Mor Jokai

In order that the horizon may stand clearly before us, it must be said that in those days there were two important points in Hungary on the Transylvanian border: Grosswardein and SzathmÁr-NÉmeti, which might be called the gates of Transylvania—good places of refuge if their keys are in the hand of the Realm, but all the more dangerous when the hands of strangers dispose of them.

At this very time a German army was investing SzathmÁr and the Turks had sat down before Grosswardein, and the plumed helmets of the former were regarded as as great a menace on the frontiers of the state as the half-moons themselves.

The inhabitants of the regions enclosed between these fortresses never could tell by which road they were to expect the enemy to come. For in such topsy-turvy days as those were, every armed man was an enemy, from whom corn, cattle, and pretty women had to be hidden away, and their friendship cost as much as their enmity, and perhaps more; for if they found out at SzathmÁr that some nice wagon-loads of corn and hay had been captured from local marauders without first beating their brains out, the magistrates would look in next day and impose a penalty; and again, on the other hand, if it were known at Grosswardein that the SzathmÁrians had been received hospitably at any gentleman's house, and the daughter of the house had spoken courteously to them, the Turks would wait until the SzathmÁrians had gone farther on and would then fall upon the house in question and burn it to the ground, so that the SzathmÁrians should not be able to sleep there again; and, as for the daughter of the house, they would carry her off to a harem, in order to save her from any further discoursing with the magistrates of SzathmÁr.

And, last of all, there was a third enemy to be reckoned with, and this was the countless rabble of betyÁrs, or freebooters, who inhabited the whole region from the marshes of Ecsed to the morasses of Alibuner, and who gave no reason at all for driving off their neighbour's herds and even destroying his houses.

In those days a certain Feri KÖkÉnyesdi had won renown as a robber chieftain, and extraordinary, marvellous tales were told in every village and on every puszta6 of him and the twelve robbers who followed his banner, and who were ready at a word to commit the most incredible audacities. People talked of their entrenched fortresses among the BÉlabora and Alibuner marshes which were inaccessible to any mortal foe, and in which, even if surrounded on all sides, they could hold out against five regiments till the day of judgment. Then there were tales of storehouses concealed among the Cumanian sand-hills which could only be discovered by the scent of a horse; there were tales of a good steed who, after one watering, could gallop all the way from the Theiss to the Danube, who could recognise a foe two thousand paces off, and would neigh if his master were asleep or fondling his sweetheart in the tavern; there were tales of the gigantic strength of the robber chief who could tackle ten pandurs7 at once, and who, whenever he was pursued, could cause a sea to burst forth between himself and his pursuers, so that they would be compelled to turn back.

6 Common.

As a matter of fact, Mr. KÖkÉnyesdi was neither a giant who turned men round his little finger nor a magician who threw dust in their eyes, but an honest-looking, undersized, meagre figure of a man and a citizen of HodmezÖ-VÁsÁrhely, in which place he had a house and a couple of farms, on which he conscientiously paid his portion of taxes; and he had bulls and stallions, as to every one of which he was able to prove where he had bought and how much he had paid for it. Not one of them was stolen.

Yet everyone knew very well that neither his farms nor his bulls nor his stallions had been acquired in a godly way, and that the famous robber chief whose rumour filled every corner of the land was none other than he.

But who could prove it? Had anybody ever seen him steal? Had he ever been caught red-handed? Did he not always defend himself in the most brilliant manner whenever he was accused? When there was a rumour that KÖkÉnyesdi was plundering the county of MÁrmaros from end to end, did he not produce five or six eye-witnesses to prove that at that very time he was ploughing and sowing on his farms, and was not the judge at great pains to discover whether these witnesses were reliable?

Those who visited him at his native place of VÁsÁrhely found him to be a respected, worthy, well-to-do man, who tossed his own hay till the very palm of his hand sweated, while those who sought for KÖkÉnyesdi on the confines of the realm never saw his face at all; it was indeed a very tiresome business to pursue him. That man was a brave fellow indeed who did not feel his heart beat quicker when he followed his track through the pathless morasses and the crooked sand-hills of the interminable puszta. And if two or three counties united to capture him, he would let himself be chased to the borders of the fourth county, and when he had leaped across it would leisurely dismount and beneath the very eyes of his pursuers, loose his horse to graze and lie down beside it on his bunda8—for there was the Turkish frontier, and he knew very well that beyond Lippa they durst not pursue him, for there the Pasha of Temesvar held sway.

