"Oh, I've got two revolvers in my pocket."
And with that, gaily whistling, Hátszegi strode down the long passage and peeped into the kitchen, on his way out, to exchange a word or two with the fair young cook.
"Look ye, my daughter, have supper ready by my return, and take care not to over-salt the soup!" and then with the nonchalance becoming his station he sauntered across the bridge again into the highroad, followed all the way by the eyes of Makkabesku.—"What a gallant fellow it is!" reflected the Roumanian.
The innkeeper did not count courage among his virtues. He was a peace-loving soul who detested the very idea of a brawl. Even when he sat down to drink, it was always inside a room with a locked door, for on one occasion, when he had got drunk in public, the wine had instilled within him such unwonted audacity that he had got his skull broken in two places in consequence. After that he avoided all such occasions of heroism.
For such folks who have nothing to do with firearms as a rule, there is a peculiar charm in suddenly holding a loaded weapon in their hands. Valour and a sudden access of pugnacity combine to put them in a condition of perpetual fever. A strange longing arises within them to make use of their weapon. Once or twice Makkabesku raised his gun to his cheek and made a target of a fly on the wall. At the end of the vestibule facing him was an old Roman image, the head and bust of an Emperor, which had been unearthed in the neighbourhood of the house when the foundations had been laid, and had been adopted forthwith as a family relic. If this old imperial figurehead had been an enemy, let us say the famous robber of the district, our marksman felt that he could easily have shattered his skull for him.
The sun was now slowly descending from the sky, and the lower it sank, the less golden and the more purple grew the light which it threw upon the ancient monument opposite, till the shadow of an adjacent column fell softly across it and hid it half from view.
Suddenly it seemed to Makkabesku as if he saw the shadow of a human head moving beside the shadow of the column.
The breath died away on his lips—someone was lurking there!
"Who is there?" he cried, in a voice half choked with terror. The same instant there stood before him at the opposite end of the corridor—Fatia Negra!
Yes, there the figure was just as it had been described to him, enfolded in a black atlas mantle, with a black mask across its face.