The Baron's Sons Part 32

"That is my intention," replied the elder brother composedly. "I challenge you to the most desperate duel ever fought between two men, to the only duel that brothers can engage in who love each other, and yet cannot be reconciled by peaceful means. You have joined the volunteers who are to storm the castle garden at the point of the bayonet; I am enrolled among those whose task it will be to carry the main bastion by scaling-ladders. When the first cannon-shot is fired our duel will begin, and he who first mounts the enemy's fortifications will have obtained satisfaction from the other."

Richard seized his brother's hand with a look of alarm. "Brother," he exclaimed, "you are joking; you are trying to frighten me. That you, who have more sense in your little finger than a great bully like me in his whole head, should rush to almost certain destruction, where some blockhead of an Austrian may easily brain you with the b.u.t.t end of his rifle; that you should go scrambling up the ladders with the militia, where the first to mount are well-nigh sure to meet their death, and where no one can rush in to save you; that you, the pride of our family, the apple of our eye, our mother's support, our country's hope, should throw yourself against the enemy's bayonets,--oh, that is a cruel punishment you have planned for me! No one demands such a proof of your courage. War is not your profession; that is for us rough men who are good for nothing else. You are the soul of our army; don't try to be its hand or its foot at the same time. We honour superior intelligence, however much we may boast of our physical prowess. Don't think of taking such a revenge on those who love you, just because of a hasty word, long since repented of and retracted. Do what you will with me if you still feel offended; bid me ram my head into the mouth of one of the enemy's cannon and I will do it. Tell me you only meant to frighten me--that you are not in earnest."

"I am in earnest, and shall do as I have said," answered the other firmly; "you may do as you think best." With that he prepared to take his leave.

Richard tried to stop him. "odon, brother," he cried, "I pray you forgive me! Think of our mother, think of your wife and children!"

odon regarded him, unmoved. "I am thinking of my mother here," said he, stamping with his foot on the ground, "and I shall defend my wife and children yonder," pointing toward the fortress.

Richard stood out of his brother's way; further opposition would have been worse than useless. But his eyes filled with tears, and he reached out both his hands toward odon. At such a moment the brothers might well have embraced each other, yet odon never offered his hand.

Before a duel the adversaries are not wont to shake hands.

"When we meet up yonder," said he significantly, "don't forget to look at your watch and note the minute when you first plant your foot on the fortifications." With that he left the room.

Three o'clock was at hand. The cannoneers stood at their guns, watches in hand. A deep and peaceful quiet reigned, broken only by the note of the nightingale. At the first stroke of three, fifty-nine cannon burst forth in one thundering volley which was caught up by the loud huzzas of thousands of voices on every side. The sun was still far below the horizon, but the scene was soon illumined by the destructive fire of hostile artillery. In the glare of bombs and rockets the volunteers of the thirty-fourth militia battalion could be seen, like a hill of ants, swarming up toward the breach in the enemy's wall.

They were driven back, and again they advanced, fighting with their bayonets in a hand-to-hand struggle. A second time they were repulsed, and their officers were left, dead and dying, before the breach.

Two other battalions, the nineteenth and thirty-seventh, with the volunteers who had joined them, pressed forward with their scaling-ladders. A hot fire was opened upon them, but in vain; they planted their ladders against the wall and ran up the rounds. To turn them back was impossible; the only thing remaining was to shoot them down as fast as they climbed the ladders.

Leading the way on one of the ladders was odon Baradlay, his drawn sword in his hand. A detachment of the Italian regiment was defending that part of the wall, and the defence was well maintained. It was a grim task climbing the ladders in the face of a deadly fire of sharpshooters, and the air was filled with the groans of those that fell. Theirs was a twofold death, shot down as they were by the enemy, and then falling, only to be caught on the bayonets of their own comrades behind them.

odon mounted his ladder as coolly as if he had been climbing an Egyptian pyramid on a wager to show himself proof against giddiness.

Looking up, he could see a soldier standing at the head of the ladder, half concealed by the breastworks and holding his rifle ready to shoot. That soldier was his opponent in this fearful duel. Reaching the middle of the ladder, he suddenly heard himself hailed from below.

The voice was a familiar one.

"Aha, patron, I'm here too!"

odon recognised Mausmann's call. The daring gymnast was climbing up the under side of the ladder and making every effort to overtake his leader, eager to gain the top before him. With the agility of a monkey, he pa.s.sed odon and swung himself around on the front of the ladder over the other's head, shouting down to him triumphantly:

"Don't think you are going to get ahead of me, patron. I am captain here, and you are only a private."

odon was eager to recover his lead, but the gallant youth only pressed him back with one hand, saying, as he did so:

"Let me go first, patron; I have no one in the whole world to care if I am killed."

