by Mór Jókai
CHAPTER XII.
IN THE MIDST OF THE FIRE.
Zudar was to-night more anxious than at other times. He had put up theiron shutters in front of his windows immediately after dusk, and hadgone to bed much earlier than usual.
The evening prayer of the little girl soothed him for a while. "Amen!Amen!" he kept repeating after her, laying stress upon the word--andthen something began agitating him again strangely.
"An evil foreboding, an evil foreboding," he kept on murmuring; "somegreat calamity is about to befall me."
"You have caught cold, my good father," said the little girl soothingly,stroking the old man's forehead with her tiny hand; "your hand istrembling, your head is burning..."
"I am all shivering inside," said the old man; "a sort of deadlycoldness seems to come from within me. Don't you hear a noise in thecourtyard?"
"There is nothing, my father. Only the horses are stamping in thestable."
"But don't you hear talking, whispering beneath the windows, just as ifsomeone was digging at the wall below?"
"The dog is settling down for the night; 'tis he who is scratching downbelow there. Go to rest, my good father!"
"I will lie down, but I shall not be able to sleep. Put my musket at thehead of my bed."
Elise took the gun down from the wall, examined it carefully to makesure that it was in perfect order, and then leaned it against the bed.
Then they both lay down.
Zudar kept conversing for a long time with Elise in the darkness, andassuring her that he should never go to sleep--nevertheless, suddenly,there was a deep silence, followed presently by a deep, thunderoussnore, only interrupted from time to time by cries of terror, as if thesleeper were tormented by evil dreams, and at such times he would flinghimself violently against the sides of the bed.
The child did not sleep. Resting on her elbows she lay there listeningand gazing steadily into the vision-haunted darkness.
Presently it seemed to her also as if a large concourse of people wasmoving backwards and forwards along the wall outside, and a great dealof whispering appeared to come from the kitchen.
Suddenly she heard a soft knocking at the door, and the voice of DameZudar inquired:
"I say, Betsey! is your father asleep?"
"Yes," stammered the little girl.
"Some people have come hither from Kassa, they don't understand German,come out and speak to them!"
The little maid hastily put on her clothes and, opening the fast-lockeddoor, went out into the kitchen.
* * * * *
Peter Zudar was continually tormented by evil dreams. Danger to Elisewas the ever-recurring subject of his nightmares. Now he saw herwandering among rocks overhanging dizzy abysses, and would havestretched out his hand to lay hold of her and draw her back, but hishand could not reach her. Now a fierce wolf was pursuing the child, andhe would have run after it with a gun, but his legs refused theirservice, or he forgot where the gun was, or it refused to go off.
Suddenly a shrill scream sounded in his ear.
"Father!"
Up he jumped. That cry had pierced through his heart, through everyfibre of his body. It was Elise who was calling.
"Elise! Elise, my child! are you asleep? Were you calling just now?" heinquired softly.
Receiving no answer he turned towards the child's bed, which lay at thefoot of his own, and sought for her little head on the pillow with hishand.
She was not there.
The same instant he heard the key of his room-door turning in the lockoutside.
With one bound he was at the door. Not a word did he say, but he shookthe door till it trembled on its hinges.
At that moment he heard hasty footsteps quitting the kitchen and thehall, and once more imagined he could distinguish Elise's stifled moans.
Redoubled fury lent gigantic strength to his Sampsonian frame. The doorburst into two pieces beneath the pressure of his hands, and the upperportion containing the lock remained in his clenched fist.
He roared aloud for the first time as he rushed into the kitchen. It wasno human voice, no intelligible sound, but the roar of a savage lionwhose den has been broken into, and who scents the flesh of thehuntsman.
And in response to this savage roar there arose from the courtyard themocking yell of hundreds and hundreds of human voices, intermingled withlaughter, curses, and threats.
For a moment he remained there dumfounded. What could it be? Surely nota band of robbers in collusion with his wife?
"Look out!" cried the shrill voice of Dame Zudar rising above the dinoutside, "the old carrion has a loaded musket, and would shoot at you ifthere were a thousand of you."
But Zudar did not even require the help of a loaded musket, he wouldhave rushed out among them with his bare fists, but the kitchen door wasbarred and bolted, and barricaded with all sort of heavy obstacles.
Panting hard, Zudar rushed back into his room, sought out a heavy axe,and rushed back to the kitchen door. At the first vigorous strokes thejoints of the door began to crack.
"Quick! throw the bundles of faggots in front of the door!" shrieked thesavage virago outside, "and set it alight at once! Don't you see thedoor is giving way?"
The courtyard was crowded with a mob of louts, armed with scythes andpitchforks, among whom stood Dame Zudar, with dishevelled hair andflaming eyes, like the very Fury of Revolt.
The peasant host quickly got together a heap of faggots, and carryingthem to the door, literally buried it beneath them.
"And now a match! Let him burn in his own den!"
It was Zudar's own wife who thus exclaimed.
