If this sort of thing lasts much longer there will be no one but lunatics left when the end comes. Every hour brings new tales of terror. In Budapest Tibor Számuelly is gaining more and more power. He wants to become Dictator. Hitherto the Dictatorship has been too lenient, so the terrorists are going over to his side. And their one idea, before they lose their power, is to be revenged on the nation. Already the Directorates have received secret instructions and are drawing up lists. Számuelly is preparing for a massacre of the citizens. None shall be spared, neither artisans nor peasants. News comes from the other bank that the Czechs are returning. They say they have orders to occupy Vácz on the 3rd. More and more soldiers are disappearing from the village, and Terror Boys are continually flowing in from Budapest to take their place. There are already eighty here. After the arrival of the evening train people steal in the dark towards the Ipoly. Hitherto it has been Hungarians who were escaping, now it is mostly Jews who slink along the walls carrying parcels. In the town hall they are feverishly packing up the archives of the Directorate; the Jewish comrades have again withdrawn into the background. Szijgyártó has now become the absolute master of the town. Among other things he issued an order to-day that every individual who is not registered and whose stay is not considered justified by the Directorate must leave Balassagyarmat within twenty-four hours, on pain of being summoned before a Revolutionary Tribunal. Those who come from Budapest will be sent back there under police escort. Once more there is talk of searching houses: the terrible hand groping for me has returned. It will be bad luck if it catches me now when its days are already numbered. We discussed the matter and the old plan of escape was revived—across the Ipoly, somehow to Vienna, to Szeged; but again the horror of asking hospitality from the Czechs in my own country, my poverty, my illness, interfered. “Let’s wait and see how things develop,” said my friends. How often have they said that! Suddenly I thought of the house in Szügy: I could not leave without bidding it farewell; so I walked over to it and saw the garden and its mistress once more. [Illustration: TERRORISTS WITH A VICTIM WHOM THEY HAVE FLAYED AND TORTURED TO DEATH. (This photograph was found at their headquarters.) ]