"Is it the ten thousand ducats you are seeking?" laughed their enemy contemptuously, as she took two pistols out of the holster, and seized the while her horse's bridle in her mouth. And just as the assailants approached closer, the robber fired, aiming not at the riders, but at their steeds. Both beasts fell, the one with his rider under him, the other on his knees, so that the heyduke was thrown over the horse's head. Villám Pista clapped his hands and laughed aloud. "Now you can overtake my husband," cried the false highwayman, and for the moment the old Fruzsinka asserted herself. Then she vanished into the thicket, the gathering fog hiding all trace of her, even as might disappear some wild valkyr of the old legends. CHAPTER XXXVI. Ráby succeeded in crossing the frontier, the thick mist which veiled the moonlight favouring his escape. The shame of the situation nearly killed him. To be freed by a woman masquerading as a robber-chieftain--and that woman his wife! His wretched spouse had done him many wrongs, yet this one, although intended to benefit him, smote him as with a lash, and the memory of her last words stung him to the quick. But he had by this reached the adjacent river, whose waters were not sufficiently frozen over to bear the weight of both himself and his horse. So he had to dismount and leave the animal behind, and then cross the ice on foot as best he could. This was undoubtedly better than arriving at the Austrian frontier on horseback, for a woman riding alone at that time of night would certainly arouse the suspicions of the Austrian officials, and they would probably escort him back to whence he came. So he dragged himself to the first wayside inn he could find, and explained his presence there with a story of his brothers having fallen into a snow-drift. The kind-hearted people believed him, and when it was light, set out to find his kinsmen. But whom, strangely enough, should they come across but Ráby's two friends, who, after the fight with the heydukes, had set out to follow him, not without many mishaps in the snow which bore out Ráby's tale. It was a right merry meeting, and the three could eat and sleep in safety now that they were free from their pursuers. They thought it best to say nothing of the heydukes, in case they might be cited as witnesses. There still lay a two days' journey before them across bad roads ere they could reach Vienna. His friends' readiness to accompany him convinced Ráby that they were in the service of the Emperor, and not mercenaries of the Pesth authorities. In view of chance separating them again, Kurovics made over to Ráby thirty gulden so that he might not be without money. On Austrian territory, Kurovics became quite communicative, and let out that he was no Szent-Endre burgher, but a well-to-do landed proprietor, whose father had been ennobled by Maria Theresa, and that he was in the Emperor's confidence.