Part 7 (1/2)
The _bunda_ never budged.
The Kurd flew into a rage, dismounted from the horse, seized his spear, and climbing down into the ditch, viciously plunged his spear into the sleeping form before him.
But how great was his consternation when he discovered that what he had looked upon as a man in the darkness was nothing but a propped up stick, on which a _bunda_ and a hat were hanging! While he had been staring at Kokenyesdi, the latter had crept from out of the _bunda_ beneath his very eyes and hidden himself in the ditch.
The Kurd had not yet recovered from his astonishment when he heard the crack of a whip behind his back, and there was Kokenyesdi sitting already on the back of Haly Pasha's charger, Shebdiz, and the next moment he had leaped the ditch above the Kurd's head, shouting back at him:
”The trench is not broad enough for this horse, my son!”
Master Szenasi was one of those who had been sent to find Kokenyesdi, and he now arrived at Demerser, the famous robber's most usual resting-place in those days, and pus.h.i.+ng his way forward told him that the gentlemen of Szathmar had sent him to ask him, Kokenyesdi, to a.s.sist them in their expedition against the Turks.
Kokenyesdi, who was carrying a sheaf on his back, looked sharply at the magister, who dared not meet his gaze, and when he had finished his little speech he roared at him:
”You lie! You're a spy! I don't like the look of your mug! I'm going to hang you up!”
Szenasi, who was unacquainted with the robber chief's peculiarities, was near collapsing with terror, whereupon Kokenyesdi observed with a smile:
”Come, come, don't tremble so, I won't eat you up at any rate, but tell the gentleman that sent you here that another time he mustn't send a spy to me, for to tell you the truth I don't believe in such faces as yours.
You may tell the gentleman, moreover, that if he wants to speak to me he must come himself. I don't care about making a move on the strength of idle chatter. I am easily to be found. Go to Puspok Ladanya, walk into the last house on the right-hand side and ask the master where the Baratfa hostelry is, he'll show you the way; and now in G.o.d's name scuttle! and don't look back till you've got home.”
The magister did as he was bid, and on getting home delivered the message to his masters, whereupon they immediately set out; Raining going on the part of the military, Janos Topay on the part of the Hungarians, together with Ladislaus Rakoczy himself and the captain of the gentry of Barodsag.
The gentlemen safely reached Puspok Ladanya, where they had to wait at the magistrate's house till night-fall, although Raining would have much preferred to meet Kokenyesdi by daylight, and Rakoczy was burning to carry through his enterprise as soon as possible.
While they waited Raining could not help asking the magistrate whether it was far from there to the Baratfa inn?
The magistrate shook his head and maintained there was no such inn in the whole district, nor was there.
Raining fancied that the magistrate must be a stranger there, so he asked two or three old men the same question, but they all gave him the same answer: there might be a _baratfa puszta_[9] here but there could be no inn on it, or if there was an inn, the _puszta_ itself did not exist.
[Footnote 9: Common.]
”Well, if they don't know anything about it at the last house we had better turn back,” said Raining to himself; and, when it had grown quite dark, he approached the house and began to talk with the master who was dawdling about the door.
”G.o.d bless thee, countryman! where's the baratfa inn?”
The man first of all measured the questioner from head to foot, and then he merely remarked: ”G.o.d requite thee! over yonder!” and he vaguely indicated the direction with his head.
”We want to go there; can't you show us the way?” asked Topay.
The man seized the questioner's hand and pointed with it to a herdsman's fire in the distance.
”Look; do you see the s.h.i.+ne of its windows there?”
”Which is the way to it?”
”That way 'tis nearer, t'other way it's quicker.”
”What do you mean?”