"Well, did ever one see!" exclaimed a sharp voice behind Esther. "Jancsi! [Johnnie!] how ever did you get here?"
"It is I indeed, my little demoiselle," said Michael, in the utmost surprise. "But I am quite bewildered. How did you come here?"
"Did not you know that the king had sent for me here to Buda?"
"The king!" said the young man, and a shadow crossed his face; "when? what for?—and have you seen the king?"
"Three questions at once," said Esther, laughing. "Well, really I don't know anything more than that we came here under the escort of an old gentleman whom I don't know; and the king quartered us here, where we have been now three days, but I have not yet seen His Highness. God bless him! for I am as free here, and as happy," she went on, blushing still more, "as if I had been born again. But come in; why do you stand there in the window? We are neighbours, you know, as we used to be, and neighbours ought to be on good terms with one another."
Michael felt as if he were dreaming, but naturally he did not wait to be asked twice; and the old woman, who had shown a marked liking for him before while he was in Samson's castle, welcomed him now with the greatest cordiality.
"Why, Jancsi, stay a bit," said she, "and let me look at you! Why, what a smart lad you have turned into, to be sure! What fine buttons you have on your dolmány! and—well, I declare, you have a watch too! 'Your lentils must have sold' uncommonly well in the time; and just tell us now how you came to 'climb the cucumber-tree' so quickly, will you?"[12]
[12] To "sell one's lentils well" and to "climb the cucumber-tree" mean to get on in the world and make one's fortune quickly.
"Ah, auntie, that would take a long time to tell; but we'll have it another time. All I can tell you now is that I owe everything to the good king, and I would go through the fire for him; for my whole life, every moment of it, belongs to him."
Then in a few words he told them his history since the time when he had left the castle with Samson, and had so given Esther some hope of release.