Then with a loud resounding voice she shouted up at the windows:
"Old Hétfalusy, are you there? Young Széphalmi, are you there?"
"It is of no use denying yourselves. I am here to carry on my process against you. It is the old, old suit in which my father lost his life and my mother her reason. I have also brought along with me a tribunal which cannot be corrupted. _I_ am now the stronger party."
"Take yourself off!" a hoarse, broken voice suddenly cried from the window; it very much resembled old Hétfalusy's.
"Oh, I'm to take myself off, eh!" cried the virago defiantly. "Am I not standing then on my own ground? Is not this corner of the house whose windows I am now rattling, built on the plot of ground belonging to my forefathers? Is not this ground my own? Are not these very stones, these very blades of grass on which I now trample, mine, mine, mine?"
"It may very easily be yours for ever, you wretched creature," said another voice, the voice of the younger squire. "If you do not go away, you shall die on the very spot."
The barrel of a gun flashed between the shutters, and the headsman's wife could see that it was pointed straight at her heart.
Quickly she pulled the little girl towards her.
"Aim away, Széphalmi!" she cried. "I have even taken the trouble to bring a light that you may see to aim straight."
And with that she snatched the candle from between the child's fingers, and held it so that it lit up her face.
"Look now! A pretty child, ain't she? Those blue eyes, those soft lips resemble someone you loved very much at one time, don't they? It would be a shame, wouldn't it, to make this tender, slender shape a target for bullets, wouldn't it?"
"How do you suppose now, Széphalmi," continued the virago, her face radiant with infernal malice, "how do you suppose now that the headsman's wife managed to get hold of this gentle cherub, who is as much like her as an angel is to a devil?"
"Woman!" hissed someone from within, though whether it was the old man or the young it was impossible to say.
Dame Zudár drew nearer, she now went right up to the window.
"You would like me to speak in a lower key, no doubt? Well, I may do that. You see how close I am standing to you, you could touch my body with the barrel of your musket. But you _won't_ touch me, I know, for now it is I who am the destroyer."