"Wer kommt dort von der Höh?Wer kommt dort von der Höh?Wer kommt dort von der Höh?Sa sa, ledernen Höh—Wer kommt dort von der Höh?"
"Wer kommt dort von der Höh?Wer kommt dort von der Höh?Wer kommt dort von der Höh?Sa sa, ledernen Höh—Wer kommt dort von der Höh?"
His comrades joined in, and then with a loud hurrah they gave the oncoming horsemen a volley from their rifles at twenty paces distance. Aha! how they broke and turned tail and scampered back, leaving their dead and wounded behind!
Then the gallant band reloaded, shouldered their pieces, and marched back to join their comrades. But presently the sound of approaching cavalry was again heard on the road behind them. The horsemen divided to right and left, hoping to surround their foe. The latter, however, closed in about their leader, and then faced outward, presenting a bristling wall of bayonets on every side, like a monstrous hedgehog; and again their merry student song rang out defiantly. Once more the attacking cavalry wasforced to fall back before the lively volleys of this determined band, which seemed ignorant of the meaning of fear, and proof against all modes of assault. Its method was to let the enemy advance until a rifle-volley was sure to do the most execution. The student song had many stanzas, one for each attack from the pursuing cavalry; it was sung to the end, and the enemy repulsed at each onset. The slightly wounded bound up their wounds, while those who had fared the worst were laid across their comrades' rifle-barrels and so carried along, marking their path with their life-blood, and ever shouting hurrahs for the cause of liberty.
At last the cartridges ran low.
"Look here, patron," said Mausmann to Ödön, "we have but one round of ammunition left, and when that is gone we are lost. But there's a bridge yonder which we can easily hold, and the cavalry can't get through the bog to surround us. And now, boys, swear that you'll save this last shot, and from now on receive the enemy with your bayonets."
Thereupon the still undaunted students knelt on the highway, and, with upraised right hands, sang an oath from some opera chorus—perhaps it was from "Beatrice"—resolved to play their parts well till the ringing down of the curtain. Then they took possession of the bridge, and were preparing to receive the enemy's cavalry on the points of theirbayonets, when all at once the horsemen slackened their pace and seemed stricken with a sudden panic. Out from the thicket that bordered the road broke a squadron of hussars, and by a flank attack scattered the cuirassiers in all directions.
The fight was over for that day. The enemy sounded the retreat, and the Hungarians were left to go their way unmolested. The hussars turned back to the bridge, led by their captain, a tall and muscular young man with flashing eyes and a smile that played constantly about his mouth. Two of the young men on the bridge recognised that face and form. Those two were Ödön and Mausmann.
"Hurrah! Baradlay! Richard Baradlay!" cried the student, throwing his cap high in the air, and rushing to meet his old acquaintance. In the warmth of his welcome he nearly pulled the other from his horse.
Then Ödön came forward, and the two brothers, who had not met for six years, fell into each other's arms, while hussars and legionaries embraced and kissed one another, each with words of praise on his tongue for the other.
"Heaven must have sent you to us!" exclaimed Ödön. "If you hadn't come when you did, you would have been by this time the head of the family."
"God forbid!" cried Richard. "But what are you doing here? The secretary of war bade me giveyou a good scolding for exposing your life when you are commissary-general and your place is with the transport wagons. You were not sent out to fight, and you have a young wife and infant children dependent on you. Have you forgotten them, unfeeling man? Just wait till I tell mother what you are up to!" As he spoke he grew suddenly serious. "Dear mother!" he exclaimed; "she must have foreseen this when she came to me and bade me hasten hither to your side."
The night after the battle Ödön and Richard passed in a neighbouring village, and both were engaged until morning in restoring such order as they could among the defeated troops.
"If we could only offer them something to eat," said Richard. "The smell of a good roast would rally the men quickly enough."
Yes, but a good roast was not to be had. The enemy had passed through that village twice, and had left very poor pickings for those that came after them. Bread was at hand, as the provision train had been saved, but meat was wanting.
"How glad we should be now to see Gregory Boksa, our ox-herd, with his fifty head of cattle!" exclaimed Ödön; and a patrol was sent out to search for the man, who, it was thought, might have found a place of safety for himself and his charge. But the search, which was continued until late in the evening, proved fruitless. At length, however, Boksa made his appearance, but without his oxen, and leadinghis horse behind him. Evidently he had dismounted to show how grievously lame he was. He groaned and sighed piteously as he came limping into camp, using his pole-axe for a crutch, and appearing utterly exhausted.
