The Slaves of the Padishah Part 13

The men loafing about the courtyard, surprised at this sudden haste, surrounded the carriage; and one of them, an old acquaintance of Andrew's, spoke to him just as he had mounted the box and asked him what was the matter.

"Alas!" replied Andrew, "the army of Szathmar has invaded Transylvania, has devastated Klausenburg with 17,000 men, and is now advancing on Nagyenyed."

Well, they waited to hear no more. As soon as they perceived the Princess's carriage rolling rapidly towards the fortress of Fehervar, they scattered in every direction, and in an hour's time the whole town was flying along the Fehervar road. Everyone hastily took away with him as much as he could carry; the women held their children in their arms; the men had their bundles on their backs and drove their cows and oxen before them; carts were packed full of household goods; and everyone lamented, stormed, and fled for all he was worth.

Just at that time there happened to be at Nagyenyed the envoy of the Pasha of Buda, Yffim Beg, who had been sent to the Prince to hasten his march into Hungary with the expected auxiliary army, and who absolutely refused to believe Teleki that they ought to remain where they where, as it was from the direction of Szathmar that an attack was to be feared.

The worthy Yffim Beg was actually sitting in his bath when the panic-flight took place; and, alarmed at the noise, he sprang out of the water, and wrapping a sheet round him rushed to the window, and perceiving the terrified flying rabble, cried to one of the pa.s.sers-by: "Whither are you running? What is going on here?"

"Alas, sir!" panted the breathless fugitive, "the Szathmar army, 27,000 strong, has invaded Transylvania, has taken everything in its road, and is now only two hours' march from Nagyenyed."

This was quite enough for Yffim Beg also. Hastily tying the bathing-towels round his body and without his turban, he rushed to the stables, flung himself on a barebacked steed and galloped away from Nagyenyed without taking leave of anyone; and did not so much as change his garment till he reached Temesvar, and there reported that the countless armies of Szathmar had conquered the whole of Transylvania!

Thus Teleki had gained his object: the Transylvanian troops had now good reasons for staying at home. Yet he had got much more than he wanted, for he had only required of Kaszonyi a feigned attack, whereas the band of Kokenyesdi had ravaged Transylvania as far as Klausenburg.

The fact that the worthy friar and Mr. Ladislaus Magyari had captured the leader of the freebooters made very little difference at all, for the crafty adventurer had bored his way through the wall of his dungeon that very night, and had escaped with his three comrades.

Early next morning, on perceiving that his captives had escaped, Father Gregory was terribly alarmed, imagining that they would now bring back the whole robber band against him; and, hastening immediately to collect the whole of the pilgrims, loaded wagons with the most necessary provisions and the treasures of the altar, conducted them among the hills, and there concealed them in the Cavern of Balina, carrying the sick members of his flock one by one across the mountain-streams in front of the cavern and depositing them in the majestic rocky chamber, which more than once had served the inhabitants of the surrounding districts as a place of refuge from the Tartars, having a large open roof through which the smoke could get out, while a stream flowing through it kept them well supplied with drinking-water. In an hour's time fires and ovens, made from fresh leaves and mown gra.s.s, stood ready in the midst of the place of refuge; and on a stone pedestal, in the background, always standing ready for such a purpose, an altar was erected.

Meanwhile Kokenyesdi had hastened to overtake his bands which had scattered at the word of the brother in order to re-unite them before the people of Klausenburg could capture them in detail. Szenasi he dispatched to call back the wanderers who had been sent to the cellars of Eger and besiege the monastery.

When Szenasi returned with the two hundred hungry men he only found empty walls, and to make them emptier still--he burnt them down to the ground.

He then sat down, and by the light of the conflagration wrote a sarcastic letter to Teleki, in which he informed him with a great show of humility that he had made the required diversion against Transylvania, that he kissed his hand, that he might command him at any future time, and that he was his most humble servant.

He had scarcely sent off the letter by a Wallachian gipsy, picked up on the road, when he saw a company of hors.e.m.e.n galloping towards the burning monastery, and recognised in the foremost fugitive Kokenyesdi.

"It is all up with us!" cried the robber chief from afar, "we are surrounded. All the parsons in the world have become soldiers, and turned their swords against us as if they were Bibles. The Calvinist pastor, the Catholic friar, the Greek priest, and the Unitarian minister--every man jack of them has placed himself at the head of the faithful, and are coming against us with at least twenty thousand men: students, artisans and peasants, the whole swarm is rushing upon us. I and fifty more were set upon by the whole Guild of Shoemakers, who cut down twenty of my men; they were all as mad as hatters, and when the peasants had done with us, the gentlemen took us up: they united with the German dragoons, and pursued my flying army on horseback. Every bit of booty, every slave they have torn from us; this Calvinist Joshua is always close on my heels, not a single one of our infantry can be saved."

