As a matter of fact, Mr. Kökényesdi 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 Hodmezö-Vásárhely, 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 godly 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 Kökényesdi was plundering the county of Mármaros 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 Vásárhely 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 Kökényesdi 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 morasses 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 bunda8—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.

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

Take but one case out of many. One day Kökényesdi, in his bunda, turned inside out as usual, with a round spiral hat on his head and a large knobby 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 assure 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," Kökényesdi assured 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 Kökényesdi through the darkness. At last he grew weary of the whole business.

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

Kökényesdi 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."

The bunda never budged.

The Kurd flew into a rage, dismounted from the horse, seized his spear, and climbing down into the ditch, viciously plunged his spear into the sleeping form before him.

But how great was his consternation when he discovered that what he had looked upon as a man in the darkness was nothing but a propped up stick, on which a bunda and a hat were hanging! While he had been staring at Kökényesdi, the latter had crept from out of the bunda beneath his very eyes and hidden himself in the ditch.

The Kurd had not yet recovered from his astonishment when he heard the crack of a whip behind his back, and there was Kökényesdi sitting already on the back of Haly Pasha's charger, Shebdiz, and the next moment he had leaped the ditch above the Kurd's head, shouting back at him:

"The trench is not broad enough for this horse, my son!"

Master Szénasi was one of those who had been sent to find Kökényesdi, and he now arrived at Demerser, the famous robber's most usual resting-place in those days, and pushing his way forward told him that the gentlemen of Szathmár had sent him to ask him, Kökényesdi, to assist them in their expedition against the Turks.

Kökényesdi, who was carrying a sheaf on his back, looked sharply at the magister, who dared not meet his gaze, and when he had finished his little speech he roared at him:

"You lie! You're a spy! I don't like the look of your mug! I'm going to hang you up!"

Szénasi, who was unacquainted with the robber chief's peculiarities, was near collapsing with terror, whereupon Kökényesdi observed with a smile:

"Come, come, don't tremble so, I won't eat you up at any rate, but tell the gentleman that sent you here that another time he mustn't send a spy to me, for to tell you the truth I don't believe in such faces as yours. You may tell the gentleman, moreover, that if he wants to speak to me he must come himself. I don't care about making a move on the strength of idle chatter. I am easily to be found. Go to Püspök Ladánya, walk into the last house on the right-hand side and ask the master where the Barátfa hostelry is, he'll show you the way; and now in God's name scuttle! and don't look back till you've got home."

The magister did as he was bid, and on getting home delivered the message to his masters, whereupon they immediately set out; Raining going on the part of the military, János Topay on the part of the Hungarians, together with Ladislaus Rákóczy himself and the captain of the gentry of Báródság.

The gentlemen safely reached Püspök Ladánya, where they had to wait at the magistrate's house till night-fall, although Raining would have much preferred to meet Kökényesdi by daylight, and Rákóczy was burning to carry through his enterprise as soon as possible.

While they waited Raining could not help asking the magistrate whether it was far from there to the Barátfa inn?

The magistrate shook his head and maintained there was no such inn in the whole district, nor was there.

Raining fancied that the magistrate must be a stranger there, so he asked two or three old men the same question, but they all gave him the same answer: there might be a barátfa puszta9 here but there could be no inn on it, or if there was an inn, the puszta itself did not exist.

"Well, if they don't know anything about it at the last house we had better turn back," said Raining to himself; and, when it had grown quite dark, he approached the house and began to talk with the master who was dawdling about the door.

"God bless thee, countryman! where's the barátfa inn?"

The man first of all measured the questioner from head to foot, and then he merely remarked: "God requite thee! over yonder!" and he vaguely indicated the direction with his head.

"We want to go there; can't you show us the way?" asked Topay.

The man seized the questioner's hand and pointed with it to a herdsman's fire in the distance.

"Look; do you see the shine of its windows there?"

"Which is the way to it?"

"That way 'tis nearer, t'other way it's quicker."

"What do you mean?"

"If you go that way you'll go astray the quicker, and if you go t'other way you may plump into a bog."

"You lead us thither," intervened Rákóczy, at the same time pressing a ducat into the man's fist.

He looked at it, turned it round in his palm and gave it back to Rákóczy with the request that he would give him copper money in exchange for it. He could not imagine anyone giving him gold which was not false.

