e birth.

It was a still warm evening towards the end of spring.

All nature seemed to sleep; no leaf moved in the warm night air: only at
times could be heard a faint sound, as if wood and field had shuddered
in their dreams, and a long-drawn sigh had rustled the tops of the
poplars, dying away in the reed-forest.

Then, suddenly, the hounds all along the village began to bay and howl.

The bark of a hound is generally a soothing sound; but when the vigilant
house-guard has an uneasy feeling, and changes his bark to a long
whining howl, it inspires disquietude and anxiety.

Only the spider in the web rejoiced at the sound of danger! They were
coming!

The hounds' uproar lasted long: but finally it too ceased; and there
followed the dreamy, quiet night, undisturbed by even a breath of wind.

Only the nightingales sang, those sweet fanciful songsters of the night,
far and near in the garden bushes.

Sarvoelgyi listened long--but not to the nightingale's song. What next
would happen?

Then the stillness of the night was broken by an awful cry as when a
girl in the depth of night meets her enemy face to face.

A minute later again that cry--still more horrible, more anguished. As
if a knife had been thrust into the maiden's breast.

Then two shots resounded:--and a volley of oaths.

All these midnight sounds came from above Topandy's castle.

Then a sound of heavy firing, varied by noisy oaths. The spider in the
web started. The web had been disturbed. The stealthy attack had not
succeeded.

Yet they were many--they could surely overcome two. The peasants did not
dare to aid where bullets whistled.

Then the firing died away: other sounds were heard: blows of crowbars on
the heavy door: the thunder of the pole-axe on the stone wall, here and
there a single shot, the flash of which could not be seen in the night.
Certainly they were firing in at doors and out through windows. That was
why no flash could be seen.

But how long it lasted! A whole eternity before they could deal with
those two men! From the roots of Sarvoelgyi's sparse hair hot beads of
sweat were dripping down.

Not in yet? Why cannot they break in the door?

Suddenly the light of two brilliant flashes illuminated the night for a
moment: then two deafening reports, that could be produced only by a
weapon of heavy calibre. So easy to pick out the dull thunder roar from
those other crackling splutterings that followed at once.

What was