ere in such dripping
weather.

While Mr. Peter Bus was calmly sleeping the sleep of the just, danger
was approaching the house from the other, the further side. In the
direction of Nyiregyhaza there was no dike indeed, and the water was
free to go up and down wherever it chose. A stranger venturing that way
might just as well make his will at once, but those who knew the lie of
the land, could get along more easily than if there had been a regular
road; indeed, there were coachmen who had loafed about the district so
long and learnt to know all its boggy and hilly turnings and windings so
thoroughly, that they could make their way across it late at night in
any sort of vehicle.

It must have been close upon midnight, for the cocks of the
"Break-'em-tear-'em" _csarda_ had begun to crow one after the other,
when a light began to twinkle in the twilight. Twelve mounted men were
approaching with burning torches, with a carriage and a waggon in their
midst.

The waggon went in front, the carriage behind, so that if a ditch
presented itself unexpectedly the waggon might tumble into it, and the
carriage might take warning and avoid the spot.

The bearers of the torches were all heydukes wearing a peculiar uniform.
On their heads were tschako-shaped _kalpags_ with white horse-hair
plumes, on their bodies were scarlet dolmans with yellow facings, over
which fox-skin _kaczaganys_ were cast as a protection against the
pouring rain. At every saddle hung a _fokos_ and a couple of pistols.
Their _gunyas_ only reached to the girdle, and below that followed
short, fringed, linen hose which did not go at all well with the scarlet
cloth of the dolmans.

And now the waggon comes in sight. Four good boorish horses were
attached to it, whose manes almost swam in the water; the reins were
handled by an old coachman with the figure of a _betyar_. The worthy
fellow was sleeping, for, after all, the horses knew the way well, and
he only awoke at such times as his hands closed upon the reins, when he
would give a great snort and look angrily around him.

The interior of the waggon presented a somewhat comical sight, for
though the back seat did not appear to be occupied, in the front seat
two ambiguous looking individuals were sitting with their backs to the
coachman. Who or what they were it was difficult to make out, for they
had wrapped themselves up so completely in their shaggy woollen mantles,
or _gubas_, and drawn their hoods so l