This brief interval of petrified astonishment was sufficient for Peter Zudár to snatch up the sorrowing child with one hand, while with the other he whirled his bloody sword above his head, and opened a way for himself to the gate.
Then, when the rioters saw him escaping, they came to themselves again.
"After him!" cried Hanák, catching hold of his scythe.
"After him!" roared the Leather-bell, grasping a torch, and bounding on in front, and so skilfully did he scatter the sparks in the eyes of the pursuers, that their dazzled eyes could see absolutely nothing. When, at last, he came to a narrow bridge over a stream which they had to cross, he stumbled so suddenly that those coming immediately behind tumbled over him, and the torch was extinguished in the water. Zudár, meanwhile, had had time to conceal himself and the girl in the bushes on the banks of the stream. Nobody had observed him except the Leather-bell, and as soon as that worthy could gain his legs again he fell a-bellowing with all his might:
"On, on! there he goes! catch him, seize him!"
And off he went at full tilt, as if a high price had been set upon the head of the pursued, and he was determined to win it, whilst Zudár, snug in his hiding-place, listened to the hundreds and hundreds of pattering feet that made the bridge creak over his head, and to the hundreds and hundreds of hoarse voices clamouring for his blood. Presently he heard them all come panting back again, cursing and swearing and consoling one another with the assurance that although they had not caught him now, he would not be able to escape them for long.
"Yes," he thought to himself, "a time is coming when you will find me without having sought me."
And now the pursuing band, full of fresh fury, stormed back to the castle. The Leather-bell cursed them for not following up the trail when they were already hot upon it. He had had, he maintained, the tail of the fugitive's coat in his very hand, but had been obliged to leave go because they had not helped him to hold on, and so the headsman had fled away among the maize-fields.
The sky was now growing grey, the dawn was not far off; but the folks had forgotten to ring in the morning, for the bell-ringers had something better to do.