Part 33 (1/2)

Zurdoki was very curious to see this odd book. He could scarcely wait patiently for the heyduke to bring it to him. It was bound in heavy morocco covers, and when Zurdoki opened them he found nothing inside but a mirror. In that he read that Hommonai could not be jealous of so ugly a face as his.

He dashed the mirror to the ground and rode away from Ka.s.sa that very day. The goal of his journey was his castle at Saros.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

'Tis a true proverb which says that the devil sends an old woman when he cannot come himself; but of course it only applies to wicked old women, for there are very many gentlewomen well advanced in years who lead a G.o.d-fearing life and do good to their fellow-creatures.

Mr. Zurdoki left Ka.s.sa in rage and fury, and there were very many reasons why he should so leave it. In the first place the object of his scheming had been frustrated by his enforced departure from the city. He was to have spurred on to action there the party which leaned to Vienna, and thus facilitated George Rakoczy's plan of handing over to Ferdinand of Austria the trans-Theissian counties.

At Ka.s.sa, Mr. Zwirina was his willing ally, but now all communication between them was cut off. He was also well aware that the citizens of Ka.s.sa are very stiff-necked people. Whenever they say ”no,” the Sultan, the Kaiser, and the Prince of Transylvania may say ”yes,” in vain. For when the potentates lay their heads together, and lay out the land in a way the people of Ka.s.sa don't like, the sheriff of Ka.s.sa simply wets his fingers and rubs out the proposed line of demarcation. Nor do they much mind being besieged for a couple of years or so; they have often enough experienced that. And when the Imperial general sends his shots into the city, they shoot them back again into his camp, and at last undermine the very ground beneath his feet. You had to be very clever indeed to get the better of the citizens of Ka.s.sa.

The threads of Zurdoki's crafty policy had been woven together in the letter deciphered by Valentine Kalondai, and Zurdoki was one of those who were perpetually urging the ambitious George Rakoczy to conquer Poland. The governors.h.i.+p of Cracow was the prize reserved for himself, and the prospect of the loss of that lucrative post piqued him exceedingly.

The second cause of his rage was his unsatisfied personal grudge against those who had forestalled him, viz., Count Hommonai and Valentine Kalondai.

In the third place he was in love with the wives of the count and the castellan, and the old miscreant had got the idea into his shaven head of corrupting them both, and to this idea he stuck through thick and thin.

On arriving at Saros, he gave up all the time that was not devoted to political intrigues to elaborating this evil design.

That Dame Kalondai had been married to her husband at Bartfa he had already learnt from old Dame Zwirina, who had told him so immediately after that memorable dance. He also knew from the same person that Michal's face, during her earlier residence at Ka.s.sa, had been disfigured by great brown patches, which had subsequently vanished in a most marvelous manner. She had said then that they were freckles, which always go away in winter; yet since then another summer had come and gone, and yet not a single freckle had reappeared.

From this Zurdoki's crafty intellect concluded that if the roses and lilies on Dame Kalondai's face were not of artificial growth, the disfiguring freckles must have been painted on designedly, and there must be some reason for it.

He took the trouble to go all the way to Bartfa, searched on the spot the records which testify to the marriage of Valentine Kalondai, and learnt therefrom with whom pretty--nay, ugly Michal, had been in service.

There they recollected the freckle-faced girl very well, and they also told him what sort of a person it was who had brought the damsel thither.

But to find this woman now was not very easy.

Red Barbara had certainly gone to Poland, where she had no reason to fear that she would fall into the hands of Henry Catsrider, who, if he came across her, would guess at once that she had set his house on fire, and that the two charred skulls which had been found under the debris were the remains, not of Barbara and Michal, but of the two lads. And thus he could ferret out many other things, especially if he took the trouble to investigate how the splendid garments and jewels which he himself had bought to rejoice pretty Michal's heart had found their way to the Cracow rag market.

Nevertheless Mr. Zurdoki persistently followed up his clew.

The witch, he argued, must have had a.s.sociates in the country.

Witches form a sort of guild, and are closely united to one another.

So he searched and searched till at last he found the wife of the Kopanitschar of Zeb. There he gave a great banquet, danced all night with the Kopanitschar's wife, and after exhausting all his flatteries upon her, well plying her with wine and loading her with gifts, he learnt from her that she had indeed been acquainted with a woman who had sprung up from the bowels of the earth one night with a freckle-faced girl, and had then flown away through the air with her. The Kopanitschar's wife also knew where Red Barbara was now to be found.

In those days the more the witches were persecuted, the more they multiplied. Many lonely old women, and even younger ones who were separated from their husbands, not to mention a few young widows, got it into their heads that they were witches. They took great pride in the idea that men were afraid of them, and regarded them as supernatural beings, and for the sake of this senseless reputation did not even flinch from the horrors of a lingering death. There were quack anointers among them, too, who distributed to the others a salve made of stupefying, poisonous herbs, which, when well rubbed into their bodies, took away their senses, gave them delirious visions, and made their excited fancy believe that they were at witches' sabbaths in the society of the devil; or gave them morbidly voluptuous dreams such as haunt opium eaters, so that on awakening they firmly believed that their dreams were solid facts, and thus they openly confessed to deeds which they had only dreamt of doing.

To such magic ointment-makers the rank and file of the witches looked up as their natural chiefs, went enormous distances to consult them, and in fact never lost sight of them.

Thus Annie knew very well where Red Barbara was to be found, although the latter had not considered it expedient to return to Hungary.

With Barbara's money it had been lightly come, lightly go! She had gone with her h.o.a.rd of ducats and her costly dresses to Sandomir, where she gave herself out for a great lady, lived riotously with the professional thieves of the place, and after spending all her ready cash, sold her jewels likewise. Then the pretty dresses went too, till at last she found herself once more the same old tattered hag she had been before, and began again to haunt young women to tell them lies about their future, and give them bad advice in return for clandestine ducats.

This was just the sort of woman Zurdoki wanted.

He commissioned Annie to seek out Barbara, and gave the latter money for her journey, besides a letter certifying that she belonged to his household. This certificate she was to show to all and sundry who might stop her on the way. He was now quite certain of success.

Meanwhile, great changes were taking place at Ka.s.sa.