"Boksa, what has happened to you?" asked Ödön.
"Ah, sir," moaned the ox-driver, "you may well ask what has happened to me. A good deal has happened to me. I am all done up. I shall never again be the man I was. Oh, oh! my backbone is broken. That cursed cannon-ball! A big forty-pounder hit me."
Mausmann and his comrades burst into a loud laugh at this.
"But where is our herd of oxen?" was the question from every side.
"Ah, if I only knew! Just as the fight was beginning, I took my knife out of my boot-leg and opened my knapsack to get my bread and bacon, and have a quiet little lunch, when all at once the Germans began to blaze away at me, so that I dropped knife, bread, and bacon, and thought for sure my last hour had come. Whiz! a ball grazed by me, and it was a twenty-eight pounder, as sure as I'm alive. It was a chain-shot, too, a couple of twenty-eight pounders joined together."
"You ran away," said Ödön, interrupting the narrative, "we understand that. But where are the oxen?"
"How should I know, with cannon-balls singing about my ears so that I couldn't look around without losing my head?"
"Look here, brother," interposed Richard, addressing Ödön, "that isn't the way to handle this case. Let me try my hand. Now, you cowardly rascal, the long and short of it is, you ran away at the first shot, and left your herd in the enemy's hands. Here, corporal, fetch out the flogging-bench and give him fifty with the strap."
At these words Gregory Boksa changed his limping, broken-backed attitude and suddenly straightened up. Holding his head high and smiting his chest with his clenched fist, he burst out haughtily:
"That is more than I will submit to. My name is Gregory Boksa, nobleman; and, besides, I beg to remind the captain that the Hungarian diet has done away with flogging, even for the common people."
"All right," returned Richard; "when you have received your fifty strokes you may go and appeal to the diet. We are not legislating now."
The order was faithfully executed, poor Gregory bellowing lustily the while, after which he was obliged to return and thank the hussar officer for his lesson.
"Now, then," said Richard, "did the Germans shoot forty-pounders?"
"If you please, sir," replied Boksa humbly, "they didn't even fire a pistol at me."
"Disarm him," was the other's order, "and set him on his horse. Then let him go whither he will. A soldier who is not ashamed to run away deserves to feel the rod on that part of his body which he shows to the enemy."
Stripped of his sword and pistols and pole-axe, and with his whip hung around his neck, poor Boksa was mounted on his piebald nag and ignominiously driven out of camp.
Drawing out his pipe, he looked into the bowl, took off his cap and examined it, and then inspected his tobacco-pouch; after which he replaced his cap, pocketed his pipe, closed his tobacco-pouch, and rode on. Was he hatching some deep scheme of revenge?
He rode back over the very road by which he had that day taken his flight,—straight toward the enemy's camp. Suddenly he was challenged in the darkness:
"Halt! Who goes there?"
"Oh, how you frightened me," exclaimed the ox-herd. "I am a deserter."
The sentinel ordered Boksa to wait there until the patrol came to lead him away. Soon a file-leader appeared with a common soldier and received Gregory's statement that he was a runaway from the Hungarian camp and wished to speak with the commander. He had chanced upon the encampment of a cavalry regiment, whose colonel was at the momentplaying cards in his tent with some of his officers. Being told that a deserter was outside, waiting to speak with him, he ordered the man to be admitted.
The officers became interested at once in the newcomer, who appeared at the same time cowardly and haughty, angry and humble; who wore the look of a suppliant and gnashed his teeth with rage, kissed every one's hand, and swore by all the saints while he was doing it.
"Why did you desert?" asked the colonel.
"Because they had me flogged; me, whose family has been noble for seventy-seven generations. And then they took away my arms, which cannot lawfully be taken from a nobleman even for debt, and drove me out of the camp like a dog. All right! There are other people over the mountains, and Gregory Boksa can find a market for his services elsewhere."
"And in what capacity did you serve?" demanded the colonel.
"As ox-herd."
"As a non-combatant, then. Now I understand why you are so fierce."
"Oh, I can handle my man in an honest fight," answered Gregory, "but I'm a bit put out where loud shooting is going on."
The officers laughed at this naïve confession.