When this had been done he neatly led the gentlemen through the morass—wading in front of them, girded up to his waist—through those hidden places where the water-fowl were sitting on their nests, and when at last they emerged from among the thick reedy plantations they saw a hundred paces in front of them a fire of heaped up bulrushes brightly burning, by the light of which they saw a horseman standing behind it.

Here their guide stopped and the three men trotted in single file towards the fire, which suddenly died out at the very moment they were approaching it, as if someone had cast wet rushes upon it.

Topay greeted the horseman, who lifted his hat in silence and allowed them to draw nearer.

"There are three of you gentlemen together," he observed guardedly; "but that doesn't matter," he continued. "It would be all the same to me if there were ten times as many of you, for there's a pistol in every one of my holsters, from which I can fire sixteen bullets in succession, and in each bullet is a magnet, so that even if I don't aim at my man I bring him down all the same."

"Very good, very good indeed, Master Kökényesdi," said Topay; "we have not come here for you to pepper us with your magnetic globules, but we have come to ask your assistance for the accomplishment of a doughty deed, the object of which is an attack upon our pagan foes."

"Oh, my good sirs, I am ready to do that without the co-operation of your honours. In the courtyard of a castle in the Baborsai puszta there is a well some hundred fathoms deep and quite full of Turkish skulls, and I will not be satisfied till I have piled up on the top of it a tower just as high made of similar materials."

"So I believe. But you would gain glory too?"

"I have glory enough already. I am known in foreign countries as well as at home. The King of France has long ago only waited for a word from me to make me chief colonel of a long-tailed regiment, and quite recently, when the King of England heard how I bored through the hulls of the munition ships on the Theiss, he did me the honour to invite me to form a regiment of divers to ravage the enemy under water. And I've all the boys for it too."

"I know, I know, Master Kökényesdi, but there will be booty here too, and lots of it."

"What is booty to me? If I choose to do so, I could bathe in gold and sleep on pearls."

"Have you really as much treasure as all that?" inquired Raining with some curiosity.

"Ah," said Kökényesdi, "you ought to see the storehouse in the Szilicza cavern, where gold and silver are filled up as high as haystacks. There, too, are the treasures dug up from the sands of the sea, nothing but precious stones, diamonds, rubies, carbuncles, and real pearls. I, myself, do not know how many sackfuls."

"And cannot you be robbed of them?"

"Impossible; the entrance is so well concealed that no man living can find it. I myself can never tell whether I am near it; the shifting sand has so well covered it. Only one living animal can find it when it is wanted, and that is my horse. And he will never betray it, for if anyone but myself mounts him, not a step farther will he go."

"And how did you come into possession of these enormous treasures?" asked Raining with astonishment.

"God gave them to me," said the horse-dealer, raising his voice and his eyebrows at the same time.

"Very edifying, no doubt, my friend," said Topay; "but tell me now, briefly, for how much will you join us against the Turks of Grosswardein?—not counting the booty, which of course will be pretty considerable."

"Well—that is not so easily said. Of course I shall have to collect together my twelve companies, and it will cost something to hold them together and give them what they want and pay them."

"At any rate you can name a good round sum for the services you are going to render us, can't you? Come! how much do you require?"

The robber chief reflected.

"Well, as it is your honours' own business I hope your honours won't say that I tax you too highly. Let us look at the job in this way: suppose I came to the attack with seventeen companies, and I charge one thousand thalers for each company. Let us say each company consists of one thousand men, that will be a thaler per head—and what is that, 'twill barely pay for their keep. Thus the whole round sum will come to seventeen thousand thalers."

"That won't do at all, Master Kökényesdi. 'Twere a shame to fatigue so many gallant fellows for nothing, but suppose you bring with you only a hundred men and the rest remain comfortably at home? In that case you shall receive from us seventeen hundred florins in hard cash."

"Pooh!" snapped the robber, "what does your honour take me for, eh? Do you suppose you are dealing with a gipsy chief or a Wallachian bandit, who are paid in pence? Why, I wouldn't saddle my horse for such a trifle, I had rather sleep the whole time away."

"But you have so much treasure besides," observed Raining naïvely.

"But we may not break into it," rejoined the robber angrily.

