Chapter XXXVIII

In which it is shown how ghosts haunt churchyards.

The adherents of the disgraced faction did not cease persecuting Valentine Kalondai.

From the very first they had sent pursuers after him who had followed hard upon the fugitive; but at a certain inn, when they were already close upon him, two men, evidently instructed beforehand, met him with a fresh horse. The fugitive mounted and was instantly off again, while his pursuers thought it best to slowly ride their jaded nags back to town.

The new superrector, young Ignatius Zwirina, calculated thus: Valentine Kalondai will one of these days come back of his own accord to the neighborhood of Kassa. His beloved rests there in the churchyard ditch, and he will never be able to keep away from the spot where she whom he loves so much reposes.

So in the ditch where pretty Michal had been cast he kept nine musketeers in ambush, night and day, that they might seize Valentine when he came thither, and shoot him down if he sought to fly.

The trap was laid for him, and they made certain that he would fall into it.

Nor did he remain long away.

In the first stormy night, when the Lenten wind drove the shapeless clouds from one end of the sky to the other and shook the leafless trees, and the will-o'-the-wisps darted about among the graves, a lonely horseman approached the churchyard from the plains.

A poplar which had been torn down by the storm marked the spot where pretty Michal lay.

"I hear the tramp of horses' hoofs," murmured one of the musketeers in the ditch.

"What if it be the devil riding on a buck-goat?"

"Yes, indeed, who else would think of riding over the plains at such a time?"

"Look how the will-o'-the-wisps are dancing!" said a third, raising his head a little above the ditch.

From time to time, a reddish tongue of flame shot up from among the graves, casting a lurid glimmer on the angels praying on the monuments.

Then it seemed as if the deep notes of a horn were mingling with the howling of the storm. It sounded like a subterranean music. A shudder ran down the backs of the musketeers in the ditch and their teeth chattered.

"An accursed signal that!"

When the midnight rider reached the churchyard, he dismounted from his horse, bound it to an elderberry tree, and replied to the signal with a trumpet-blast of his own, whereupon a spectral flame shot up among the tombstones.

"Do you hear that? The devils are answering one another."

"It is either the devil or Valentine Kalondai."

"If it be Valentine Kalondai he will come hither, and we will take him prisoner; but if it be the devil 'twere best to leave him alone."

That was very sage advice, certainly.

The horseman found the churchyard-gate open and went in.

He went straight to the spot where he had seen the flames shoot up.

It was no will-o'-the-wisp, no perambulating spirit, but Simplex, who, to scare the watchers and guide Valentine, had ignited lycopodium powder from time to time.

"Hush!" said he to his approaching friend, "they are on the watch."

"Let them watch!" murmured Valentine; "I have a sword with me. Though I should die on the spot for it, I mean to speak to my beloved."

"You shall speak to her. Follow me! but duck your head that they may not see us."

With that he led Valentine along among the graves till they came to a large monument. It was a red marble obelisk, surmounted by a wreathed urn. The bed round the grave was planted with violets and primroses with an ivy border. On the pediment lay several wreaths.

"Look there!" said Simplex, drawing a dark lantern from beneath his mantle; "look and read!"

Valentine drew near and saw on the splendid monument the name, "Augustus Zwirina," followed by a long litany of the deeds and services of that distinguished citizen.

"Why have you led me to the grave of my mortal foe?" asked Valentine sternly.

"It is not your mortal foe who sleeps here," returned Simplex, "but pretty Michal. The night after they had buried your mortal foe, I came to the churchyard with the faithful Ali. Then we set to work and dug out the coffin of pretty Michal and brought it hither, and placed it where the coffin of Zwirina had been laid, and now you can be quite easy in your mind, for your beloved reposes in consecrated ground, and flowers bloom over her all the year round."

Valentine threw himself with his face to the ground.

"Listen how the ghosts are weeping!" said one of the watchers to his comrade.

"Depend upon it, Beelzebub is tormenting them!"

"Don't look back or they'll twist your neck for you!"

After Valentine had wept to his heart's content, and consoled himself with the reflection that his tears would filter through the mound to his sleeping love and give her sweeter dreams, he arose and said to Simplex:

"But suppose the thing becomes known?"

"There are only three of us who know anything about it. One is Ali the Turk; your mother has emancipated him, and he has now gone home to Thessaly. The second is the grave, and the grave tells no tales. I myself am the third, and I can keep as silent as the grave."

Valentine pressed his faithful friend to his heart and covered him with kisses. And then he kissed the grave and the flowers which covered it:

"Don't you hear how the specters are kissing each other?" whispered one of the musketeers.

"No doubt Lucifer is caressing them!"

"And whither then have you removed Augustus Zwirina?"

"Why, where he ought to be, of course! We laid the good man in the churchyard ditch in the place intended for Michal, and all the asses of the town will come and nibble their thistles over his head from one year's end to the other."

"Listen how the ghosts are laughing!"

"I would not go among them if they gave me the whole city of Kassa."

Even the howling wind seemed to take up the ghostly laughter and carry it on further. It was indeed a ghastly jest--a jest fit even to provoke a loud peal of laughter in a churchyard at midnight, that pretty Michal and the author of her death should have changed places with each other, that pretty Michal should have been laid in the flower-strewn bed, in the grave dug in consecrated ground and watered with tears, while the author of her death should have been cast forth into the churchyard ditch, to gaze up at the asses when they came to chew the thistles over his head.

"Now that you have spoken with your beloved, hasten away!"

"God bless you, my loyal comrade! Greet my dear mother. Tell her that to-morrow I am off to the wars. Eger is to be stormed. Tell her to pray that I may die a glorious death!"

With that he hastened back to his horse and darted away into the waste night.

"The ghost is riding back to his realm!"

"All good spirits praise the Lord!"

And if Dame Sarah prayed as her son desired her, her prayer was certainly heard in heaven. At the brilliant assault by which the city of Eger was won back to Hungary, Valentine Kalondai died a hero's death on the field of honor.