The castellan hesitated. He declared that there was no necessity for such a step, and begged the noble gentlemen to keep within their legal rights, whereupon the before-mentioned broad-shouldered, bull-headed rogue stepped forth, twirled his blonde moustache, which consisted of about nine hairs, and thrusting his pock-marked face close under the castellan's nose, exclaimed—
"What do you mean by that? You are a conspirator! You have robber-bands concealed in those rooms. Open the doors instantly, or we'll burn the house down!"
The castellan was very wroth, but he was also very frightened, so he threw open the rooms in order that the Szeklers might see with their own eyes that nobody was concealed there.
The Szeklers thereupon, with astonishing conscientiousness, thoroughly explored every hole and corner, even looking into places where no one would ever have thought of hiding anything. They looked under and inside all the beds. They pulled out all the cupboards. They took the grates out bodily to see what was behind them. They pitched all the books out of the book-cases, and, after ransacking every room, came at last to Lady Banfi's bed-chamber.
"Look! look! There sits Banfi!" cried the bull-headed ringleader, recoiling at first before a lifelike portrait of the Baron, but immediately afterwards rushing forward and gouging out one of its eyes with his spear. "And that pretty lady yonder is his wife, I suppose?" asked he, pointing to another portrait by the side of the first. "Ai, ai, ai! We were like to have killed her a little while ago, not knowing that she was so pretty. Let us be off, comrades! This room we must leave untouched, for it belongs to that pretty lady," and with that he drove his comrades out, and wrote with a piece of charcoal on the white enamelled door, in letters each an ell long—"THIS IS THE PRETTY LADY'S CHAMBER."
"Why do you do that?" asked the castellan in some surprise.
"To prevent any fuddled blockhead from thrusting his nose in there, in case we all get drunk."
"But where will you all get the drink from, pray?" asked the castellan, more and more amazed.
"Nay, gossip! we must certainly have a peep at the cellars also, to see if anybody is lurking there."
"There you cannot go, and so I tell you once for all, unless you have brought petards with you under your coats of mail."