Already from afar they could
hear it rumbling as it drove dust-clouds before it, could hear that
peculiar, continuous, roar as of some giant hand playing uninterruptedly
on the keys of some terrible organ. Whoever has been caught on the
_Alfoeld_ in a storm knows the meaning of that wind; it means that the
tempest is bringing hail with it.
[Footnote 9: The great Hungarian plain.]
One thing was now certain: they must turn aside somewhere. All that
Henrietta observed, however, was that her carriage stood still for a
moment, and then Hatszegi's carriage went on in front, the baron himself
seizing the horses' reins and shouting to the coachman behind him:
"After me as hard as you can tear!" With that they left the road and
plunged right across country through ditches and swamps and low, marshy
ground till the water came up to the very axles of the wheels and
Clementina shrieked that they were perishing. But there was no need to
be afraid. Hatszegi was a skilful coachman, who could ever find his way
even where there was no way at all. About a four hours' journey off, a
pump now became visible, and beyond it a little hut loomed white and
high, there they must seek a refuge from the tempest as it passed over
them. And indeed they had only just reached the small courtyard when the
first lumps of ice as big as nuts, began bombarding the windows of the
carriages.
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