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Old Onucz and the watchman thereupon laughed heartily, and the same instant the iron door of the building opened and the girl exclaimed joyfully: "Fatia Negra!" Onucz and the watchman immediately tore their caps from their heads. It was, indeed, Fatia Negra. How could he get hither invisibly through all the ambushes set for him? Who could tell? Who had the courage to ask him? Not even Anicza.
Fatia Negra and his horsemen stood close at hand with their loaded muskets pointed in their hands, but they did not fire. "Let the lancers run if they like!" cried Fatia Negra. "Give all your attention to the wagons!" The cavalry soon escaped from the mob of sharpshooters, leaped over the barriers and began galloping rapidly back to Széb safe and sound.
The horse of the Uhlan lieutenant took fright at the sight of the black faces and began to rear, it was as much as his rider could do to prevent him from springing over the parapet of the bridge. Fatia Negra and his band halted in the centre of the bridge and did not budge from the spot.
But now the assayer came up, bringing with him a nice elaborate calculation on a black slate, showing exactly how much pure gold Onucz had handed in to the coining department, how much it would be worth when coined and deducting three per cent for expenses, how much he was to receive in cash by way of exchange. "And now go and let the cashier pay you what is due to you, Onucz," said Fatia Negra.
And now there is a lot of false witnesses ready to swear that my father was the ring-leader and throw all the blame upon him, but it was Fatia Negra and nobody else as God knows." Every time the peasant woman mentioned Fatia Negra's name a spasmodic twitch convulsed Henrietta's pale features. "Gracious lady," continued Anicza, "I implore you by the tender mercies of God not to abandon me.
But Anicza gratefully kissed Fatia Negra's hand like a child who has received a gift, not indeed for the ducat, but for the boundless confidence he had shown in giving it to her, which was the surest token of his love.
"I see," resumed her husband, "you are asking yourself what sort of company that can be for whose master one room suffices while the servants require six. I will tell you. It is the armed corps from Arad which is charged with the capture of Fatia Negra and his associates. As they will pass by this way I don't see how they can avoid calling at Hidvár.
And now Fatia Negra began to recite the words of the oath in a solemn ghostly voice: "I, the bearer of the Black Mask, Fatia Negra, as they call me, swear in the subterranean midnight by the living fire which falling like rain reduced Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes; by the flood which killed all the dwellers upon earth; by the gaping gulf which swallowed up the traitorous bands of Dathan and Abiram; by the spirit which announced the death of King Saul; by the Angel Lucifer who by reason of his rebellion was cast down from Heaven; by the angel Malach Hamovesh who carries in his hands the sword of violent death; by the twelve plagues of Egypt with which Moses visited the land of the Pharaohs; by all these things and by the star under which I was born do I swear secresy and may I perish in fire and water, may I be buried alive in the bowels of the earth, may I become a pillar of salt, may the wild beast of the forest tear me to pieces, may my own weapon turn against me in the evil hour, may I be terrified by midnight spectres and hag-ridden, may my body be smitten with leprosy, my eyes with blindness, my tongue with dumbness, my bones by rottenness, if ever I speak one syllable to anybody, be it priest, or child, or father, or condemning judge, or threatening headsman, of anything I have seen, heard or learnt in this place, or write it down with my hand or put anybody on the track of it!
Yet this time the robber bands did not fall in with their pursuers, a sufficient proof that Szilard's plan was skilfully laid and unanticipated. For had Fatia Negra had any idea of his design, it is absolutely inconceivable that he would not have laid in wait for him on this spectre-haunted path, where ten resolute men could have held a whole army at bay.
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.
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