"What would we? Look around you. See you not that all here are Raitzen?" replied a tall dark-browed Serb, scowling scornfully and cruelly at the sufferer. "And I a Magyar. What then?" "Ask thy neighbours. Hast thou not heard that to-day is our festival? The festival of the extermination of the Magyars. You are one: the last in the town. All the others are dead. As the last, you shall choose the manner of your death." "So you are the executioner, Basil?" "I? I am the chosen of my people." With indescribable loathing, the Magyar spat in his face. "Scoundrel!" yelled the insulted man, "for this you shall weep tears of blood." "Weep! I?--who ever saw me weep? You may slay me, you may torture me, or tear me limb from limb. There are enough of you to do it. But weep you shall not see me, though you burst for impotent rage." "Weep thou shalt, and 'tis I will make thee. Know that it is I who seduced your wife, and for whom she betrayed you." "That is thy shame, not mine." "All thy kinsmen are slain." "Better they should lie dead in the street than breathe the same air with thee." "Thy property is annihilated." "May God destroy those who did it." "Truly, thou art a cool fellow. But--you had a daughter,--a fair and innocent child." George looked at his tormentor, and shuddered. "Lina, I think, was her name," continued the Serb, drawling out his words with a refinement of cruelty. "What--what mean you?" asked the trembling father. "A comely maiden, by my word. Fair to look upon, is she not?" "The devil seize thee! What next?" "So young and delicate, and yet--six husbands. Hard to choose. Your wife could not decide to which she should belong. I stepped in, and settled the matter. I married her--to all six----" He burst into fiendish laughter. Mute and giddy with horror, the father raised himself from the ground. "I am sorry," continued the Serb, "that you were not here for the wedding." "May God's justice fall upon you!" shrieked the wretched father, stifling his tears. But the parent's heart overpowered the pride of the man. He fell with his face upon the ground, and wept--tears of blood. "Lift him up," said Basil, "that we may see him weep for the first time in his life. Weep a little, George; and you, sot, tune up your pipes, that he may have accompaniment to his tears." And thereupon the drunken band began to dance round their victim with shouts of laughter and scoffing gestures, striking and kicking him as they passed. Now, however, he wept no longer. He closed his eyes and kept silence, enduring their ill-treatment without sign or sound of complaint. "Away with him!" cried Basil. "Throw him into the garret, and put a sentry over him. To-day we have celebrated his daughter's wedding; to-morrow we will drink at his funeral. Good-night, friend George."