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The Day of Wrath, a novel by Maurus Jokai |
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Chapter 16. 'Tis Well That The Night Is Black |
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_ CHAPTER XVI. 'TIS WELL THAT THE NIGHT IS BLACK At the Castle of Hétfalu everyone was quietly sleeping. None had any thought of that black spectre which is the enemy of all living creatures, which constrains the huge watch-dog to dig up graves with his hind feet, which bids the night owl utter her dismal notes on the housetop alongside of the creaking weather-cock, which sends into the vestibules and corridors its living visiting-cards in the shape of those large, black, night-moths with pale skull-like effigies painted on their backs as upon tombs, beneath whose feet the furniture creaks and crackles, which makes that tiny invisible beetle hidden between the boards of the beds begin tick-tick-ticking like a fairy watch, eleven times in succession, by way of showing that the witching hour of night is close at hand. Oh! there is such a great unanimity among these dumb creatures of the night and darkness. The wind blew gloomy-looking clouds before it across the sky, clouds which hastened away from that district; which jostled one another as they scudded along, some high, some low, and kept on changing their shapes as if they feared lest something might catch them there. Some of them had blood-red linings from the flames of distant conflagrations, and these flew rapidly along, trying to force their way through in advance of the rest; but these others sped along still faster, lest they, too, should be enkindled. And in the darkness disorderly masses of men might have been dimly seen assembling in the roads and stealthily proceeding towards the castle. In the tap-room of the _csárda_ evil counsellors are discussing the destruction of all the dwellers in the castle. Three separate opinions are fighting for the supremacy. Numa Pompilius is in favour of an open, heroic attack, as became the _epigoni_ of the valiant Sarmatians; with battering-rams, ballistas, and other classical instruments of warfare, he would have fought breast to breast, eye to eye with the foe. Ivan, on the other hand, is more practical. He knows his own people better, and anticipates much greater success from an insidious surprise in which the warriors shall stealthily crawl over walls and through windows upon the unguarded and unsuspecting garrison, and massacre them in their dreams. The wife of the headsman sits on the table opposite the two commanders-in-chief with a mocking smile upon her lips, and her huge muscular arms crossed over her bosom. From time to time she utters a scornful laugh and grunts disapprovingly. "Do what you like," she said at last, "neither of you knows anything about it. The buffalo-catcher would proceed cautiously and the cripple would 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 two have made a mess of it, then I shall come forward." The commanders began to be jealous of her influence. The first success always 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 up Tiszá and Farkas myself. I give them bread every day. Why, they sniff my pockets even now whenever I go along there." "They know you still better, you knacker you, I'll be bound," said Dame Zudár to Ivan derisively. Ivan caught up a knife from the table and would have stuck the woman with it had not Thomas Bodza stayed his hand. He did not like these squabbles at all. "This is not the time for wrangling," said he. Only very reluctantly did Ivan allow himself to be pacified and induced to continue the conversation. "Here in this handkerchief are some pieces of meat, do you think you can get the dogs to take them with soft words?" "Why not? I have only to call them by name, and they will come to the doors 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 resist the slightest command. He accepted the commission, although he knew very well that the dogs would be poisoned. He consoled himself with the reflection, 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 your teeth 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 in a good humour. But he could speak no longer, of course, since he had lost his tongue; whatever they said to him he could only reply: "Hamamama!" This with him was the expression of happiness and contentment, both question and answer. "Mekipiros! come hither and drink," cried Ivan, holding to his mouth a straw-covered pitcher full of spirit, which he to whom it was offered did not remove from his lips till it was quite empty. Then he returned it 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 of a 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, do you understand?" The dwarfish abortion rushed with a howl of joy at Ivan, caught the fellow round the knee, raised him high in the air, and leapt up and down with 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 