ld
forget where he had left off.

"I could only get off late. The old man would not let me go till
vespers."

"Ivan, the long expected signal has at last been given."

"How so?" inquired the fellow, amazed.

"It has been announced in every church, in every school; it has been
nailed in printed form on every wall, on every post. The county itself
has given the signal. That about which the people were still in doubt,
that which it refused to believe, it believes now, for it has been
officially proclaimed. Death is approaching, and woe to him who fears
it. I fear it not. Do you?"

The fellow shuddered, yet he replied,

"Not I."

"The plague will break out suddenly in various places, and wherever
there are dead bodies, there the living will fly to arms, and seek out
those on whom they would wreak their vengeance."

Ivan's face turned a pale green, but he stifled his inward terror. It
was indeed a terrible time that was coming.

"In the town there is a great commotion, but that does not amount to
much. I know the Hetfalu folks. They are cowards and only half ours so
far. There are many strangers, many traitors among them. Even when their
fury is at the highest point, a gentleman with silver buttons has only
to come among them with honied words, or a heyduke has only to appear
among them with a stick, or, at the most, a couple of gamekeepers with
loaded muskets, and they scatter and fly in all directions like startled
game. It is useless; they are a race of cowards. They are a mongrel set
after all. Yet here must be our starting point. We must compel the folks
here to tackle to the business--a petty village cannot take the
initiative without some stimulus from without."

Ivan listened to the master's words admiringly; he began to have the
strong conviction that Bodza possessed the qualifications of a great
general.

"We must bring in the folks from some neighbouring village just to stir
them up. The people of the Tribo district are best suited for that I
should think. Many of them are shepherds and herdsmen; men who lie in
the fields, who can be brought together in the night time, without
anyone observing it. There is a distillery in the village too, and he
who says that poison is concocted there does not lie in the least. In
general, every village should choose its leaders from some other
village, so that the local gentry may not recognise the strange faces.
Some men are easily put out if people, when they beg