"You see! he won't drink it! he knows there is poison in it."
"Pull him off his horse!" cried a voice from the midst of the crowd.
"We ought to hang him up where the Hétfalusy squires are going to be hung!" roared the others.
The dirty lout, who had offered her brandy, quickly seized the horse's bridle, and several of the mob stretched out their hands towards Maria.
These savage menaces acted like a stimulant upon the Polish lady, she recovered her presence of mind instantly. She brought down the round knob of her riding-whip like lightning on the head of the fellow who was trying to hold her horse back, and he fell like a log prone to the ground. Then giving her good steed the spur she leaped clear of the encircling mob. A bludgeon came whizzing after her just above her head, and the belated sweeping strokes of a couple of scythes just missed her. One or two agile young ruffians even set off after her, and as two large waggons lay right across her path a little further on, they made sure of overtaking her there. But the lady, with a single bound, leaped over the obstacle, whereupon her pursuers remained behind, but as she turned her back upon them they sent after her a horrible yell of laughter. "That's right, go on!" she heard them cry, "you are going to a good place, where you'll be well looked after—ha, ha, ha!"
Maria had only proceeded a few hundred paces when she was thunderstruck to perceive that her horse was beginning to limp. More than once it stumbled heavily, and suddenly it went dead lame.
The good steed, when it leaped the obstruction, must assuredly have sprained its front leg.
Presently it could scarce put one foot before the other, and Maria was obliged to tighten the reins continually to relieve the poor beast and prevent it from stumbling as much as possible. It was as well that her pursuers had abandoned the chase, for she could scarce have hoped to escape from them now.
But what sort of disorderly mob could this be? Maria, now growing thoroughly alarmed, began to ask herself; a mob which had the audacity to indulge in such excesses in the midst of a civilised, constitutional state, in despite of all law and order? She had not the remotest idea that it was a widespread rebellion of the most horrible description.
Meanwhile, that black curtain had been drawn right across the sky, the whole region was in pitch-black darkness, one star after another had been blotted out, the horse hung its head and frequently whinnied. Maria felt that she could no longer remain safely in her saddle, fearing as she did that the horse might at any moment fall head foremost. So she dismounted, and letting the reins hang over her arm, led the horse along beside her.