himself from 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 and thither, which appeared to infinitely delight the speechless monster. Whenever he succeeded in getting hold of one of Ivan's hands he covered it with kisses, whereupon the other, with an air of disgust, kept rubbing them on the tails of his coat, as if he could not wipe them sufficiently. "He will do very well as food for their guns," whispered Ivan. "If the people in the castle hear a noise, and guess our subterfuge, they will shoot Mekipiros, for we will send him on in front. Why, even with a couple of bullets in his body the fellow will be able to scramble up the wall. He's like a toad." Meanwhile the Leather-bell returned and announced that the dogs had gobbled 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 his breast-pocket. Dame Zudár hastened towards her matted waggon and leaped upon the box-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 she laid hold of her whip and lashed up the horses. The road they followed passed by the hut of the Death-Bird. The old witch was huddled up in her doorway, and began counting those who passed, 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's apprentice, and a nice young bride! Whither are you going such a dark night? A splendidly dark night! Just the night for thieves and murderers; just the night for those intent on rapine and burning! On you go! On you go! Worry the great gentry, root out your landlords, and after that fall yourselves into the hands of the headsman! The less people there are in the world the nicer it will be." None of the rioters durst molest her though she stood right in their way, and spoke so that everyone could hear her. They all took care to give her a wide berth. Thomas Bodza distributed his people along the road, and occupied every exit from the castle. One detachment he hid behind a haystack, with another he seized the beehives, and with a third the distillery. The servants who lived outside he overcame after a short resistance, and then bound them tightly and locked them up. Inside the castle nobody was yet aware of what was going on outside. Not a single servant slept there. The young squire, in his terror of the epidemic, would not suffer one of them to sleep in the castle, the only people inside there besides himself were old Hétfalusy and the doctor. Ivan then chose out six of the bravest of his followers, amongst them the watchman in whose sylvan hut they had held their secret meetings, Hamza, the sexton, and Mekipiros, whose mouth they had to gag, to prevent him from uttering his eternal "Hamamama!" Poor Mekipiros! A little while ago he was able to pray, now he could not utter an intelligible word! It was not difficult to get into the courtyard. The Leather-bell opened the gate for them. Inside the dogs were lying near the well stiff and stark, nothing had betrayed the venture. And now Ivan produced a long strong rope, and tied on to it a lot of pack-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 the corners in old-fashioned dolphins. On to one of such dolphins Ivan threw the pack-thread noose, and seizing hold of the re-descending lead plummet, 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 to be the _anima vilis_ by means of whom they were to find out whether the folks in the castle were asleep or not. When he got to the top he was to pull up Ivan after him, and then the united 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 the doors, 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 hurried up Mekipiros and shoved the free end of the rope into his hand. The little monster did not trust himself to shout but expressed his satisfaction in a lowly murmured "Hamamamama!" The next moment he was clambering up the rope like a strange sort of huge spider, climbing rapidly higher and higher with agile hands and feet, occasionally he even helped himself along with his teeth. In a few moments he was sitting on the back of the copper dolphin, delighted to have found a steed in a monster similar to himself, and from thence he shouted: "Hu, hu, hu!" like an owl. "Will you shut up!" called Ivan, in a voice of suppressed fury. "The beast 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 rope with his short arms as easily as if there were no weight attached to it. "How I wish he would let him fall," murmured Dame Zudár to herself. Thomas Bodza had much the same sort of wish in his own heart. Each of them 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 the roof and helped him to climb up on to the metal gutter. Ivan scarce felt his feet once more, however, when, instead of expressing his gratitude, he expended his pent-up rage on his companion. "You mad bullock, you, why did you roar out just now, eh?" he whispered in the ear of Mekipiros, and he viciously tugged at the stunted monster's bristly hair with one hand, at the same time holding his other hand 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 