[35] Huszas—a silver piece containing twenty kreutzers, worth eightpence.
"On returning, my mother took Marcsa home with her, and plaited her long hair with pretty rainbow-coloured ribbons, put a string of garnets round her neck, and a pair of fine shoes on her little feet; and all gaily dressed, she took her—none of us knew whither.
"I followed them, however, to the Theiss, when my mother bade me go and ask the ferryman to take us across to the mill, where my brother was serving; and we all three sat down in the boat.
"Even now I think I see the beautiful girl: it seems as it were but yesterday that she sat in the boat before me by my mother's side, blushing modestly, her sparkling eyes cast down. Her heart told her whither we were going.
"My brother recognised us from a distance, and seeing that we were rowing towards him, and his beloved sitting by his mother's side and on her right hand, he rushed joyfully down to his boat, and pushing it off, leaped in and rowed to meet us.
"When he came up to us, and he and his bride raised their eyes towards each other, the poor things scarcely knew what they were about for joy—they looked as if they could have flown, to rush the sooner into one another's arms. Joska guided his boat alongside of ours that we might step in, and coming to the bow, he stretched out his arms to Marcsa, who trembled like the delibab[36] with joy and emotion.
[36] The mirage, or Fata Morgana, frequently seen on the puszta, and which sometimes appears to tremble like a reflection in a troubled stream. The traveller is sometimes deceived by seeing a village or castle before him, which trembles and vanishes by degrees as he approaches.
"At that moment the boat overbalanced, and my brother suddenly fell between the two boats, and disappeared from our sight.
"The unhappy bride, who had stretched out her arms to the bridegroom for whom she had endured so much and worked so hard, uttered a fearful cry, and threw herself after him into the Theiss.
"My poor mother and I wrung our hands, and called for help, which brought out the millers from the other side, who hastened down to their boats, and put off towards us: in a short time they took up Marcsa, whose wide dress floated on the surface; but they could not find my brother, and we never saw anything more of him from that hour, except his wreathed bonnet[37] floating on the water.