The robber chief behaved as the leader of robber bands usually do behave. When he had to fight, he fought among the foremost; but when he had to run, then also he was well to the front. When he was beaten, he cared not a jot whether the others got off scot-free, he only thought of saving himself.

When he had announced the catastrophe from horseback to the terrified Szenasi, he clapped spurs to his nag, and, without looking back to see whether anyone was following him, he galloped off, and left Szenasi in the lurch with the footmen.

The fox is always most crafty when he falls into the snare. The perplexed hypocrite perceived that however quickly he might try to escape, the cavalry would overtake him at Grosswardein and mow him down.

Unfortunately, he knew not how to ride, and therefore could not hope to save himself that way. Already the trumpets of the Transylvanian bands were blaring all around him; fiery beacons of pitchy pines were beginning to blaze out from mountain-top to mountain-top; on every road were visible the flying comrades of Kokenyesdi, terrifying one another with their shouts of alarm as they rushed through the woods and valleys, not daring to take refuge among the snowy Alps, where the axes of the enraged Wallachians flashed before their eyes; and there was not a single road on which they did not run the risk of being trampled down by the Hungarian banderia and the German dragoons.

In that moment of despair Szenasi quickly flung himself into the garments of a peasant, climbed up to the top of a tree, and as soon as he perceived the first band of German hors.e.m.e.n approaching him, he called out to them.

"G.o.d bless you, my n.o.ble gentlemen!"

They looked up at these words and told the man to come down from the tree.

"No doubt you also have taken refuge from the robbers, poor man!"

"Ah! most precious gentlemen! they were not robbers, but German soldiers in Hungarian uniforms who had been sent hither from Szathmar. Take care how you pursue them, for if your German soldiers should meet theirs, it might easily happen that they would join together against you. I heard what they were saying as I understand their language, but I pretended that I did not understand; and while they made me come with them to show them the road, they began talking among themselves, and they said that they had had sure but secret information from the Klausenburg dragoons that they were going to attack the town. The Devil never sleeps, my n.o.ble gentlemen!"

The good gentlemen were astounded; the intelligence was not altogether improbable, and as, just before, a vagabond had been captured who could speak nothing but German, a mad rumour spread like wild-fire among the Magyars that the dragoons had an understanding with the enemy and wanted to draw them into an ambush; and so the gentlemen told the students, and the students told the mechanics, and by the time it reached the ears of Ebeni and the parsons, there was something very like a mutiny in the army. The gentry suggested that the Germans should be deprived of their swords and horses; the students would have fought them there and then; but the most sensible idea came from the Guild of Cobblers, who would have waited till they had lain down to sleep and then bound and gagged them one by one.

Master Szenasi meanwhile went and hunted up the dragoons, whom he found full of zeal for the good cause entrusted to them, and had a talk with them.

"Gentlemen!" said he, "what a pity it is, but look now at these Hungarian gentlemen! Well, they are shaking their fists at you, so look to yourselves. Someone has told them that you are acting in concert with the people of Szathmar, so they won't go a step further until they have first ma.s.sacred the whole lot of you."

At this the German soldiers were greatly embittered. Here they were, they said, shedding their blood for Transylvania, and the only reward they got was to be called traitors! So they sounded the alarm, collected their regiments together, took up a defensive position, and for a whole hour the camp of Mr. Ebeni was thrown into such confusion that nothing was easier for Master Szenasi than to hide himself among the fugitives. All night long Mr. Ebeni suffered all the tortures of martyrdom. At one time he was besieged by a deputation from the Magyars, who demanded satisfaction, confirmation, and Heaven only knows what else; while the worthy parsons kept rushing from one end of the camp to the other, with great difficulty appeasing the uproar, enlightening the half-informed, and in particular solemnly a.s.suring both parties that neither the Hungarian gentlemen wanted to hurt the Germans nor the Germans the Hungarians, till light began to dawn on them, and the reconciled parties were convinced, much to their astonishment, that the whole alarm was the work of a single crafty adventurer who clearly enough had gained time to escape from the pursuers when they had him in their very clutches.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SLAVE MARKET AT BUDA-PESTH.

In the middle of the sixteenth century, Haji Baba, the most celebrated slave-dealer of Stambul, having been secretly informed beforehand, by acquaintances in the Seraglio, that a great host would a.s.semble that summer beneath Pesth, hastily filled his ship with wares before his business colleagues had got an inkling of what was going to happen; and, steering his bark with its precious load through the Black Sea and up the Danube, reached Pesth some time before the army had concentrated there.

Casting anchor in the Danube, he adorned his vessel with oriental carpets and flowers, and placing a band of black eunuchs in the prow of the vessel with all sorts of tinkling musical instruments, he set about beating drums till the sound re-echoed from the hills of Buda.