"Very well," said the colonel; "it so happens that we need a man now who can manage oxen. We havecaptured a herd from the enemy, and you shall have the care of it."
At these words Gregory Boksa seized the colonel's hand and kissed it. "Ah, sir," he cried, "may the saints bless you! You shall find me a faithful servant, who will go through fire and water to serve you. I'll soon show you what an artist I am in my calling."
Being introduced to the corporal in charge, Boksa offered, with the zeal of one newly entering upon a responsible position, to take up his quarters for the night among his oxen, with his good horse at his side. Surely, when one is hired to discharge certain duties he must discharge them to the best of his ability. He had a good thick cloak to wrap himself in, and, besides, he could smoke if he chose, out there in the open air,—a solace that would be denied him if he passed the night in the stable.
Accordingly the zealous ox-herd was given permission to lie down with his oxen if he wished. Gregory Boksa first ascertained the direction of the wind, that he might choose his position with the herd to leeward; and after rehearsing his grievances once more to the adjutant and the corporal and as many others as would listen to him, he wrapped himself in his mantle and bade them all good night. They laughed heartily at the poor man, even while they gave him their assurances of sympathy; but theydid not forget to keep a watchful eye on his movements through it all.
His actions, however, were not of the sort to arouse suspicion. First he drew out his pipe and opened his tobacco-pouch; then he removed his hat. Perhaps he was wont to pray before going to sleep; and very likely, too, he found it easier to go to sleep with his pipe in his mouth. After filling and lighting that trusty companion of his meditations, he lay down on his stomach—he had good and sufficient reasons for not lying on his back—and puffed away in apparent content. Then, to pass away the time, he took his knife and began to scrape off the accumulated dirt and grease from the edge of his felt hat, gathering the scrapings together in the palm of his hand. The hat was old and dilapidated; it had weathered many a storm, was full of holes, and was so stained with sweat and dust and rain that its original colour had become a matter of pure conjecture. Unquestionably it stood in sad need of the cleaning which its owner now undertook to perform.
When the ox-herd had collected a little heap of scrapings in the hollow of his hand, he raised the lid of his pipe and emptied them on the burning tobacco, whereupon such a penetrating and offensive odour arose as had never before saluted the nose of man or beast. What the connection may bebetween the nervous system of an ox and an odour of this sort, neither Oken nor Cuvier has explained; but all cattle-raisers and ox-herds know that, after inhaling these pungent fumes, an ox ceases to be an ox and becomes a wild animal. It is as if he were reduced to his original untamed condition: he falls into a rage, breaks away, tries to toss on his horns every one who opposes him, runs down and tramples upon all in his path, and, in short, becomes utterly unmanageable.
As soon as the leader of the herd scented the powerful stench which Boksa had raised, he sprang up from his bed on the ground, tossed his head, and sniffed the breeze. A fresh puff of smoke from Gregory's pipe made the now excited animal shake his head till the bell he wore around his neck rang aloud. Then he lashed his sides with his tail and gave a short, hoarse bellow like that of a wild bull. Next he began to leap and plunge and throw his head this way and that, whereupon all the rest of the herd sprang up in great excitement. In a state of evident alarm and panic, the oxen all backed away from the quarter whence came the offensive odour, their horns lowered as if in expectation of attack from some unseen enemy. The consequence of this retreat in a body was that the hedge was broken down—it could not have withstood the strain even had it been of iron—and the whole herd went dashing away over the meadow beyond in the wildest confusion.
At the sound of this outbreak, officers, orderlies, and corporals came running to the scene and called upon Gregory to know what it all meant. It needed no lengthy explanation on his part, however, to show that the herd was running away. It did no good to ply the whip or belabour the animals with the flat of one's sword: they crowded the sentinels to one side, ran over the watch-fires, and broke completely through the lines, with loud bellowing and a deafening thunder of hoofs on the hollow ground. Why they behaved so was a mystery to all. Surely Gregory Boksa had done nothing whatever to them; he could not have aroused them to such a mad stampede. He had been lying there on his stomach, quietly smoking, all the while.
"What is going on here? What does this mean?" cried the colonel, approaching the newly appointed ox-herd.
The latter removed his pipe and put it away in his pocket, as is becoming when a man is addressed by his superiors, and then, with an air of profound wisdom, proceeded to explain matters. "The oxen have seen a vision, sir," said he.