Now, at this time there was among the garrison of SzathmÁr a captain named Ladislaus RÁkÓczy. The RÁkÓczy family, after Helen Zrinyi's husband had turned papist, for the most part were brought up at Vienna, and many of them held commissions in the Imperial army. Ladislaus RÁkÓczy likewise became a captain of musketeers, and as the greater part of his company consisted of Hungarian lads, it was not surprising if the Prince of Transylvania, on the other hand, kept German regiments to garrison his towns and accompany him whithersoever he went. It chanced that this Ladislaus RÁkÓczy, who was a very handsome, well-shaped, and good-hearted youth, fell in love with Christina, the daughter of Adam RhÉdey, who dwelt at RÉkÁs; and as the girl's father agreed to the match, he frequently went over from SzathmÁr to see his fiancÉe, accompanied by several of his fellow-officers, and he and his friends were always received by the family as welcome guests.

Now, it came to the ears of the Pasha of Grosswardein that the Squire of RÉkÁs was inclined to give away his daughter in marriage to a German officer, and perchance it was also whispered to him that the girl was beautiful and gracious. At any rate, one night Haly Pasha, at the head of his Spahis, stole away from Grosswardein and, taking the people of RÉkÁs by surprise, burnt Adam RhÉdey's house down, delivered it over to pillage, beat RhÉdey himself with a whip, and tied him to the pump-handle, while, as for his daughter, who was half dead with fright, he put her up behind him on the saddle and trotted back to Grosswardein by the light of the burning village.

Ladislaus RÁkÓczy, who came there next day for his own bridal feast, found everything wasted and ravaged, and the servants, who were hiding behind the hedges, peeped out and told him what had happened the night before, and how Haly Pasha had abducted his bride. The bridegroom was taciturn at the best of times, but a Hungarian is not in the habit of talking much when anything greatly annoys him, so, without a word to his comrades, he went back to the governor and asked permission to lead his regiment against Grosswardein.

The general, perceiving that persuasion was useless, and that the youth would by himself try a tussle with the Turks if he couldn't do it otherwise, took the matter seriously and promised that he would place at his disposal, not only his own regiment but the whole garrison, if only he would persuade the neighbouring gentry to join him in the attack on the Turks of Grosswardein.

As for the gentry, they only needed a word to fly to arms at once, for there was scarce one of them who had not at one time or other been enslaved, beaten, or at least insulted by the Turks, so that the mere appearance of a considerable force of regular soldiers marching against the Turks was sufficient to bring them out at once. The Turks, having once got possession of Grosswardein, had established themselves therein as firmly as if they meant to justify the Mussulman tradition that he never abandons a town that he has once occupied, or never voluntarily surrenders a place in which he has built a mosque, and indeed history rarely records a case of capitulation by the Turks—their fortresses are generally taken by storm.

From the year 1660, when Haly Pasha occupied the fortress, a quite new Turkish town had arisen in the vacant space between the fortress and the old town, and this new town was surrounded by a strong palisade, the only entrances into which were through very narrow gates. This new town was inhabited by nothing but Turkish chapmen, who bartered away the goods captured by the garrison, and Haly Pasha's Spahis did a roaring business in the oxen and slaves which they had gathered together, attracting purchasers all the way from Bagdad. Thus from year to year the market of Grosswardein became better and better known in the Turkish commercial world, so that one wooden house after another sprang up, and they built across and along the empty space just as they liked, so that at last there was hardly what you would call a street in the whole place, and people had to go through their neighbours' houses in order to get into their own; in a word, the whole thing took the form of a Turkish fair, where pomp and splendour conceals no end of filth; the patched up wooden shanties were covered with gorgeous oriental stuffs, while in the streets hordes of ownerless dogs wandered among the perennial offal, and if two people met together in the narrow alleys, to pass each other was impossible.

This fenced town was not large enough to hold the herds that were swept towards it, there was hardly room enough for the masters of the herds; but on the banks of the Pecze there was a large open entrenched space reserved for the purpose, where the Bashkir horsemen stood on guard over the herds with their long spears, and had to keep their eyes pretty open if they didn't want KÖkÉnyesdi to honour them with a visit, who was capable of stealing not only the horses but the horsemen who guarded them.

Take but one case out of many. One day KÖkÉnyesdi, in his bunda, turned inside out as usual, with a round spiral hat on his head and a large knobby stick in his hands, appeared outside the entrenchment within which a closely-capped Kurd was guarding Haly Pasha's favourite charger, Shebdiz.

"What a nice charger!" said the horse-dealer to the Kurd.

"Nice indeed, but not for your dog's teeth."

"Yet I assure you I'll steal him this very night."

"I shall be there too, my lad," thought the Kurd to himself, and with that he leaped upon the horse and grasped fast his three and a half ells long spear; "if you want the horse come for it now!"

