s, 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 Szephalmi and the doctor had fallen into
the 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 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 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 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 Hetfalusy had no longer