"You are right, Akos," interposed the King. "Time may bring us good. Let us wait and be watchful! And don't forget that I have given this dear child into your care. Trust the rest of us to God, in whose hands is our fate; we shall defend ourselves, if need be, but you think only of her. Do you promise me?"
"I swear I will," said Akos, with uplifted hand.
Then he embraced his bride, who accompanied him to the covered entrance, then followed him with her eyes all along the drawbridge, and after that watched him from a window until he was quite out of sight.
Kuthen had already doubled the guards about his dwelling, and had taken other precautions and measures of defence; but the walls were high, and all had been done so quietly that it had not attracted the attention of the sentries posted on the other side of the drawbridge. When Akos was gone, he and his sons armed themselves as if for battle.
Sheaves of arrows were brought out and placed in readiness, the guards were armed, and the Kun chiefs, who took it in turn to be on duty near the King, made all needful preparation for an obstinate defence.
Akos had not been gone more than an hour or two, when little groups and knots of people began to gather round Kuthen's house. There were three or four here, and three or four there, and presently they might be counted by the score. Later on a large crowd had collected. They were talking quietly to one another, and seemed so far to be quite peaceable, however.
The Kun royal family took no alarm, for they knew the Pest populace and its insatiable curiosity well by this time, and they fancied that there was perhaps some idea abroad that Kuthen and his sons would be going to the Diet; or perhaps Marána's betrothal was known.
Another hour passed and the people began to shout and howl. Two persons were declaiming to them; but within the walls it was impossible to distinguish what they were saying. The crowd pressed nearer and nearer to the drawbridge, so near indeed, that the guards on duty there had the greatest difficulty in keeping them back, and a sudden rush of those in the rear sent two or three of the foremost splashing into the moat, to the huge diversion of the rest.
Presently, however, the mob appeared to be seized by a new idea, for they all set off running in one direction; and in a few moments, only a few small knots of people remained.
But these few lay down on the patches of grass round about, as if they meant to stay indefinitely, and the Kun chiefs, who had been keeping close watch behind the loop-holed walls, noticed that they were all armed, some with knotty sticks and wooden clubs bristling with nails, and a few here and there with bows and quivers. It looked as if they meant mischief, and the Kunok were all on the alert for what might happen.