"Why not?"

"Because we have agreed not to make use of till it has mounted up to a million florins."

"And what will you do with it then?"

"We shall then buy a vacant kingdom from the Tartar king, where the pasturage is good, and thither we will go with our men and set up an empire of our own. We will buy enough pretty women from the Turks for us all, and be our own masters."

Topay smiled.

"Well," said he, "this seventeen hundred florins of ours will at any rate purchase one of the counties in this kingdom of yours." He was greatly amused that Raining should take the robber's yarn so seriously, and he pushed the German gentleman aside. "Mr. Kökényesdi," said he, "you have nothing to do with this worthy man; he is come with us only to see the fun, but it is we who pay the money, and I think we understand each other pretty well."

"Why didn't you tell me so sooner?" said the robber sulkily, "then I shouldn't have wasted so many words. With which of you am I to bargain?"

"With this young gentleman here," said Topay. "Ladislaus Rákóczy. I suppose you know him by report?"

"Know him? I should think I did. Haven't I carried him in my arms when he was little? If it hadn't been so dark I should have recognised him at once. Well, as it is he, I don't mind doing him a good turn. I certainly wouldn't have taken a florin less from anyone else. I'll take from him the offer of seventeen hundred thalers."

"Seventeen hundred florins, I said."

"I tell your honour, you said thalers—thalers was what I heard, and I won't undertake the job for less; may my hand and leg wither if I move a step for less."

"Oh, I'll give him his thalers," said Rákóczy, interrupting the dispute; whereupon the robber seized the youth's hand and shook it joyfully.

"Didn't I know that your honour was the finest fellow of the three?" said the robber. "If, therefore, you will send these few trumpery thalers a week hence to the house of the worthy man who guided you hither, I will be at Grosswardein a week later with my seventeen hundred fellows."

"But, suppose we pay you in advance, and you don't turn up?" said Raining anxiously.

The robber looked at the quartermaster proudly.

"Do you take me for a common swindler?" said he. Then he turned with a movement of confiding expansion to the other gentlemen.

"We understand each other better," he remarked. "Your honours may depend upon me. God be with you."

With that he turned his horse and galloped off into the darkness. The three gentlemen were conducted back to Ladány.

"Marvellous fellow, this Kökényesdi," said Raining, who had scarce recovered yet from his astonishment.

"You mustn't believe all the yarns he chooses to tell you," said Topay.

"What!" inquired Raining. "Had he then no communications with the French and English Courts?"

"No more than his grandmother."

"Then how about those treasures of which he spoke?"

"He himself has never seen them, and he only talked about them to give you a higher opinion of him."

"And his castle in the puszta, and his seventeen companies of freebooters?"

"He invented them entirely for your honour's edification. The freebooter is no fool, he lives in no castle in the puszta, but in a simple village as modest Mr. Kökényesdi, and his seventeen companies scarcely amount to more than seventeen hundred men."

"Then why did he consent so easily to take only seventeen hundred thalers?"

"Because he does not mean to give his lads a single farthing of it."

Raining shook his head, and grumbled to himself all the way home.

In a week's time they sent to Kökényesdi the stipulated money. Raining, moreover, fearing lest the fellow might forget the fixed time, did not hesitate to go personally to Vásárhely, to seek him at his own door. There stood Master Kökényesdi in his threshing-floor, picking his teeth with a straw.

"Good-day," said the quartermaster.

"If it's good, eat it," murmured Kökényesdi to himself.

"Don't you know me?"

"Blast me if I do."

"Then don't you remember what you promised at the Barátfa inn?"

"I don't know where the Barátfa inn is."

"Then haven't you received the seventeen hundred thalers?"

"What should I receive seventeen hundred thalers for?"

"Don't joke, the appointed time has come."

"What appointed time?"

"What appointed time? And you who have to be at Grosswardein with seventeen hundred men!"

"Seventeen oxen and seventeen herdsmen on their backs, I suppose you mean."

"Well, a pretty mess we are in now," said Raining to himself as he wrathfully trotted back to Debreczen, and as he rushed into Rákóczy's room exclaiming, "Well, Kökényesdi has toasted us finely!" there stood Kökényesdi 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 Imâm 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 csikósok10 can do, for he bobbed perpetually from the right to the left, and dodged backwards and forwards in the most aggravating manner.

