"Calm yourself. They are well cared for. They are at home in their own house, where no one can harm them."
He looked at her, in doubt as to her meaning. Zenobia handed him her weapons.
"Here, take these," she commanded. "You may need them. I have no further use for them." Thus, disarmed and in Manasseh's power, she stood calmly before him. "Now be quiet and listen to me," she went on.
The cannon thundered on the Szekler Stone in one continuous roar, while fiery rockets shot from Hidas Peak in a wide curve and fell into the valley below, hastening the mad flight of routed and panic-stricken men, who fled as if for their lives to Gyertyamos, Kapolna, and Bedellö, to the woods, and into the mountain defiles. The burning village of St. George no longer offered them an asylum, and its streets were by this time nearly deserted.
"That is over," said the Wallachian girl, calmly, and she led Manasseh into the empty house. "Aaron might as well stop now," she murmured to herself; "for there are no more to frighten." Then to Manasseh: "You know it takes two to get up a scare,—one to do the frightening and the other to be frightened. If I had but said to our men, 'Stop running away! Those are not the brass cannon of the national guard, but only Aaron Adorjan's holes in the side of the rock, where he is harmlessly exploding gunpowder; and that roll of drums that you hear on the Csegez road does not mean an approaching brigade of Hungarians, but is only the idle rub-a-dub of a band of school children,'—if I had said that, Toroczko would now lie in ashes. But I held my tongue and let the panic do its work. With this day's rout all is ended, and in an hour's time you can safely return home. When you meet your wife and sister, tell them you saw me this evening, and let them know that the Wallachian girl has forgotten nothing—do you hear me?—nothing. They wrote me a beautiful letter, both of them on one sheet of paper, a letter full of love and kindness. They called me sister and invited me to your wedding, promising me that Jonathan should be there, too, and making me promise to come. And when they had written the letter they even coaxed the stiff-necked Aaron, who hates us Wallachians like poison, to add his signature to it, though I could see in the very way he wrote his name how he disliked to do it. I promised to come, and I kept my word. And Jonathan came with me—I brought him. That night I told your wife and your sister that I should come to Toroczko once more, and not with empty hands, but should bring them something. I have come, and I bring them—you, Manasseh, alive and unharmed. That is how a Wallachian girl remembers a kindness."
She turned to go, but then, as if remembering something, came back and drew a ring from her finger.
"Here," said she, "I will give you this ring. Do you remember it?"
"It belonged to my sister," answered Manasseh, in a tone of sadness. "I bought it for her to give to her lover as an engagement ring. Soon afterward he deserted her."
"I know it. Her name is engraved inside the ring. The pretty fellow who gave it me told me all about it. He said to me: 'My pearl, my turtledove, my diamond, see here, I place this ring on your finger and swear to be true to you. But I can't marry you as long as that other woman lives who wears my betrothal ring, for our laws forbid it. That woman dwells in the big house at Toroczko. You know her name and know what to do to enable me to marry you.'"
Manasseh trembled with suppressed passion as he listened. The girl handed him the ring and proceeded: