The Slaves of the Padishah Part 6

"P.S.--The bearer of this letter can be employed by your Excellencies as a courier or otherwise."

Cserei looked with amazement at the man in whom mental vivacity seemed to rise triumphant even over the la.s.situde of fever.

"Take a third sheet of paper, and address it to the Honourable Ladislaus Ebeni, Lieutenant-Governor of the fortress of Klausenburg.

"We hasten to inform your Honour that preparations are being made by the Commandant of the fortress of Szathmar, which leads us to conjecture that he meditates making an irruption into Transylvania. It may, of course, be merely a feint, but your Honour would do well to be prepared and under arms, lest he have designs against us, and is not merely making a noise. We, meanwhile, will postpone the advance of our arms into Hungary, lest, while we are attacking on one side, we leave Transylvania defenceless on the other.

Once more we counsel your Honour to use the utmost caution, etc."

"And now take these letters and carry them to the Prince, that he may sign them."

"And what if he box my ears for allowing your Excellency to dictate?"

said the frightened lad.

"Never mind it, my son, you will have suffered for your country. I, too, have had buffets enough in my time, not only when I was a child, but since I have grown up." And with that he turned his face towards the wall and pulled the coverlet over him.

Fortunately Cserei found Apafi in the apartment of the consort, and thus avoided the box on the ear, got the letters signed, and dispatched them all in different directions, so that all three got into the proper hands in the shortest conceivable time. And now let us see the result.

The Grand Vizier blasphemed when he had read his, and swore emphatically that if there were no hay in Transylvania he would make hay of their Excellencies.

Baron Kopp and Mr. Kaszonyi chuckled together over _their_ letter. The Commandant murmured gruffly: "I don't care, so you needn't."

Mr. Ebeni, however, on reading his letter, deposited it neatly among the public archives, growling angrily:

"If I were to call the people to arms at every wild alarm or idle rumour, I should have nothing else to do all day long. It is a pity that Teleki hasn't something better to do than to bother me continually with his scribble."

CHAPTER V.

THE DAY OF GROSSWARDEIN.

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 Szathmar-Nemeti, 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 Szathmar 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 Szathmar 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 Szathmarians 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 Szathmarians had gone farther on and would then fall upon the house in question and burn it to the ground, so that the Szathmarians 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 Szathmar.

And, last of all, there was a third enemy to be reckoned with, and this was the countless rabble of _betyars_, or freebooters, who inhabited the whole region from the marshes of Ecsed to the mora.s.ses 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 Kokenyesdi had won renown as a robber chieftain, and extraordinary, marvellous tales were told in every village and on every _puszta_[6] 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 Belabora 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 c.u.manian 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 _pandurs_[7] 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.

[Footnote 6: Common.]

[Footnote 7: Police officers.]

As a matter of fact, Mr. Kokenyesdi 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 Hodmezo-Vasarhely, 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 G.o.dly 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 Kokenyesdi was plundering the county of Marmaros 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 Vasarhely 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 Kokenyesdi 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 mora.s.ses 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 _bunda_[8]--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.

[Footnote 8: Sheepskin mantle.]

Now, at this time there was among the garrison of Szathmar a captain named Ladislaus Rakoczy. The Rakoczy 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 Rakoczy 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 Rakoczy, who was a very handsome, well-shaped, and good-hearted youth, fell in love with Christina, the daughter of Adam Rhedey, who dwelt at Rekas; and as the girl's father agreed to the match, he frequently went over from Szathmar to see his _fiancee_, 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 Rekas 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 Rekas by surprise, burnt Adam Rhedey's house down, delivered it over to pillage, beat Rhedey 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 Rakoczy, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce reserved for the purpose, where the Bashkir hors.e.m.e.n stood on guard over the herds with their long spears, and had to keep their eyes pretty open if they didn't want Kokenyesdi to honour them with a visit, who was capable of stealing not only the horses but the hors.e.m.e.n who guarded them.

Take but one case out of many. One day Kokenyesdi, in his _bunda_, turned inside out as usual, with a round spiral hat on his head and a large k.n.o.bby 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 a.s.sure 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,"

Kokenyesdi a.s.sured 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 Kokenyesdi through the darkness. At last he grew weary of the whole business.

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

Kokenyesdi 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."