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

ImrÉ lost no more time in going to the next cordon-commander, but marched straight off to HÉtfalu with his four-and-twenty warriors.

Only three of them were mounted, the General's adjutant, Kamienszka, and himself, all the rest were on foot. Even with the utmost exertion it would take at least four hours to reach HÉtfalu.

During the long journey Maria told ImrÉ everything she knew about his family. Nobody disturbed their conversation, the road was empty and noiseless.

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

The little band went further on their way in silence.

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

Then ImrÉ 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 cannot describe it in words. I'm only glad that we have saved this innocent creature."

"What innocent creature?"

"This child, the squire's grandchild, whom ZudÁr 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 the bridge, and gave them peasant's clothes to put on, and helped them to scurry through the woods."

At these words Kamienszka leaped from her horse, and ran to the child who was quite worn out. Her little feet were all wounded and bloody, it was only by leaning on the arm of ZudÁr that she was able to walk at all.

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

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

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

ImrÉ 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 castle together, but he would not listen. He was quite ready to face the danger single-handed. But indeed he was not alone. He had beside him his valiant comrade, in love a true woman, in trouble a true man, and she would not be parted from him.

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

With the fall of Numa Pompilius the last vestige of discipline disappeared from the ranks of the rioters. The loss of their leader, so far from bringing them to reason, only made them desperate. Bodza had died at their very feet after half an hour of the most excruciating torments, and, meanwhile, there mingled with the crowd numbers of wailing women, each of whom already had their dead at home, and spread sorrow and confusion wherever they went. Then everybody lost his head, and was frightened into bestial ferocity. The dying lay about in the road 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 all this panic terror.

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

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

Stubbly HanÁk 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 their hands, and pointed out to them the exact spots in the courtyard of the castle where they were to dig their own graves, and nice, picturesque spots they were too, beneath the shade of wide-spreading chestnut trees.

Old HÉtfalusy had no longer the physical strength for such work, and Dr. SarkantyÚs declared categorically that anybody who was fool enough to kill him might do so if he chose, but that he was not such a fool as to dig his own grave, and nobody should make him do it either.

Only SzÉphalmi took them at their word. On his knees he implored them not 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 then they 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, with drawn swords in their right hands, galloped into the courtyard.

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

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

"My father, my father!" wailed the youth, and with that he cut his way through the thickest of the crowd, distributing vigorous blows, right and left, till he had forced his way up to his father's tortured body, and forgetting everything at that moment, he flung himself from his saddle, 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 fell dead close beside the father and son. It was Maria who had fired these shots, and now, leaping from her steed, she shook ImrÉ 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 the pair of them turned upon the cowardly mob, and, by sheer dint of hard fighting, began driving them out of the doorway of the castle.

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

"Come along with us, Mr. SzÉphalmi, come along!" cried the doctor, as he joined the combatants, but SzÉphalmi paid no heed. He fell down on the edge 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. The only answer they gave him was a smashing blow on the head with a large hammer, and he fell back into the grave and expired on the spot.

A vigorous slash with which ImrÉ severed the arm of the most powerful of the peasants, clean off at the elbow, somewhat damped the fighting ardour of the crowd, which drew back to curse and swear at a distance. The respite thus gained was sufficient to enable the little group of gentlemen to reach the door of the castle, and bolt and bar it behind them, after having first of all rescued old HÉtfalusy from the hands of his murderers.

Fortunately not one of the rioters remained in the castle, indeed there was 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 in the cellars dead drunk.

ImrÉ HÉtfalusy who, all this time, had held his father closely embraced, now deposited him on a torn and ragged hair mattress, and then they both embraced each other again, and neither could speak a word. It was both joy 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 against the furious mob whenever it should return. For return it certainly would, and if it could not get through the door, it was at least able to climb through the windows. The best plan, therefore, was to confine the defence to a single room, and the most convenient stronghold was the family library, the door of which was strengthened by iron fastenings.

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

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

The room to be defended had a window looking out upon the courtyard, and a door opening upon the passage. Maria was to be the defender of the window, ImrÉ the defender of the door. The doctor, meanwhile, with the nonchalance becoming his profession, was binding up old HÉtfalusy's wounds, tearing off portions of his own shirt to serve as bandages.

The rioters had now occupied the hall, they had crept into the castle through the rearward windows, the walls and arches rang with their triumphant shouting.

"ImrÉ!" 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 both of us may stand before His Judgment Seat. Promise me that you will never accuse me of being a hard father, that you will never say that I hunted you 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, "let us rejoice as they rejoice who have found again those whom they fancied they had lost, and now let me bless you as a father may bless his son when he is about to undertake a long journey."

And then he placed his trembling hands on his son's head, while his eyes looked up to Heaven, and his dumb lips murmured an inaudible prayer to the 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 but gain half an hour and all our lives will be saved."

"Who is that apparition," whispered old HÉtfalusy to his son, "who has twice descended from Heaven to save us?"

ImrÉ looked with some hesitation at Maria, the girl gazed back at him encouragingly.

"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 hour your grand-daughter will be there also. Trust in God and be not faint-hearted!"

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

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

The besiegers, after swarming all over the castle, had come at last upon the barred and bolted door, and with the bloodthirsty howl of ravening beasts, had rushed upon it with their iron bars, while another band began wrenching out the iron fastenings of the windows with their sharp csakanyas.21

21 Hooked axes.