him along the roof. For a second the pair of them tottered on the very edge of the gutter, but then Ivan clutched the metal cornice and held on to it convulsively with both hands. "Hamama, hamama, hamama!" howled the enraged monster. Like a heavy load of sin, he hung on to the legs of his prey, squeezing his knees together in an iron embrace, worrying his enemy's calves with his teeth, kicking and 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 Zudár, gnashing her teeth. "The poltroon is betraying us himself. Let him perish if he does not know how to live." "Scoundrel!" Bodza shouted to him. "What! cannot you die speechless like a Julius Cæsar? And when the common cause demands that you should keep silence too! Fie upon you, I say!" Ivan, in his desperation, writhed over the gulf beneath him, and forgetting everything but the horrible death awaiting him, bellowed hoarsely to those standing below: "Help, for the love of Christ. Men, I say! do not let me perish! I am falling! I am dying. Woe is me! Spread straw underneath, can't you? Hold a 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 all by himself. For the last hour or so he had been joyfully awaiting this sweet moment, for this he had laughed, for this he had frisked about so uproariously. He was unable to conceal his delight. If only he could be alone with his tormentor at that giddy height, suddenly seize him, and hurl him down with himself from the roof, fly for a few seconds through the air, and then lie stretched upon the earth in a smashed and broken mass, so that it would be impossible to distinguish the one from the other--ah! then how happy he would be! And--better than that even--his victim had clutched hold of something in the very act of falling, and so the delicious moment was indefinitely prolonged! He heard how his prey roared for help, saw how he writhed convulsively in the desperate hope of saving himself, how half out of his mind he even begged him, Mekipiros! for life: "Mekipiros, dear good Mekipiros, let me go, and plunge down alone!" "Hamamama! hamamama!" gurgled the monster with a grim cruel voice, and he kicked the wall with his feet to make Ivan let go the quicker, and buried his scanty teeth in the fleshy legs of his victim, and worried him like a dog. "Mercy, mercy! Help! I can hold out no longer!" gasped Ivan, his sinews beginning to stretch beneath the pressure of the double load. No help was possible. Those standing below cursed him for rousing the castle with his shouts. The narrow edge of the gutter was gradually slipping through his nerveless fingers. And now one hand relaxed its hold, and only by a last convulsive effort did he manage to hold on for a few seconds 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, coil came bounding rapidly to the ground, and there, the next instant, lay a mangled 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 Zudár, leaning nonchalantly back in her waggon, and crossing her arms over her breast like an impatient singer at a concert who waits for his turn in the programme to come while his colleagues are boring the public to death with their dismal performances. At Ivan's first howl two lights had become visible in the two corner chambers of the castle, and presently both of these lights were observed hastening to the central hall only, a few moments later, to be extinguished. Then the iron shutters were banged down with a crash, only one 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 of glory. Advance! put your ladders to the walls, hurl your beams against the foe, sling your stones against the roof, begin the struggle, and inspire the combatants with martial fury! Let shouts and yells and curses supply the place of thundering artillery! The enemy is aroused and expectant! "Forward, ye heroes! The hour of the red dawn of our day of triumph is at hand. Victory to the valiant!" The excited mob heard not a word of this classical appeal, its ears were too full of its own howlings, as it pressed into the courtyard. Then from that window square, which had remained uncovered by the shutter, a shot resounded, at whose sharp report the hideous hubbub suddenly grew dumb, and during the lull a strong manly voice addressed the rioters: "That was only a blank shot. If you do not instantly leave the courtyard we will fire among you with bullets." "Let us depart hence, my noble patriots, let us depart!" stammered the Leather-bell. "It is Squire Széphalmi who commands it. It is not well to play games with him. He has a lot of six-barrelled firearms inside with three bullets in each barrel. A mischief may befall some of us else. We have wives and children at home. Let us go home, my dear fellow patriots. Early to-morrow morning we will send a deputation." The greater part of the mob shared this good opinion, and began to show their respect for firearms by clearing out of the courtyard. But Numa Pompilius, full of the fury of despair, barred the way against his