"I'm not going to fetch it at once, so don't put yourself out," KÖkÉnyesdi assured him. "You may do as you like with him till morning," and with that he sat down on the edge of the ditch, wrapped himself up in his bunda, and leaned his chin on his big stick.

The Kurd durst not take his eyes off him, he scarce ventured even to wink, lest the horse-dealer should practise magic in the meantime.

He never stirred from the spot, but drew his hat deep down and regarded the Kurd from beneath it with his foxy eyes.

Meanwhile it was drawing towards evening. The Kurd's eyes now regularly started out of his head in his endeavours to distinguish the form of KÖkÉnyesdi through the darkness. At last he grew weary of the whole business.

"Go away!" he said. "Do you hear me?"

KÖkÉnyesdi made no reply.

The Kurd waited and gazed again. Everything seemed to him to be turning round, and blue and green wheels were revolving before his eyes.

"Go away, I tell you, for if this ditch was not a broad one I would leap across and bore you through with my spear."

The bunda never budged.

The Kurd flew into a rage, dismounted from the horse, seized his spear, and climbing down into the ditch, viciously plunged his spear into the sleeping form before him.

But how great was his consternation when he discovered that what he had looked upon as a man in the darkness was nothing but a propped up stick, on which a bunda and a hat were hanging! While he had been staring at KÖkÉnyesdi, the latter had crept from out of the bunda beneath his very eyes and hidden himself in the ditch.

The Kurd had not yet recovered from his astonishment when he heard the crack of a whip behind his back, and there was KÖkÉnyesdi sitting already on the back of Haly Pasha's charger, Shebdiz, and the next moment he had leaped the ditch above the Kurd's head, shouting back at him:

"The trench is not broad enough for this horse, my son!"

Master SzÉnasi was one of those who had been sent to find KÖkÉnyesdi, and he now arrived at Demerser, the famous robber's most usual resting-place in those days, and pushing his way forward told him that the gentlemen of SzathmÁr had sent him to ask him, KÖkÉnyesdi, to assist them in their expedition against the Turks.

KÖkÉnyesdi, who was carrying a sheaf on his back, looked sharply at the magister, who dared not meet his gaze, and when he had finished his little speech he roared at him:

"You lie! You're a spy! I don't like the look of your mug! I'm going to hang you up!"

SzÉnasi, who was unacquainted with the robber chief's peculiarities, was near collapsing with terror, whereupon KÖkÉnyesdi observed with a smile:

"Come, come, don't tremble so, I won't eat you up at any rate, but tell the gentleman that sent you here that another time he mustn't send a spy to me, for to tell you the truth I don't believe in such faces as yours. You may tell the gentleman, moreover, that if he wants to speak to me he must come himself. I don't care about making a move on the strength of idle chatter. I am easily to be found. Go to PÜspÖk LadÁnya, walk into the last house on the right-hand side and ask the master where the BarÁtfa hostelry is, he'll show you the way; and now in God's name scuttle! and don't look back till you've got home."

The magister did as he was bid, and on getting home delivered the message to his masters, whereupon they immediately set out; Raining going on the part of the military, JÁnos Topay on the part of the Hungarians, together with Ladislaus RÁkÓczy himself and the captain of the gentry of BÁrÓdsÁg.

The gentlemen safely reached PÜspÖk LadÁnya, where they had to wait at the magistrate's house till night-fall, although Raining would have much preferred to meet KÖkÉnyesdi by daylight, and RÁkÓczy was burning to carry through his enterprise as soon as possible.

While they waited Raining could not help asking the magistrate whether it was far from there to the BarÁtfa inn?

The magistrate shook his head and maintained there was no such inn in the whole district, nor was there.

Raining fancied that the magistrate must be a stranger there, so he asked two or three old men the same question, but they all gave him the same answer: there might be a barÁtfa puszta9 here but there could be no inn on it, or if there was an inn, the puszta itself did not exist.

"Well, if they don't know anything about it at the last house we had better turn back," said Raining to himself; and, when it had grown quite dark, he approached the house and began to talk with the master who was dawdling about the door.

"God bless thee, countryman! where's the barÁtfa inn?"

The man first of all measured the questioner from head to foot, and then he merely remarked: "God requite thee! over yonder!" and he vaguely indicated the direction with his head.

"We want to go there; can't you show us the way?" asked Topay.

The man seized the questioner's hand and pointed with it to a herdsman's fire in the distance.

"Look; do you see the shine of its windows there?""Which is the way to it?"

"That way 'tis nearer, t'other way it's quicker."

"What do you mean?"

"If you go that way you'll go astray the quicker, and if you go t'other way you may plump into a bog."

