"You needn't worry about money, Wenzel. The Government pay well those who are faithful to it." He leaned forward and his eyes narrowed. "Only see you do not fail, my friend, for otherwise you will find your own neck in a noose." Wenzel burst into a bellow of raucous laughter. "I shall not fail. Don't you worry, comrade. This White Knight has bitten off more than he can chew. I'm the man you want. That's what I say. It's me you want." "So be it." Bela Kun waved them away. "Don't forget, Comrade Wenzel, don't let him escape. You will hang heavier than the Count Bakocz!" * * * * * * Sunday! The day before the trial of Count Kalman Bakocz for treason. Trial! It was mockery to call the proceedings which occurred by this name. Counter-revolutionaries, enemies of the proletariat; all such who were caught were imprisoned, and in due course, usually within twenty-four hours, brought before Korvin-Klein. Trial--judgment should be the word! There was no opportunity for defence, no witnesses brought forward for the defendant. Only prosecution and execution. In the prisons of Hungary were _bourgeois_ hostages, held by the Communists against the possibility of hostile demonstrations from the people who groaned beneath the heel of the Soviet. Cast into prison, herded, many of them together, into small filthy cells, they barely subsisted. Womenfolk were allowed to bring them what food they could obtain. Baskets, bags, packages of food were handed in at the prison gates by weeping women, for husbands, brothers, and sons. The Red guards received the parcels and, when the women had gone, ate the food themselves and drank the wine. Occasionally, nay, more often than not, these hostages, these prisoners, died. That night there would be a stealthy procession to the waterside, and presently the waters of the Danube would part with a splash, and the body of the prisoner would float down, to disappear for evermore. Food would still arrive, relations never hearing the tragedy of their loved ones, and the jeering Reds would gobble it up. What stories the grim walls of the Budapest prisons could tell of the Revolution of 1919, what tales of death and torture! Count Bakocz was granted a cell to himself. The remorseless Soviet had determined he should die, and there was to be no mistake. So he was taken away from fellow-prisoners and thrown into solitary confinement, to see only the faces of his two jailers, one during the day, and one during the night. Always the ghastly, repulsive features of Wenzel haunted him, asleep and awake. At times he could not sleep. Wenzel was for ever peeping through the grill, and every time the Communist gave his guttural laugh, and greeted him with rude, boisterous remarks. "Well, my friend, still alive I see. Ho, ho! Too bad. Fancy, you have not been hanged or shot yet! Too bad. I must see what I can do for you.