retreating host. "Miserable, cowardly deserters! What! a single blank shot is sufficient to turn you back! Holus-bolus, 'sicut examen apum,' ye decamp at the word of a single foe! Fie, fie upon you, ye dregs, ye sweepings of humanity!" The bellicose commander spat in his disgust at the fugitives again and again, and overwhelmed them with all sorts of choice epithets. Finally he snatched up an axe, and declared that if nobody else stirred he would go and batter down the door of the castle single-handed. But the Leather-bell threw his arms round the body of the enthusiastic hero 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 to seize the axe he held in his hand regardless of the kicks and cuffs he received during the struggle. Dame Zudár laughed scornfully at this tragicomical scene. "Why don't some other of you fellows hold him back too?" she cried. "He likes nothing better than not to be let go. Don't you see what a business he makes of it to rid himself of that feeble old man, whom he could throw to the ground with half a hand if he had a mind to. Get out of my way, will you? Men are out of place in a joke of this sort. My mother was a witch and I'm one also. Do you know that I can open every door before you with a single word. All you have got to do is to sharpen your knives." And with that she opened the wicker covering of her waggon, which hitherto had been kept tightly closed, and as easily, as if she only held 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 completely enveloped in a thick woollen wrapper so that she could neither see nor cry out. Dame Zudár removed the wrapper from the little girl's head, and ordered her to stand upright. Then she produced a half burnt wax taper, the relic of some past funeral, lit it, and placed it between the child's fettered fingers. "The woman is not quite right," growled shaggy-headed Hanák. "She lights a 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 huddle behind the doorpost if you like. _I_ mean to go alone into the courtyard, and will draw the snake out of its hole with my bare hand." The besiegers did not need much persuasion to hide themselves. When Dame Zudár passed through the gate with the child, everyone, not excepting Thomas Bodza, hastened to make himself scarce. The child she sent on in front with the lighted taper sticking between its fettered fingers. She followed close behind. She had no fear of bullets now. When they came in front of the open square in the shutter, she made the child stop, and bade it kneel down. Then with a loud resounding voice she shouted up at the windows: "Old Hétfalusy, are you there? Young Széphalmi, are you there?" There was no answer. "It is of no use denying yourselves. I am here to carry on my process against you. It is the old, old suit in which my father lost his life and my mother her reason. I have also brought along with me a tribunal which cannot be corrupted. _I_ am now the stronger party." "Take yourself off!" a hoarse, broken voice suddenly cried from the window; it very much resembled old Hétfalusy's. "Oh, I'm to take myself off, eh!" cried the virago defiantly. "Am I not standing then on my own ground? Is not this corner of the house whose windows I am now rattling, built on the plot of ground belonging to my forefathers? Is not this ground my own? Are not these very stones, these very blades of grass on which I now trample, mine, mine, mine?" "It may very easily be yours for ever, you wretched creature," said another 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's wife could see that it was pointed straight at her heart. Quickly she pulled the little girl towards her. "Aim away, Széphalmi!" she cried. "I have even taken the trouble to bring 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 lips resemble someone you loved very much at one time, don't they? It would be a shame, wouldn't it, to make this tender, slender shape a target for bullets, wouldn't it?" The barrel of the gun sank slowly down. "How do you suppose now, Széphalmi," continued the virago, her face radiant with infernal malice, "how do you suppose now that the headsman's wife managed to get hold of this gentle cherub, who is as much like her as an angel is to a devil?" "Woman!" hissed someone from within, though whether it was the old man or the young it was impossible to say. Dame Zudár 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 do that. You see how close I am standing to you, you could touch my body with the barrel of your musket. But you _won't_ touch me, I know, for now it is I who am the destroyer." And with that she laid her large, broad, muscular palm on the little girl's tender shoulder. "This child is now eight years old. When she was born her father cursed her, her mother kicked her out, and her nurse confided her to a she-wolf that she might either kill it or bring it up along with her own whelps--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 old headsman nourished the