As the first shot was fired, Makkabesku's wife came running out of the
kitchen and came face to face with the robber. He immediately seized her
arm with his muscular hand and flung her back into the kitchen the door
of which he locked upon her.
Mr. Makkabesku permitted all this to go on before his very eyes, but he
had raised the gun and held it firmly pressed against his cheek, he
wanted the robber to draw nearer still that he might make quite sure of
him.
When there were only three yards between them he aimed right at the
middle of the intruder, pressed the trigger of the gun and the right
barrel also exploded.
Yet the report was followed by no death cry--and Fatia Negra still stood
in front of him unscathed.
Paralyzed with terror Makkabesku continued to hold the discharged gun
in front of him as if he expected it to go off again of its own accord;
but Fatia Negra, catching hold of the end of the gun with one hand,
wrenched it out of the innkeeper's grasp and brought down the butt of it
so violently on the top of his head that he collapsed in a senseless
condition.
After that nobody knew what happened.
When Hatszegi and his servants arrived with the patched-up carriage,
Makkabesku was still lying on the ground unconscious, his wife was
thundering at the locked door, the door of the guest chamber was smashed
and the cupboard in the wall had been broken into and pillaged.
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