The Szekler, perceiving the success of his involuntary masquerade, sent after the fugitives a still more ghastly howl, took the amphora down from the chain, sat down with it in the middle of the parquetted floor, thrust both hands into it at once like a demon of the woods, and gobbled and roared alternately. And these savage scenes took place in the very same chamber where, only a few days before, the delicate form of Dame Banfi had appeared among her jasmines and mimosas like a melancholy shade from fairyland which only listens with its soul and speaks with its eyes. * * * * * Meanwhile Denis Banfi, after breaking through the ambush laid for him at Koppad, began, as the noise of the pursuit gradually died away, to look about him in the star-bright night, and picked his way so carefully through woods and over stubble-fields that, at dawn of day, he saw before him the towers of Klausenburg. Once rid of the terrors of pursuit, anger and revenge began to rage within him. He thought at first that this night attack was simply an audacious conspiracy of his private enemies concocted without the knowledge of the Prince, on the principle that an accomplished act is more easily justifiable than an act that has still to be accomplished. But the attempt had not succeeded, and the escaped lion had both the will and the power to turn upon his pursuers and teach them respect for the laws. In the plain before the town Banfi's troops were just going through their morning exercises when their leader came galloping up to them, pale, agitated, unarmed, and without either hat or mantle. His captains hastened towards him, aghast and curious. "I've just escaped from a murderous assault," said Banfi, with a hoarse voice and a heaving breast; "my enemies have treacherously fallen upon me. I have escaped them, but my wife is in their hands. I recognized the voices of Daczo and Kornis among my pursuers." "Yes, and Daczo's name is embroidered on this saddle-cloth," said Michael Angel. Banfi appeared much disturbed. His face was dark and troubled, as if neither the future nor the past was quite clear to him. "I don't understand it at all," said he to his captains. "If the attack was by the Prince's command, I ought to have been served beforehand with a writ, a citation, or, at the very least, a notice of judgment. If however it be only an act of private vengeance, my band is more than sufficient to reach these honest Szeklers. In any case, you will remain under arms before the town while I go up to my castle. In a few hours I shall know whither we have to turn."