"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 csikós was no longer there, and the next moment he stood at the very end of his musket. "May all the seven-and-seventy hells 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 csikós Kökényesdi, 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 csikós, 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 csikós, at the same time, threw up a long piece of cord, and the sense of the joke did not burst upon him until the csikós drew in the noose, and he felt it circling round his body. Kökényesdi 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 lassoed 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 Kökényesdi, 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 csákánys11 in their hands, so that the pursuing Turks were fairly caught.

They turned tail, however, in double-quick time, having no great love of the csákánys, and never stopped till they reached the gate of the fortress, within the walls of which they yelled to their heart's content, that Kökényesdi'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 Körös, 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 assistance 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 Kökényesdi's freebooters; when suddenly, the battle-cry resounded from every quarter and from the other side of the Körös, whence nobody expected it, the bandérium12 of the gentry of Báródság rushed forth, and swam right across the river; while from the direction of Várad-Olaszi, amidst the rolling of drums, Ladislaus Rákóczy came marching along with the infantry of Szathmár.

"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.

Rákóczy got into the town before the Spahis who were fighting with Kökényesdi, 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 mass, 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 Kökényesdi 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 Rákóczy's infantry had broken through the ramparts in one place, and that a sturdy 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 hell 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 Kökényesdi'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 Bánfi-Hunyad."13

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, Rákóczy'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 assault. 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. Nobody 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 Rákóczy, 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 mass 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. Rákóczy 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 Rákóczy, and threatened either to oust him from his saddle or tear the standard from his hand.

At that moment the white figure of a girl appeared on the summit of the rampart of the tower, her black locks streaming in the wind, her face aglow with enthusiasm.

"Heaven help thee, Ladislaus!" cried the girl from the battlement of the tower; and the youth, hearing from on high what sounded like a voice from heaven, recognised it, looked up and saw his bride—a superhuman strength arose in his heart and in his arm, and when the Turkish standard-bearer made his charger rear, Rákóczy suddenly let the flag-pole go, and seizing the bridle of the snorting steed with both hands, with one Herculean thrust, flung back steed, rider, and banner through the palisade into the deep moat below.

"There is no hope save with God!" cried Ali in despair, for his terrified people at the sight of this prodigy had dragged him along with them against his will.

"Ladislaus! Ladislaus! My darling!" resounded from above. The youth was fighting with the strength of ten men; three horses had already been shot under him, and a third sword was flashing in his hand. Already he was standing on the drawbridge; his sweetheart threw down a white handkerchief to him, and he was already waving it above his head in triumph, when a well-directed bullet pierced the young hero's heart, and he collapsed a corpse on the very threshold of his success, in the very gate of the captured fortress at the feet of his beloved.

At that same instant a heart-rending shriek resounded, and from the top of the tower a white shape fell down upon the bridge; the beautiful bride, from a height of thirty feet, had cast herself down on the dead body of her beloved, and died at the same instant as he, mingling their blood together; and if their arms did not, at least their souls could, embrace each other.

This spectacle so stupefied the besiegers, that Ali Pasha had just time enough swiftly to raise the drawbridge and save the fortress and a fragment of his host. Of those who remained outside, not a single soul survived. Kökényesdi massacred without mercy everything which distantly resembled a Turk, together with the camels and mules, sparing nothing but the horses, and when every house had been well plundered, he set the town on fire in twelve places, so that the flames in half an hour consumed everything, and the whole city blazed away like a gigantic bonfire, the rising wind whirling the smoke and flame over the ditch towards the fortress.

"Ali Pasha may put that in his pipe and smoke it," said Kökényesdi, rejoicing at the magnificent conflagration.

But the bodies of Ladislaus Rákóczy and his sweetheart they bore away, and buried them side by side in the family vault at Rákás.

CHAPTER VI.
THE MONK OF THE HOLY SPRING.

The larger part of the building was reserved for noble guests, the common people encamped in the courtyard beneath tents; and behind the building a splendid garden was laid out, which the worthy monks always magnificently maintained. Even to this day, in the grassy patches round about the spot, it is possible to discover the savage descendants of many rare and precious flowers.

