gra's cursing lips, but at
the groups forming in the darkness above his head.

The oath over, Fatia Negra seized the reversed crucifix and an electric
shock again jolted the hand of the girl which he held fast in his own
right hand. "Now, you swear it also!" cried he.

The only reply the girl gave was to passionately tear her hand out of
the adventurer's. Rising from her knees, and with her handsome face full
of rage, scorn and hatred, she turned upon him, who knelt at her feet,
gnashing her pearly teeth as she spoke: "Wretched play-actor! masked
imposter! You have deceived everybody, but nobody so much as me. Do you
remember that night in the ice valley and how shamefully you betrayed me
there? Know then that I was present in that hut, that it was I who blew
the horn and brought back the jealous husband from the forest. I saw the
tussle that followed and I swore, there and then, that I would be your
ruin. Just now you swore that if ever you betrayed me, thus might you
yourself be betrayed by whomsoever you trusted most. You said: 'Let
water pursue; let fire seize me, let the axe of the headsman descend
upon me and the dogs drink up my blood!' Be it so, then--here is fire in
front of you and water behind you and the headsman's sword above your
head! The dogs that are to lick your blood are already barking for it. I
have betrayed you. Look behind you!"

The armed band of soldiers, moving forward in line, like a piece of
machinery, suddenly disclosed a row of bayonets glittering in the light
of the torches. "We are lost!" howled the mob, whilst the voice of the
officer in command (it had a strong foreign accent), rose above the din:
"Down with your arms! no resistance!"

Onucz rushed roaring towards his sacks of ducats, the women scattered
screaming among the tents. For an instant Fatia Negra stood petrified
before Anicza, like a devil caught in a trap, and gazed vacantly at the
girl's flaming face.

Anicza now turned quickly towards the armed soldiers and cried with a
piercing voice: "Hasten Juon Tare! Seize the smelting-oven entrance,
else this devil will still escape us!"

That was why she wanted to know from Fatia Negra which way they would go
underground.

At these words, however, the adventurer recovered himself. He saw a
pitiless enemy and a troop of armed men hastening to the door of the
smelting-furnace and that way of refuge was consequently closed. The
same instant an infernal idea occurred to him.

H