you! The mouth of my pistol is on a
level with your forehead. I have only to press my finger and your head
would be shattered--and yet you dare to have it out with me? Do you want
to save your head?"

"I mean to have yours," said Szilard and he drew a step nearer to the
adventurer.

"My head, eh? Ha, ha, ha! You would have it would you, and have it here!
Take it then!"

At that moment a piercing shriek startled the two deadly antagonists and
in the adjoining room a white figure fell prone upon the floor.

The next moment there was a loud report and Fatia Negra fell back
lifeless on the bear skin carpet.

At the very moment when he had laughed aloud and cried: "Take it then!"
he had suddenly put the mouth of the pistol into his own mouth and fired
it off. The heavy charge blew his head to bits, Szilard felt a warm red
rain showering down upon him.

So Fatia Negra, after all, did not give up his head, the pistol shot had
annihilated it.

And nobody ever knew who Fatia Negra really was.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE ACCOMMODATION

It was now the seventh time that Mr. John Lapussa had informed Mr. Sipos
that he wanted to see him and for the seventh time word was sent back
that the lawyer could not come. Why could he not come? They could not
say. Finally a message was delivered to the effect that the lawyer could
not come either that day, or the next, or indeed on any other day in the
whole year. In a word Mr. Sipos declined to have anything more to do
with the Lapussa family or its affairs. Their transactions were not at
all to his taste.

So, as Mr. Sipos would not appear at the summons of Mr. John Lapussa,
Mr. John Lapussa must needs call upon Mr. Sipos.

He was wearing mourning in his hat and tried hard to lend his face a
funereal appearance also.

"Have you heard the news?" he asked.

Mr. Sipos had heard nothing.

"Don't you see the mourning in my hat? Alas! my poor niece, unhappy
Henrietta!"

"Well, what has happened?"

"Hatszegi has been drowned in the Maros."

"Impossible, he was a first-rate swimmer."

"His horse ran away with him, he had lost all control over it. When he
saw that the horse was determined to plunge into the river from the
high bank, he tried to spring out of the saddle, but his spur
unfortunately caught in the stirrups and the horse dragged him down with
it into the water. There in the full stream, with his head downwards and
his legs in the air, he vainly attempted to extri