But Numa Pompilius, full of the fury of despair, barred the way against his retreating host.
"Miserable, cowardly deserters! What! a single blank shot is sufficient to turn you back! Holus-bolus, 'sicut examen apum,' ye decamp at the word of a single foe! Fie, fie upon you, ye dregs, ye sweepings of humanity!"
The bellicose commander spat in his disgust at the fugitives again and again, and overwhelmed them with all sorts of choice epithets. Finally he snatched up an axe, and declared that if nobody else stirred he would go and batter down the door of the castle single-handed.
But the Leather-bell threw his arms round the body of the enthusiastic hero lest he should hazard his life in so perilous an enterprise. Nay, he would not even let him enter the courtyard, but went so far as to seize the axe he held in his hand regardless of the kicks and cuffs he received during the struggle.
Dame Zudár laughed scornfully at this tragicomical scene.
"Why don't some other of you fellows hold him back too?" she cried. "He likes nothing better than not to be let go. Don't you see what a business he makes of it to rid himself of that feeble old man, whom he could throw to the ground with half a hand if he had a mind to. Get out of my way, will you? Men are out of place in a joke of this sort. My mother was a witch and I'm one also. Do you know that I can open every door before you with a single word. All you have got to do is to sharpen your knives."
And with that she opened the wicker covering of her waggon, which hitherto had been kept tightly closed, and as easily, as if she only held a down cushion in her hand, she hauled forth little Elise.
The child's hands were tied in front of her, and her head was completely enveloped in a thick woollen wrapper so that she could neither see nor cry out.
Dame Zudár removed the wrapper from the little girl's head, and ordered her to stand upright.
Then she produced a half burnt wax taper, the relic of some past funeral, lit it, and placed it between the child's fettered fingers.