"I have said it cannot, and I should like to know who dares to say it can!"
Lupuj knew the Decurio too well to proffer another syllable, and the rest turned silently away from the girl; one voice alone was heard to exclaim, "It can!"
"Who dares to say that?" cried the Decurio; "let him come forward!"
A young Wallachian, with long plaited hair, confronted the Decurio. He was evidently intoxicated, and replied, striking his breast with his fist: "I said so."
Scarcely had the words escaped his lips, than the Decurio, raising his left hand, severed the contradictor's head at one stroke from his body; and as it fell back, the lifeless trunk dropped on its knees before the Decurio, with its arms round him, as if in supplication.
"Dare any one still say it can?" asked Numa, with merciless rigour.
The Wallachians turned silently away.
"Put the horses immediately to the carriage; the girl must be placed in it, and brought to Topanfalva. Whoever has the good fortune of winning her, has a right to receive her as I confide her to you; but if any one of you should dare to offend her in the slightest degree, even by a look or a smile, remember this, and take example from it," continued the Decurio, pointing with his sword to the headless body of the young man. "And now you may go—destroy and pillage."
At these words the band scattered right and left, leaving the Decurio with the fainting girl, whom he lifted into the carriage and confided to some faithful retainers of the family, pointing out the road across the hills.
In half an hour the castle was in flames; and the Wallachians, descending into the cellars, had knocked out the bottoms of the casks, and bathed in the sea of flowing wine and brandy, singing wild songs, while the fire burst from every window, enveloping the blackened walls; after which the revellers departed, leaving their dead, and those who were too helplessly intoxicated to follow them.