With that he sprang upward, two rounds at a time. The soldier above brought his rifle to his shoulder and aimed downward. Mausmann saw him, and shouted tauntingly:

"Take good aim, macaroni, or you might hit me."

The next moment the Italian pulled the trigger. Mausmann's hands relaxed their hold of the ladder. "Look out!" he called down to odon.

"What's the matter?" returned the other.

"Something that never happened to me before; I am killed." Therewith he fell backward over odon's head.

odon now climbed higher, anxious to reach the top of the ladder before the Italian should have reloaded his piece. But the soldier was too quick for him, and he found himself looking into the very muzzle of his rifle. Still he mounted. He could see the rifleman's finger press the trigger; the piece missed fire, and the next instant odon sprang over the breastworks.

Meanwhile the sixty-first battalion had effected an entrance into the castle garden. Three step-like terraces remained to be surmounted, and the men climbed one another's shoulders or stuck their bayonets between the stones of the scarp, and so worked their way upward. The defenders of the garden had retreated to the third terrace. As the Hungarians were about to scale this also, they were suddenly brought to bay by the arrival of a fresh force of the enemy. It included some of the bravest soldiers of the army, being composed of four platoons of the William regiment.

On the second terrace of the castle garden the two hostile bands met in desperate conflict.

"Surrender!" called the militia major.

"Fire! Charge bayonets!" was the Austrian captain's response, as he gave the commands to his men.

A volley was discharged on each side. The Austrian captain and his lieutenant fell, while the Hungarian major and one of his officers were wounded. Neither party heeded its loss. Richard s.n.a.t.c.hed up the rifle of a wounded soldier and dashed forward to meet the enemy. He was a master of bayonet fighting, and he resolved that, if he had to succ.u.mb at last to superior numbers, he would at least sell his life dearly.

An inner voice seemed to whisper to him that he was fighting his last battle. What if he slew ten opponents in succession? The eleventh would surely get the better of him and he must fall. At this thought, and in the thousandth part of a second, he took leave of all that was dear to him,--of the faithful girl awaiting him in Vienna, of the dear mother praying for him at home, of the slain foe to whom he had given a promise that he could not now fulfil. He saw only too well the fearful odds against him, and prepared to die.

His first adversary he sent headlong down the embankment; the second he drove back wounded into his comrades' arms; the third stopped suddenly as he was rushing to the encounter and pointed with his bayonet to the terrace above them. A dense array of flashing bayonets was seen advancing, and it was at once evident that the side which they should join would win the day. To which side, then, did they belong?

The rising sun answered the question. Shooting its beams from behind a cloud at that moment, it lighted up a banner fluttering in the advancing bayonet-hedge. The flag bore the national colours of Hungary.

"_eljen a haza!_" resounded from the third terrace, and the relief party plunged down the scarp like an avalanche. The Austrians, thus overwhelmed by their opponents, were forced to surrender.

Yonder blue-coated figure which had come with this succour like a rescuing angel, just at the moment when aid was most sorely needed, was odon Baradlay. The two brothers fell into each other's arms.

"I am very angry with you," cried Richard, as he folded his brother in a warm embrace.

It was six o'clock in the morning. From every turret and pinnacle in Buda the tricolour waved in the breeze, and all the streets of Pest rang with loud huzzas. Turning his back, however, on these scenes of rejoicing, Richard Baradlay, refreshed by a cold bath and a soldier's breakfast, made his way to a neighbouring village, to fulfil the promise so solemnly pledged to poor Otto Palvicz.

CHAPTER XXIV.

ZEBULON'S BRIGHT IDEA.

Three thousand six hundred feet above the sea-level, on a height of the Carpathian mountain range, a convivial party, consisting mostly of army officers, was enjoying itself with wine and music. A splendid view lay spread out before the merrymakers,--a wide-reaching landscape lighted by the slanting beams of the western sun as it sank in golden radiance beneath the horizon.

"Look there," Rideghvary was saying, as he named, one after another, the cities and villages that lay before them; "yonder lies the way to Constantinople."

His words were greeted with a shout: "Hurrah! Long live the Czar!"

Gla.s.ses clinked, and the company struck up the Russian national anthem. Rideghvary joined in, and all uncovered during the singing.

"Don't you sing with us, Zebulon?" asked Rideghvary, turning to his friend, who sat silent and melancholy.

"No more voice than a peac.o.c.k," was Zebulon's curt reply.

The crags about them gave back the tuneful notes, while far below the long line of Russian cavalry regiments, on their march from the north, caught up the song.