“Now dawns serene the morning sheen,
The wonted hour hath come;
Sounds bold and free the merry march,
Nor bush nor brake is dumb!
Then up! to horse! and scale the height,
Bold Magyar! Szekler steeled in fight!
And sturdy Saxon hind!
A laggard he who doth not hie
When straight before the road doth lie;
And where there is no road to go, then climb, nor look behind!”
This song, sung by thousands and thousands of warriors, gradually died away in the distance.
George Veer, on reaching Klausenburg, no longer found Banfi there. The Lord-Lieutenant with two hundred horsemen had departed an hour before.
Veer, after allowing his men a brief halt, followed Banfi all night long without being able to overtake him; the Baron had always the start of him, though sometimes only a few minutes.
It was already late in the night when Banfi with his two hundred horsemen reached the point where the Körös intersects the woody dale; just where a bridge crosses the stream the Turk had pitched his camp. Watchful Bedouins lay stretched on their bellies there, with their long muskets in their hands. It was impossible to surprise them.
In the direction of Banfi-Hunyad a red glow illuminated the sky, alternately waxing and waning.
Leaving his horsemen in ambush on the opposite shore, Banfi with four companions descended to the stream to seek for a ford. The Körös is there so rapid that it can unhorse the firmest rider. Fortunately it had fallen so much in consequence of the summer drought, that Banfi soon found a place where the water flowed more calmly, and waded successfully through it with his escort. One of them he sent back to fetch the rest, but he himself with the other three remained on the opposite bank looking steadily in the direction of the fire.
Meanwhile a patrol of Bedouin horsemen, who were keeping watch on the bank, perceived the three riders and their leader, and challenged them.
Banfi would have fallen back, but three of the Bedouins charged upon him forthwith, while the three others with couched lances fell upon his comrades.
“Bend your heads down over the necks of your horses, and seize their lances with your left hands!” cried Banfi to his companions; and with that they all four drew their swords, went at full tilt against the foe, and collided beneath the dark shadows without another word.
Banfi was in the centre. The lances of the three Bedouins whizzed through the air simultaneously, and Banfi’s comrades fell on both sides of him, transfixed, from their horses, while he with his left hand skilfully disarmed one of the spearmen, at the same time dealing him a blow with his right hand which cleft his skull. He then turned single-handed upon his two nearest assailants, and cut down one with his lance and the other with his sword.
But now the three remaining horsemen fell furiously upon him.
“Come on then!” shouted Banfi, gnashing his teeth; and with that terrible humour peculiar to certain warriors in the hour of danger, he added—“I’ll teach you how to wield the spear, my boys!” and setting his back against a clump of trees, he stuck his sword into its sheath, seized his spear with both hands, and not three minutes had elapsed before all three Bedouins had fallen from their horses to the ground.
Then he looked around to see if any more were coming, and was delighted to observe that the Turks at the bridge had heard nothing of the tussle, while his two hundred horsemen had come down to the riverside and were noiselessly crossing to the opposite bank.
Some of the fallen Bedouins were still moaning and groaning.
“Smash their skulls in, that they may not betray us with their cries!”
“Ought we not to await Veer’s troops?” asked one of the captains.
“We cannot. We haven’t time!” replied Banfi, with his eyes fixed upon the ruddy horizon, and the little band proceeded covertly through field and forest.
Soon a distant hubbub struck upon their ears, and when they had climbed to the top of a little hill, Banfi-Hunyad emerged before their eyes.
Banfi gave a sigh of relief. It was not the town that was burning, but the haystacks. The roofs of the houses had been taken off beforehand by the inhabitants themselves to prevent the enemy from setting them on fire. Even the church and castle were roofless, and the Turkish host could be seen swarming round them by the light of the conflagration, whilst from the battlements a fiery rain of sulphur and pitch, occasionally intermingled with heavy beams, poured down upon the besiegers, and drove them back from the walls.
Ali Pasha had not waited for his artillery—it had stuck fast in the wretched roads—imagining that he could easily storm a place defended only by women and peasants. But it is notorious that despair makes everyone a soldier, and that even scythes and axes are good weapons in resolute hands.
At this spectacle Banfi’s features grew flaming red. He fancied he saw a white female form on the pinnacle of the tower, immediately gave his horse the spur, and rushed forward like a whirlwind, crying to his horsemen—
“Don’t count the enemy now; we shall have time enough for that afterwards, when we have cut them all down!” and in a quarter of an hour the little band had reached the camp before the town.
There everyone was slumbering. Whilst one half of the host was storming the town the other found time to repose. Even the heads of the sentries hung drowsily down. There they lay, close to their horses, and only awoke out of their dreams when Banfi was already charging through their ranks.
The Baron, who seemed bent upon relieving the besieged single-handed, cut down everything that came