At the period in which our history falls, the convent of the holy well was represented by a single reverend father, whom the common tongue simply called Friar Gregory, and there was scarce a soul in Transylvania who did not know him well. He was a big man, six feet in height, with a flowing black beard, swarthy, lean, with a bony frame, and with hands so big that he could cover a six-pound cannon ball with each palm. A simple habit covered his limbs, head-dress he had none, and his broad shining forehead was without a wrinkle. His droning voice was so powerful that when he sang his psalms he made more noise than a whole congregation.

At the times when the holy spring was flowing, the cellar and pantry of the good friar stood wide open to rich and poor alike, for whatever he earned in one year he never put by for the next, and whatever the wealthy paid to him the needy had the benefit of; and whenever any clerical colleague happened to come his way, whether he were Orthodox, Armenian, Calvinist, or Unitarian, he could not make too much of him; all such guests, during their stay, regularly swam in milk and butter, and remembered it to the very day of their death.

Just at this very time the Right Reverend Ladislaus Magyari's little daughter, Rosy, was suffering from a complaint which gave the lie to her healthy name, and her father thought it just as well to take her to the holy spring, perchance the healing water would restore to her wan little face the colour of youth.

Brother Gregory was beside himself with joy; the best room was prepared for his right reverend colleague, and brother cook, brother cellarer, and brother gardener were ordered to see to it that meat, drink, and heaps of flowers were provided for the honoured guests. No two people in the wide world were so suited to each other as Father Gregory and Dean Magyari; their hearts were equally good, and each of them had a head upon his shoulders. They rose up early in the morning to argue with each other on dogmatic questions—to wit, which faith was the best, truest, happiest, most blessed, and surest, and kept it up till late in the evening, by no means neglecting the frequent emptying of foaming beakers during the contest, pounding each other with citations, entangling each other with syllogisms, flooring each other with authorities, and overwhelming each other with anecdotes; and it always ended in their shaking hands and agreeing together that every faith was good if only a man were true to himself.

While her father was thus manfully battling, pretty pale Rosy would be amusing herself in the garden or by the spring with little girls of her own age, and the fresh air, the scent of the flowers, and the beneficent water of the spring gradually restored to her face its vanished bloom; and Magyari joyfully thought how delighted her mother would be if she were able to embrace her convalescent child, and, in sheer delight at the idea, spun out his disputatious evenings whilst Rosy in an adjacent cell was sleeping the sleep of the just.

The two worthy gentlemen were sitting over their cups one beautiful evening, when a loud knocking was heard at the outer gate. The rule was that at sundown the pilgrim mob was to betake itself to the courtyard of the cloister, and the gate should be closed. The friar who kept the gate came to announce that four queer-looking monks demanded admission, were they to be let in?

"There can be no question about it," said Father Gregory. "If any desire admission, bring them to us, and provide refreshment for them."

In a few moments the four friars in question entered. They were dressed in coarse black sackcloth habits, with the cowls drawn down over their heads. All that was to be seen of them was their eyes and shaggy beards. With deep obeisances, but without a word, they approached the two reverend gentlemen. The Father rose politely and greeted them respectfully in Latin: "Benedicite nomen Domini." They only kept on bowing and were silent.

"Nomen dei sit benedictum!" repeated Gregory, fancying that his guests did not hear what he said, and as they did not reply to that, he asked with great astonishment:

"Non exandistis nomen gloriosissimi Domini, fratres amantissimi?"

At this the foremost of them said: "We do not understand that language, worthy brother."

"Then what sort of monks are ye? To what confession do ye belong? Are ye Greeks?"

"We are not Greeks."

"Then are you Armenians?"

"We are not Armenians."

"Arians, then?"

"Neither are we Arians."

"Are you Patarenes?"

"No, we are not."

"Then in gloriam æterni to what order do you belong?"

"We are robbers," thereupon exclaimed the one interrogated, throwing aside the fold of his cloak, beneath which could be seen a belt crammed with daggers and pistols. "My name is Feri Kökényesdi," said he, striking his breast.

Magyari thereupon leaped from his chair, which he immediately converted into a weapon; it at once occurred to him that he had an only daughter to defend, and he was ready to fight the robbers on behalf of her. But the father pulled him by the cassock and whispered: "Pray be quiet, your Reverence," and then with an infinitely placid face he turned towards the robbers. "So that is the order to which you belong," said he. "Still, if you have come as guests, sit down and eat what you desire."

