CHAPTER XII.
IN THE MIDST OF THE FIRE.
Zudár was to-night more anxious than at other times. He had put up the iron shutters in front of his windows immediately after dusk, and had gone to bed much earlier than usual.
The evening prayer of the little girl soothed him for a while. "Amen! Amen!" he kept repeating after her, laying stress upon the word—and then something began agitating him again strangely.
"An evil foreboding, an evil foreboding," he kept on murmuring; "some great calamity is about to befall me."
"You have caught cold, my good father," said the little girl soothingly, stroking the old man's forehead with her tiny hand; "your hand is trembling, your head is burning..."
"I am all shivering inside," said the old man; "a sort of deadly coldness seems to come from within me. Don't you hear a noise in the courtyard?"
"There is nothing, my father. Only the horses are stamping in the stable."
"But don't you hear talking, whispering beneath the windows, just as if someone was digging at the wall below?"
"The dog is settling down for the night; 'tis he who is scratching down below there. Go to rest, my good father!"