"A vision?" repeated the colonel, puzzled.
"Yes, sir; that is no uncommon occurrence. Cattle-dealers and butchers know very well whatthat means, but the ox-herd understands it best of all. You see, the ox dreams just like a human being, and when he has a vision in his sleep he goes mad and runs till he is so tired he can't run another step. Then comes the gathering of the frightened animals together again and driving them back. But you leave that to me: I understand the business. Once let me get after them on my white-faced horse with my long whip, and I'll have every one of them back again in no time."
"Make haste about it then," said the colonel; "for they might stray away out of your reach. And there is one of the sentinels yonder; he shall mount and go with you."
Painfully and with many groans Gregory Boksa climbed into his saddle; but once seated and with his feet in the stirrups, he seemed to have grown there. "Now, Colonel," he cried, "just watch and see how soon I'll be back again."
The officer failed to note the cunning and ironical tone in which these words were uttered, and which was very different from the ox-herd's earlier manner of speech.
With a loud crack of his whip and a goat-like spring of his piebald steed, Boksa was over the hedge and after the vanishing herd, the dragoon galloping after him. Gregory knew that his long-lashed whip was of more use just then than fifty swords. Threecavalrymen could not, to save their lives, catch an ox that had once gone wild. The task before the ox-herd was like a Spanish bull-fight of gigantic proportions; but as often as he cracked his whip, marvellous results were sure to follow. With incredible skill he soon had the fifty runaway cattle together. Turning his horse now in this direction, now in that, he gathered the animals, one by one, about their leader. The dragoon meanwhile followed close at his heels, shouting and swearing at the herd as he rode.
When at length the cattle were gathered into one compact body, Boksa suddenly spurred his horse into their very midst and delivered two stinging blows with his wire-tipped whip-lash on the leader's back, which of course made the animal run all the faster. At this the dragoon began to suspect that Gregory was up to mischief, and he called out to know why he did not turn the herd back toward the camp. But he appealed to deaf ears. All at once Boksa refused to understand a word of German, and the dragoon's command of Hungarian did not extend beyond a few oaths.
"Teremtette![2]Don't chase the oxen like that!" But Gregory was determined not to hear him. "Hold on,betyár,[3]or it'll be the worse for you." The ox-herd, however, only lashed his animals the more furiously. "If you can't hear me when I call,"shouted the dragoon, "perhaps you'll listen to this." And drawing one of his pistols, he discharged it at the unruly ox-driver.
[2]Teremtette, zooks!
[2]Teremtette, zooks!
[3]Betyár, stupid bumpkin.
[3]Betyár, stupid bumpkin.
Gregory looked around as the ball whistled by his head. "Just see the booby!" he shouted tauntingly; "couldn't hit the side of a barn! Now let's have the other."
The soldier fired his second pistol, with no better success.
"Now then, try your sword!" challenged Gregory Boksa, half turning in his saddle, and bidding the other defiance. And yet he himself was entirely defenceless except for his ox-whip.
The dragoon was in deadly earnest. Drawing his sword, he charged upon the ox-driver at full tilt. The latter swung his whip and aimed a cut as if at his pursuer's left cheek. The dragoon parried on the left with his sword and received a stinging blow on his right cheek. Then Gregory Boksa aimed his whip as if at the soldier's right ear, and when the dragoon parried on that side he got another sharp cut, this time on his left cheek. A cursed weapon to deal with, that aimed in one direction and hit in another! The dragoon swore in German and Hungarian together.
A third time the ox-herd made his whip-lash whistle through the air, and this time the sharp wire on the end flew straight at the nostrils of the soldier'shorse. The animal, stung on this very tender spot, reared and pirouetted, and finally, with a leap to one side, threw its rider.
Gregory Boksa, paying no further heed to the dragoon, galloped after his runaway herd, and guided it in the right direction. It was dark, and a thick mist lay over the fields. He was free to go whithersoever he chose.
The two Baradlay brothers, meanwhile, were busy restoring order in their camp, and it was toward morning when Ödön sought his couch. Richard laid his head on the table before him; he could sleep very well so. Suddenly, as the day was beginning to dawn, a trampling of many hoofs and the cracking of a whip awoke the sleepers. Richard ran to the window and beheld Gregory just dismounting from his horse, and surrounded by his herd of oxen. The sweat ran from the animals' panting sides, and their quivering nostrils breathed forth clouds of steam. They saw no more visions; they were tame, submissive, obedient subjects.
