The unhappy Prince writhed in spasms of agony, he foamed at the mouth, he gnashed his teeth, and his bloodshot eyes protruded out of his head; an icy sweat, sad forerunner of death, broke out in drops upon his brow. After a torture of half an hour, he finally yielded up the ghost in the hands of his judges. Such was the end of Alexandru Lapushneanu, who leaves a bloody page in the history of Moldavia. A portrait of himself and his family may be seen to this day in the Monastery at Slatina, which he built, and where he is buried. ZIDRA By M. BEZA We were talking in the inn at Grabova and passing round the wine without troubling ourselves as to the lateness of the hour. In time we began to sing--as it is the custom to sing in these parts. One raises his voice, while the others subdue theirs, till all take up the chorus: Your head lies in my pouch, Zidra, mighty Zidra! Only our friend, Mitu Dola, was silent; he was much moved and kept turning first to one side and then to the other. "Oh, that song!" he gasped when we stopped. Then suddenly to me: "Do you know who Zidra was? And do you know who killed Zidra?" He took up his mug, drank from it several times, and then, with a brain clouded by distant memories and the strong wine, he began to tell me the story: "It must be some thirty years ago. Zidra was then a haiduk in the Smolcu mountains. What a man! There was a heavy price upon his head. His very name, passed from mouth to mouth, brought a wave of fear. And we children would gather together in the evening under the eaves of the fountains, by the church doors, and talk of Zidra. This much we knew: at one time he had lived amongst us and then had unexpectedly disappeared from the village; on account of some murder everybody said. After a long time he appeared again, robbing a long way this side of Smolcu: 'Zidra is at Seven-Hills; Zidra is in the Vigla Forest.' "Whispering thus secretly, we would glance over our shoulders. We would shiver as though we could feel a cold breath from the dark thicket whence Zidra might appear. I pictured him just like my father, probably because my father, too, was a striking figure. In a coat with long flowing sleeves, his cap on one side, and his belt loaded with pistols, my father--like all tax-gatherers at that period--was on the road a great deal of his time, so that my mother and I remained alone for weeks on end. "We had a house just on the outskirts of the village surrounded by a beech wood, the shadows of which hung darkly above our heads. How it would begin to moan at night! The rustling of the leaves, the prolonged roar of the rocking trees was like some great waterfall. From our soft bed, clasped in my mother's arms, I listened to the fierce din. From time to time it ceased; then, through the silence, came the sound of whistling, of shots, of the trampling of horses and of men.