Day was beginning to dawn, as a troop of horsemen galloped furiously towards the castle from the direction of Kolozsvar.
They were Imre and his comrades.
Silently and anxiously they pursued their course, their eyes fixed upon one point, as they seemed to fly rather than gallop along the road.
"We are too late!" exclaimed one of the party at last, pointing to a dim red smoke against the horizon; "your castle is burning!"
Without returning an answer, Imre spurred his panting horse to a swifter pace. A turn in the road suddenly brought the castle to their view, its blackened walls still burning, while the red smoke rose high against the side of the hill.
The young man uttered a fierce cry of despair, and galloped madly down the declivity. In less than a quarter of an hour he stood before the ruined walls.
"Where is my father? where are my family? where is my bride?" he shrieked in frantic despair, brandishing his sword over the head of a half-drunken Wallachian, who was leaning against the ruined portico.
The latter fell on his knees, imploring mercy, and declaring that it was not he who had killed them.
"Then they are dead!" exclaimed the unhappy youth, as, half-choked by his sobs, he fell forward on his horse's neck.
Meanwhile his companions had ridden up, and immediately surrounded the Wallachian, whom, but for Imre's interference, they would have cut down.