Page:Balkan Short Stories.djvu/226

214 huge, foolish machine began to puff and snort and blow like a wild horse, while the smoke poured forth and spread out across the pleasant fields. A whistle, and the long line of little Polish houses moved with a noise like thunder, and the more they moved, the faster, until it was just like an arrow shot from the bow.

Gabor Kovacz crossed himself piously again and again, and stuttered in confusion: “That’s not the work of God, men! The devil is behind it.”

“Let the fool think so,” contradicted Istvan Tot.

“I tell you that there are horses inside of it.”

“But where? We ought to see them.”

“I’ll bet my soul they are hidden there! Probably in every second little house, there are two parade horses from the circus, and they pull along the houses which are behind them.”

That was the most reasonable explanation, and found ready belief. Only the most zealous and religious kept insisting that it was tempting God's mercy, and it was the work of the devil.

These seemed to have hit upon the truth; because when the train came back from its trial trip at noon, the heavens began to bear witness to the anger of God.