innocent little girl, and defended her against all the wild beasts of the forest. Do I make the fable quite clear to you?" A stifled moan was the sole reply. "And then Heaven's lightning descended upon your house, misfortune was a constant visitor upon you, you soon had a pair of corpses under your roof, and there was no end to your affliction. Now I should say that that looked very much like a curse upon you. "Yes, a curse pursued your family. When you had securely fastened the door behind you, you used to weep and wail like any beggar; yes, and no beggar at your door would have thanked you for the chance of exchanging his lot with yours." To this there was no reply from behind the window. The defiant features of the virago were illuminated by the candle which the child now held again in her hand. She seemed to cast a dark shadow upon the very night around her--the darkest of dark shadows. And now she went right up to the window so that she could actually whisper through it. "Come, throw down your weapons, ye great and haughty gentlemen, for they are no longer a defence to you. Something very evil is going to happen to-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 the knife sharpened to a keen point, whose edge she had tested so carefully a short time before. "Do you see my key?" cried she. "This is the key to your hearts, this is the key to the doors of your palaces. This knife will pare down your pride and humble you to the dust beneath my feet. You could shoot me dead as I stand here I know, though that would be no very great master-stroke. But the same instant in which I fell, my mother, the old witch, would stand behind my back and would shout to the infuriated mob with all the force of her lungs, and tell them whose this child is, and then do you know in whose heart this knife would be plunged first of all?" A sort of painful wail came from below the dark window, like the sounds that are heard in a deserted, dilapidated old fortress where the whole building is ever sighing and moaning, and none can tell whence the noise comes. During the virago's muttered discourse the bolder spirits among the mob had gradually flitted back again into the courtyard. They perceived that the headsman's wife was not afraid, and this of itself gave them courage. Some of them even drew near to the threshold of the house, where they pricked up their ears and did their best to catch something of what the woman was talking about so mysteriously. It might be worth their while to hear. Dame Zudár began sharpening the knife against the stone ledge of the castle 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 heavenly resignation of a martyr on her pale, innocent face. She appeared to be quite undisturbed by the dreadful scene before her. The thought that she was 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 the flight of steps. "Pray, if you have a mind that way." The child devoutly raised her eyes to Heaven, and holding the lighted candle in front of her in her tiny hands, began to sing this verse of a hymn:
Who could it be? None could say whence the accompanying voice proceeded. A cold shudder ran down Dame Zudár's back. It was the voice of the headsman! But what a mad idea! Men no longer come forth unhurt from the midst of the fire, as did the three holy children in the days of Nebuchadnezzar. So she strengthened her heart, marched up to the door, and began thundering upon it with her fists. "The three minutes for consideration is now up. My old enemy and my young 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 their stronghold? What spell had this woman cast over them? Had she really the power, then, to break through bolts and bars with a mere word, a mere look? "One, two, three!" Still not a sound. Then the virago, with a haughty look, turned towards the people, and addressed them with a penetrating voice: "If they won't speak I will. Friends and comrades, these bigwigs here have 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 are in their power, but they who are in ours. Their own sins have delivered them into my hands. You know, and the whole world knows, that that stuck-up gentleman yonder, Széphalmi, Esq., once upon a time exposed his firstborn child. He cast it forth in the wilderness, cast it forth among the 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 poor man who found the child, it was a poor man who had compassion on the little outcast thrown in his way, it was a poor man who brought it up as if it were his own child. And now, if you please, these high and noble gentlemen cast poison into the wells of the poor man that they may destroy him, root and branch." The mob listened to these murderous words with ever increasing eagerness. At the same time it did not escape Dame Zudár's attention that a key had been put into the iron door of the castle from the inside, and that it was 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 was that child's mother? who gave