Part 85 (1/2)

She must pierce farther in, must quietly put the leaves aside, to see on which branch the bird was singing.

She could not see.

Again she listened: the warbling lured her further.

It must be near to her: it was warbling there, perhaps she could grasp it with her hand.

But as she bent the bough, a fierce figure sprang up before her and grasped the hand she had stretched out.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE NIGHT-STRUGGLE

The dark figure, which seized Czipra's hand so suddenly, stared with a blood-thirsty grin into his victim's face, whose every limb shuddered with terror at her a.s.sailant.

”What do you want?” panted the girl in a choking, scarcely audible voice.

”What do I want?” he hissed in answer. ”I want to cut your gander's throat, you goose! Do you want a nightingale?”

Then he whistled a shrill whistle.

His mates leaped out suddenly from their ambush at the sound of the whistle.

At that moment Czipra recovered her self control in sheer despair: she suddenly tore her hand from the robber's grasp, and in three bounds, like a terrified deer, reached the threshold of the door she had left open.

But the wolf had followed in her tracks and reached her at the door. The girl had no time to close it in his face.

”Don't whine!” hissed Kandur, seizing the girl's arm with one hand, with the other attempting to close her mouth.

But terror had made Czipra frantic: tearing down the robber's hand from her mouth, she pushed him back from the door, and with shrill cries awoke the echoes of the night.

”Lorand, help! Robbers!”

”Silence, you dog, or I'll stab you!” thundered the robber, pointing a knife at the girl's breast.

The knife did not frighten Czipra: as she struggled unceasingly and desperately with the robber, she cried ”Lorand! Lorand! Murder! Help!”

”d.a.m.n you!” exclaimed the robber thrusting his knife into the maiden's bosom.

Czipra suddenly seized the knife with her two hands.

At that moment Lorand appeared beside her.

At the first cry he had rushed from his room and, unarmed, hastened to Czipra's aid.

The girl was still struggling with the robber, holding him back, by sheer force, from entering the door.

Lorand sprang towards her, and dealt the intruder such a blow with his fist in the face, that two of his teeth were broken.