The Red, White, and Green Part 76

"Then I doffed my hat to the ladies, wished them farewell, and galloped off. Luckily for you--and others--I arrived at Arad just in time."

By his mention of _others_ I guessed there still remained something to be cleared up. But first I wished to make sure about a little matter which caused me some anxiety.

"How will Theresa learn that your journey ended successfully?" I asked.

"From the palace, no doubt. However, I took the liberty of sending a trusty messenger with a letter in which I stated that, as soon as you were strong enough, you would pay your thanks in person."

"Which I most certainly will do. Now tell me, please, whom you meant by the _others_."

"That's Dobozy's yarn, not mine."

"Or rather Mecsey's."

"And it had something to do with a public rescue?"

Dobozy laughed.

"About the maddest idea that ever occurred to any man outside the walls of a lunatic asylum. I never spent such a bad half-hour in my life.

But for the colonel's arrival, I really can't say what would have happened. Mecsey was in deadly earnest, and he had so worked on the men of your old regiment that they were ready for anything."

"But the plan?" I exclaimed. "There must have been at least some glimmering of a plan?"

"Well, you see, this servant of yours believes in having two strings to his bow. According to him, the colonel's mission might or might not prove a success; so it was as well not to depend on it altogether.

People say one fool makes many, and it was certainly so in this case.

Learning that the 9th Honveds were to be dismissed, Mecsey pounced on the men, and wheedled them into promising their help. Then he came to me, explained what was going on, and asked me to lead. I pointed out the wickedness and folly of the scheme, but Mecsey was far superior to arguments. With a proper leader, he said, the men would win; without one they would fail; and if I wanted the thing to be wrecked, of course I wouldn't join. Well, to cut a long story short, I agreed. We got together all the weapons we could--long knives and axes mostly, though some of us had pistols--and waited.

"Mecsey was just urging me to give the signal for a rush at the platform, when some one in the secret sighted the colonel, and we knew it was all right."

"What an awful thing it would have been!" I exclaimed with a shudder.

"Well," said Dobozy, "the colonel saved the situation by about two minutes. I really believe though that Mecsey was a bit disappointed.

He had a swift horse in waiting, and all we had to do was to rush the platform, knock over the soldiers, and carry you off before the Austrians were aware of what was taking place. Mecsey would have made a great general."

"Now, George," exclaimed Rakoczy, when he had finished laughing at the idea of General Mecsey Sandor, "remember we haven't heard yet how you came to fall into the hands of the Austrians. It was rumoured in camp, before the surrender, that you were killed at Debreczin."

"Rumour would probably have proved true, but for the inestimable Mecsey," I replied. "He turned up as usual in the right place at the right moment, nursed me in the house of a good Samaritan, and journeyed with me to Vilagos. There we parted, as I expect he's told you."

"Yes; and the reason," said Rakoczy warmly.

"Well, instead of helping you out of a sc.r.a.pe, I got into one," and I related my adventures while with the band of robbers.

Both my listeners expressed astonishment at the conduct of Count Beula, and Dobozy frankly praised the bandit-chief for having hanged him.

"Yet he bore himself like a thorough soldier in the field," said Rakoczy, who rarely looked at the dark spots, even in the sun. "You may depend his nerves were overstrung. As to this Batori Gabor, I knew him well years ago. He belongs to a good family, but he fell foul of the Austrian police over some political matters, and took to the plains. I understand he did the enemy no end of damage during the war."

"He must be a daring fellow," exclaimed Dobozy with enthusiasm. "That was a bold venture, to creep into the kitchen amongst all those hussars."

"Almost as bold as Mecsey," I answered with a laugh; "but it is perhaps as well neither of them succeeded."

"Better," said Rakoczy, "as success in either case would have made you an outlaw; whereas you are now a free man."

"With liberty to visit Vienna whenever you like," laughed Dobozy; "but isn't it almost bed-time?"

Here, practically, my adventures with the red, white, and green flag come to an end. From that night in my old home with Dobozy and "John the Joyous" I date the beginning of a new life.

Grat.i.tude, of course, and my promise to the dying baron took me to Vienna, where my reception encouraged me to pay several further visits, and in process of time my old friend's forecast was fulfilled. Theresa became my wife after her mother's death, and now there is no keener Magyar in all Hungary than Madame Botskay.

Every year we spend a couple of months in beautiful Pesth, and generally another month with the paralyzed Count Arnim and his wife, with both of whom Theresa is a great favourite, as indeed she is with most people.

The redoubtable Mecsey Sandor, who makes as faithful a steward as a soldier-servant, fairly worships her; and this is the more wonderful, because the honest fellow heartily detests the whole German race.

Mecsey is perfectly happy and comfortable, and spends his leisure time in describing over and over again the stirring events of the great campaign.

Occasionally Arthur Gorgei--now a poor man living in retirement--comes to see us, and I need hardly say that no one save "John the Joyous"

himself is ever more heartily welcomed.

Some men--but none on my estates--call him a traitor, and a.s.sert that he sold our country to the Russians. If Gorgei betrayed his country, we of his army were accomplices in his treachery, and this is the proof.

We marched hundreds of miles, often bare-footed, over rough and stony ground; we half froze in the winter's cold, and fainted beneath the scorching heat of summer; for weeks together we lived on a scanty ration of black bread and water; we stormed fortresses and fought terrible battles when the odds were all against us; and the man whose spirit, courage, and leadership made these things possible was Arthur Gorgei.

If such deeds as these were acts of treachery, then indeed were we all traitors, and our leader was far and away the greatest.

But the men who spoke thus wildly applauded Louis Kossuth as the most glorious patriot in history, and Kossuth was a fugitive in the land of the Turks!

It is the usual rule that the losers should be called on to pay for the game, and our opponents adhered to it closely.

With the exception of Gorgei and Klapka, our chiefs were seized by the Austrians, and, after a mock trial, sentenced to death. Aulich, Damjanics, Nagy Sandor, with ten others, all perished on one day; while at Pesth the high-spirited Batthiany, the true leader of the national party, was shot in the presence of several thousands of his sorrowing countrymen.

Hungary indeed lay crushed under the heel of her Russian and Austrian conquerors, but since that day many events have happened. Our liberties have been restored, and now our country takes its rightful place as the ally and not the va.s.sal of the haughty Hapsburg dominion.

A quarter of a century later, when my own boys, Stephen and John, were springing into early manhood, we all journeyed to Pesth to see the Emperor Francis Josef crowned King of Hungary.

"John the Joyous" was with us, and though his hair was sprinkled with white streaks, his heart had never felt lighter.

The boys were chiefly occupied in gazing at the gorgeous spectacle--the ermine-trimmed velvet cloaks of the councillors, the flashing mail of the n.o.bles, the sparkling diamonds and precious stones, the magnificent horses, the robes and mitres of the officiating priests.

To them it was a splendid procession; to us it was the fruition of hopes long deferred.

We thought of Gorgei, of my brother Stephen, and of all the gallant men who had laid down their lives for the cause, and I think it was something more than the sun's rays which brought the water to our eyes.

And when the Austrian Emperor, robed in the embroidered mantle of St.

Stephen, and crowned with the sacred crown, swore as King of Hungary to guard her rights and liberties against all foes, our hearts were full.

We felt that in the years long past our loyalty to the red, white, and green flag had not been altogether in vain.