her to the headsman's wife? Her mother, I tell you, was a great lady, none other than Benjamin Hétfalusy's daughter, whom the wrath of God smote down together with that little murderer, her infant son. I nourished and brought up that child, and what thanks did I get for it? Only this: that these bigwigs have determined to kill us all by poisoning our meat and drink, that they may thereby bury their shameful secret. But I declare their design aloud, so that every man may know it. This girl is Hétfalusy's grand-daughter. This girl is in our power, and if these fine gentlemen so much as crumple a single hair of any of your heads, I will plunge this knife into the child's heart." A confused, savage murmur ran through the mob at these grim words, which seemed to intoxicate the hearts of all who heard them with a fiendish cruelty. And Dame Zudár, listening attentively, heard the key turn in the door a second time. She was well prepared for what would follow. She now stepped behind the child, wound its beautiful blonde tresses round her left hand, and with her right grasped the handle of the knife convulsively. "Oh, God, my God!" cried Elise's bell-like voice. At that same instant the iron door opened wide, and between its receding wings stood a spectre--a spectre was the only name for it, as it had no resemblance to anything human. A pale face, like the face of one arisen from the tomb, white dishevelled hair clinging round his temples and hanging over his bloodshot eyes. He had wrapped a long mantle over his white night-dress which fluttered about him like the wings of a bat. It was old Hétfalusy. In each hand he held a loaded pistol, and as the opening door groaned on its hinges he cried in a hoarse voice: "Here I am, but whoever dares to lay a hand upon the girl, him will I shoot first and the girl afterwards." But it was a threat which excited little terror, his hands trembled so and 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 his threat that he threw himself at the old man's feet, and embracing his knees, piteously besought him: "Master, master, oh, my dear master! don't fire, for God's sake! Lay down your pistols. I assure you that nobody here will hurt you." "Will ye swear, then, that you will do the child no harm?" gasped old Hétfalusy. "Put down your weapons!" cried the rioters. "Swear that you will not harm her in any way, and then I will put them down." "Very well, we swear!" cried some in the rear of the crowd. "Let that woman swear too," said Hétfalusy, pointing at Dame Zudár with a shaking hand. None of them did he hold in such horror as her. The virago smiled and twiddled the knife between her fingers. Craftily lowering her eyes, and casting a side-long glance at the old man, she replied: "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 do this child any harm, whosoever child she is, and whether what you allege concerning 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 muscular right arm heavenwards, she cried: "No harm shall come to the child, so help me, God!" Then Hétfalusy calmly surrendered his pistols to the Leather-bell, who politely kissed his hand for so doing, and straightway fired the pistols off 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, and the bloodthirsty cowards rushed furiously from their hiding-places with cudgels and flails, to the spot where the defenceless old squire was lying. The worthy Leather-bell had not another word to say, but he cast himself at full length upon the prostrate gentleman, and, tightly embracing his frail figure, defended him with his own body from the first onset of the raging mob. In vain they pummelled, in vain they kicked him, his self-sacrificing back endured everything, and patiently received the beating intended for his master. The poor fellow, after all, would really have been a very good man if only he had not been so very simple. "Clear out, will you!" cried Dame Zudár and Thomas Bodza simultaneously, "we must not kill him. We want to get something out of him, so he must live. Let no one hurt him, then, till he has received his sentence." At last the two ringleaders succeeded in clearing away the furious mob from the mauled and trampled body of the squire. Then they raised him from the ground, tied his hands together, and fastened him tightly by one lean arm to the trellised gate of the castle. Blood oozed from the old man's limbs beneath the pressure of the rough cord, yet, with not so much as a groan did Benjamin Hétfalusy betray the torture he was suffering. * * * * * And thou, oh, man, in thy fiery pit, art thou still singing thy hymns below there, art thou still testing the edge of thy sword with the tips of thy fingers, just as if it were the string of some sad and delicate musical instrument, which can give forth but one voice, and that the voice of a sad, sad song? The heat of the collapsed dwelling was now penetrating to the cellar below, and the straitened prisoner began to bethink him of some