"You lead us thither," intervened RÁkÓczy, at the same time pressing a ducat into the man's fist.

He looked at it, turned it round in his palm and gave it back to RÁkÓczy with the request that he would give him copper money in exchange for it. He could not imagine anyone giving him gold which was not false.

When this had been done he neatly led the gentlemen through the morass—wading in front of them, girded up to his waist—through those hidden places where the water-fowl were sitting on their nests, and when at last they emerged from among the thick reedy plantations they saw a hundred paces in front of them a fire of heaped up bulrushes brightly burning, by the light of which they saw a horseman standing behind it.

Here their guide stopped and the three men trotted in single file towards the fire, which suddenly died out at the very moment they were approaching it, as if someone had cast wet rushes upon it.

Topay greeted the horseman, who lifted his hat in silence and allowed them to draw nearer.

"There are three of you gentlemen together," he observed guardedly; "but that doesn't matter," he continued. "It would be all the same to me if there were ten times as many of you, for there's a pistol in every one of my holsters, from which I can fire sixteen bullets in succession, and in each bullet is a magnet, so that even if I don't aim at my man I bring him down all the same."

"Very good, very good indeed, Master KÖkÉnyesdi," said Topay; "we have not come here for you to pepper us with your magnetic globules, but we have come to ask your assistance for the accomplishment of a doughty deed, the object of which is an attack upon our pagan foes."

"Oh, my good sirs, I am ready to do that without the co-operation of your honours. In the courtyard of a castle in the Baborsai puszta there is a well some hundred fathoms deep and quite full of Turkish skulls, and I will not be satisfied till I have piled up on the top of it a tower just as high made of similar materials."

"So I believe. But you would gain glory too?"

"I have glory enough already. I am known in foreign countries as well as at home. The King of France has long ago only waited for a word from me to make me chief colonel of a long-tailed regiment, and quite recently, when the King of England heard how I bored through the hulls of the munition ships on the Theiss, he did me the honour to invite me to form a regiment of divers to ravage the enemy under water. And I've all the boys for it too."

"I know, I know, Master KÖkÉnyesdi, but there will be booty here too, and lots of it."

"What is booty to me? If I choose to do so, I could bathe in gold and sleep on pearls."

"Have you really as much treasure as all that?" inquired Raining with some curiosity.

"Ah," said KÖkÉnyesdi, "you ought to see the storehouse in the Szilicza cavern, where gold and silver are filled up as high as haystacks. There, too, are the treasures dug up from the sands of the sea, nothing but precious stones, diamonds, rubies, carbuncles, and real pearls. I, myself, do not know how many sackfuls."

"And cannot you be robbed of them?"

"Impossible; the entrance is so well concealed that no man living can find it. I myself can never tell whether I am near it; the shifting sand has so well covered it. Only one living animal can find it when it is wanted, and that is my horse. And he will never betray it, for if anyone but myself mounts him, not a step farther will he go.""And how did you come into possession of these enormous treasures?" asked Raining with astonishment.

"God gave them to me," said the horse-dealer, raising his voice and his eyebrows at the same time.

"Very edifying, no doubt, my friend," said Topay; "but tell me now, briefly, for how much will you join us against the Turks of Grosswardein?—not counting the booty, which of course will be pretty considerable."

"Well—that is not so easily said. Of course I shall have to collect together my twelve companies, and it will cost something to hold them together and give them what they want and pay them."

"At any rate you can name a good round sum for the services you are going to render us, can't you? Come! how much do you require?"

The robber chief reflected.

"Well, as it is your honours' own business I hope your honours won't say that I tax you too highly. Let us look at the job in this way: suppose I came to the attack with seventeen companies, and I charge one thousand thalers for each company. Let us say each company consists of one thousand men, that will be a thaler per head—and what is that, 'twill barely pay for their keep. Thus the whole round sum will come to seventeen thousand thalers."

"That won't do at all, Master KÖkÉnyesdi. 'Twere a shame to fatigue so many gallant fellows for nothing, but suppose you bring with you only a hundred men and the rest remain comfortably at home? In that case you shall receive from us seventeen hundred florins in hard cash."

"Pooh!" snapped the robber, "what does your honour take me for, eh? Do you suppose you are dealing with a gipsy chief or a Wallachian bandit, who are paid in pence? Why, I wouldn't saddle my horse for such a trifle, I had rather sleep the whole time away.""But you have so much treasure besides," observed Raining naÏvely.

"But we may not break into it," rejoined the robber angrily.

"Why not?"

"Because we have agreed not to make use of till it has mounted up to a million florins."

"And what will you do with it then?"

