ilk pails fall to the
ground with a shrill scream. Why, the master was lying there!

She stood as though rooted to the spot. Oh dear, how frightened she had
been. What was he doing there? What did he mean by going to sleep
there, and frightening people who came unsuspectingly into the stables
out of their wits?

"Panje, Panje Tiralla," she called. "Do get up, _gospodarz!_"

She had come up to him now; he did not move. She gave him a slight push
with the point of her new shoe; how tipsy he was. "Wake up, master,"
she said. "Finish your sleep in bed, I'll help you into it." What
pleasant dreams he was having. It seemed to her that there was a smile
on his face.

She bent over him. "Panje, Paniczek!" She [Pg 309] looked at him a
little more closely, she felt him--then she began to scream so that the
walls resounded with it; she mingled her screams with the lowing of the
cattle that had started afresh; she screamed still louder, so that she
dominated the lowing, screamed so that it sounded across the yard to
the sleeping house like a trumpet. Mr. Tiralla was icy-cold; he was
dead.

She tore her hair and behaved as though she were mad--her master, her
good master! Then rushing out of the stables and across the yard she
shouted and shrieked, "Pani, Pani, help! Help, Mr. Mikolai!"

Mrs. Tiralla came immediately. She had lain awake the whole night. How
could she have slept when her heart trembled between fear and hope,
when at one moment it had seemed to her as though the events of the
afternoon had only been a prelude, as though Martin were going away at
once and for ever, and the next as though he had been given back to
her, and Mr. Tiralla were going away for ever? She had wept and called
on the saints. But when the maid's cry for help brought her downstairs,
there was no more fear in her heart. She surmised that the decisive
hour had come, but all she felt was eager curiosity.

"What--what? Where--where?" she cried, seizing Marianna by the arm with
a convulsive grip, as the latter came rushing up to her.

"Dead, dead!" stammered the girl trembling.

"Dead?" Was Mr. Tiralla dead? But tell me then. The woman shook the
screaming servant with wild impatience.

"Oh dear, oh dear, my good master is dead," howled the maid. "He's
lying in the stables without saying a word."

"Show me."

[Pg 310]

They rushed over to the stables. There lay Mr. Tiralla as the maid
had left him; he had not moved. Marianna made the sig