other place of refuge. Instead of the fierce crackle of the flames which had met his ear hitherto, he now could only hear a monotonous flickering as of expiring embers, and this lasted for a long time, when suddenly a fresh noise attracted his attention. Not far from his hiding-place something began to sound like the voice of a wind-clapper. At first it went clap! clap! clap! very rapidly, but gradually the strokes grew slower and slower, tapering down at last to single beats at long intervals. Whoever has attentively watched the doors of a metal furnace, will know at once how that sound arises. When the heat of the fire which has expanded the metal begins to decrease, the expanded fibres of the metal suddenly begin to contract and give forth a snapping sound as of metal strings violently torn asunder. The iron door of the cellar was, in fact, loudly calling the attention of the master of the house to the fact that the fire had reduced all the brushwood piled round the house into red-hot embers, and it was therefore high time for him to seek another asylum. Peter Zudár seized a large measure of beer, approached the door, and flung the malt liquid all over it. Ha! how loudly the glowing metal hissed and spluttered at the contact of the cold fluid, as if laughing with joy at the artful scheme which it and 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 that the lead-soldering had long ago melted away, and it therefore only needed a vigorous kick to wrench it off its hinges. Peter Zudár listened attentively. Not a soul was stirring. There was indeed no reason why anyone should linger any longer in that wretched place. Impatience spurred him on to action. He began to lift the door from its hinges with the help of a heavy crowbar. It gave way sooner than he had anticipated, and fell at full length on the smoking embers in front of it, bridging over the fiery stream from one bank to the other. With a single bound Peter Zudár leaped over the door, and sped away from the burning house like a madman. It was dark, nobody saw him. In his way stood huge thistles, prickly-headed vegetable monsters, and Peter Zudár mowed them all down with his headsman's sword just as if they had been so many condemned malefactors, or as if he were a frolicsome lad waging fierce war with a wooden sword against the whole evil host of weeds. Anybody who had seen him 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 the nearest houses. Then he began slowly to compose himself, the cool night air was soothing his troubled brain. He now commenced to recollect what had happened to him during the last few hours. The riot, the seizure of the child, the house burnt over his head, the agony he had endured in the cellar--all these things flashed like vivid pictures before his mind again. But what had become of the child? What did they want to do with her? To kill her perhaps?--these were his first thoughts. Then he began to consider how he might discover her whereabouts and rescue her. Vengeance was the last thing he thought of. He had no suspicion as to whom the raging mob had risen against. He fancied that the child was the pivot of the whole ghastly affair. He was persuaded all along that they had sought her death, and would murder her, and the idea of such a thing was all the more terrible to him because 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 with the magistrate, the priest, or the local court, and await a heavy sentence. This was a peculiar case in which the headsman himself must investigate, condemn, and execute the sentence--and was not the sword of Justice already in his hands? And as he stood there, leaning against a fence, in a brown study, it seemed to him as if he heard from the midst of the village the very hymn which 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 words of the hymn, the child's voice was really singing them. At first he fancied that his darling was in some other world, and was speaking to him from the Kingdom of Heaven, and he lifted up his voice likewise, and sang back again, his deep sonorous voice sounding like a magnified echo of the bell-like childish voice. Subsequently, however, it occurred to him that perhaps the child was locked up somewhere, and wanted to let him know where she was by singing the hymn. Suddenly there arose a hideous shout from the courtyard of the castle, the inarticulate roar of hundreds and hundreds of savage men, whose very throats seemed to thirst for blood. At that same instant Hétfalusy had surrendered his arms to his assailants. Peter Zudár lost not another instant in reflection, but turned up his shirt-sleeves, smoothed away his hair from his eyes, and rushed towards the castle. A long lane separated him from the residential part of the mansion, but not choosing to follow it along its whole length, he waited till he saw the pinnacles of the castle, and then took a short cut over hedge and ditch, dashing along straight before him heedless of everything. * * * * * The infuriated mob which, after being cowed by the mere show of resistance, became all the more brutal at the first symptom of surrender, after Hétfalusy had laid down his arms, was able to glut its brutal rage, at will, on the old gentleman who had thus become its victim. But it was lost labour. What satisfaction can there be in the torturing of a withered stump which is dumb to all outrage?