"On your knees!"
The woman stirred not.
"On your knees, wretch!" vociferated the husband, and struck her in the face, so that she fell to the ground.
"Hold, dog!" was shouted on all sides. The Raitzen rushed forward, and the man was seized by twenty hands. He struggled against them, grasped the throat of one, and relaxed not his clutch, even when thrown down and trampled under foot, until he had choked his adversary to death. They bound his hands and thrust him into a corner. The Raitzen formed a circle about him.
"What would ye of me?" he asked, the blood flowing from his mouth.
"What would we? Look around you. See you not that all here are Raitzen?" replied a tall dark-browed Serb, scowling scornfully and cruelly at the sufferer.
"And I a Magyar. What then?"
"Ask thy neighbours. Hast thou not heard that to-day is our festival? The festival of the extermination of the Magyars. You are one: the last in the town. All the others are dead. As the last, you shall choose the manner of your death."
"So you are the executioner, Basil?"
"I? I am the chosen of my people."