CHAPTER XXII.
THE HAND OF FATE.
Through the main street of Abrudbanya rode two men, one of them wearing an overcoat with silver buttons over his Wallachian dress, and a tuft of heron's feathers in his cap, while at his side hung a curved sword, pistols protruded from his holsters, and a rifle lay across his saddle-bow.

His face had nothing of the Wallachian peasant in its features or expression.

The other horseman, however, who rode at some paces' distance in the rear, was manifestly of the peasant class.
The horses' hoofs awoke the echoes of the vacant street.

Silence and desolation reigned supreme.

Half-burned houses and smoke-blackened walls greeted the riders on every side.