Richard and Ödön hastened out. Gregory Boksa drew himself up and gave the military salute.
"Gregory Boksa, you are a man of the right sort!" exclaimed Richard, clapping him on the shoulder. "So the herd is all here, is it?"
"The whole fifty head, sir."
"Aha! Now all respect to you. Paul, hand himthe flask and let him drink to his very good health."
"Pardon me," said Gregory, waving aside the offered flask with a serious air; "first, I have certain matters to attend to." Then, turning to Richard, "Yesterday I swore that the fifty lashes should be paid for, and now I have come to settle the score. There is the payment,—fifty for fifty. Now, Captain, have the goodness to give me a receipt, stating that the fifty strokes with the strap are 'null and void.'"
"What do you want of such a receipt, Boksa?" asked Richard.
"I want it as a proof that the fifty I received yesterday don't count; so that when any one brings them up against me I can contradict him, and show him my evidence in black and white."
"All right, Boksa, you shall have it." And Richard went back to his room, took pen, ink, and paper, and drew up a certificate, stating that the fifty lashes administered to Gregory Boksa were thereby declared to be null, void, and of no validity. The words "null, void, and of no validity" gave Gregory no little comfort, as well as the fact that the document was countersigned by Ödön Baradlay. The ox-herd stuck the certificate into the pocket of his dolman with much satisfaction, and received back his sword, pistols, and pole-axe.
"Now then, where is the flask?" said he.
Old Paul handed him the bottle, and he did not put it down till he had drained the last drop.
"And now tell me," said Richard, "how you managed to get the oxen back."
Gregory Boksa shrugged his shoulders, tightened his belt, drew down one corner of his mouth, wrinkled his nose, raised his eyebrows, and finally thus delivered himself over one shoulder: "Well, you see, I went to the German colonel and asked him kindly to let me have my cattle back again. The German is a good fellow, and, without wasting words over the matter, he gave me the animals all back, and one or two extra, with his compliments and best wishes to Captain Baradlay."
More than this was not to be got from Gregory Boksa. The loud-mouthed braggart, who was never tired of rehearsing deeds which he had not performed, took a fancy, now that he had actually carried through a genuine bit of daring, to keep as still as a mouse about it; and no one ever heard from him the smallest account of how he passed that night.
The Royal Forest lies on the left bank of the Rákos, near Isaszeg. Three highroads lead through it, and all three unite at Isaszeg, which thus forms the gateway to Pest.
The Hungarian army was bent on reaching Pest, and it was for this that it was now fighting. The enemy held the forest, and for six hours the Hungarian forces had been fighting their way through, when both sides prepared for a last desperate struggle.
The Austrians planned to strike a decisive blow against their opponents' centre. Sixteen troops of light cavalry, lancers, and dragoons, two cuirassier regiments, eight batteries of cannon, and two mortar batteries crossed the Rákos above Isaszeg and descended like an avalanche on the Hungarian centre. The Hungarians, drawn up in close order, occupied that circular space which even now shows the traces of having once been trampled by many feet. There were three thousand hussars in a body. Against them the enemy levelled their field-batteries, plantingthem in the spaces between the different divisions of their troops and on the wings, and opened a murderous fire. There was but one way to meet this fire, and that was to make a sudden cavalry charge which should throw the enemy's ranks into confusion and make it impossible to distinguish between friend and foe. Thus the artillerists would be compelled to desist. This plan was executed. Over the whole battle-field the trumpets sounded the charge. The earth trembled under the mighty shock, and the forest rang with the battle-cry, in which was presently mingled the clashing of steel, as thousands of swords met in deadly strife. A cloud of dust veiled the scene for a space, and when it cleared one might have witnessed the living enactment of the hero-epics of old,—six or seven thousand knights indiscriminately mingled, and every man seeking his foe. Horses were rearing and snorting, flashing swords rang blade against blade, red shakos, shining helmets, and four-cornered caps were densely crowded in one swaying, surging, struggling mass.
In the stress of the conflict, two leaders who towered by a head above their fellows suddenly caught sight of each other. One was Richard Baradlay, the other Otto Palvicz. It was like the meeting of two lightning flashes from two thunder-clouds. They broke through the mass of fighting warriors about them and pushed their way toward each other. The horsemenopened a lane through their ranks for the two champions, as if recognising that here was the heaven-ordained decision. The swords of these two mighty warriors should decide the issue; let them fight it out.
