f cakes; the very roads are covered with pastry. They say
the enemy fires with red powder, and there is a strong smell of pepper
all about. Heaven preserve us when they come! for they are a terrible
merciless set, it is said, and spare neither man nor child; and they
have such a love for torture, that they will bend two trees together
for their diversion, and tie a man's legs to them, then suddenly let
them go, and whip! he is split in two!"

"Ale! iui!"

"Then they tie the women together by the hair, and drive them off to
the markets in Africa."

"I say, Hanzli, how far is it to Africa?"

"I have not heard that yet, master; but I daresay as far as
Szerdahely."[74]

[Footnote 74: A little town about twenty miles north of Raab.]

"I should like to know, in order that, if they carry off Vicza, I
could reckon in how many days she might return."

"But what if they carry me off? and then some dog-faced young lady in
Africa may fall in love with me! sure enough, and then eat me! They
say they fatten a man up with currants and other fruits, and then eat
him!"

"Alas! my son, Hanzli! if they carry you off and eat you, there will
be nobody to bring me anything to eat! For Heaven's sake, Hanzli, take
care of thyself!" And the good man seized Hanzli, and kissed and
embraced him till the lad thought a bear had got him in its clutches,
and was so blinded in consequence of the squeezing, that he stumbled
about afterwards like a shell-fish on shore.

Days passed on. Hanzli continued to bring food to his master morning
and evening, and to enliven his solitude with the numerous reports he
had heard in the village, and which were not unfrequently the cause of
sleepless nights to poor Vendel.

Meanwhile, the maize was growing tall and yellow; the pumpkins were
ripening beneath their great shady leaves, and the starlings visited
the happy fields. Early in the mornings Vendel went up a neighbouring
hillock, from whence he could see the village, and watch the smoke of
the chimneys, and hear the dogs barking from a distance, and the bells
ringing; then, when the sun rose, he would sigh deeply and go back to
his hut, where he lay down till Hanzli returned with food; nor would
he venture out again till the sun sank below the horizon, when he
would creep forth once more, and watch the shepherds' fires on the
meadows, and listen to the herd-bells returning to the village, or the
merry creaking of waggon-wheels over the plains; and th