Peter Zudár seized a large measure of beer, approached the door, and flung the malt liquid all over it. Ha! how loudly the glowing metal hissed and spluttered at the contact of the cold fluid, as if laughing with joy at the artful scheme which it and the master together had devised for the latter's deliverance. The iron door was far too burning hot to be opened with the naked hand, but the blood-red glare visible behind it made it pretty certain that the lead-soldering had long ago melted away, and it therefore only needed a vigorous kick to wrench it off its hinges. Peter Zudár listened attentively. Not a soul was stirring. There was indeed no reason why anyone should linger any longer in that wretched place. Impatience spurred him on to action. He began to lift the door from its hinges with the help of a heavy crowbar. It gave way sooner than he had anticipated, and fell at full length on the smoking embers in front of it, bridging over the fiery stream from one bank to the other. With a single bound Peter Zudár leaped over the door, and sped away from the burning house like a madman. It was dark, nobody saw him. In his way stood huge thistles, prickly-headed vegetable monsters, and Peter Zudár mowed them all down with his headsman's sword just as if they had been so many condemned malefactors, or as if he were a frolicsome lad waging fierce war with a wooden sword against the whole evil host of weeds. Anybody who had seen him would have taken him for a lunatic. He only came to himself when the barking of a dog struck upon his ear; he knew then that he was on the borders of the village, and close to the nearest houses. Then he began slowly to compose himself, the cool night air was soothing his troubled brain. He now commenced to recollect what had happened to him during the last few hours. The riot, the seizure of the child, the house burnt over his head, the agony he had endured in the cellar--all these things flashed like vivid pictures before his mind again. But what had become of the child? What did they want to do with her? To kill her perhaps?--these were his first thoughts. Then he began to consider how he might discover her whereabouts and rescue her. Vengeance was the last thing he thought of. He had no suspicion as to whom the raging mob had risen against. He fancied that the child was the pivot of the whole ghastly affair. He was persuaded all along that they had sought her death, and would murder her, and the idea of such a thing was all the more terrible to him because he did not know the reason why. So much, however, he did know, that his own wife was the person most to be feared. He was fully sensible that there was no time to lodge a complaint with the magistrate, the priest, or the local court, and await a heavy sentence. This was a peculiar case in which the headsman himself must investigate, condemn, and execute the sentence--and was not the sword of Justice already in his hands?