"And who will give it me?" asked the beggar, looking eagerly at the horseman. "I myself," he answered. "But I am slow to believe people, and so I want first to know whether I can trust you." The boy still had his eyes turned towards the castle. "Thunder!" said he presently, "the devil himself doesn't get in there by the proper way. But just wait a moment, sir, and let me think a little. So they don't live on Jews' flesh in there, eh, sir?" "To be sure not! I fancy they live on something better than that." "But still the Jews do go in and out--at least so people say, and what is in everybody's mouth is half true at all events." "Right; but what then?" "Why, I'll be a Jew, and go in, if they don't eat people up." "But how?" "I don't know yet. Give me a little time, or I shall not be able to hit upon it." "Of course. And now listen. Before I trust you blindly, I am going to prove you." He drew a sealed letter from his breast, wrote a few lines on the back with a pencil, and went on: "See this letter? Make haste with it to Visegrád; ask for admission, and say merely that you have brought the governor a letter from his son. Do you quite understand? But I don't know your name; what is it?" "Tornay Mihály [Michael Tornay]," answered the boy; and then went on, "I see! what is there difficult about that? I quite understand: you are the son of the governor of Visegrád, and you are sending a letter to your father." "Right!" said the horseman. "You will come straight on to Buda with the answer, and ask at the palace for Mr. Galeotti, and give it into his hands. You won't forget the name?" "Galeotti," repeated the boy. "But will they let me in, in such rags?" "You will get proper clothes and a horse in Visegrád." "A horse!" exclaimed the boy, his eyes sparkling. "I have never done anything more than help a coachman to swim his horses now and then, and now I shall have a horse myself!" "For service, gossip; and don't you go off with it!" The beggar's face was all aflame. "Am I a horse-stealer," he cried, "just because your elbows don't show through your dolmány, while my clothes are so full of holes that twenty cats together would not be able to catch one mouse in them?" "Don't be angry," said the horseman, who was more and more pleased with the boy every moment. "Here, as a sign that I put more trust in some people's faces than I do in other people's written word--here is a purse of money. And now hurry off; you have no time to lose. The sooner you bring back the answer, the more faith I shall have in you." The boy stared at the purse, and being very hungry, poor fellow, it seemed to him to be full of ham and sausage. "You must be an estate-manager," he gasped, "or--a bishop, to have so much money." "What does that matter to you?" answered the horseman. "Make haste, and I shall see whether you are a man of your word." The lad raised his tattered cap, and the next moment he was out of sight. CHAPTER II. MISKA THE BEGGAR BOY.