--it is as fruitless a business as flogging a 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 to extirpate the peasantry, he coldly replied: "That is not true." Every denial on his part was followed by inhuman tortures. But they were but 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 lay its hands upon, began searching for young Széphalmi and the doctor. They must have hidden well, for nowhere could they be found. The mob turned all the rooms upside down, and yet it could not find them. The old man must certainly know where they were stowed away. But Hétfalusy would not betray his son-in-law or the doctor. Amongst his executioners shaggy Hanák particularly distinguished himself by his fiendish ingenuity, but the squire only remarked to him in a gentle voice: "Do you recollect, Hanák, how last year, you were bedridden, and I supported your whole family? And when your biggest lad was taken by the recruiting sergeant, did I not buy him out? And when the hail destroyed your crops, did I not give you the corn on which you and your whole family lived comfortably during the winter?" But at this mild reproach, stubbly Hanák only wiped his bloody mouth, and bellowed with bestial pride: "There's no Hanák here! I'm Hanák no longer. I'm a rebel patriot, that's what I am!" The poor Leather-bell was quite unable to help his master. He could only implore the rioters to torture him if they liked rather than Hétfalusy. He knew he was the cause of it all because he had talked about the poison. He wished now that he had eaten of the poison and died. Dame Zudár, meanwhile, had been regarding the sufferings of her mortal foe 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 boor howls if you nip him, this sort only holds his tongue just as if he had a soul different from the others...." "This was the very spot where you made my father bleed," she cried. "Do you recollect Dudoky, eh? There he lay, where you lie now, and you stood beside him, as I now stand beside you, and revelled in it. But my father wept and howled beneath his torments while you only keep silent. I could not bear to look on, I ran away and hid myself in my room, but there also I kept on hearing his shrieks. I heard them through two thick walls. Twenty years have passed since then, and through those twenty years I still hear him. I want to hear you weep too, and not mock your executioners by putting on a stone-cold face like that. Yes, you shall weep, you shall entreat. I will not be happy till I see your eyes full of tears." Hétfalusy regarded the fury contemptuously, and knitted his lips. And then he called her a name, a low, degrading name, the worst of all names that a man can call a woman. With a hiss of rage the virago rushed upon him with the frantic idea of plunging 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 you will not mock me for it much longer. Do you see your grandchild here in my power?" "You swore you would not hurt her." "I swore I would not kill her, but I will make her what I was. By Heaven and Earth and all the torments of Hell, I swear I will do it." "Woman!" stammered Hétfalusy, and his face lost at last its expression of stony endurance. "Ha-ha!" cried the virago, with a laugh like the howl of a wild beast. "The last scion of the house of Hétfalusy will do credit to a house of ill-fame. Look how lovely she is! Look at her face, her figure, her eyes! As innocent as an angel too! Ah! you are weeping now, are you? But you will have to weep tears of blood, you accursed old wretch, for what I say I mean to do!" "Woman, if you believe in God----" began the old man, writhing to free himself 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 her body remained standing upright, three long jets of blood at the same time shooting up from between her vacant shoulders. Her two hands still fumbled about in the air as if they would have drawn back the uttered blasphemy and defended her against this terrible judgment, and then the whole figure collapsed in the direction of the fallen head, which lay with its face turned heavenwards, and its mouth gaping open, as if longing to speak, whilst the tongue still moved, perchance, asking mercy or pardon from Heaven. Too late, too late! There was no longer any power of utterance there. Once or twice there was a twitching of the eyelids over the stiffening staring eyes, till at last they closed painfully in the dream of death. And above the condemned sinner towered the form of the avenger of sin--the headsman. _ |
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