured in agrave he had dug with his own hand.

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

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

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

  The General had given orders that Hetfalusy should be conducted straightto his house as soon as the old man arrived.

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

  Now indeed they could pardon each other everything.

  Hetfalusy knew, at last, why the General had abandoned his girl sosuddenly, and how could the iron man help forgiving him who had sinnedgreatly against him it is true, but, at the same time, had suffered soterribly for it.

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

  A beneficent stroke of apoplexy called him home to his dead in thefamily vault at Hetfalu.

  Imre remained no longer in those parts. He settled down on his wife'sproperty with little Elise, and left for ever the place which had suchmelancholy associations for him.

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

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

  And the three houses at Hetfalu were abandoned to desolation.

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

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

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

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

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

  THE END.