The iron shutters over the windows were gradually becoming red-hot, and, like transparent panes of glass, admitted the rays of the fiery sea beyond them, spreading a horrible scarlet glare through the room which coloured every object, every shadow, blood-red.
The imprisoned wretch kept running frantically up and down the room like a wild beast caught in a trap, striking the walls with his fist and hacking at the beams with his axe.
In vain, in vain, slash away as you will, neither on the right hand nor on the left, neither from above nor from below, is there any way of deliverance!
At last, in his despair, he began to sing the hymn:
"On Sion's Hill the Lord is God...!"
and collapsed upon his knees in the midst of the room.
And lo! the Lord answered the man who cried out to Him in his dire extremity. The boards resounding beneath him suddenly gave him a bright idea of deliverance. Above and around there was no place of safety, but might there not be a refuge below—down in the cellar?
The entrance into the cellar was from the outside by an iron door; but if the vault beneath the room where he was, the ceiling of which had resounded so loudly beneath his footsteps, if this vault were broken open, it would be possible to get down into it that way.
Ah! how nice and cool it would be down there. The atmosphere of the room was now burning hot. Terror and exertion had bathed every limb of the headsman with sweat; the glare of the iron windows was merging into a dazzling white, and radiated a heat that burnt the eye that looked upon it. There was no time to be lost.
Zudár hastily broke up the floor with his axe, it would not be difficult for him to find the key-stone of the cellar beneath it.