Part 77 (1/2)
”What do you want?”
”What do I want? Your bones and your skin: your black blood. You highwayman! You robber!”
So saying, he tore the bandage from his eye: there was nothing amiss with that eye.
”Do you know me now, herdsman?”
It would have been in vain to scream. Outside the most uproarious music could be heard: no one would have heard the cry for help. Besides the a.s.sailed had another reason for holding his peace.
”Well, what do you want with me? What have I done to you? Why do you attack me?”
”What have you done?” said the gypsy, gnas.h.i.+ng his teeth so that Sarvolgyi s.h.i.+vered--this gnas.h.i.+ng of human teeth is a terrible sound.
”What have you done? You ask that? Have you not robbed me? Eh?”
”I robbed you? Don't lose your senses. Let go of my throat. You see, I am in your hands anyhow. Talk sense. What has happened to you?”
”What has happened to me? Oh yes--act as if you had not seen that beautiful illumination the day before yesterday evening--that's right--when the rick was burned down, and then the gunpowder dispersed the fire, so that nothing but a black pit remained for mad Kandur.”
”I saw it.”
”That was your work,” cried the fiend, raising high the flas.h.i.+ng knife.
”Now, Kandur, have some sense. Why should _I_ have set it on fire?”
”Because no one else could have known that my money was stored away there. Who else would have dreamed I had money, but you? You who always changed my bank-note into silver and gold, giving me one silver florin for a small bank-note, and one gold piece for a large one. How do I know what was the value of each?--You knew I collected money. You knew how I collected, and why--for I told you. My daughter is in a certain gentleman's house; they are making a fool of her there. They are bringing her up like a d.u.c.h.ess, until they have plucked her blossoms,--and then they will throw her away like a wash-rag. I wished to buy her off! I had already a pot of silver and a milk-pail of gold. I wanted to take her away with me to Turkey, to Tartary, where heathens dwell; and she would be a real d.u.c.h.ess, a gypsy d.u.c.h.ess! I shall murder, rob, and break into houses until I have a pot full of silver, and a pail full of gold. The gypsy girl will want it as her dowry. I shall not leave her for you, you white-faced porcelain tribe! I shall take her away to some place where they will not say 'Away gypsy! off gypsy! Kiss my hand, eat carrion, gypsy, gypsy!'--Give me my money.”
”Kandur.”
”Don't gape, or tire your mouth. Give me a pot of silver, and a pail of gold.”
”All right, Kandur, you shall get your money--a pot of silver and a pail of gold. But now let me have my say. It was not I who took your money, not I who set the rick on fire.”
”Who then?”
”Why those people yonder.”
”Topandy, and the young gentleman?”
”Certainly. The day before yesterday evening I saw them in a punt on the moat, starting for the mora.s.s, and I saw them when they returned again--the rick was then already burning. Each of them had a gun: but I did not hear a single shot, so they were not after game.”
”The devil and all his h.e.l.l-hounds destroy them!”
”Why, Kandur, your daughter was mad after that young gentleman--she certainly confessed to him that her father was collecting treasures: so the young gentleman took off daughter and money too--he will shortly return the empty pot.”
”Then I shall kill him.”
”What did you say, Kandur?”
”I shall kill him, even if he has a hundred souls. Long ago I promised him, when first we met. But now I wish to drink of his blood. Did you see whether the old mastiff too was there at the robbing?”
”Topandy? A plague upon my eyes, if I did not see him. There were two of them, they took no one with them, not even a dog: they rowed along here beside the gardens. I looked long after them, and waited till they should return. May every saint be merciless to me, if I don't speak the truth!”