The Turks immediately a.s.sembled on the bastions of the castle of Buda right opposite, and perceiving the bedizened ship with its flags streaming from the mast and sweeping the waves, thereby giving everyone who wanted to know what sort of wares were for sale there, got into all sorts of little skiffs and let themselves be rowed out thither.

The loveliest damsels in the round world were there exhibited for sale.

As soon as the first of the Turks had well intoxicated himself with the sight of the sumptuous wares, he hastened back to get his money and come again, telling the dozen or so of his acquaintances whom he met on the way what sort of a spectacle he had seen with no little enthusiasm, and in a very short time hundreds more were hastening to this ship which offered Paradise itself for sale.

Ha.s.san Pasha, the then Governor of Buda, perceiving the throng from the windows of his palace, and ascertaining the cause, sent his favourite Yffim Beg to forbid the market to the mob till he, the general, had chosen for himself what girls he wanted; and if there was any one of the slave-girls worthy of consideration, he was to buy her for his harem.

Yffim Beg hastened to announce the prohibition, and when the skiffs had departed one by one from the ship, he got into the general's curtained gondola and had himself rowed over to the ship of Haji Baba.

The man-seller, perceiving the state gondola on its way to him, went to the ship's side, and waited with a woe-begone face till it had come alongside, and stretched forth his long neck to Yffim Beg that he might clamber up it on to the deck.

The Beg, with great condescension, informed the merchant that he had come on behalf of the Vizier of Buda, who was over all the Pashas of Hungary, to choose from among the wares he had for sale.

Haji Baba, on hearing this, immediately cast himself to the ground and blessed the day which had risen on these hills, and the water and the oars which had brought the Beg thither, and even the mother who had made the slippers in which Yffim Beg had mounted his ship.

Then he kissed the Beg's hand, and having, as a still greater sign of respect, boxed the ears of the eunuch who happened to be nearest to the Beg, for his impertinence in daring to stand so near at all, led Yffim into the most secret of his secret chambers. Heavy gold-embroidered hangings defended the entry to the interior of the ship; after this came a second curtain of dark-red silk, and through this were already audible sweet songs and twittering, and when this curtain was drawn aside by its golden ta.s.sels, a third muslin-like veil still stood in front of the entrance through which one could look into the room beyond without being seen by those inside.

Fourteen damsels were sporting with one another. Some of them darting in and out from between the numerous Persian curtains suspended from the ceiling, and laughing aloud when they caught each other; one was strumming a mandoline; five or six were dancing a round dance to the music of softly sung songs; another group was swinging one another on a swing made from costly shawls. All of them were so young, all of them were of such superior loveliness, that if the heart had allowed the eye alone to choose for it, mere bewilderment would have made selection impossible.

Yffim Beg gazed for a long time with the indifference of a connoisseur, but even his face relaxed at last, and smilingly tapping the merchant on the shoulder, he said to him:

"You have been filching from Paradise, Haji Baba!"

Haji Baba crossed his hands over his breast and shook his head humbly.

"All these girls are my pupils, sir. There is not one of them who resembles her dear mother. From their tenderest youth they have grown up beneath my fostering care; I do no business with grown-up, captured slave-girls, for, as a rule, they only weep themselves to death, grow troublesome, wither away before their time, and upset all the others. I buy the girls while they are babies; it costs a mint of money and no end of trouble before such a flower expands, but at least he who plucks it has every reason to rejoice. Look, sir, they are all equally perfect!

Look at that slim lily there dancing on the angora carpet! Did you ever see such a figure anywhere else? How she sways from side to side like the flowering branch of a banyan tree! That is a Georgian girl whom I purchased before she was born. Her father when he married had not money enough for the wedding-feast, so he came to me and sold for a hundred denarii the very first child of his that should be born. Yes, sir, not much money, I know, but suppose the child had never been born? And suppose it had been a son! And how often too, and how easily I might have been cheated! I am sure you could not say that five hundred ducats was too much for her if I named that price. Look, how she stamps down her embroidered slippers! Ah, what legs! I don't believe you could find such round, white, smooth little legs anywhere else! Her price, sir, is six hundred ducats."

Yffim Beg listened to the trader with the air of a connoisseur.

"Or, perhaps, you would prefer that melancholy virgin yonder, who has sought solitude and is lying beneath the shade of that rose-tree? Look, sir, what a lot of rose-trees I have all about the place! My girls can never bear to be without rose-trees, for roses go best with damsels, and the fragrance of the rose is the best teacher of love. That Circa.s.sian girl yonder was captured along with her father and mother; the husband, a rough fellow, slew his wife lest she should fall into our hands, but he had no time to kill his child, for I took her, and now I would not sell her for less than seven hundred ducats; there's no hurry, for she is still quite a child."