"You don't mean to say my cousin has run away!" cried Kurovics anxiously. And he made as though to follow the fugitive Serb maiden.
"Not so fast, my friend," exclaimed the robber-chief, "besides you have not told me your name." And she questioned the two closely as to their antecedents—questions which they did their best to evade.
"Well, by way of passing the time, suppose I teach you how to dance! We'll just see what you can do?"
And with that, the pretended brigand took out an axe from under his coat and dexterously threw it at Kurovics, so that he jumped up nervously as it fell with its edge close to him.
But the noise of shots fired without, arrested these diversions. Villám Pista did not stop even to pick up the axe, but snatching the rifle from the table bounded out to face this new alarm.
Outside there stood her horse, which quickly mounting, she shouted to her followers who were awaiting her orders, and galloped away into the night. The fresh party of heydukes, with this new enemy to run down, forgot all about Ráby (for on his head only two hundred ducats were set, while it was a matter of ten thousand with Villám Pista). And that chieftain was thinking that this delay would give Ráby time to cross the river, while the frontier guards' attention would be distracted by the shots fired. Two of the pursuers at last succeeded in running down Villám Pista, and in cutting him off from his comrades.
They were closing upon him in a thicket, and no outlet remained.
"Is it the ten thousand ducats you are seeking?" laughed their enemy contemptuously, as she took two pistols out of the holster, and seized the while her horse's bridle in her mouth. And just as the assailants approached closer, the robber fired, aiming not at the riders, but at their steeds. Both beasts fell, the one with his rider under him, the other on his knees, so that the heyduke was thrown over the horse's head.
Villám Pista clapped his hands and laughed aloud. "Now you can overtake my husband," cried the false highwayman, and for the moment the old Fruzsinka asserted herself.
Then she vanished into the thicket, the gathering fog hiding all trace of her, even as might disappear some wild valkyr of the old legends.