"We shall then buy a vacant kingdom from the Tartar king, where the pasturage is good, and thither we will go with our men and set up an empire of our own. We will buy enough pretty women from the Turks for us all, and be our own masters."

Topay smiled.

"Well," said he, "this seventeen hundred florins of ours will at any rate purchase one of the counties in this kingdom of yours." He was greatly amused that Raining should take the robber's yarn so seriously, and he pushed the German gentleman aside. "Mr. KÖkÉnyesdi," said he, "you have nothing to do with this worthy man; he is come with us only to see the fun, but it is we who pay the money, and I think we understand each other pretty well."

"Why didn't you tell me so sooner?" said the robber sulkily, "then I shouldn't have wasted so many words. With which of you am I to bargain?"

"With this young gentleman here," said Topay. "Ladislaus RÁkÓczy. I suppose you know him by report?"

"Know him? I should think I did. Haven't I carried him in my arms when he was little? If it hadn't been so dark I should have recognised him at once. Well, as it is he, I don't mind doing him a good turn. I certainly wouldn't have taken a florin less from anyone else. I'll take from him the offer of seventeen hundred thalers."

"Seventeen hundred florins, I said."

"I tell your honour, you said thalers—thalers was what I heard, and I won't undertake the job for less; may my hand and leg wither if I move a step for less."

"Oh, I'll give him his thalers," said RÁkÓczy, interrupting the dispute; whereupon the robber seized the youth's hand and shook it joyfully.

"Didn't I know that your honour was the finest fellow of the three?" said the robber. "If, therefore, you will send these few trumpery thalers a week hence to the house of the worthy man who guided you hither, I will be at Grosswardein a week later with my seventeen hundred fellows."

"But, suppose we pay you in advance, and you don't turn up?" said Raining anxiously.

The robber looked at the quartermaster proudly.

"Do you take me for a common swindler?" said he. Then he turned with a movement of confiding expansion to the other gentlemen.

"We understand each other better," he remarked. "Your honours may depend upon me. God be with you."

With that he turned his horse and galloped off into the darkness. The three gentlemen were conducted back to LadÁny.

"Marvellous fellow, this KÖkÉnyesdi," said Raining, who had scarce recovered yet from his astonishment.

"You mustn't believe all the yarns he chooses to tell you," said Topay.

"What!" inquired Raining. "Had he then no communications with the French and English Courts?"

"No more than his grandmother."

"Then how about those treasures of which he spoke?"

"He himself has never seen them, and he only talked about them to give you a higher opinion of him."

"And his castle in the puszta, and his seventeen companies of freebooters?"

"He invented them entirely for your honour's edification. The freebooter is no fool, he lives in no castle in the puszta, but in a simple village as modest Mr. KÖkÉnyesdi, and his seventeen companies scarcely amount to more than seventeen hundred men."

"Then why did he consent so easily to take only seventeen hundred thalers?"

"Because he does not mean to give his lads a single farthing of it."

Raining shook his head, and grumbled to himself all the way home.

In a week's time they sent to KÖkÉnyesdi the stipulated money. Raining, moreover, fearing lest the fellow might forget the fixed time, did not hesitate to go personally to VÁsÁrhely, to seek him at his own door. There stood Master KÖkÉnyesdi in his threshing-floor, picking his teeth with a straw.

"Good-day," said the quartermaster.

"If it's good, eat it," murmured KÖkÉnyesdi to himself.

"Don't you know me?"

"Blast me if I do."

"Then don't you remember what you promised at the BarÁtfa inn?"

"I don't know where the BarÁtfa inn is."

"Then haven't you received the seventeen hundred thalers?"

"What should I receive seventeen hundred thalers for?"

"Don't joke, the appointed time has come."

"What appointed time?"

"What appointed time? And you who have to be at Grosswardein with seventeen hundred men!"

"Seventeen oxen and seventeen herdsmen on their backs, I suppose you mean."

"Well, a pretty mess we are in now," said Raining to himself as he wrathfully trotted back to Debreczen, and as he rushed into RÁkÓczy's room exclaiming, "Well, KÖkÉnyesdi has toasted us finely!" there stood KÖkÉnyesdi before his very eyes.

"What, you here?"

"Yes, I am; and another time your honour will know that whenever I am at my own place I am not at home."

It was the Friday before Whit Sunday, and the time about evening. A great silence rested over the whole district, only from the minarets of Varalja one ImÂm answered another, and from the tombs one shepherd dog answered his fellow: it was impossible to distinguish from which of the two the howling proceeded.