"But that is not sufficient. Outside this monastery there are 1700 of us, and all of them want to eat and drink, for it is only the ancient prophets who, when hungry, were content with the meat of the Word."

"Let them also satisfy their desires."

"However, the main thing is this: in your Reverence's chapel is a whole lot of very nice gold and silver saints, who certainly befriend those who sigh after them, and as we cannot come running to them here every day in order to entreat their aid, we had better take them along with us, that they may be helpful to us on the road."

"Thou hast a pretty mother-wit, frater! Who could refuse thee anything?"

"It is also no secret to us, Father Gregory, that your Reverence's cellar is crammed with kegs full of good money, silver and gold. May we be allowed to relieve your Reverence of a little of this burden?"

"He is quite welcome to it," thought the father, well aware that there was absolutely nothing at all.

"Do not imagine, your Reverence," continued the robber, "that we cannot extort a confession, if it should occur to your Reverence to conceal anything. It would be just as well, therefore, if your Reverence were to reveal everything before we cut up your back with sharp thongs."

The brother smiled as good-humouredly as if he were listening to some pleasing anecdote.

"Have you any other desires, my sons?"

"Yes, a good many. There is a great crowd of women collected together in your Reverence's courtyard. We have taken no vows of celibacy, therefore we should like to choose from among them what would suit us."

Magyari felt the hairs of his head rising heavenwards, a cold shiver ran through him from head to foot, and he would have risen from his place had not the monk pressed him down with a frightfully heavy hand.

"For God's sake, my dear son, do not so wickedly. Take away the saints from the altar if you like, but harm not the innocent who are now peacefully slumbering in the shadow of God's protection."

"Not another word, Brother Gregory," cried the robber, closing his fist on his dagger, "or I'll set the monastery on fire and burn every living soul in it, yourself included. A robber only recognises four sacraments: wine, money, wenches, and blood! You may congratulate yourself if we are content with the third and dispense with the last."

"So it is!" observed another of the cowled and bearded robbers, tapping Magyari on the shoulder. "Do you recognise me, eh, your Reverence?"

Magyari, with a sensation of shuddering loathing, recognised Szénasi, a canting charlatan whose frauds he had often exposed.

"We know well enough," said the fellow with an evil chuckle, "that you have a fair daughter here. I am going to pay off old scores."

If Magyari had not been well in the brother's grip, he would have gone for the wretch. Every fibre of his body was shivering with rage.

Only the brother remained calm and smiling. Joining his hands together, he made a little mill with the aid of his two thumbs.

"Wait, my dear son, cannot we come to some agreement. You know very well that my money is concealed in barrels, but so well hidden is it that none besides myself know where it is. Even if you turned this monastery upside down you would not find it. You may also have heard that once upon a time there lived a kind of men called martyrs, who let themselves be boiled in oil, or roasted on red-hot fires, or torn in pieces by wild beasts, without saying a word which might hurt their souls. Well, that is the sort of man I am. If I make up my mind to hold my tongue, you might tear me to bits inch by inch with burning tweezers, and you would get not a word nor a penny out of me. Now 'tis for you to choose. Will you carry off the money and leave the poor women-folk alone, or will you lay your hands on the down-trodden, lame, halt, consumptive beggar-women, whom you will find here, and not see a farthing? Which is it to be?"

The four robbers whispered together. No doubt they said something to this effect: only let the pater produce his money, and then it will be an easy thing for us to take back our given word and satisfy our hearts' desires. They signified that they would stand by the money.

"Look now! you are good men," said the father, "take these two torches and come with me to the cellar and go through my treasures, only you must do none any harm."

"A little less jaw, please," growled Kökényesdi. "Two go in front with the torches, and Brother Gregory between you. I'll follow after; the magister can remain behind to look after the other parson. Whoever speaks a word or makes a signal, I'll bring my axe down on his head—forward!"

And so it was. Two of the robbers went in front with torches; after them came the brother with Kökényesdi at his heels with a drawn dagger in his hand; last of all marched Magyari, whom Master Szénasi held by the collar at arm's-length, threatening him at the same time with a flashing axe.

Thus they descended to the cellar. The good father, with timid humility, hid his head in his hood and looked neither to the left nor to the right.

