It was a still warm evening towards the end of spring.
All nature seemed to sleep; no leaf moved in the warm night air: only at times could be heard a faint sound, as if wood and field had shuddered in their dreams, and a long-drawn sigh had rustled the tops of the poplars, dying away in the reed-forest.
Then, suddenly, the hounds all along the village began to bay and howl.
The bark of a hound is generally a soothing sound; but when the vigilant house-guard has an uneasy feeling, and changes his bark to a long whining howl, it inspires disquietude and anxiety.
Only the spider in the web rejoiced at the sound of danger! They were coming!
The hounds' uproar lasted long: but finally it too ceased; and there followed the dreamy, quiet night, undisturbed by even a breath of wind.
Only the nightingales sang, those sweet fanciful songsters of the night, far and near in the garden bushes.
Sárvölgyi listened long—but not to the nightingale's song. What next would happen?
Then the stillness of the night was broken by an awful cry as when a girl in the depth of night meets her enemy face to face.
A minute later again that cry—still more horrible, more anguished. As if a knife had been thrust into the maiden's breast.