Fortunately the night was dark and the people rushing down from the bastions could not see the skiff making its way across the Danube; presently its shape even began to vanish out of sight of the young eyes that were watching it.
Feriz looked up to the sky with a transfigured face. Two stars, close together, looked down very brightly from amidst the fleeting clouds. Did he not see Aranka's eyes in that twin stellar radiance?
Tököly took the hands of the young hero and pressed them hard.
"Once before we stood face to face," he said with a feeling voice, which came from the bottom of his heart, "then I prevailed, now you prevail. God be with you!"
Then the young Count mounted his horse, and beckoning to his comrades, galloped off in the direction of Gellérthegy.
Feriz stood there alone on the shore with folded arms and tried to distinguish once more the shape of the skiff already vanishing in the darkness.
Nobody thought of the poor odalisk who had saved them.
All at once the youth felt the contact of a burning hand upon his arm. Broken in mind and body, the odalisk dragged herself to his knees, and seizing his hand drew it to her breast and to her lips. She could not speak, she could only sob and weep.
Feriz looked at her compassionately.
"Thou hast done well," he said gently.