Clementina went on to say that my lord baron had not cared a straw for this loss; nay, he had laughed and said that it only showed how lucky he was in love. Henrietta applied the saying to herself and began to be quite proud of it.
The count, however, pursued Clementina, had said that he durst not rejoice in his winnings or that accursed Fatia Negra might rob him of them again on the highroad as he had done once before.
A cold shudder ran through Henrietta's limbs at that accursed name. That Fatia Negra! She had already begun to forget him. And thus old memories began to revive, and at last her excited imagination began to fancy that there was some sort of connecting link between Szilard and Fatia Negra, between the dearest and the most terrible of beings! What if her rejected lover had avenged himself by publicly shaming her! It was with such anxieties as these that the young wife went to sleep in her lonely chamber.
Early next day she received a visit from the priest.
All the time the army of guests was going in and out of the castle gates, he never came near the place, but now he hastened to exchange a few words with the lady of the house. And Henrietta was very glad that he had come.
"I bring you news of Fatia Negra and of other things also," said the priest, as soon as he was alone with the lady.
Henrietta was instantly all attention.
"Yesterday the famous butterwoman who dwells at Dupe Piatra came to open her soul to me in a very difficult matter. This woman, as the whole country-side knows, is a famous quack and a preparer of such specifics as it is unlawful for one man to give to another. Formerly she was visited by multitudes of people suffering from every sort of ill—especially girls. More than once she has paid dearly for her quackery, for the county authorities apprehended her for poisoning, and clapped her into jail for some years. Since then she has grown more cautious and does not care about seeing everyone in her lonely little forest hut, especially since I impressed upon her severely what a heavy load she was burdening her conscience with by turning the secret healing forces which Nature had implanted in the herbs of the field, to the destruction of ignorant humanity. Yesterday, then, this woman came to me (and it is a very rare thing to see her among men) and informed me that last night Fatia Negra had visited her."
Henrietta shuddered all over. So he was as near as that!
"The medicine-woman said that the mask requested her to prepare poison for him that would be sure to kill. She said she would not as she had no wish to fall again into the hands of the county authorities. He promised her money, he showed her a lot of ducats. She told him it wouldn't do. Then he drew forth a pistol, pressed the barrel to her temples, and threatened instantly to blow her brains out if she did not comply with his request. 'Very well,' said she, 'fire away: I would rather be shot than hanged.' Perceiving he could do nothing with her by threats, he fell to entreating, and said it was not a man he wanted to poison but a wild beast. 'What sort of a beast do you want to kill?' she asked him. 'That is no business of yours,' said he. 'But it is my business,' she replied, 'for the poison that a wolf or a savage dog will eat, a bear will not even sniff at, and what makes one beast ill, on that will another beast thrive.' 'Then you must know that it is a bear.'—'Swear that you do not want the venom for a human being.' Fatia Negra swore with all sorts of subterranean oaths that it was really for a bear that he wanted the poison. The medicine-woman thereupon prepared for him a mortal concoction capable of killing the most vigorous beast in the world; then she kneaded honey-cakes, a delicacy to which bears are very partial as everyone knows, and mixed it well into them. Fatia Negra gave her ten ducats for the poison, but the old woman's conscience would not allow her to rest, and the next day she brought the ducats to me for the church's needs, as she put it,—and would I help her to relieve her soul of the heavy burden which oppressed it. And what now if Fatia Negra, contrary to his oath, were to make use of this poison against his fellow-men?"