They fell on each other, neither of them taking thought to parry his opponent's blow, but each striking at one and the same instant with all the strength of his arm and the fury of his passion. Rising in their stirrups and swinging aloft their swords, they aimed each at the other's head. Like two flashes of lightning, both blades descended at once, and both warriors fell in the same moment from their horses. Truly, it was a well-aimed stroke that felled Richard Baradlay, and had he not borne the charmed life of the heroes of the Iliad and the Niebelungenlied, that day had been his last on earth. Otto Palvicz's sword had cleft his opponent's shako, cutting through the metal crown; but, as often happens in such strokes, the blade was so turned in its course that the flat of the sword and not the edge spent its force on the hussar captain's head. Yet the fearful blow was even thus enough to stun Richard, and throw him unconscious to the ground.
His own stroke, however, descending like a thunderbolt from heaven, was more effective. Cleaving the helmet of the cuirassier major, it left a gaping wound on his skull.
No sooner had the two champions fallen than there followed a furious conflict over their bodies, each side striving to rescue its fallen hero. Old Paul, who had spurred his horse after his master, sprang from his saddle and threw himself on Richard's body. The hoofs of trampling steeds soon stamped the life out of the faithful servant, but he had succeeded in saving the one being in this world whom he loved. With unselfish affection, he had shielded his dear master and cheerfully laid down his life for him.
At that moment the sound as of an approaching army fell on the ear. What did it mean? The woods were ringing with the battle-cry, "Éljen a haza!"[4]The Hungarian reserve corps had arrived and was pushing to the front. Its batteries opened fire on the enemy, and the militia battalions drove the foe out of the woods. The battle was at last decided. The Austrian trumpeters sounded the retreat, and the battle-field was left deserted, except for the dead and the wounded. When the Hungarians sent out to gather them up, Otto Palvicz was found to be still alive.
[4]Long live our country!
[4]Long live our country!
It was dark when Richard recovered consciousness. At first the gloom seemed to him like something dense and heavy pressing against his head, and when he raised his hand he was surprised to find its movement unimpeded by this thick, black substance.
"Oho!" he cried, discovering at length that his tongue was movable.
At his call a door opened and Mausmann's face looked in, lighted by a lantern which he held in his hand.
"Well, are you awake at last?" asked the student, still wearing his droll expression.
"Am I really alive?" asked the other.
"Hardly a scratch on you," was the cheerful reply. "You were only a transient guest in the other world."
"But where am I now?"
"In the mill by the Rákos."
"Did we win the fight?" The questioner suddenly recalled the events of the day just passed.
"Did we win, you ask. Isaszeg is ours, and the victory is complete."
At this Richard sprang to his feet.
"That's right!" cried Mausmann; "there's nothing the matter with you,—a lump on your head, and a three-inchsolutio continuitatisof the skin, that's all."
"And what of Otto Palvicz?"
"Ah, you handled him rather roughly. He is here too in the miller's house, and the staff physician has charge of his case. His wound is thought to be mortal, and he himself is prepared for the worst. His first words to me, when I went to him, were, 'How is Baradlay?' And when I told him you were out of danger, he asked me to take you to him, as he had something important to say to you."
"If he wishes to see me, so much the better," rejoined Richard. "I should have felt bound in any case to visit my wounded opponent. Let us go to him now."
Otto Palvicz lay in a small room in the miller's dwelling. Seeing Richard Baradlay enter, he tried to sit up, and requested that something be put under his head to raise it. Then he extended his hand to his visitor.
"Good evening, comrade," said he. "How goes it? You see I'm done for this time. But don't take it to heart. It wasn't your sword that did the mischief. I have a tough skull of my own, and it has stood many a good whack. The good-for-nothing horses used me up with their hoofs. There must be something wrong inside me, and I shall die of it. You are not to blame; don't be at all concerned. We gave each other one apiece, and we are quits. I have settled my accounts for this life, but one debt remains." He grasped Richard's hand with feverish energy and added, "Comrade, I have a child that to-morrow will be fatherless." A flush overspread the dying man's face. "I will tell you the whole story. My time is short. I must die, and I can leave my secret only to a noble-hearted man who will know how to honour and guard it. I was your enemy, but now I am good friends with everybody. You have got the better of me, and are left to receive your old enemy's bequest; it is your duty to accept it."
