[75] Tom-cat.
"What do you want?"
"What do I want? Your bones and your skin: your black blood. You highwayman! You robber!"
So saying, he tore the bandage from his eye: there was nothing amiss with that eye.
"Do you know me now, herdsman?"
It would have been in vain to scream. Outside the most uproarious music could be heard: no one would have heard the cry for help. Besides the assailed had another reason for holding his peace.
"Well, what do you want with me? What have I done to you? Why do you attack me?"
"What have you done?" said the gypsy, gnashing his teeth so that Sárvölgyi shivered—this gnashing of human teeth is a terrible sound. "What have you done? You ask that? Have you not robbed me? Eh?"
"I robbed you? Don't lose your senses. Let go of my throat. You see, I am in your hands anyhow. Talk sense. What has happened to you?"
"What has happened to me? Oh yes—act as if you had not seen that beautiful illumination the day before yesterday evening—that's right—when the rick was burned down, and then the gunpowder dispersed the fire, so that nothing but a black pit remained for mad Kandur."