“But if it comes to a melee, and he is in danger?” continued Lady Beldi, with increasing apprehension.
“Then he will fight as a brave soldier should,” returned Kucsuk, stroking his moustache, which immediately twisted upwards of its own accord.
“Ah, no; he is far too tender to sustain a conflict with grown men!” cried Dame Beldi compassionately.
“Feriz,” cried Kucsuk to his son, “just take down that sabre from the wall, and show our friends that thou canst wield it like a man.”
The boy sprang up, and, proudly confident in his own strength, chose from the weapons that hung on the wall not a sabre but a huge club—seized it by the extreme end of the handle, and swung it with outstretched arms in every direction with an ease and a dexterity which would have done honour to any man. His feat was rewarded by enthusiastic applause.
“Deuce take it!” cried the astonished Beldi; “that is what I call a good graft, a Magyar scion on a Turkish stock. You did not carry off his mother for nothing. Come, Kucsuk—give me that lad!”
“Be it so! But give me thy daughter.”
“Which? Make your choice.”
“She who sits next to him. When she has grown up they will make a good pair, and then we shall both have a son and a daughter.”
Beldi laughed heartily, and both the women exchanged a smile. Kucsuk looked with an air of satisfaction at his son, who took his aigrette from his turban, tore off the diamond buckle which had pleased Aranka so much, and handed it to the little girl with lavish gallantry. The child timidly stretched out her tiny hand towards the costly gift, the material as well as the moral worth of which she was far from suspecting, but which nothing in the world would now have made her relinquish.
The parents suddenly became silent. Their faces still wore a smile, but there was a melancholy earnestness in their eyes.
VI
The Battle of Nagy Szöllös
Meanwhile Michael Apafi, comforted by Ali Pasha’s assurance that help was nigh at hand, had thrown himself into Segesvar, and there awaited the turn of Fortune’s wheel. John Kemeny came out against him with a vast host. He had with him an imposing array of German and Hungarian troops, but what his army really wanted was an enterprising general.
Michael Apafi had very little to oppose to such a host—a few hundred stubborn, undisciplinable Szekler spearmen, a handful of Saxon burghers, and a bodyguard of blue Janissaries, altogether only about a tenth part of Kemeny’s army.
Acting therefore on the advice of his brother Stephen, the Prince resolved to remain strictly on the defensive at Segesvar till auxiliaries should reach him from his Turkish protector. This resolution pleased the Saxon burghers immensely, for they were well able to defend themselves behind the walls of their own city, but never felt quite at ease in the open field. Upon the Szeklers, however, Apafi’s resolution produced just the contrary effect.
It was Nalaczi’s mission to keep the Szeklers in a martial humour, and one evening he took them all into the tavern, and filled them with such ardour that at break of day they marched clamorously beneath the windows of the Prince, and swore by hook and by crook that they must have one of the city gates opened for them at once, so that they might fall upon Kemeny there and then and fight him to the death.
The Prince and his counsellors went down among them in great alarm, and tried in every way to make it clear to them that Kemeny’s suite alone was more numerous than all the Szeklers put together; that at least one-half of his army was armed with muskets, whereas with them scarcely anyone except the Saxon burghers knew even how to use firearms; and that if they rushed out at one door, the enemy would rush in at the other, and then there would be neither outside nor inside—and much more to the same effect.
But whoever fancies he can drive out of a Szekler’s head what he has once got into it is mightily mistaken.
“Either you must let us march against the foe or home we go!” cried they. “We don’t mean to lie here for the next ten years like the Trojans, for there’s work to be done at home. Apportion, therefore, so many of the enemy to each one of us; let every man go out and slay his lot, and then in God’s name dismiss us. We won’t submit to be blockaded and rationed on dog and rat-flesh.”
“My good fellows, if you don’t like stopping here, go home by all means,” was Apafi’s ultimatum; “but to fight a battle in my circumstances were mere madness.”
The Szeklers did not waste another word; but they seized their wallets, shouldered their lances, and marched out of Segesvar as if they never had had anything to do with it.
From that moment the Szeklers became Apafi’s enemies to his dying day.
Next day Kemeny’s host stood beneath the walls of the town where Apafi now barely had armed men sufficient to guard the gates.
The siege operations were entrusted to Wenzinger as having had most experience in warfare. This great general, true to the principles of the school in which he had been brought up, first of all carefully surveyed every inch of his ground; then he cautiously occupied every position which by any possibility might become important, and took care also that the besieging host should be covered at all points—in short, he so spun out his preparations by his systematic way of going to work, that by the time he had really begun to think about the siege, tidings reached him that the Turkish auxiliaries were advancing by forced marches. Thereupon (still faithful to his system) he re-concentrated his scattered forces, and prepared to march against the Turks, the