The boor who tried to kindle the fire was such a long time about it,owing to the damp tinder, that Dame Zudar impatiently snatched the flintand steel out of his hands, struck away at it till she had ignited thetinder, then thrust it with her own hand in the midst of the strawsurrounding the faggots, fanned it with her apron till it burst into avivid flame, and then ran across the courtyard to the other side of thefaggot heap to set it alight there also. Her wild and tangled tressesfluttered in the tempest.
"My father, oh! my good father!" wailed a scarce audible voice from thebottom of the reed-covered waggon to which the headsman's horses hadbeen attached.
The dry bunches of twigs and fire-wood suddenly began spluttering andcrackling, and burst into a flame. The windows of the house were alsocrammed full with straw and sticks, and each heap of combustibles wasignited one by one. Soon something very like a big bonfire was blazingmerrily all round the house.
The man imprisoned within there thundered away at the door with all hismight, and at each terrible blow the besiegers laughed derisively.
"Bravo, fire away! Frizzle away in your own den, old Bruin!"
* * * * *
The thuds against the door had ceased; the flames were already leapingabove the roof of the house; the whole building was burning with asteady glare, casting forth showers of sparks upwards towards the sky.And long, long after that, when the flames were towering upwards in eachother's embrace above the ruins of the house, it seemed to many as ifthey heard, arising from the deepest depths of this furnace of blazingembers, the half-smothered sound of a deep sonorous voice intoning thevesper hymn. Perchance it was only imagination, only a delusion of thesenses. Nobody _could_ be singing there now, except it were the _soul_of the headsman. In a short half-hour the roof collapsed between thefour walls, burying in a burning tomb all that lay beneath it, andmillions of sparks rose straight up into the air.
"So there we have settled your account for you!" cried Dame Zudar, asthe hellish glare of the fire lit up her passion-distorted face. "Andnow comes the turn of the castle!"
"Oh, my father! my poor father!" wailed the child, who lay fast bound atthe bottom of the cart beneath a covering of rushes.
The furious virago gazed at her with gnashing teeth.
"Your father indeed! Your _real_ father's turn will come
later, mychicken. And now, my lads, let's be up and doing elsewhere!"
And, with that, she leaped upon the car, seized the reins in her handsand whipped up the horses, and before and behind her tore the savage,bloodthirsty mob with torches and pitchforks. There she stood in themidst of them with dishevelled, storm-tossed tresses like the Genius ofWar and Devastation rapt along on frantic steeds, with coiling snakesfor hair, a terrible escort of evil beasts and semi-bestial men, andruin and malediction before and behind her.
* * * * *
Zudar, as soon as he had guessed the hellish design of his enemies,hastily abandoned all attempts to stave in the door, and rushed to therear-most room of the house with the intention of escaping into thegarden through the window.
But what was his horror when he perceived that here also the windowswere covered with a fence of dry reeds and faggots, through which thehissing flames were already beginning to wriggle like fieryserpents--clouds of smoke were already coming through the shatteredwindows.
Back again he hastened into the front room, the windows of which wereguarded by iron shutters, which stopped the intrusion of the flames.Outside resounded the furious howling of the rioters, and all roundabout him too was to be heard the soft hissing fizz of the burning reedsand the licking of the flames, and the loud crackling of the drybeams--all around him and above his head also.
The iron shutters over the windows were gradually becoming red-hot, and,like transparent panes of glass, admitted the rays of the fiery seabeyond them, spreading a horrible scarlet glare through the room whichcoloured every object, every shadow, blood-red.
The imprisoned wretch kept running frantically up and down the room likea wild beast caught in a trap, striking the walls with his fist andhacking at the beams with his axe.
In vain, in vain, slash away as you will, neither on the right hand noron the left, neither from above nor from below, is there any way ofdeliverance!
At last, in his despair, he began to sing the hymn:
"On Sion's Hill the Lord is God...!"
and collapsed upon his knees in the midst of the room.
And lo! the Lord answered the man who cried out to Him in his direextremity. The boards resounding beneath him suddenly gave him a brightidea of deliverance. Above and around there was no place of safety, butmight there not be a refuge below--down in the cellar?
The entrance into the cellar was from the outside by an iron door; butif the vault beneath the room where he was, the ceiling of which hadresounded so loudly beneath his footsteps, if this vault were brokenopen, it would be possible to get down into it that way.
Ah! how nice and cool it would be down there. The atmosphere of the roomwas now burning hot. Terror and exertion had bathed every limb of theheadsman with sweat; the glare of the iron windows was merging into adazzling white, and radiated a heat that burnt the eye that looked uponit. There was no time to be lost.
Zudar hastily broke up the floor with his axe, it would not be difficultfor him to find the key-stone of the cellar beneath it.
Nevertheless, he had to be careful lest he should stave in the wholevault, and thus open a way therein after himself for the fire. He mustcautiously pick out the mortar from the interstices with a knife, andlift up the bricks one by one.
And, now and then, in the midst of his work, he would stop and listen.
And then he would hear on every side of him a hubbub of wild voices,hissing, shrieking, savage dance-music, and bloodthirsty harangues.
