Manasseh was at home with the women of the family. They had declined Aaron's offer to conceal them in Csegez Cave, preferring to remain under the family roof and there await what God had appointed them. Manasseh now embraced Blanka and Anna and bade them farewell.
"Where are you going?" asked Blanka, in alarm. Jonathan's pale face seemed at that moment to float before her vision, and she feared to part with her husband, lest he should not return.
"I am going to the enemy's camp."
"Alone?"
"No, not alone. I am well attended: Uriel goes before me, Raphael is on my right hand, Gabriel on my left, behind me Michael, and over my head Israel."
"But you are going unarmed."
"No, I am armed with the peace treaty which our foes concluded with me, swearing not to attack Toroczko. That is my weapon, and with it I will win a bloodless victory."
Blanka looked sorrowfully into her husband's face, and in that look was expressed all that her tongue was powerless to utter,—her infinite love for the man and her deep despair at the thought of perhaps never again meeting those eyes so full of love and tenderness for her.
"I tried it once before, you know," he reminded her, "and you know how well I succeeded then. The leader of the Wallachians is an old acquaintance of mine." But this last was true in a sense that the speaker little dreamed—as he was to learn later.
Blanka pressed her husband's hand. "Very well," said she, with a brave effort at cheerful confidence, "do as seems best to you, and Heaven will care for us."