Floriora followed; then came Michal, with
his boy strapped firmly on his back. He
was only half way down when a shot was
fired; Lenk fell dead; Floriora was seized
by a man who rushed forward; and a volley
was aimed at her unhappy husband. The
missiles clattered in the rock around; but
he was only slightly wounded, and the child
escaped unhurt; he looked down, and saw a
whole group of enemies waiting. His first
impulse was to cast himself among them;
for he thought that Floriora too had been
murdered, as well as Lenk. But the love of
life was strong within him; and he had
revenge within him. He saw a ledge of rock
at no great distance, and by a desperate leap,
in spite of his burden, gained it. The men
below stood awestruck. Another desperate
leap. A shot or two was fired without
effect. Another gigantic spring, and he
reached a place from which he could scramble
back towards the summit of the hill. In
brief, he escaped, and an hour afterwards,
found himself safe in a distant retreat, where
he sat down and wept all the remainder of
the day, even until the going down of the
sun, for the loss of his Floriora.

It was after this incident that Michal
became known in Wallachia as the Mokan.
Under that name he committed many ruthless
deeds, principally against the Boyards;
because he soon learned that the attacking
party which had deprived him of his happiness
had been directed by the steward of the
Lord Bibiano, who, by some means not
explained, had discovered that the fugitive slave
was living, and had learned the secret of the
double entrance. The Mokan tried to ascertain
what took place after he effected his
escape. He found the body of Lenk, from
which the soldiers had cut the head as a
trophy; but there was no trace of Floriora.
Perhaps the certainty of her doom would
have left him less miserable. He tortured
his mind with reflections on what might
have happened to her. Jealous passion
sometimes nearly drove him mad. He
inquired of the peasantry. Some said that
she had been killed; others that she had been
taken away to a prison; others that she had
escaped. The last supposition, the Mokan
treated with contempt, because he believed
that if Floriora were at liberty she would
soon find her way to his side. Thus time
passed, and by degrees Michal hardened
and hardened, and the terror of his name
filled the whole country.

Nearly ten years afterwards, when his son
had grown to a tall lithe boy, who looked
much older than he was, Michal, at his request,
took him to a fair, annually held at a village
on the Transylvanian frontier, at the foot of
the Krapacks. A convent of women stands
at no great distance from the village, and the
Mokan, disguised as a Bulgarian merchant,
asked permission to sleep in the Hall
of Strangers. This was readily granted,
and the father and son lay down upon a
mat, and reposed after the fatigues of the
day. The inhabitants of the convent had
all come out, curious to look at him; many
had chatted with him while he ate his
supper. In the dead of night a woman, a
nun by her dress, bearing a lamp, cautiously
entered the room, and approaching the
sleepers, stood over them and gazed in
wonder at their faces—in wonder and love;
for, a moment afterwards, his wife was on
her knees embracing the rough face of the
bandit, who awoke. He gazed on the pale
suffering face before him; and, as he gazed, a
vision of youth and beauty took its place.
"Floriora, O my Floriora! Thou art not
so changed as I am!" Then they fell into
each other's arms, and wept bitterly.

She had contrived to escape from her captors;
but, believing that her husband and child
were killed, repaired to that convent and
asked for hospitality. She had not taken the
veil—the pious Wallachian story-tellers
particularly insist on this point—because only
unmarried and free women were received;
but, she had remained for ten years as a kind
of lay sister, doing menial services for the
others. They had even acquired a claim over
her something like that which a lord has
over his serf. "I shall not be allowed to go
with my lord," said she, faintly smiling, "if
the morning finds me here."

Michal arose; and, shaking the boy who
still slept, bade him follow. They went
forth into the night together. For the
second time, the Mokan abandoned the wealth
he had amassed, and thought only of
preserving the little Flower. Many were the
dangers and sufferings they encountered in
the passage of the Carpathian mountains;
for Michal had resolved to try his fortune
in another land. The pilgrims travelled on
foot, but Floriora never complained of
fatigue. On the contrary, she every day
seemed to grow younger and younger; and
when they at length crossed the frontier,
she romped with her son who was as tall
as herself, in a field by the margin of a
stream, while Michal sat on a fallen tree,
and looked gravely on through tears of joy.

Thus they went on and on in good old
story-book style, until they came to the
Banat of Temeswar, in the capital of which
the late bandit's son contrived to open a shop,
and to settle down as a peaceable citizen.
The lovers of the marvellous took the Mokan
up at a much later period of life, and made
him a guerilla hero in one of the wars
between the Turks and the Russians, during
which he espoused neither side, but inflicted
injury on both. There is no reason, however,
for supposing that he ever left Temeswar
again. He had enough to do to make the
little Flower happy after her long period
of misfortune. We do not understand him,
if he did not think her as beautiful ever
afterwards, as when the dawn first revealed