"We will not return to our homes," he shouted, "so long as a single castle in the kingdom is still standing. We will make whatever laws we like. We will give up the captive gentry when they are stone dead, and as for our ringleader you may have him if you can catch him." To still further emphasize his words, shaggy Hanák whirled his knobby bludgeon above his head, and shied it frantically at the officer, who warded off the blow with his sword, and the same instant a young private transfixed the braggart so vigorously that the end of his bayonet stuck in the ground behind. This unexpected scene served as a signal for the little band of soldiers, and they there and then fired into the thickest of the crowd. And with that the whole horrible tragedy came to an end. A single volley dispersed the whole ragged host. The corpses remained on the ground naturally, but all the rest fled without another word, fled incontinently over pillar and post, rushed straight home, hid themselves away, put on their simplest air, washed the blood from their hands, and held their tongues. The rescued welcomed their deliverers with open arms. But another quarter of an hour and very sorry remnants of them would have been found at Hétfalu. Meanwhile, out came Dr. Sarkantyús, and a very great pother he made, insisting that the whole company should instantly hasten back to town, as if they remained there the pale death would speedily overtake them, and it would therefore boot them little to have escaped from the red death. And indeed the plague was raging fearfully in that district, and dying wretches were writhing convulsively in the streets outside. He himself must remain on the spot. He was bound by his official duties to visit the very houses of these persons who, half an hour ago, had combined to torture him, and whose families were now themselves suffering torments in the grip of this unknown disease. Nevertheless, he required the escort of two armed men, for, as he jocosely observed, "The Deuce is in it when patients would compel the doctor to drink his own drugs." * * * * * Hétfalusy had the felicity of embracing his long-lost grandchild before he died. The child accepted him as her grandpapa, but begged that she might have as her dear papa besides, good old Zudár, who had loved her so much. Hétfalusy nodded his consent, and pressed the coarse palm of the headsman with his own gentlemanly hand. Nobody told the child that she had a perfect right to call Zudár her father, inasmuch as her real father, who had cast her from him, now lay frightfully disfigured in a grave he had dug with his own hand. Hétfalusy indeed never mentioned the name of his son-in-law again. Then they laid him in the carriage already prepared for him, and little Elise sat beside him and nursed his head in her lap. Oh, by this time, she was very well used to nursing old people.