Part 37 (1/2)

Good Dame Sarah did not take her usual afternoon nap that day. On the contrary, she took out her Bible and read therefrom in a loud voice to keep herself awake.

All at once it occurred to her to see what Michal was about. She went up to her room, but she was not there.

A side door which led from Michal's door to the bas.e.m.e.nt stood open.

The young woman must consequently have gone out through this door.

The wind had blown the freshly fallen snow into the corridor, and in this snow Dame Sarah recognized the impressions of Michal's small, narrow boots. These footprints led her right down to the gate, and thence, guided by the patches of snow which Michal had shaken from her feet, she arrived at the door of the butcher's shop.

She crept toward it and began to listen. Then she suddenly tore open the door and rushed in.

Red Barbara was stooping over the form of the senseless woman, and grasping her round the body in order to raise her up and carry her away.

”So I've caught you at last, eh! you horrible, G.o.dless witch!”

The hag, taken quite by surprise, uttered a hoa.r.s.e shriek, like a vulture startled from her prey and, springing up from Michal's side, extended her crooked fingers like the talons of a bird of prey, and raised them aloft to strike. But her claws would have been of little use to her, even if she had borrowed them from her patron Beelzebub himself, against the attack which Dame Sarah in her rage and fury now made upon her.

That lady's iron hand seized the witch with irresistible might. In vain she twisted and wriggled. Dame Sarah bent the witch's body back over the chopping-board.

”Let me go, woman!” yelled Barbara, with b.l.o.o.d.y, foaming lips.

”Don't hold me like that or you'll rue it! I can bite, and my bite is worse than that of a mad dog. I'll drag you down to h.e.l.l with me if you don't let me go.”

”You'd bite me, you b----, would you?” cried Dame Sarah, with grim fury; ”then bite yourself!” and with that, thrusting one of Barbara's arms against Barbara's own mouth, she forced the witch's clenched fist in between her wide open jaws. ”Bite away, and choke!”

The face of the witch was already livid, her eyes were starting out of their sockets, she was very near being choked with her own fist.

And Dame Sarah would certainly have bestowed a great benefit upon her own family, and all the powers in heaven and earth would certainly have forgiven her, if she had not loosed her hold upon the evil creature till its pestilential soul had gone to h.e.l.l.

But it was otherwise decreed in the great book of predestination.

The uproar made by the two struggling women drew the whole household to the spot. The servants hastened promptly to the a.s.sistance of their mistress, and after tearing a considerable quant.i.ty of hair out of Red Barbara's head, they tied her hands behind her and, as she would not go willingly, they dragged her through the snow to the lockup. All the way thither the witch never ceased shouting: ”For this I'll revenge myself on your whole house.”

Michal knew nothing of all this, for she lay in a swoon. It was already late in the evening when she came to herself and gradually recognized the faces of those who stood round her.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

Which shows what a good thing it is when ”publica privatis praecedunt,” or, in other words, when public duties take precedence of private affairs.

As the time approached when the return of Valentine Kalondai with the deputation from Pressburg might be reasonably expected, Simplex joined the town watchman, with whom he, as trumpeter, stood on terms of good fellows.h.i.+p, and watched with him for the approach of the sledges.

The carnival was now pretty far advanced, when a postilion arrived to say that the deputation was already on its homeward way, and the town was to send four fresh horses to meet it, so that it might make its solemn entry with due dignity; the four nags which had been hired at Pressburg being by this time splashed up to the very ears with mud.

As the deputies approached the gate, Simplex seized his trumpet--it was the custom when notables drew near to play in their honor a selection of the choicest melodies--and played a tune, the text of which begins with these words:

Hasten, little nag, gallop and fly, At home thy mistress sick doth lie.

He thought that Valentine would understand the allusion.