A couple of turbaned gentlemen were leisurely strolling along the bastions. Above the palisaded gate the torso of a square-headed Tartar was visible, with his elbows resting on the ramparts, holding his long musket in his hand. The Tartar sentinel was gazing with round open eyes into the black night, watching lest anyone should come from the direction in which he was aiming with his gun, and blowing vigorously at the lunt to prevent its going out. While he was thus anxiously on the watch, it suddenly seemed to him as if he discerned the shape of a horseman approaching the city.

In such cases the orders given to the Osmanli sentinels were of the simplest description: they were to shoot everyone who approached in the night-time without a word.

The Tartar only waited until the man had come nearer, and then, placing his long musket on the moulding of the gate, began to take aim with it.

But the approaching horseman rode his steed as oddly as only Hungarian csikÓsok10 can do, for he bobbed perpetually from the right to the left, and dodged backwards and forwards in the most aggravating manner.

"Allah pluck thy skin from off thee, thou drunken Giaour," murmured the baffled Tartar to himself, as he found all his aiming useless; for just as he was about to apply the lunt, the csikÓs was no longer there, and the next moment he stood at the very end of his musket. "May all the seven-and-seventy hells have a little bit of thee! Why canst thou not remain still for a moment that I may fire at thee?"

Meanwhile the shape had gradually come up to the very gate.

"Don't come any nearer," cried the Tartar, "or I shan't be able to shoot thee."

"Oh, that's it, is it?" said the other. "Then why didn't you tell me so sooner? But don't hold your musket so near to me, it may go off of its own accord."

We recognise in the csikÓs KÖkÉnyesdi, whose horse now began to prance about to such an extent that it was impossible for the Tartar to take a fair aim at it.

"I bring a letter for Haly Pasha, from the Defterdar of Lippa," said the csikÓs, searching for something in the pocket of his fur pelisse, so far as his caracolling steed would allow him. "Catch it if you don't want to come through the gate for it."

"Well, fling it up here," murmured the sentinel, "and then be off again, but ride decently that I may have a shot."

"Thank you, my worthy Mr. Dog-headed Hero; but look out and catch what I throw to you."

And with that he drew out a roll of parchment and flung it up to the top of the gate. The Tartar, with his eyes fixed on the missive, did not perceive that the csikÓs, at the same time, threw up a long piece of cord, and the sense of the joke did not burst upon him until the csikÓs drew in the noose, and he felt it circling round his body. KÖkÉnyesdi turned round suddenly, twisted the cord round the forepart of his horse, and clapping the spurs to its side, began galloping off.

Naturally, in about a moment the Tartar had descended from the top of the gate without either musket or lunt, and the cord being well lassoed round his body, he plumped first into the moat, a moment afterwards reappeared on the top of the trench, and was carried with the velocity of lightning through bushes and briars. Being quite unused to this mode of progression, and vainly attempting to cling by hand or foot to the trees and shrubs which met him in his way, he began to bellow with all his might, at which terrible uproar the other sentries behind the ramparts were aroused, and, perceiving that some horseman or other was compelling one of their comrades to follow after him in this merciless fashion, they mounted their horses, and throwing open the gate, plunged after him.

As for KÖkÉnyesdi, he trotted on in front of them, drawing the Tartar horde farther and farther after him till he reached a willow-wood, when he turned aside and whistled, and instantly fifty stout fellows leaped forth from the thicket on swift horses with csÁkÁnys11 in their hands, so that the pursuing Turks were fairly caught.

They turned tail, however, in double-quick time, having no great love of the csÁkÁnys, and never stopped till they reached the gate of the fortress, within the walls of which they yelled to their heart's content, that KÖkÉnyesdi's robbers were at hand, had leaped the cattle trench at a single bound, seized a good part of the herds and were driving the beasts before them; whereupon, some hundreds of Spahis set off in pursuit of the audacious adventurers. When, however, the robbers had reached the River KÖrÖs, they halted, faced about and stood up to their pursuers man to man, and the encounter had scarce begun when the Spahis grew alive to the fact that their opponents, who at first had barely numbered fifty, had grown into a hundred, into two hundred, and at last into five or six hundred: from out of the thickets, the ridges, and the darkness, fresh shapes were continually galloping to the assistance of their comrades, while from the fortress the Turks came rushing out on each other's heels in tens and twenties to the help of the Spahis, so that by this time the greater part of the garrison had emerged to pounce upon KÖkÉnyesdi's freebooters; when suddenly, the battle-cry resounded from every quarter and from the other side of the KÖrÖs, whence nobody expected it, the bandÉrium12 of the gentry of BÁrÓdsÁg rushed forth, and swam right across the river; while from the direction of VÁrad-Olaszi, amidst the rolling of drums, Ladislaus RÁkÓczy came marching along with the infantry of SzathmÁr.

