Maria leaped lightly on to the second horse. It was a somewhat lean and bony beast of great powers of endurance.
"To-morrow about this time you shall hear of us," she said, addressing herself to Bodza. "Till then avoid every decisive step. Whomsoever you may capture keep a strict watch upon them, and see that no harm befall them. Do you take me? It is possible that the captives may attempt to put an end to their own lives. But we shall require them all on account of their confessions. Therefore take care of their lives. We must judge each one of them separately. Numa! take care to be ubiquitous. Valour and vigilance!"
Then, after pressing Thomas Bodza's hand once more, Maria put spurs to her horse and galloped briskly along the high road. As for the horse of her comrade it had to be almost dragged out of the courtyard, as it showed a disposition to force its rider to return to the stable. Only with the utmost difficulty did Hanák succeed in overtaking Maria, pursued by the yells of encouragement and exultation of the mob he had left behind him.
Maria pounded along the highway, glancing aside from time to time in the direction of the burning house, the conflagration of which lit up the overcast sky, tinging the clouds with an angry purple. The wind drove the lurid smoke hither and thither. There was as steady a glare as if a whole village was in flames. As they sped further and further away the flames lit up the road and the wayside trees, and the towering masses of clouds ever less and less. At last all that was to be seen was a large blood-red star rising from the plain, a mere point of light far, far away. Then even that vanished. Soon afterwards day began to dawn. The cinder-grey sky reduced the nightly glare to ashes, and a dark grey column of smoke, standing out against the pale yellow horizon, was the only sign left of the conflagration.
On approaching the next csárda, Maria allowed Hanák to draw nearer to her; her escort had to explain to the mob of peasants drinking in front of the door on what errand they were speeding. He did so in his usual boisterous bombastic fashion.
"We are going to town," bawled he. "We are going to read the proclamation and collar the soldiers and the bigwigs, and bring back with us guns and gunpowder, and lots of money. This is the courier."
Hoarsely bellowed "Eljens!" greeted this magnanimous resolution. A guffawing scytheman, moreover, pressed with his horny palm the hand of Maria, for whom shaggy Hanák, in the fervour of his enthusiasm, could find no more important title than that of "courier."
As the day slowly began to dawn, the sobering breath of the fresh morning breeze blew full in the faces of the horsemen, and the towers of the county-town stood out plainly before them in the distance. And now Maria began to observe that her companion was lagging behind her at a considerable distance. More than once she had to shout back to him:
"My brother! don't drop behind so!"
"My horse is tired out," stammered Hanák, and he kept on mopping up the sweat from his towzled poll.