the physical strength for such work, and
Dr. Sarkantyus 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 Szephalmi 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 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 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. Szephalmi, come along!" cried the doctor, as he
joined the combatants, but Szephalmi paid no heed. He fell down on the
edge of the freshly-dug