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, Szephalmi, 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 Zudar'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 Hetfalusy'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 Hetfalusy'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 Zudar, 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