IN THE MIDST OF THE FIRE.
Zudar was to-night more anxious than at other times. He had put up the
iron shutters in front of his windows immediately after dusk, and had
gone 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--and
then something began agitating him again strangely.
"An evil foreboding, an evil foreboding," he kept on murmuring; "some
great 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 is
trembling, your head is burning..."
"I am all shivering inside," said the old man; "a sort of deadly
coldness seems to come from within me. Don't you hear a noise in the
courtyard?"
"There is nothing, my father. Only the horses are stamping in the
stable."
"But don't you hear talking, whispering beneath the windows, just as if
someone was digging at the wall below?"
"The dog is settling down for the night; 'tis he who is scratching down
below there. Go to rest, my good father!"
"I will lie down, but I shall not be able to sleep. Put my musket at the
head of my bed."
Elise took the gun down from the wall, examined it carefully to make
sure 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, and
assuring her that he should never go to sleep--nevertheless, suddenly,
there was a deep silence, followed presently by a deep, thunderous
snore, only interrupted from time to time by cries of terror, as if the
sleeper were tormented by evil dreams, and at such times he would fling
himself violently against the sides of the bed.
The child did not sleep. Resting on her elbows she lay there listening
and gazing steadily into the vision-haunted darkness.
Presently it seemed to her also as if a large concourse of people was
moving backwards and forwards along the wall outside, and a great deal
of whispering appeared to come from the kitchen.
Suddenly she heard a soft knocking at the door, and the voice of Dame
Zudar 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-locked
door, went out into the kitchen.
* * * * *
Peter Zudar was continually tormented by evil dreams. Danger to Elise
was the ever-recurring subject of his nightmares. Now he saw her
wandering among rocks overhanging dizzy abysses, and would have
stretched out his hand to lay hold of her and draw her back, but his
hand could not reach her. Now a fierce wolf was pursuing the child, and
he would have run after it with a gun, but his legs refused their
service, 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 every
fibre of his body. It was Elise who was calling.
"Elise! Elise, my child! are you asleep? Were you calling just now?" he
inquired softly.
Receiving no answer he turned towards the child's bed, which lay at the
foot of his own, and sought for her little head on the pillow with his
hand.
She was not there.
The same instant he heard the key of his room-door turning in the lock
outside.
With one bound he was at the door. Not a word did he say, but he shook
the door till it trembled on its hinges.
At that moment he heard hasty footsteps quitting the kitchen and the
hall, and once more imagined he could distinguish Elise's stifled moans.
Redoubled fury lent gigantic strength to his Sampsonian frame. The door
burst into two pieces beneath the pressure of his hands, and the upper
portion containing the lock remained in his clenched fist.
He roared aloud for the first time as he rushed into the kitchen. It was
no human voice, no intelligible sound, but the roar of a savage lion
whose den has been broken into, and who scents the flesh of the
huntsman.
And in response to this savage roar there arose from the courtyard the
mocking yell of hundreds and hundreds of human voices, intermingled with
laughter, curses, and threats.
For a moment he remained there dumfounded. What could it be? Surely not
a band of robbers in collusion with his wife?
"Look out!" cried the shrill voice of Dame Zudar rising above the din
outside, "the old carrion has a loaded musket, and would shoot at you if
there were a thousand of you."
But Zudar did not even require the help of a loaded musket, he would
have rushed out among them with his bare fists, but the kitchen door was
barred 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 the
joints of the door began to crack.
"Quick! throw the bundles of faggots in front of the door!" shrieked the
savage virago outside, "and set it alight at once! Don't you see the
door is giving way?"
The courtyard was crowded with a mob of louts, armed with scythes and
pitchforks, among whom stood Dame Zudar, with dishevelled hair and
flaming eyes, like the very Fury of Revolt.
The peasant host quickly got together a heap of faggots, and carrying
them 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 flint
and steel out of his hands, struck away at it till she had ignited the
tinder, then thrust it with her own hand in the midst of the straw
surrounding the faggots, fanned it with her apron till it burst into a
vivid flame, and then ran across the courtyard to the other side of the
faggot heap to set it alight there also. Her wild and tangled tresses
fluttered in the tempest.
"My father, oh! my good father!" wailed a scarce audible voice from the
bottom of the reed-covered waggon to which the headsman's horses had
been attached.
The dry bunches of twigs and fire-wood suddenly began spluttering and
crackling, and burst into a flame. The windows of the house were also
crammed full with straw and sticks, and each heap of combustibles was
ignited one by one. Soon something very like a big bonfire was blazing
merrily all round the house.
The man imprisoned within there thundered away at the door with all his
might, 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 leaping
above the roof of the house; the whole building was burning with a
steady glare, casting forth showers of sparks upwards towards the sky.
And long, long after that, when the flames were towering upwards in each
other's embrace above the ruins of the house, it seemed to many as if
they heard, arising from the deepest depths of this furnace of blazing
embers, the half-smothered sound of a deep sonorous voice intoning the
vesper hymn. Perchance it was only imagination, only a delusion of the
senses. Nobody _could_ be singing there now, except it were the _soul_
of the headsman. In a short half-hour the roof collapsed between the
four walls, burying in a burning tomb all that lay beneath it, and
millions of sparks rose straight up into the air.
"So there we have settled your account for you!" cried Dame Zudar, as
the hellish glare of the fire lit up her passion-distorted face. "And
now comes the turn of the castle!"
"Oh, my father! my poor father!" wailed the child, who lay fast bound at
the 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, my
chicken. And now, my lads, let's be up and doing elsewhere!"