"I accept it," said Richard.
"I knew you would, and so I sent for you. I have a son whom I have never seen, and never shall see. His mother is a high-born lady; you will find her name in the papers that are in my pocketbook. She was beautiful, but heartless. I was a young lieutenant when we first met. We were both thoughtless and self-willed. My father was alive then, and he would not consent to our marriage, although it would have atoned for the indiscretion of an unguarded hour. Well, it can't be helped now. Yet she needn'thave torn a piece of her heart out, and thrown it into the gutter. She, my wife before God and by the laws of nature, went on a journey with her mother and came back again as a maiden. I learned only that the hapless being sent into a world where there are already too many of its kind, was a boy. What became of him, I did not find out at the time. Later I won for myself a good station in my military career, my father died, and I was independent; and, by heaven, I would have married the woman if she could only have told me where my child was. She besieged me with letters, she begged for an interview, she used every entreaty; but to each of her letters I only replied: 'First find my child.' I was cruel to her. She could have married more than once; suitors were about her in plenty. 'I forbid you to marry,' I wrote to her. 'Then marry me yourself,' she answered. 'First find my child,' I repeated. I tortured her, but she had no heart to feel the infliction very keenly. She said she didn't know what had become of the child. She had not tried to find it; nay, she had taken the utmost pains to destroy all traces that could lead to its discovery, either by herself or by another. But, nevertheless, I found the clue. I spent years in the search. I came upon one little baby footstep after another,—here a nurse, there a scrap of writing, in another place a child's hood, and finally the end of the search seemed at hand. But right there I am stopped; I must die."
The rough man's breast heaved with a deep sigh. The rude exterior covered a tender heart. Richard listened attentively to every word.
"Comrade," said the dying soldier, "give me your hand, and promise that you will do the errand I can no longer execute."
Richard gave his hand.
"In my pocketbook you will find papers telling where the persons are who will help you to find the boy. He was, at last accounts, in the care of a peddler woman in Pest. I learned this from a Vienna huckster. But I failed to find the woman in Pest, as she had removed to Debreczen. I could not follow her, but I learned that she had sent the child to a peasant woman in the country. Where? She alone can tell. Yet I learned this much from a girl that lived with her,—that the peasant woman into whose care the boy was given, and who made a business of taking such waifs, was often at the peddler woman's house, and complained that she didn't receive enough money to pay for the child's board. The woman lives poorly, I was told, and the boy goes hungry, and in rags."
The speaker paused a moment, and his eyes filled with tears.
"But it is a pretty child," he resumed. "The peasant woman brought the little fellow to town with her now and then, to prove that he was alive; he canalways be identified by a mole in the shape of a blackberry on his breast. The peddler, out of pity and fondness for the child, used to pay the woman a little money—so I was told—and in that way the poor boy was kept alive. The mother has long ago forgotten him. Comrade, I shall hear the child's cries even after I am under the sod."
"Don't worry about him," said Richard, "he shall not cry."
"You'll find him, won't you? And there is money in my pocketbook to support him until he grows up."
"I will hunt up the boy and take him under my care," promised the other.
"Among my papers," continued the other, "you will find a formal authorisation, entitling the child to bear my name. Yet he is never to know who I was. Tell him his father was a poor soldier, and have him learn an honest trade, Richard."
"You may rely on me, comrade Otto; I promise you to take care of the boy as if he were my own brother's child."
A smile of satisfaction and relief lighted up the dying man's face.
"And comrade," he added, "this secret that I am confiding to you is a woman's secret. Promise me, on your honour, that you will never betray that woman. Not even to my son are you to tell themother's name. She is not a good woman, but let her shame be buried in my grave."
Richard gave his promise in a voice that testified how deeply he was moved. The pale face before him grew yet paler, and ere many minutes had passed the eyes that looked into his became glazed and fixed; the wounded soldier had ceased to breathe.
The poplar trees on Körös Island are clothing themselves with green, while yellow and blue flowers dot the turf. The whole island is a veritable little paradise. It forms the summer residence of a family of wealth and taste. On the broad veranda, which is shaded from the morning sun by a damask awning, stands a cradle hung with dainty white curtains; and in the cradle sleeps a little baby. In a willow chair at the foot of the cradle sits the mother, in a white, lace-trimmed wrapper, her hair falling in natural curls over her shoulders and bosom. A young man sits before an easel opposite the lady, and paints her miniature, while at the other end of the veranda a three-year-old boy is engaged in coaxing a big Newfoundland dog to serve as pony to his little master.
