ear, you
scoundrel!" and before Pista could suspect what his enemy meant to do,
the latter had shut the door and bolted it on the outside.

Pista's first movement was to throw himself against the door to burst
it open with his shoulder, but he paused instinctively as he heard
Abonyi's voice, shouting loudly outside.

"Janos," called the latter to the coachman, who stood washing the
horses' harnesses beside the coach-house door, "go up to my chamber and
bring me down the revolver, the one on the table by the bed, not the
other which hangs on the wall!"

Janos went, and stillness reigned in the courtyard. Now the prisoner's
rage burst forth. "Open! open!" he roared, drumming furiously on the
oak-door. Abonyi, who was keeping guard, at first said nothing, but as
the man inside shouted and shook more violently, he called to him: "Be
quiet, my son, you'll be let out presently, not to your beautiful wife,
but to the parish jail."

"Open!" yelled the voice inside again, "or I'll set fire to the hay and
burn down your flayer's hut."

This was an absurd, ridiculous threat, for in the first place Pista, if
he had really attempted to execute it, would have stifled and roasted
himself before the mansion received the slightest injury, and besides,
as examination afterwards proved, he had neither matches nor tinder
with him; but Abonyi pretended to take the boast seriously and cried
scornfully:

"Better and better! You are a sly fellow! First you threaten me with
murder, now with arson; keep on, run up a big reckoning, when the time
for settlement comes, we will both be present."

Janos now appeared and, with a very grave face, handed his master the
revolver.

"Now, my lad," Abonyi ordered, "run over to the town-hall, bring a pair
of strong hand-cuffs and the little judge,[2] the rascal will be put in
irons."

Pista had again heard and remained silent because he had perceived that
blustering and raging were useless. So he stood inside and Abonyi
outside of the door, both gazing sullenly into vacancy in excited
anticipation. The gardener, who was laying out a flower-bed which
surrounded three sides of the fountain in the centre of the courtyard,
had witnessed the whole scene from the beginning, but remained at his
work, apparently without interest.

The town-hall was only a hundred paces distant. In less than five
minutes Janos returned with the beadle. Abonyi now retreated a few
steps, aimed the revolver, and