And, with that, she leaped upon the car, seized the reins in her hands
and whipped up the horses, and before and behind her tore the savage,
bloodthirsty mob with torches and pitchforks. There she stood in the
midst of them with dishevelled, storm-tossed tresses like the Genius of
War and Devastation rapt along on frantic steeds, with coiling snakes
for hair, a terrible escort of evil beasts and semi-bestial men, and
ruin 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 the
rear-most room of the house with the intention of escaping into the
garden through the window.
But what was his horror when he perceived that here also the windows
were covered with a fence of dry reeds and faggots, through which the
hissing flames were already beginning to wriggle like fiery
serpents--clouds of smoke were already coming through the shattered
windows.
Back again he hastened into the front room, the windows of which were
guarded by iron shutters, which stopped the intrusion of the flames.
Outside resounded the furious howling of the rioters, and all round
about him too was to be heard the soft hissing fizz of the burning reeds
and the licking of the flames, and the loud crackling of the dry
beams--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 sea
beyond them, spreading a horrible scarlet glare through the room which
coloured every object, every shadow, blood-red.
The imprisoned wretch kept running frantically up and down the room like
a wild beast caught in a trap, striking the walls with his fist and
hacking at the beams with his axe.
In vain, in vain, slash away as you will, neither on the right hand nor
on the left, neither from above nor from below, is there any way of
deliverance!
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 dire
extremity. The boards resounding beneath him suddenly gave him a bright
idea of deliverance. Above and around there was no place of safety, but
might there not be a refuge below--down in the cellar?
The entrance into the cellar was from the outside by an iron door; but
if the vault beneath the room where he was, the ceiling of which had
resounded so loudly beneath his footsteps, if this vault were broken
open, 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 room
was now burning hot. Terror and exertion had bathed every limb of the
headsman with sweat; the glare of the iron windows was merging into a
dazzling white, and radiated a heat that burnt the eye that looked upon
it. There was no time to be lost.
Zudar hastily broke up the floor with his axe, it would not be difficult
for him to find the key-stone of the cellar beneath it.
Nevertheless, he had to be careful lest he should stave in the whole
vault, and thus open a way therein after himself for the fire. He must
cautiously pick out the mortar from the interstices with a knife, and
lift 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 his
head?
And on he went--digging, digging, digging.
The first layer of bricks over the vault was followed by a second. This
cellar vault had been very strongly built, it was well lined with a
double row of bricks. And he had to pick out each brick of the second
layer as carefully as he had done with the first.
Meanwhile, in the roof above him, a rafter here and there was gaping
open, and fiery monsters, with blood-red eyes, were peeping down at him
and puffing clouds of blue smoke through the interstices. Thousands and
thousands of voices were bickering and chattering with each other, the
voices of the fire-spirit's little ones quarrelling with each other over
every little bit of rafter till their old mother, the evil flame, burst
roaring through a huge tough beam and frightened them into silence. And,
all the time, something was humming and crooning like a witch hushing
little children to sleep; and in the midst of the charred and
smouldering embers a buzzing and a fizzing was going on continually,
like the noise made by an imprisoned bee; and the pent-up blast howled
dismally down the chimney: Hoo! hoo! hoo!
"They are dancing and singing outside there!" murmured the headsman to
himself.
And now the second layer of bricks was also pierced, and up through the
rift, like a blast of wind, rushed the cold air of the cellar. Peter
Zudar bent low over the gap and filled his lungs with a good draught of
the 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 room
he was about to leave. The principal girder of the ceiling was bent in
the middle from the intense heat, smoke was pouring into the room
through every crack and crevice, and filled it already to the height of
a man's stature; it was slowly descending in regular layers, lower and
lower, like a gradually falling cloud.
Little fluttering fiery threads were darting hither and thither, in the
grey cloud, like tiny flashing birds. The fiery spectre, peeping through
the 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 laugh
together!"
Already he had crept half through the opening, whence he observed how
the beams were curving above his head, how they were bursting and
charring.
All at once he recollected something.
Hastily he scrambled out of the hole again. To walk upright in that room
was impossible, for the clouds of smoke were now only three feet from
the 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 of
ribbons, which he thrust into his bosom.
Then he also drew forth a long leather bag which was fastened at each
end by a clasp. These clasps he opened, one by one, with the utmost
composure. Inside lay the _pallos_,[16] that bright, two-edged implement
which 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 arose
bolt upright, and there he stood amidst the smoke, amidst the flames,
like an avenging demon, slashing about him with his sparkling blade as
if he would say to the smoke and the flames, "Fear me! I am the
headsman!"
At that moment a thundering crash resounded behind him. His gun, which
had been leaning up against the wall, suddenly exploded by reason of the
intense 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 a
cushion from the bed and dragging it after him, crept towards the gaping
hole in the floor. The cushion he flung down before him and then leaped
carefully after it.
The cool air of the cellar gradually restored him to himself again; the
oppression of the fierce heat no longer tortured his brain, the
semi-darkness was so grateful to his eyes, already half-blinded by the
flames, a semi-darkness but faintly illuminated by the gleam of the
fiery-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, either
empty or full of beer and wine.
He rolled one of the empty casks below the hole in the ceiling, and
turned it upside down. Then he stove in the top of a beer-cask and
dipped into it the cushion, allowing the beer to well soak through it.
Then he mounted on the top of the empty cask and thrust the saturated
cushion into the hole above.
It was now quite dark in the cellar, but Peter Zudar knew his way about
there all the same. He was well aware of the exact locality of the best
cask of beer, and lost no time in staving in the top of it, found a
pitcher in a niche close at hand, filled it with fresh beer, sat him
down by the side of the barrel, and took a monstrously long pull at his
pitcher. After that he moistened well his head and face, and then he
replenished 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 having
done 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 depths
of 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 well
had it been sharpened, nowhere was there the trace of a notch, nowhere.