The autumn set in. The stone castle was damp, cold, empty, and dreary. Its master, with a bandage over his left eye, sat in the huge dining hall, with its richly-carved oak walls, and warmed himself at the great open hearth where the embers lay smouldering and the fire still flickered in the remains of two logs. Suddenly, from somewhere in the distance, he heard a muffled but familiar cry:
'Pan, give back the grindstone!'
In an instant the Voevoda started up as though he had been scalded, and shrieked frantically for his servants.
'Search the castle and everywhere round it instantly,' he ordered. 'There's a cock somewhere that sets my teeth on edge with his crowing.'
Fifty Cossack retainers of the magnate, led by three nobles and about forty servants under the leadership of the steward, rushed to fulfil the Pan's commands. But though they ransacked all the rooms, corridors, and doorways,—though they carefully searched the garden and the courtyard, they came back and reported to their illustrious master that not the slightest sign of any bird at all was anywhere to be found. This was not surprising; it did not occur to anybody to climb up on to the roof; and there, beside the chimney, sat Scarlet-Comb.
'It must have been my fancy,' thought Pan Podliásski, and sat down again before the fire. But just at the moment when he was half falling asleep, there suddenly tumbled down the chimney into the fireplace something small and black, which instantly hopped out on to the floor with singed feathers, and cried:
'Pan, give back the grindstone!'
The Voevoda shrank away from the fowl in horror. Scarlet-Comb, taking advantage of his stupefaction, ran through the rooms, and succeeded in slipping past the sentinels and making his way right to the village.
The magnate stood breathless. 'One's not safe from him anywhere,' he thought; and a sense of dread fell upon him. He clapped his trembling hands, and ordered the servant who came in to fetch the steward instantly.
'Give the peasant Kogoútek his grindstone back again at once,' said Pan Podliásski, avoiding the steward's eyes; 'and give him ten ducats for compensation.'