And with that she opened the wicker covering of her waggon, which hitherto had been kept tightly closed, and as easily, as if she only held a down cushion in her hand, she hauled forth little Elise. The child's hands were tied in front of her, and her head was completely enveloped in a thick woollen wrapper so that she could neither see nor cry out. Dame Zudár removed the wrapper from the little girl's head, and ordered her to stand upright. Then she produced a half burnt wax taper, the relic of some past funeral, lit it, and placed it between the child's fettered fingers. "The woman is not quite right," growled shaggy-headed Hanák. "She lights a candle so that they may be better able to fire among us." "Have no fear, shaggy pate. They will not fire at you. Go and huddle behind the doorpost if you like. _I_ mean to go alone into the courtyard, and will draw the snake out of its hole with my bare hand." The besiegers did not need much persuasion to hide themselves. When Dame Zudár passed through the gate with the child, everyone, not excepting Thomas Bodza, hastened to make himself scarce. The child she sent on in front with the lighted taper sticking between its fettered fingers. She followed close behind. She had no fear of bullets now. When they came in front of the open square in the shutter, she made the child stop, and bade it kneel down. Then with a loud resounding voice she shouted up at the windows: "Old Hétfalusy, are you there? Young Széphalmi, are you there?" There was no answer. "It is of no use denying yourselves. I am here to carry on my process against you. It is the old, old suit in which my father lost his life and my mother her reason. I have also brought along with me a tribunal which cannot be corrupted. _I_ am now the stronger party." "Take yourself off!" a hoarse, broken voice suddenly cried from the window; it very much resembled old Hétfalusy's. "Oh, I'm to take myself off, eh!" cried the virago defiantly. "Am I not standing then on my own ground? Is not this corner of the house whose windows I am now rattling, built on the plot of ground belonging to my forefathers? Is not this ground my own? Are not these very stones, these very blades of grass on which I now trample, mine, mine, mine?" "It may very easily be yours for ever, you wretched creature," said another voice, the voice of the younger squire. "If you do not go away, you shall die on the very spot." The barrel of a gun flashed between the shutters, and the headsman's wife could see that it was pointed straight at her heart. Quickly she pulled the little girl towards her. "Aim away, Széphalmi!" she cried. "I have even taken the trouble to bring a light that you may see to aim straight." And with that she snatched the candle from between the child's fingers, and held it so that it lit up her face.