"Forward!" cried the youth, holding the banner in his hand, and he was the first who placed his foot on the storming-ladder. The terrified garrison, after firing their muskets in the air, abandoned the ramparts and fled into the citadel.

RÁkÓczy got into the town before the Spahis who were fighting with KÖkÉnyesdi, and who now, at the sound of the uproar, would have fled back through the town to take refuge in the citadel, but came into collision with the cavalry of Topay, who reached the gates of the town at the same moment that they did, and both parties, crowding together before the gates, desperately tried to get possession of them, during which tussle the contending hosts for a moment were wedged together into a maddened mass, in which the antagonists could recognise each other only from their war-cries; when, all at once, from the middle of the town, a huge column of fire whirled up into the air, illuminating the faces of the combatants. The fact was that KÖkÉnyesdi had hit upon the good idea of connecting a burning lunt with the tops of the houses, and making a general blaze, so that at least the people could see one another. By this hideous illumination the Spahis suddenly perceived that RÁkÓczy's infantry had broken through the ramparts in one place, and that a sturdy young heyduke had just hoisted the banner of the Blessed Virgin on the top of the eastern gate.

"This is the day of death," cried the Aga of the Spahis in despair; and drawing his sword from its sheath, he planted himself in the gateway, and fought desperately till his comrades had taken refuge in the town, and he himself fell covered with wounds. It was over his body that the Hungarians rushed through the gates after the flying Spahis.

At that moment a fresh cry resounded from the fortress: "Ali! Ali!" The Pasha himself was advancing with his picked guards, with the valiant Janissaries, with those good marksmen, the Szaracsies, who can pierce with a bullet a thaler flung into the air, and with the veteran Mamelukes, who can fight with sword and lance at the same time. He himself rode in advance of his host on his war-horse, his big red face aflame with rage; in front of him his standard-bearer bore the triple horse-tail, on each side of which strode a negro headsman with a broadsword.

"Come hither, ye faithless dogs! Is the world too narrow for ye that ye come to die here? By the shadow of Allah, I swear it, ye shall all be sent to hell this day, and I will ravage your kingdom ten leagues round. Come hither, ye impure swine-eaters! Your heads shall be brought to market; everyone who brings in the head of a Christian shall receive a ducat, and he who brings in a captive shall die."

Thus the Pasha roared, stormed, and yelled at the same time; while Topay tried to marshal once more his men who were scattering before the fire of the Turks, galloping from street to street, and re-forming his terrified squadrons to make head against the solid host of the advancing Turks, which was rapidly gaining ground, while KÖkÉnyesdi's followers only thought of booty.

"A hundred ducats to him who shoots down that son of a dog!" thundered the Pasha, pointing out the ubiquitous Topay, and, finding it impossible to get near him, roared after him: "Thou cowardly puppy! whither art thou running? Look me in the face, canst thou not?"

Topay heard the exclamation and shouted back very briefly:

"I saw thy back at BÁnfi-Hunyad."13

At this insult Ali Pasha's gall overflowed, and seizing his mace, he aimed a blow with it at Topay, when suddenly a sharp crackling cross-fire resounded from a neighbouring lane, and amidst the thick clouds of smoke, RÁkÓczy's musketeers appeared, sticking their daggers into their discharged firearms, a practise to which the bayonet owed its origin at a later day. The Turkish cavalry, crowded together in the narrow street, was in a few moments demoralised by this rapid assault. The improvised bayonet told terribly in the crush, swords and darts were powerless against it.

"Allah is great!" cried Ali. "Hasten into the fortress and draw up the bridge, we are only perishing here. Only the fortress remains to us."

His conductors, against his will, seized his bridle, and dragged him along with them; and when a valiant musketeer, drawing near to him, cut down his charger, the terrified Pasha clambered up into the saddle of one of his headsmen, and took refuge behind his back.

A young Hungarian horseman was constantly on his track. Nobody could tell Ali who he was, but one could see from his face that he was the Pasha's fiercest enemy, and animated by something more than mere martial ardour. This young horseman gave no heed to the bullets or blades which were directed against him; he was bent only on bloodshed.

It was young RÁkÓczy, to whom bitterness had given strength a hundredfold. Forcing his way through the flying hostile rabble, he was drawing nearer and nearer to Ali every moment, cutting down one by one all who barred the way between him and the Pasha, and the Turks quailed before his strong hands and savage looks.

At length they reached the bridge, which was built upon piles, between deep bulwarks, and led into the fortress, the front part of whose gate was fortified by iron plates and huge nails, and could be drawn up to the gate of the tower by round chains. On the summit of the tower of the citadel could still be seen the equestrian statue of St. Ladislaus derisively turned upside down between the severed legs of two felons.

