Publisher's Synopsis
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.