Or was it, after all, but the many-voiced gabble of the flames above hishead?
And on he went--digging, digging, digging.
The first layer of bricks over the vault was followed by a second. Thiscellar vault had been very strongly built, it was well lined with adouble row of bricks. And he had to pick out each brick of the secondlayer as carefully as he had done with the first.
Meanwhile, in the roof above him, a rafter here and there was gapingopen, and fiery monsters, with blood-red eyes, were peeping down at himand puffing clouds of blue smoke through the interstices. Thousands andthousands of voices were bickering and chattering with each other, thevoices of the fire-spirit's little ones quarrelling with each other overevery little bit of rafter till their old mother, the evil flame, burstroaring through a huge tough beam and frightened them into silence. And,all the time, something was humming and crooning like a witch hushinglittle children to sleep; and in the midst of the charred andsmouldering embers a buzzing and a fizzing was going on continually,like the noise made by an imprisoned bee; and the pent-up blast howleddismally down the chimney: Hoo! hoo! hoo!
"They are dancing and singing outside there!" murmured the headsman tohimself.
And now the second layer of bricks was also pierced, and up through therift, like a blast of wind, rushed the cold air of the cellar. PeterZudar bent low over the gap and filled his lungs with a good draught ofthe life-giving air. He regularly intoxicated himself with it.
The gap was just big enough to enable him to squeeze through it.
First, however, with perilous curiosity, he cast a look round the roomhe was about to leave. The principal girder of the ceiling was bent inthe middle from the intense heat, smoke was pouring into the roomthrough every crack and crevice, and filled it already to the height ofa man's stature; it was slowly descending in regular layers, lower andlower, like a gradually falling cloud.
Little fluttering fiery threads were darting hither and thither, in thegrey cloud, like tiny flashing birds. The fiery spectre, peeping throughthe rent in the roof, was already laughing a thunderous "ha! ha! ha!"Peter Zudar laughed back at it.
"If thou dost laugh, I can laugh too, so the pair of us may laughtogether!"
Already he had crept half through the opening, whence he observed howthe beams were curving above his head, how they were bursting andcharring.
All at once he recollected something.
Hastily he scrambled out of the hole again. To walk upright in that roomwas impossible, for the clouds of smoke were now only three feet fromthe ground. He crept along the floor on all fours to his oaken chest,opened it, and drew forth therefrom a little Prayer Book and a couple ofribbons, which he thrust into his bosom.
Then he also drew forth a long leather bag which was fastened at eachend by a clasp. These clasps he opened, one by one, with the utmostcomposure. Inside lay the _pallos_,[16] that bright, two-edged implementwhich flashes at the command of the criminal law, the weapon of Justice.
[Footnote 16: The sword of the public executioner.]
When Peter Zudar felt it in his hand, his gigantic figure suddenly arosebolt upright, and there he stood amidst the smoke, amidst the flames,like an avenging demon, slashing about him with his sparkling blade asif he would say to the smoke and the flames, "Fear me! I am theheadsman!"
At that moment a thundering crash resounded behind him. His gun, whichhad been leaning up against the wall, suddenly exploded by reason of theintense heat, and the bullets penetrated the wall.
The shock recalled Zudar, whom a sort of frenzy had seized for a moment,to his senses, and quickly crouching down upon the floor, he tore acushion from the bed and dragging it after him, crept towards the gapinghole in the floor. The cushion he flung down before him and then leapedcarefully after it.
The cool air of the cellar gradually restored him to himself again; theoppression of the fierce heat no longer tortured his brain, thesemi-darkness was so grateful to his eyes, already half-blinded by theflames, a semi-darkness but faintly illuminated by the gleam of thefiery-world above shining through the gap.
Then it occurred to him that this very gap was now superfluous.
In the stands of the cellar were several casks, large and small, eitherempty or full of beer and wine.
He rolled one of the empty casks below the hole in the ceiling, andturned it upside down. Then he stove in the top of a beer-cask anddipped into it the cushion, allowing the beer to well soak through it.Then he mounted on the top o
f the empty cask and thrust the saturatedcushion into the hole above.
It was now quite dark in the cellar, but Peter Zudar knew his way aboutthere all the same. He was well aware of the exact locality of the bestcask of beer, and lost no time in staving in the top of it, found apitcher in a niche close at hand, filled it with fresh beer, sat himdown by the side of the barrel, and took a monstrously long pull at hispitcher. After that he moistened well his head and face, and then hereplenished his pitcher and took another long draught.
Above his head there the roof now fell in with a loud roar and a crash,and the whole tribe of flames laughed and roared in their joy at havingdone their work so well.
"We have roasted his goose for him, anyhow!" cried Dame Zudar outside,and her band of rogues and scoundrels laughed and bounded for joy.
But down in his underground asylum the old headsman sang from the depthsof a fervent heart:
"To thee, O Lord! on Sion's Hill, All praise and glory be."
And he drew his fingers along the double edge of the sword--right wellhad it been sharpened, nowhere was there the trace of a notch, nowhere.