Two of the men stepped forward.

"You two will guard the two doors of the servants' quarter when we arrive. Death to him who tries to escape by door or window."

"We know."

"Csutor[78] and Disznos.[79] you will be in ambush before the hunting-box, and anyone who attempts to come out to the rescue, must be killed."

[Footnote 78: Nightshade.]

[Footnote 79: Swinish.]

"Very well."

"Bogracs![80] You will occupy the street-door, and if any peasant dares to approach you must shoot him: you alone are sufficient to keep peasants off."

[Footnote 80: Kettle.]

"Quite sufficient!" said the robber with great self-reliance.

"Korve[81] and Pofok.[81] You must take your stand opposite the first verandah, near the well, and if anyone wishes to escape by the first door, fire at him. But don't waste powder.--You others, Vasgyuro,[82]

Hentes,[83] Piocza,[84] Agyaras,[85] will come with me through the garden, and will stay behind in the bushes until I give the sign. If I whistle once, that's for you. If I can get in quietly, by craft, without being obliged to fire a shot, that will be the best. I have planned the way. I think it will succeed. So three will come with me, one will remain in the doorway. Have the halters ready, to throw upon his neck, drag him to the ground and bind him. The black-bearded strong man must be dealt with suddenly, with the b.u.t.t of your gun on his head, if not otherwise. But we must take the old man alive, for we shall make him confess."

[Footnote 81: Blub-cheeked.]

[Footnote 82: Bully.]

[Footnote 83: Butcher.]

[Footnote 84: Leech.]

[Footnote 85: Wild-boar.]

"Just leave him to me," said a fellow with a pox-pitted face, in a tone of entire confidence.

"I shall be there too," continued Kandur: "and if we cannot enter the castle stealthily, if some one should make a noise, if those within wake up, then the first whistle is for you four: two come with me to break open the garden door. Have you got the 'jimmies'?"

"Yes," said a robber, displaying the crowbars.

"Piocza, and Agyaras, your business is to answer any fire of people from the windows.--If I whistle twice, that means that something's up, then you must run from all sides to help me. If I cannot break open the door, or if those robbers defend themselves well, set the roof on fire over their heads and give them a dose of singeing. That will do just as well.

Don't forget the tarred hay."

"Ha ha! The gentlemen will be warm."

"Well Pofok, perhaps you're cold? You'll soon get warm. Hither with the canteen. Let's drink a little Dutch courage first. Begin. Hentes. A long draught of brandy is, you know, good before a feast."

The tin went round and returned to Kandur almost empty.

"Look, I have hardly left you any," said the last drinker in a tone of apologetic modesty.

"To-day I don't drink brandy. The private must drink that he may be blind when he receives orders, but the general must not drink, that he may see to give orders. I shall drink something else when it is all over. Now look to the masking."

They understood what that meant.

Each one took off his sheepskin jacket, reversed it and put it on again.

Then dipping their hands in the strewn ashes, they blackened their faces, making themselves unrecognizable.

Only Kandur did not mask himself.

"Let them recognize me. And anyone who does not recognize me, shall learn from my own lips, 'I am Kandur, the mad Kandur, who will drink thy blood, and tear out thy entrails. Know who I am!' How I shall look into their eyes! How I shall gnash upon them with my teeth, when they are bound. How tenderly I shall say to the young gentleman: 'Well, my boy, my gypsy child, were you in the garden? Did you see a wolf? Were you afraid of it? Shoo! Shoo!'"[86]

[Footnote 86: A favorite child-verse in Hungary.]

Farao was impatiently pawing the scorched gra.s.s.

"You too are looking for what is no more, Farao," the robber said, patting his horse's neck. "Don't grieve. To-morrow you shall stand up to your knees in provender, and then you shall carry your master on your back. Don't grieve, Farao."

The robbers had completed their disguises.

"Now take up the boats."

Hidden among the reeds lay two skiffs, light affairs, each cut out of a piece of tree trunk: just such as would hold two men, and such as two men could carry on their shoulders over dry ground.

The robber-band put the skiffs into the water and started one after the other on their way; they went down until they reached the stream leading to the great d.y.k.e, by which they could punt down to the park of Lankadomb, just where the shooting-box was.

It was about midnight when they reached it.

On the right of Lankadomb the dogs were baying restlessly, but the hounds of the castle watchman did not answer them. They were sleeping.

Some vagrant gypsy woman had fed them well that evening on poisoned swine-flesh.

The robbers reached the castle courtyard noiselessly, unnoticed, and each one at once took the place allotted to him, as Kandur had directed.

The silence of deep sleep reigned in the house.

When everyone was in his place, Kandur crept on his stomach among the bushes, which formed a grove under Czipra's window that looked on to the garden, and putting an acacia leaf into his mouth, began to imitate the song of the nightingale.

It was an artistic masterpiece which the wild son of the plains had, with the aid of a leaf, stolen from the mouth of the sweetest of song-birds.

All those fairy warblings, those plaintive challenging tones, those enchanting trills, which no one has ever written down, he could imitate so faithfully, so naturally, that he deceived even his lurking comrades.

"Cursed bird," they muttered, "it too has turned to whistling."

Czipra was sleeping peacefully.

That invisible hand, which she had sought, had closed her eyes and sent sweet dreams to her heart. Perhaps, had she been able to sleep that sleep through undisturbed, she would have awakened to a happy day.

The nightingale was warbling under her window.