Majmun counted up to six hundred with a loud voice.
Meanwhile, Azrael ran along the dam of the river bank till she came to the sluice, which she raised by the exertion of her full strength. The liberated water began to flow through the opening with a mighty roar.
Then Azrael hastened back to the negro.
“And now for the island,” said she.
And once more they traversed the dangerous way, Azrael lying on her back with a hand on the negro’s head. In her bosom was a poplar leaf, which afforded her great satisfaction.
On reaching the island Azrael richly recompensed the negro, and said to him:
“Tomorrow morning, at dawn, thy master, Yffim Beg, will seek thee and command thee to accompany him and Hassan Pasha across the bridge to the other side where stands the camp of Feriz Beg. Thou wilt find no one there, but look at the place where we were this night, and if thou shouldst find there a nosegay or a wreath, bring it to me!”
Majmun listened with amazement. How could Azrael have found out all about these things?
Azrael returned to the kiosk, where Hassan Pasha was still sleeping the deep sleep of opium. He awoke in the arms of his favourite, and he could not understand why her hands were so cold and her kisses so burning.
The odalisque told him she had been dreaming. She had dreamt that she swam across the river enticed by the singing of the Peris.
Hassan smiled.
“Go on sleeping, and continue thy dream,” said he.
The sun was high in the heaven when Hassan Pasha quitted the kiosk. Yffim Beg was awaiting him.
“Wilt thou not ride to Pest there to mark out the place for the camp of Feriz Beg, who has just arrived?”
Azrael shrewdly guessed that Yffim Beg was for leading the Governor to the Pest shore to satisfy him as to the peasant girls whom he was said to have mistaken for soldiers by some evil enchantment. She also thought how convenient it would be for her that they should take Majmun with them for the whole day.
Hassan accordingly accepted Yffim’s invitation, and galloped with him and Majmun over to the opposite shore, where Yffim was amazed to discover that not a soul of Feriz Beg’s host was visible.
In the night the suddenly released water had covered the whole ground of their camp, and they had been obliged to retire farther away from the river and seek another encampment beyond Pest.
Yffim Beg would have liked to have torn out his beard in his wrath if he had not been restrained by the general’s presence.
But Majmun, under the pretext of clearing the way, reconnoitred the scene of yesterday’s interview, and there, in the roots of the silver birch, he found that a wreath had been deposited. He concealed it beneath his burnush, and carried it home to Azrael.
The wreath was composed of two pieces—a branch of laurel and a spray of thorn.
The damsel bowed her head before this answer. She knew that it signified: “Suffer if thou wouldst prevail!”
XII
The Battle of St. Gothard
It was a beautiful summer evening; there was a half-moon in the sky, and a hundred other half-moons scattered over the hillocks below. The Turkish host had encamped among the hills skirting the river Raab.
Concerning this particular new moon, we find recorded in the prophetic column of the Kaossa Almanac for the current year that it was to be:
“To the Germans, help in need;
To the Turks, fortune indeed;
To the Magyars, power to succeed.
And whoever’s not ill
Shall of health have his fill,
For ’tis Heaven’s own will.”
The worthy astrologer forgot, however, to find out in heaven whether there are not certain quarters of the moon beneath which man may easily die even if they are not sick.
The great Grand Vizier Kiuprile, after resting on the ruins of Zerinvár, turned towards the borders of Styria and united with the army of the Pasha of Buda, below St. Gothard.
Kiuprile’s host consisted for the most part of cavalry, for his infantry was employed in digging trenches round Zerinvár, whose commandant, in reply to an invitation to surrender the fortress and not attempt to defend it with six hundred men against thirty thousand, jestingly responded: “As one Hungarian florin is worth ten Turkish piasters, one Hungarian warrior necessarily must be worth ten Turkish warriors.” And what is more, the worthy man made good this rate of exchange, for when the victors came to count up the cost, they found that for six hundred Hungarians they had had to pay six thousand Osmanlis into the hands of his Majesty King Death.
Kiuprile had then pursued the armies of the Emperor, but they refused to stand and fight anywhere; and while their enemies were marching higher and higher up the banks of the Raab, they seemed to be withdrawing farther and farther away on the opposite shore.
The army of the Pasha of Buda should have gone round at the rear of the imperial forces, in order to unite with the Pasha of Érsekújvár, the former having previously cut off every possibility of a retreat; but Hassan, as an independent general, did not follow the directions sent him, simply because they came from Kiuprile, and he also made straight for the Raab by forced marches, in order to wrest the opportunity of victory from his rival.
Thus the two armies came together, on July 30th, below the romantic hills of St. Gothard, each army pitching its tents on the right bank of the river, and occupying the summits of the hills, which commanded a view of the whole region.
And certainly the worthy gentlemen showed no bad taste when they took a fancy to that part of the kingdom. In every direction lay the yellow acres, from which the terrified peasants had not yet reaped the standing corn; to the right