This young mother and these children are Ödön Baradlay's wife and children, and the young man is his brother Jenő. Without Jenő to bear her company, the young wife might lose her reason, thinking of her absent husband, imagining his perils, and waitingweeks for any news from him. Jenő knows how to dispel her fears: for every anxiety he has an antidote, and when all else fails he rides to the next town and brings back cheering tidings—in which, alas, there may be but few words of truth.
The young artist is not satisfied with his picture. He has a decided artistic bent and talks of going to Rome to study; but this likeness that he is now trying to paint baffles him. It seems to lack something; although the features are correctly drawn, the whole has a strange and unnatural look.
"Béla, come here, little nephew."
The boy left the Newfoundland dog and ran to his uncle.
"Look here, look at this picture and tell me who it is."
The little fellow stared a moment at the painting with his great blue eyes. "A pretty lady," he answered.
"Don't you know your mamma, Béla?" asked the artist.
"My mamma doesn't look like that," declared the boy, and ran back to his four-footed playmate.
"The likeness is good," said Aranka encouragingly; "I am sure it is."
"But I am sure it is not," protested Jenő, "and the fault is yours. When you sit to me you are all the time worrying about Ödön, and that producesexactly the expression I wish to avoid. We want to surprise him with the picture, and he mustn't see you looking so anxious and sad."
"But how can I help it?"
Alas, what tireless efforts the young man had put forth to cheer up his sister-in-law! How carefully he had hidden his own anxious forebodings and predicted an early triumph for the cause of freedom, when his own heavy heart told him it could not be.
A faint cry from the wee mite of humanity in the cradle diverted the mother's attention, and as she bent over her baby and its cry turned to a laugh, the young artist caught at last on her face the expression he had been waiting for,—the tender, happy look of a fond mother.
In the castle at Nemesdomb the moon was shining brightly through the windows. It fell on the family portraits, one after another, and they seemed to step from their frames like pale ghosts. Brightest and clearest among them all was the likeness of the man with the heart of stone.
Back and forth glided a woman's form clad in white. One might have thought a marble statue from the family vault had left its pedestal to join the weird assembly in the portrait gallery. The stillness of the night was broken from time to time by a sigh or a groan or a stifled cry of pain. What ghostlyvoices were those that disturbed the quiet of that moonlit scene?
The whole Baradlay castle had been turned into a hospital by its mistress and opened to the warriors wounded in the struggle for freedom; and it was these poor soldiers whose cries of pain now broke the stillness of the night. Two physicians were in attendance; the library was turned into a pharmacy and the great hall into a surgeon's operating-room, while the baroness and her women spent their days picking lint and preparing compresses.
Standing in the moonlight before her dead husband's portrait, the widow spoke with him. "No," said she firmly, "you shall not frighten me away. I will meet you face to face. You say to me: 'All this is your work!' I do not deny it. These groans and sighs allow neither you nor me to sleep. But you know well enough that bloodshed and suffering were inevitable; that this cup of bitterness was, sooner or later, to be drained to the bottom; that whoever would enjoy eternal life must first suffer death. You ask me what I have done with your sons. The exact contrary to what you bade me do. Two of them are fighting for their country; one of the two is wounded, and I may hear of his death any day. But I repent not of what I have done. I await what destiny has in store for us, and if I am to lose all my sons, so be it! It is better to suffer defeat in a righteous cause than to triumph in an unrighteous one."
She left the portrait and sought her own apartment, and the moonlight crept on and left the haughty face on the wall in darkness.
In the Plankenhorst house another of those confidential interviews was being held in which Sister Remigia and her pupil were wont to take part.
Prince Windischgrätz's latest despatches had brought news of a decisive engagement in the Royal Forest near Isaszeg. At seven o'clock in the evening the ban[5]had been on the point of dealing the Hungarians a final crushing blow, and the commander-in-chief had been assured he might go to sleep with no anxiety as to the issue. It was not until seven in the morning that he was awakened by the ban himself with the announcement that he had abandoned the field to the enemy. Despatches to that effect were immediately sent to Vienna.