The Hungarians and the Turks reached the bridge together so intermingled that the only thing to be seen was a confused mass of turbans and helmets, in the midst of a forest of swords and scimitars, with the banner of the Blessed Virgin cheek by jowl with the crescented horse-tails.

At the gate of the citadel stood two long widely gaping eighteen-pounders commanding the bridge, filled with chain, shot, and ground nails; but the Komparajis dare not use their cannons, for in whatever direction they might aim, there were quite as many Turks as Hungarians. On the bridge itself the foes were fighting man to man. RÁkÓczy was at that moment fighting with the bearer of the triple horse-tail, striving to take the standard pole with his left hand, while he aimed blow after blow at his antagonist with his right.

"Shoot them down, you good-for-nothings!" roared Ali Pasha, turning back to the inactive and contumacious Komparajis. "Reck not whether your bullets sweep away as many Mussulmans as Hungarians, myself included! Sweep the bridge clear, I say! Life is cheap, but Paradise is dear!"But the gunners still hesitated to fire amongst their comrades, when Ali sent two drummers to them commanding them to aim their guns aloft and fire into the air.

The contest on the bridge was raging furiously; the Janissaries had placed their backs against the parapet, and there stood motionless, with their huge broad-swords in their naked fists, like a fence of living scythes, tearing into ribbons everything which came between them.

Then it occurred to a regiment of German Drabants to clamber up the parapet of the bridge, and tear the Janissaries away from the parapet; some ten or twenty of these Drabants did scramble up on the bridge, when the parapet suddenly gave way beneath the double weight, and Janissaries and Drabants fell down into the deep moat beneath, throttling each other in the water, and whenever a turbaned head appeared above the surface, the Germans standing at the foot of the bridge beat out its brains with their halberds.

Meanwhile, the two fighting heroes in the middle of the bridge were almost exhausted by the contest. They had already hacked each other's swords to pieces, had grasped the banner, the object of the struggle, with both hands, and were tearing away at it with ravening wrath.

The Turkish standard-bearer then suddenly pressed his steed with his knees, making it rear up beneath him, so that the Turk stood now a head and shoulder higher than RÁkÓczy, and threatened either to oust him from his saddle or tear the standard from his hand.

At that moment the white figure of a girl appeared on the summit of the rampart of the tower, her black locks streaming in the wind, her face aglow with enthusiasm.

"Heaven help thee, Ladislaus!" cried the girl from the battlement of the tower; and the youth, hearing from on high what sounded like a voice from heaven, recognised it, looked up and saw his bride—a superhuman strength arose in his heart and in his arm, and when the Turkish standard-bearer made his charger rear, RÁkÓczy suddenly let the flag-pole go, and seizing the bridle of the snorting steed with both hands, with one Herculean thrust, flung back steed, rider, and banner through the palisade into the deep moat below.

"There is no hope save with God!" cried Ali in despair, for his terrified people at the sight of this prodigy had dragged him along with them against his will.

"Ladislaus! Ladislaus! My darling!" resounded from above. The youth was fighting with the strength of ten men; three horses had already been shot under him, and a third sword was flashing in his hand. Already he was standing on the drawbridge; his sweetheart threw down a white handkerchief to him, and he was already waving it above his head in triumph, when a well-directed bullet pierced the young hero's heart, and he collapsed a corpse on the very threshold of his success, in the very gate of the captured fortress at the feet of his beloved.

At that same instant a heart-rending shriek resounded, and from the top of the tower a white shape fell down upon the bridge; the beautiful bride, from a height of thirty feet, had cast herself down on the dead body of her beloved, and died at the same instant as he, mingling their blood together; and if their arms did not, at least their souls could, embrace each other.

This spectacle so stupefied the besiegers, that Ali Pasha had just time enough swiftly to raise the drawbridge and save the fortress and a fragment of his host. Of those who remained outside, not a single soul survived. KÖkÉnyesdi massacred without mercy everything which distantly resembled a Turk, together with the camels and mules, sparing nothing but the horses, and when every house had been well plundered, he set the town on fire in twelve places, so that the flames in half an hour consumed everything, and the whole city blazed away like a gigantic bonfire, the rising wind whirling the smoke and flame over the ditch towards the fortress.

"Ali Pasha may put that in his pipe and smoke it," said KÖkÉnyesdi, rejoicing at the magnificent conflagration.

But the bodies of Ladislaus RÁkÓczy and his sweetheart they bore away, and buried them side by side in the family vault at RÁkÁs.