[9] Inn.
"Guest detaining! Bravo! The very thing for us. Let's hasten thither."
I was desperate. "For God's sake, Countess, what would you do? Why, that csárdá is a notorious resort of thieves, where they would kill the whole lot of us; a regular murder-hole, whose landlord is hand in glove with all the ruffians of the district, and where numbers and numbers of people have come to an evil end."
The naughty girl only laughed at me. She told me I had read all these horrors in the story-books, and there was not a word of truth in any of them. She admitted, indeed, that if there had been another inn she would have gone to that in preference, but as this was the only one we had no choice. She then ordered the coachman to drive the horses along very gingerly, while she went before on foot to show him the way.
Every lamentation and objection was useless, we had to stumble along in the direction of that cursed csárdá, for she threatened to go alone if we were afraid to come too.
It is a fact that that naughty little fairy was afraid of nothing.
When we drew nearer to the csárdá, a merry hullabooing sort of music suddenly struck upon our ears, though all the windows were closed by shutters.
"Mon Dieu! it is absolutely full of robbers."
"You see how it is," remarked the Countess, mischievously; "we started to go to a ball, and at a ball we have arrived. No one, you see, can avoid his fate"—and thereupon, with appalling foolhardiness, she marched straight towards the door.
For a moment I really thought I should have turned tail, left her there, and made a bolt of it. But, noblesse oblige. And besides, I couldn't, for Mademoiselle Cesarine, the lady's-maid, had gripped my arm so tightly that I was powerless to release myself. The poor creature was more than half dead with fright; at any rate, she was only half alive when we followed the Countess together.