The Slaves of the Padishah Part 9

"Well, a pretty mess we are in now," said Raining to himself as he wrathfully trotted back to Debreczen, and as he rushed into Rakoczy's room exclaiming, "Well, Kokenyesdi has toasted us finely!" there stood Kokenyesdi 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 Imam 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 _csikosok_[10] can do, for he bobbed perpetually from the right to the left, and dodged backwards and forwards in the most aggravating manner.

[Footnote 10: Horse-dealers.]

"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 _csikos_ was no longer there, and the next moment he stood at the very end of his musket. "May all the seven-and-seventy h.e.l.ls 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 _csikos_ Kokenyesdi, 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 _csikos_, 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 _csikos_, at the same time, threw up a long piece of cord, and the sense of the joke did not burst upon him until the _csikos_ drew in the noose, and he felt it circling round his body.

Kokenyesdi 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 la.s.soed 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 Kokenyesdi, 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 _csakanys_[11] in their hands, so that the pursuing Turks were fairly caught.

[Footnote 11: Long-handled hammers.]

They turned tail, however, in double-quick time, having no great love of the _csakanys_, and never stopped till they reached the gate of the fortress, within the walls of which they yelled to their heart's content, that Kokenyesdi'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 Koros, 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 a.s.sistance 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 Kokenyesdi's freebooters; when suddenly, the battle-cry resounded from every quarter and from the other side of the Koros, whence n.o.body expected it, the _banderium_[12] of the gentry of Barodsag rushed forth, and swam right across the river; while from the direction of Varad-Olaszi, amidst the rolling of drums, Ladislaus Rakoczy came marching along with the infantry of Szathmar.

[Footnote 12: Mounted troops.]

"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.

Rakoczy got into the town before the Spahis who were fighting with Kokenyesdi, 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 ma.s.s, 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 Kokenyesdi 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 Rakoczy's infantry had broken through the ramparts in one place, and that a st.u.r.dy 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 h.e.l.l 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 Kokenyesdi'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 Banfi-Hunyad."[13]

[Footnote 13: See "'Midst the Wild Carpathians," Book II., Chapter IV.]

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, Rakoczy'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 a.s.sault.

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. n.o.body 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 Rakoczy, 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 ma.s.s 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.

Rakoczy 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 Rakoczy, and threatened either to oust him from his saddle or tear the standard from his hand.