Maria pounded along the highway, glancing aside from time to time in the direction of the burning house, the conflagration of which lit up the overcast sky, tinging the clouds with an angry purple. The wind drove the lurid smoke hither and thither. There was as steady a glare as if a whole village was in flames. As they sped further and further away the flames lit up the road and the wayside trees, and the towering masses of clouds ever less and less. At last all that was to be seen was a large blood-red star rising from the plain, a mere point of light far, far away. Then even that vanished. Soon afterwards day began to dawn. The cinder-grey sky reduced the nightly glare to ashes, and a dark grey column of smoke, standing out against the pale yellow horizon, was the only sign left of the conflagration. On approaching the next _csárda_, Maria allowed Hanák to draw nearer to her; her escort had to explain to the mob of peasants drinking in front of the door on what errand they were speeding. He did so in his usual boisterous bombastic fashion. "We are going to town," bawled he. "We are going to read the proclamation and collar the soldiers and the bigwigs, and bring back with us guns and gunpowder, and lots of money. This is the courier." Hoarsely bellowed "Eljens!" greeted this magnanimous resolution. A guffawing scytheman, moreover, pressed with his horny palm the hand of Maria, for whom shaggy Hanák, in the fervour of his enthusiasm, could find no more important title than that of "courier." As the day slowly began to dawn, the sobering breath of the fresh morning breeze blew full in the faces of the horsemen, and the towers of the county-town stood out plainly before them in the distance. And now Maria began to observe that her companion was lagging behind her at a considerable distance. More than once she had to shout back to him: "My brother! don't drop behind so!" "My horse is tired out," stammered Hanák, and he kept on mopping up the sweat from his towzled poll. "Give him the spur, then!" "I would if I had 'em." "Then ride in front of me, and I'll whip him up from behind." And so they went along pretty well for some time, but when the towers and steeples of the county-town drew very much nearer, shaggy Hanák began to complain that his saddle was nearly falling off. "Dismount, then, and fix it tighter!" The fellow dismounted accordingly, but he was fumbling about with it such a long time that Maria, growing impatient, herself leaped to the ground and tightened his saddle-girths. "And now up you get and off again!" Shaggy Hanák stuck all five fingers into his hairy poll and scratched his head all round beneath his cap, then suddenly, with an artful grin, he turned his face towards Maria. "Hark ye! Are we really going into the town?" "Of course we are." "And you really intend to read out the proclamation, to seize the General, take away the guns, and capture the barrack?"