"That is Henry Catsrider, the husband of your Michal!" cried Simplex, looking him full in the face.
To Valentine Kalondai it seemed as if everything was turning round and round. He staggered, and would have fallen if Simplex had not seized him by the arm and led him away. Nobody heeded them. During this horrible scene many others, even among the soldiers, had fallen senseless to the ground.
CHAPTER XXIII.
In which it is shown not only that Satan is the author of all evil, but also that the grisly witches, his handmaidens, are always ready with their malicious practices to plunge poor mortals into utter destruction.
Barbara Pirka had run straight home to the lonely house that stood outside the walls of Zeb. She knew all the short cuts across the mountains, so that she could have given a horseman an hour's start and yet have beaten him easily. Night made no difference to her. She never lost herself, and wandered fearlessly through the wilderness in company with the will-o'-the-wisps and other evil spirits, with whom she manifestly stood on the most friendly terms.
The morning light found her at the Girjo kopanitscha. Here the wife of the kopanitschar of Hamar kept house alone. Her husband, after capturing Janko, had turned her out of doors, and then enlisted in the county militia. What else, then, could his wife do but turn witch? She had already began her novitiate in the school of Barbara Pirka.
"Well, Annie!" cried Barbara on entering, "what do you think? To-day, to-morrow, and the day after to-morrow, three livelong days, is Janko to be tormented. To-night, however, I bring you guests. Make ready a good supper. We shall have music, too, and will hold a wake in Janko's honor."
With that she gave the kopanitschar's wife a ducat to provide supper, and then taught her the diabolical art of tying knots in the entrails of absent foes, so that they may pine away and perish miserably. That very night, all the headsman's apprentices were seized with cramps in the stomach, and if this was not caused by the quantities of sour wine which they had been drinking all day it was certainly due to the malpractices of the two hags.
All this time the young wife was sitting in the upper story of the headsman's house, absolutely alone. Only two of the apprentices were left behind to look after the premises, and they took it in turns to keep watch in the tower and guard the drawbridge.