The cellar was provided with a large, double, iron trap-door. After drawing out its massive bolts, the worthy brother raised one of its flaps, bidding them lower the torches for his convenience.

As now the first robber descended and the second plunged after him, the father suddenly kicked out with his monstrous wooden shoe and brought the door down on his head, so that he rolled down to the bottom of the stairs; and then, quick as thought, he turned upon Kökényesdi, seized his hands, and said to Magyari:

"You seize the other!"

Kökényesdi, in the first moment of surprise, thrust at the brother, but his dagger glanced aside against the stiff hair-shirt, and there was no time for a second thrust, for the terrible brother had seized both his hands and crushed them against his breast with irresistible force with one hand, while with the other he dispossessed him of all the murderous weapons in his girdle one by one, shaking him with one hand as easily as a grown man shakes a child of nine; then he dragged him towards the cellar door, pressing it down with their double weight so that those below could not raise it.

Mr. Magyari that self-same instant had caught the magister by the nape of the neck and, mindful of the wrestling trick he had learnt in his youth when he was a student at Nagyenyed, quickly floored, and, not content with that, sat down on the top of him with his whole weight, so that the poor meagre creature was flattened out beneath him. Magyari at the same time relieved his sprawling hands of their murderous weapons in imitation of the good priest.

Kökényesdi admitted to himself that never before had he been in such a hobble. In a stand-up fight he had rarely met his equal, and more than once he had held his own against two or three stout fellows single-handed; but never had he had to do with such a man as Brother Gregory, one of whose hands was quite sufficient to pin his two arms uselessly to his side, while with the other hand he explored his remotest pockets to their ultimate depths and denuded them of every sort of cutting and stabbing instrument. When the robber realized that even his gigantic strength was powerless to drag his antagonist away from the cellar door beneath which his two comrades were vainly thundering, he endeavoured to free himself by resorting to the desperate devices of the wild-beasts, lunging out with his feet and worrying the iron hand of the monk with his teeth; whereupon Brother Gregory also lost his temper and, seizing Kökényesdi by the hair of his head, held him aloft like a young hare, so that he was unable to scratch or bite any more.

"Do not plunge about so, dilectissime; you see it is of no use," said the brother, holding the robber so far away from him by his hairy poll with outstretched hand that at last he was obliged to capitulate.

"Thou seest what unmercifulness thou dost compel us to adopt, amantissime!" said the brother apologetically, but still holding him aloft with one hand and shaking a reproving finger at him with the other. "Dost thou not shudder at thyself, does not thine own soul accuse thee for coming to plunder holy places? Or dost thou not think of the Kingdom of Hell to the very threshold of which evil resolves have misguided thy feet, and where there will be weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth?"

"Let me go, you devil of a friar!" gasped the robber, hoarse with rage.

"Not until thou hast come to thyself and art sorry for thy sins," said the brother, still holding in the air his dilectissime, whose eyes by this time were starting out of his head because of the tugging pressure on his hair; "thou must be sorry for thy sins."

"I am sorry then, only let me go!"

"And wilt thou turn back to the right path?"

"Yes, yes, of course I will."

"And thou wilt steal no more?"

"Not a cockchafer."

"Nor curse and swear?"

"Never no more."

"Very well, then, I'll let thee go. But, colleague Magyari, first of all tie all these daggers and axes together and fling them out of the window."

Mr. Magyari, who had meanwhile disposed of the magister by tying his hands and legs so tightly that he was unable to move a muscle, effected the clearance confided to him, while Brother Gregory deposited on the ground his convert, who leaned against the wall breathing heavily.

"Well, you monk of hell, give me something to eat if there's anything like a kitchen here."

"Oh, my dear son," said the pater tenderly, stroking the face of his lambkin; "believe me, that there is more joy in heaven over one converted sinner——"

"You're a devil, not a friar; for if you were a man of God you could not have got over Kökényesdi so easily—Kökényesdi, who was wont to overthrow whole armadas single-handed—and now to be beaten by an unarmed man!"

"Thou didst come against me with an axe and a fokos,14 but I came against thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts, and He who permitted David the shepherd to pluck the raging lion by the beard and slay him, hath aided my arm also in order that I might be a blessing to thee."