he
faintest idea.

He went and stood in front of the _csarda_. He gazed out upon the
desolate _puszta_ stretching around him in every direction. From every
point of the compass wagon tracks, some old, some still fresh,
zig-zagged to and from the _csarda_ and he could not make up his mind
which of them to take in order to reach the world beyond.

CHAPTER XVI

LEANDER BABEROSSY

Whenever one carts away a heap of stones which have been lying
undisturbed for years, or whenever one removes the shingle-roof of an
ancient tenement, or drains off the water from a marshy place, one
generally stumbles upon all sorts of hitherto undiscovered, curious
beetles, odd looking moths and spiral-shaped, creeping things in these
routed out lurking places, which nobody ever saw before or read of in
the natural history books; and at such times a man bethinks him how
wonderful it is of Mother Nature to provide even such holes and corners
as these with living inhabitants which never see the light of day at
all.

Once, while on circuit, Vamhidy was obliged to lie one night at a
village within his jurisdiction whose inhabitants were a strong mixture
of Hungarian, Servian and Wallachian ingredients. Arriving late, it was
a long time before he could go to sleep, and he was awakened rather late
next morning by an unusual hubbub. His bedchamber was only separated
from the large drinking room by a door and through this door broke every
now and then very peculiar sounds the meaning of which, on a first
hearing, it was very difficult to explain.

It sounded as if a couple of women and a couple of men were roundly
abusing one another, sometimes in a low tone and sometimes in a loud,
and the most peculiar thing about the whole business was that two of
them never spoke at once but each one of them allowed each of the others
to have his say out to the end. All at once the noise grew more alarming
and broken outbursts plainly suggested that someone in the adjoining
room wanted to murder somebody else. Vamhidy leaped from his bed and was
about to intervene when in came the landlord with his coffee.

"What is that row going on next door?" enquired Szilard irritably.

"Oh, I cry your honour's pardon," replied the innkeeper with a proud
smile, "it is only our actors. They are rehearsing a new piece which
they are going to act this evening. I hope your honour will condescend
to go and see it--it will be real fine."

"What, actors in this vill