"What do you mean?" exclaimed Vértessy, stammering with delight; he knew very well, all the time, what the doctor meant. "A wee, wee cherub has arrived," whispered the doctor--"and 'tis a boy cherub too," he added with a still broader smile. The next moment Vértessy was kneeling down before his wife, and pressing her hands hundreds and hundreds of times to his burning lips. And the wife, with a sweet and blissful smile, looked down upon her husband like one of those whom the prayers of their beloved have called back from the world beyond the grave. "With God there is mercy!" was all that she could say. CHAPTER XVI. 'TIS WELL THAT THE NIGHT IS BLACK. At the Castle of Hétfalu everyone was quietly sleeping. None had any thought of that black spectre which is the enemy of all living creatures, which constrains the huge watch-dog to dig up graves with his hind feet, which bids the night owl utter her dismal notes on the housetop alongside of the creaking weather-cock, which sends into the vestibules and corridors its living visiting-cards in the shape of those large, black, night-moths with pale skull-like effigies painted on their backs as upon tombs, beneath whose feet the furniture creaks and crackles, which makes that tiny invisible beetle hidden between the boards of the beds begin tick-tick-ticking like a fairy watch, eleven times in succession, by way of showing that the witching hour of night is close at hand. Oh! there is such a great unanimity among these dumb creatures of the night and darkness. The wind blew gloomy-looking clouds before it across the sky, clouds which hastened away from that district; which jostled one another as they scudded along, some high, some low, and kept on changing their shapes as if they feared lest something might catch them there. Some of them had blood-red linings from the flames of distant conflagrations, and these flew rapidly along, trying to force their way through in advance of the rest; but these others sped along still faster, lest they, too, should be enkindled. And in the darkness disorderly masses of men might have been dimly seen assembling in the roads and stealthily proceeding towards the castle. In the tap-room of the _csárda_ evil counsellors are discussing the destruction of all the dwellers in the castle. Three separate opinions are fighting for the supremacy. Numa Pompilius is in favour of an open, heroic attack, as became the _epigoni_ of the valiant Sarmatians; with battering-rams, ballistas, and other classical instruments of warfare, he would have fought breast to breast, eye to eye with the foe. Ivan, on the other hand, is more practical. He knows his own people better, and anticipates much greater success from an insidious surprise in which the warriors shall stealthily crawl over walls and through windows upon the unguarded and unsuspecting garrison, and massacre them in their dreams.