doing overestimated the strength of the branch on which he stood—with a great crash it broke beneath him, and he remained clinging like grim death to the fence half-way up.

At the sound of the snapping branch the watch-dog became aware of the fugitive, and rushed barking towards him; and while he was struggling with all his might to scramble up to the top of the fence it seized him by one of the tails of his coat and furiously tried to drag him down.

"Who is that?" a loud voice suddenly roared. The headsman had been aroused by the noise outside his window, and was now looking down into the courtyard. He there perceived a man quite unknown to him clambering up the fence, while the dog was tugging away at him to bring him down. "Ho, there! stop, whoever you are!" he thundered, and mad with rage he seized the musket and took aim at the fugitive. His eyes were wild and bloodshot.

Then a white hand lowered the weapon, and a clear ringing childish voice from behind him exclaimed:

"Wilt thou slay yet again, oh, my father?"

The man's hand sank down. For a moment he was motionless, and his face grew very pale. Then the calm look of self-possession came back to him. He embraced the child who had pushed the gun aside. Then he took aim once more. There was a loud report, and the watch-dog, without so much as a yelp, fell to the ground stiff and stark. The fugitive with a final effort leaped over the fence.

CHAPTER III.

A CHILDISH MALEFACTOR.

That house which stands all deserted in the middle of Hétfalu was not always of such a doleful appearance.

Its windows which are now nailed up or bricked in were once full of flowers; those trees which now stand around it all dried up and withered as if in mourning for their masters, and with no wish to grow green again after the many horrors which have taken place among them, those trees, I say, once threw an opulent shade on the marble bench placed beneath them, where a grave old gentleman used to sit of an evening and rejoice in the splendid wallflowers with which the courtyard abounded.

Yes, he could rejoice in the sweet flowers although his own heart was full of thorns.

This old gentleman was Benjamin Hétfalusy.

In front of those two windows which look out upon the garden, and which are now walled up, a solitary vine had been planted, whose branches, crowded with fruit, climbed up to the very roof of the house. Now it lies all wildered on the ground, and its immature berries twine themselves round the nearest bushes.

Those windows were once thickly curtained. The yellow silk curtains inundated with a sickly light a room where everything was so still, so sad.

There was an invalid in the house, little Neddy, the son of Benjamin Hétfalusy's daughter, the son of that once so haughty gentlewoman, Leonora Hétfalusy.

This poor lady had been visited by many a terrible calamity. After a youth passed amidst feverish excitements, she had married Squire Széphalmi, and there had been two children of this marriage, a son and a daughter. Edward and Emma were their names. The children were constantly bickering with each other, but this after all is only what happens every day with brothers and sisters.

One day the little girl disappeared, nobody knew what had become of her. They searched for her in the woods and in the fields, and in the pond close by; they explored the whole country side, their little pet daughter was nowhere to be found.

From that very day Neddy fell sick. He lost his fresh ruddy colour. He could neither eat nor sleep. They laid him on his bed, a fever tormented him. At night he would wander in his speech, and at such times he would constantly be calling for his little sister Emma; he would cry out and weep, and his features would stiffen and his eyes would almost start out of his head till he looked like one possessed.

The doctors said that it was epilepsy. They treated him in every possible way. It was all of no avail. He grew worse from day to day, and his father and mother stood and wept by his bed morning after morning.

It was one of those evenings when the wind rages outside and dashes rain mingled with hail against the window-panes. The child was crying and moaning in his bed, out of doors the dogs were howling, the wind was whistling, and the freely-swinging pump-handle creaked and groaned like a shrieking ghost.

"Ah!" wailed the sick child in his sleep, half rising up. "Emma! Let in little Emma! Don't you hear how she is crying outside—she cannot get through the door ... she is shivering, she is afraid of the dark ... go out and look...!"

"There is nobody outside, my darling, nobody, my poor sick little son."

"There is, there is. I hear someone scratching at the door, fumbling at the latch; she is stroking the dogs; don't you hear how she is moaning, dear, dear mother, don't you hear it?"

"Go to sleep, my sick darling, nobody is coming here, the whole house is locked up."

"She is dead, she is dead," whined the little boy in his delirium. "Wicked men killed her when she went into the woods to pluck flowers. They tied a stone to her feet and sank her in the yellow pond. Oh! oh! why don't you make haste? She will be drowned directly. Oh! oh! how bloody her forehead is!"

In the corner of the room was the father on his knees praying. The mother with tearful eyes kept on spreading the bed-clothes over the sick child, and the grey-headed grandfather stared stupidly in front of him.

"Hark! Don't you hear little Emma weeping there again? She has not been properly buried beneath the ground, she wants to come out. Hush! hush! Don't go, don't go, then perhaps she will stop crying."

Outside the tempest was shaking the trees.

"Oh, oh! There's a knocking at the door! They have come for me. They want to kill me. They are bringing little Emma. Oh, do not let them in! Tell them that I am not here! Lock the door!—--Father, father, don't leave me."

It was hideous to see the expression of despair on the round childish face all covered with sweat. They are wont to paint little children in the shape of angels. If it should ever occur to a painter to paint a four-year-old child as a devil, as a fallen accursed spirit, it might be such a face as his was.

"Oh, God, have mercy upon him, and take him to Thee," sobbed the grandfather, hiding his face on the table. He could not endure to look upon the superhuman torments of the child, while the weak, helpless father cried in the bitterness of his heart, "it is my only son, my dearest, fairest hope."

The child made as if it would fly or hide itself. It leaped up in its bed incessantly, and saw hideous shapes around it and raved about them, and writhed and struggled like one attacked by a serpent.

"Come, my daughter, come, my son!" sobbed old Benjamin, going down upon his knees. "Kneel beside me, let us pray for him; if our sins are ripe for punishment, let the punishment fall upon our heads, not upon the child's."

And the three elders knelt down beside the bed, and held each other by the hand and wept, and called upon God, and prayed Him to heal the child.

At that moment three violent blows from a clenched fist were heard upon the door. The dogs ran howling to the other end of the courtyard, and a shrill piping voice uttered the words:

"Death! death!"

The old grandfather leaped up from his knees like one beside himself with rage. Cursing aloud, he snatched his gun from the wall, rushed into the courtyard and looked about for whomsoever had uttered that cry