A deafening uproar – the cracking of wood and glass, the grating and crushing of iron, and the pitiful cries of men, women, and children –

The traveler leaps free just as the train, battered by the rockslide, plunges off the mountainside. Yet he has not leapt alone, for he had seized in his arms a shy, mute American boy.

The Hungarian traveler soon finds himself confronted by a series of disturbing puzzles. Suddenly the mute child speaks fluent Hungarian – and the grateful boy’s father, Dumany, seems already to know intimate details of his child’s rescuer’s life! And even more disturbing than Dumany – the American Croesus said to have served the devil – is his strangely reserved wife.